Few people today don’t know—or have in their families—at least one loving couple who are raising children, same-sex or not. And it’s really just the loving part that matters. That same-sex marriage could go from its preliminary draft of “diagnosable” to the final edit of “so what?” must indicate some positive evolution on the part of the larger human consciousness.

"The women we feature in the magazine are ornamental," he said, speaking on a panel at the Advertising Week Europe conference in London on Tuesday. "I could lie to you if you want and say we are interested in their brains as well. We are not. They are objectified."  ...

"[Esquire] provide pictures of girls in the same way we provide pictures of cool cars," he said. "It is ornamental. Women's magazines do the same thing."

The deal being discussed would allow Time Warner to hang onto three flagship magazines, Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated, while selling the majority of its portfolio, including magazines like Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly, Cooking Light and InStyle. The titles, which amount to essentially a women’s magazine company, make a good fit for Meredith Corporation, based in Des Moines, Iowa, and the publisher of such titles as Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal.

Whether media companies like it or not (and they mostly don’t), much of the news and other content we consume now comes via links shared through Twitter and Facebook and other networks, or through old-fashioned aggregators — such as Yahoo News or Google News — and newer ones like Flipboard and Zite and Prismatic that are tailored to mobile devices and a socially-driven news experience. Compared to that kind of model, a dedicated app from a magazine or a newspaper looks much less interesting, since by design it contains content from only a single outlet, and it usually doesn’t contain helpful things like links.

Instead, the focus seems to be on tailoring the company’s magazine properties around the digital consumer. Driving that plan is a trove of research that breaks down readers’ daily news cycle. The “Arc of the Day” study showed that in the morning readers want bite-size headlines and news flashes. In the afternoon, they are often at a desktop computer and want to grab a slide show or video, and at night they have time to engage in a deeper article. A related study also found that the average smartphone owner spends 1.4 hours a day waiting in line while browsing a device.

This free preview issue of Huffington magazine will come out Thursday.