Wanted: Husband

Not a new one. The one she already had.

Posted on Craigslist's "Rants and Rave's:"

i want my husband back

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Date: 2012-05-30, 11:12PM EDT
Reply to: 9ctpt-3048060727@pers.craigslist.org

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I suppose I just need to rant. I'm severely saddened by my husband leaving me. I still look at old photos and things that bring back memories. I cuddle every night with the teddy bear he got me. I messed up bad. I was rude, uncaring, unloving, and I went off the handle often. Not to say I wasn't good often too (making dinner, cleaning the house, dates, etc..), but slowly the good faded. I was a monster. I wish I had a time machine to show him how I really feel about him. Show him how much I truely love him. I miss our life together. He left me on chrismas eve. And trust me, he is NOT coming back. What to do?

This is How It. Is. Done.

They announce a big investigation. It takes years. Its quietly closed. No one goes to jail. The criminals abscond with their millions. EFF YOU.

Lying about the value of something when you are a financial business is a big deal: its called FRAUD.

And they all WALKED.

This is done by OUR GOVERNMENT WORKING ON BEHALF OF "THE PEOPLE." THE LAW IS A JOKE AND SO IS THIS COUNTRY.

A COUNTRY OF NO LAWS IS NOT A COUNTRY.

Gee, You Mean The People Have Rights?

Understand this: Being a cop sucks. People watch you constantly, criminals want to kill you and everyone's ready to judge you. Furthermore, think of what its like for someone to tape you while you do your job. Yeah. And capture every mistake you make. 

That said, tough crap, police departments of this country. The only recourse the people have against the cops becoming dictatorial is the court system and the courts will only believe one thing: physical evidence. Cops carry batons and guns for protection.


WE CARRY VIDEO CAMERAS FOR THE SAME REASON.


Police Efforts to Ban Citizen Taping Beaten Back by Department of Justice

Jason Mick (Blog) - May 17, 2012 1:11 PM

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Feds back ACLU in arguing that taping is necessary to prevent police brutality; some cops disagree

Depending on their perspective, U.S. citizens may feel as if they have wandered into one of the "police states" that litter cautionary literary tales like 1984.  Today in the U.S. police officers can arrest you for dancing or break down your door and arrest you and your family at gunpoint for whatever malicious wrongs your neighborhood cybersquatter has committed.  And then there's the growing levels of domestic surveillance -- warrantless wiretaps, cell phone data grabbing, GPS tracking, "national security letters", and more.  Audits have revealed that these Orwellian privileges can be and often are abused.

The Obama administration has drawn some flak for supporting some of these intrusions -- such as warrantless wiretaps and warrantless GPS tracking -- in the name of "fighting terrorism (the Obama administration was admonished by the Supreme Court on the latter issue).  Still, for supporting such zealous federal surveillance provisions, the Obama administration did take a rather progressive stand on Monday, looking to stomp out local and state officials efforts to ban civilians from taping on duty law enforcement officers.

I. Department of Justice -- Citizens Have a Right, Responsibility to Tape Cops

The issue of citizens taping the police is a thorny one -- particularly if you're a cop.  While some police officers support the practice, others claim it prevents their law enforcement abilities.  Whether or not the latter claim is true, it's clear that video tapes of U.S. cops brutalizing civilians [example] -- at times beating them to death [example] -- have placed some cops in a load of trouble when the videos found their way to YouTube or other popular sites.

Many police fraternities and police departments have fought to ban the "right to tape".  They argue that they don't need citizens to fight police brutality -- that they'll manage their own affairs internally.  Some departments have gone as far as to invading the homes of citizens who taped them operating on the street or imprisoning citizens who record them.

_{Some police argue that citizens taping them prevents them from doing their job.
[Image Source: Occupy News Network]}

The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) was one of the departments that fought to silence members of the public, seizing their cameras and trying to prosecute them.  But a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) forced the department to rethink its procedures -- and pay a steep settlement to a citizen whose camera was seized.

While the BPD sent a letter to its officers "clarifying" that civilians had the right to tape, the Obama administration felt that effort was insufficient.  On Monday, U.S. Department of Justice Special Litigation Section chief Jonathan Smith wrote an admonishing letter [PDF] to the department.

In it he recalls how citizen taping helped bring justice in one famous incident of police brutality.  He comments, "A private individual awakened by sirens recorded police officers assaulting King from the balcony of his apartment.  This videotape provided key evidence of officer misconduct and led to widespread reform."

He adds "given the numerous publicized reports over the past several years alleging that BPD officers violated individuals’ First Amendment rights."

Bans on taping also violating the Fourth and Fourteenth amendment, according to Mr. Smith.

He concludes that the department needs to clarify the importance and right to civilian taping, which he argues is necessary to "engender public confidence in our police departments, promote public access to information necessary to hold our governmental officers accountable, and ensure public and officer safety.

II. Letter to Attorney General May Have Spurred Response

The letter comes in the wake of a letter from several journalistic and civil rights organizations to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, pressing him to crack down on local efforts to ban taping.

_{U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was encouraged to defend the right to tape in a recent letter.
[Image Source: DOJ]}

The groups write:

The First Amendment has come under assault on the streets of America. Since the Occupy Wall Street movement began, police have arrested dozens of journalists and activists simply for attempting to document political protests in public spaces. While individual cases may not fall under the Justice Department’s jurisdiction, the undersigned groups see this suppression of speech as a national problem that deserves your full attention.

The alarming number of arrests is an unfortunate and unwarranted byproduct of otherwise positive changes. A new type of activism is taking hold around the world and here in the U.S.: People with smartphones, cameras and Internet connections have been empowered with the means to report on public events. These developments have also created an urgent need for organizations such as ours to defend this new breed of activists and journalists and protect their right to record.

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement has been fought by numerous state and local governments and become a crucial censorship and civil liberties battlefield in the tech industry.

III. Court of Appeals Forbid Chicago From Suing ACLU or Banning Taping 

More pressure also came earlier this month when the U.S. 7th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Chicago banned the city from suing the American Civil Liberties Union from audio taping officers on the job.  No, you didn't read that wrong -- in an ironic twist Chicago tried the bold move of turning the tables and suing the ACLU over taping.

In its ruling, the court wrote, "The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests."

The victory came by a narrow 2-to-1 margin.

U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner -- the lone appellate justice who voted to dismiss the ACLU's countersuit -- acknowledged that taping was "more accurate" than relying on recalled conversations, which are often ruled unreliable evidence in court.  But he argued allowing civilians to maintain accountability via taping violates officers’ rights to privacy and could hurt officers’ ability to "perform their duties".  He writes, "These are significant social costs for weighting them less heavily than the social value of recorded eavesdropping."

 
_{Chicago Judge Richard Posner argues that taping cops brutalizing citizens prevents the officers from "doing their job" and invades their privacy.
[Image Sources: Unknown (left); Shepard Fairey (right)]}

In response to Judge Posner's minority criticism, the ACLU argues that the only "duties" taping prevents would be orders to brutalize citizens.  The Illinois branch's legal director, Harvey Grossman comments on the victory, "In order to make the rights of free expression and petition effective, individuals and organizations must be able to freely gather and record information about the conduct of government and their agents -- especially the police."

Much like the controversy over corporate intrusions of individual home networks and data mining, the debate over bans and prosecution for civilians who tape cops is unlikely to go away.  It is an issue that divides cities, courts, local officials, and even the police officers themselves.  But much like the issue of corporate surveillance, the Obama administration appears to be increasingly throwing its weight behind a pro-civil liberty stance on this issue, even as it pushes what some would call an anti-civil liberty stance on federal surveillance.

Other appeals courts have issued similar rulings defending the "right to tape".

IV. Both Baltimore and Chicago Have a History of Police Brutality

To put this debate in context, it is important to note that both the Chicago Police Department and the Baltimore Police Department have a reputation for police brutality.

The BPD is under scrutiny for spending $10.4M USD in the past three years ($3.5M USD annually) to defend its officers against allegations of brutality and wrongdoing.  This week the latest in a string of internal affairs investigations of the department led to the suspension and criminal arrest of a BPD officer.

Chicago also has spent millions to defend allegedly crooked cops, keeping them on its payroll.  Citizens of Chicago were protesting in the streets this week in the streets over alleged police brutality.  While not all locals are fans of the protests, some argue it is necessary.  An anonymous resident told Fox News Chicago, "I'm glad they got a march because the police are crazy out here.  They come out here roughing us up ... sending innocent people to jail."

_{Chicago has nearly 700 active cops with 10 or more reports of brutality or misconduct filed against them. [Image Source: NBC]}

The Chicago PD has faced 441 citizen lawsuits and paid out $45M USD in damages over the past three years.  The city has successfully fought to prevent the release of the names of 662 cops who each had 10 or more complaints of misconduct or brutality filed against them.  Most of these cops remain active and prowling the streets.

Banking Misfits Strike Again: No Surprise

To some extent, this man is spot on - Banks will take risk. So what? Its what they do. JP Morgan lost money on a bad bet. Again, so what? Its the free market. They lose money and that is THEIR PROBLEM. Involving the government is going to result in one thing: private industry trying to bribe to government to set laws and regulations that only help them create a monopoly or pseudo-monopoly in their industry (see Healthcare). Here's the real kicker being missed here: currently, all TBTF banks are BACKED BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD, WHICH IS BACKED BY THE U.S. TREASURY. That's ME. AND. YOU.

UN-AC-CEPTABLE. Period.

These are private people making big money. For whom? For you and me? NO. For themselves. If they win big, they should keep it all. If they lose? THEN THEY SHOULD LOSE IT ALL. CAR, HOUSE, KIDS, I DON'T CARE. Its not my fault or yours,

WE DON'T BEAR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS, ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

So currently, SUCK IT, Mr. Scaramucci. These banks are backed by the U.S. taxpayer, so YES, we DO have a say in what they do, risk-wise. We are their CREDITOR. And taking CASINO BETS in wildly complex credit instruments that results in open-ended losses that run into the billions IS OUR BUSINESS.

WSJ: NAILED IT

Young men are lazy and unambitious.

Yeah... but the feedback loop is the catch. And women hold the key.

Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This "pre-adulthood" has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it's time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn't bring out the best in men.

"We are sick of hooking up with guys," writes the comedian Julie Klausner, author of a touchingly funny 2010 book, "I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters and Other Guys I've Dated." What Ms. Klausner means by "guys" is males who are not boys or men but something in between. "Guys talk about 'Star Wars' like it's not a movie made for people half their age; a guy's idea of a perfect night is a hang around the PlayStation with his bandmates, or a trip to Vegas with his college friends.... They are more like the kids we babysat than the dads who drove us home." One female reviewer of Ms. Kausner's book wrote, "I had to stop several times while reading and think: Wait, did I date this same guy?"
For most of us, the cultural habitat of pre-adulthood no longer seems noteworthy. After all, popular culture has been crowded with pre-adults for almost two decades. Hollywood started the affair in the early 1990s with movies like "Singles," "Reality Bites," "Single White Female" and "Swingers." Television soon deepened the relationship, giving us the agreeable company of Monica, Joey, Rachel and Ross; Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer; Carrie, Miranda, et al.

Enlarge Image

But for all its familiarity, pre-adulthood represents a momentous sociological development. It's no exaggeration to say that having large numbers of single young men and women living independently, while also having enough disposable income to avoid ever messing up their kitchens, is something entirely new in human experience. Yes, at other points in Western history young people have waited well into their 20s to marry, and yes, office girls and bachelor lawyers have been working and finding amusement in cities for more than a century. But their numbers and their money supply were always relatively small. Today's pre-adults are a different matter. They are a major demographic event.
What also makes pre-adulthood something new is its radical reversal of the sexual hierarchy. Among pre-adults, women are the first sex. They graduate from college in greater numbers (among Americans ages 25 to 34, 34% of women now have a bachelor's degree but just 27% of men), and they have higher GPAs. As most professors tell it, they also have more confidence and drive. These strengths carry women through their 20s, when they are more likely than men to be in grad school and making strides in the workplace. In a number of cities, they are even out-earning their brothers and boyfriends.

WHY GROW UP? Men in their 20s now have an array of toys and distractions at their disposal, from videogames and sports bars to 'lad' magazines like Maxim, which makes Playboy look like Camus.

Still, for these women, one key question won't go away: Where have the good men gone? Their male peers often come across as aging frat boys, maladroit geeks or grubby slackers—a gender gap neatly crystallized by the director Judd Apatow in his hit 2007 movie "Knocked Up." The story's hero is 23-year-old Ben Stone (Seth Rogen), who has a drunken fling with Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl) and gets her pregnant. Ben lives in a Los Angeles crash pad with a group of grubby friends who spend their days playing videogames, smoking pot and unsuccessfully planning to launch a porn website. Allison, by contrast, is on her way up as a television reporter and lives in a neatly kept apartment with what appear to be clean sheets and towels. Once she decides to have the baby, she figures out what needs to be done and does it. Ben can only stumble his way toward being a responsible grownup.

Read More

• Two Cheers for the Maligned Slacker Dude
• Singles in the City: A History

So where did these pre-adults come from? You might assume that their appearance is a result of spoiled 24-year-olds trying to prolong the campus drinking and hook-up scene while exploiting the largesse of mom and dad. But the causes run deeper than that. Beginning in the 1980s, the economic advantage of higher education—the "college premium"—began to increase dramatically. Between 1960 and 2000, the percentage of younger adults enrolled in college or graduate school more than doubled. In the "knowledge economy," good jobs go to those with degrees. And degrees take years.

Another factor in the lengthening of the road to adulthood is our increasingly labyrinthine labor market. The past decades' economic expansion and the digital revolution have transformed the high-end labor market into a fierce competition for the most stimulating, creative and glamorous jobs. Fields that attract ambitious young men and women often require years of moving between school and internships, between internships and jobs, laterally and horizontally between jobs, and between cities in the U.S. and abroad. The knowledge economy gives the educated young an unprecedented opportunity to think about work in personal terms. They are looking not just for jobs but for "careers," work in which they can exercise their talents and express their deepest passions. They expect their careers to give shape to their identity. For today's pre-adults, "what you do" is almost synonymous with "who you are," and starting a family is seldom part of the picture.
Pre-adulthood can be compared to adolescence, an idea invented in the mid-20th century as American teenagers were herded away from the fields and the workplace and into that new institution, the high school. For a long time, the poor and recent immigrants were not part of adolescent life; they went straight to work, since their families couldn't afford the lost labor and income. But the country had grown rich enough to carve out space and time to create a more highly educated citizenry and work force. Teenagers quickly became a marketing and cultural phenomenon. They also earned their own psychological profile. One of the most influential of the psychologists of adolescence was Erik Erikson, who described the stage as a "moratorium," a limbo between childhood and adulthood characterized by role confusion, emotional turmoil and identity conflict.

Like adolescents in the 20th century, today's pre-adults have been wait-listed for adulthood. Marketers and culture creators help to promote pre-adulthood as a lifestyle. And like adolescence, pre-adulthood is a class-based social phenomenon, reserved for the relatively well-to-do. Those who don't get a four-year college degree are not in a position to compete for the more satisfying jobs of the knowledge economy.

But pre-adults differ in one major respect from adolescents. They write their own biographies, and they do it from scratch. Sociologists use the term "life script" to describe a particular society's ordering of life's large events and stages. Though such scripts vary across cultures, the archetypal plot is deeply rooted in our biological nature. The invention of adolescence did not change the large Roman numerals of the American script. Adults continued to be those who took over the primary tasks of the economy and culture. For women, the central task usually involved the day-to-day rearing of the next generation; for men, it involved protecting and providing for their wives and children. If you followed the script, you became an adult, a temporary custodian of the social order until your own old age and demise.

Tony Manero (John Travolta) has an unfulfilling job at a hardware store. He really lives for weekend nights ("Watch the hair!") at the disco.

Unlike adolescents, however, pre-adults don't know what is supposed to come next. For them, marriage and parenthood come in many forms, or can be skipped altogether. In 1970, just 16% of Americans ages 25 to 29 had never been married; today that's true of an astonishing 55% of the age group. In the U.S., the mean age at first marriage has been climbing toward 30 (a point past which it has already gone in much of Europe). It is no wonder that so many young Americans suffer through a "quarter-life crisis," a period of depression and worry over their future.

Given the rigors of contemporary career-building, pre-adults who do marry and start families do so later than ever before in human history. Husbands, wives and children are a drag on the footloose life required for the early career track and identity search. Pre-adulthood has also confounded the primordial search for a mate. It has delayed a stable sense of identity, dramatically expanded the pool of possible spouses, mystified courtship routines and helped to throw into doubt the very meaning of marriage. In 1970, to cite just one of many numbers proving the point, nearly seven in 10 25-year-olds were married; by 2000, only one-third had reached that milestone.

American men have been struggling with finding an acceptable adult identity since at least the mid-19th century. We often hear about the miseries of women confined to the domestic sphere once men began to work in offices and factories away from home. But it seems that men didn't much like the arrangement either. They balked at the stuffy propriety of the bourgeois parlor, as they did later at the banal activities of the suburban living room. They turned to hobbies and adventures, like hunting and fishing. At midcentury, fathers who at first had refused to put down the money to buy those newfangled televisions changed their minds when the networks began broadcasting boxing matches and baseball games. The arrival of Playboy in the 1950s seemed like the ultimate protest against male domestication; think of the refusal implied by the magazine's title alone.
In his disregard for domestic life, the playboy was prologue for today's pre-adult male. Unlike the playboy with his jazz and art-filled pad, however, our boy rebel is a creature of the animal house. In the 1990s, Maxim, the rude, lewd and hugely popular "lad" magazine arrived from England. Its philosophy and tone were so juvenile, so entirely undomesticated, that it made Playboy look like Camus.
At the same time, young men were tuning in to cable channels like Comedy Central, the Cartoon Network and Spike, whose shows reflected the adolescent male preferences of its targeted male audiences. They watched movies with overgrown boy actors like Steve Carell, Luke and Owen Wilson, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Will Farrell and Seth Rogen, cheering their awesome car crashes, fart jokes, breast and crotch shots, beer pong competitions and other frat-boy pranks. Americans had always struck foreigners as youthful, even childlike, in their energy and optimism. But this was too much.

What explains this puerile shallowness? I see it as an expression of our cultural uncertainty about the social role of men. It's been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.
Today's pre-adult male is like an actor in a drama in which he only knows what he shouldn't say. He has to compete in a fierce job market, but he can't act too bossy or self-confident. He should be sensitive but not paternalistic, smart but not cocky. To deepen his predicament, because he is single, his advisers and confidants are generally undomesticated guys just like him.
Single men have never been civilization's most responsible actors; they continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers. So we can be disgusted if some of them continue to live in rooms decorated with "Star Wars" posters and crushed beer cans and to treat women like disposable estrogen toys, but we shouldn't be surprised.

Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single young man can live in pig heaven—and often does. Women put up with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get the DNA without the troublesome man. But these rational choices on the part of women only serve to legitimize men's attachment to the sand box. Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway. There's nothing they have to do.
They might as well just have another beer.

Jezebel: Just Say No.

What is the point of Jezebel.com? I can't figure it out.

Other than being a collection of embittered, post-prime girls with too much intellect and too little practical philosophy, I can't tell who they are or what they want. Whining and mocking, they do nothing but complain that men, and the world does not bend to accommodate them for who they are. They are generally selfish, self-serving, and demanding and immature. The best advice I could give to a young girl who wanted to meet someone and get married would be to go Jezebel.com every day and do the opposite of what it is they espouse.

Their latest guffaw:

The Catholic Church Urges Women to Not Be So Darn Picky

The Catholic Church is quite fond of giving women impractical and terrible advice, but one priest in Australia is taking it to a whole new level.

I'm not a big fan of the Catholic Church, but they're not evil for chrissake. Many in the church love helping people and that's what brought them to church in the first place. Priests have some of the highest job satisfaction rates in the country. Further, people go to church VOLUNTARILY. They want stability and direction and they want to stay true to what it is THEY THEMSELVES really want. Fleeting romances, flings, gambling, cheating, stealing, drinking - these things don't make people happy. Few people achieve lifelong happiness by being fickle, selfish, and egotistical. Families are demanding and so are marriages. The church generally tries to tell families to forgive, love and be grateful for what they have. To try to rise above personal greed or fleeting desires. I can't say that's terrible advice. Can you?

New statistics suggest that there are far fewer eligible men in Australia than there are women between the ages of 25 and 34. Cue a marriage crisis! Father Tony Kerin obviously just wants to help ladies live the dream of landing a man for life, so he said on behalf of the Archdiocese of Melbourne,

Are women getting too choosy? I'd say yes. I think many are setting aside their aspirations for later, but by the time they get around to it, they've missed their chance. In trying to have it all, they end up missing out.

Well, you heard the church: LOCK IT IN. Quick, before it's too late and you die alone and miserable—or worse, you have to become a nun.

First off, calm down Ms. Author. Father Kerin didn't demand you get married. Where did you see that? Furthermore, how old is this author? 18? I'm 34 and I can't find a woman who doesn't want to get married! Nearly ALL women want to get married EVENTUALLY. Grown-ups, which the author has not graduated to, apparently, know this - its something that becomes obvious with experience. Furthermore, has the author read any articles in modern day magazines (try The Atlantic) written by WOMEN who are in their early 40s who talk about all the great men THEY passed up to get something just a little "dreamier," and winding up with a 45 year old man, divorced, bankrupt, and trying to make it as an actor?

So let's review to make sure we understand exactly how to follow Kerin's plan: if a girl wants to get married (which obviously she does because what else is there in life?), she shouldn't waste time building a career or trying to find someone who she loves and who makes her happy.

Yes, sweetheart that's right. But let me break it down for you much less gently than the good Father. Men are programmed to see you as a young, healthy breeding platform for their DNA. (see Darwin). Its just a fact of nature. And as you don't want an old, broke man, men don't want a past-their-prime-live-at-work woman. You won't be available for sex or else be tired for it, and your body will become unattractive. Your career means jack-shit to a man. JACK. SHIT. He wants you young, healthy, and sexy. It doesn't mean he doesn't want you as a person; it simply means being you isn't enough; you have to be a good wife too. You're not just roommates with your husband. You will both have expectations and roles. You can have a career. But it is in YOUR best interests to take a SERIOUS interest in men when your appearance is healthy and strong. Get the best guy you can at your peak. Period. Find someone you love? Someone that makes you happy? Grow up. Love is sweet, but marriage is MORE OF AN AGREEMENT. And it requires MAINTENANCE. Love to you is too close to the word "Lust." Its powerful and romantic - THAT DIES. Furthermore, their is no "perfect one." There are multiple "perfect ones," and many imperfect ones and choosing one isn't the hard part; keeping things going is.

Nope, instead she should give up any non-reproduction-related aspirations and be ready to rejoice if any eligible man shows an interest in her. As soon as any guy so much as looks in her general direction, she should do whatever is necessary to make herself into his ideal woman because if she doesn't, someone else will...

He didn't say you should rejoice if a guy shows any interest in you, so this is just you projecting other the Father, but keep it up if it makes you happy. You don't have to be an ideal woman - especially considering your man won't be an ideal man. That said, being available, open minded, accepting and sexy will multiply your marriage prospects ten thousand percent. And yes, if a guy YOU WANT does not find you to be a good potential wife, then he will keep looking and someone else will get him because you were too obsessed with being rigid and selfish. This is a free world. Do as you please; just don't bitch when the world fails to make you happy. You make you happy. No one else. And why would a man want to marry someone so clearly bent on showing him how much she DOESN'T need him?!?!

Further, drop the whole "I don't need or want to get married" crap. If prince charming hoped off his steed tomorrow and begged you for lifelong marriage, you wouldn't complain that you were simply "too busy with your career." The happiest women I know are married, and usually with kids - families are a natural instinct for women to have. The Father wants women to be happy. But that can't be, right? Because you're predetermined that the Catholic Priest is evil?

 
Oh, and one more thing, never live with the fellow before marriage, because, according to Father Kerin, it means the relationship is twice as likely to end, probably because God is punishing you for being so choosy. Now throw away your standards, ladies, and start turning yourself into marriageable machines who destroy anything blocking their path down the aisle.

What does living with someone have to do with being choosy? And is the Father right? Is the relationship twice as likely to end? Are you avoiding marriage by living with a guy? Truthfully? Women that want to get married share themselves with men of character and are accepting people. But stand your ground, build your career, reject all the men you took too long to find or considered dating, and die alone, PLEASE. Because that way you can prove to the world how right you are.

From NPR

What American Women Do For Work

Categories: Jobs

03:53 pm

May 3, 2012

 

by Lam Thuy Vo

Forty years ago, only 1 in 3 American workers was a woman. Today, it's 1 in 2.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

You know this already. But it raises interesting, subtler questions: What jobs did all those women get? And how did the gender breakdown change by industry over the past 40 years?
This graph answers those questions.
It shows how the gender breakdown changed in major sectors of the economy between 1972 and 2012.
The size of the circles shows how some sectors grew to include a larger share of the workforce, while others shrank in relative terms.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

Two main themes jump out here.
The percentage of women did increase in some sectors, like government, leisure and hospitality, and financial activities (which includes real estate and insurance as well as financial services).
But the gains for women came not only from changes within sectors, but also from broader job shifts in the economy.
Women do most jobs in health and education — this was true in 1972, and it's still true today. The gender balance has barely changed. But the share of U.S. jobs in this sector has more than doubled — from 7 percent in 1972 to 15 percent today.
Manufacturing is the mirror image of health and education. Men still do most of the jobs in the sector. But the share of total U.S. jobs in manufacturing has fallen sharply — from 24 percent in 1972, to 9 percent today.

For the Last Time

MODERN DAY women do not want equality. They want their mate to be superior and to pay the bills and they want to have time with their children and their husband - they want to play "house."

The 1970s saw women "rise up!" To overcome and overthrow the oppressive forces "holding them down!" Well they did. They gathered money and power and political influence and laws were enacted to ensure equality in education and employment. Now? Now its over.

It. Is. Over.

Mission Accomplished Ladies. Hell, it was accomplished by 1980, at the very latest.

Modern day women have had copious amounts of control, money, power, education, and success. And when you have everything, what do you do? Typically, you submit. You submit to your instincts, to what truly makes you happy, to what feels right to you, in your life. Furthermore, many MODERN DAY women saw mothers balancing careers and kids in the 70s and early 80s.

The result? Their mothers were a frantic wreck, the family had extra money it blew on material crap it didn't need, and fathers were disappointed to find tired wives who fell asleep early and talked about nothing but work.

Yup.

So let's just admit it, for chrissake.

Women Don’t Want to Balance Work and Life

Women want more life and less work, and they are willing to sacrifice to get it.
Working women tend to value their personal lives more than professional advancement, according to a new survey from More Magazine. It found that “65% of women say it’s more important to have TIME in their life than to make more MONEY at their job” and “73% say if their boss left her job, they would NOT apply to replace her.” These priorities are trending: “43% say they are LESS AMBITIOUS now than they were 10 years ago,” and “58% say that flexibility is more important to them now than it was 10 years ago.”
I wonder how men would answer the same questions. Is this the mood all over? Is it a result of women finding that jobs aren’t all they were cracked up to be?
Beyond women’s feelings about work, this survey should help bust the stereotype of women as materialistic opportunists who seek mates who can buy them lots of shoes, since 65% of women polled prefer time over money. That should put the canard to rest…but it won’t.

Fooked Again

My ex claimed desperation and poverty drove her back to family court to ask for more child support.

No, she claims, actually, that it was a sudden increase in my son's school tuition that made her do it.

What is his tuition you ask?

$700/month.

What do I pay in support?

$800/month.

Yeah. That's right. She wasn't paying ANYTHING for her own son's school.

Then she shows up in court pleading poor, helpless little woman is she.

But it gets better. She was making $53k/year as a marketing coordinator. Then she quit (she claims she was laid off. Right. She was laid off after being promoted to marketing coordinator. So either she's lying or she fucked up BIG TIME. Either way, its her fault and responsibility.)

So I complained to the judge about this. What does he say?

I'll estimate that she did make 53k, now, today and "plug that into the guideline."


The result? Support fell 30 dollars per week.

WHOA. HARSH, JUDGE!

The "guideline" is nothing more than the a way for the state to pump up divorce lawyer fees, collect money from the Feds for the Child Support Enforcement program (in the hundreds of millions) and steal from a widely hated political class: divorced men. That's all it is. Period.

TO EVERY WOMAN WHO HAS EVER QUIT HER JOB AND PLAYED THIS GAME:

FUCK YOU.

Men... Quit Your Jobs! You've Been Liberated!

Yet another academic trying to 1. Claim the fact that women's ascendancy in the workplace is somehow due to their natural superiority over men (uhh, if technology is leading the economy, doesn't that argue for demands for math and science skills? Areas typically strongest for men?) and 2. Claim that the dropout of men and the replacement of them with women, in the workforce, is somehow good for us. 

HAHAHAHHAHA.

Right. Go ask all the young women that can't find a man who makes EVEN CLOSE to what she makes how wonderful this is. I'm sure those young girls are just DYING to make all her families' money and support not just her children, but her husband, whom she will consider to be JUST ANOTHER FINANCIAL DEPENDENT.

 

The rise of women in the workforce has been the subject of endless discussion in recent years, most of it accompanied by hand wringing over the demise of the "traditional" family and the emasculation of American men.

In her new book, The Richer Sex, Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy takes a completely different view, arguing that women's increased economic clout "will bring about a new liberation for women but also for men."
Mundy explains her thesis in the accompanying video, as well as the reasons why the "big flip" toward women being the primary breadwinner is an inevitable outcome of trends already in motion.
While male-dominated industries like construction were hardest hit by the bursting of the housing bubble, Mundy notes the trend of women being primary breadwinners started in the 1980s. Since then, the percentage of women who earn more than their husbands has risen steadily before accelerating in the early 2000s, well before the Great Recession.
Today, the percentage of women who out-earn their husbands currently hovers near 40%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Mundy believes that percentage will continue to rise because women currently earn 57% of undergraduate degrees and 60% of graduate students in American colleges and universities are females.
With the globe shifting rapidly toward a "knowledge economy," education is often the big determinant of an individual's income potential. "College-educated workers are the only sector where wages are rising," Mundy notes. "The high-paying industrial job for a male high school graduate is the job that's waning."
Furthermore, women dominate some of the fastest-growing industries, such as marketing and human relations.
In other words, the increase in women's earnings potential is another fundamental change brought about from the shift from an economy based on manufacturing to one dominated by services and technology.
It's pretty impossible to argue against these macro trends. What's more controversial, and subject to much debate, is Mundy's argument about them being good for both sexes.
Much of the literature to date has focused on the negative implications of men losing their place as the family's main provider. In addition, some sociologists argue that as women become more economically empowered, they will seek to delay or avoid marriage and will become more promiscuous because they won't need to seek a mate who can provide for them. In other words, they will act more like the stereotypically "confirmed" male bachelor, putting further pressure on the traditional family model.
Mundy doesn't deny there are risks to women's economic rise but believes they're overstated or, at least, don't tell the whole picture.
As women's earnings power rises, men will feel "less pressure to be to the sole breadwinner," she argues. This will give men more time to pursue their passions, rather than just a paycheck, as well as spend more time raising children if they choose.
"As women become more economically empowered, they'll be more likely to have a spouse supportive of their career," Mundy predicts. That "will help propel women through the glass ceiling - to have a partner at home who will make sacrifices for her career."
This may sound unrealistic or even heretical to some. But basically, Mundy is arguing couples will make choices based on economic incentives (and realities) rather than traditional gender roles, i.e. they'll do what families have always done and are already doing in America today.
Aaron Task is the host of The Daily Ticker. You can follow him on Twitter at @aarontask or email him at altask@yahoo.com

I Hate Bill O'Reily

I hate Bill O'Reilly. He has some solid conservative points, I'm sure, but he makes nearly ALL his points in the most ASNINE way possible. I don't see how anyone has any respect for the guy. AT ALL.

That said, Bill might've bumped up against the truth here.

I don't watch Glee. I don't care about it either.

But kids watch it and so we all better pay attention to it. Kids take messages away from these shows whether we like it or not and kids grow up to become adults and either healthy tax-paying citizens or else trashy, unemployed, uneducated bums that we" must" support - like my ex.

Some of the show contents discussed below do get my attention.

Yes, its nice the show stays well-rounded, BUT, let's be honest here. What is "well-rounded?"

Cross-dressing, lesbians, and two students making a sex tape.

Not your mother's teen show, is it? Hell, its not even my older sister's!

Yes, some people cross-dress. I don't get it. But its a free country. Do what you like. Cross-dressing hurts no one. Who cares, honestly. However, the lesbianism, I may take a shade of exception to. Are both girls REALLY, pure, born, straight-up lesbians? If so, that's fine. But I have to wonder.... do either have SERIOUS problems with a parent, a mom, perhaps? I've never met a lesbian who didn't have a SERIOUS problem with mom as well as some seriously bad relationships with boyfriends in the past. The only point being, are the girls being given ALL the options they need? Are they getting counseling? Are their parents aware of their problems? Are people in the family openly discussing the girls feelings at all? I'm guessing not. I'm guessing the family is a total mess; maybe this isn't the best thing to show, FROM A SINGLE SIDE, at least.

As for making a sex tape? Uhhhh.....  I dreamed of making one of me and a super model once, when I was a teenager, sure. I was full of hormones. Should that be made into a t.v. show? I don't think so, no. I hate the "you'll give them ideas" excuse for not doing things, but this one counts. Kids are having sex at absurdly young ages as well as having babies out of wedlock in likewise ABSURD numbers. This not good for anyone, including the kids themselves or society as a whole. We used to stick kids in church and at least scare them with God. Now they get handed a box of condoms.

We could do without the goddamn teens-making-sex-tape episode of our favorite teen comedy on t.v., couldn't we?

And another thing, a little class wouldn't kill us, or the kids. I'm not saying we have to go back to Leave It to Beaver, but could we at least DIAL IT DOWN A NOTCH?!?!?!  When I hear how many men the average 18 year old girl has slept with these days, I get sick to my stomach.  The rates of every "ugly thing" from teenage pregnancy to suicide to abortion to eating disorders have been too high for too long. Give the kids a break. 

I remember teachers and counselors telling my friends and I in High School: you all have to worry about entering college and moving on with your lives. Buying your first car, living away from home, a serious boyfriend or girlfriend, making new friends in college, maybe working while studying as well; you have a ton of responsibilities and worries coming up; give yourself a break and skip the STDs, AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, drug abuse and all the rest. Just skip it. Trust us. You really don't need any of those headaches.

They were right.

Bill O'Reilly: 'Glee' Might Encourage Kids To Experiment With 'Alternative Lifestyles'

Bill O'Reilly called out "Glee" for encouraging teenagers to experiment with "alternative lifestyles" on Thursday night. 

 

The Fox News host was discussing the show's message with guests Gretchen Carlson and Jeanine Pirro. He began by saying that "Glee" was a "good show" with "lots of talent" and "positive messages." However, he took issue with what he said was the program's "recurring theme that alternative lifestyles may be a big positive."

After watching a clip of one character cross-dressing, guest Gretchen Carlson heaved a huge sigh. "Here we go again, pandering to .3% of the American population that considers themselves transgender," she said. "Now I get to explain this to my 8-year-old, if i want her to see a nice family show with some nice music."
She also took issue with a storyline about two cheerleaders who are lesbians, and two seniors who are engaged to be married. "[The show seems] to have a positive message about hopes and dreams and taking risks," Carlson opined. "But why do they have to come up with these wild story lines to prove their point? I don’t get it."

O'Reilly said that the problem was that the storylines, like the one featuring two students making a sex tape, were unrealistic. Kids "might go out and experiment with this stuff," he warned.
Pirro was extremely skeptical. "Do you really think this kind of thing is contagious?" she asked incredulously.

Carlson interjected, saying that watching "Glee" wouldn't change someone's sexuality, but would encourage experimentation.

"I wholeheartedly believe in today's society that kids are experimenting with homosexuality," she stressed. "We see it in celebrities who maybe just do it on the side, and it may be drug-fueled."
Speaking to Pirro, O'Reilly maintained that "Glee" — which he said was "undeniably a good program" — made the issues dealt with on the show "glamorous."

A "Free" Country

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I Have Power! But Nevermind.

http://newsweek.tumblr.com/post/21179761180/heres-this-weeks-cover-on-newsstands-and-the

MAYBE BECAUSE IT IS FICTIONAL

Lies - Coming a College Near You

MIT, Boston University, Boston Magazine Promote Holly Collins Child Custody Hoax
October 26th, 2011 by Glenn Sacks

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, and Boston Magazine are unwittingly promoting the Holly Collins child custody hoax via their glowing coverage of the new documentary film No Way Out But One. The Boston Magazine piece ‘No Way Out But One’ to Unveil at MIT says the film “will open your eyes to a stunning injustice.”

In Professor Takes a Stand Against Domestic Violence, the film’s director, Boston University professor Garland Waller, claims “[I]f you beat your wife and abuse your children in America you are more likely to get custody than not. This is a shocking fact that most people have no idea about.” Advocates of this view, including Kathleen Russell, Executive Director of the Center for Judicial Excellence, Rita Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and numerous others, hold up the Collins case as one of their prime examples.

In reality, courts tilt heavily towards mothers in awarding child custody, and the Collins case is a discredited hoax. In January of 2009, Fathers and Families released an exhaustive, 11,000 word analysis of the court records and documents in the case. This analysis, which can be seen here, exposed the Holly Collins case as a complete fabrication. Our Report enumerated dozens of falsehoods in Holly Collins’ version of events.

Holly Collins’ claims about her high-profile custody case are disputed by her own mother, grandmother, sister, brother, stepfather, former in-laws, her ex-husband and his wife, the father of her third child and his wife, numerous doctors, Guardians ad Litem, social workers, mental health professionals, and all seven judges who have heard this case.

Collins kidnapped her three young children after she lost custody of two of them in 1992 when Minnesota Family Court Judge Michael J. Davis found “the evidence is overwhelming that the children are at great physical and emotional risk if the children remained in Holly Collins’ care.”

For decades Holly Collins has made false accusations of abuse against a wide variety of people, including her mother, stepfather, both of the fathers of her children, both of the subsequent wives of the fathers of her children, as well as former landlords and neighbors.

To comment on the piece at the Boston Magazine website, click here. Fathers and Families has written to Boston Magazine about their Collins piece–others can write them at editor@bostonmagazine.com.

The MIT screening is on Thursday evening (10/27) but I can’t say I recommend you go, since if you do you’ll probably be accused of abuse. In fact, after Collins spoke at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference in Albany, New York in January of this year, she invented a completely mythical incident, writing that, apparently organized by me from Los Angeles, “Father Supremacists forced their way into a New York hotel where vulnerable battered women were staying for the conference. They cornered, scared and re-traumatized women in the hallways and their hotel rooms, sending them terrified, crying and running for help.” I wrote about the Conference after it took place–to read, see Misguided DV Groups Back Discredited Battered Mothers Custody Conference.

'The Family'

And you are not a member. You are not inside, you are outside.

WAKE. UP.

Police Kill an Old Grandfather in Cold Blood

"Most men can withstand adversity. If you want to judge a man's character, give him power."

-A. Lincoln

I generally support police officers. But I also KNOW that power corrupts. And I think the GENERAL, ALL-AROUND standard for police has fallen significantly in the past decade. Lots of would-be factory workers (in a regular, correctly-functioning economy), and those with social-disorders, have gone into police work instead - this is a fact, look it up. A inordinate amount of policemen CLEARLY have difficulties with managing power.

This case below appeared in the NYT recently. Its disgusting from top to bottom. From a complete LACK of professionalism on the part of the officers to a power-struggle with a 68-year old man who simply didn't want to open the door (like many stodgy, stubborn 68-year old won't).

The official version of events?

The Gotham column on March 6 about a man in White Plains who was killed by a police officer when a confrontation ensued after the authorities had responded to the man’s medical alert system referred incorrectly to that system.

Confrontation? What kind?

Mr. Chamberlain, in the commissioner’s telling, had withstood electric charges, grabbed a butcher knife and charged the officers.

My friend is a cop. He has been tased. He is not a pussy. He is a pretty tough guy. He said it hurt. A LOT. Your muscles constrict and you are in extreme pain. See for yourself. Other officers gather around when they do it to laugh at you, because YOU GO DOWN. But this 68 year old didn't? BE VERY SUSPICIOUS, DEAR READER. My 30 year-old, 200 pound buddy can't take the charge, but the old man WITH A HEART CONDITION CAN!?!?

Fuck you police officers. You are lying through your teeth.

Furthermore, officers are told NOT to tase anyone with a heart condition as THE TASER COULD KILL THEM. A piece of info you get WHEN YOU PERSONALLY KNOW A COP. So first off, the fact he was tased, IS OVERTLY AGAINST POLICE POLICY. And yes, they knew he had a heart condition, they followed a bloody ambulance to his house; an ambulance responding to a medical alert system.

Their next BS line? He grabbed a butcher knife. OH no. The big, mean, nasty, wheezing 68 year old had a knife. First off, I think that's fabricated by these clearly low-standard cops, who neighbors reported TAUNTING the old man.

Secondly, a butcher knife is heavy. If an old man attacked me with one, I would back up and move around. He would literally get tired before I got hurt. Thirdly, a few routine martial arts lessons in knife disarming WOULD ENSURE YOU HAVE NO FEAR AROUND A KNIFE-WIELDING 68 YEAR OLD. Its easy. You grab the knife, pull it toward you twist with your hips - I do it every weekend; after a few tries, even a strong knife-wielder goes flying - a 68 year old? Give me a break.

Fourth: HOW MANY COPS WERE THERE?!?! Sounds like 3-5 or more. AND THEY CAN'T DISARM A 68 YEAR OLD MAN who only has a knife while they have guns and batons? I CAN DISARM SOMEONE BY MYSELF FOR CHRISSAKE WITHOUT THE USE OF A WEAPON.

WHAT TOTAL COWARDLY SISSIES! Come at me with a knife. And tell me what you'll do when I KICK YOU IN THE STOMACH. Its a knife, NOT A SWORD. Trust me, I (anyone) can kick you before you get to them with the knife. HE WAS 68 YEARS OLD! I bet you anything, he picked up the knife out of fear and they shot him dead where he stood. The man didn't open up the door - THEY KICKED IT DOWN. Isn't this a form of BREAKING AND ENTERING? This is a citizen's PRIVATE RESIDENCE. The PUBLIC police officers HAVE NO RIGHT ENTERING.

ITS HIS HOUSE. HE CAN CARRY 50 KNIVES AROUND IF HE WANTS. If the cops want to be safe from him, THEY SHOULD STAY OUT OF HIS HOUSE! All they should've done is send him a bill for the ambulance that was accidentally called. That's it.

So let's review what is not in question. Several men - who happened to be bearing badges - wearing kevlar vests, armed and aggressive, broke into an innocent, 68 year old, taxpaying citizen's house and shot him because he supposedly attacked the people who just broke into his house - after he was tased with enough volts to bring down a cow.

ARE YOU SERIOUSLY FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?!?!

The officer who shot him has been "reassigned." WELL THAT PUNISHMENT FITS THE CRIME, EH?!?!?!

p.s. When cops act like idiots - as they did here - the Dept. is sued for huge money by the victim's family and the Dept. must settle for huge money - WHERE DOES THAT MONEY COME FROM?

FROM THE GODDAMN TAXPAYERS!

And lastly, three cheers for the NEW YORK TIMES! I mean they went so far as to suggest that QUESTIONS BE ASKED DUE TO THE NATURE OF THIS INCIDENT.

NO KIDDING, NEW YORK TIMES. QUESTIONS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ASKED..... BY YOU - THE GODDAMN NEWSPAPER!!! HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO YOUR JOB!?!?!

HERE ARE SOME FOR YOU:

1 - Did the cop doing the shooting have a record of this behavior? Why was he cleared?
2 - Why wasn't non-lethal force effective?
3 - Did the officers MISS when they fired bean bags and tasers?
4 - Do most 70 year old assailants withstand such attacks?
5 - How on EARTH did a 70 year old withstand attacks that bring down young, strong men?
6 - How did MULTIPLE OFFICERS FAIL to subdue an old man?
7 - Why did officers ESCALATE the situation and break in?
8 - Do officers typically FEAR a 70 YEAR OLD WITH HEART TROUBLE?
9 - The cops knew, or knew of this man. They shot him twice in the chest. Doesn't that suggest they did not like him, or else had a personal problem with him and could not maintain their professionalism around him?
10 - Suppose this superhuman 70 year old did charge them with a knife after being tased. Why can't these blind cops shoot an old man in the shoulder or leg, from CLOSE RANGE?!?!? Take off your vest and throw it over his face - think the old man can stab you now?
11 - Why was the old man shot twice IN THE CHEST, as if they were TRYING TO KILL HIM OUT OF MALICE??? Do they expect us to believe getting shot in the chest at that range is AN ACCIDENT? Because we're not that stupid.

Not one of these cops will lose his job, be suspended without pay or FACE CHARGES OF MURDER.

When someone goes to a house, kicks in the door and shoots the occupant in the chest, WHAT PRECISELY WOULD YOU CALL THAT?


Fatal Shooting of Ex-Marine by White Plains Police Officers Raises Questions

Full NYT article:


The niece stood in the darkened stairwell of the Winbrook Houses, listening, as 20 feet away five police officers yelled at her uncle, who had locked himself in his apartment.

It was 5:25 AM on a chill November morning. The officers banged loud and hard, demanding that her 68-year-old uncle open his door.

“He was begging them to leave him alone,” she recalls. “He sounded scared.” She pulls her shawl about her shoulders and her voice cracks; she is speaking for the first time about what she saw. “I heard my uncle yelling, ‘Officers, officers, why do you have your guns out?’ ”

The string of events that night sounds prosaic, a who-cares accumulation of little mistakes and misapprehensions. Cumulatively, though, it is like tumbling down the stairs. Somehow the uncle, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., a former Marine who had heart problems and wheezed if he walked more than 40 feet, triggered his medical alert system pendant. The system operator came on the loudspeaker in his one-bedroom apartment, asking: “Mr. Chamberlain, are you O.K.?” All of this is recorded.

Mr. Chamberlain didn’t respond. So the operator signaled for an ambulance. Police patrol cars fell in behind — standard operating procedure in towns across America. Except an hour later, even as Mr. Chamberlain insisted he was in good health, the police had snapped the locks on the apartment door.

They fired electric charges from Tasers, and beanbags from shotguns. Then they said they saw Mr. Chamberlain grab a knife, and an officer fired his handgun.

Boom! Boom! Mr. Chamberlain’s niece Tonyia Greenhill, who lives upstairs, recalls the echoes ricocheting about the hall. She pushed out a back door and ran into the darkness beneath overarching oaks. He lay on the floor near his kitchen, two bullet holes in his chest, blood pooling thick, dying.

It makes sense to be humble in the presence of conflicting accounts. The White Plains public safety commissioner declared this a “warranted use of deadly force”; the shooter was later put on modified assignment. Mr. Chamberlain, in the commissioner’s telling, had withstood electric charges, grabbed a butcher knife and charged the officers.

The alert system phone in Mr. Chamberlain’s apartment recorded most of the standoff, as did a security camera in the hall. And the officers’ Tasers carried video recorders.

Last month, the Westchester County district attorney played these for the dead man’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., who teaches martial arts for a local nonprofit organization and intends to file a lawsuit. He is lithe, with a shaved head, and takes pride in a reasoned manner. “My family, we’re not into histrionics,” he says. “We don’t run down the street inciting riot.”

His voice cracks, though, as he describes the tapes. “I heard fear,” he says. “In my 45 years on this earth, I never heard my father sound like that.”

The district attorney will present the case to a grand jury and has not released transcripts. But the family’s recollection matches that of neighbors who listened through closed doors.

They say officers taunted Mr. Chamberlain. He shouted: “Semper fi,” the Marine Corps motto. The police answered with loud shouts of “Hoo-rah!” Another officer, the niece says, said he wanted to pee in Mr. Chamberlain’s bathroom.

Someone, the niece and neighbors say, yelled a racial epithet at the door. Black and white officers were present.

Kenny Randolph listened from his apartment across the hall. “They put fear in his heart,” he says. “It wasn’t a crime scene until they made it one.”

The police say Mr. Chamberlain was “known” to them, although it appears he had not been convicted of a crime. There are intimations that he wrestled with emotional issues. Sometimes, neighbors say, he talked to himself. Who’s to say? As often, life’s default position is set to “complicated.”

Many police departments have trained corps of officers expert in talking with the emotionally upset. Their rule of thumb: talk quietly and de-escalate. That night in White Plains, no one appeared to have de-escalated anything.

Mr. Chamberlain sounded spooked. His son recalls hearing his father say on tape: “This is my sworn testimony. White Plains officers are coming in here to kill me.” A few minutes later, a bullet tore through his rib and heart. The ambulance took him to White Plains Hospital, where he soon died.

His son lives five minutes away. He says he could have talked his father down. Standing in the office of his lawyer Randolph M. McLaughlin, he mimes knocking on his dad’s door. “Dad, it’s me, Ken, I’m here.” His eyes are bloodshot and brimming. “I always said, ‘I’m the protector now.’ But I wasn’t there when he needed me.”

E-mail: powellm@nytimes.com

Twitter: @powellnyt

From Charmed and Innocent to Sloth and Greed

Its all there.

Its Called Prosecutorial Misconduct

And its a crime.

WA Dad Separated From Children via ‘Invented’ Abuse Allegations

March 29th, 2012 by Robert Franklin, Esq.

Bryce Lemmons, of Kelso, Washington, is suing the county he lives in for false arrest and possibly malicious prosecution. It all stems from an acrimonious divorce and custody case in which his ex-wife levelled charges at him of sexual abuse and rape of their four-year-old daughter. Read about it here (The Daily News, 3/22/12).

That all happened back in October, 2010. Nine months later, prosecutors dropped all charges due to the fact that, as Lemmons’ lawyer says, “they didn’t have anything.” Indeed, Lemmons voluntarily took and passed two separate lie detector tests administered by two separate polygraph examiners.

In what by now is a familiar pattern, the child’s mother, Jessica Lemmons, claimed the daughter said her father had touched her inappropriately. The child was then taken to a forensic examiner who questioned her for 55 minutes.

During the interview, the girl “was extremely reluctant to implicate (her father), but the interviewer was relentless and succeeded in producing a series of improbable and almost magical statements of abuse at the hands of (Lemmons),” according to the suit.

I wasn’t there, but that’s an altogether too familiar description of how not to question a child. It’s a good description of how those who want to get a child to accuse an adult go about obtaining that result. But of course, since the scandalous abuses of children and adults in the “child sexual abuse” witch hunts of the 80s, we’ve developed protocols for questioning children, so wasn’t that done here? At this point, we don’t know, but we’ll soon find out.

What we do know is the dubious nature of the organization that did the questioning of Lemmons’ daughter. It’s something called the Children’s Justice and Advocacy Center. Strangely, it has no website and, according to one source, is not a member of the state’s network of child advocates. Although its Facebook page calls it a non-profit organization, Guidestar, the organization with more information about non-profits than any other I know of, has no record of it.

That’s all backed up by Lemmons’ lawyer who originally sued the CJAC only to find that, for legal purposes, the organization didn’t exist.

[Attorney Duane] Crandall said his client initially sued CJAC, but dropped the complaint because the group amounts to an “amorphous” non-entity that proved impossible to sue.

“It’s a ghost,” Crandall said.

Whatever CJAC is, was or claims to be, it’s the brainchild, not of some disinterested third party, but of Sue Baur who just happens to be the county prosecutor who brought charges against Lemmons. Internet searches of Sue Baur and CJAC’s child forensic interviewer, Kristen Mendez, suggest the two work hand-in-glove on a number of cases in the past. Oddly, information about Mendez comes from a web address for the Kelso, Washington Housing Authority.

So what we seem to have is a prosecutor who set up her own organization, raised money, hired a forensic investigator who may have violated the protocols for questioning children and then attempted to channel the phony interview into criminal charges against the child’s father.

You may ask, “why not just let the county interview the girl and take it from there?” There are two possible answers. The first is that the county may well take the protocols for questioning children seriously, and my guess is that, in Sue Baur’s opinion, that approach results in too few charges against too few men. Her solution to that nagging little matter of due process of law was to simply open her own shop and hire a like-minded forensic examiner and, presto!, you have more men charged with more offenses. I don’t know for certain that’s true, but my intuition tells me it is.

The second answer is “the Duke Lacrosse frame-up.” What does that have to do with this? Possibly a lot. If you remember, one of (now disgraced and disbarred) prosecutor Mike Nifong’s many unethical acts in the Duke case was to refuse to turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense as required by law. Of course there was plenty of evidence proving that the three accused had done nothing wrong, principally the entire absence of their DNA. So why didn’t Nifong turn over the results of the state’s DNA tests? For one thing, the state hadn’t officially performed any such tests. That’s because Nifong had gotten a private laboratory to do the testing. Not surprisingly, Nifong knew the guy who owned the lab. So when the results came back negative, the private lab avoided turning over the evidence to Nifong who could then say “I don’t have any exculpatory evidence.” Of course, if the results had suggested guilt, I’m sure Nifong would have gotten possession of them and gladly shown same to the defense.

My guess is that’s what’s at work in Lemmons’ case. To the extent that it’s anything, CJAC is a private entity that can give or withhold evidence as it chooses. I’d say that’s one of its main purposes. CJAC has so far not responded to my multiple efforts to contact it by telephone and email.

Now, although the criminal charges against Lemmons were dropped almost a year ago, he still doesn’t get to see either his daughter or his infant son about whom there have never been allegations of abuse. That’s because there, as in so many other cases, family courts play by different rules than do criminal courts. Is there no evidence of abuse or violence against a father? Too bad for him, mere allegations will do for a restraining order to be issued.

And that’s just what happened to Lemmons. Mom said it happened and so, despite the evidence that he’s entirely innocent, despite the fact that it all happened in the context of a custody case, despite the actions of CJAC that Crandall characterizes as displaying “a stunning level of incompetence,” Lemmons will remain separated from his children indefinitely.

So far, much of this consists of allegations only; Lemmons has yet to prove anything in court and CJAC denies wrongdoing. But if my nose is any guide, this is another case in which a family court believes the mother with little or no evidence and removes the father from his childrens’ lives. Into the bargain, it’s all done with the aid of a public employee and her front organization. Put simply, this one stinks.

We’ll see what happens.

This Just Learned

A REALLY GOOD SCAM REQUIRES LOTS OF SECRECY AND LOTS OF HUSH MONEY.

UK: 40% of Family Court ‘Experts’ Not Qualified

March 23rd, 2012 by Robert Franklin, Esq.

Britain’s Family Justice Council has found that 40% of the “experts” who give opinions in family cases were either entirely unqualified to do so or were giving opinions in matters outside their expertise. Read about it here (Daily Mail, 3/12/12). The Council’s report further found that 90% of the experts rendering opinions did nothing else to earn a living. That is, they no longer practiced in the field about which they gave opinions, beyond their appearances in family law cases.

The Family Justice Council is an independent body funded by the Ministry of Justice.

The report is the result of an analysis of 100 opinions rendered by experts, mostly psychologists and psychiatrists in family courts.

[I]n a unique study for the Family Justice Council, Professor Jane Ireland – a forensic psychologist who has herself been an expert witness – examined over 100 expert witness reports used in family court cases.

Incredibly, she found that 20 per cent had been produced by people who were not qualified AT ALL.

A further fifth had been carried out by people who were writing reports in areas entirely beyond their knowledge and qualifications.

In addition, as many as 90 per cent of the reports had been produced by ‘expert’ witnesses who were no longer in current practice at all, but were simply working as ‘professional expert witnesses’.

Often, these professional experts – who rake in thousands of pounds in fees from the chaotic family courts system – have not practised for years, leaving them out of touch with developments in their field.

These “experts” are usually used in custody cases, access cases and child welfare cases to assess the suitability of parents.

Up to now, their behavior has been unknown to the press and the public at large due to Britain’s insistence on keeping secret virtually all the proceedings of family courts. As such, the “experts” behaved with almost complete impunity. In a case cited in the article, one such professional expert witness wrote an entire 14-page report about a mother and her family without ever meeting or talking to any of them. Worse, the very day he signed his report, he was suspended by the General Medical Council for a separate offense, but the family court used his report anyway.

As I’ve said several times before, the secrecy of family courts in the U.K. is more about hiding the behavior of the judges than it is about protecting the privacy of children. The latter is the excuse, but the former is the reason. ‘Twas ever thus. When governmental agencies act behind closed doors, they abuse their power. In this case, it’s their wholesale use of incompetent experts to guide judges in vital matters like child custody and whether children should be taken from parents into care.

I’ve argued the same thing about child welfare agencies in this country, and sure enough, when their behavior becomes public, all too often it’s proven to be lacking. Again, the excuse given is that children need protection from publicity, but that secrecy serves to cover up the agency’s malpractice.

We see it time and again. Currently, child welfare agencies in states such as New York and Arizona, and Los Angeles County in California are openly violating state laws in order to keep their behavior out of public view. Count on it; when they’re finally forced to open their books, we’ll see incompetence that resulted in the deaths, injuries and neglect of many children. That the agencies want us to think that secracy is for the protection of children is almost beyond belief.

The family law system in the U.K. is virulently anti-father and I’d be astonished if the system of using unqualified experts hasn’t played a major role in perpetuating that bias. My guess is that the judges there have gotten used to appointing certain “experts” who reflect the judge’s own bias against fathers. They do so in order to have “plausible deniability” when issuing orders that separate fathers from their children. That is, the judges, if they’re ever taken to task for giving custody to mothers in 90% of cases can always point to the “experts” to “prove” their lack of bias. The fact that the expert is him/herself anti-father will go unnoticed.

Until now. With the rejection of the infamous Norgrove Report, the outrage of fathers’ rights advocates and ministers like Iain Duncan Smith, and now the Family Justice Council’s report, the earth has begun to move under the feet of family judges. The extent of the creative destruction won’t be known for some time, but with any luck it’ll be far-reaching. Family courts in the U.K. look far worse than their U.S. counterparts; wholesale changes need to be made.

After all, one mother was quoted in the Daily Mail article as saying,

‘The court system in England is barbaric,’ she said.

‘It does not allow parents to be given a voice, it doesn’t allow their children to be given a voice.

‘But what it does instead is it focuses on employing expert witnesses – at huge expense.’

Keep in mind, that’s a mother talking. They’re the ones who are favord above all others by the country’s family courts. If that’s the way she feels…