tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-161035382024-03-08T07:05:57.240-08:00Just another disenfranchised father<b>Documenting the destruction of fatherhood</b><br>
<b>Or: When did <i>you</i> last see your children?</b>John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.comBlogger348125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-78788942139774038282011-09-10T12:48:00.000-07:002011-09-10T12:51:38.319-07:00And what is the worst...?Among the many, many consequences of my experiences in recent years is that I notice now that I am not at all quick to judge anyone who stands in the public eye, accused of some crime or another. I have come to realize that "innocent until proven guilty" does not come naturally to the human animal. As a species, we prefer to bay for blood when it is offered, and we're not good at putting ourselves in the designated victim's shoes. That legal principle, a presumption of innocence, is woefully fragile.<br /><br />I came across an <a href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/09/03/jonathan-kay-on-conrad-black-and-his-new-book-a-man-in-full-pay-back-mode/">interview </a>in the Canadian National Post of Conrad Black, the ex news mogul brought low by fraud charges. He protests his innocence. (But they all do, don't they?) He has written a book. (They don’t all do that.) He claims “my contempt for almost all of them is almost, but not quite, beyond my powers of expression”. I know how he feels.<br /><br />Black is a Roman Catholic, and also says: “I accepted [the Pope’s] view that life is a cruciform, and we all suffer personally or through natural disasters, though we don’t know why. And only those people who have some faith imagine that there is a reason at all. It is a stern message, but it need not be a grim one — because it shows that there is some intrinsically worthwhile aspect to coping with suffering. At a certain point, there is no practical alternative. You either resist it and fight on or you roll over and give up.”<br /><br />I'm not sure that I entirely agree with this. It gets damned close to the approval of suffering, and I'm pretty sure there are some Roman Catholics, and others, out there who rationalize not being a good Samaritan on that basis. It seems to me that a humane duty is to do one's best to relieve suffering. On the other hand, I recognize Black's position as that of someone doing his best to make sense of a very painful phase of his life (and it is not over yet). I've been there. Again, I know how he feels.<br /><br />Buried in the comments, I found this:<br /><br /><blockquote>Conrad Black's story has implications for each of us that I haven't seen in the other posts here, so I'll mention one, the most important being what happens when someone you like/love/respect becomes embroiled in a difficult situation, suffering the loss of reputation.<br /><br />Whether that person is guilty or not, friends disappear out of fear of association. Partners/associates run for cover. When someone you know suddenly falls from grace, or fails as a person, what to do? In the confusion of the moment one learns vital lessons about oneself, and life in general.<br /><br />I don't mean to imply that I would run to the man's defence, if he were a friend. But I like to think I would, and Black's life is a lesson from which to learn either way how to react to such situations. It happens in ways to everyone.<br /><br />The worst part must be to see people you thought were friends, or who thought they were, betray you, and behind your back. Still, we have the worst system except for all the others. Imperfect people don't create perfect institutions; they run them, and what can one expect? Injustice is virtually guaranteed at some point, along with justice.<br /><br />What can one learn from the life of people like Conrad Black besides just guilt or innocence, which is not always clear? That is the question.<br /><br />Al<br /></blockquote><br />"In the confusion of the moment one learns vital lessons about oneself, and life in general. " And what do we learn? If we have an ounce of self-analysis, perhaps the limits of our courage, or that our values are profoundly informed by our self-interest, or that our integrity is as fragile as sugar glass in the face of our social fears. Some of us, a precious few, might find that we are worthy of the trust our friends place in us.<br /><br />Is the worst part the betrayal? I have to admit, it was brutally wounding on each occasion, but in the long term, I am not sure if it is the worst, although it is certainly close. In the long term, I think the worst might be the knowledge of the total waste that is characterized by such an episode. Only real evil would be pleased at such a thing (while publicly decrying it, of course).<br /><br />"Al" gives me some hope.<br /><br /><br />Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Fathers+Rights" rel="tag">Fathers Rights</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/" rel="tag"></a>John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-33072541881448228662011-05-30T08:28:00.000-07:002011-05-30T08:38:04.751-07:00Victimhood, a modern fable.She wears her Victimhood like a mantle of fine fox fur, complemented by the jewelry of vulnerability, decorated with the finery of poverty. <br /><br />The sycophants fall over themselves in their rush to her aid, bewitched and bedazzled by such a show so well matched to their ambition, such a wondrous opportunity to exercise their nobility for everyone to see. <br /><br />With pomp and heads held high they march him through their royal court, glorying in the success of their hunt, the fox run down, the vermin caught. <br /><br />Nobly, they cut her man down as, with a carefully crafted sob, she gestures his dispatch, “skin him alive, put him in chains, make him work, I want him no more”. <br /><br />The empress retires regally and puts on her new clothes - the same as the old, but now with one more layer of fur and a bold sash to show her bravery despite all odds. <br /><br />(In the corner, the only little boy who can say what she’s really wearing, struck dumb by the thought that she might do to him what she just did to his dad.)John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-20889149909999654202011-04-04T12:50:00.000-07:002011-04-04T13:15:50.853-07:00April is Parental Alienation Awareness Month.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.paawareness.org/"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 225px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lVtuTGRYYfw/TZohEVUf4oI/AAAAAAAAADo/MGJAz9vX1iU/s320/PreventChildAbuse.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591818245660205698" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"Parental alienation and hostile aggressive parenting deprive children of their right to be loved by and showing love for both of their parents. The destructive actions by an alienating parent or other third person (like another family member, or even a well meaning mental health care worker) can become abusive to the child - as the alienating behaviors are disturbing, confusing and often frightening, to the child, and can rob the child of their sense of security and safety leading to maladaptive emotional or psychiatric reactions."</span><br /><br />I'm beyond tired. Exhaustion fell behind years ago. I have seen it all: incompetent psychologists, willfully ignorant "friends", exploitative counsel, blatant judicial bias, rulings dripping with cynicism... You would not believe half of it.<br /><br />It hasn't all been bad, I've seen occasional sparks of genuine concern, some from the most unlikely of places. (Indeed, the likely places have been uniformly barren.) I have seen real concern and blessed with some truly caring support and competent counsel. But it has been a losing battle, and the few victories largely Pyrrhic. <br /><br />I have been places even I scarcely believe, both good and bad. I would love to spill it all out, but the audience is small and it would only be self destructive. ("Anything you say <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> be used against you...")<br /><br />There are not many options left. The damage has already been done. There was nothing I could do to stop it. I could only attempt to prevent it being worse.<br /><br />I found this today (<a href="http://aheartforjustice.com/blog/2010/10/07/a-franciscan-blessing-may-god-bless-you-with-discomfort-anger-tears-and-foolishness/">here</a>):<br /><blockquote><br />May God bless you with a restless discomfort<br>about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,<br>so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.<br /> <br />May God bless you with holy anger<br>at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,<br>so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.<br /> <br />May God bless you with the gift of tears<br>to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish,<br>so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.<br /><br />May God bless you with enough foolishness<br>to believe that you really can make a difference in this world,<br>so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.<br /></blockquote><br />Is this a blessing, or a curse?John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-1145326615051239622011-02-14T13:28:00.000-08:002011-02-14T13:31:32.419-08:00The tree and the wallTrying to raise a child while keeping him or her away from the other parent for reasons which have nothing to do with that parent's ability to help raise the child is like trying to grow a tree next to a wall which is buried deep in the ground. The tree gets only half the nutrients it needs. It will inevitably struggle and will probably end up stunted. We can only hope that eventually it will grow strong enough to slowly knock your wall down and take what it needs for itself. But it should not have to. In the end, all you have done is cause it pain.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-38012667065447157512010-09-26T20:12:00.000-07:002010-09-26T20:15:20.165-07:00On sufferingWhen a man first begins to suffer in a new way, he finds it all the worse for being unfamiliar and he is further distressed by not knowing how to respond. As he learns to cope, if he learns to cope, he expands his self understanding and repertoire of appropriate reactions to this and other forms of suffering. Only in this way can it be said that suffering brings wisdom, there are no other consolations.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-57308091856537266482010-09-12T10:55:00.000-07:002010-09-12T11:02:00.878-07:00Theories, thoughts and questionsStrife between the sexes is a natural damper on population growth. The denser the population and the more stable the environment, the worse it gets. The thinner the population and the more threatening the surroundings, the better things get.<br /><br />Manginas and white knights are just trying to get laid. As such, they're often worse than the enemy who is so obvious to them.<br /><br />Some of the worst white knights on god's green earth are male judges.<br /><br />Most psychologists are in it for the mind games, the power over their fellow men and women.<br /><br />Lady Gaga is a parody of Madonna, and hilarious with it. "I'm bluffin' with my muffin" and "I want to take a ride on your disco stick" - how can anyone hear that an not laugh? Sorry <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/7995428/Lady-Gaga-an-asexual-confected-copycat-claims-critic.html">Camille</a>, but your mistake was to take even Madonna seriously, never mind Lady Gaga.<br /><br />Why, oh why, do we give a damn. What. Actors. Think?<br /><br />War is the systematic elimination of young men from the reproductive pool, serving to reduce competition amongst alpha males . It also serves to weed out weaker men (and by weaker, I mean those that get killed, not necessarily those who are less strong).<br /><br />That scene in Jarhead where Peter Sarsgaard freaks out because he's ordered not to shoot an Iraqi is one of the creepiest things I've seen out of Hollywood in a long time.<br /><br />Housewife / Jobhusband?<br /><br />Whoever it was who came up with "the 5 stages of grief" did a real disservice for the recognition of the simple emotion of grief.<br /><br />Why is "anymore" one word and "each other" two?<br /><br />Under cover agents can feel that they have lost touch with their original identities. I wonder if this has happened to me over the last few years. I wonder if it happens to us all.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-6448472711437069002010-09-11T09:29:00.000-07:002010-09-11T09:42:06.985-07:00Eileen Clark, the other side of the storyA few days ago, I posted the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7981784/Mother-who-fled-failed-marriage-faces-extradition-battle.html">Telegraph story</a> on Eileen Clark to my news stream. I found it so typically one sided of them - a woman kidnaps her children, separating them from their father for 15 years and now a major paper comes to her defense once she is finally caught. The other side's story was painfully absent, despite an appearance on Dr. Phil some years ago. Today, however, that side is to be found in eloquent form in the comment section of an article in the <a href="http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/yourtown/oxford/8382978.Extradition_worry_for_family_as_FBI_puts_mum_on__most_wanted__list/?ref=rss">Oxford Mail</a>. I copy it here in its entirety because it speaks volumes about how a mother can twist the law, politics and the media to suit her own purposes regardless of what is right or legal:<br /><blockquote>"This is in regards to the story you wrote regarding Extradition worry for family as FBI puts mum on 'most wanted' list. There are always two sides to a story. I would like the chance to share the “other” side of the story. I am ready to speak out and am amazed that no one has sought out any answers from the other side of this article. I am the sister of John Clark. I was Eileen Sams Clark sister in law and I was also a bridesmaid at their wedding. The article discussed about my sister in law and my niece and nephews is a huge distorted mistruth. The picture posted in the Daily Telegraph and now in your newspaper of Eileen, Hayden and Chandler is the first time in fifteen years my brother, my parents,( Chandler, Rebekah and Hayden's grandparent's), my brother Clay and I have seen of them.<br /><br />First of all, Eileen Sams Clark has been on the FBI's wanted list for kidnapping and parental interference for almost the full 15 years since her abduction of my brothers children. Extraditing an American Citizen that broke US laws should be a simple procedure. Unfortunately, it appears that my sister in law and her advisors are using a political issue to try and help her AGAIN avoid due process here in the United States. Please do not misunderstand my intentions here. This specific extradition regarding my former sister in law is not about a British Citizen being extradited to America. This specific extradition regarding Eileen Sams Clark is about a US citizen, with a 15 year warrant out for her arrest being returned to America to face consequences of her actions. Eileen entered the UK because she was fleeing justice here in the United States. She was fully aware of all charges against her. Eileen entered a foreign country in order to FLEE prosecution. I believe, in my understanding that that means she is most likely in your country without proper documentation. Charges against Eileen were dropped in 2004 because the first grand jury transcripts mysteriously "disappeared". Two months later the State of New Mexico reissued the same exact warrant for her arrest. Her story so far was only a half truth.<br /><br />To this day, my brother and our family do not know why Eileen "fled" and kept the children from my brother. No one seems to ask Eileen the question that has haunted me and my family for years, “If she was so unhappy and so distraught, why didn't she just divorce my brother?" All Eileen had to do was file for divorce, share custody with my brother and everyone could have moved on in their lives.<br /><br />Unlike the Daily Telegraph article, your interview with Eileen explains that Eileen fled my brother because”she was too scared to remain in her marriage to husband John Clark when she left her New Mexico home in 1995." I cannot pretend to know what was ever truly in the mind of my sister in law. All I know is that my brother has been through a thorough background check from the FBI and the US Attorney’s office and there is no record of abuse whatsoever!<br /><br />In your article, it stated, "In 2009, on the advice of lawyers, Mrs. Clark’s sons Chandler, now 23, and Hayden, 20, contacted the Santa Fe Police Department to say they were not missing, but living safely and happily with their mother in the UK." This did happen. The local police station was approached and given information. For some reason, and we truly do not know why, this police officer went into the NCIC system and took Chandler and Hayden out of the system. The person that was contacted in Santa Fe police department had NO authority to remove anyone from the NCIC (missing children) list. The officer was presented with a formal letter. He never saw or observed Chandler or Hayden. For all he knew the guy down the street could have produced the exact same information. In order to have had the kids name removed, they would have had to appear with proper documentation, to the FBI and prove they were who they said they were. Their attempt to remove their names from the list could have been resolved if they had actually contacted the actual authorities that needed to be informed. Later, through attorneys for Hayden and Chandler, it was proposed to my brother that if he were to drop the charges against Eileen, he could then have the ability to be in contact with Chandler and Hayden.<br /><br />Throughout this ordeal is the consistent pattern of Eileen Sams Clark using the children as a wedge between her and my brother.<br /><br />What is so painful to realize for my family is the fact that any opportunity to have a decent relationship with these three children has been taken away. None of this had to happen. Eileen Sams Clark perpetrated this chain of events. All of this could have been resolved simply.<br /><br />My brother and Eileen were never formally divorced. My brother sought a divorce by abstention here in the US. That means that because Eileen was "in hiding" and could not be located, my brother had to post advertisements in the legal sections of local newspapers where he thought she might hide and post his intentions to legally divorce her because she abandoned the marriage. This took a year to legally accomplish. There was never ANY joint custody decided through a divorce at all. My brother was never sure that Eileen even knew that they were legally divorced until he confronted Eileen's father through the Dr. Phil show in 2005.<br /><br />We have hoped for years of wishing to share a holiday with ALL of us together. We have always looked forward to having an opportunity to knowing my brothers children. Speaking just for myself, I would love them to meet my sons and to share pictures and videos we have of them when they were young. We are a decent law abiding family. We wish this could find an end and we might be able to reconnect with the children.<br /><br />My family is like most families. We value family and the strength you get from that family.<br /><br />My former sister in law has broken many laws. There are consequences for her decision to do what she did. My former sister in law has family members that are attorneys. She was and still is, fully aware of the consequences of her actions. Much of the information given to you in this article by her is inaccurate and flat out untrue.<br /><br />My parents and I have remained silent all of this time with the great hope that we might be able to reunite with my brother’s children. My former sister in law has made so many false accusations that it is hard to keep them straight. Because Eileen has chosen to USE the political climate to fight extradition for wrongs she knew she perpetrated is unacceptable to my parents and me. My brother seeks to reunite and connect with his children. Unfortunately, to do that, his ex wife has to face the charges against her. Eileen is no victim here. My brother and the three children are the victims. I can only imagine the untruths she has told these three young adults. They have only had her to rely upon for all these years. Of course they will come to her defense, just as most children would. These three children were much to young to remember anything of their father when they were cruelly separated from him.<br /><br />After all this time, I wish things for everyone concerned could have been different. My parents and I still would love the opportunity to reach out to these young adults and learn about their lives. We would relish the chance to share our lives with them. Their cousins would love the same opportunity as well."</blockquote>John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-22634266757789939772010-06-10T18:02:00.000-07:002010-06-10T20:01:36.097-07:00Domestic Violence and the World Cup: a Myth is Born<a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/TBGjoaz-1tI/AAAAAAAAADM/CIeUCxzyvGU/s1600/RealMan.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 101px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/TBGjoaz-1tI/AAAAAAAAADM/CIeUCxzyvGU/s200/RealMan.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481342136274048722" border="0" /></a>Yet another campaign against domestic violence. Here we go again. What have they come up with this time? A string of photographs of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/celebritynews/7811220/Real-Man-male-celebrities-pose-in-Cosmopolitan-for-a-Womens-Aid-campaign-against-domestic-abuse.html?image=1">celebrity men wearing T-shirts</a> printed with the legend "I'm a real man" and, er, tiaras and butterfly wings and, yes, rose tinted glasses, courtesy of Cosmo, that bastion of unbiased and in-depth reporting. Sigh! Am I the only one who gets creeped out by this sort of thing?<br /><br />But wait, the caption under the second photo says this: "Research has shown that big sporting events such as the World Cup can result in increased rates of domestic violence. During the 2006 World Cup, reports of domestic abuse increased by nearly a third (30%) on England match days." That's a new one, but it does sound sort of familiar. Ah yes, that "noble lie" of the bloody massacre of American womanhood every <a href="http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp">Superbowl Sunday</a> (yes folks, that's a Snopes.com link).<br /><br />Poking around a bit, I find the World Cup version has got around a bit already. The numbers are mostly between 25% and that "nearly a third" from the Telegraph, but the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/10258945.stm">BBC </a>goes as far to say that the Greater Manchester Police think it could be as much as 1000% (yes three zeroes) as it tells us about a poster campaign (football shirt with "strikeher" written on the back, geddit? Oh never mind) with a photo of yet another celebrity, but they got the year wrong: 1996, which wasn't even a world cup year. They get the year right and are a bit less hyperbolic in an <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8703030.stm">earlier article</a> but Auntie Beeb wants to be very sure that all you nasty boys will behave on match days, the white knights in their uniforms and wigs are just lining up to teach you a lesson.<br /><br />A Google News search shows up a whole slew of local papers singing the same tune and, what's this? <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news195410830.html">Physorg.com</a>? They're a pretty serious bunch, and they're at it too. (But how carefully can they check up on the 100+ articles a day they publish?) They even quote a (female) professor who studies domestic violence. Then it must be true, right?<br /><br />Well, not quite. But like all the best lies, there is a thread of truth. Maybe. Well, in fact, I don't know, and I'll bet no-one else does either.<br /><br />I found the "Home Office report" they're all getting this from. Not on the Home Office website. I tried, but, well, it's not apparently designed to give you anything really useful. I found it <a href="http://broken-rainbow.org.uk/research/Domestic-Violence-10731.pdf">here</a> (pdf) , on a website dedicated to tackling domestic violence in the LBGT community, of all places. It's called "Lessons Learned from the Domestic Violence Enforcement Campaigns 2006", and it's appalling. In fact, it's embarrassing. If this is the quality of "research" that was put out by the Labour government, well let's just say that the Tories and Lib-Dems can't do any worse.<br /><br />It's signed by ex-MP Vernon Coaker and ex-Attorney General Patricia (Baroness) Scotland. Well, at least they're gone. But of course we can be sure they didn't actually write it. Whoever did write it knows how to handle typesetting software, but otherwise that's about it. But anyway, what did they do? They carried out two data collection exercises involving 46 and 56 "basic command units" (BCU) spread around the country. Remember those numbers, we'll come back to them. I'm guessing that a BCU is jargon for a police district. Each exercise is called a "Domestic Violence Enforcement Campaign" or DVEC (no, they didn't go around forcing people to commit domestic violence, be quiet at the back). These doubtless expensive campaigns appear to be justified on the basis of one short academic article finding a link between sports events and domestic violence (you can read it <a href="http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/11/2/69">here</a>, the registration's free -but I ask you, since when did Brits start calling football soccer?). The two data collection periods are called DVEC 1, which took place over February and March, and DVEC World Cup, which took place over June 2006 to coincide with the beautiful games. Note that the first was twice as long as the second, another important number.<br /><br />They're careful to make sure we know what they mean by domestic violence, and they're pretty inclusive:<br /><blockquote>Any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse (psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional) between adults, aged 18 or over, who are or have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender and sexuality.<br /></blockquote>Yup, there are those words "psychological" and "emotional". Look at her sideways and you're a perp. Look at her sideways twice and you're a repeat offender. Ah, but I misrepresent them, this is regardless of gender. (Yeah, sure.)<br /><br />There's a lot of blurb, but eventually you'll get to section 9 where the meat starts to appear. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/TBGYnItFb4I/AAAAAAAAACs/zxuKqqafjN0/s1600/Fig9.1.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 108px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/TBGYnItFb4I/AAAAAAAAACs/zxuKqqafjN0/s200/Fig9.1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481330019605507970" border="0" /></a>But what's this? Figure 9.1 charts the number of incidents recorded per 1,000 population in DVEC 1 in each BCU. But, er, the range of numbers goes from 100 to 700. Per 1,000. That's as much as 10% to 70% of every man, woman and child in the district. That can't be right. Even if they're all repeat offenders, with a guess at once incident per month, and they mean per 1,000 <strike>potential perps</strike> married men, then that's still as many as 35% of them were naughty over those two months. I don't buy it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/TBGbQwx8ZiI/AAAAAAAAAC0/aPHTCd5J6Cg/s1600/Fig9.45.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 155px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/TBGbQwx8ZiI/AAAAAAAAAC0/aPHTCd5J6Cg/s200/Fig9.45.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481332933761197602" border="0" /></a>Then there are Figures 9.4 and 9.5 showing the number of offences, broken down by type, recorded in DVEC 1 and DVEC World Cup. The distributions look about the same but again, look at the ranges of data. DVEC 1 goes up to 4,000, DVEC world cup goes up to 1,200. DVEC 1 was twice as long as DVEC World Cup, and used 46 versus 56 BCUs. It's pretty easy, but I'll do the math for you: that means approximately 44 ABH (actual bodily harm) incidents per month per BCU in DVEC 1 and 21 incidents per month per BCU in DVEC World Cup, and the other incident types follow similar proportions. Uh-oh. Do you see what I see? The rate of incidents during the World Cup period is about half of that of the control period. Well well well, perhaps the World Cup is actually good for <span style="font-style: italic;">controlling</span> domestic violence!<br /><br />But we still haven't got to the bottom of the myth yet. That's to be found in Figure 9.6 and Table 9.1 below it. Nice and neatly we have laid out what are claimed to be the "Number of recorded incidents on each major match day of the World Cup Finals against the average number on the same weekday recorded during DVEC 1 where BCUs recorded activity in both campaigns". Now read carefully here, they say "where BCUs recorded activity in both campaigns", that presumably that only regions who collected data in each campaign were included which means that the 46:56 ratio doesn't matter.<br /><br />But let's look at the chart, which does seem to show that the incident rate is higher on match days, especially<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/TBGgM9aTblI/AAAAAAAAAC8/zwDL8bgTPaI/s1600/Fig9.6.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 194px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/TBGgM9aTblI/AAAAAAAAAC8/zwDL8bgTPaI/s200/Fig9.6.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481338365990366802" border="0" /></a> when it is considered that the overall incident rate in DVEC 1 is supposedly twice that of DVEC World Cup. But wait. There are two Sundays in there, and they are different for DVEC World Cup <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> DVEC 1. But that can't be right. The legend says these are the average numbers on the same weekday. They should be the same! But they're different, by about a factor of 2.5. Now isn't that odd? What does this chart mean?<br /><br />My confusion becomes deeper still when I go to Figure 9.7 and Table 9.2. The legends are exactly the same, but all the numbers are different! The range of numbers of incidents is half as much as the previous figure and the difference between the two Sundays is now a factor of almost 3!<br /><br />Which of these two charts are we to believe? And what are we to make of the numbers for Sunday? <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">THE DATA DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE!</span> Well, frankly, I don't think I'm going to believe any of it and the raw data isn't available to check. If anyone finds it, do let me know, I'd love to do a proper analysis and see if we've got anything more than a bunch of made up numbers for political purposes. This is an important issue, and the authors of this rubbish ought to be ashamed of themselves.<br /><br />To polish things off, I'll quote the conclusion:<br /><blockquote>"The data collected during the World Cup DVEC is supportive of the previous research linking major sporting events to increases in violent crime and in this case domestic violence. Major sporting events do not cause DV, as perpetrators are responsible for their actions, but the levels of alcohol consumption linked to the highly charged emotional nature of those events seems to increase the prevalence of such incidents."<br /></blockquote>Well, if cause-and-effect is a real phenomenon, and if you can link major sporting events to increases in domestic violence, then I'm afraid you would actually have to say that the former do indeed cause the latter, but it is not at all clear that they <span style="font-style: italic;">have</span> linked major sporting events to DV. What they have done is create a snow job of misinformation. If the link is present in the original data, we really have no idea at all. Of course, that doesn't stop the media from going all loopy over bogus numbers and pumping the misandry for all it's worth.<br /><br />There you have it, gentlemen, a new DV myth in the making. Enjoy your World Cup.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-67200147101385270572010-03-20T10:49:00.000-07:002010-03-20T12:27:15.239-07:00He Said, She SaidA pair of articles in the Times today illustrate a lot of the shallow thinking which pervades modern divorce and perpetuate its many problems. About halfway through writing my commentary, I suddenly became aware that the two unrelated divorces concerned could very easily be the same divorce seen from the two poles.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">He Said</span></span><br /><br />In <a href="http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article7068896.ece">Divorce and separation: a man's view</a>, Fiona Macdonald-Smith "talks to" Steve Davies, author of a handbook for divorced fathers. "Talks to" is the newspaper's phrasing, I guess that "interview" is too pretentious or something, but the article is entirely presented in his first-person, with no quotes and no indication that his words are passing through a woman's mental filter unless you read the blurb at the end. But we shouldn't be surprised as these days men cannot speak for themselves and must do so through a woman, especially in the mainstream media.<br /><br />Indeed, this may go a good way to explaining "his" very first sentence:<br /><blockquote>"The trouble with men is that we don’t talk."</blockquote>The article starts with an apparently self-delivered put down for men. Sigh. Listen, girls, hasn't it ever occurred to you that there are very good reasons for this, and quite possibly not the standard canard that men are supposed to tough out difficulty in silence? We are a gender that likes to fix things when they go wrong, not immediately get all emotionally incontinent. Talking, for us, is often an exercise in collaborative problem solving. If nothing can be done, then bellyaching achieves little more than the partial venting of emotion. You might think that's the best way to go about it, but we have other ways too, such as sports and getting slammed with our mates, or, God help us, thinking. We don't like insoluble problems, we like to fix things, so even listening to our friends complain about your behavior towards us makes us want to help him shake it off and deal with it, i.e. take action, not endlessly theorize about your motivations and emotions. The inability to act makes us all uncomfortable. Learn that.<br /><br />Predictably, Davies' interviewer reports that his primary source of advice on how to deal with the situation comes from his mum. The temptation to launch into snide comments about being a mummy's boy is strong, but here I'll<span style="font-style: italic;"> <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span>give you this, you do sympathize well and a mother is unlikely to put her son down. Plus she's a pretty good line into the tortuous female psyche that often surfaces under these circumstances.<br /><blockquote>"If there had been no children ... [involved] ... it would have been a clean break. But when you have children, it means your relationship has to continue."</blockquote>Actually, no. When you have children, <span style="font-style: italic;">you </span>have to continue the relationship, she doesn't. Most of the time, she's got the kids anyway. If she doesn't want to make any effort at continuing the relationship "for the sake of the kids" there is precious little to stop her. Indeed, if she really wants to terminate contact between you and your children as well as with herself, it is in her best interest to create as much trouble as possible. Why? Because the divorce industry's benighted attitude towards conflict in a divorce involving children is to insulate them from it as much as possible. This means cutting your contact. The more conflict she creates, the less you see of your children. Really, check it out. If you think some women won't do this, grow up, ask around.<br /><br />Of course, this leads into Davies' interviewer's next line: "I would say to any divorced man, don’t get angry." I can't argue with that, because male anger is viewed as something pathological, even when it is entirely and magnificently justified. The people in the court do not live in the same world as us. Male emotion is to be repressed or it will be used against him, no matter how great the provocation. Her? She is <span style="font-style: italic;">expected </span>to emote like there's no tomorrow at every possible opportunity. If she gets upset, everyone will start looking for someone to blame. That's you.<br /><br />We're advised to keep a diary "it may be useful in court". Yes, it might, but it probably won't. She is expected to behave completely irrationally. Recording this and telling the court is really just annoyingly irrelevant, most of the time. But what the hey, keep a diary if it makes you feel better.<br /><br />In any article about divorce, we've got to find space for the claim that life afterwards is just marvelous, everything is just great and this is no exception: "it's a fantastic life. You can devote yourself entirely to your kids when you have them — and have quality time for yourself." It might have a silver lining, guys, but it's still a cloud. We find out about that in the next paragraph: "Eventually I sent her an e-mail, saying: 'I give up. I’ll see Lauren when you want me to see her.'" And with that he abdicates any possible authority he might have regarding her (not his) daughter and any hope of a natural parental relationship with her. He becomes forced to bend over backwards to make sure he's available when her mother feels like letting them see each other and to never do anything which might threaten his severely compromised relationship his daughter. He becomes no more than a favored uncle, or a slightly masculine girlfriend (he describes her relationship with her as "fabulous"!).<br /><br />Then there's<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >She Said</span><br /><br />in which Justine Picardie favors us with her opinions on: "<a href="http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article7068871.ece">Divorce and separation: a woman's view</a>". No intervening interviewer here. And no problems with limited self expression either, as her article is three times the length of his, even though each paragraph could quite easily be reduced to a single sentence. The first, for example, boils down to her shock at the divorce. The second paragraph condenses to "there's a lot of it about", and includes an obligatory and irrelevant celebrity culture reference. One divorcing Hollywood couple does not a social trend make. But in case we're led to think that she doesn't understand the logical fallacy of argument from anecdote, she's quick to discuss the statistics. Er, well, she refers to them anyway. Oh, OK, she rubbishes government statistics as "notoriously unreliable" which are apparently "like habitual philanderers". Geddit? Oh never mind.<br /><br />The particular government statistic she cares about is an apparent drop in the frequency of divorce, but completely fails to observe the accompanying drop in the incidence of marriage, but never mind.<br /><br />Eventually, we get to the kids, assuming you've been able to wade this far through all the emoting (all the while remembering that it is supposed to be men's weakness to avoid). Of course, there is no mention of the need to work to maintain a good relationship with them. That is a given. But to give her her due, I have to recognize her claimed desire to have them understand that their absent father still loves them, even if it does segue into a stream of weepy tales about how devastated she is, albeit without direct reference to the culprit.<br /><br />(Don't miss the obligatory comment on how she has to work to pay the mortgage. No parallel comment on child support. If he wasn't paying, I'm sure there would be, and if he is it is important that it not be recognized just to make sure where our sympathies should lie.)<br /><br />Really, though, sarcasm aside, I can relate to her general state and how it must have disrupted her life. I have and continue to feel my own pain at what I am going through, but as a man I have long since recognized the pointlessness of expressing it. My sympathy drops to a new low, however, when I come across "the anecdotal consensus is that more women in their 40s are being abandoned by their husbands", which is nothing more than gossip dignified by its presence in a national newspaper. Perhaps she needs to be reminded of the very real fact that the majority of divorces are now initiated by women (at a ratio of 2:1 in the US, I'm not sure about the UK).<br /><br />In the inevitable upbeat finish, we learn that she has many divorcee friends whose lives have begun again "as well as sustaining the deep bonds of parenthood" and for all this statement's gender neutrality and from its content, I have a deep suspicion that there are not many fathers amongst those friends. She believes that upon divorce is when it is discovered "what it might mean to be a grown woman, rather than a longstanding wife". Implication: being a longstanding wife is not compatible with being a grown woman? Conclusion: divorce is painful, but worthwhile?<br /><br />I agree with her that divorce is a terrible thing, especially when you are the one being divorced rather than the one doing it. But in the face of the grotesque advantages that women and mothers now possess when placed in that situation, I can only see all the breast beating which constitutes the vast majority of this article as so much manipulation and show for the crowd.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-8107571292838214822010-01-24T13:53:00.000-08:002010-01-24T17:05:21.498-08:00Two booksI have just finished reading two books: Cormac McCarthy's "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Road-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/B001OV2GRE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264380182&sr=8-2">The Road</a>" and Alec Baldwin's "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Ourselves-Journey-Through-Fatherhood/dp/B002BWQ55E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264381308&sr=1-1">A Promise to Ourselves</a>".<br /><br />"The Road" is surrounded by a great deal of hype, and I am not entirely sure why. It is a depressing tale, set against a backdrop of a standard post-apocalyptic world remarkable only for the implausible proposition that everything is dead except for a few humans surviving on cannibalism or whatever they can scavenge from the remains of our extinct civilization. In such a world, the only realistic future for anyone, including the two protagonists, is death by murder or starvation. (Nevertheless, McCarthy ultimately takes the easy, Hollywood-conscious way out and leaves us with a shred of hope cutting against the grain of everything that goes before. Oh well, such is the state of literary integrity.)<br /><br />I started reading "The Road" during a lazy afternoon at a friend's house. He warned me to be careful, or I'd be hooked and indeed, I took it home with me and finished it that night. It is a page turner, of the kind that drags you along despite it's apparent bleakness.<br /><br />Why is it so popular? I don't really know. It is certainly well written, but it is so depressing, even with the ending and it's dose of artificial sweetener, that it is hard to see what attracts the fans apart from a base and all too common human need to spectate upon the pain of others.<br /><br />But it does have one thing that is painfully rare in our culture and that is a careful and honest portrayal of a relationship between a man and his small son which is not tainted by the threat of violence, actual violence or sexual perversion. The man's need to protect his son, his anguish that he may ultimately be unable to and the child's vulnerability are palpable. This alone may account for the book's popularity. We are so starved for the truth that we will take it even against the most desperate and despairing of backgrounds, perhaps even especially so. As such, I am happy to entertain the idea that all the hype, for once, reflects something important going on in the collective unconscious. I haven't seen the movie yet, so here's to hoping I feel the same about that and also, if I am right, other authors, screenwriters and journalists will start to notice too.<br /><br /> Alec Baldwin paints a picture of a different kind of apocalypse, that of the American family courts. To the cognoscenti of that bottomless mire of human failure, there are few surprises in "A Promise to Ourselves", but to the many of his fans reading it, and perhaps a few curious others (especially those ghoulishly looking for further detail on that phone call), there might be some enlightenment as to the ongoing mess the courts are making of families the world over. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, the book is missing something.<br /><br />Baldwin is clearly walking a line. He knows that trashing his ex is likely to achieve the exact opposite of bringing her into line and won't help anyone else either. Nevertheless, the few facts sprinkled through the book paint an adequate picture for anyone with half a brain. Basinger is clearly one twisted woman, and perhaps even likes it that way, enjoying watching Baldwin squirm under the magnifying glass heat of the family court, regardless of the consequences for her daughter.<br /><br />As Baldwin puts it himself, in possibly the strongest statement of the entire book: "Now we see, incontrovertibly, that the mother's hatred of the father is greater than her love for the child."<br /><br />And that's the problem, this is the strongest statement in the book, and it needs so much more than that. The systematic removal of fathers from their children's lives while simultaneously forcing the father to tear himself to pieces trying to get near them or blame him because he doesn't is of such astonishing cruelty that true passion is needed to express it. But passion is too easily translated into anger by Baldwin's enemies, he knows that, so he daren't say anything too strong.<br /><br />There are times when getting angry is entirely appropriate, it should be understood as the right response to the insult that is family court and the weasels that profit from it instead of diagnostic of a pathology in the insulted parent. Only the truly pathological can make that outrageous claim, and they are in charge.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-79791005281906273772009-04-04T13:00:00.000-07:002009-04-04T13:09:23.973-07:00A fantasy of domestic violence.<img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 121px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2txZCeakGvE/Sde8tEMGzfI/AAAAAAAAAB8/hN5U5jUSMp4/s200/Clipboard01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320928967166184946" /><b>Kiera</b> is an actress. Attractive, vivacious and well-liked, she works hard for her money.<br /><br />At the end of a long day, it's late, she's tired and happy to get away (although not as late as many of the all male crew who have to stay and pack away, prepare for the next day, and close up). She's in such a hurry to leave that she waits until she's driving to take off her makeup. But is she really happy to get away?<br /><br />Back home in a pristine new block of apartments, all nice, clean glass and pine surfaces, she steps into her place and calls out "Sweetheart?". But then she notices the broken mirror and trail of blood. She doesn't seem surprised and there's no cry of "My God, what happened?!" so we're driven to realize that this is nothing particularly unusual.<br /><br />Sweetheart comes around the corner and looks at her. He's bleeding from his right hand, she notes he's hurt and hands him a rag. He says something about her being in a leading role and asks if it feels real. "Gentle heart, please" she says "it's my job", and he throws the rag in her face.<br /><br />Bizarrely, she turns and looks at you and says "Sorry, we didn't agree to that, that wasn't in the script". What? But before we're given the chance to figure out what's going on, he hits her, with his open left hand, knocking her to the floor, where her cheek is already bleeding - it could be his blood, but we're clearly meant to think it's hers, so we'll just go with that and assume he must have been holding a weapon. "Please, I didn't agree to this!" she cries and shrieks as he pulls her hair, and then starts kicking her.<br /><br />The camera pulls back, and we see that the kitchen where he kicks and kicks her is actually a TV set, but the kicking goes on and on as fantasy blends with reality and the tagline "isn't it time someone called cut?" appears before a cut to black.<br /><br />Well, yes, it is time someone called cut, because this little vignette has about as much to do with reality as CSI or Doctor Who. What is the point? It is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctoZbeD-GlY">an ad for the "women's aid" charity in the UK</a> - they want you to spend 2 pounds a month on them to help them stop "two women a week" from dying from domestic violence. I'm willing to bet a lot more than 2 pounds a month that none of those 104 women a year are even remotely like Kiera Knightley.<br /><br />I know for sure that the unknown number of men who die at the hands of their partner every year are nothing at all like her.<br /><br />The aching irony of the tagline is clearly unintentional. It really is time someone called "cut" on this kind of thing. Domestic violence is hardly ever, perhaps never, very much like this. Yes, there are deeply disturbed, controlling men and women out there, and yes, there are purely innocent victims who keep coming back to them and martyring themselves to their problems, doing nothing to provoke them and barely making any protest at all as they're used as a punchbag time and time again.<br /><br />That is the fantasy, anyway. It is the TV studio's conception of domestic violence - malignant, inhuman perpetrator and innocent helpless victim - aided and abetted by those who would sell this strawman to us so they can continue to fight their already over-financed crusade against it. Because anyone who's had any contact at all with real human interpersonal problems knows that it is a blatant, even criminal misrepresentation of reality. Grossly simplistic, it is nothing more than cynical manipulation of a gullible public.<br /><br />"There is no excuse for domestic violence" is one of those phrases that sounds good, but says nothing. Like "in the best interests of the children", it is a magic incantation which allows you to do anything at all to the designated scapegoat, starting with dehumanizing stereotyping and caricaturing, moving to demonizing and then finally locking him away in a real or metaphorical jail built from an imposed idea of what actually happened and which probably has very little to do with reality.<br /><br />Any woman identifying with Keira Knightley in that ad clearly has only a very tenuous grasp of reality anyway. I'm sorry girls, but the bitter truth is that not many of you look very much like her, even after you've spent hours making yourself over (moreover, I'm not sure I'd want you to). Likewise, how often does your boyfriend make an unprovoked, brutal attack against you like that? Most likely, he's never done more than yell at you, possibly pushed you away, as you yelled at him. But no worries, that's enough for you to count yourself one of the one in four British women who will supposedly suffer domestic violence. Feel free to quote the number without citation, everyone else does.<br /><br />No man is going to consciously identify with the interestingly faceless aggressor in the ad. (His facelessness is a dead giveaway, he doesn't really exist.) More likely any reasonably normal man will feel his protective juices rising and, if he were there, look for ways to stop the attack on Keira. But a man's protective urges are always double-edged, based, as they inevitably are, on a deep-down realization of his own potential for violence. Thus, should anyone see something of themselves in him, it is probably with some considerable amount of internal cringing, unless he happens to be psychopathic. But a smart psychopath would probably be much more devious than that and a dumb one much more obvious to everyone. <br /><br />The same, by the way, would go for women, if the roles are ever reversed.<br /><br />But we're not supposed to identify with Keira or her attacker. We're the audience, on the outside, looking in, not part of this problem. We're supposed to get all generously protective of her and hand money to people who hopefully, but by and large probably don't, have a more sophisticated idea of what really goes on in a conflictive relationship.<br /><br />In the meantime, the same old stereotyped, caricatured, criminally simplistic message gets peddled to the gullible public, reinforcing their prejudices of domestic violence and building up their approval of a society which pillories a man at the merest hint from a woman that he might be less than perfect, handing her the perfect weapon with which to control and abuse him.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-32232161620978249772009-03-30T20:53:00.000-07:002009-03-30T20:54:59.827-07:00An incomplete meditation on good and evil, innocence and wisdomWisdom and innocence are incompatible. Innocence implies ignorance of evil. Wisdom implies knowledge of it. To be knowledgeable of evil, one must have either taken part in it or been its victim. Knowledge of evil cannot be theoretical, or it is not properly understood, only suspected.<br /><br />Understanding of evil does not imply power to control it - as one can understand the laws of physics, one nevertheless cannot control them, one is only beholden to them. To understand evil does not mean that one has the power to defeat it, or bend it to one's own will. The most that one can hope to achieve is to manage its effects, either by limiting them or taking advantage of them. Clearly good lies in limiting evil's effects and evil in encouraging them.<br /><br />Claims to wisdom are suspect. To claim to be wise is to presume to know what one does not know. The core of wisdom is recognition of ignorance. Wisdom is aspired to, not possessed.<br /><br />Innocence is inevitably surprised by evil. Because an innocent does not know evil he or she cannot recognize its advance. Evil is known by its intentions and its effects. An innocent, once exposed to evil, is contaminated by it, and no longer innocent. Lack of innocence implies guilt. Wisdom implies guilt. <br /><br />Guilt does not imply evil. Evil is celebration of guilt. Good is not so seduced. Good knows guilt and regrets it. <br /><br />Just as innocence is ignorant of evil, it is also ignorant of good. As such, innocence is only potentially good, or evil. Innocence must be lost to achieve that potential, or stain. One must suffer the effects of evil, or taste it and reject it, in order to become good.<br /><br />Good and evil are subtle. Both seem to disappear under close inspection, leaving nothing to identify one way or the other. Good and evil are not objectively real, they are not identifiable substances. As such, they are vulnerable to claims of the supernatural, but that is no more than an appeal to maintain ignorance. To choose to remain ignorant of evil is to give it free rein. To choose to remain ignorant of good is to betray it.<br /><br />It may be more difficult to understand and identify good than evil.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-86606957570275762542009-03-20T13:01:00.000-07:002009-03-20T13:08:29.287-07:00Semper FiI once heard it said that women do not have the same sense of honor as do men. It has been too many years for me to remember who said it or in what context, but it has stuck with me. That is not to say that I think it is necessarily true. Too often claims like that are interpreted to mean all women and all men and it does not define what is meant by honor, a quality which is itself very much open to interpretation.<br /><br />With all that spineless qualification said, however, I now find it quite plain that western society does not hold women to the same level of honorable behavior as it does men. Yes, I am fully aware that this statement can be read in two ways. I feel secure enough in the claim to make it without reservation and rarely do we see it as plainly demonstrated as here: <a href="http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/mar/14/1m14marine01421-marine-free-after-conviction-tosse/?zIndex=67020">Marine free after conviction tossed out</a>.<br /><br />Embroiled in a nasty divorce and custody case, a man's wife claimed he "spousal-raped" her some years before. Despite an apparent complete lack of evidence, he went to jail for 17 years of which he served ten before the appeals court finally got around to reviewing the case and kicking it out. The only real novelty here is that the whole thing was before a military court because the man was and is a US marine.<br /><br />A number of points leap out at me:<br /><br />- Sergeant Brian Foster appears to bear no grudge against the system which, on the word of a completely unreliable accuser, took away ten years of his life. Far from it, he appears to see this as a success in that the military court eventually pulled its finger out and did the right thing. I guess this all depends on your degree of indoctrination, or what you are comparing against.<br /><br />- An army prosecutor declared this to be "a black eye for the military justice system". A man loses ten years of his life and the "system" gets a black eye. Clearly, this was not a fair fight.<br /><br />- This was a military court, so my guess is that the vast majority of the people involved were men. One can hardly claim, as is so often the case, that the "patriarchy" was looking after its own. Quite the reverse, in fact. The powers that be tore their victim to shreds and tried to forget about him. Was this a blatant case of scapegoating in an atmosphere of hysteria against the "rapist" male? Are we talking about a bunch of testosterone-laden men wound up to destroy one of their own by a manipulative woman? Is, in point of fact, the "patriarchy" actually the opposite of what it is supposed to be - more destructive to non-alpha males, who are inevitably the majority, than to any woman?<br /><br />- The mother has lived nowhere near Fort Leavenworth, where Foster was jailed, nor Texas, where his parents live. There is no mention in the entire article as to whether Foster has even spoken to his boys during his incarceration. Indeed, no-one seems to give a damn that the mother has taken off with the two boys and completely eradicated their father from their lives, they're not even sure where she is. I don't know about you, but I call that child abduction. (Remember, this was a man, a soldier, who fought for custody of his children, not someone who wanted to walk away from them.)<br /><br />- Foster hopes to get back pay, but will be happy to serve as a Marine until his retirement. “The courts," he says, "which I joined the Marine Corps to defend, ultimately made me free. It just took a little bit of time.” Frankly, the military ought to be falling over itself to give him whatever he wants.<br /><br />By the way...<br /><br />I have been quiet for a while. A number of anniversaries have passed. I have still not seen my son. Life goes on. I distract myself as I can. Perhaps I am a little better able to cope with the ongoing loss, but that does not make it any less of an outrage, nor am I any less committed to whatever I can do to put anything right. Like Foster, I am not fighting a fair fight.<br /><br />I have received a few comments on my blog recently. Most tragically from a woman who found <a href="http://disenfranchisedfather.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-talk-to-disenfranchised-father.html">"How to talk to a disenfranchised father" </a>and who expressed her gratitude for it from a woman in the same shoes. I feel for her because if there is so little compassion for a father who is shut out of his children's lives by the courts, even less will be found for a mother. This may seem odd for an institution so dominated by the idea of mother-as-victim, but the fact is that this system generates invisible victims in the form of non-custodial parents, whether fathers or mothers, at the behest of vindictive custodial parents, all in the name of protecting a meaningless concept labeled "the best interests of the child".<br /><br />I've also gotten some flames, particularly and unsurprisingly, in <a href="http://disenfranchisedfather.blogspot.com/2006/08/feminist-bashing-rant.html">"Feminist-bashing, a rant"</a>. I don't publish these comments in fair trade for the typical feminist's blog's inability to suffer dissent either. Nevertheless, there is a common thread in that the commentary is typically an ad hominem attack from someone who is not interested to understand my point of view and hasn't noticed that the posting is a carefully constructed point-by-point reply to a newspaper article on feminism. More pointedly expressed, the article is a long whinge from a feminist and my reply an extended "quit whining!" exhortation to grow up and out of it. Fair's fair grrlz, you complain unreasonably, you get flamed.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-82046538484339143122009-01-07T17:27:00.000-08:002009-01-07T17:52:34.536-08:00Judge not...I love it when this happens - two news sources giving very different views on the same topic and between them being embarrassingly and inadvertently revealing of what's really going on. With a little careful cross-examination and cynical spin, quite a different picture can emerge.<br /><br />Let's start with the BBC, who report on a review of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7816250.stm">why "so few female" lawyers become judges</a> (guess the author's gender). At first blush, we hear that it's because of the culture of "male self-confidence and intellectual posturing." Gosh, isn't that awful? All those horrible old men blustering around and going on about some incomprehensible thing or another. What appalling company, eh?<br /><br />But, but, waitaminute, isn't self confidence supposed to be a virtue? And "intellectual posturing" sounds a lot like sour grapes from someone who can't understand what's going on. Perhaps something lies behind the eye of the beholder, such as insecurity, maybe, and a nagging suspicion that she's not smart enough?<br /><br />The piece goes on to suggest all that this dreadful self-confidence and general intelligence will remain "until there are sufficient women appointed to change the look of the environment". <br /><br />Neurosis and a bit of dumbing down is what they need. Call in the women!<br /><br />Hey, they said it, I just read between the lines.<br /><br />But, just a moment, what is it they want to change? "The look of the environment"? Not the environment itself, just what it looks like? They're quite happy with the furniture, they just don't like the color of the wallpaper? Very profound, I'm sure.<br /><br />This is, of course, all so much fluff and I suppose we should be grateful that the BBC still has just enough journalistic integrity to report on the real story, albeit right at the end of the article when they've already got you all scandalized about all the horrible men who're keeping women out by being all smart and sure of themselves, 'n'all.<br /><br />It seems that it's altogether too much work. I mean, you have to travel, sometimes you can't have dinner at home and, well, let's get to the root of it: there's no money in it.<br /><br />Yup. Cold hard cash and lots of fun, that's what counts.<br /><br />One female Queen's Counsel (fancy name for a lawyer) revealed the true depths of the issue: "It's a very jolly life NOT being a judge. Getting loads of money, making jokes and doing really interesting work." Yes, she's just having oodles of fun screwing her clients out of their fees. What a jape, eh?<br /><br />But I said there were two articles, did I not? Let's flip on over to the Telegraph where we are imparted the wisdom of The Lord Chief of England and Wales, whose name, oh wizard wheeze, get this, is "Lord Judge"! Really, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Chief_Justice">I checked</a>, that's him on the right:<br /><br /><img width=200 src="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01217/lord-judge_1217847c.jpg"><br /><br />Lord Judge >tee hee< has written about <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4160785/Lord-Judge-says-lawyers-dont-want-to-become-judges-because-of-an-old-fashioned-image-problem.html">why lawyers in general become senior judges, or not</a>. Apparently his judgment (geddit?) is that they're put off because the profession is "old-fashioned and fustian". <br /><br />The Telegraph then feels the need to inform us that "fustian" means "pompous and pretentious". Frankly, I think it completely unnecessary to be told what a word means when you can figure it out immediately based on who's saying it and why, but I sniggered anyway.<br /><br />(Nevertheless, I prefer to think of them as slightly moldy according to the first possibility that sprang to mind - fusty.)<br /><br />The UK's chief old fashioned, fusty old fart thinks that lawyers of unspecified gender don't want to be judges because, well, then they'd be old fashioned and fusty. That's a little different from the self-confidence and intellect that the women are supposedly bothered by, but OK, whatever.<br /><br />Lord Judge (!) protests, however, that he and his fellow judges aren't old fashioned and fusty at all! No, they're mostly young, strapping chaps in their 50s and 60s and quite a lovely bunch of chums. Actually, he said, "warm collegiate support", but I thought that a little, er, fustian for this blog.<br /><br />In spite of their terrible reputation, he did come up with one reason why people want to become High Court judges, namely they get to be called Lord Wotsit or Dame Thingummy, which has got to be worth some respect, eh, bro? Yo, man, 'n'all. You be pwned by my Lordiness, lowly peasant.<br /><br />Actually, he didn't say any of that last bit, but I just know he was thinking it. Wouldn't you if your name was Lord Judge?<br /><br />But the Telegraph are really no better than the BBC about getting to the point which, again, is moolah. That and the fact that it's actual work.<br /><br />Once more, it's left to the women to sum it up. Having complained about losing her dough, one woman deeply committed to the practice of law says: "The idea of spending the next 15 years of my life being a High Court judge doing rubbish work is frankly too depressing to contemplate."<br /><br />"Rubbish work"? Helping define the law of the land and develop some actual justice is "rubbish work"? I despair for this nation.<br /><br />You know, lawyers are quick to complain that they're the butt of a lot of unfriendly jokes, but let's face it, a awful lot of them do themselves absolutely no favors at all.<br /><br />Interestingly, the Telegraph's final sentence speaks volumes - those lawyers who're on their 2nd or 3rd marriages find it especially difficult responding to the call of duty (or a peerage). As you sew, so shall you reap.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-33501693242265371352008-12-27T15:41:00.000-08:002008-12-27T15:56:30.387-08:00A matter of life and deathThe following paragraph summarizes the plot of the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/3965161/Wallace-and-Gromit-heads-BBC-Christmas-Day-triumph.html">television program with the largest UK audience of 2008</a>. People interested in the exposure of female on male domestic violence could hardly have asked for a better Christmas present, watched as it was by 14.3 million people on Christmas day:<br /><br /><i>A woman feigns distress to encourage a vulnerable and gullible man to risk serious injury to save her. She manipulates her way into his home where she takes obsessive control. She demonstrates a violent temper when thwarted in a cold-blooded attempt to injure and possibly kill the man. She uses self-injury and false accusation to discredit the man's friend and her sidekick shows obvious signs of ongoing abuse. She is significantly overweight and resents and blames men for this, claiming that her overeating is their fault. She is determined to take her revenge on men and does so by killing 12 of them, this latest being her intended 13th victim. When she is exposed as a serial killer and removed from the scene, her sidekick and victim both show considerable distress, typical of victims of domestic violence who are unable to accept what their tormentor has done to them, preferring to believe in the myth that was used to control them.</i><br /><br />Would you believe this is a half-hour Wallace and Gromit special titled "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_at%27_Mill">A Matter of Loaf and Death</a>"? In terms of entertainment, I would not rate this as Nick Park's best, but it is certainly his effort for which I am most grateful. It was made for British TV, but I'm sure it will make the rounds of many other countries too, keep an eye open for it.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-69067426213957229282008-12-12T09:07:00.000-08:002008-12-12T09:10:09.579-08:00A father is supposed to sacrifice himself for his children and their mother...<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >... but she isn't supposed to wield the knife.</span>John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-26241477623876989772008-12-09T12:07:00.000-08:002008-12-09T12:12:57.578-08:00It's not a question of courage...The father's struggle for his children in family court can sometimes feel like the struggle for life itself against a foe as large as an ocean, maybe there's even a tiger in your little lifeboat along with you...<br /><br />"I was giving up. I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said, 'I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen every day. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen'<br /><br />My face set to a grim and determined expression. I speak in all modesty as I say this, but I discovered at that moment that I have a fierce will to live. It's not something evident, in my experience. Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others - and I am one of those - never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter what the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the very end. It's not a question of courage. It's something constitutional, an inability to let go. It may be nothing more than life-hungry stupidity."<br /><br />-- Yann Martel, "Life of Pi", p186.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-23992841596017660862008-11-25T09:15:00.000-08:002008-11-25T09:16:05.121-08:00The Father's LamentSomething tore inside me<br />The day she took away my son<br />It seems it won't repair,<br />It won't even form a scar.<br />The casual cruelty strikes me dumb,<br />The way that it was done.<br /><br />I can see that what is best for him<br />Should be what is done.<br />But who says what that is?<br />One thing's for sure: they never ask me.<br />And this obviously isn't it,<br />Because it's best for none,<br />Except for those who think this is fun,<br />Or at least, a well-paid job<br />The easy, slow, daily grind<br />Of people's lives into hard ground<br />From atop a big book of words to make it all<br />Everyone else's fault,<br />Or mine.<br /><br />I'm sorry, son.<br />It's not right, it's very wrong,<br />But they won't give me a way<br />To be you and I.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-55090366854544707432008-11-15T14:18:00.000-08:002008-11-15T14:25:07.127-08:00The Lord of the Flies is watching youI have, in recent months, with some embarrassment, read both Golding's Lord of the Flies and Orwell's 1984.<br /><br />The embarrassment derives from the fact that I have, from time to time, indulged in various pontifications on their subject matter and, hell, I haven't even seen the movies. I possessed a sort of folk knowledge of the story-lines and themes gleaned from the myriad casual mentions everyone hears and that seemed to do for most chats in the pub. Now, honor is satisfied and I don't think I've made too big an ass of myself so I permit myself a small sigh of relief.<br /><br />However, having finally read them, what stands out to me is their power and timelessness. Perhaps this is simply the point of great literature, that one should feel somewhat enlightened having read them, or touched, or disturbed, or, well more than just the satisfaction of having plowed through what your English teacher always said you should read.<br /><br />Curiously, I don't feel that I have learned anything much, although I have had a number of suspicions reinforced. I'm a little jealous, that these two authors were able to express such dark themes so ably such that the stories became vehicles for much deeper thoughts than the immediate plot. And I am impressed that, despite having been written as what might be called speculative fiction - each taking place in a world that had not yet happened, but could - their relevance to our real lives is unquestionable.<br /><br />I don't think I've learned much from these novels because they didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about their subject matter which, at the heart of it, has to do with the unintentional evil humanity inflicts on itself. Having said that, one reason that I am reading such heavy material as this, and others, is that I am trying to comprehend what I have seen over the past few years.<br /><br />Golding's boys are stranded on an island onto which they project a deepening malevolence and which then turns around and proceeds to consume them. In the face of this, Ralph and Piggy, viewed as a unit, attempt to protect a semblance of rationality and plan for getting themselves out of it. For all their efforts and insight, savagery overcomes them.<br /><br />Orwell's Smith lives in a world determined to undermine his every independent thought. He has to monitor his every action, even as the state monitors him itself; and as soon as he lets his guard down, he is consumed by it. In the process, he is instructed in his helpless complicity. Big Brother is all of us.<br /><br />Inevitably, I identify with Ralph, Piggy and Winston Smith. My anonymity in this blog is driven by forces akin to those faced by Smith. Many times, I have wondered at the childish and savage insanity of the world so obvious to me and apparently invisible to others. This has never been visceral than in family court, where I despair at their inability to see the destructiveness of the process, never mind how I feel about what they've done to me and my son. Or rather, what they have allowed to happen.<br /><br />But surely, the people who do these things would also identify with the central protagonists of these stories. So how, exactly, does a family court judge who does nothing to preserve a father's relationship with his child identify with Ralph and not the savage, self-righteous, despotic Jack? How does the Armani-suited lawyer who subtly suggests a denunciation, no matter how fabricated the evidence, as a means to controlling a divorce, not see himself as a member of the cossetted Inner Party rather than just another victim of the oppressive state in which he participates? <br /><br />I suspect it has something to do with claiming that we're not boys stranded on a tropical island, nor huddled masses frightened of our own government, or some other point-missing argument like that.<br /><br />Would they read these stories with a clinical detachment, convinced that these themes do not apply to them, while happily recognizing that they do to others? Such are confirmation bias and false uniqueness.<br /><br />Having read these two books and seen what I've seen, I feel this urge to take a number of people I've met and force them to read them too, using physical means if necessary, and then explain the point to them in monosyllabic detail until they convince me they've got it and learned better. But then, that would make me no better than them, wouldn't it?<br /><br />In closing, I note that all of the significant characters in these books are men, and boys. Orwell's Julia barely counts as she is largely a foil for Smith and vehicle for his downfall, possessing little individuality of her own. I cannot immediately bring to mind any dystopic novels written around female machinations - would that there were more insight into female malevolence to be found in this world, we might all live more honest lives.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-52338525455039318412008-10-22T13:02:00.001-07:002008-10-22T13:05:31.129-07:00Character lynchingA phrase popped into my head the other day: "character lynching", for what is done to a man by a false accusation of domestic violence, child abuse or rape. Character assassination is the deliberate trashing of someone behind their back, but it's usually not more than unpleasant gossip. A false accusation via the courts, however, involves dragging in society at large to do your dirty work, egging on the mindless mob to destroy your target and that seems more like a lynching to me. Shrug.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-2060357698644787532008-09-04T09:22:00.000-07:002008-09-04T10:21:04.488-07:00Here we go againWomen who kill are ill and need support. Men who kill are simply despicable and deserve nothing.<br /><br />Women who kill are depressed and we let them down by not being there. Men who kill are just crazy and no-one could have seen it coming.<br /><br />Women in trouble are there through no fault of their own, they need understanding and nurturing. Men in trouble have only themselves to blame, might be dangerous and should be contained and controlled.<br /><br />It never seems to occur to the writers of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/debates/2676548/Arson-millionaire-case-What-makes-a-man-kill-his-family.html">these articles</a> that their double standards have a whiff of self-fulfilling prophecy about them. That a woman knows society will react sympathetically to her problems and so is less likely to react with obvious destructiveness. That a man knows society doesn't give a damn, will spit on him when he lands in the gutter and so might react from rage.<br /><br />(Never mind the specious claim that women turn their troubles inward but men turn them outward. Then explain the fact that male suicide is several times more prevalent than female.)John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-27545668322443047862008-09-03T09:37:00.000-07:002008-09-03T09:48:37.303-07:00How to survive this insanity.This morning I started the day by reading about yet another legal insanity, this time from <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/judge_rules_against_man_who_cl.html">New Jersey</a> where a court has ruled that deliberate alienation and kidnapping of children does not constitute "intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress" against the left behind, target parent. How a judge can say this and not giggle like a lunatic purely escapes me. <br /><br />Aristotle claimed that the law is the triumph of reason over the emotions. If family law and jurisprudence are reason, then we are all doomed. Last one to leave please turn out the lights.<br /><br />In the comments to this article, I find the gem "it takes TWO to make a relationship work ... it also takes TWO to break one". Clearly ellenb1 has never been dumped.<br /><br />It is a characteristic of this game that the most transparent falsehoods get promulgated as supposedly trivial fact. Under these circumstances, it can be hard not to lose it and yet, as the father being ground into the dirt, you are the one who has the most to lose by going crazy. You must stay sane when confronted with this insanity.<br /><br />How to do that?<br /><br />When all is out of control, you must stay in control. You cannot control what is going on around you any more than the one-eyed man in the country of the blind can restore everyone else's sight. Pick your battles carefully.<br /><br />What you can attempt to control is your little island of calm in the eye of the storm. That island is in your head. Your "happy place" as Peter Pan, and others, would have it. We can't expect it to be all that happy under the circumstances, but we can at least try to keep it as peaceful as possible.<br /><br />Getting the right support is always the right thing to do. If you're like me, you'll develop a deep suspicion of psychologists, few of them have much real idea of how to cope with unstereotypical problems. Nevertheless, they are our culture's current idea of how to support the suffering in spirit. <br /><br />Actual wisdom is better and usually must be found elsewhere. If you have wise friends, possibly even a priest or spiritual leader (preferably from a long established line of life's teaching and not something half-baked), then you are doing well. Trust them, but do not expect them to make your decisions for you, especially if they themselves have never been where you are. (Some "friends" will turn out to be unable to avoid saying thoughtless, insensitive things; you don't have to turn your back on them, they may be friends for other reasons, but manage interaction with them carefully.)<br /><br />You'll be doing a lot of waiting around, in anterooms, waiting rooms, perhaps travelling, not doing much when life screams for action. You'll need either distraction or something to help focus your mind, sometimes both. Music is excellent for the purpose.<br /><br />Buy an mp3 player.<br /><br />Fill it with music whose emotional content attracts you but is not too intense. Classical music is good. I find the genre now known as Chillout to be very effective, full of complex, sustained rhythms that carry me along but do not push me into maudlin or overwrought melody.<br /><br />For those times when you can stand to listen to a human voice, podcasts are excellent. Choose your sources carefully. The BBC, NPR and CBC have an excellent selection, but avoid subjects which may trigger the wrong moods. (The BBC's Woman's Hour, for example, is unlikely to help at all.) Look for high intellectual content, even if it is difficult for you to understand, just trying to follow what they're talking about may help you climb out of a pothole of despair. Flavor with some light entertainment as well.<br /><br />Don't spend too much time watching TV. It is full of imagery and stereotyping that won't help. Try to stick to things that are rooted in fact, not fantasy. Documentaries and travel programs, for example, or historical dramas, or war stories. But not the majority of sitcoms, nor cop shows (the bad guy is all too often the bad <i>guy</i>).<br /><br />Read. There is a small but growing body of literature out there which recognizes modern cultural desert in which we live, discusses its causes and seeks solutions. Again, fact rather than fiction. If you do read fiction, try some classics. Modern literature is also infected with the disease of political correctness, but Dickens, Orwell, and Dosteyovski were fortunate not to have lived under its cloud (although Orwell certainly saw it coming).<br /><br />Exercise. This is where the mp3 player can really come into its own. A brisk walk listening to some opinionated fool carefully selected from the foolishness of the internet can be most therapeutic. Try not to argue with them out loud, it tends to draw stares and, after all, we're trying not to let the world think it's succeeded in driving you over the edge.<br /><br />Find time for yourself. This is perhaps counterintuitive because family court is extremely isolating for a father. But you'll need space to breath, to figure out what you think is the right thing to do, to calm down and to center yourself. Turn off the TV, put down the book, find a pleasant view, or even just stare at a blank wall, and just be. Let the tears come, heave out a scream if necessary, tear things apart in your head, recognize and identify the emotions. Accept them as normal, you are under attack, and it is proper that you be angry, hurt, unhappy, depressed, despairing, raging, sick to your stomach with it all. But above all, keep it under control, let out a little at a time, and do not let it overcome you. Do not let it, and therefore them, control you. You do that. Not them. They are insane, but they have power, and they will use that insanity against you if they can. Don't let them.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-46394965975998243492008-08-31T09:36:00.000-07:002008-08-31T09:39:39.753-07:00AnalogiesIt is very difficult to navigate when you can't see the terrain. This is what happens when no-one will tell you what they think, one way or the other, when no-one takes a stand for you or against. Even if the stand were against, it provides a reference point against which to fight.<br /><br />The social terrain has landmarks near and far. A campaign of isolation removes near landmarks and make far ones indistinct. The greater the isolation, the farther the landmarks on which one relies and the greater the local errors. <br /><br />The game of blind-man's-buff you're forced to play means not only that people can't speak to you, but you can't speak to them. The information exchange that is the lifeblood of social cohesiveness and integrity is blocked. To survive without information, one must work in absolutes, hard truths, choosing them, deciding what they are for oneself. <br /><br />But people are not used to working in absolutes, even if they exist. Inflexible truth is anathema to getting on with people, each with his or her own expediencies for getting through life. Everyone bends with the flow. But if you don't know where the flow and its obstructions are, you cannot bend with them. You collide with prejudices and get driven up against assumptions, sometimes being forced in a direction you know not to apply but unable to find an escape.<br /><br />What is hidden becomes far more important than what you can see. People's secret desires and fears come to dominate, mostly keeping them distant or quiet, but always alert and distrustful, and sometimes leading them to take advantage for their own gain should the opportunity arise. <br /><br />To start this nasty little game, break free a few moorings by disrupting relationships between what people see and what they believe. It helps if those beliefs are rooted in falsehood, as many are. Play to prejudice to deny the obvious. Stretch the truth and twist it into unfamiliar shapes until everyone is unsure of themselves and looking for a scapegoat. Spin an attractive, scandalous tale with unverifiable bases. Do things that look decisive and assertive, but sew discord and fear. Never stop hounding your target. Smile as you aim, then laugh as you loose the shot so your fans will cheer while you take the innocent down for their sport. Try not to look at the blood.<br /><br /><br />She would not have survived what she put me through.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-69614638730989883652008-08-25T13:13:00.001-07:002008-08-25T13:22:18.110-07:00The silence of the crowd<span class="text">"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr.<br /><br />Of all the aspects of my fight to remain a father to my son one which I have found among the hardest to come to terms with is the reticence to comment and apparent indifference displayed by a wide variety of people, from old friends to unknown bystanders. In particular, it hurts most that so many friends and colleagues when faced with manifest injustice do little more than tut, if that. It is as if they are struck dumb, and I am left confused and uncertain because I cannot tell what it is that they are thinking. If they really do think I am truly the abusive father that my ex would have them believe in, then they do not say so and I cannot address the question. If they believe that I am not than monster, then likewise they do not say and I cannot be reassured.<br /><br />I have wasted much anxiety on this issue and can only conclude that MLK is right, eventually I won't care what my enemies have said. I know they are wrong. There is nothing more to consider. But my friends, who said nothing and simply watched, that I shall remember.<br /><br /></span>John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16103538.post-70207191630518083762008-08-22T11:25:00.000-07:002008-08-22T15:52:23.724-07:00I love women, but...How often have you read discussions of gender begun with some claim that the speaker thinks women are just great, but, well, if only…? Every time I hear it, it makes my hackles rise, no matter how I might agree with the following claim. Either that person is about to say something not terribly well thought out or he doesn't have the courage of his own convictions. (Women, as far as I can tell, don't have to bother with the qualification. Not even if they're talking about men to men.)<br /><br />Thinking about it, it is a reflexive and obligatory obeisance to an emotional component of the discussion which ought to have no place. The speaker must claim a default positive inclination towards women as a class, or it is suspected that he has a negative one instead, that he is a misogynist in the old-fashioned sense. "Women" as a class, is neutral, but not to claim some sort of pangeyrical feel-good warmth towards them all together implies a dangerous and subversive aversion.<br /><br />Or, perhaps, it means that he is not interested in getting laid and doesn't care if he upsets a woman or not. Maybe these are the same thing. Now there's a thought - not being interested in getting laid as a subversive position. The only reason for that could be that the man's sex drive is a route to power for the women and his indifference to sex implies a threat to her. Must she then defend herself against this by demanding his fealty even when it is undeserved?<br /><br />To my mind it is indicative of a mature woman that she does not need his irrelevant claim and can follow the line of reasoning without it.<br /><br />When I think of "women", I feel the same as thinking of "people" - it runs the gamut from knowing that there are some truly good people who are worth getting to know and spending time in their company all the way to knowing there are some that are truly evil and should be avoided or fought at all costs. The same is true of gender, class, race, whatever. Why should I need to preface a less than flattering observation of my experience of women in general with some sort of disingenuous claim that I am well disposed towards them any more than I am towards any other group? It is because convention seems to demand it, because objective criticism of women is today immediately and effectively, if not rationally, vulnerable to claims of misogyny. That is, in discussions of gender, "misogynist" has come to describe anything which is not overtly and explicitly positive towards women for fear that anything that is not so, is necessarily anti-women. As such, it has so degenerated that it is only useful as a means to rouse the rabble against whomever it is aimed. Yet to begin "I love women" hints at an awareness that what is about to be said might draw such accusations and thus seems to grant a validity to them. Better not to say it, and be sure enough of yourself to fend off the accusations if and when they come rather than exhibit insecurity and invite irrationality with the first words.John Doehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05326982429461344063noreply@blogger.com0