Strong Women? And What of Strong Men?

Strong Women, Strong Girls program grows at Northeastern

(photo by By Kristina Finn)

By Kristina Finn, Globe Correspondent

Northeastern University student Jennifer Glynn has seen her university chapter of Strong Women Strong Girls mushroom in four years -- from 21 mentors at five program sites, to 60 mentors at 14 sites.

“I think the types of women that are attracted to joining this program are just unreal,” said Glynn, from Wappingers Falls, NY. “I mean so incredibly talented, they inspire me to do more and be more.”

The Strong Women Strong Girls program matches college-age mentors with groups of girls, ages 7 to 10, from city elementary schools. The program, which meets on a weekly basis, helps at-risk youth develop skills to succeed.

But Glynn and other volunteers say the interactions are as beneficial to them as to those they serve. They say the program has attracted more mentors in recent years because of the rewards it offers college students looking to make a real-world difference in the lives of young girls.

Glynn, 22, said she enjoys being able to instill confidence in girls who face obstacles, both internal and external. She recalled reuniting at the annual SWSG fieldtrip with one student she had met in the program when the girl was 7 years old. She remembered the girl being “always on a sugar rush” and not being able to hold a conversation with her.

“When I saw her at the fieldtrip last year, she was a completely different child,” Glynn explained. The once out-of-control girl was now helping her peers to keep their focus and behave well.

“It was just amazing to see how much she had matured and how she had really come into her own as someone that the girls looked up to,” Glynn said.

Glynn said the girls are offered strong female role models through both the mentors and successful women they learn about, in various fields. For instance, to boost confidence in the girls as strong competitors, they are told about Shree Bose, a Texas high school student who recently was named the grand prize winner of the Google Science Fair for work in cancer research. Her hard work and dedication were balanced by a friendly disposition with her competitors, the SWSG mentors explained.

“We were able to explain to the girls how these things were really unique and would help them find themselves,” said Glynn.

SWSG was founded in 2000 by Lindsay Hyde, then a student at Harvard University. The program stemmed from a project Hyde did for school and was first established in the Boston area. The program thrived and was later replicated in Pittsburgh, PA, and South Florida.

When the program started in Boston, there were only two sites and six volunteer staff. Now, there are 55 sites and 155 volunteer mentors in the Boston area.

This year, Hyde is launching an experiment with the Northeastern University chapter to expand the number of mentors and program sites. Usually, colleges that participate produce 20 to 30 mentors. But Hyde hopes to increase that to 50 to 75 at every college involved. The pilot expansion at Northeastern will help Hyde determine whether the increase is beneficial or too massive an undertaking.

“I have to say it’s been really fantastic (so far),” Hyde said.

SWSG consults with school counselors, social workers and teachers to decide which youth would benefit from the program, Hyde said. Each meeting begins with the girls sharing events from their week with the group. They are able to vent, get advice or share their achievements.

Because the program is gender specific, Glynn sees a strong sense of community develop among the girls. They learn about different cultures, neighborhoods, schools and backgrounds, she said.

At a recent meeting at the Yawkey Boys and Girls Club in Roxbury, staffed by three mentors, seven elementary school girls cheered as their peers competed in a rock, paper, scissors tournament. The tournament was intended as a way to teach the girls how to compete. That lesson is part of a research-based curriculum offered to the girls, who participate in the program for 90 minutes a week during the school year, said Hyde.

After the activities concluded, the girls were handed personal journals and asked to reflect on what they had learned. The mentors helped them to develop a story that used the characteristics they had learned about that day. As the meeting ended, the girls gathered to recite the closing cheer:

“I am strong! I am proud! I’m not afraid to shout out loud! Strong Women Strong Girls, Strong Women Strong Girls, Strong Women Strong Girls!”

"Bad Joke" is Being Kind

Dissenting judge rips this thing to shreds, but it doesn't matter, dad is blown away from his son and HIS SON IS TAKEN FROM HIS FATHER. Of course, no one gives a shit about that. Sons count even less than dads.

Iraq War Veteran, Fit Father Has Parental Rights Terminated

December 19th, 2011 by Robert Franklin, Esq.

A veteran of the Iraq war has had his parental rights terminated despite having in no way wronged his child or the mother. Read about it here (Booneville Democrat, 12/8/11).

The facts of the case are straightforward. Edward Glover served in the U.S. armed services. He was deployed to Iraq. His wife, Michelle, gave birth to a child, E.G., in November of 2008. While Edward was serving abroad, Michelle took up with one Maliki Raheem, who had a history of domestic violence. In April, 2009, it came to the attention of the Arkansas Department of Human Services that E.G. had been severely abused by Raheem. Here is how one Arkansas Court of Appeals judge described the child’s injuries:

The abuse was severe: E.G. had scalding on his chest and abdomen, bruising, blood inside his eyes, head injuries, perforation of his stomach, a liver contusion, three rib fractures, bilateral retinal hemorrhages, bruising around the eyes and scalp consistent with trauma, a possible lung contusion, and burns to the abdomen, shoulder, right thigh, and left scrotum.

Edward Glover obtained emergency leave and returned home, but was sent back to Iraq 10 days later. Glover remained deployed oversees while legal proceedings played out. The ADHS of course took E.G. into foster care and eventually succeeded in terminating Michelle’s parental rights. At all but two hearings, Glover was neither present in person nor represented by counsel.

Irrespective of the fact that Glover had done nothing wrong and was never even accused of any form of wrongdoing toward anyone, the trial court, at the request of ADHS, terminated Glover’s parental rights. The Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling. Indeed, if there was a claim by anyone at any time that Glover had ever in his life done anything to indicate unfitness as a parent, neither the trial nor the appellate court mentioned it.

So how is it possible for a father without a single black mark to entirely lose his rights to a child, born during his marriage and therefore presumptively his? Apparently the reason the trial judge terminated Glover’s rights is that he didn’t follow the court’s orders to avail himself of certain ADHS “services.”

Now, remember, that ADHS is an agency of the State of Arkansas, but during most of the court proceedings, Glover was nowhere near Arkansas and therefore could not be ”served” by ADHS. More importantly, the “services” ordered were clearly aimed at a parent who has abused his/her child. Here they are:

-provide complete medical history for juvenile
-parenting classes
-anger management classes
-forensic psychological evaluation – follow recommendations
-random drug screens
-remain drug free
-remain alcohol free
-provide vital info for fetal alcohol syndrome assessment
-drug and alcohol assessment – follow recommendations
-medication assessment and follow recommendations
-maintain stable and suitable housing
-attend staffings at DHS
-cooperate with Department
-maintain contact with Department
-attend visitation with juvenile
-demonstrate improved parenting
-maintain reliable transportation or seek reasonable assistance from DHS
-complete affidavit of Financial Means
-refrain from criminal or illegal activity

So what we have is a state agency and four separate judges who couldn’t quite grasp the fact that, although there was an abused child and although there was a father in court, the father hadn’t abused the child. Glover didn’t need any of the “services” ADHS said he needed.

Likewise, the fact that he was out of the country most of the time and in the hospital part of the time when he returned from abroad (after being honorably discharged from military service), and therefore unable to avail himself of the “services,” never seemed to make an impression on the judges or ADHS.

Late in the game, the court appointed counsel to “represent” Glover. I use quotation marks around the word “represent” because the dissenting justice at the appellate court described that representation this way:

The quality of the appointed counsel’s representation at this late stage of the case supports an inference that the purpose of the appointment was not to assist Mr. Glover in negotiating his way through the juvenile courts to gain custody of E.G., but rather to facilitate his exit by terminating his parental rights.

The dissent’s description is given considerably more weight by the fact that Glover’s lawyer made no effort to assert at trial any of the very obvious legal issues presented by the termination of a fit father’s parental rights. Having failed to assert them at trial, they couldn’t be asserted on appeal. To make her malpractice still more obvious, Glover’s attorney filed his appeal but under a “no-merit” procedure. That’s one in which the lawyer files the appeal because her client demands it, but tells the court it has no merit. This was “zealous representation” by an attorney? It’s more like a bad joke.

In short, the lawyer worked hand-in-glove with ADHS and the judges to cut the father out of his child’s life. My strong belief is that ADHS wanted that all along. That’s why its counsel convinced the judges to order the long list of “services” for Glover to comply with. ADHS hoped that Glover wouldn’t comply due to his deployment overseas and failure to comply would lose him his parental rights. And that’s just what happened. Some people may call that justice. I call it a conspiracy.

Not surprisingly, Glover lost his appeal. The appellate majority said he hadn’t raised any of his issues on appeal, so there was no way he could win. Fair enough. Or was it?

On the contrary, the dissenting judge, Josephine Hart, completely destroyed the majority’s summary dismissal of Glover’s appeal. She points out that, due to a case decided by the Arkansas Supreme Court (the Mahone case) during the pendency of Glover’s case, the state cannot interfere with the parenting rights of a fit parent.

The Mahone court overruled Judkins and held that custody of a child taken from a custodial parent should result in first shifting custody to the nonoffending, noncustodial parent.

Importantly, the Mahone court relied on U.S. Supreme Court precedent in so ruling.

The United States Supreme Court has stated that it is a fundamental right to parent a child without interference by the state. Accordingly, there first must be a showing of unfitness before the state may intervene. The fact that one parent is unfit does not alter the state’s burden to prove that the other parent is also unable to care for the child before it may interfere in the family… Without a finding of unfitness, the state has no constitutional authority to exercise that power. Under current Supreme Court authority, the existence of a single fit parent, regardless of the acts of the other parent, negates the state’s ability to interfere in the family unit.

Those are, once again, Judge Josephine Hart’s. She was writing at the appellate level in Mahone and, when the case got to it, the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed.

More importantly still, the trial court in Glover’s case had no jurisdiction. In order to exercise any authority over his rights, it had to first find that he was unfit. It didn’t because he wasn’t. Therefore, the matter could be raised for the first time on appeal.

It can therefore be raised before the Arkansas Supreme Court. From here, it looks like a slam-dunk win.

To date, however, the lesson Edward Glover’s case teaches us is just how determined child welfare agencies are to cut fathers out of the lives of their children and how willing courts are to comply.

Cracked

That's what the "family law" folks are. Cracked. Without a legitimate care for reason, justice, rights, or families. They support mom #1, try to all but kill mom #2 and throw dad from the frying pan into the fire. Then pat themselves on the back for making things "right." Their ideas of who is right and who is wrong ARE PRECONCEIVED FROM THE START. A child could figure that out by now.

Give me a break.

Read a hundred of these - MAKE IT A THOUSAND - or more and tell me I'm exaggerating:

New Hamshire Family courts are a joke:

You notice she’s unequivocal. To her, it’s the most important decision divorcing parents can make. Strong words, but she knows from experience.

Apart from her experience as a child of divorced parents, it turns out Haas has some hard-learned lessons about the parental side of divorce court. It seems her husband is a non-custodial father whose ex-wife has refused to allow him to see or contact his children for two years. Has he received any help whatsoever from the New Hampshire courts in dealing with that flagrant violation of his and his children’s rights? He has not.

Into the bargain, the state child support agency screwed up the billing on his account. So he’s ended up paying far more than he should have, and is still behind. Has he received any help whatsoever from the New Hampshire courts in dealing with that flagrant abuse of his rights? He has not.

I’ll let Samantha Haas tell it. Here’s her letter to the Honorable Ed Kelly, judge of the court that should be doing something about her husband’s outrageous case, but apparently hasn’t.

Honorable Ed Kelly;

My name is Samantha Haas. I am a wife and mother from Hooksett, New Hampshire.

Mr. Kelly, your Courts are destroying my family.

We have suffered severe emotional distress, financial hardship and estrangement from my two stepdaughters.

My husband was denied his right to Due Process as his Constitutional Rights have been violated and the essential base on the concept “fundamental fairness”.

A mathematical error in the Court on November 20th 2006 has followed my family ever since, with my husband always being held in contempt on an inability to pay.

Ignored or denied pleadings, a Guardian ad litem who withheld evidence of abuse on my husband and children by his ex-wife, turning into not seeing his two daughters since September 26th, 2009.

My husband has paid over $120,000 in child support in the last four years [JB: $30,000 a year!?!? For 2 kids? That's $2,500/month!!!! WHO THE FUCK CAN POSSIBLY JUSTIFY THAT NUMBER?!?!], has a $250,000 life insurance policy on his two daughters naming his ex-wife as the beneficiary, pays for the children’s medical and dental insurance, and pays for half of all uninsured medical and dental expenses.

Yet, he has not seen his daughters in two years.

Every attempt to see them has been blocked by his ex-wife, who has perjured your very Courts since 2006.

My husband and I have been damaged financially because of the ongoing litigation. We have been getting food at our local food pantry and are on the verge of bankruptcy.

I am a full time student and my husband works in fund accounting for towns and schools, and is also a Hooksett Town Official as a member of the Budget Committee.

On June 17th 2011, my husband was falsely incarcerated at Manchester Family Division on his inability to comply with paying for the mathematical error from 2006.

Mr. Kelly, I felt like I lost my life that day. It was Father’s day weekend and my son (Nicholas’ stepson) and our daughter were without their dad because he was in jail.

It became my responsibility to find $10,000 cash bail to have him released. It became my responsibility to fight for my husband’s freedom and his right to be a father and not be faulted for an error the court made.

We have filed with the Supreme Court. We continue to file with Manchester Family Division with no response.

Why? Why are we being denied our rights? Our rights as people and our rights as parents?

Our family desperately needs relief, Mr. Kelly.

The longer this is allowed to continue, the older the children are getting and they already have a two year old sister they have never met.

Please show us what to do.

Respectfully;

Samantha & Nicholas Haas

That’s about as good a summary of family law in the United States as I know of. It’s almost all there. The screw-up by the child support system resulting in payments he can’t make. The ever-increasing penalties. The inability to get the judge to care or pay attention. Impending bankruptcy. An ex-wife who perjures herself, a pro-mother guardian ad litem who withheld evidence. Refusal to enforce the visitation order. Depriving the children of their father indefinitely. And what must be counted the crowning achievement of the whole sorry affair, the father’s arrest on Fathers Day due to the court’s mistake.

About the only thing missing is for the dad to learn he’s not the actual father and to be made to keep paying anyway.

I hate to tell Ms. Haas, but she and her husband are far from alone in this. Similar things are happening to fathers all across America; it’s as common as dirt.

Film Star Ryan Gosling

Gee, DO YOU THINK HE NEEDED A FATHER?

From Wikipedia:

His parents divorced when he was a child and he and his older sister, Mandi, were raised by their mother,^[6] an experience Gosling has credited with programming him "to think like a girl."^[7]

He was bullied in elementary school^[8] and had "no pals"^[9] – "not in a sad, ‘poor me’ way. I didn’t want any. I liked being alone. It was only when I was 14, 15 I got friends."^[10] "I hated being a kid. I didn't like being told what to do, I didn't like my body, I didn't like any of it."^[5][11] In Grade 1, having been heavily influenced by the film Rambo: First Blood, he brought steak knives to school and threw them at other children during recess. This incident lead to a suspension.^[12] While attending Cornwall Collegiate and Vocational School, he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), prescribed Ritalin, and placed in a class for special needs students. He was unable to read which he found "pretty frustrating. I couldn't absorb any of the information, so I caused trouble."^[13] Consequently, his mother quit her job and homeschooled him for a year.^[14] Gosling has said that homeschooling gave him "a sense of autonomy that I've never really lost".^[5]

"I Never Wanted To Do What I'm Doing"

I'm at a loss for words here. In summary, they are all just a big, fat mess. Where is the accountability? Where is the responsibility? No one's perfect. Including me. Feelings are strange things. But people, when you start getting married and having kids, ITS TIME TO GROW THE FUCK UP. DON'T LIE, DON'T CHEAT, DON'T STEAL. DON'T TELL PEOPLE THINGS THAT ARE NOT TRUE, DON'T GET INVOLVED WITH ANYONE YOU DON'T INTEND TO LOVE AND COMMIT TO FOREVER. UNDERSTAND!?!?!?!?

Want your kids to end up in a mental institution, or in pornography?!?!?!

Its not easy. It can be quite scary. You're really scared? Take marital arts - then you can defend yourself if attacked. Now you'll be just fine. Be a big boy or girl and stand up and tell someone what you want and how you feel OR WIND UP IN BIG, STEAMING PILES OF CRAP LIKE THIS!


I never wanted to get married
Comments (692) Posted by Meredith Goldstein December 9, 2011 08:55 AM

This one's messy. Remember to give constructive advice. :)

Q: Dear Meredith,

I have been married for almost a year, together with my now-husband for almost a decade. We moved in after a year of dating and were happy for a couple of years before he started pressing the issue of marriage. I never wanted to be married and I made this clear when we first met -- no marriage, no kids. He said he was OK with that but apparently he wanted to "have" me, and being happy with me in our relationship wasn't enough.

Fast forward four years and I caved. We signed the papers and I hoped for the best. Over the past nine months I have tried to work on myself and have come to realize how controlling and manipulative he can be. Friends and family say I've changed for the worst over the years and I am starting to think they might be right. From gaining weight and losing interest in the things I used to love, to losing touch with close friends and family. We became each other's only friend/hobby and I know that's not healthy. He is a great guy and I've loved him dearly (otherwise I wouldn't have made him my whole world for so many years). The problem is, the moment I want to do anything myself -- shopping, talking on the phone, anything that doesn't include him -- he throws a fit and I'm tired of it. I know part of this is my fault ... I've allowed this to happen for a long time.

Now on to the next issue (because the marriage isn't bad enough?!). Six months ago I reconnected with an old crush and we began a friendship that has turned physical over the last two months. We have so much in common. Back when we met I wasn't married, though I later found out he was. Though we lost touch, I never forgot about the what-if. When we reconnected it started with talking, which turned into coffee, which turned into talking on the phone, and now here we are. Now, ready for the worst part?

A month ago he found out his wife is pregnant. The wife he claims to be so unhappy with. Which of course has left me wondering if his home life is as unhappy as he has led me to believe. Before he found out the news, he told me he never wanted kids, but every now and then I question whether or not he was just lying to me all along. Then when I'm with him, all of my fears and doubts instantly slip away and it feels right.

He says it feels like she’s having the baby to try to save the marriage and he wants a divorce regardless -- that he can be a father without being with her. He sees a future with me. In the meantime, what about me? What if he watches her growing belly and can't leave? Then, even if he does, I've never wanted kids, and regardless of how amazing we are together and our feelings for each other, I’m just not sure I can stay with him with a kid in the picture.

Where do I go from here? Divorce? Wait and see if HE gets a divorce? Work on my marriage? Break it off with everyone and be alone?

– Lost in Love, Boston

Suspending Due Process

All based on "suspicion"

We'll Investigate Ourselves! What Could Go Wrong?

Since 1999, there have been 339 investigations of police misconduct in Quebec.

But only in three cases did police officers subsequently face charges.

Bill 46 states that when a person perishes during a police operation or detention as the result of a serious injury or a gunshot wound from a police weapon, the police force informs the minister.

The minister then names another police force "to ensure impartiality" to conduct "an independent inquiry."

And another thing - WHY THE BLEEP DON'T YOU SEE U.S. NEWSPAPERS DISCUSSING WHY POLICE DEPARTMENTS INVESTIGATE THEMSELVES?!!?!??!

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Quebec+bill+would+civilian+panel+oversee+police+investigating+police/5802119/story.html#ixzz1fP9AbFad

Domestic Vioence: Its Plain

This won't go over well because Kris Humphries is 6'9", 235 lbs and Kim Kardashian is MUCH SMALLER than that. But facts are facts. Hauling off and hitting someone (even though YOU estimate they are "too big to really feel it") doesn't matter. Hitting someone like you mean it is all there is to it. It is domestic violence. Man on woman. Woman on man. It doesn't matter. She could've stomped on the guys toes or missed and punched him in the stomach or groin or hand, for all I know. It doesn't matter. Let's suppose Kris, or even a guy much smaller than him, thew a punch at Kim - what would you all say? THROW HIS ASS IN JAIL! There is no mulligan for women. I don't care how big you are. Taking a swing, is taking a swing, no matter how "tough" you figure your man is. My ex used to bite and scratch. It was funny for 5 seconds - then she REALLY starting biting and scratching me. It hurt like Hell. I pushed her back - had she called the cops, they would've arrested ME for violence despite the marks all over my hands and arms. This is BULLSHIT, plain and simple. Women have learned, it does not matter - they can do whatever they like and no one will even MENTION the fact that they are PHYSICALLY ATTACKING someone they profess to care about and this is NOT ALRIGHT. IT IS IN FACT WRONG AND THEY SHOULD IMAGINE IT BEING DONE TO THEM. Many women don't give it a second thought because they simply don't think its any big deal. No one expresses surprise or outrage at their actions. So why not? they think. Wind up. Slug him in the arm or the stomach. If it goes further? Hey, no one said anything the first time!

Its unacceptable. Period. At present its simply another milestone in the land of our absurd double-standard system.

Its Not Real

You lose. Here's how:


How The Banks, President And Congress Steal From You


Read carefully folks, as you're about to get an economics lesson.....

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 2.3 percent annual rate during the third quarter of 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, with output and hours worked rising 3.2 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) From the third quarter of 2010 to the third quarter of 2011, output increased 2.4 percent as hours rose 1.4 percent, resulting in a 0.9 percent increase in productivity. (See tables A and 2.) Labor productivity, or output per hour, is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of hours worked of all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers.

The productivity measures released today are based on more recent and more complete data than were available for the preliminary report issued November 3. (See Revised measures.)

Unit labor costs in nonfarm businesses fell 2.5 percent in the third quarter of 2011, reflecting the 2.3 percent increase in output per hour combined with a 0.2 percent decline in hourly compensation. Unit labor costs rose 0.4 percent over the last four quarters. (See tables A and 2.) BLS defines unit labor costs as the ratio of hourly compensation to labor productivity; increases in hourly compensation tend to increase unit labor costs and increases in output per hour tend to reduce them.

This is deflation in the economic sense. That is, you produce much more with your labor and are paid slightly less -- on balance you receive more per unit of labor output.

In this case you produced on a wage-hour adjusted basis, 2.3% more (annualized) than you used to. Note very carefully that this output improvement per-unit-of-labor-cost comes as a consequence of your efforts, and thus it belongs to you.

What this means to you, the common man, is that you should be seeing an approximately 2.3% deflation in prices overall. That is, the CPI, to be neutral on an economic balance basis, should be reflecting a 2.3% decrease in the cost of everything bought, because everything bought has to be made, and thus labor always is the source of economic output.

Well, how's that been working out for you folks?

If you want to know why you have continually seen your standard of living destroyed over the last 30 years, here's your answer in bright white-hot lights. Your productivity increase has been stolen by the banks and governments of the world -- it is taken from you by compounded inflation!

Let's assume a 2% productivity increase per year over 30 years. Let's also assume a 2% inflation rate over 30 years. This is what it looks like, starting with a baseline of "10,000":



Your cost of living has gone up by 78% in notional dollar terms but it should have gone down by 44%!

The spread between those two lines was literally stolen by the banks and government acting intentionally as a group. They defrauded you, stealing your economic output and improvement in productivity, using it to hide the impossibility of continual deficit spending. Summed, the line is flat -- but it should not be; that improvement in standard of living belongs to you, not them.

This morning Obama's lap-dog spewing spokesperson was on CNBC telling us that we must have higher taxes on "rich people." This is just another sop to attempt to extend the ponzi scheme a bit further in an attempt to deflect attention from the above chart -- the truth of how your wealth has been serially and intentionally stolen by taking from you that which is rightly yours -- the natural mild deflation that comes from improvements that you generate through increased labor productivity.

That which you generate through your labor is your property and it has been stolen from you.

You're being screwed by the politicians and banksters through an active and intentional series of confiscations of your labor engendered through manipulation of the nation's currency, enabling trade, tax and government spending policies that cannot work in the long term. Over the last 30 years you should have seen your purchasing power increase by nearly 100%. Instead your purchasing power has been robbed from you through intentional inflationary policies, depriving you of the fruits of that productivity improvement.

Wake up America.

Dissecting Idiocy

Sorry, this one I have to go through line by line because the author is one of those morons who makes so many assumptions so fast, the effect is to hustle you into agreeing with him before you are even shown his logic.

In new alimony bill, wealthy, cheating men could pay less

Is that really your article title? Seriously? What HORDES of wealthy cheating men are you referring to? Tiger Woods is one guy last I checked. And pray tell, how the Hell did you interview every single wealthy man AND HIS WIFE, in Florida to discover that he cheats on her? This title is like something from "The Onion." Also, if cheating men could pay less, what about cheating women? What do they pay? Why is that not even addressed? Are you foolish and naive enough to think women don't cheat? HAHAHAHAHHAHA.

November 19, 2011|Scott Maxwell, TAKING NAMES

If a Brevard County legislator gets his way, Florida will completely overhaul its alimony laws.

Why do you have alimony laws at all? Its the year 2011. Every available statistic shows more women in college, grad school, med school and law school than men; women's earnings have skyrocketed over the past two decades - a fact. What is alimony for? For men to support women? What data do you have that shows women have some legitimate, massive need for support at all? Besides, don't people move on with their lives after divorce... remarry, move, get a new job, etc.? What is one person doing financially shackled to the other for life?

And some of the biggest winners could be wealthy men who cheat on their wives.

Huh? That is your angle? That we need to really worry about wealthy men who cheat, a.k.a. Tiger Woods? First off, how many of these so called, society-ruining, rich (which it seems is a crime here as well), and CHEATING men, are there running around amongst us? Because ALL I READ AND HEAR day-in and day-out are stories from women that they can't find any guys who fit your description! Wealthy men are FEW and FAR BETWEEN! And of that tiny percentage we have to worry about the portion of those who cheat on their wives! And how many can that be? 10, 20, 30%? More? I have no stats on how many rich guys cheat on their wives. I do know that the ones with kids have probably heard of the HORROR stories of getting RAPED in family court if they were to ever get divorced - forced to give up 50% of their income or more. So I'm sure they are all just DYING to cheat over and over again and then get divorced and be poor. That's why they worked so hard for their money to begin with.

The bill would forbid judges from considering adultery when determining alimony. More significantly, it would limit both the amount and length of time it is paid.

Again - WHY do you we have alimony AT ALL. Women are broadly educated these days. They can work. If they want to sit at home that is THEIR choice. If they get divorced and need to transition back into working, then their ex-spouse, IF WEALTHY, can pay something to help transition them back into full-time employment. But why on earth would he pay her LOADS of alimony FOR LIFE? Further, is adultery any reason to pay someone thousands upon thousands every month FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIFE?!?!? The punishment doesn't fit the crime. That's usurious. Further, if there is an EPIDEMIC of rich men dumping their wives, find me some figures buddy (not published or sponsored by N.O.W.), because you sound so alarmed about something and I have no idea what it is.

The bill aims to so radically reshape Florida's alimony laws that I asked three recognized divorce attorneys to study it.

You did what? Asked 3 lions to describe the steak? This isn't about how good the law is for attorneys. Attorneys will tell you how good the law is FOR THEM. Do you think they're fucking stupid? Do you think they'll tell you the change is GOOD? If its not GOOD FOR THEM, they'll tell you ITS BAD FOR YOU. But unless you were born yesterday, you know that lawyers don't get rich MAKING THINGS EASIER AND BETTER FOR YOU. Lawyers get rich off CONFLICT and MAKE-OR-BREAK-YOU laws that cause you to go for broke and fight legal battles that take years and then appeal and go broke in the process. WAKE UP MR. MAXWELL.

All three represent both men and women. And all three described the bill as seriously flawed and poorly thought out — an increasing and troubling trend in this state.

"Flawed and poorly thought out." Whoa. Sounds serious. Who's going to be killed when this big, mean law passes?!?!? It doesn't even abolish alimony (again - no one can show why we even need alimony to start). It simply limits alimony because our alimony laws dictate men go broke supporting their ex-wife based on the 1800s idea that women don't work, can't work, have no education, and will starve without money. Anyone alive today WHO CAN READ, ought to know we're damn far from that these days.

"My initial take is that it's basically anti-woman and anti-alimony," said Richard West, a past president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. "More importantly, the bill was not very well thought out."

The bill was filed by Ritch Workman, a Melbourne Republican, on Nov. 2 — precisely eight days after Workman finalized his own divorce.

Several other local legislators are also divorced or currently going through one.

So legislators have some frigging experience with divorce. DO YOU, MR. MAXWELL? I'm guessing not. I'm guessing you did not put your whole life into working hard, making money for your family, and wake up one day to find a judge telling you that half your assets and 20% of your income would be going to your ex-wife, who is the one who asked for the divorce in the first place and that this would render you unable to retire, veritably a working slave UNTIL YOU DIE. And legislators decided, oh, I don't know, that this was ABSOLUTELY FREAKING ABSURD IN THE YEAR 2011?!?!?!?!

Imagine that.

House Bill 549 would allow previous divorce agreements to be reopened and renegotiated — meaning its impact could be massive. West described it as "a lawyers' relief act."

Workman said Friday that he wouldn't personally be affected because he isn't paying any alimony. And he said he hadn't filed the bill on behalf of any of his legislative peers.

The guy filing the bill isn't even getting raped with alimony but he sees how absurd it is.

Instead, he said he wanted to address inequities in the current system.

"All I'm trying to do is make alimony a bit more fair," Workman said. "The thought of short-term marriage ending in a long-term alimony is a mistake."

A good friend of mine has a cousin - a man - who married young and came home one day to hear his young wife say "I don't feel like being married anymore." He now pays her health insurance and alimony for life. FOR A 25 YEAR OLD COLLEGE EDUCATED WOMAN!?!??! DOES THAT SOUND RIGHT TO YOU!?!?!?

The three divorce attorneys I talked with agreed with Workman that some reform is needed. But the general consensus was that his bill was sloppy, went too far and was potentially unconstitutional.

That's bad. The three people who are supposed to shoot down the bill agree that the current law is so terrible it still needs to be changed. Wow, that's strong. But, but, but.... they go on to say the current law is potentially unconstitutional!?!?!? HAHAHAHAHA. Really? WHICH PART? Oh, and pray tell, WHAT PART OF THE CURRENT LAW OF GIVING A PRIVATE CITIZEN'S ASSETS TO ANOTHER CITIZEN PLUS FUTURE EARNINGS IS CONSTITUTIONAL!?!?! We have NO FAULT divorce in this country. So your future earnings can be given to another person based on no wrong doing on your part - HOW THE FUCK IS THAT CONSTITUTIONAL!?!??! DO YOU UNDERSTAND HALF THE POINT OF THE CONSTITUTION IS TO PROTECT PRIVATE PROPERTY!?!??!

"Draconian" was the word used by Terry Young, who once represented Tiger Woods' ex-wife, Elin.

Are you really serious?!?!? They interviewed TIGER WOODS' LAWYER!?!?!? BWAHAHAHAHAHA. The guy that made millions off of helping Tiger's ex shake him down for everything he's got, has an opinion on this law - a law which would have cut into his take on Tiger's divorce. Gee, I wonder what he's going to say.

Among Young's biggest concerns was that it tries to set very specific caps — such as one that says no award can be more than "20 percent of the payor's monthly net income … averaged over the last three years."

"This is designed to handcuff judges," Young said.

Time out. You mean a judge can award alimony - based on even a 1 year marriage - that exceeds 20 percent of your MONTHLY INCOME!?!?!? FOR LIFE. That is literally a life-time tax to your ex. For a relationship that lasted as little as a year or two? Are you fucking kidding? And Mr. Maxwell's position is that this income cap is... bad!?!?!? HOW? You want it to be UNLIMITED? So the judge can order you pay 30, 40, or 50% or your income for life and basically go from upper or middle class to LIVING IN SQUALOR!?!?!?

Wow. You really hate men, Mr. Maxwell and are dying to see them punished. Did your dad leave your mom and cause you to blame him for her poverty or something? I mean, how the Hell can you justify an unlimited amount of alimony for life?

Orlando attorney Amy Goodblatt also expressed concerns about Workman's proposal to automatically terminate alimony payments when the payer reaches retirement age.

Oh my God, the horror. You mean after paying alimony to the tune of thousands a year for 10, 20, 30 years or more, you finally see it end ONLY AT RETIREMENT AGE!?!?!? And this is THE PROPOSED LAW!?!?!? The existing law demands it continue UNTIL YOU'RE DEAD!?!?!? Thank God we're going to try to stop this new, women-hating legislation!

"It's clear this legislation has an agenda," she said. "This statute is very, very much aimed at protecting men."

Did you know due to insane laws like our current child support and alimony system, divorced men kill themselves at a rate TEN TIMES that of divorced women? BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T PASS LAWS DESIGNED TO RAPE MEN SLIGHTLY LESS THAN YOU DO NOW!?!?! OH MY GOD, THE HORROR!

The statutes are, of course, gender-neutral. But the reality is that men account for more than 90 percent of alimony payers, according to census stats. That's largely because men generally make more money. And more wives than husbands stay at home.

Men are barely ahead of women when it comes to making money and yes, that's because most women stay home, BUT NOT BECAUSE WOMEN ARE NOT EDUCATED, SKILLED OR ABLE TO WORK - STATS SHOW THEY ARE.

Young noted this bill would particularly penalize women who never worked during their marriage, sometimes because husbands didn't want them to.

Extra dose of stupid here - WHAT DATA DO YOU HAVE THAT SHOWS ALL HUSBANDS ARE TELLING THEIR WIVES NOT TO WORK?!?!?! EVERY MIDDLE CLASS AND MANY UPPER MIDDLE CLASS GUYS I KNOW HAVE WIVES THAT WORK. STATS SHOW MOST WOMEN WORK THESE DAYS. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU REFERRING TO WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT WOMEN BEING "FORCED" TO STAY AT HOME!??!?! FURTHER, EVERY WOMAN I KNOW IS DREAMING OF THE DAY HER HUSBAND MAKES ENOUGH FOR HER TO STAY AT HOME WITH THE KIDS AND NOT PAY $1K A MONTH IN DAY CARE COSTS.

But please keep talking. Because it seems you know 1) That "some" women stay home (how many?) 2) Why they stay home (because the big, mean man tells them to) and 3) That there is some large amount of women somewhere who have NEVER worked (where the bleep do you live?)

All three attorneys agreed that striking the adultery statute wouldn't have widespread effect, as courts didn't often rely on it as a primary factor.

Didn't you just get Tiger Woods' ex-wife's lawyer to call this new law horrific? Now you're saying the adultery part of the law doesn't even matter as courts DON'T EVEN CONSIDER IT - which means, that if a wife commits adultery THAT ALSO DOES NOT AFFECT THE COURT'S DECISION, SO A DIVORCED MAN WHO WAS CHEATED ON WILL PAY HIS CHEATING EX-WIFE UNTIL HE DIES?!?!?!?

Why don't you point that out?

But they also thought the cap was a bad idea — arbitrary and possibly unconstitutional.

Reached Friday, Workman said he agreed in part — and that he had already decided to remove portions of his bill.

He had not done so when we spoke but said he would soon.

"A cap is a bad idea," he conceded. "If I had thought through it, I would have realized that."

And that's one of the most troubling parts about all this.

He should have thought it through.

Did you all take your stupid pill!?!? There is no LEGITIMATE reason for any alimony AT ALL except in severe cases where a woman hasn't worked for decades AND has no education or poor education and her husband makes a very large income, in which case he can help transition her into working. But this idea that every divorced woman be a KEPT woman is INSANE. It assumes every man is rich and every woman is a kept, uneducated, unskilled idiot, which is the biggest insult you can give to women. Alimony needs to be ALL BUT PHASED OUT for most of the population. Period. ITS THE YEAR 2011. WAKE UP. There are so many more women in college than men, colleges are WEIGHTING boy's applications in an attempt to close the gap and claw back to a 50-50 gender split on campus AND EVEN THOSE ATTEMPTS ARE FAILING.

WAKE-THE-FUCK-UP.

Too often nowadays, legislators are filing bills that clearly don't pass constitutional muster — only to say, "Oops, it was only a draft," when called out on it.

(Don't forget freshman Jason Brodeur's first-draft attempt to imprison doctors — and fine them up to $5 million — for asking patients, including potentially homicidal ones, about guns.)

These aren't first drafts of book reports, for Pete's sake. They're state laws.

I guess we can at least give Workman credit for agreeing to make needed changes, assuming he does. Some bull-headed lawmakers won't even do that.

Still, if Workman didn't think it completely through, that may be because the legislation wasn't completely his own. He said it was modeled after similar legislation that recently passed in Massachusetts, part of a growing alimony-reform movement.

There, alimony reformers highlighted "horror stories" of people who got a divorce and were forced to pay much more alimony than seemed reasonable.

NO ALIMONY IS REASONABLE FOR WOMEN WHO CAN WORK AND HAVE EDUCATION AND THAT IS 98% OF WOMEN THESE DAYS. ALIMONY WAS BUILT FOR SOCIETY AS IT EXISTED 100 YEARS AGO. COME OUT OF YOUR DEEP SLEEP YOU BLITHERING IDIOT.

Would you espouse lifetime alimony to the tune of thousands a year for an educated, skilled man? OF COURSE NOT. And guess what - your CONSTITUTION demands men and women ARE EQUAL, YOU BONEHEAD. WHAT APPLIES TO ONE, EQUALLY APPLES TO THE OTHER!

"I'm kind of a reformer," said Workman, who also filed bills to lift the ban on unmarried cohabitation and "dwarf-tossing" competitions. "And in a lot of cases, the alimony is just too punitive."

The attorneys agreed that some horror stories are out there and that some reforms are needed. But they also stressed that the horror stories aren't the norm — and that Workman's bill could impact all kinds of routine settlements, even in ways he didn't intend, and mostly at the expense of women.

OH MY GOD. His bill would impact "routine settlements." DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS, DEAR READER? That the ordinary rape of divorced men would be affected! OH MY GOD! NOT THAT! We couldn't have 25 year old college-educated women not receive money from their ex-husband FOR LIFE! All for being married a grand total of 30 months!

As a result, not a one of them believed the bill should pass — even though they could personally profit if it did.

Explaining his "lawyers'-relief act" line, West said: "Listen, if this thing passes, you get to go back and retry everything. The first thing I could do is go through my closed files for the last 12 years and say: 'Hey, I have a good chance of getting you out of this now.' "

You would have to CORRECT PRIOR INJUSTICES?!?! OH NO! NOT THAT! YOU MEAN THE MONEY WOULD STOP ARBITRARILY FLOWING FROM ONE PARTY TO ANOTHER FOR LIFE!?!?!? Are you fricking kidding me?

Consider this scenario that plays out every day: a man and woman meet in college. Both graduate. They get married. 3-5 years later, they get divorced. Turns out they married too young, didn't know what they wanted, changed careers, decided to have/not have kids, whatever. In a free, equal country, they split everything they made WHILE THEY WERE TOGETHER ONLY, and move on with their lives. He remarries, she remarries, older, wiser, and they live their life.

NOPE. DOESN'T HAPPEN HERE! You see, because a man has a penis - AND FOR NO OTHER REASON THAT CAN BE FACTUALLY PROVEN - he pays her a portion of his income UNTIL HE'S DEAD!

WHY?

Custody Battle Update

Turns out my ex is having a pretty good month. Or that's my guess. She has no appetite for my court drama and vitriol it seems. Not too surprised actually as it is Hell on earth and the judge somehow fucks you both over anyway.

My son tells me she's actively considering some kind of shared parenting arrangement. Joint physical custody. You see, now that she's fleeced me for roughly $100,000 ($1k/month x 12 months x 8 years), and settled down with (but not married) a new guy who has since started making good money I hear ($70kish I'm guessing), she doesn't need so much of my cash and has plenty of her own and would now like time to spend it and live the good life - I'm just praying to pay off some of my huge debts. Nice comparison, eh? Considering it was my ex who CHEATED ON ME.

Plus, my son is 10 and no longer the little sweet baby who adores his mother. A friend with grown kids tells me that when boys hit 13, mom is pretty much old news - sports and video games are bigger and they start to notice girls at that age. So my ex is preparing to jettison my son a bit now that she's no longer the center of his universe.

Let's all act surprised.

The big question is money. If she's not prepared to live on less "child support" (for a child I'll be raising half the time?), then it could get ugly. Clearly she wants more time to herself (hey, she works nearly THREE DAYS A WEEK!) and with her live-in boyfriend, so she's ready to "allow me" to have time with my own son. Mea Culpa. I've informed my son that he can spend every other week with me and that the court would readily permit this. His response: "Really!?!? You can do that?!?!" Yeah, dear reader, you can bet his mom has been REALLY HONEST with him regarding all of his living options. She told him that because I had to work every day I would not be able to take him for long period of time - why? I don't know. As if work would prevent me from picking him up from after school care at 5:30 when it doesn't now.

In truth, if and when joint custody is agreed to, you can bet my ex will somehow demand and receive extra money than is standard in such cases, even if its less than she gets now; and you can bet paying for my son half the time will double my grocery bill as well as gas necessary to pick him up and drop him every day at school. So I'll be lucky to come out even - that is, paying as much as I do now in child support, which is absurd. But hey, my college-graduate-with-a-3.8-GPA-ex can't expect to make any money, can she? I mean COME ON! She's only a woman! Right?

And let's not forget the Massachusetts Dept. of Revenue is a "party" in my case, so they may somehow object to a private agreement between two citizens and make their own demands - thankfully I think the judge would tell them to go fuck themselves, but who knows. Its the state and they want to sodomize anything with money, they're so broke from overspending for the past 10 years.

In short, I may not be totally crushed as THAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED FOR 8 YEARS, so I haven't much left to lose and my ex has clearly figured out that pulling shit like denying my son a trip to Disney world with his father and grandparents might be looked upon, oh, less than positively by any human being, including the judge, who biologically speaking, must have a heart that beats. So my ex is looking at escape routes now, before the judge decides she's an absolute fucking menace and punishes her for it. She also doesn't want anyone asking questions about the radical diets she puts my son on. The latest is a "blood-type diet," a whacked out diet that contends your diet should vary greatly according to your blood-type. There is no verifiable evidence OF ANY KIND to suggest this theory has merit. The author calls himself a Doctor but is a homeopathic expert only, not a licensed physician as you and I go to. The research he has promised in the book hasn't materialized for 5 years. Book here. Read the criticisms and decide for yourself. He actually contends some foods will harm you - literally attack your body, based on your blood type. Yeah, I'm sure that's the case and the entire modern western medical community hasn't noticed this for the past 200 years. Its par for the course for my ex, who is radical and extremist in all her actions and views. She herself eats a vegan diet - fine and healthy for some, perhaps not quite so good for a 10 year old growing boy.

And the beat goes on.

"F-U, YOU'RE DEAD" JUDGEMENT: YOUR MONEY IS NOW GONE

This former Marine earns 125k a year working his ass of as a software consultant (not a common or easy job, and one I'm sure he's worked for years to qualify for) and the court ALLOWS HIM TO KEEP 26K or 1/5th OF HIS OWN MONEY.

He's "allowed" to keep 20% of what he makes after the IRS, ex-wife, and ex-wife's lawyer strip out what they claim to be "theirs." Keep it simple people. The IRS, ex-wife and ex-wife's lawyer DO NOT PERFORM HIS JOB. THEY DON'T EARN HIS MONEY - ITS NOT THEIRS. THEY DID NOT EARN IT. A 2ND GRADER WOULD KNOW THIS. WHY ARE THEY BEING ALLOWED TO TAKE (STEAL) WHAT IS NOT RIGHTFULLY THEIRS?

You will tell me that his money belongs to his poor, fragile ex-wife and her needs with the children - ah, but who decided to dissolve the marriage? And for what reason? Was it Mr. Case? Did he leave her? Did he savagely beat her? Did he give her GENUINE cause to leave him?

We don't know!

And in THE LAW TODAY, it doesn't even matter! Let me repeat that - a man can be stripped of 80% of his money and the reason why (the cause of the divorce) IS NOT RELEVANT IN OUR SYSTEM OF LAW. He could come home every night with flowers or he could do crack off a hooker's ass every night and the result would be the same - 80% poorer. And NO, the fact that she divorced him does not make him a bad husband or a monster or anything else - THERE IS NO DISCOVERY OF FAULT. The fact is YOU CAN NOT KNOW who or what dissolved this marriage and also CAN NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS AS TO THE REASON WHY THEY BROKE UP.

This man's wife can access his money all she wants - AS HIS WIFE. Being a wife is not easy but there is a big reward - A HUSBAND AND HIS MONEY! If you and your husband are no longer together, WHY WOULD YOU KEEP HIS MONEY?!?!?! A small, pathetic case can be made that she needs some portion of his money (until she gets another husband, that is), but to take half of it? $3,500/month? That leaves this man with ALL of the expenses of a family, BUT NO FAMILY! This is financial rape. He's stripped of what he's earned due to the decision OF ANOTHER PERSON. No cause, no justification, nothing. And this is done in a country that calls itself free?

If that doesn't stun you out of your coma, nothing will.

The Chris Gregory Case–an Outrageous but Common Injustice

Former Marine Chris Gregory, recipient of the Combat Action Ribbon, told the Committee, 'We need shared parenting.'

F & F’s Chris Gregory, the father of three girls who adore their dad, had a standard child custody order forced upon him—an order which granted his ex-wife “exclusive care, custody, and control of the parties’ minor children,” and allows Gregory’s girls only a few days a month with their father.

For the past three years, Gregory has fought in court to get more time with his girls, ages 11, 9, and 6. He has racked up large legal bills, as he was forced to pay for his ex-wife’s attorney—an attorney whose focus has been to minimize Gregory’s role in his children’s lives. He explains:

The court has denied all of my motions to modify custody or seek an equitable outcome.

Financial Plunder

Gregory, who was asked by Representative McCullough to share his experiences with the divorce system, is a good example of the way fathers are plundered financially.

The financial orders in Gregory’s case are more or less garden variety in a divorce, yet while Gregory earns $7,500 a month after taxes, by court orders he is to be left with merely $2,200 a month to live on. That’s correct–family court leaves Gregory less with less than 30% of his post-tax income. The breakdown is as follows:

Gregory’s monthly earnings after taxes: $7,518
Gregory’s child support: $2,568
Gregory’s alimony: $1,000
Gregory’s garnishment to pay his ex-wife’s attorneys’ fees: $1,726
Total left to Gregory post-family court and taxes: $2,224*

According to the family court, Gregory, a successful Senior Consultant at a major software company who earns a $125K a year salary, should be left with a mere $26,688 a year to support himself and his three girls.

After divorce-related garnishments and further obligations, Chris Gregory is left with less than 30% of his post-tax income. For details, click on the image above.

The child support and the attorneys’ fees are garnisheed directly from Gregory’s check. The $1,000 a month alimony is not, Gregory has not been paying it lately, and faces a contempt charge for it. As in many divorce cases, the attorneys’ fees Gregory owes grew out of his fight to be allowed to play a meaningful role in his children’s lives.

Gregory also got stuck with paying 90% of the $69,000 in marital debt. Gregory asked:

If this is a no fault divorce, why have I had to I assume all the fault?

As is the case with many divorced and separated fathers, Gregory’s daughters’ schools have been generally uncooperative, refusing to send him his daughters’ report cards and notices of parent-teacher conferences and other upcoming events, despite his repeated requests that they do so.

*In the original post we inadvertently omitted a few hundred dollars a month of expenses not related to family court. The figure has now been corrected.

The Deadbeat Party

Is the party that doesn't work yet takes money from the party that does work.


That's a simple definition of it. It makes no difference who is the man or woman. Its a matter of one party leaching off another due to some kind of natural or supposed "handicap" which any adult will tell you simply does not exist in the 21st Century.

My child support is 4 figures. FOUR figures for one 10 year old boy that his mother has NO idea how to raise. The "child support guidelines" form has a line for the "prescribed" support amount ($1k, based on my salary) and then separate entries for child care, activities, and out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Got that, dear reader? $1,000/month that my ex receives by sitting on her ass, and its not intended to cover child care (day care, summer care, non-school care, etc.), medicine not paid for by me (I am REQUIRED to pay medical insurance for my son which is another $200/month), or activities that my son chooses to play such as soccer, hockey, music lessons, martial arts, etc..

Couple of questions:

1. DOES FOOD AND WATER COUNT?

2. How can support be so high and not cover EVERYTHING?!?!?!?

3. My son could go to the zoo every day and invite the zoo animals home for dinner and still barely clear that level of expense.

4. What does my ex take away from that form? That she should receive a thousand dollars of the money her EX-BOYFRIEND of 10 years works for in exchange for..... NOTHING? And on top of that "punishment money" I should be forced to pay for my son's actual care? While she pays nothing?

GREAT LESSON TO WOMEN EVERYWHERE: Men are responsible for your mistakes as well as their own! You are not to be held accountable because you have a vagina!

Those Pesky Facts: Men Lose Again

Editor's note: William J. Bennett, a CNN contributor, is the author of "The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood." Bennett is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute. He was U.S. secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 and was director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush.

(CNN) -- For the first time in history, women are better educated, more ambitious and arguably more successful than men.

Now, society has rightly celebrated the ascension of one sex. We said, "You go girl," and they went. We celebrate the ascension of women but what will we do about what appears to be the very real decline of the other sex?

The data does not bode well for men. In 1970, men earned 60% of all college degrees. In 1980, the figure fell to 50%, by 2006 it was 43%. Women now surpass men in college degrees by almost three to two. Women's earnings grew 44% in real dollars from 1970 to 2007, compared with 6% growth for men.

In 1950, 5% of men at the prime working age were unemployed. As of last year, 20% were not working, the highest ever recorded. Men still maintain a majority of the highest paid and most powerful occupations, but women are catching them and will soon be passing them if this trend continues.

The warning signs for men stretch far beyond their wallets. Men are more distant from a family or their children then they have ever been. The out-of-wedlock birthrate is more than 40% in America. In 1960, only 11% of children in the U.S. lived apart from their fathers. In 2010, that share had risen to 27%. Men are also less religious than ever before. According to Gallup polling, 39% of men reported attending church regularly in 2010, compared to 47% of women.

If you don't believe the numbers, just ask young women about men today. You will find them talking about prolonged adolescence and men who refuse to grow up. I've heard too many young women asking, "Where are the decent single men?" There is a maturity deficit among men out there, and men are falling behind.

This decline in founding virtues -- work, marriage, and religion -- has caught the eye of social commentators from all corners. In her seminal article, "The End of Men," Hanna Rosin unearthed the unprecedented role reversal that is taking place today. "Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed," writes Rosin. The changes in modern labor -- from backs to brains -- have catapulted women to the top of the work force, leaving men in their dust.

Hanna Rosin: Are women leaving men behind?

Man's response has been pathetic. Today, 18-to- 34-year-old men spend more time playing video games a day than 12-to- 17-year-old boys. While women are graduating college and finding good jobs, too many men are not going to work, not getting married and not raising families. Women are beginning to take the place of men in many ways. This has led some to ask: do we even need men?

So what's wrong? Increasingly, the messages to boys about what it means to be a man are confusing. The machismo of the street gang calls out with a swagger. Video games, television and music offer dubious lessons to boys who have been abandoned by their fathers. Some coaches and drill sergeants bark, "What kind of man are you?" but don't explain.

Movies are filled with stories of men who refuse to grow up and refuse to take responsibility in relationships. Men, some obsessed with sex, treat women as toys to be discarded when things get complicated. Through all these different and conflicting signals, our boys must decipher what it means to be a man, and for many of them it is harder to figure out.

For boys to become men, they need to be guided through advice, habit, instruction, example and correction. It is true in all ages. Someone once characterized the two essential questions Plato posed as: Who teaches the children, and what do we teach them? Each generation of men and women have an obligation to teach the younger males (and females of course) coming behind them. William Wordsworth said, "What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how." When they fail in that obligation, trouble surely follows.

We need to respond to this culture that sends confusing signals to young men, a culture that is agnostic about what it wants men to be, with a clear and achievable notion of manhood.

The Founding Fathers believed, and the evidence still shows, that industriousness, marriage and religion are a very important basis for male empowerment and achievement. We may need to say to a number of our twenty-something men, "Get off the video games five hours a day, get yourself together, get a challenging job and get married." It's time for men to man up.

Provocative Dress? What else is new.

I love this crap. I'm not sure why. Probably because its so goddamn obvious. The lady below is jealous of the secretary. The secretary is hot, or at least, thinks she is and wants to advertise it.

It's what women do when they're hoping to hook a man and settle down and that's 95% of the time. There are only 2 women at the company which means the rest are all men. The secretary would like to get one of them. So she's advertising. Females having been doing this in nature for billions of years. Birds flash feathers, dogs give off a scent, homosapiens dress up and show off their health and fertility. We "discovered" this shortly after we developed the brain power to consider it.

From a business standpoint, Yes, unequivocally, it is unprofessional and lewd to strut around the office in extremely revealing clothes. Non-business wise, what the bleep do you expect? She's single and there are men at work. She's not going to ask one out. So this is what you get. She struts and advertises her fertility and reproductive ability, basically. In the old days, before men were robbed of their earnings potential and relegated to 2nd class citizens, this woman would've had 4 or 5 proper suitors and this would not be happening. Those clothes aren't comfortable you know.

That said, like this woman, I am sick of the "over the top" dressing of women these days. There is sexy-professional in the office: a business suit that's snug in the right spots and heels. Its been done for years. All men will notice; but its not trashy or unprofessional. Spiked boots and low cut tops? Uh, no. This isn't the club, honey. And even the clubs blow my mind with what women wear in them. There is sexy and there is "if we have the chance, bend me over this desk and hurry!" I have never seen the later, but have heard plenty of stories (friend of a friend going to work at an Engineering firm in fishnets. Classy).

You want ironic? The women that dress in "business" clothes in a "business office encounter" in pornography are more covered than some of many women in the office these days.

I'm not kidding.

From Bloomberg:

I am a female partner at a small business. The only other woman at the company, our administrative assistant, wears very low-cut tops and blouses, sandals (sometimes even slippers), tight jeans, and extremely high spike heels or boots. The company has a relaxed, “business casual” atmosphere. I don’t want to seem petty or unreasonable, but this behavior is slowly starting to drive me a little crazy. If the male partners are all willing to look past this, should I let it go? —L.H., Chicago

First, it’s unlikely your male partners are “looking past” your receptionist’s provocative fashion choices. But while some of them may be more than happy to tolerate it, others may be profoundly uncomfortable. They may not mention it, however, because they worry about being accused of sexual harassment for even addressing the issue.

Even if your partners don’t object, your assistant’s provocative clothing may convey the wrong message to customers and vendors who visit your office expecting a professional company. And even if you have no visitors, if this issue is bothering you, you have a right to mention it, says David A. Weiman, a management psychologist in Wynnewood, Pa., who consults with small businesses on leadership development. “Your values should be taken into account at the firm because you’ve earned the right to have an impact on the culture there,” he says......

Last Statement of a Dying Man

Ever been burned, dear reader? I have. You couldn't believe anything could be that painful while you were still conscious.


Editor's note: On Thursday morning, June 16, The Sentinel received a "last statement" via mail from a man who insinuated that he planned to set himself on fire in front of the Cheshire County Court House, and an explanation of why he intended to do so. Through further reporting, The Sentinel is confident this is from the victim of Wednesday afternoon's fire, although police have not yet received confirmation of his identity. The 15-page statement is printed in full, except for two redacted items: The names of the man's mother and his three children. Details will be posted as they become available.

Last Statement
by Tom Ball

A man walks up to the main door of the Keene N.H. County Courthouse, douses himself with gasoline and lights a match. And everyone wants to know why.

Apparently the old general was right. Death is not the worst of evil.

I am due in court the end of the month. The ex-wife lawyer wants me jailed for back child support. The amount ranges from $2,200. to $3,000. depending on who you ask. Not big money after being separated over ten years and unemployed for the last two. But I do owe it. If I show up for court without the money and the lawyer say jail, then the judge will have the bailiff take me into custody. There really are no surprises on how the system works once you know how it actually works. And it does not work anything like they taught you in high school history or civics class.

I could have made a phone call or two and borrowed the money. But I am done being bullied for being a man. I cannot believe these people in Washington are so stupid to think they can govern Americans with an iron fist. Twenty-five years ago, the federal government declared war on men. It is time now to see how committed they are to their cause. It is time, boys, to give them a taste of war.

There are two kinds of bureaucrats you need to know; the ones that say and the ones that do. The bridge between them is something I call The Second Set of Books. I have some figures of the success of their labors. You and I are in these numbers, as well as our spouses and children. But first let me tell you how I ended up in this rabbit hole.

My story starts with the infamous slapping incident of April 2001. While putting my four year old daughter to bed, she began licking my hand. After giving her three verbal warnings I slapped her. She got a cut lip. My wife asked me to leave to calm things down.

When I returned hours later, my wife said the police were by and said I could not stay there that night. The next day the police came by my work and arrested me, booked me, and then returned me to work. Later on Peter, the parts manager, asked me if I and the old lady would be able to work this out. I told him no. I could not figure out why she had called the police. And bail condition prevented me from asking her. So I no longer trusted her judgment.

After six months of me not lifting a finger to save this marriage, she filed for divorce. Almost two years after the incident, I was talking with her on the phone. She told me that night she had called a mental health provider we had for one of the kids. Wendy, the counselor told my then wife that if she did not call the police on me, then she too would be arrested.

Suddenly, everything made sense. She is the type that believes that people in authority actually know what they are talking about. If both she and I were arrested, what would happen to our three children, ages 7,4 and 1? They would end up in State custody. So my wife called the police on her husband to protect the children. And who was she protecting the kids from? Not her husband, the father of these children. She was protecting them from the State of New Hampshire.

This country is run by idiots.

The police sergeant Freyer screwed this up from the get go. When I got the Court Complaint form the box was checked that said Domestic Violence Related. I could not believe that slapping your child was domestic violence. So I looked up the law. Minor custodial children are exempted. Apparently, 93% of American parents still spank, slap or pinch their children. To this day I still wonder if Freyer would have made this arrest if it had been the mother that had slapped the child.

Labeling someone's action as domestic violence in American in the 21st century is akin to labeling someone a Jew in Germany in the 1930's. The entire legal weight of the state is coming down on him. But I consider myself lucky. My family was destroyed. But that poor bastard in Germany had his family literally annihilated.
Arrests are mandatory for the police in New Hampshire for domestic violence. That is not law. That is police department policy. Laws come from the Legislature and the Governor's office together. God only knows where these policies come from. The State's Attorney General also has a mandatory arrest protocol for domestic violence. I call these policies, procedures and protocols The Second Set of Books. You never cover the Second Set of Books your junior year in high school. That because we are not suppose to have a Second Set of Books. This is America-we have the rule of law.

I am a regular guy, a coffee and cheeseburger type of fellow. As remarkable as my life has been, I figure that what happens to me must be happening to others as well. I was 48 years old when I got arrested here for my first time. So I went looking for the arrest numbers for domestic violence, this new group that I had unwilling joined. I could not find anything. So I wrote the U.S. Dept. of Justice in Washington. They wrote back that they did not keep track of domestic violence arrests. The FBI keeps track of all other crimes. How come not domestic violence? I thought some low level clerk was blowing me off.

At the time, I had mailing addresses in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts. So I wrote to all six Congressional offices, the two Senators from each state and the two Congressman. They like doing favors for constituents hoping you will favorably remember their name in the voting booth. All six offices reported back the same thing. They do not know how many arrests for domestic violence have been made. I immediately knew something was wrong. And I also knew this was not going to be good.

Improvise, adapt and overcome. The Army teaches that to every soldier it trains. They say that no battle plan survives the first five minutes of combat. So your people on the ground had better be able to think for themselves. Taking casualties in war is just an occupational hazard. Taking casualties and not accomplishing your mission is a disaster. After 21 years of Army service, I am pretty good at improvising.

The first thing I found was a study not of domestic violence arrests but of domestic violence injuries for 18 unnamed states and the D.C. in the year 2000. In the study 51% of the injuries were 'no injuries'. So I knew I had a study of police reports. Who else but a police officer would record no injuries? I populated that out to the 50 states and came up with 874,000 arrest in the year 2000.

I had originally populated the number back to 1994 when the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was enacted into law. I would later find out these arrests stated with the U.S. Attorney General's Task Force of Domestic Violence ten years earlier in 1984. As individual states data became available for various years and states, I would incorporated in to my informal study. The number I have now in 2011 is 36 million adults have been arrested for domestic violence. I have a gut feeling this number could be as high as 55 million. But I only have data to 36 million. So 36 million it stays. And there is a really cool trick you can do once you have this number. You can find out how many American men. women and children ended up homeless because of these arrests.

Most of the domestic violence statistics I have seen break down with 75% male and 25% female being arrested. So I am going to used the male pronoun for the one arrested spouse and the female pronoun for the victim spouse. That should make the domestic violence feminists ecstatic-man bad, woman good. But that is okay because that is probably the last nice thing I am going to do for them today.

When then a man is arrested for domestic violence, one of two things can happen. If they are only dating and have separate apartments, then he can head home. But if they are living together, then this fellow has a real problem. Bail conditions and then a possible protective or restraining order prevent him from being with her. So he needs to find a new place to live, at least until the charges are resolved. The King of his Castle is no longer allowed into his castle. A feminist name Pence who wrote that was absolutely giddy at that outcome. So he can get his own place if he has enough money. Or he can move in with his mother, his sister or another relative. He might have a girl friend who would let him stay with her. And if none of this is possible, well then I guess he is sleeping in his car down by the river.

If he has minor children, money will soon turn into an issue. Most men I know do not mind paying child support. They want their kids to have food on their plates, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. But it does stress that man's finances. Child support is usually 33% of the man's gross income. Withholding for taxes, social security and health insurance can range up to 28% of his gross paycheck. So a man making $500 a week gross has only $825 monthly left over after withholding and child support. That is not enough money for an apartment here in Central Massachusetts. That does not include other expenses like heating, electric, gas, groceries, telephone, cable, car payment and car insurance. So he is in a financial hole. Estimates of homeless men run 82% to 94%. I am going to round that down to 80%.

After the King has left his castle, his wife runs into a problem. She was use to getting his whole paycheck for the household. Now she get a third for child support. Figure they both work and made the same money, her budget went from 100% down to 66%. If she was running the house on $3,045. a month when the King was home, now without him she only has $2,220. Most households in America cannot withstand a 27% hit on the household account. She'll juggle the bills but eventually most wives figure out that they can pay all the smaller bills if they just does not pay the big bill. That would be the rent or the mortgage. So six to nine months after the King is out of the castle, the Queen, the Princes and the Princesses are also on the street. Domestic violence feminists state that 50% of victim spouses of domestic violence end up homeless at some time in their lives.

The last group of homeless from these arrests are children. The domestic violence feminists state that 70% of domestic violence couple have children. So 50% female times 70% children equals 35%. But children is plural. So we will double to 70%. (Odd isn't it? They know that 50% of victim spouses end up homeless and that 70% of them have children. How can they know the percentages when they do not know how many total arrests were made? Those people at the U.S. Justice Dept. cannot even pull off a credible cover-up. )
Men are 0.8, women are 0.5, and children are 0.7 for a grand total of 2.0 homeless Americans for every domestic violence arrest. Multiply that by 36 million and you get 72 million men, women and children ending up homeless at some point in their lives over the last 25 years because of these domestic violence arrests.
That is a really large number even by Washington standards. That is almost 25% of the entire population of the U.S. using 2010 census figures. Which begs the question did these homeless people contribute to this latest economic meltdown, or did they cause it? Because if they did cause it then the recovery will not be measure in months or years but in decades.

Some of the boys in the Father's Movement think Congress might have shot themselves in the foot over this one. Personally, I think they shot themselves some place anatomically higher. No wonder the Speaker of the House is always crying. The Dummies on the Potomac.

Twenty-five years ago the federal government start pushing these arrests on state's legal systems. Now, we have an economy on the rope. They have thrown a huge amount of money at banks, big business and local and states government. And we are still in the mud. But no economist either at the Treasury Dept., Federal Reserve, universities or think tanks are even looking at the impact of all these broken families. If that 36 million arrest is correct, then 72 million men and women, have been throw out of the middle class into subsistence living. Or is the number 55 million and 110 million? No one knows and no one is even looking. But why should look? According to the Attorney General, we do not know how many arrests we have made.
And if the Tea Party is any indication, insurrection is brewing in the land. Just a coincident? Not likely. This is what happens when the government wipes out the middle class.

The idea for these arrests came from something called the Minneapolis Police Experiment (MPE) of 1981-82. In the experiment police offices were given pads with one of three words written on them; counsel, send or arrest. Counsel meant the officer was to try to mediate the couple's spat. Send was to send one of the spouses out of the house for eight hours as a cooling off period. Arrest was arrest one of the two spouses. The officer was to do as the top paper on the pad said to do. The experiment was set up by the Police Foundation and Lawrence W. Sherman was the lead researcher. The results show counseling resulted in a future assault in 24% cases, send was 19%, and the arrest option resulted in a future assault in only 10% of the cases. Perhaps a cheap way of cutting down future domestic violence.

In 1984 The U. S. Attorney General's Task Force of Domestic Violence recommended arrest as the primary weapon in domestic violence assault. Lawrence W. Sherman recommend not using the arrests because the MPE was just one study and it could be wrong. They ignored him. And by 1992, 93% of the police departments in the nation had adopted some form of mandatory arrest in domestic violence cases.
But by 1992 five more addition studies similar to the MPE became available. Lawrence W. Sherman reviewed all five studies. Then once again he wrote that the police should not use arrest. In two of the five studies, they found the same result as they did in the MPE, that an arrest cut down the odds of a future assault. But in the other three studies an arrest actually increase the odds of a future assault. So arresting someone in a domestic violence situation to cut down on future assaults did not work any better than just flipping a coin. I do not know if Lawrence W. Sherman is still alive. But fortunately he wrote a book call Policing Domestic Violence that was published in 1992.

So we have 800,000 American police officers arresting one in every six adults in the country and throwing 25% of the men, women and children out on the streets in an effort to enforce a policy that they knew did not work back in1992. And I had always assumed that you needed a man to really screw something up. Oh well, there goes another glass ceiling.

Why would they push an arrest policy that does not work? There are two schools of thought on the reason why. The first comes from Lawrence W. Sherman. He calls it the Law of Just Desserts. Revenge for slights and offenses, real or imagined. I am sure there are some that would argue that women are not vengeful. But what is that old saying? Hell hath no fury.....

The second idea comes from the mother of the second wave of feminism. I do speak of the brilliant Betty Friedan. In the Epilogue Chapter of the 20th Anniversary Edition of her book The Feminine Mystique, Betty relayed why she resigned as the first president of the National Organization of Women in 1970. Betty wrote that she, "was unable to openly fight the man haters and unwilling to front for them any more..." So man hating bigots no only existed 40 years ago, they were also grabbing power. Now Washington is funding them. Makes you wonder what bigots they will fund next. Maybe the Klan?

Feminists had always claimed that when women took over, we would have a kinder, gentler, more nurturing world. After 36 million arrests and 72 million evictions what we got was Joe Stalin.

The third wave of feminists do not like to call themselves feminists. The word feminist could be perceived as gender oppression. These third wave of whatever-we-call-you got that right The treachery of our legal system over the last 25 years may end up giving all feminists a bad name. Which would make us as bigoted as the man-hating feminists who got us into this mess to begin with.

So let us talk about those bureaucrats that do. These are the ones that actually carry out the evil deeds. I like call them the do-bies.

Any one swept up into legal mess is usually astonished at what they see. They cannot believe what the police, prosecutors and judges are doing. It is so blatantly wrong. Well, I can assure you that everything they do is logical and by the book. The confusion you have with them is you both are using different sets of books. You are using the old First Set of Books- the Constitution, the general laws or statutes and the court ruling sometime call Common Law. They are using the newer Second Set of Books. That is the collection of the policy, procedures and protocols. Once you know what set of books everyone is using, then everything they do looks logical and upright. And do not bother trying to argue with me that there is no Second Set of Books. I have my own copies at home. Or at least a good hunk of the important part of it.

I got my Second Set of Books when I sued the Jaffrey NH police department. Under the discovery rule, I write them with the material I wanted and it would arrive in the mail a few weeks later. I got the Police Academy Training Manual. I got the Department's Policy and Procedure Manual. I got the no-drop protocol that the attorney general sent to all his or her prosecutors. I even got the domestic violence protocols for the court system, one hundred pages worth. Once you read it the material, then you will know what the police, prosecutors and judges will do. They are completely predictable once you know what set of books they are using.

The police academy training manual states that an arrest in a domestic violence call is the preferred response. They cite the Minneapolis Police Experiment (MPE) as its justification. But the author of the MPE, Lawrence Sherman, said do not use arrest because five follow up studies show that it did not work. The would be a violation of the 4th Amendment in the First Set of Books against unreasonable search and seizure. Then there is that whole issue of whether the police have the right to arrest for any reason other than they believe a crime was committed.

The Jaffrey Police Department Policy and Procedures Manual states that if a wife says she does not want her husband arrested, the police are to ignore her, arrest the husband, and get with the prosecutor to see what they can work out. In other words, make the arrest and then see if you can Mickey Mouse it. The wife is eligible for spousal immunity. If she invokes it, then no statement she mades, written or oral, are admissible because she cannot be cross examined about it under oath. ( Did you say that? What did you mean when you said that?) With no statements the police have no probable cause in most cases to make an arrest. Also a violation of the 4th amendment in the First Set of Books.

The actor Nickolas Cage was drunk in New Orleans with his wife. Everyone else is drunk in New Orleans, so why should Nick be any different. He and his wife were arguing over which house the rented for their stay. Nick grab his wife's arm and started to lead her to his house. The police arrested Nick for domestic violence. His wife was stunned. That was not domestic violence. "Nothing we can do," the police explained to her. "Just following orders."

That is an accurate explanation for victims, even if they do not think of themselves as victims. The police have a zero tolerance towards any physical contact. Things might get worse in the future is the feminist logical for this present iron fist approach to domestic relations. I would have to agree with them. After all the arrests, poverty, homelessness and misery, I can assure you-things are going to get worse.

But that nothing we can do, just following orders the officers explain always sounds so timid and lame. The police need to punch their explanation up a bit, make it more authoritarian. And there is a quick, low cost way of doing it. The police officers only need to say it in its original German.

The state Constitution in NH said the prosecutors job is to promote justice. The Attorney Generals protocols said that domestic violence case are no-drop cases. (Unless, of course, they take the Deal. Continue the case for a year, go to counseling, and everything falls off the books after the year. They did after all find some way of getting rid of all these cases.)

The Attorney General can hire, fire, layoff, promote, demote, commend or award bonuses. The constitution is some old, quaint, dusty document up in the Statehouse some where. So which one do you think is going to get obeyed?

Prosecutors are funny. Some, maybe most, have egos the size of Cape Cod. But of the three, police, prosecutor and judges, prosecutors have the least protection. Micheal Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, was fired, disbarred, convicted of a crime, and actually jailed for trying to enforce the no-drop prosecution protocol for sexual assault in the Duke case.

The prosecutor in my criminal case fared a little better. I filed a complaint with his boss for summoning my two daughters, ages 7 and 4, to court. I had already conceded that the facts were not in dispute. The trial would be about the law. No witness were need much less a couple of toddlers. He still summoned them. (The Second Set of Books tells the prosecutors to get a sympathetic face in front of the judge or jury. What's more sympathetic than toddlers.) The prosecutor could not refute my allegation because I enclosed a copy of the trial transcript. I had to pay for the transcript. When the prosecutor read it, he gave his two weeks notice and then blew town. That transcript was the best $46 I had ever spent in this life.

There is a name for what happens when a bureaucrat is destroyed by the First Set of Books for attempting to enforce the Second Set of Books. It is called the Abu Ghraib Syndrome. The people within the law enforcement community no longer seem to know the difference between the law, with its checks and balances, and the policies, procedure and protocols that constitute The Second Set of Books. In some cases you do not even know who wrote the policy, procedure or protocol. It could have been the local high school gym teacher for all anyone knows. Many of these bureaucrats are eventually going to learn the different between the First and the Second Set of Books. And my guess is that many of them are going to learn it the hard way. Because the only checks and balances in The Second Set of Books is The First Set of Books.

Judges routinely use our children as bargaining chips. Get the adult into counseling, continue the case for a year, and then drop it. This will open up the docket for the new arrests coming in next week. These judges that use our children are not honorable. Which is why I never use the term 'Your Honor' any more. I just call them judge.

Alex Baldwin, the actor, wrote that you have never seen a coward until you have seen a Los Angeles County judge. I call my judges-Sullivan, Arnold and even Runyon-cowards, too. When I first started observing them, nothing made sense. Arnold was completely infuriated when he was maneuvered into ruling not guilty. He verbally went up and down me so many times I lost count. What was the big deal? If I was not guilty just say and then we could all go home. But that was back in the days before I knew about The Second Set of Books.

I lost visitation with my two daughters when I got arrested. One was the victim-the other was the witness. After a not guilty, I expected to get visitation with my girls. But the divorce judge, Sullivan, decreed that counseling was in order and they would decide when we would reunite. I told the judge that the decision on whether these two girls had a father or a fatherless childhood was not leaving this courthouse. There would be a couple of reason for that decision.

First, by then I knew of the Second Set of Books. As much as I had prayed for the return of my children, I knew that this counseling might get thrown in the way. Judges are addicted to counseling like a meth-head is addict to crystal meth. Sullivan wrote in the divorce decree that he envision only one or two meetings with the counselor. There is no counseling done in the first meeting or two. It is intake-who's the players and what are the issues. But Sullivan was not interested in counseling. He merely wanted to unload the decision out of habit. And if we do not shut them down now, they will be doing it to our kids in twenty years from now when they have little ones running around the house.

Second, just exactly where does the buck stop with our legal system? Police have to make an arrest. The prosecutor has to pursue the case. Judges now also walk a away without rendering a verdict, and passing the buck does not constitute a decision. Can those mental health counselors slide the decision over to someone else? Just where does this end? Who is responsible? Who is accountable?

The mental health crowd is the third reason I said no. Some people think they are geniuses with their Masters and PH D's. Others think they are so wacky that they call them fruit loops. Well, I have a third name for them. Suckers. They did not get hired for their medical ability. They got these because they were willing to take these cases off the judge's hands. Which has done nothing for the credibility for their profession. We are not here to help-we are here to unload. And they created a liability that did not previously existed. If a judge releases a defendant and he goes kills someone, that judge or the judiciary cannot be sued. But a mental health worker, and their employer certainly can be held liable. Our judiciary is now using the mental health field like a ten dollar whore.

I sued Monadnock Family Services to make them go away. I told their lawyer Byron that they were a legitimate target for men. We settled for no money. They would have nothing to do with this reconciliation. The counselor was released. And they would no longer get involved in any domestic violence cases.

Every time we ended back in court over whatever squabbles, I would ask Judge Sullivan for my children back. The decision belong to the counselors he would tell me. But he knew he had screwed up. I could see it in his face. But he would not fix it. He would not step out of that box those domestic violence/sexual assault advocates had built for him. After five years, he retired to a part time position at the Littleton courthouse 120 miles away.

So when guys like Alex Baldwin and I call judges cowards, we have legitimate reasons for doing so. It is not good for judges to be called coward. It is unlikely that it is good for the rest of us.

I do not claim to have all The Second Set of Book. I know of one book that I do not have. And I would have love to read that one. That would be the seminar that the domestic violence and sexual assault advocates put on periodically for legal personnel including judges. These advocates are camped outside every state, not federal, courthouse in America. The U.S. Dept of Justice provides 50-100% of their funding depending on the program. They have three day seminars at resorts where everything is paid for except the liquor. Judges in NH are ordered to attend. Neither Sullivan or Arnold would confirm or deny they had attended. They actually said nothing. It must be like the Masons where they will not say anything about the organization until you show them the secret hand sign.

Supreme Court Judge Louis Brandeis once wrote that the best description of a judge is the impartial guardian of the rule of law. How does three days of wine, women and song contribute to impartiality? It does not. So it should not have been any surprise that they would not answer me. After all, they were not on trial. I was. But they are going to be. They were suppose to protect to rule of law not collaborate in its demise. They have failed miserably.

A guardian ad litem is an attorney appointed for a child. The attorney solely represents the child. I got one when I was first separated to get a neutral pair of eyes and ears on the family. I was disappointed in his findings.

A few years later, another guardian was appointed for one of the kids. A regular report filed with the Court painted me as some sort violent psychopath. I thought that was uncalled for seeing as we had never met. It start a flurry of nasty letters between until we both came to the conclusion that this was not about us. We ended on a friendly note.

At a Court hearing later on I approached him. I asked him if he had had any domestic violence training. He said yes, that it was required to become certified as a guardian ad litem. Another chapter for The Second Set of Books that I never managed to acquire.. So men, if you were thinking about getting a guardian ad litem for an unbiased assessment, then you should ask for the domestic violence material that certified the guardian. And do not worry that you are not sure what you are looking for. It will stand right out.

There are more sections of The Second Set of Books. Medical personnel are supposed to report suspected domestic violence. The college professor Angela Davis has a story of a Latino couple in California getting in trouble feeding the dog his liver for dinner. Mental health employees are also required. Think of Wendy threatening our kids with foster care. Teachers, day care providers, the list just goes on and on. The East German secret police, the Stazi, had 25% of the population on record as informers. The United States is not that high yet, but we are still growing.

These people-police, prosecutors and judges-are suppose to protect us. They are checks and balances to prevent injustice. That is why we spend so much money of police training. But if the police screw it up, the prosecutor can catch it. If the prosecutor misses it then the judge can step in to fix it. But if all three have been compromised, then what does one need to do to get justice? Go to the appeals court or the Supreme Court? That seem a little ridiculous particularly when the zero tolerance has arrests for something as trivial as touching.

On one hand we have the law. On the other hand we have what we are really going to do-the policies, procedures and protocols. The rule of law is dead. Now we have 50 states with legal systems as good as any third world banana republic. Men are demonized and the women and children end up as suffering as well.
So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. The Second Set of Books originated in Washington. But the dirty deeds are being carried out by our local police, prosecutors and judges. These are the people we pay good money to protect us and our families. And what do we get for our tax money? Collaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War. All because they go along to get along. They are an embarrassment, the whole lot of them. And they need to be held accountable. So burn them out.

In the last 25 years they have arrested one in six adults in this country and forced 25% of the men, women and children into homelessness. In 50 years it will be one in three adults arrested and 50% of the men, women and children ending up homeless. Most of our kids will live to the age of 68 years old. As bad as it was for you, your children will have twice the odds of it happening to them.

Some of you will say that 50% homelessness sounds absurd. But 25% is absurd and that is already here. There is no evidence that the police, courts, or government is planning to do anything different in the immediate future. And they will not do anything different until we make it so uncomfortable that they must change. Bureaucracy at its worst. So burn them out. This is too important to be using that touchy-feeling coaching that is so popular with business these days. You need to flatten them, like Wile E. Coyote. They need to be taught never to replace the rule of law. BURN-THEM-OUT!

Most of the police stations built in New England over the last 20 years are stone or brick. Fortunately, the roofs are still wood. The advantage of fire on the roof is that it is above the sprinklers. But even the sprinklers going off work to our advantage. There is no way they can work in a building with six inches of water. And I am certain we will disrupt their momentum once they start working out of a FEMA trailers. If they still do not get the message, then burn down the trailers.

The easiest way of burning a building is with the Molotov cocktail. It was invented by the Finns when the Soviets invaded in 1939. You fill a bottle with gasoline and stuff a rag in the end for a wick. You light the wick and throw bottle, It shatters on impact spraying gas everywhere and the wick ignites the gas. Simple, readily available, and effective. And only two things to remember.

First, use a glass bottle. Thinner glass is better than thicker glass. You want it to shatter on impact. When I was teaching a kid at the high school on the West Side Worcester, MA. threw a Molotov cocktail into his school. Fortunately, he used a plastic bottle. It burned about three square inches of carpeting. I had to laugh when I said to myself, "Thank God for dumb kids."

Second, you need to tie the rag to the bottle. Nothing worse that throwing a Molotov cocktail, landing where you wanted it, and having it shatter perfectly. Then you noticed the wick had fallen out on the way to the target. No wick-no fire.

Some of these building will have brick faces and metal roofs. Just break a window and throw the Molotov cocktail inside. Carpets, furniture, computer plastic, even paint on the walls will burn. It is okay if the sprinkler goes off. I wonder if you can get hip waders over a gun belt?

We had a kid in my hometown that burned down the old junior high school. He walked up to the front door one night with a can of lighter fluid. The applicator on the end squirts the lighter fluid out. He squirted under the door and along the seams and lit a match. The kid took out the entire old part of the building. Why are kids so competent when it is something they should not be doing?

There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.

Now, nobody wants to get killed. But let us look at your life. You are broke after paying child support. She and the kids are not doing any better. None of you are middle class any more. You have no say in the kids education, their health treatment, you may not even have visitation with your sons and daughters. And everything you thought you knew to be true-the rule of law, the sanctity of the of the family, the belief that government was there to nurture your brood-all turned out to be a lie. Face it boys, we are no longer fathers. We are just piggy banks.

So you are not losing anything by picking up the Molotov cocktail. It may be too late for us. But without something changing, your kids will have double the odds of it happening to them. That will knock them out of the middle class again, providing they ever get back in. And their kids, your grandchildren, will end up damaged goods before it is over. So it is okay to run. You just need to turn around and run at them. They are no way as imposing as they seem. They only do what they do for a paycheck.

Television would make us believe that people get arrested because of fingerprints, DNA, facial recognition, and instruments that can tell where a substance was made and here is the local distributors. It is Hollywood crap. Most of the people in prison are there for one key reason. They could not keep their mouths shut. They told someone. That someone told others. The cops hear it and start looking at them for a suspect. That how it works in real life.

This need to confess seems to be primeval. Just human nature. But if you cannot keep a secret, do not expect the one you tell to keep their mouth shut. There is only three people I know for certain they will keep their mouths shut. That would be Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

I only managed to get the main door of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, NH. I would appreciate it if some of you boys would finish the job for me. They harmed my children. The place is evil. So take it out
Some where along the line I picked up the crazy notion that it is better to be dead as a free man than to live as a serf. The government needs to be a little more careful about what they teach in our schools.

And bring a can of spray paint to these fires. Paint the word COLLABORATORS ( two L's with an S on the end) on the building before you burn it. Maybe we can shame them back to the rule of law. And we do want the police to know exactly who burned the building. Then the police can start interviewing the usually suspects, all 36 million of us.

We have covered the do-bies. Now let us look at the bureaucrats that say-ers.
The Second Set of Books originated in Office of Violence Against Women (OVW) which is part of the United States Department of Justice. Some of these policies, procedures and protocol were developed locally. But the local results would be sent up to OVW and, if approved, would disperse it out to all 50 states. They are smart, clever, bigoted and able to lie as well as any politician that ever called Washington home. In other words, they have now become Washington insiders.

But what makes them so uniques is their anger towards men, any man. They are so twisted in their hatred of men that they are positively scary. And it is not what they are doing to men that makes them frightening. You would expect that. No, it is what they are doing to the women and children that makes them so twisted.
When the Pentagon drops a bomb on innocent civilians the military calls it Collateral Damage. It sounds better than, "Yeah, we killed a bunch of women and children." Those poor, innocent, stupid civilians have always been caught in the middle since the time we were fighting with rocks.. Your wife and kids are Collateral Damage in the war against you, the man in the family. For 25 years these feminists at OVAW have been willing to sacrifice the women and children to get you. And they cannot claim ignorance about what they are doing. Under the VAWA the federal government is funding at least 1,800 homeless shelters. As long as the Office for Violence Against Women exists in the U.S. Department Justice , no American man, women or child will be safe in their own home.

If you ask these feminists why are the shelters all full, they will not say because of all the arrests. The shelters are full because of men. But they knew from the beginning that this was not man bad-woman good thing. The year was 1976. Two things would happen that year.

First, someone at the U.S. Dept of Justice decided to count the dead bodies. In 1975 there were 1522 women killed in domestic violence. And for men killed in 1975? The dead for men was 1506. Statistically equal a friend tells me so.

If you had asked me before the study, I would have assumed that women were getting the worst of it. But I would be looking at it by genders. What I should have been looking at was species, homo-sapiens, human beings. Men are human-women are human. Being the same species you would expect the same results from both genders. And that is exactly what the dead bodies told us.

The second thing that happened in 1976 was the first domestic violence survey was released. It was so new the time that they called it family violence. Murray Straus of UNH and Richard Gellars from a school in RI were the researchers. They did not find two perpetrators of domestic violence, but three. Men initiated violence 25.7% of the time: women 25.2%, and the other 49.1% was the two going after each at the same time. These two people going after each other at the same time is well recognized in law. The law in NH calls that mutual combat. Men are human. Women are human. And once again we found both genders acting the same manner.

So how did we end up with the theory of man bad-woman good that the government at all levels is using? The feminist writer Susan Brownmiller wrote In Our Time that," the way you get funding and church donations is to talk about the pure victims. If you talk about the impurity of the victim, the sympathy vanishes." If women get to be good then men get what is left-bad. Man bad-woman good was originally a funding raising technique. After 35 years, it has turned into official government dogma at all levels, from the local cop on the beat to the White House. Men need to be punished, restrained and retrained. Your wives and children are, unfortunately, just collateral damage in this effort to punish men. So you were not dreaming it. There really is a government pogrom against men.

When a man batters or kills, there is no excuse. When a woman commits the same act, there is nothing but excuses. Simple though inaccurate. But there is one redeeming aspect to men being demonized. Now we men can act like devils. And we do not even need to apologize for it. Men are going to start acting just like they made us out to be. As an old high school semi-punk I can assure you boys of one thing. This is going to be fun. You guys are going to end up laughing like hyenas.

The money funded under the VAWA is split in two when it leaves the Treasury. Part goes the Health and Human Services for fund these domestic violence homeless shelters. If that 36 million number is correct, and it is all that we have, then the 1.44 million arrests a year will be made producing 2.88 million homeless Americans each year. Women and children constitute 60% of these homeless people, 1.7 million Americans a year. Shutting down these shelters would be cruel. What would these women and children do then? Go live under a bridge. No, we are stuck with these shelters for a while. But there is one thing that Congress needs to fix when they fund them again.

These shelters do not allow men on the property let alone inside the residences. Why is it against the law to use federal money on organizations that discriminate against black, Jews, gays or even women but it is okay to do so against men? Men contributed half that tax money. Eight years ago a man in California fled with his children after the police warned him to get out after they had arrested the wife and mother. None of the shelters would take him and the kids in because he was a man. I wonder if this would survive a legal gender discrimination challenge in a federal court?

A society without men is freakier than a world without blacks or Jews. That is not to say blacks or Jews are any less worthy. It just that there are more men in the world than blacks or Jews even if you combined them. If these feminist had to deal with men on a regular basis, then maybe the country would not be in the pickle we are in now.

There is a third reason to end this discrimination, something of a more practical nature. Apparently, some women like to have sex with men. But men are barred from the property. Suddenly, that 15 year boy two doors down starts looking real good. It might even be fun breaking in this new meat. So this woman driven into insolvency by the push for domestic violence arrests now finds herself charged as a pedophile because someone barred men from her world. With domestic violence advocates as friends, who needs enemies.
This shelters came up with a novel approach to fixing the pedophile problem. Male children over the age of thirteen are barred from staying there. Too troublesome. The family broke up when the father was thrown out of the house. Now a second break up is happening with the teenage boys. Perhaps a relative has one bed available. Maybe the family of a high school friend would take him in their home. If neither option works then that is okay. He can move in with his father. Then they will both be sleeping in the car down by the river.
Children of these parents also suffer. They used to have their own bedroom in a safe town with good schools. First they have a shelter, then Section 8 public housing. An urban school. Maybe good-maybe not. Kids learn how to be tough in an urban environment. The kids might go bad or they could come out just fine. But there will be no clunky car as a teenager. There will be no saving fund for college. There will be no monetary gift to use as a down payment for a starter home. This tradition of the older generation giving the younger generation a financial leg up has been ruin due to the older generation's lack of money. Financially, the older generation is merely treading water. It will take generations after these present two generations to repair the economic damage to these families.

So we are stuck with funding these shelters for a while. These women and children have no place left to go. Some of you guys may think that these feminist caused the problem and then created the solution. But homeless shelters are not a solution. They are just barely a band aid.

The remaining money under VAWA goes to the United States Department of Justice for the Office of Violence Against Women (OVW). As long as OVW exists then the government is at war with men. As long as there is a pogrom against men, then women and children are going to end up as collateral damage. So there is no need for discussion about OVW going. The only thing we need to figure out is which of the two ways we can use to get rid of them-the easy way or the hard way.

And boys, do not try to burn down Washington's Dept. of Justice Building in an effort to get rid of the Office of Violence Against Women. Their offices are over at N Street.

The easy way is using Congress. The VAWA comes up for funding every five to seven years. Next time it comes up, Congress votes no and everyone at the OVW gets a pink slip in late September. Nice and simple except nothing is simple in Washington. We, the people out here in the sticks, do not always know what the dynamics are in Washington. There might be one method of getting Congress on course. Have Congress demand that the Attorney General get, and release the arrests figures. Or have the President order it. He is usually fearless after he makes up his mind. And this is too large and too well known to continue the Washington plausible deniable routine. Then they will know how much trouble they are in because of these arrests.

There are 220 million adults 18 or older in this country of both sexes. If my figure of 36 million is correct, then that is 16.4% of the adults have been arrested. It could be as high as 55 million or 25%. It might be as low as 22 million or 10%. Whatever the number there are two things that Congress should know. First, is the fellow who discovered the arrests in Minneapolis back in 1992 said do not use it because it does not work. And second, the people arrested now constitute a Fifth Column here in the United States. Our loyalty to Washington is gone. But what did these genuises on the Potomac expect? They have harmed our children. If they think Al Qaeda is a pain in the ass, wait to they see what Americans can do once their fuse is lit.
I am certain the Attorney General will sit for months on the request for the number of domestic violence arrests. Then he will explain that they do not readily have the number and that some sort of Manhattan Project effort will be needed in time and money. Nonsense. When Washington started these arrests in 1984 over 6.3 personal computers were sold here in the U.S. That figure does not include all the mini's, midi's and mainframe computers sold that year. There is no way they can pretend that this data does not exist in electronic storage. A request to Ohio for the arrests 1984-2010 would tie up a state clerk for an hour, including their 15 minute coffee break. Time for the truth boys and girls. Because this is not going away.

The hard way is more time consuming, cost more money and is full of headaches. Because the only way of removing a department from the federal government without the consent of Congress is to take out the entire federal government.

The first time I heard that, I said that is ridiculous. We cannot run this country without a federal government. But we will replace the old government with something new and improved. The new government would honor the debts incurred by the old government. There are a lot of useful reasons for starting with a clean slate.
The bipartisan debt commission released their recommendation for cleaning up the $14 trillion we have borrowed over the years. Convention wisdom has it that Congress has no stomach for any of the recommendations.

But a new government could install those recommendation on day one. Three years later, most Americans will not remember that anything is different. The old government laid off its employees when it closed. The new government is hiring. But instead of 65,000 employees at the Dept. of Education, the new government is only hiring 45,000. Instead of an average federal wage of $70,000 a year, the new average will be $52,000. The new government will have to write a tax code. Everyone pays 15% with no deductions. How many IRS employees could you get rid of if there were no more deductions? Any thing is possible with a new government.

Normally over-throwing a elected government is considered treason. Treason is punishable by death here in the United States. But there is one way of over throwing the government. That is through the ballot box. Then it is not treason but democracy. Allegedly, Washington is in favor of democracy, particularly if their candidate wins.

There is no legal mechanism in the Constitution or the Federal code of the United States for dissolving the government of the United States. So that is what we need first. Congress would need to write it. We get them to do it through the ballot initiative.

A ballot initiative is when enough registered voters sign a petition to get a question on the ballot for the next election. The following would be a sample of what the question would look like in New Hampshire.

That all elected representatives from the state of New Hampshire to both houses of the United States Congress are to propose and advance a bill that would set up a legal mechanism to dissolve the United States government should the people decide to do so in a general election by a simple majority.

If this initiative passes in all 50 states then Congress will be stuck. They will have to write the law to dissolve. If they do not I suspect within ten years they will be standing in a stairwell at the British or French embassy with a suitcase in hand waiting to get to a rooftop helicopter. I doubt if they will be thinking about the humiliation of being thrown out of the country. They will be far too busy worrying about what will happen if the mob gets their hands on them.

Washington has not got a friend in the world. Even the British and Israelis loath them now. Kind of a bad time to be losing domestic support. And what they done over the last 25 years? They have wiped out the middle class pandering to a special interest group of bigots. And in typical Washington fashion, they did not even know they did it.

This Ivy League inbreeding in Washington has produced an elite that knows what best. Everyone else-husbands, wives, police officers, prosecutors, judges, attorney generals and guardian ad litems-are to shut up and do what they are told. The rule of law is gone, replaced by the policies, procedures and protocols of The Second Set of Books. Which means the federal government will be going shortly. For the government being unable to deliver the rule of law is like an auto mechanic who claims he does not know how to change the engine oil. A certain minimum competency is required. So it looks like the parents of the Washington elite were right. One can be too smart for their own good.

Betty Friedan wrote that the feminist revolution, like any revolution, would have its excesses. Losing the rule of law is too great to call it a mere excess. It is a catastrophe. It is the heart, mind and soul between the people and their government. These feelings of betrayal by losing it may be permanent. I have 21 years of Army service going back to the Vietnam War. My loyalty to the government should be a given. It is gone. I am certain it will never return regardless of how long I might have lived.

It was another woman that lead us in to this decision to clean house inside the beltway. Something she taught us fifty years ago. You simply look at those folks in Washington and then ask yourself the old Ann Landers question, "Am I better off with them, or without them? Are my children better off with them, or without them?" They are sinking like stones.

Washington, DC was chose as the capital because it was the geographical center or the old Colonies. Today, the geographical center of the country is just west of St. Louis Missouri. The new government can set the capital anywhere in the United States it wants. Imagine how many rodents, insects and parasites they could lose by moving 1500 miles west.

Whether you replace the federal government or not, men are still going to need a legal defense center for men. Something like the NAACP used to get black people their rights. The only checks and balances in the Second Set of Books is the First Set of Books. Which means lawsuits. Now I know you guys are broke. Some of you have had your wives and kids thrown into homelessness. So I completely understand when you tell me that you are broke. But if everyone who has been arrested throws in $10.00 a year then the legal defense center will have a war chest of $360 million. You can buy a whole bunch of lawsuit with that kind of money.

The Ball family has been supplying sergeants to the Army since at least the Revolutionary War. Elijah served as a sergeant in Cushing's Regiment at the Battle of Bennington. His commanding officer was a general from NH with a name of John Stark. General Start was a clever warrior. He was responsible for the bulk of the heavy casualties the British suffer at their victory at Bunker Hill. His orderly, fighting withdrawal allowed the other units on the hill to not only retreat but collect their wounded on the way out.
General Stark would repeat this performance on three hill tops outside the village of Bennington VT one hot August day in 1777. At the end of the battle, the British lost over 900 men killed or captured. The Colonists suffered 30 dead. Two months later, the depleted British army would surrender at Saratoga. That victory at Saratoga would bring the French into the war. John Stark was the most competent general this country ever produced. For that reason alone his men loved him.

But as brilliant as he was on the battlefield, General Stark would become even more famous for something he said. In 1809 the veterans of Bennington decided to have one last reunion. A delegation called on the General with his invitation. But the General was old and frail. He could not attend. But he did send a message, "You tell the boys I said live free or die. That death is not the worst of evil." Since 1945 the State of New Hampshire has stamped Live Free or Die on every pen, coffee mug, license plate and highway sign that they have gotten their hands on.

I think the General and his sergeant would be please that his words have elevated from the novelties and bric-a-brac to something more dignified like a courthouse door. Neither of them would give a second thought to the mess left over after the fire was extinguished. War has always been a grim business. Civil wars are usually worse.

But they would be trouble by the new enemy. Oh, they understood when a government betrays it people. They took up arms against the super power of their day to get relief for their grievances. But the enemy we face now is the government that these men birthed at places like Bennington, Saratoga and Bunker Hill. Government is no different than the food in a refrigerator. Given enough time both will go bad.
The smartest person I knew in this life was my mother. Perhaps that is true of all of us. Maybe I just got lucky. She was a nurse by trade. She worked in a time when Western medicine made that final transition from butchery to science. But it would not be her nursing skills that made her extraordinary. No, it would be this one incredible knack she had that I had only modest success at mimicking in my life. If she had something important to say to you, she would say and then never mention it again. She would talk about it if you raised the issue. But she never mentioned it twice on her own. And, oddly, you always heard her.
But she did have one favorite saying. I must have heard in a thousand times in the eighteen years I lived under her roof. It always came at the end of the conversation as she peeled away to see if it was time for Perry Mason or Lawrence Welk. She would turn her head to the side, and over her shoulder she would say, "And the only thing you really have in this world is your family." Now, thanks to the United States Government, neither we nor our children have that.

. I have three things to say to my children. First, Daddy loves you. Second, you are my three most favorite people in the world. And last, that you are to stick together no matter how old you get or how far apart you live. Because it is like Grandma always said. The only thing you really have in this world is your family.