Friday, April 28, 2006

NYS escapes me

The Times Union article on the failure of New York's shared parenting bill manages to be, er, "balanced", but nevertheless exposes unthinking prejudice.  Of course, I cannot condone threats of violence or death, supposedly received by some of the bill's opponents, but I also cannot be surprised at them when the narrow-minded and self-interested stand successfully against justice.  Why Ms. Pappas of NOW thinks cool heads and logic have prevailed escapes me, especially as she seems incapable of applying logic herself and her head is anything but cool.

It also escapes me why a "law [that] would have required judges to award joint custody unless there was an obvious reason why they should not" represents a "shift from what's in the best interest of the child", but then it would if by "the best interest of the child" you actually mean "the best interest of the custodial parent" and that parentectomy is a good thing, only those with a vested interest in the status quo could think it "a negative shift".

What do these people think they mean by "the best interest of the child"?  All I can think is that they have learned Hitler's lesson well(*).

Some of Judge Duggan's opposition escapes me too: "To apply a presumption of shared parenting to every couple who makes a baby makes a mockery of the process".  Er, what process?  The process of assigning custody, that's what process.  And, of course, he's right, sole custody and shared custody are absolutely and completely logically incompatible.  That's the whole point.

So much escapes me, would someone please explain?

* he said: "Society will tolerate almost any injustice so long as you
tell them it is for the children."




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Thursday, April 27, 2006

Joint custody - that which doesn't kill you...

Kirsten Feldman is a divorced mother who shares joint custody with her children's father. She writes positively, recognizing the effort put into making it work with her ex husband and praising the relationship the children have with his family. But I can't help but be saddened that her response to "how can you stand it?" is "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and ask why couldn't it have been "because it's the right thing to do"?

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The mythology of rape.

My regular reader will be aware that I am not entirely sure about Carrie Lukas, but with all this talk about the Duke Lacrosse Team thing, she writes a timely article regarding the "one in four" myth of rape frequency  She lists of some of the questions included in the survey from which it originated and a short analysis of how they make the definition of rape potentially much too broad, to the point that entirely consensual, but regretted sex acts could be included.  The result is a very skewed idea of what might really be going on.  The same survey bites its own tail by showing that only 25% of those who were called rape victims actually felt they had been raped and another 40% of the victims had sex with their purported attackers again

Of course she includes the necessary but entirely redundant disclaimer "Allegations of rape ... must be taken seriously and investigated fully." and observes "A man accused of rape often is convicted in the court of public opinion without evidence." but unfortunately makes no comment about how false accusations should be dealt with.  It would be interesting to try and generate the opposite of the myth-generating survey in which men are asked such questions as: "Has a woman with whom you've had sex ever expressed regret at having done so?", the original survey would declare a rapist anyone who dared answer in the positive.



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Bach gets fugued

Now I'm no musician, but this one sounds distinctly out of tune.

Johann Sebastian Bach is now claimed to have stolen some of his credit from his second wife Anna Magdalena Bach neĆ© Wilcke.  Some Aussie professor, one Martin Jarvis,  thinks that "police forensic science techniques" can rewrite the history books and claims that Anna wrote some of his most popular works (it couldn't possibly have been any of the more mundane, could it?).  Sigh.  Of course, this is all reported with great fanfare and as if the fat lady has already sung.  "We know there are a number of works attributed to J. S. Bach that weren't written by him at all," says Jarvis, including Toccata and Fuge in D minor.  We do?  An admittedly quick bit of research shows up no hits on that idea and given the fame of the piece I would have expected the feminist horn to have played the idea loud and long.  You know the one: DA-DA-DA dadadada daa daa.

A little further down the Telegraph article, we find that all is not harmonious in the musical world.

Stephen Rose: "It is plausible that she corrected, refined and revised many of his compositions, although there is not enough evidence to show that she single-handedly composed the Cello Suites."

Julian Lloyd Weber: 'Cellists who have performed the Suites extensively remained sceptical. Julian Lloyd Webber insisted that the compositions were "stylistically totally Bach" and that "many composers had appalling handwriting, which meant better copies would naturally have been made, with the originals then discarded"'.  (It's already well known that Anna Magdelena transcribed many of his later works.)

Steven Isserlis: "We can't say that it is definitely not true, in the same way that we can't prove that Anne Hathaway did not write some of Shakespeare's work, but I don't believe this to be a serious theory."

Oh well, I guess given that Einstein's a fraud too, we shouldn't be surprised that one of the world's musical geniuses was cheating on his second fiddle as well.

Nah, in the absence of a clean, clear note otherwise, i.e. a manuscript of the same level of talent which can unequivocally be ascribed to her, I think I'll sing along to the old melody, police forensics be damned.

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Accusations, TROs, supervised visitation and PAS

David Heleniak illustrates the path laid down towards parental alienation by the institutionalized cruelties of false accusation, spurious restraining orders and that most pernicious of humiliation, supervised visitation. Against these three, what defense does any father have? Heleniak argues that restraining orders should not be thrown about with quite such abandon and this would reduce the incidence of PAS. He may have a point, but he, as do so many others, misses the point that parental alienation is enshrined in the basic laws that the courts practise. As long as we insist in grading parents between "custodial" and "non-custodial" we show the children that one parent is more valuable than the other and sew the seeds of their alienation. DV laws, TROs and supervised visitation are all intended to protect the weak from the abusive, but they also can be used by the abusive to persecute those rendered weak by the same weapons, that weakening starts with the law's reflex removal of parental rights.

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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

From debtor's prison to slavery, but it's rehabilitative!

I found this on ifeminists: 'Seems that in Richmond, Virginia "nonviolent inmate volunteers [will] work to repair code violations that property owners refuse to fix". Interesting, law-breakers working to help other law-breakers avoid their responsibilities. They will be "mainly men in jail for failing to pay child support". Ah, law-breakers in jail for avoiding their responsibilities working to help other law-breakers who are not in jail to avoid their responsibilities. It all makes perfect sense. Neat. Tidy.

It goes on, apparently "It's rehabilitative. We hope to get with the city, if some show promise, to get an opportunity to get a job when they get out." Ah, so the law destroys their lives then tries to give them another one in return. Nice of them.

The only vote against this nice little earner was from some good citizen who didn't want to see the dirty little inmates competing with private enterprise. Are there actually any people down there?


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Fathers rights dead in Albany

Well, so much for parental alienation awareness day which was celebrated in New York by killing a bill to give fathers greater rights of custody which was rejected by a 12-4 vote and law continues to enshrine parental alienation.

The usual idiocies are argued - that: "there is nothing in law preventing parents from making any arrangements they want to", yeah, right, except that the non-custodial parent must toe the custodial parent's line. But what's sauce for the goose is obviously not sauce for the gander as "Oftentimes, it's the abusive parent who wants to impose joint custody on a woman ... so that they can maintain control over that woman, power over the children," Which is argued on the basis that many (how many?) court fought custody battles involve allegations of domestic violence and abuse. In the usual inversion of the normal process of justice, the report more or less explicitly says that a purported victim shouldn't have to prove the incident(s) had taken place, just an accusation is enough.

Why does it not occur to these people that this line of argument opens the door to abuse of the non-custodial parent through false accusations. They seem to live in a fantasy world where the custodial parent is above reproach and the custodial parent beneath contempt. If the camp in defense of the bill made this point, it wasn't reported here.

Of course, NOW harpie Marcia Pappas gets in a little brown-nosing: "The intelligence of the Legislature certainly came through in that committee meeting (Tuesday), and we're very proud to know that they've done the right thing". I'm sure they're tickled pink that you're proud of them for this Marcia, I can almost see you preening eachother, they must thing the sun shines out of your nether regions or something like that to have swallowed your drivel.

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The Unimaginable Horror...

What do we suppose would happen if a female politician had a lesbian affair which, on confessing it to her husband, resulted in him yelling horrible things at her, throwing his ring at her, hitting her three times and claiming that she'd plunged him into an "unimaginable horror"? I'm sure they'd kiss and make up, wouldn't you agree?

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Girl scouts, harmless, really.

The Cellar Image of the Day gets perhaps a little hyperbolic with: "Today, upon seeing this image, there would be multiple Amber Alerts issued, the national news would gear up for the Lost Scouts story, and helicopters would be flown to start the search for the shallow graves." Although perhaps it's really not so hyperbolic.

On the other hand, the typical lone male driver might just carry on past given what he is risking.

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Monday, April 24, 2006

Another shrew

Heads up on a diatribe from a fathers rights opponent having a go at Carey Roberts in The Washington Times. The usual string of distorted and unsubstantiated "facts" is used to have a go at anyone who might think fathers have some rights.

Writing about the smear job that was "Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories": "The only negative responses received by PBS were from fathers rights activists". Circular logic. If you made a call to PBS and complained, you're a fathers' rights activist.

This is a new one: "most of their activists have sole or joint custody and receive child support instead paying support."If true, and it does seem somewhat unlikely, wouldn't that have to make them much more philanthropic than the rest of the article wants you to believe? Nah, I think it's much more likely of the opposition.

"On a local radio program several years ago, area fathers made these complaints about courts biases against fathers -- but all these men claimed to be one of the lucky ones who got sole custody. " Hmm. I'm sure we could find a local radio program from several years ago to prove just about anything we wanted. You're definitely reaching here...

"They conceal their role in promoting the discredited paternal child abuse cover-up "Parental Alienation Syndrome" (PAS) methodology" 1) I've yet to encounter a fathers' rights activist who wasn't quite happy to recognize PAS and support an open discussion of how to deal with it. 2) Discredited? I don't think so. 3) Methodology? What can she mean?

"published incest advocate Dr. Richard Gardner". Another one from the hysteria mill. It is worth noting that Gardner is dead and unable to defend himself and a careful reading of what he wrote quickly shows that he did not advocate incest at all.

"PAS is based on the twisted notion a father is innocent of child abuse because the mother was upset and complained to authorities." No it isn't. PAS is the systematic alienation of a child from a parent, usually by the other parent. Sometimes this will include false allegations of abuse by the alienating parent.

"Being upset or angry is their definition of lying -- but only for a woman." No dear, not telling the truth is lying. Gender doesn't matter. Men or women can lie. Sometimes very effectively. But not usually as creatively as you.

"The fathers rights allies in Congress and HHS have worked for years to fund millions of dollars in specialized programs granted to state courts and social agencies for services such as enforcing noncustodial parents visitation and responsible fatherhood." Er, why is this bad? 'Besides, given the millions spent on enforceing child support obligations, you'd think it would be fair to make sure the other side played ball as well. Hm?

It goes on: various claims of fake statistics, appeals to nonexistent authority, hyperbolic shrieks of indignation etc, etc.

Finally: "Fathers rights activists do have a lot to be scared about. Their scheme is unwinding and some of them will be prosecuted for what they have been doing for many years. "

Oooooh, we're scared, aren't we guys?

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Saturday, April 22, 2006

Elian Gonzalez

Today is the sixth anniversary of Elian Gonzalez' removal by force from a Miami house and runiented with his father for the first time in five months. One has to wonder at wisdom of such an aggressive and traumatic extraction, but the right thing was done in the end.

False allegations kill

The London Times reports on a case of false accusation (rape again) that killed two men and cost 12 years of another's life. When will we learn...?

Tags: False Accusation, False Allegation, Rape.

Friday, April 21, 2006

No? Really?

This week's astounding scientific discovery: men find pretty women distracting. Good lord! Well I never. Say it isn't so! Who'd've thunk it?

Later in the article: The researchers are conducting similar tests with women. But so far, they have failed to find a visual stimulus which will affect their behaviour." 'Strikes me as a failure of imagination.

(Yes, that last sentence could be taken two ways. Please feel free to groan if you have a sense of humor or condemn me as a misogynist if you're a trolling radfem.)

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Thursday, April 20, 2006

NY Times: Men don't exist

Now here's an oddity. The NY Times is running an article about the Greene report on disparities between genders, races and locations in the US when it comes to who graduates and who doesn't (guess). Others have written far more about this, and most of my readers will be well aware of the problem, so I'll pass on comment. But what got me about the article was a little thing called "Related Searches" at the bottom of the page. There are four links to follow and each searches the NYT archive for the given term. I followed them all:

Education and Schools: 38,514 hits
Minorities (US): 1,415 hits
Women: 9,030 hits
Men: 0 hits

Wow. Just wow.

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Adultery, hypocrisy, fatherhood

Under most circumstances, if you lie to someone in order to obtain obtain money or services it's called fraud and carries criminal penalties. If a woman lies to a man about his paternity of her children, it's called a gravy train, especially after the divorce because then he knows they're not his kids and that knowledge is likely the cause that he can't see them any more even if he wants to and he still has to pay.

Except, in Australia, the law's catching up with one of these women. It is interesting that her legal team are defending her, at least in part, on the basis that "a finding for her husband would cause a rush of litigation against women". Why aren't "women" upset about such a slander? These guys are playing the gender card to protect women as a whole arguing they should be permitted adulterous and exploitative behavior. (I note that the article is happy to use the derogatory word "cuckold" but not its partner "adulterer".) That's why a certain kind of woman isn't complaining, she gains license to behave as badly as she likes. If a man cheats on his wife, he can lose everything, including his children, if a woman cheats on her husband, she has everything to gain. The consequences, ultimately, can only be bad for everyone, including those women who don't deserve it and most especially the children.

Back in the US, a woman writer shows some spine and speaks up, not so much in defense of men, or specifically the Duke lacrosse team, but of morality. In the process, she has a go at just about every source of "morality" we seem to have these days. It's a nice piece of analysis, but read it carefully, especially if you find your hackles rising - the chances are you misread it.

The cornerstone of her piece is "In no area except morality would a sane person believe he can't criticize something stupid because he's done it" for fear of being accused of hypocrisy. And she makes an excellent case, although her agenda is clearly right wing. What she doesn't do is explain what hypocrisy really is - the argument that a behavior is immoral with no intention of not behaving that way yourself. This complicates matters beyond the scope of her article because there is an inherent conflict between allowing bad behavior and judging it as bad and all political leanings suffer from that.

Over at Ifeminists, Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks discuss 'Roe v. Wade for Men' and observe:

'millions of unmarried men who do try to be fathers to their children find that while they are frequently lectured to "take responsibility," they're often not permitted any meaningful role in their children's lives. These stand-up guys usually get to spend only a few days a month with their kids, if they're lucky. Once mom finds a new man, they're often pushed out entirely in favor of the child's "new dad." And fathers who look to the family law system for help quickly find that said system has no interest in their case beyond keeping the child support checks coming."


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Monday, April 17, 2006

Those silly farkers

Those jolly folks over at fark.com picked up on Lukas' moaning about chivalry. I find they're always good for putting things in perspective. Well, a certain kind of perspective. I supppose. Oh, just go and look.

One of them posted this, uncredited, and I hadn't seen it before:

The female/feminist privilege checklist:

1. Do you experience other people paying for your dates, or occasionally even picking up the tab in non-romantic settings? Or paying for vacations when the relationship moves along?

2. Do you occasionally experience subservient gestures by the opposite sex(opening doors, giving up a seat in the bus, standing up when you come in the room)?

3. Are you able to simply pursue what you are interested in at university without much societal pressure on "breadwinning" - although you could also take that route if it interests you?

4.a. Have you had to register for selective service? Would you be ripped out of your life and forced to defend your country in time of attack or national emergency? Can you demand strength and full participation in society, but then get out of this obligation by pretending to be weak with no influence over society (only when it suits you)?

4.b. Can you come up with any and every excuse to get out of this without being laughed at ("No one should be drafted" - when you would be the first to cower in the corner and demand that someone do something if China & Russia combined and attacked full force - and "If men start wars ..." when women are the majority of voters and the expression is more likely "Men are SENT in wars ..." - exactly what you're trying to get out of - and sometimes sent by M. Thatcher, G. Meir, I. Gandhi, B. Bhutto and others)

5. Will you statistically get a much lighter sentence for exactly the same offense if you commit a crime?

6. Are you able to take on a job or choose a career route that is only capable of supporting yourself, with no thought to preparing yourself to also support a spouse/children, although you are also free to choose a more difficult career that will bring you more money? Do you not have much pressure on you with regard to this?

7. If you are in a committed relationship, do you have much greater flexibility to choose whether you want to work or simply stay at home (even without kids)?

8. Will you be called an unemployed loser if you decide to be a homemaker?

9. If you have a flat tire on the road, if someone is harassing you in a public place, if an animal attacks you, or if you are lost, will someone be much, much more likely to help you?

10. Are people generally much nicer to you in public? Are you sometimes given privileged treatment?

11. Are you much more capable of "marrying up" - enjoying the money and status that comes with this?

12. Are you statistically much more likely to be given money in a divorce - sometimes huge amounts - even if your behavior caused the divorce (e.g. affair) and even if you didn't work for the money?

13. If you slap a person - or even knock someone's tooth out throwing your Aunt Selma's Christmas mug at that person - is it much more likely to just be viewed as cute, understandable or not a problem?

14. Do you statistically live much longer - possibly due to less stress on you with regard to breadwinning, providing protection, being responsible, not having society viewing you as "expendable" or viewing your problems as not being important?

15. Do you have much more money spent on your health concerns in reality (e.g. 5 times as much on breast cancer as on prostate cancer - although they have roughly the same death rates) while you simultaneously claim that more has to be done for you?

16. Are you much less likely to be homeless? Is more offered to you by society when you are in this position?

17. Is there far less scorn and pressure on you by society when you are an irresponsible doofus? Are your default rates for payment of child support roughly twice those of the other gender, while you simultaneously complain about the other gender not paying?

18. Has whining about and hating the other gender actually been made into a course of studies in college (women's studies) - as opposed to the true, neutral, unbiased study of this topic - which is simply anthropology?

19. Do you have full opportunity to do anything you want in life - become a doctor, a lawyer, start a business - while simultaneously using the fact that many of your gender don't CHOOSE themselves to do these things as an argument to try to gain even more advantages? Do you get affirmative action because many of your gender don't choose to do these things, and thus the numbers don't "come out right"?

20. Can you manipulate the other gender with sex in some cases to get what you want? Can you pretend like you don't even know what anyone is talking about on this topic?

21. Can you manipulate using old notions of men protecting and deferring to women when it comes in handy?

22. Can you effectively manipulate by playing the victim? Do tears work sometimes?

23. Can you get sympathy if you don't work and don't have children by listing all the household work (hmm ... Oprah really does get high ratings, though) while simultaneously being able to bear the cognitive dissonance of calling your sister's husband who stays home a worthless bum that she ought to leave?

24. Can you "mix and match" traditional and progressive roles - finding just the right mix to get what you want? Can you be a "traditional wife" - enjoying the positive features of that (like not having to work) - while simultaneously being a progressive feminist when THAT gets you advantages? Or having a career while simultaneously using traditional chivalry and male deference to your advantage?

25. Can you constantly say "that's just typical" and "it doesn't surprise me a bit" and make a lemon face if you are a parent-in-law? Is near-universal contempt by both genders for your behavior hidden to a much greater extent?

26. Can almost any remark by your partner be construed as verbal abuse if you want sympathy, but the meanest, nastiest, most humiliating things that you can say simply involve "speaking your mind" and "some people just don't want to hear the truth"?

27. Can you use the fact that gender roles were differentiated long ago - with different advantages/disadvantages for both genders - to try to induce guilt today in people who had absolutely no connection with any of that? Can you say that you have been discriminated against for thousands of years - when you're only 20 years old - with a straight face? Can you even make things up about history and no one will really check or dare call you on it?

28. Can you propagate myths and outright lies ("Superbowl/domestic violence hoax", "rule of thumb", 1/4 rape statistic, intentional misconstrual of pay figures, and many more) and be given a "pass" - without more rigor being demanded?

29. Can you rationalize your own failures using the concept of the "patriarchy", and blame the other gender for nearly everything that goes wrong in your life - even with quite contorted explanations that no one would otherwise buy - while failures of the other gender are just ... failures?

30. Do you want to be treated like a child when it suits you but as an adult when you get an advantage from that? Do you "look the other way" when someone doesn't require responsibility from you that they certainly would from the other gender?

31. Can you focus heavily on perceived earnings in the workforce - the statistics of which are influenced by people's choices in reality - while utterly ignoring the inter-family transfer of wealth? Can you completely ignore the fact that one gender picks tougher jobs (garbage collector), works more hours and takes on more responsibility because of more pressure to earn - but the other gender has the same lifestyle and statistically more assets (and not just because of inheritance/earlier age of male at death...). Can you deliberately claim that earnings figures are based on equal pay for equal work? (when you probably full well know that they simply involve all people working more than 35 hours - and don't take type of job, hours worked over 35/week, danger, responsibility, years in the work force etc. into consideration at all).

32. Is what used to simply be an irritation for grown-ups many years ago - the self-centered rantings and foot stompings of spoiled high-school and college brats - now not only embraced by your movement but almost the modern cornerstone of it?

33. And if you irritated about generalizations and stereotypes - and utterly fail to see the hypocrisy in stereotyping and generalizing about one gender while simultaneously making a career (literally in some cases) whining about your own gender being stereotyped ...

... you may have female/feminist privilege! But don't let on - because you can gain much more with a continual victim status.


Another reproduced the Code of Chivalry, as written by Charlemagne:

To fear God and maintain His Church
To serve the liege lord in valour and faith
To protect the weak and defenceless
To give succour to widows and orphans
To refrain from the wanton giving of offence
To live by honour and for glory
To despise pecuniary reward
To fight for the welfare of all
To obey those placed in authority
To guard the honour of fellow knights
To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
To keep faith
At all times to speak the truth
To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun
To respect the honour of women
Never to refuse a challenge from an equal
Never to turn the back upon a foe.



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A lawyer who feels bad...

Woah! Dig this. An ex-lawyer wringing his hands over the depravity of family courts. A Christian no less, who thinks "humanity is a huge waste of flesh" and "making a $100,000 a pop ... softens the blow of splitting up a family" (athough, to give him credit, he's not talking about himself in the latter). Overall, I think he thinks he's showing some conscience over the awfulness of the whole thing, but as far as I can tell, he's just another Pontius Pilate.

Bizarre child custody decision

How likely is this?

Tags: Child Abuse, Child Custody, Chicago Cubs

Chivalry today?

Another woman writer remembers the heroic men of the Titanic and promptly exploits them to argue that modern man is an uncivilized grunt who's forgotten his manners. She laments an assumed decline in "gentlemanly behavior", even while managing to point out by quoting one suspect gentleman that "women are adopting 'an Ć  la carte approach to women's rights and civil euality'". She goes on to say "A man giving up his seat to a woman ... [is] ... a simple show of respect. Respect not just for the woman, but also for himself. It shows that this man believes himself to be a gentleman and holds himself to high standards. Those standards are more important than enjoying the comfort of a seat on his morning commute." She finishes by thanking the men of the Titanic for their "gentlemanly gestures" in dying for their women and children.

On behalf of those men of the Titanic and speaking as a man with some remaining shreds of gentlemanly self respect, albeit badly tattered by the modern machine, I would like to ackowledge Ms. Lukas' gratitude. However, I would like to point out that the men she thanks are long dead, heroic, but long gone, so are their women and many of their children. I would also like to know what of ladylike behavior today? How is she going to show her respect for me? What do I get, these days, in return for giving up my seat to a woman who is supposed to be my equal? It is very hard not to see it as giving up a tiny advantage in the race of everyday life. Now that women are running alongside us, this is akin to ceding the race before the starting gun is fired.

In short, I think Ms. Lukas is a wolf in sheep's clothing. She wants her cake and eat it - all the advantages of being both a "lady" and a "woman". That said, my conditioning is strong enough that I would more than likely hold a door open for her, but I'll think twice about giving up my seat unless she's pregnant, old, or infirm. Suck it up ma'am.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

The First Step Towards Destroying a Parent Is Made By Law

Parental Alienation Syndrome, or PAS, has a credibility problem. For starters, it is not yet recognized by the American Psychological Association and does not appear in the DSM-IV which appears to be the ultimate authority for anything that might go "wrong" in anyone's head. I put "wrong" in quotes because not everything that is contained in the DSM-IV might be considered a problem under any given circumstance (sometimes, a personality disorder is a distinct advantage to getting ahead in the world).

Moreover, various people are determined to "prove" to the world that PAS doesn't exist. I put "prove" in quotes because it's pretty obvious that they can't. We already know that children can be persuaded to make the most outrageous claims with a little clever persuasion. It doesn't take much effort to imagine a child being bribed, cajoled, pressured, or threatened by one parent into bad-mouthing the other at a convenient time, such as a custody hearing. If the pressure brought to bear is high enough, I don't see any problem with thinking of PAS as "Stockholm Syndrome" for kids (and Stockholm Syndrome is in the DSM-IV). If you find it impossible to believe that no custodial parent anywhere would ever attempt to destroy a child's relationship with the other parent in order to control and torment that parent, then I put it to you that you're wearing rose-tinted spectacles, and I have this terrific bridge going cheap. If you want to learn who thinks PAS doesn't exist, I suggest you go and look for yourself - I don't see why I should advertize for a deluded or self-justifying opposition in this blog (why would you promote a lie unless you believed it or had a vested interest in its acceptance?).

PAS is "trendy". Recently on the public's radar, and the subject of ongoing controversy, it suffers from the same sort of credibility issues as does, for example, Paris Hilton, although I hope not as badly and I know not as deservedly. Either way, we have to recognize Ms. Hilton, for all her crassness, as a human being in her own right and worthy of recognition for her good points (whatever those may be). Likewise, PAS has sufficient clear applicability to real life that it deserves close consideration before it might, foolishly, be dismissed.

Like Paris Hilton, PAS has forebears that have fallen out of vogue and there is some suspicion that PAS may go the same way. We no longer hear about Malicious Mother Syndrome, for example, and yet it is well within the spectrum of behaviors covered by PAS. Does that mean that these behaviors never existed, or no longer occur? Not very likely. I'm sure they still do and are still gotten away with. On the other hand, in our genderism-sensitive times, MMS was flawed by its failure to recognize its partner Malicious Father Syndrome which surely also exists.

But perhaps PAS's worst enemy is itself. It just isn't very well defined. It is used to describe a whole bunch of possible behaviors in more than one person. It is the description of a pattern of behavior on the part of one parent and the pattern of responses in one or more of their children that is induced by the former. This makes it the description of a situation, a dynamic if you will, as much as it is a description of a pathology. I am not aware of a similar condition that is of similar concern to psychologists (or judges). Terms like "group hysteria" or "mass hallucination" come to mind as dynamics affecting multiple people, but the selection of the group involved does not have to be specific.

PAS is in danger of falling between the cracks. It does not affect just one person so does not lend itself to individual treatment according to psychology's default model, nor is it something which affects the population at large and hence can be easily "educated out". In its purest form, PAS refers in particular to the behavior of the brain-washed child, but it can also be used to cover the behavior of the manipulating parent, and discussions of PAS incorporate the specific term "target parent" which, while obvious in its meaning, does not find common use elsewhere. Thus, at least three people are necessarily involved and it can be extended to grandparents and other family members, both as targets and perpetrators.

Most perversely, PAS is open to abuse as a method of gaining control of children through false accusation. There are surely children out there who have good reason to fear one parent and are not making it up at the behest of the other. A child who does not want to spend time with a parent may not be suffering from any "syndrome" at all, but could be quite healthily trying to protect themselves. That would not stop the unwanted parent from claiming that the other was trying to alienate them from their children and perhaps making the accusation stick under the guise of PAS, ultimately gaining control of the children and using them for their own nefarious aims. These kinds of machinations contribute to the uncertainty and suspicion of PAS.

Finally, it is not in the best interests of the perpetrating, alienating parents to recognize the existence of PAS, and these people will be some of its most vocal detractors. If PAS does exist, then these people will also be some of the most deceptive and manipulative people around, they will be good at convincing you that it doesn't exist. Remember, in the words of Verbal Kint: "The devil's greatest trick was to convince the world he didn't exist".

It is not my intention to provide a critique of PAS and so enable its detractors, rather I wish to point out the array of problems with its acceptance and to argue for some degree of urgency in sorting these problems out. Why urgency? Because it is a much more common problem than many realize, even its more ardent supporters. In fact, it is nearly universal in child cusody disputes. Yes, I really mean that, and I am not mongering hysteria. It is subtly enshrined in social and legal systems throughout the western world and probably further. The courts cannot see the wood for the trees, and they are sewing the seeds themselves. The first step in PAS is not taken by either parent, it is taken by law.



Like most of my age group, I grew up being told that, as a man, I needed to help in making the lot of women more equitable with my own. I grew up being told I had advantages in the workplace, socially, in just about every walk of life just because I am a man. Much of this seemed to make sense. There were fewer women than men in many workplaces, women were frustrated at being expected to look after the home while men worked at their careers. In college, I knew intelligent, resourceful women, it seemed entirely reasonable to me that they should be able to choose what they wanted to do with their lives, just as I had been convinced I could. I proudly counted myself as a feminist. Some of my female friends insisted that I had a male chauvinist streak, but I worked hard to supress it insofar as I could identify it. In my naivetƩ, I felt certain that as I strived to treat women as equals, they would strive to treat me the same way.

I grew up, went out into the world, got married and had a child. My wife didn't have a career, as such, when I met her. She worked, yes, but not with any apparent long term aim. I didn't think much about it at the time, I was in love, nothing else mattered. Throughout our marriage, I tried hard to give her the things she wanted, including supporting her as best I could in various attempts at starting one career or another. I tried hard to share in housework, and particularly to share in the care and raising of our child, just as I had seen my own father do with me.

Then the marriage failed.

It failed spectacularly. My very own Titanic, my personal World Trade Center, my Hiroshima.

The details don't matter, but suffice it to say that she got custody and my life became hell. I discovered Parental Alienation Syndrome. I thought about it. I read about it. I checked out the arguments for and against it, and I concluded it was real despite all the weaknesses I have discussed. I became unable to understand the arguments against PAS - wasn't it obvious? - then I realized that vested interest was at work and an argument against could not be objective. "There are none so blind as those who will not see." The only objective position was to recognize the problem and try to figure out how to solve it.

I do not know how to solve it. I do know at least one way to stop it starting. This may, in itself, cause other problems, I don't know. What I do know is that the relationship between a child and each of his or her parents is something vital, something necessary, something sacred. This relationship can be broken by the parent, through abuse, through neglect, through indifference. It won't be broken by the child, unless that child is brought under malicious pressure, unless that child is forced to choose between one parent or the other.

Who would do such a thing? As long as the parents see eye to eye, most likely nobody, but once a marriage falls apart, the parents are no longer as one, they are two people with divergent lives. This puts the child in a vulnerable position. With whom should the child go, and why? Who should make the decision?

Often, the parents can manage to sort it out for themselves, although neither might be entirely happy with whatever compromises they have to make. There may be some degree of coercion about the agreement, for all its apparent consensus, for fear of the alternative. Even so, sometimes they can't sort it out between themselves and that alternative kicks in. Someone must intervene. Someone must make the decisions for them. Enter the courts, the judges, the lawyers, the paralegals, the psychologists, the Guardians ad litem, the cops, the security guards, the restraining orders, the disappearing friends, the new, predatory "friends", the arguments, the heartache, the tears, the pain, the divorce, the child support, the fees, the property division, the custody order.

There it is. The custody order. One parent, usually the mother, has custody, the other, usually the father, has visitation rights. That fellow in the wig, who sets so much store by the rules which he himself must follow, said so. The first step along the road to Parental Alienation Syndrome is made by law.

Alienation of a parent is his or her devaluation in the eyes of their children. To alienate a parent is to show the children that one is more important than the other. What could be a clearer exposition than to declare one parent in charge of their lives and the other a visitor, there only on the court's recognizance? That's the first step towards PAS. Subsequent steps can be made by either parent - the non-custodial parent (NCP) can slowly drift away, unable to integrate what remains of their old family into their new life. The custodial parent has much more scope, and can contribute by driving the NCP away, by not cooperating with visitation, by leaving the area, by making false accusations of abuse, by abducting the children, by turning the children against the NCP. The custodial parent has much greater opportunity for mayhem than the non-custodial, much of it unconstrained by the courts.

How do we avoid this? It's not rocket science, it's not even algebra, it's very, very easy. Don't choose one parent over the other. Here, I'll say it again. Don't choose one parent over the other. Is that clear? Make equality mean equality. Don't give the vindictive parent the opportunity; don't just nip it in the bud, don't plant the seed in the first place. Joint custody must be the default, or if not, then as much effort and force of law must be put into making sure the non-custodial parent has a part in the children's lives as is put into making sure that he or she pays the court ordered child-support. Do it, and do it now.

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Happy PAS Easter

Happy Easter all, especially those who are illegitimately prevented from spending it with their children.

Blogwonks and MND has an item on the role false accusations of domestic violence have in the production of Parental Alienation Syndrome.

In the comments, David Usher points out that you don't need anything so blatant as DV accusations to set the ball rolling, it can be done much more subtly than that. But few seem to realize that the first step along that road is the simple reduction of one parent to non-custodial status. It renders (usually) him a second class parent and encourages (usually) her to believe that she has total power over the children's relationship with their father. Combined with a criminally naive idea that the mother can do no wrong, it is a short walk from there to obstruction of visitation, slow manipulation of the children to think ill of their father and finally complete disruption of the relationship when they yield to the relentless pressure and say they don't want to see him any more. (Sometimes fathers do this to mothers, but the statistics of custody assignment mean that the other way around dominates.)

What can he do? Nothing much - failure to comply with visitation orders is nothing worse than contempt of court and rarely carries any punishment at all. Whispers against him behind closed doors can only be countered by the children seeing for themselves that their daddy still loves them and the usual 15% visitation "award" unlikely to be sufficient, never mind its erosion by the mother's interference. Finally, when a court hears a child say they don't want to see their father, their mother mother behind them innocently shrugging her shoulders saying "what can I do?", what is the court to do? No-one will ask what she has done.

A less subtly manipulative mother can fall back on whatever accusations she feels like. Hearsay is evidence enough in this case. ANCPR mirrors the article and one particularly heart-rending comment summarises a case where false charges of domestic violence have been levelled seven times and when the father, initially given significant visitation including weekends, finally worked his way back to five hours unsupervised visitation a week, the mother dropped the nuke and accused him of abusing the child. Of course, there is no evidence, but this miraculously resilient father now has no contact with his daughter and doesn't even know where she is. The agencies and courts don't even return his calls or letters.

How many fathers and mothers will today watch the neighborhood children hunt for Easter eggs while knowing that the delight of watching their own children do this is cruelly denied them for no reason other than the very un-Easter-like hatred of their ex and the ignorance of a blind and stupid legal system? Until the laws properly reflect the duties of both parents towards the children and eachother, and the court's language is changed to remove derogatory concepts of a parent's value to their children, this will go on. Until interference with visitation is treated with the same heavy-handedness as is failure to pay child support, this will go on. Until false accusations of violence and abuse are recognized themselves to be as damaging as the claimed crimes would be, this will go on. Parents will continue to be involunatrily emotionally and physically ejected from their children's lives for no reason except hatred.

PAS is child abuse and a hate crime. Treat it as such. Stop it now.


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Saturday, April 15, 2006

Sexism

A neat summary of some of the cultural and legal sexism in the US at The Metropolis Times, Part 1 and Part 2. The latter is particularly good on false accusations.

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Eternal Bachelor

The Eternal Bachelor shows some promise and good for a few yucks. Check him out.

Cute tagline: "A bachelor is a man who has cheated a woman out of a divorce settlement."

Friday, April 14, 2006

BMJ likes its women on top.

Can we imagine celebrating a lower infant mortality rate among asians compared to eskimos? Would we celebrate a greater likelihood of surviving a car crash if you were short rather than tall? Could we celebrate men being found to survive lung cancer, on average, by five years more than women? Worldwide? In a major international medical journal?

Then why on earth would we celebrate women having longer lifespans than men, worldwide, in the British Medical Journal (full article here for free)? Or anywhere else for that matter? It's just as well some of their readers disagree.

(For smirk value, however, the BMJ also published this gem. The research could only have been done in Holland.)

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Witch hunt!

It occurs to me that today, Good Friday, is a particularly good day for posts on false accusations, don't you think...? (Ponder on it.)

Here's another:

"Men are bad.
...
If there's one thing we can't bear in this country, it's spoiled white boys who think the world owes them a good time.
...
males can't control themselves and that females can't be blamed - ever for anything
...
where there's a guy, there's a potential rapist; where there's an athlete, there's seething brute force; where there's an SUV, there's a privileged, gluttonous, imperialistic brat who deserves to be found guilty, even if he isn't.
...
there's just a wink and a six-pack's difference between drinking and tinkling outdoors and gang-raping a stripper.
...
Obviously, no woman deserves to be raped for any reason, under any circumstances. But nor do men deserve to be presumed guilty just because they're men."


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Not guilty but still under suspicion

There is no evidence and the only witness recanted completely, but the children are all still in foster homes and the big, bad prosecutors dropped their case but left open the possibility of charges if "new" evidence surfaces. Nice of them.

The DSS took the children into care "after an investigation of the allegations", and they're still there safe from their big, bad, but innocent dad who's now looking for "visitation rights"; full, unobstructed, legtimate parenthood isn't mentioned.

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Thursday, April 13, 2006

the principal impediment to child abuse is a father

Stephen Baskerville in Human Events:


the principal impediment to child abuse is a father

the cause of the problem -- separating children from their fathers -- is presented as the solution, and the solution -- allowing children to grow up with their fathers -- is depicted as the problem. If you want to encourage child abuse, remove the fathers.

bar associations, feminist groups, and social work bureaucracies ... earnings and funding depend on a constant supply of abused children

Fathers 4 Justice are back

Fathers 4 Justice scale Westminster Abbey for Easter, just a couple of days after claiming they were going to invade York Minster. Nice feint guys.

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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

What is wrong with these people?

I don't know how old this is, but I stumbled across this story of a stepmother refusing access by two daughters to their dying father, despite his own wish to see them. An inversion of the usual outrage, but just as appalling in its own way.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Kick 'im out, then kick 'im down.

One from Canada for the hysteria-inducing, false allegations file. He works, enthusiastically, at a war museum and, surprise, surprise, owns a couple of guns. This, apparently, makes him positively lethal, a regular Rambo, except not the good guy. The ex-missus says she's "afraid" of him, so he's got to be kept from his children.

Standard process: get him out of the house, then make wild accusations to keep him out and ruin his reputation. He now lives at the YMCA. He hasn't seen his children in nearly two years.

And the cops? They were just itching for a nice big fuss: empty brass shell casings became loose ammunition, a joke hand-grenade became a live bomb, BB-guns became rifles and a replica musket became an assault weapon. They must've had to change their pants after going through that house. It's a wonder they didn't describe the family car as an urban assault vehicle.

Shrinks? Oh, they had a field day. The children's shrink, who's never examined him, recommended the guns (which were in the house he couldn't enter in a safe to which he had no keys) be impounded because she feared a "murder-suicide situation".

Another shrink, likewise who had never examined him, said the guns shouldn't be returned to him because of his "psychological status", whatever that means.

Don't they have slander or libel laws in Canada?

Hysteria: [n] behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess.

An actual lawyer (unidentified, of course) in a rare moment of inexplicable honesty said: “In an ugly divorce, the first thing you have to do is put the spouse in a bad light. A common question is, ‘Has there ever been any sexual abuse of the children, has he ever threatened you, ever hit you, anything you’re scared of, can you even insinuate that he threatened you? Then we can probably get him out of the house and have him look bad in a court battle.” The ethics walk a fine line, she adds. “You don’t say, ‘Make it up,’ but, ‘Looking back, can you, in hindsight, say it may have been construed as a threat?'”

No, you don't say "Make it up", but you can say "It's your word against his, and they'll believe yours." Ethics? What ethics?

But no-one would ever make anything up.

Would they?

(Mind you, given all this, I have to wonder why he didn't just ask for the guns to be destroyed or sell them to clear the air.)

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bioMom loses kids to nonbioMom

This one has preyed on my mind for several days now, and I'm still not sure what I think. When the 7 year relationship falls apart, the two daughters by articifial insemination of a lesbian relationship, both of the same biological mother, are initially kept away from the non-biological mother (nonbioMom). But an appeal grants "shared contact". Then, bioMom with a new partner (nonbioMom2?) secretly relocates across the country. Once they're found the court grants "primary care" to nonbioMum.

Hmmm.

The judge said: "We have moved into a world where norms that seemed safe 20 or more years ago no longer run. In the eyes of the child, the natural parent may be a non-biological parent who, by virtue of long settled care, has become the psychological parent."

OK, I guess I can see that, but by the numbers given in the article, the children, or at least the younger, have not actually spent very much of their lives in the care of the nonbioMom, but then we have only the few details in the article.

Also, the judges said: it was "a flagrant breach of the court's control of the arrangements for the children and an elaborate deception of" nonbioMom, which strikes me as a more likely reason for the court's decision -- they don't like their "control" to be undermined.

That said, bioMum's behavior was certainly repugnant and most likely malicious. I'd hesitate to say that she deserved what she got, but it's sure tempting. On the other hand, as so rarely gets really asked, what of the children? How was their relationship with nonbioMum? The article doesn't actually say. The Telegraph is, predictably, more concerned with the "landmark" nature of the ruling.

"Landmark" is an interesting word to use. It implies a clearly visible, easily identifiable point by which we may orient ourselves and use to guide our way. How is this case a "landmark"? The obvious: is it that gay parental relationships should be given as much weight as straight ones? The not so obvious: is it that the courts should not be defied on pain of loss of your kids? The even less obvious, but subtly significant: is it that one parent should not interfere with the rights of access of the other? We know from the likes of Fathers4Justice that the UK is sometimes not so hot on the last, so perhaps this case can be used by even straight parents to defend against the excesses of malicious ex's.

(As ever, of course, I am given to wonder at the consequences of fatherlessness for these two girls, perhaps the one issue to which bioMom, nonbioMom and nonbioMom2 would unite in their answer.)

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Let the children speak

A 14 year old boy has produced a site arguing for joint physical custody - go and give him some support here.

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Sunday, April 09, 2006

Gallantry is a virtue that dare not speak its name.

Christina Hoff Sommers reviews Manliness by Harvey Mansfield. I was struck by her observation:

74% of the women passengers survived the April 15, 1912, calamity, while 80% of the men perished.

She notes:

Today, almost no one remembers those men. Women no longer bring flowers to the [memorial] on April 15 to honor their chivalry. The idea of male gallantry makes many women nervous, suggesting (as it does) that women require special protection. It implies the sexes are objectively different. It tells us that some things are best left to men. Gallantry is a virtue that dare not speak its name.


"Gallantry is a virtue that dare not speak its name." Hmmmm.

What does it come to when what used to be considered a good characteristic of men is something to be ashamed of along with a propensity to avoid housework....?

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Thursday, April 06, 2006

10 yr old in court for racial slurs.

I'm with the judge on this one.

A ten year old boy is in court in the UK accused of racially abusing a fellow pupil. The judge said in his day the boy would have got "a good clouting". Some PC wingnut from the National Union of Teachers said she though the judge was out of date with the way issues are dealt with in schools today. 'Seems to me that they aren't dealt with in school today...

To cap it: During the preliminary hearing the court was told the boys are now friends and play football with each other.

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CNN wakes up and smells the coffee

CNN notices the "other" face of DV:

Tom said while sitting in a courtroom during his divorce, he realized he was a victim of abuse. "I looked up, and I see a poster saying 'Are you a victim of domestic violence?' And I start reading the questions, and tears started coming down. I said, 'damn.' "
...
According to a police report, Paul attacked his wife and threatened to kill her, but he said that is a lie. "She came running up to me with a knife, and I end up doing six months over it," he said.
...
"Men have gotten the point that it's not OK to do those things, but somehow it's turned around, and it's OK for women to do those things," LeClerc said.



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Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The three crimes of PAS

Jeff Opperman and David Israel have written a book about Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). The book is not yet available, but you can read the introduction and chapter synopses on their web site.

From the introduction:

PAS involves three crimes against the child:


The first crime is that the alienating parent doesn’t acknowledge that every child is one half of each parent. Every time the alienating parent tells the child how horrible the other parent is, the alienating parent is telling the child that half of him (or her) is horrible.

The second crime is that the alienating parent teaches the child that cutting off contact with people is an acceptable way to handle anger, hurt and disappointment. The world is full of people. One day the child will be an adult. The child will grow up without the appropriate coping skills to have normal, healthy relationships with other adults.

The third crime is that one-day the child will look back on the alienating parent’s behavior from an adult perspective. He or she will then realize that the alienating parent robbed the child of something very precious – the love and attention of the other parent. The child turned adult will realize that the trust placed in the alienating parent was misplaced. He or she will feel betrayed. At that point the adult will not just have one damaged relationship with a parent, but damaged relationships with both parents.


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Parental Abduction: the profoundest of parental alienation

Family abduction is perhaps the most absolute form of parental alienation. Not only is the child removed from a loved and loving parent, they may not ever see that parent again. In the US, nearly 250,000 kidnappings are reported each year, of which more than 75% are perpetrated by someone known to the child and some 20% are not located for months or years. That's about 37,000 children, per year. In some cases, the abduction is international - the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the USA has nearly 1,400 cases on its books, both into and out of the country.

MSNBC reports on a couple of cases. One in which the children were not found for two years, one of whom had been abandoned in a hotel room. Another, international, where the mother told her son that his father and grandparents had been killed in a car accident while she maintained an affair with the father's best friend. This "friend", a priest, persuaded the father to fund his repeated visits to her by claiming he was hunting for them.

Some cases involve multiple adbuctions and re-abductions. Many involve repeated relocations and name changes to avoid detection. All are tragedies, with long lasting effects on the victims - both the children and the left behind parents. Some grown-up abductee's stories can be found on Take Root, their pain is obvious.

Recovery from abduction can also be traumatic, especially if it has been some time, and few law enforcement agencies are equipped to make it any easier on the children. What is a child to think who has been told their father is dead, or their mother doesn't love them any more, and they have lived another life for years only to be whisked off one day to find that it was all a lie and they have been sought desperately all the time?

Sometimes, the abductor may be fleeing abuse, but far more often - in some 80% of cases - the motivations are much more malign: selfishness, anger or vengence on the other parent and nothing to do with concern for the children. Why else abandon one in a hotel room? Nevertheless, the abductor may try to excuse themselves with unjustifiable claims that they did it for the children.

And what of the "left behind parent"? Weeks, months, years or a lifetime of distress and worry, ruinous search campaigns and, even once the children are found, perhaps nothing can be done. If child abduction is the worst form of parental alienation, then international child abduction ratchets the agony up still another level. Finding the child and seeking his or her return is now a matter of dealing with two country's legal systems.

Josef Cannon of LA found his abducted daughter in Ireland and obtained an order for her return under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. In response, the mother disappeared again with the daughter assuming a different name & identity. By the time she was found again, the courts determined that the daughter had "settled" in her new home and refused to return her.

The Hague Convention is the international law, signed by 56 countries, which provides for the return of children illegally removed from one country to another. It is written to try to cover the broad differences in child custody laws found in various countries, but it is therefore subject to broad interpretation by the individual countries and particular instances in which it is applied. Moreover, it is applied in those countries to which the children are taken, not from which they are taken, and those countries may have attitudes and cultural prejudices which do not reflect those of the other. Nevertheless, for now, the Hague is the only remedy there is.

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Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Censorship works.

In Banned Near Boston Stephen Baskerville observes:

"Many people have trouble believing the harrowing tales of human rights abuses now taking place in American family courts and wonder why, if they are true, we do not hear more about it. Perhaps because in many jurisdictions it is a crime to criticize family court judges or otherwise discuss family law cases publicly. In other words, censorship works."

He's talking about the US, but there are other countries with the same practises.

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Monday, April 03, 2006

The conservative/feminist alliance

David Usher over at MND blogwonks writing about "Roe vs Wade for Men" makes some excellent points, not just on this particular case, but on parents' rights in general:

    Conservatives and radical feminists ... share the same essential philosophy: The divine prerogatives of motherhood somehow preempt the rights of fathers to have any say in marriage, childbearing and childrearing.... fathers should be nothing more than quiet indentured servants.

    [No fault divorce]: ...turn the family over to mothers, kick the husband out, and charge him for everything.

    The feminist sexual revolution contained the agitprop and tools enabling women to behave like men while ... holding women entirely innocent for what they do.

    the way out of poverty or becoming “liberated” has something to do with marrying the nearest child support office

    This is not to lay blame at the feet of women. What they are doing is an entirely legal, entitled activity.

    A middle-class family requires 1.4 incomes to be a middle-class family. The broken family cannot support two households and a bevy of lawyers without coming up short.

He tends towards bible-thumping in an effort to establish a emotional rather than entirely rational grounds for his position against the hypocrisies he identifies, but arrives at a conclusion that one needs no bible to appreciate:

    The operative goal is this: “We must now grant to fathers the same right to be in the family as we have granted to women in the workplace”.

To me this is simple logic, I need no excursion through ideas of "sin", the sanctity of marriage, and the ridiculous wars between ideological foes to realize that children have the need of both their parents in their lives.

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Sunday, April 02, 2006

End women's suffrage!

Isn't it awful what schoolboys will get up to? "tongue-in-cheek tomfoolery at the expense of younger girls apparently caught off guard". Oh, the horror! The humanity! How could they?! I'm sure the girls are traumatised for life! Lock 'em up and throw away the key! Run round and round in circles wailing incoherently and gnashing your teeth!

Was the video bumped because "it wasn't really fair", or because, could it be, no it couldn't possible be that it wasn't politically correct? Could it? Naw....

On the other hand, the publicity is priceless and the video well worth watching. Really, you shouldn't miss this! Follow that link!

Then join in with Fark.com in helping the teachers and school administrators develop a sense of humor, or at least perspective.

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