Category Archives: Family Law

The marriage, divorce, adoption and domestic violence industries, and all the damage they’re doing.

Spreading The Madness

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Kids today have it tough.

Not so much on “life is difficult” front, of course; compared to life in the Depression, for kids who were going to grow up and go off to World War II and spend Christmas of 1944 in weather more or less like this sitting in foxholes in the Ardennes, kids today have it pretty OK.

But on the “adults are scary and stupid” front?  Kids today have it rough.

School counselors have been reporting a wave of…timidity?  Kids don’t socialize as much today as they used to; school counselors note the amazing, depressing numbers of children that head directly home after school, watch television/do homework, and rarely if ever get outside without direct adult supervision.  Part of the problem is the epidemic of single-parent homes, most of whom are headed by single mothers.  Parents’ styles are as individual as they are, of course – but one of the reason God, biology, remorseless fate or whatever you do or don’t believe in made families with mixed-gender parents is because different genders bring different traits to the table; mothers are stereotypically “nurterers”, and more risk-averse; fathers are, again stereotypically, the ones that imprint adventure and risk-taking on the kids (and no, feel free not to flood my comment section with stories of what an exception your mother was; I know, already). And so, with no male in the house to model behavior from, the kids become…nurtured.  And overnurtured, as the case may be.  It’s not the only explanation – but then, this post isn’t about explaining things.

Lenore Skenazy at Free Range Kids – a blog that is going on my blogroll today – writes about a letter to the editor she got:

Dear Free-Range Kids: My name is Shaylene Haswarey, and I want to share a story with you today.

This morning, my doorbell rang, and two police officers were present.  They asked me if I am the mother of my children, and I said yes.  They said someone called them because my three oldest kids (ages 9, 7, and 6) were walking around our GATED town-house complex, unattended. I said, “They found a cat, and I let them go out and feed it.”…

…I told the officer I am from Idaho, and kids play outside like this all the time.  He said my kids are too young to be out,  because we do not have a yard, and this is a complex.  He also told me there are predators around here.  He finally told me if I let my kids out again he will have to call social services because I am endangering my children! What is wrong with this picture???

Mitch’s answer – which is one reason why I don’t do a blog on parenting – is “they’re prepping your kids for the hyper-feminized school system, where uncontrolled risk-taking is actively squelched”. 

Back to Skenazy’s letter:

1.  Is it against the law to go out in the rain in your pajamas?
2.  My kids know how to watch for cars.  They were following the cat and feeding it.
3.  There are NO predators in my neighborhood. I looked on Megan’s Law, and there are only 6 in our whole city, and none are in my neighborhood.  I live in Aliso Viejo, CA.  Aliso Viejo is a small city in between Irvine and Mission Viejo.  These cities rank #1 by the FBI for the safest cities in America with a pop. of 100,000+.  Therefore, Aliso Viejo is safer than the city I grew up in in Idaho!

After the police officer asked for me and my husband’s name and birthdates, I freaked out!  I am NOT going to let my kids go outside without me again!  I don’t want social services knocking on my door.  What do you think I should do if anything, about this?  My husband’s family is from India.  They have a big house there.  I am thinking of going to their village this September and staying there for a few months, so my kids can be normal kids. — Shaylene

Lenore writes back (emphasis added by yours truly):

Dear Shaylene: Isn’t it incredible that you are living the “American Dream” — a house, four kids, nice town — and longing for the kind of childhood a kid can get in a much less affluent country? Meantime, I put this question to readers: What can this mom do to prove to the cop that she’s not off base? How can we she convince him (and other cops and other neighbors) that being outside is normal and healthy for kids? Should we all call the police department there? Start a petition? Any ideas? — Lenore

Well, you heard the lady ladies.  Let’s cough up some answers!

The Assault That Dare Not Speak Its Name

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I don’t follow golf much; good lord, who cares?  I mean, if I played, it’d be one thing – I am my family’s only male non-golfer, so far – but I don’t. And so while I know Tiger Woods is the shiznit when it comes to golfers, I can’t say as I much care. 

And so my reactions to his domestic travails ranged from “gee, a superstar with no sense of consequences, how friggin’ shocking” to “Oh, no, crazy billionaires with cars”.

But there was one other angle; the bit about Elin Nordegren allegedly attacking Woods, and eventually beating his car with a golf club.

No news flash here; domestic abuse is a bad thing…

…unless it’s aimed at a guy, when it apparently turns into comedy gold:

On Saturday night’s episode, the NBC sketch comedy show made light of Tiger Woods’ scandalous week, satirizing reports – denied by the golfer – that his wife, Elin Nordegren, attacked him prior to his early-morning car accident on November 27 with a sketch featuring Keenan Thomson and host Blake Lively.

So what was the controversy? 

However, the show’s musical guest was Rihanna – a victim of domestic violence earlier this year from then-boyfriend Chris Brown — prompting concerns from several media outlets that the show’s humor was insensitive from some corners.

Insensitive to Rihanna?  Perhaps – although the incident opened a can of legal whoopass on Brown that his career might not survive, not that that’ll make anyone but Brown especially upset.

But what about Woods? 

“It was another sketch that gave us pause,” noted PopEater in an article titled “‘SNL’ Lampoons Alleged Violence in Tiger Woods’ Marriage,” on Sunday. “We think, had the genders been reversed, ‘SNL’ wouldn’t make light of the potentially violent situation.”

Er, d’ya think?

Society observes a cancerous double standard; domestic violence against women is a serious crime – while violence against men is treated with all the solemnity of Ma Kettle whacking Pa Kettle with a rolling pin. If Nordegren had, for whatever reason, had an affair – or even alleged affairs with (ahem) six people, it would have been equally narcissistic – and if Woods had scratched up her ace, or attacked her car with a golf club, that would have been the story, and everyone from the local cops to all the morning zoo idiots around the country who’ve been tittering at Woods’ predicament (and social life) would be singing a much more serious tune.  Saturday Night Live would find nothing funny about a putter bent around Elin Nordegren’s head.

It’s politically incorrect to observe that women are just as violent as men are – but it’s the truth:

Several studies of domestic violence have suggested that males and females in relationships have an equal likelihood of acting out physical aggression, although differing in tactics and potential for causing injury (e.g., women assailants will more likely throw something, slap, kick, bite, or punch their partner, or hit them with an object, while males will more likely beat up their partners, and choke or strangle them).

Of course, men are considered guilty until proven innocent when it comes to domestic violence – and while I don’t know whether there are grounds to accuse Elin Nordegren of violence, it wouldn’t matter; violence against men is devalued so systematically as to be a freebie.

Dear Jon And Kate

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To:  Jon and Kate Gosselin, tiresome fake celebrities

From: Mitch Berg, blissfully above it all.

Re: The Lowered Bar

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Gosselin,

I’ve never watched Jon And Kate Plus Eight, because I think you are a couple of whores – or worse, pimps, whoring out your children to the pathetic, toothless johns that are our celebrity-stricken, illiterate, slackjawed, drooling media.  I think that the relentless publicity you seek is going to leave you with eight Dana Platos and Todd Bridges(es) one of these days.  I think you have only begun to see a reckoning for your invincible stupidity.

But after the events of this past week, and the whole “balloon boy” media frenzy teed up by a couple of your fellow idiot celebrity-wannabe parents…:

The parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, met with Larimer County investigators for much of Saturday afternoon amid lingering questions about whether he perpetrated a publicity stunt when his 6-year-old son Falcon vanished into the rafters of his garage while the world thought he was zooming through the sky in a flying saucer-like helium balloon.But Sheriff Jim Alderden didn’t say who would be charged or what the charges would be. His deputies later showed up at the Heene’s Fort Collins home with a search warrant and at least three of them began a search. Sgt. Ian Stewart declined so say what they were after.

Alderden on Saturday didn’t call Thursday’s hours-long drama a hoax, but he expressed disappointment that he couldn’t level more serious charges in the incident, which sent police and the military scrambling to save young Falcon Heene as millions of worried television viewers watched.

…I’ll tell you for the record that you two are no longer the single most stupid, tiresome excuse for a “story” to obsess our media.

No, all is not forgiven, per se; I’m just saying that as much as I despise the two of you, there is at least one couple on this planet I wish were eaten by mice (after being tied in a sack with every single media figure that’s given your pathetic, exploitive saga breathless coverage) even more.

Profiles In Fecklessness

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There are grounds for honest disagreement on gay marriage.  The disagreement centers around the definition of what “marriage” actually is; to most proponents of gay marriage, it’s just a contract, a legal agreement enforced by the state.  To most opponents, marriage is a religious institution; indeed, in the exceedingly unlikely event I ever get married again, I believe I’ll join the growing number of people I know who’ve eschewed getting a state marriage license, if only to tell the state “you really have nothing to do with this”.

So if I turn around and fail to support gay marriage (as opposed to civil unions, which I do support), you can accuse me of a lot of things, including of being wrong on the issue.  Wrongly, of course, but that’s your right.

One thing you can not accuse me (and by extension other opponents of gay marriage) of is cowardice and hypocrisy.

Now, the left?

I’ve never forgotten the howls of rage from my various liberal gay acquaintances when Paul Wellstone betrayed them and voted for the Defense of Marriage Act.  Now, bear in mind that in his first Senate race against Rudy Boschwitz, Wellstone got about 155% of the gay vote in Minnesota; they palpably expected big things from him.

And they got them – albeit not the “big things” they expected.  They learned the hard way; Paul Wellstone could do math.  Wellstone could see that for all the thousands of gays and gay supporters who turned out at gay marriage rallies, many many times as many people opposed changing marriage – including the imponderably vast majority of blacks and hispanics who, reliably Democrat though their votes are, broadly oppose gay marriage with a vehemence that’d make a Southern Baptist blanche, and without whom no Democrat can win a normal election.

And I, and many other conservatives, asked “so, gays?  Here’s palpable evidence; the left views you, as a group, as such a reliable bunch of votes that they can regularly betray  you (and remember, while roughly 125% of gays voted for Bill Clinton, he also backed down on gays in the military – for exactly the same reason that Wellstone did on DOMA); how long are you going to sit and take this?”

Apparently for all eternity:

Rainbow flags fluttered above the crowds near the White House as tens of thousands of gay rights supporters rallied to demand that President Barack Obama keep his promises to end discrimination against gays and also let them serve openly in the military.

“Hey, Obama, let mama marry mama” some chanted Sunday. Others cried out, “We’re out, we’re proud, we won’t back down.”

Gays:  the Democrats see you like a spousal thumper sees a spouse; as someone they say and do anything they want to, without fear of anything ever changing.
Does anyone out there, gay or straight, for or against gay marriage, doubt that Obama can do the math, too?

Tell Hallmark To Wait In The Hall

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Happy Father’s Day, everyone!

Father’s Day is one of those holidays that I’m very ambivalent about.  Not because it’s a Hallmark Holiday, per se – but much more because of the way fatherhood has been devalued in our society.

At the core, of course, I have little to complain about. I grew up not only with a father, but a really great one, the kind that, for whatever his shortcomings, was the kind of father any kid should have, someone who passed along not only genes, but values and traditions and the little things that helped him in his own life.  Dad wasn’t like a lot of dads in my neighborhood; he couldn’t tear down an engine, and he didn’t hunt.  A lot of that, of course, comes from his own childhood; his father, my grandfather Oscar, died when he was a toddler, long before I was born.  So Dad didn’t learn a lot of that kind of stuff.  And his love of sports certainly didn’t rub off on me.  But he was a speech teacher – as noted in this space many times, one of the best teachers ever – and his love of the craft and art of giving a great speech, and of writing, and communication, certainly did.  Although he only really held two jobs in his adult life (teaching with two different districts), and always had a hard time relating to my post-industrial, new-job-every-year careers, it was the skills he gave me – communicating, reading other people, knowing that making an impression on people was a matter of careful planning and not happenstance – made my career(s) possible.  I despair, at times, of being able to do as well with my own kids; but having my own, I suspect he must have felt the same way at least once or twice.

Anyway – thanks, Dad.
Not everyone is so lucky, though.  24 million Americans are growing up without fathers.  Some of it is due to cultural shifts; big swathes of our society are being born into “fatherless” families; “Urban” culture in this country exalts skipping out on ones’ kids; it sounds tragic, and it is, but it’s a natural offshoot of the devaluation of men, and fathers, left over from slavery and the matriarchal nature of most African societies (which was, in return, reinforced by the rootlessness and destruction of families under slavery).  Marriage is an otion rather than the expectation for many in our society – in some quarters, most of our society.

Madison Avenue doesn’t help.  The standard archetype of the father in American advertising is the bumbling, inept,. schlubby oaf who’s lucky to be saved by his gorgeous, competent wife (and children – usually girls, of course, since the boys are going to grow up to be fathers one day, too – right?).  And if the schlub and Mrs. Fix-It break up?  The nation’s family courts systematically undercut the rights and value of fathers in divorce and custody settlements nationwide.

I’ll chalk this one up for President Obama; he’s not much of a President, but when it comes to fatherhood’s meaning and value, he knows a thing or two:

The president showcased fatherhood in a series of events and a magazine article in advance of Father’s Day this Sunday. He said he came to understand the importance of fatherhood from its absence in his childhood homes — just as an estimated 24 million Americans today are growing up without a dad.

A Kenyan goatherder-turned-intellectual who clawed his way to scholarships and Harvard, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. left a family behind to get his schooling in the United States. He started another family here, then left his second wife and 2-year-old Barack Jr. to return to Africa with another woman.

His promise flamed out in Africa after stints working for an oil company and the government; he fell into drink and died in a car crash when his son was 21, a student at Columbia University.

“I don’t want to be the kind of father I had,” the president is quoted as telling a friend in a new book about him.

And in an interview Friday with CBS News, Obama said: “It was only later in life that I found out that he actually led a very tragic life. And in that sense, it was the myth that I was chasing as opposed to knowing who he really was.”

His half-sister, Maya, called his memoirs “part of the process of excavating his father.”

Obama now cajoles men to be better fathers — not the kind who must be unearthed in the soul.

Which is certainly something to strive for – not only as individuals, but as a society.

Things I’m Supposed To Hate, But Don’t: Barney

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I know, I know.  Barney’s irritating.

My apolitical friends hate Barney because of his relentless, up-beat cheeriness and, of course, the voice.

My “conservative” friends – or at least some of the ones that look too hard to find political significance in life’s pettiest minutuae – detest him because of his cushy, relentlessly PC world.

And truth be told, there’s much about Barney, the long-running PBS show for toddlers and pre-toddlers, that’ll drive you nuts. The music is relentlessly simple.  The supporting cast – Baby Bop’s voice and sing-song delivery will drive you to cheap liquor, and the kids at the fictional daycare are, let’s just say, not gifted actors.

But my various friends and I all have one thing in common.  We’re not two years old.

Too obvious?  OK.  Most of my Barney-hating friends and acquaintances had never spent a day at home with a pre-toddler.

It’s hard to explain to them; I owe that purple dinosaur my sanity.

Let me explain.

Years ago, when Bun was a baby, I was working nights.  Her mother worked days.  So during the day, I watched the baby.  Indeed, Bun was a pretty active baby – so I didn’t do a whole lot but watch the baby.  Bottles, diapers, doing stuff – there wasn’t a whole lot of time for luxuries and dissipations like going to the bathroom.

But every day, I could count on two half-hour breaks in the action, where baby Bun would be glued so firmly to the screen (also strapped so firmly into the Snugli) that I could go grab a glass of water and a quick (quick!) trip to the bathroom without fear of getting jolted to reality by a squall of screaming. Bun was mesmerized, which was thirty minutes of being tethered to the baby by 25 foot cable, rather than a three foot leash.  Barney was on twice a day back then, and those two showings were my little rewards to myself that kept me going through the day.

So yep.  I owe that dinosaur.  Bigtime.

And whatever you want to say about the tone of the show (as an adult, and not the show’s audience), the theme song was the first song Bun ever learned.  And there’s nothing in the world more cute than a toddler singing her or his first song – it wouldn’t matter if it were a Throbbing Gristle song.  Although thankfully it wasn’t.

So anyway.  Step off the dinosaur.

Joe And Jane the Plumber…

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…have apparently gotten together and tubed same-sex marriage in California:

A measure to once again ban gay marriage in California led Tuesday, throwing into doubt the unions of an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who wed during the last 4 1/2 months.

The Democrats won the election – but even in California, most Americans are conservatives, even if they don’t always vote (or know) it.

Mah Authoritah

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It’s no secret; I mix it up with a lot of the local leftybloggers. 

In most cases, it’s fairly good-natured stuff; it’s business, not personal.  I respect those of them that can write – Jeff Rosenberg and the former members of the late New Patriot kolkhoz, among a few others; some of them return the favor. 

 With others – most of them, in fact – we leave each other in splendid isolation.

Of course, some leftybloggers are a bunch of hysterical nutslaps.  These specimens take their dim, context-challenged whacks at me, and in return – in the rare cases when I can be bothered – I demolish whatever passes for their “points” between 5:30 and 5:35 AM, and then go have a bowl of oatmeal and put the laundry in the dryer.  I almost feel bad – I feel like I’m picking on the retarded kid, almost.  But it’s gotta be done.

Anyway, that’s been the pattern for a while now; the occasional nod, the broad ignore, the occasional gleeful pelting with rhetorical rocks and garbage.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

But there’s a new wrinkle on the horizon.

A few months back, I noted that there’d been long-standing rumors around Saint Paul that Senator and Mrs. Coleman had an “unconventional” marriage.  I wrote “It’s been an open secret forever in Saint Paul and Minnesota politics; Norm and his wife have a rather unconventional marriage”

And apparently more than a few leftybloggers have taken that offhanded mention – of a Saint Paul rumor – as some sort of unimpeachable source on the subject (example).  Of course, they blitzed on the context, not only of the “quote”, but of the post from which it came, which was to hammer on Fast Eddie Schultz’s boundless hypocrisy. 

So while I’m flattered (koff koff) to be considered a definitive, unimpeachable source on the subject, the simple fact is – I’m not.  I reported on a rumor that’d been rattling around my town for a while.  That is all.

So let me break this down for those of you who might have missed the blazingly obvious; the only fact that matters is that Senator and Mrs. Coleman are still married.

Look – I’m all about traditional marriage.  And let’s face it; if there were the faintest impetus to split, it’s not like being divorced is a barrier to anyone in this day and age; Rudy Giuliani and his admittedly colorful marital history were serious contenders for the presidency (indeed, in some ways a better contender than the one we got).  And yet, whatever the truth behind their marriage is (and once again let’s be clear here – its none of your damn business, and mine either, and if you ever, even once, said that the nation needed to “move on” during the Clinton Administration, you really need to “move on” yourself, and right now), they are together after a bazillion years. 

And that’s pretty cool.

Of course, Al and Franny Franken have also been married forever, and that, too, is a wonderful thing.

The difference, of course, is that Franken represents a party that piddles on the family.  I’m not talking the hoary “family values” cliches left over from the eighties – I don’t care that Franken wrote for Playboy, and that he cusses when he does his speaking engagements.  I don’t even care so much about gay marriage – I oppose it on religious grounds, but support civil unions – and while I believe that kids’ development is best served by hetero parents (because kids need male and female parents, all other things being equal), I also think adoptive gay parents are a better option for kids than, say, a single parent.

But the Democrat party piddles on the family in many more subtle ways than that.  It is utterly beholden to the teachers’ unions, and that union has done more than most forces in our lives to undercut the family and trivialize parents.  Hollywood (of which Franken is a part) plays its role as well.  And the stresses caused to middle-class families by relentless taxation do nobody any good – to say nothing of the catastrophic role that liberal politics have played on economically-disadvantaged families, especially African-American ones.

So as a general rule, Republican candidates are better for families than Democrat ones, no matter what their personal lives might be.

I said might.  Again, none of your damn business – but the Coleman marriage, unlike about half of the marriages in our society, has lasted. 

So all of you leftybloggers who are using me as a source on the subject of Coleman’s marriage?  Make sure you update your coverage to include this last, binding bit.  If you don’t, you’ll be guilty of wantonly selective quoting; you’ll be called on it. 

I can say that; apparently, I’m the authoritah.

Note To Bun And Zam

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Noooo, nooooo – of course our vacation plans in Omaha have nothing to do with this story.

 Frustrated parents are dumping their teenagers at Nebraska hospitals — even crossing state lines to do it — and the state Legislature has scheduled a special hearing to try to stem the tide…Nebraska’s “safe haven” law, intended to allow parents to anonymously hand over an infant to a hospital without being prosecuted, isn’t working out as planned.

Of the 17 children relinquished since the law took effect in July, only four are younger than 10…On Tuesday, a 14-year-old girl from Council Bluffs, Iowa, was abandoned at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, just across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs…”The few situations we’ve seen so far demonstrate the need for a change in Nebraska’s safe haven law,” Gov. Dave Heineman said in a statement Monday. “In the coming legislative session, I will advocate for changes that put the focus back on protecting an infant in danger. That should be our priority.”

All 50 states have safe haven laws, but only Nebraska’s lacks an age limit.

 No, leave your IPod in Saint Paul.  Really.

(Via Ed)

Continue reading →

Square Bullets For The Infidels

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I remember reading a book about thirty years ago – The Social History Of The Machine Gun, or something like that.  It was a pseudo-academic treatise, adapted for some shred of popular market appeal, that talked about the social roots of fully-automatic weapons.

In one of the first chapters, they included the plans for an early, rudimentary multi-chambered cannon.  It dated back to the 16th or 17th century, and had five or six chambers attached to a circular plate; the plate could be rotated to push the chambers up against the barrel for firing – sort of the anscestor of the Gatling Gun (or, for serious gun geeks, the multi-chambered Aden gun).

It had one extra feature noted in the plans; it used a traditional round chamber to fire round bullets “for use against Christians”, the plans noted (I’m paraphrasing).  But if the troops were facing Moslem troops, the plate could be swapped out for one with chambers bored for square bullets (and no, I don’t recall any plans for square barrel bores), on the theory that square bullets would cause grislier wounds and do more damage.  Of course, being Mohammedans, the extra cruelty was justified, at least to the inventor.

There’s nothing new, there, of course.  A teacher of mine in high school – a Vietnam-era veteran who served in the US or Germany, if memory serves – recalled that one of the first things that the drill instructors did in basic training in wartime was to dehumanize the enemy; Vietnamese and Japanese and German humans became “Gooks” and “Japs” and “Krauts” and what-have-you.  Because killing humans is hard – but pushing a bayonet into a hateful caricature is easy.

Of course, German society (like much of Europe) had a solid head-start in dehumanizing Jews.  Hitler pushed things over the edge – but when it came to reducing a class of humans to untermenschen, he stood on the shoulders of giants.  Hateful, loathsome giants.

For most people – normal, decent people, at any rate – the first step on the road to unspeakable hatred is the belief that somehow, your opponent is less worthy of the decency most of us afford to actual humans.  And once you get past that, really, it’s a hop skip and jump to any ghastly horror you can imagine.

Emily from X Perspective is, by the way, a normal, decent person.  But a recent posts shows some of the dehumanization that is swallowing the left in re Sarah Palin.

[Not following politics this week? GOP VP Candidate Sarah Palin’s 17-yr old daughter is pregnant. Which we’d ignore if Palin wasn’t adamantly anti-sex-ed and anti-abortion.]

I admit to a small amount of hypocrisy of my own here: in general, I believe we should leave the kids out of this election – it’s not the girl’s fault her mother is running for office. But this was just too spot-on not to share.

“We should leave kids out of politics – unless we really hate what their parents [supposedly] stand for?”

And then, all bets are off?  Because decency is only for people who believe as “we” do?

And where’s Palin’s “hypocrisy?”  She – and, we presume, her daughter and future son-in-law – are pro-life.  And they’re following through on that belief.  Perhaps that’s a form of logic impermeable by conservatives; either way, I’m just not seeing it. 

Leave aside that the Juno analogy is completely off.  It supports Palin’s, and the pro-lifers’, stances; the Juno character had the baby, which, by the way, pissed off the pro-abortion crowd to no end – especially here in the Twin Cities, from whence Juno screenwriter and last year’s Hottest Writer Ever, Diablo Cody, sprang a few years back; local “feminists” were in a aorta-busting froth that Ms. Cody didn’t have young Juno abort her “oops”, more or less as they are with Bristol and, for that matter, Sarah Palin.  On whom, by the way, “feminists” have also bestowed dictatorial power over her daughter and her “reproductive choices”.  But that’s just a sign of a photoshopper with no command of metaphor.

On the other hand, every time the left slags Palin and her family, there’s another struggling middle-class-or-lower family who realizes there’s somebody running for the White House who just plain gets it.  And that translates into votes.

So by all means, photoshoppers; photoshop on!

Depressing Inspiration

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James Walsh at the Strib pays tribute to a woman who got through college, despite having been pregnant twice by ninth grade:

There is something about Jennifer Banks that erases doubt.

Perhaps it’s her clear and steady gaze, the way she never looks away as she talks about her past — or her future. Or is it her voice? Calm and matter-of-fact when she says she never doubted herself. Talk to Jennifer Banks for just a little while, and you see what so many others who have met and helped her have seen: Determination to achieve.

Banks graduated last month with a two-year degree in radiography from the College of St. Catherine. Two days later, Hennepin County Medical Center hired her.

In this season of graduations, Banks stands out because she reached this goal after she gave birth to her first son at 14 and another at 15. She moved to Minnesota from Arkansas as a pregnant ninth-grader.

Her own parents sent her away to find better schools and, perhaps, a better life here.

So congratulations – sincerely – to Jennifer Banks. There’s no denying that she’s accomplished a lot. And stories like hers are certainly an encouragement.

Unfortunately – and we’re going to open the focus up Ms. Banks to all of society, here – situations like Jennifer Banks’s are a silver lining on a very dark cloud; the epidemic of fatherless families in our society.

J Roosh links us to this rather bone-chilling article about the future of the American family by Walter Williams:

It is now common to meet young people in our big city schools, foster-care homes and juvenile centers who do not know their dads. Most of those children have come face-to-face with their father at some point; but most have little regular contact with the man, or have any faith that he loves or cares about them.

When fatherless young people are encouraged to write about their lives, they tell heartbreaking stories about feeling like “throwaway people.” In the privacy of the written page, their hard, emotional shells crack open to reveal the uncertainty that comes from not knowing if their father has any interest in them. The stories are like letters to unknown dads – some filled with imaginary scenes about what it might be like to have a dad who comes home and puts his arm around you or plays with you.

You don’t need me to tell you it’s an epidemic:

The extent of the problem is clear. The nation’s out-of-wedlock birth rate is 38%. Among white children, 28% are now born to a single mother; among Hispanic children it is 50% and reaches a chilling, disorienting peak of 71% for black children. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly a quarter of America’s white children (22%) do not have any male in their homes; nearly a third (31%) of Hispanic children and over half of black children (56%) are fatherless.

This represents a dramatic shift in American life. In the early 1960s, only 2.3% of white children and 24% of black children were born to a single mom. Having a dad, in short, is now a privilege, a ticket to middle-class status on par with getting into a good college.

The odds increase for a child’s success with the psychological and financial stability rooted in having two parents.

And yet society as a whole actively fights this notion. Not just the usual targets – “urban” culture and rap music with is misogynistic themes and “bitches” and “hos” and bump and run approach to sex; not just Hollywood, which has been increasingly portraying fathers as a useful lifestyle accessory that glamorous starlets might or might not keep about the house (on and off camera), on top of a generation of movies that depict sex as something that magically stops at “fun” and avoids the whole “baby” thing.

It also includes a welfare system that systematically devalues fatherhood (the DFL might as well refer to the family as “womenandtheirchildren” for all the times that the likes of Ellen Anderson refer to the concept), giving fatherless families more welfare benefits and actively encouraging them to make themselves scarce.

So congratulations, Jennifer Banks. I hope a lot of people follow your example. I just hope society learns a different lesson altogether.

Bureaucrats Gone Wild!

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It was almost a quarter of a century ago when an overzealous (in retrospect) county attorney, Kathleen Morris, offered an arrested sex offender a deal if he started naming names, and ended up indicting dozens people in Jordan Minnesota – a small farm town that’s since become an exurb, southwest of Minneapolis – in what turned out to be a Crucible-like witchhunt on the basis of a jailhouse snitch and testimony from children that turned out to be conjured up from imagination.

Lives and reputations were destroyed.  Lawyers made millions.  Antonin Scalia cited the case in Maryland Vs. Craig as an example of how vital the sixth amendment right to question ones’ accuser is in protecting the innocent – in the Jordan case, protecting them from overzealous prosecutors and dubious investigative techniques.

You’d think the bureaucracy would learn.

Well, no.  You would not, if you knew how government works.  A state appeals court has overturned the seizure of the children from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints compound:

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

It was not clear when the children — now scattered in foster homes across the state — might be returned to their parents. The ruling gave a lower-court judge 10 days to release the youngsters from custody, but the state could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and block that.

The decision in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history was a humiliating defeat for the state Child Protective Services agency. It was hailed as vindication by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who claimed they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Now if the FCLS broke any laws – and some of the allegations look pretty seriously – then let’s look forward to some serious consequences.

Child-protection officials argued that five girls at the ranch had become pregnant at 15 and 16 and that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex with older men and groomed boys to enter into such unions when they grew up.

But we have due process for a reason:

But the appeals court said the state acted too hastily in sweeping up all the children and taking them away on an emergency basis without going to court first.

“Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse … there is no evidence that this danger is ‘immediate’ or ‘urgent’,” the court said.

“Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal.”

The court said the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children. Half the youngsters taken from the ranch were 5 or younger. Only a few dozen are teenage girls

 Of course, the stories of child protective services’ officers jumping into cases too zealously – and there are many – are balanced by the stories of CPS officials not working fast enough. 

Dead Until Proven Innocent

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In one of the funniest recent episodes of South Park, Stan’s little brother Ike’s kindergarten teacher seduces the toddler, gets caught, and, in a press conference before the trial, declares to be sorry, and that “…I am an alcoholic”. 

The crowd of reporters, cops and specators nod their heads, and eventually cheer the woman as she goes to rehab. 

It was funny (in South Park’s sick little way) – and pretty dead-on. 

As it were. 

But we’ll get back to that.

———-

Domestic abuse, of course, is no joke.  People get killed.  Although research shows that men and women are about equally likely to initiate domestic violence, women are more-usually injured or killed in these incidents.  Nobody is denying that. 

And it’s galling to have to make sure I’m understood on that point, since if I don’t some moron will pipe up “ah, so you condone domestic violence”.  Far from it.  But pointing out, for example, that women commit any violence, much less initiate their fair share of it, inflames some of this issue’s dogmatists.  And when  you start trying to address some of the problems in the system itself, some of them get downright apoplectic.

Those problems are pretty serious, though:

  • In Minnesota, much of the funding to deal with domestic abuse is allocated according to the “Battered Womens’ Act”, a piece of legislation that, in effect, legally ignores abuse of men, and covers its eyes and plugs its ears and screams “nya nya nya I can’t hear you” when one tries (legally) to address the issue. 
  • Some studies estimate that as many as half of domestic abuse allegations are brought immediately before and during divorce proceedings, and that as many as half of those are fake; charging domestic abuse is the “Nuclear Option” in custody battles; the allegation alone is frequently an insurmountable trump card.

Abuse is wrong.  And so is abuse of abuse.

———-

The issue became front-page news last fall…

…well, no.  “The issue” barely made a dent in last fall’s Strib pre-election hatchet job on Alan Fine. The Strib reported that Fine, who was running against DFLer Keith Ellison for the Fifth District congressional seat, had been arrested for domestic abuse in 1994.  The report ran at the top of Page A-1, naturally.  When Scott Johnson at Powerline brought up that there was never any physical evidence against Fine, and that he’d been released, never charged, and that eventually Fine’s ex-wife lost custody of their son to Fine – for domestic abuse! – the Strib carried Fine’s response.  On Page B7.

The Strib, acting as an organ of Keith Ellison’s campaign, used society’s partly-justified myopia about domestic abuse to put ill-informed votes in Keith Ellison’s column – votes that, in the long run, he scarcely needed, but wrong is wrong.

———-

All of that is a lot of background to a really sad, pathetic story; that of Mary Winkler, who was released from jail after serving a little over two months, after being convicted of shooting her husband in the back with a 12 gauge shotgun as he lay in bed.

Her defense?  Abuse, of course.

She then packed her three young daughters, ages 8, 6 and 1, in the family car and drove to Alabama, where she was taken into custody the following day.

During her trial in April, she claimed that she had been abused by her husband, with whom she had appeared to have an ideal marriage. She claimed not to remember getting the shotgun from a closet in their bedroom nor discharging it.

Winkler said that her husband, mortally wounded, rolled off the bed and asked her, “Why?” She said she told him she was sorry.

She was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder, but on April 19, after eight hours of deliberation, the jury found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter. On June 8, she was sentenced to 210 days in prison, with credit given for 143 days she had spent in jail the previous year before making bail. The judge allowed her to spend 60 of the remaining 67 days of her sentence in a mental health facility.

She was not, of course, a person with a long record of being abused.  Indeed, there was no record at all.  Not one domestic abuse call to their house.  Not one shred of physical evidence; not a single bruise, not a single scratch that Mrs. Winkler herself even saw fit to put on the record with a visit to a single doctor. 

Matthew Winkler was a minister at the Fourth Street Church of Christ, a denomination that believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible, including Saint Paul’s teaching that women should be submissive to their husbands.

Mary Winkler’s attorneys claimed that she was beaten by her husband. She said at her trial that he made her watch pornographic videos and wear “slutty” outfits for sex. She said he was controlling and criticized her constantly.

Leave aside the alleged beatings – of which there was apparently no evidence, physical or documentary, whatsoever – for a moment.  All Mrs. Winkler’s other allegations are grounds for, perhaps, examining one’s theology, having a long talk with hubby about one’s bedroom practices, and calling a family therapist or a divorce lawyer. 

Not 12-gauge justice.

Let’s re-iterate; at no time did Mrs. Winkler introduce any evidence that she was “abused” in any sense that’d be recognized, at all, by women and men who do get beaten, punched, stabbed, slapped, burned and kicked every day in this country. She would seem to have introduced no evidence that would have convicted her late husband of any form of domestic battery, were he alive to participate.

None.

No, she introduced a pair of high heels – PG-13-rated strappy “FM” shoes that wouldn’t draw a second glance at all-ages night at any Twin Cities nightclub as evidence of the late Reverend Winkler’s untrammeled perversion. 

The defense responded:

At the time of the killing, the couple had been having arguments about their finances. Prosecutors introduced evidence that Mary Winkler had gotten involved in an online Nigerian check-kiting fraud and had written checks for thousands of dollars. That, the prosecution argued, was the real source of the friction in the marriage.

We’ll probably never know, of course, the real truth of what happened in the Winkler marriage (other than “nothing that Mrs. Winkler managed to bring to any official attention, in a society that meets abused women much, much more than halfway, and that is indeed biased, perhaps justifiably so, toward excessive caution in matters of domestic violence”).   We’ll never know, it’s likely, whether Mr. Winkler did anything that, in a rational universe, would justify having his insides turned to Innard Hash with a 12-gauge blast through the back as he slept (and please bear in mind that I am an advocate for the rights of genuinely-abused people to resist violence with lethal force, and for giving them the means to do so via the Minnesota Personal Protection Act), or whether he was a “controlling” jerk with some “quirks” who was too horny and “kinky” for his wife’s tastes.  It merely seems that the only evidence introduced at trial pointed toward the latter.

Apparently those are now capital crimes in Tennessee.  If you’re a husband, anyway.

Abuse – the real thing, genuine violence – is absolutely wrong.  And this ruling cheapens and devalues the meaning of the term for all the people out there who are suffering from the real thing, day in and day out, no matter what the Winkler’s situation was.

I’ll pray for the daughters.  Especially if their mother ends up getting custody. 

Weasel Words

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By now, everyone’s heard about Alec Baldwin’s profane rant at his daughter via voice mail.

And a good chunk of America – including some who’d claim to know better – has taken sides; Baldwin is the bad guy, according to much conventional wisdom.  And of course, calling your daughter a “pig” is very, very bad form, to say the least; don’t do it, Dads.

And yet. 

In most of these divorce squabbles, it does indeed take two to tango.  And while venting at his daughter was a very bad thing, the fact is that Baldwin’s ex, Kim Basinger, is providing ample grounds for anger:

Basinger is facing trial on 12 misdemeanor counts of criminal contempt for allegedly disregarding court orders concerning Baldwin’s visitation rights.

 I’ve known a lot of divorced dads in my day – guys who don’t have publicists, who can’t even afford lawyers to go to court over things like their ex-wives keeping their kids from them (although they’re happy to cash the child support checks).  For most of these guys, guys who don’t have Baldwin’s resources to fight endlessly in court, the anger turns inward; depression, self-destructive behavior, booze.   The simple fact is – as Basinger’s record shows – there are very few serious consequences for interfering with a father’s visitation in this country.

Once you get past the flagrancy of Baldwin’s tirade, the question you might ask yourself is – “Who’s the pig?”

“Kim Basinger did not release the voice mail. Additionally, the voice mail was not sealed under a court order,” said publicist Annett Wolf.

Catch that?  “We deny releasing it, but there’s nothing saying I can’t, so it’s not illegal even if I did!”

Baldwin’s voice mail was stupid.  And I make no claims to clairvoyance; I don’t know that it was the result of pent-up anger and frustration over Basinger’s apparent sabotage of his relationship with his daughter.  But, Baldwin’s politics aside (way aside), I’d like as a father to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Because it might seem he’d have it coming.

Insult To Injury To More Insult

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A few years back, in response to the “epidemic” of “deadbeat dads”, a slew of government agencies embarked on a raft of programs to teach fathers “how to be responsible” as parents. The goal? Well, no, it wasn’t some warm ‘n fuzzy desire to make sure every kid grew up with warm memories of Dad.

No, it was to make sure that guys – even though they were and are discriminated against in custody trials, and subject to being “guilty until proven innocent” by the domestic abuse industry, even though it’s a known fact that as many as 50% of domestic abuse allegations brought during divorce proceedings are false – were both able and motivated (or just shamed) into keeping up their child support payments. Especially those owed to various county government bodies from whom their childrens’ mothers were receiving welfare payments, naturally.

Prejudicial? Sure. Degrading to most men, especially men who are non-custodial parents, the vast majority of whom work their asses off to do what they can (and what their childrens’ mothers will allow, in the worst cases) for their kids? Absolutely.

But there’s money involved. So the pants-wetting class among the professional feminist movement is getting involved, wanting women to get a piece of the action.

It’s called the Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Initiative, and the Bush administration doles out up to $50 million annually to fund its programs to build job skills and help fathers connect better with their children. But the National Organization for Women says the effort is illegal because it’s only about men.

NOW and Legal Momentum, another advocacy group, filed complaints yesterday with the Department of Health and Human Services alleging sex discrimination in the initiative that is funding about 100 programs this year.

Cute.

Are NOW and “Legal Momentum” moving to reduce some of the abject discrimination against men in family court? Trying, perhaps, to remove the punitive aspects of child support enforcement? Maybe even moving to enact Presumption of Joint Physical Custody legislation nationwide, so that parenting rather than finances drive family court settlements?

Har di har har.

The complaints cite 34 programs, including one run by the District and two others in the Washington area, that, they say, do not offer the services to women. That, the groups say, violates Title IX, the law that prevents sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and is best known for forcing universities to offer comparable sports programs for men and women.

“What we’re asking them to do is to make sure that the grantees provide equal services to women and men,” said Kathy Rodgers, president of Legal Momentum. “It should be a parenthood initiative.”

Yeah, I’m sure a lot of women – who win 90% of custody cases in “winner takes all” states, and who are the recipients of the vast preponderance of “child support” payments, will be lining up to get into programs that scold and cajole men parents to step up to their obligations.

Oh, wait – maybe they just want the money!

Another group under fire is the Latin American Youth Center in the District, which got a $250,000 annual grant to provide 30 young fathers a year with job training, language classes and parenting skills. But women can enroll, too, said Lori Kaplan, the executive director.

“It doesn’t mean that anywhere along the line our moms are getting excluded,” she said.

The big difference, of course, is that welfare pretty much does exclude able-bodied men who have children who don’t live with them. Much of welfare, today, is indeed targeted at single mothers – women who become single parents either because the system:

  • subsidizes illegitimate parenthood
  • forces men out of the family before the family can get welfare
  • grants, almost exclusively, full custody to women who are frequently unable to support families on their own – and then subsidizes their lifestyle (and administers the fathers’ child support payments).

I didn’t see NOW complaining about that.

Let me know if I missed something.

Got A Wife And Kids In Baltimore, Jack

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At first, I thought I might say “I have had days like this”.  The story, about a Crookston couple skipped town leaving their kids behind, almost sounded grimly funny at first:

Even before they left in September, the complaint said, food supplies had dwindled, bills had piled up and the landlord was talking about evicting them. Her son and his fiancée took care of the girls for a time, and the couple have been reported to be in Montana or Wyoming.

Now the girls are in foster care and a warrant has been issued for the couples arrest on gross misdemeanor charges of child neglect.

The son, Aaron Merck, 21, said Wednesday that his mother phoned himin Bagley, Minn., a few days after the couple left Crookston and said, “You wont believe what I did. … I left.”

When Merck asked his mother what she meant, he said that she told him: “Im in Montana right now,” and that she wasnt planning on returning.

When he asked whether the girls knew, Merck said his mother replied: “I told them I had to work late.”

The temptation, truly, is often there.

Of course, it’s really not funny at all…

Merck, who now lives in Thief River Falls, Minn., said his mother was stressed out by the younger daughter, who had been dating men in their 20s.

He said the girls went into foster care in November after he and his fiancée, who are expecting a baby, decided they could no longer afford to care for them. A third daughter, who is an adult, also helped out, he said.

Jennifer Anderson has been married four or five times, her son said. The family moved around a lot before settling in what police investigator Aaron Pry and neighbors called a “quiet neighborhood” in Crookston.

Criminal complaints and other sources offered this picture of family dysfunction, instability and abuse:

William, 44, and Jennifer, 42, dated for two years and married a year ago. Four months into their marriage, William was charged with terroristic threats for allegedly threatening to kill the girls and their mother. Authorities say he was drinking at the time.

William becomes physically violent only when he drinks, but he can be verbally abusive anytime, a complaint quoted Jennifer as telling police. William Andersons mother told an officer that he had been jailed for assaulting his ex-wife.

And so on, and so forth.

The greatest line in Keanu Reeves’ career; “you have to have a license to drive a car, but any a****le can be a parent…”

How To Give A Shiftless Idiot A Cheap Legal Victory

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Women, in general, have an insurmountable advantage in custody trials, especially if the kids involved are younger than four years old. It’s almost impossible for a woman to lose under those circumstances, barring crack addiction (maybe) and gross moral turpitude. Especially if the fathers are famously moronic.

And yet…

But [Britney Spears] stayed less than 24 hours before returning to California, where she briefly visited her sons in Malibu before shaving off her hair, getting tattooed and dashing to a hospital in the early hours and asking for help.

K-Fed? If it’s legal vindication you want, you married and divorced the right chick.

Maybe.

Your Mission For This Weekend

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Update and Bump II:  It’s tomorrow! 

Our producer on the NARN, Matt Reynolds, and his wife Amber are currently busy trying to adopt a child from Guatemala. This is not an inexpensive proposition – so they’re holding a bit of a fundraiser:

Fundraising Fiesta for Hezekiah is on Feb 10th from 6-9 pm with a silent auction and a Mexican dinner. If people are interested in attending or donating they can check out our website at www.kiahskapers.8k.com or email us at kiahskapers@gmail.com. Or if they prefer they can make a tax deductible donation online through Life International at http://www.lifeintl.org/donation.html, then click the “make donation” button and it goes to PayPal. For a donation to go to our specific account, they need it to say “Mathew and Amber Reynolds” in the “payment for” box. Thanks for your support and help.

I’m planning on being there on Saturday. I invite you and yours can spare a bit of help for the Reynolds’.  Oooh – and the food is from Chipotle!

The event is being held at the Maple Grove Evangelical Free Church from 6-9PM Saturday night. Email them at kiahskapers@gmail.com to reserve a spot!

Ed writes about the event today, too.

They Eat Their Own

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Brangelina attack Guydonna’s latest celebrity therapeutic adoption:

Her comments follow accusations that Madonna used her fame and money to speed the adoption of one-year- old David Banda late last year.

‘Madonna knew the situation in Malawi, where he was born,’ said Miss Jolie, who has adopted two Third World youngsters of her own.

‘It’s a country where there is no real legal framework for adoption.

‘Personally, I prefer to stay on the right side of the law. I would never take a child away from a place where adoption is illegal.’

Not so dumb, really.  And this next part…:

Miss Jolie, 31, also made clear she was shocked by Madonna’s decision to take David from the country where his father still lives.

…may be the first time I’ve ever seen a celeb pay even lip service to the father in the situation.

I’m amazed.