Eve Ensler, as quoted by Anne Caroline Drake

We Silence Girl Power

When Ms. Ensler debuted her new idea at the TED India conference in November, 2009, she addressed how we silence girls’ authentic voices ~ tell them not to show their brilliance ~ tone it down ~ don’t be too intense. We sell them and objectify them and turn them into commodities to be bought and sold. In essence, we render them invisible.

She also shared how her violent father ordered her not to cry while she was being beaten because it exposed his brutality to him. He didn’t want to see it ~ didn’t want to be reminded.

Girl Power is silenced by patriarchy power.

Girls are initiated into society via a process intended to crush, eradicate, annihilate, humiliate, belittle, censor, reduce, and kill off their voices.   [1]

Our compassion, empathy, passion, intensity, emotions, vulnerability, intuitive intelligence, and vision are silenced. We forget that compassion informs wisdom and vulnerability is our greatest strength.

Mandate to Please Girls are conditioned to please ~ to do what someone else wants them to do rather than to be authentic.

Ms. Ensler told CBS’ Early Show this morning that she believes girls stay in violent relationships because that’s what their boyfriends want: I think often when girls stay with boys, it isn’t always because they want to be beat up, it’s because they’re feeling their [boyfriend’s] sorrow, or they’re feeling their insecurity, or they’re feeling their grief, or they’re feeling something boys don’t feel. So they’re overcompensating for that.

One of the monologues, “Dear Rihanna,” is devoted to teenage girls’ reaction to the dating abuse Rihanna experienced from Chris Brown.

V-Girls Revolution Ms. Ensler is calling all girls to claim our emotions, break the silence, and unleash our feminine energy. She wants to shift the focus from a mandate to please to a mandate to educate, activate, engage, confront, defy, and create.

She believes girl power can save the world. In the book’s epilogue, she issues a Manifesta:

Everyone’s making everything up
There is no one in charge except for those
who pretend to be
No one is coming
No one is going to
Rescue you. . .
Always fight back
Ask for it
Say you want it. . .
Why am I waiting
Whining
Pining
Fitting in?

 

Ayaan Ali Hirsi.

In response to ongoing abuses of women’s rights in the name of fundamentalist Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her supporters established the AHA Foundation in 2007 to help protect and defend the rights of women in the West against militant Islam.

Through education, outreach and the dissemination of knowledge, the Foundation aims to combat several types of crimes against women, including female genital mutilation, forced marriages, honor violence, and honor killings.

The Foundation is opposed to the adoption of dual legal systems to adjudicate family disputes in religious families and supports the separation of all religions and the State.

The AHA Foundation works to reinforce the following basic rights: the rights of women and girls to security and control of their own bodies, the rights of women and girls to an education, the rights of women to work outside the home and to control their own income, the rights of women and girls to freedom of expression and association, and the rights of women and girls to other basic civil rights of citizens and residents defined under the laws of Western democracies and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, regardless of sexual identification.

Founding member, Ayaan Hirsi Alli

As a 501(c)3 organization under the Internal Revenue Code of the U.S., the Foundation only accepts charitable and philanthropic contributions and does not sell products of any kind.

Click here to learn more about the AHA Foundation.

WHAT DO WE KNOW? Click here to download facts and figures on the circumstances affecting Muslim girls and women in the United States.

Where Fist, Feet and Faith Collide

Diego Sanchez before a  bout in Memphis.

Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low. Mixed martial arts events have drawn millions of television viewers, and one was the top pay-per-view event in 2009.

Recruitment efforts at the churches, which are predominantly white, involve fight night television viewing parties and lecture series that use ultimate fighting to explain how Christ fought for what he believed in. Other ministers go further, hosting or participating in live events.

The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”

The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.

“The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.”

These pastors say the marriage of faith and fighting is intended to promote Christian values, quoting verses like “fight the good fight of faith” from Timothy 6:12. Several put the number of churches taking up mixed martial arts at roughly 700 of an estimated 115,000 white evangelical churches in America. The sport is seen as a legitimate outreach tool by the youth ministry affiliate of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 churches.

The Church is segregated enough. Rich congregations, poor congregations. White and black. English, Spanish, Korean, et al. We shouldn’t have a schism over personality types. I know in the subconscious that we’re attracted to like-types, but the Body of Christ has many types and we all need to join together to work together.

But aside from simply being offended by their derogatory language, there is great danger in redefining the Gospel of Peace. This happens by projecting certain personality traits onto Christ Jesus. In order to sell their case these men try to define our Savior as a rough-and-tumble character who liked fighting and pain. They say being sensitive is a feminine trait not fitting for men, so Jesus wasn’t sensitive. Gentleness is also excluded from Christ’s manly character. Driscoll has a slogan, “Meek. Mild. As if.” slamming the characterization of Christ as either of these things, regardless of Christ’s proclamation that “the meek shall inherit the earth.”

This isn’t the first time a masculine movement has tried to redefine the Church. When the Germanic barbarians controlled much of the Northern Holy Roman Empire, the (beer drinking) barbarians wouldn’t accept “a God I could beat up” because of their warrior culture. To “Christianize” the Germans, the Church adapted to this culture turning Jesus into a warrior, Heaven became Valhalla, and the disciples became Christ’s warriors. The Germanic tribes were indeed converted, but Christianity became a militarized religion as a result. Centuries later you will never guess who drew on this Jesus as a warrior model in the 1930s to create a masculine, nationalistic movement in Germany. If you guessed Adolf Hitler, you’d be right. He drew on the Germanic folklore, blended with Christ, to create the Aryan race. He called Jesus his “Lord and Savior” and “a fighter.” Jesus was a warrior punishing the Jews.

I don’t mean to invoke Godwin’s Law, it just happened to be a historic fact that the blending of tribal Germanic myth with Christianity lead to a “fighter” Jesus which just so happened to inspire Nazism, which was a decidedly masculine movement as well. (Is it any coincidence that our current masculine movements tend towards being nationalistic?)

As time went on, the rugged, pioneering American spirit brought another masculine movement opposing the traditional clergy who were viewed as wimps because of their refusal to fight, and their piety. This lead to more individual ministers instead of the traditional clergy with elders, deacons and the rest. Again, Jesus was redefined to fit this cultural model of man and he became muscular and militant.

Where I stand:

I think that this pendulum, this male/female argument isn’t going to be won one side or the other.  Until the artificial womb is complete, and sperm cloned (don’t think there’s not work going on this…  There is….), we are going to need each other.  Besides, how’s about some variety?

Hate begets hate, and hate is a human spiritual/emotional quality.  It’s just that some environments incubate it better than others.   Like theater, the arts (including the “art” of war), drama, music, and building things like pyramids, cathedrals, and mosques, the dynamic, the resonance, the structure, the impact, is intensified (for better, or for worse) in crowds.

I think that basic human nature needs scapegoats, and if they can’t face their personal “demons,” they will continue to externalize them in someone or some group to “hate.”  The central message of the cross (to me), is that they end up shooting themselves in the foot, or shooting (or crucifying) the messenger.  At our best, and privately, I’m sure most of us are hypocrites.  It’ s the “US/THEM” mentality, carried to extremes, that is the primary problem. 

HOWEVER, that’s no excuse for shutting up women reporting abuse, or attempting to leave it, or attempting to get something better for their children.  And this is going on to this date, don’t kid yourself.

I wish I’d known about the “muscular Christianity” while I was married.  If this continues to be carried to extremes, women are going to be just as interested in it, as in doing the “feminine” thing, i.e., running around from agency to agency looking for someone to protect them.  I’m beginning to hate myself for my own upbringing, in having done that — BUT, you live, and you learn.

For those who wonder where I may stand religiously, I can’t stomach church attendance any more, and believe that they cause more problems than they help with.  I also have become much more skeptical over whether church and state can really be separated.  Not with some of our present institutions.

Besides, it seems the national religion at this time is worship of money.  Like any religions, it is just as prone to sacrifice men, women and children at its altar.  In order to retain their “manhood,” SOME men lower on this totem pole appear to need to have some women lower than themselves, or children as property to bolster it up.  Others have enough self-control not to do that.

=

HAITI, pre-Earthquake (2005)

Rewinding History: The Rights of Haitian Women

Let Haiti Live Women’s Rights Delegation

January 2005

Introduction

In a climate of deep insecurity and escalating violence, Haitian women, the backbone of Haitian society and economy, are facing insurmountable challenges. Although Haitian women support the majority of Haiti’s economic activities and hold families together throughout the country, they have historically occupied an inferior social position.

Under the regime of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, Haitian women are caught in the middle of what many Haitians are calling a “rewind” back to the time of the 1991-94 coup d’etat, a period characterized by random violence in poor neighborhoods, a terror campaign employing rape, murder and disappearance as tactics, and rapidly increasing insecurity undermining all economic activity of the informal sector.

. . .

• The most impoverished and overpopulated neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, known as katyè popilè, have become war zones where feuding gangs, some of which are funded by political organizations, are victimizing tens of thousands of innocent civilians. While traveling to St. Catherine’s Hospital in Cite Soleil, an area that has been gripped by gang violence, the delegation observed the remains of arson attacks in the zone. Although the popular perception of the populations in these areas is that they support one or another of the gangs, the team heard repeated testimony that these armed groups are raping women and young girls, robbing families and burning homes.

Members of the national labor movement, Confederation des Travailleurs Haitienne (CTH) explained that due to the lack of economic opportunities in both formal and informal sectors women are having sex for money. A number of sources confided to the team that women and girls who cannot afford to attend school are having sex with older men to finance their educations.

When looked at in tandem with the rise in forced sex, the recent spike in politically motivated rapes is a clear indication that women’s bodies are being abused sexually as a result of increasing insecurity. The increase in frequency of rapes was confirmed by the director of the gynecology department at the General Hospital. Testimony from victims of rapes heard by the delegation highlighted several patterns in the attacks. Attackers beat their victims into submission, often striking their eyes so they will not be able to identify them. Attackers are often masked and heavily armed. Women are usually raped by more than one attacker, and the victims’ children are often witnesses to the rape. After the attack, most women have nowhere else to go and are forced to return to the location of their rape (their homes and the yards in front of their homes) to sleep at night.

Women accused armed bandits/gang members of committing the rapes, but most cannot identify their attacker(s) either because they were masked or because the victim was beaten and could not see the identity of her attacker(s). Most victims have been forced to find alternative places to stay and are afraid to go out during the day. Children conceived during rapes are deeply stigmatized in Haiti. One woman told the team that her daughter is taunted with the name “little rape” by the other children in her neighborhood.

One fifteen-year-old prisoner claims she was held for several days in the fire station before being transferred to the prison, and that while in custody there she was beaten and raped.

From the interviews at the women’s prison, the delegation unanimously concluded that justice is very much for sale in Haiti. Those who have the means to hire lawyers are able to see judges and have their cases dealt with swiftly and to their advantage. The poor suffer indefinite detention and are denied the right to see a judge because they cannot afford to hire a lawyer.

Although Haiti’s young democracy inherited problems from decades of dictatorships and little has been done to reform the system, it is not an overstatement to describe the system as a failure

Haitian women become crime targets after quake

 

From the interviews at the women’s prison, the delegation unanimously concluded that justice is very much for sale in Haiti. Those who have the means to hire lawyers are able to see judges and have their cases dealt with swiftly and to their advantage. The poor suffer indefinite detention and are denied the right to see a judge because they cannot afford to hire a lawyer.

 

Although Haiti’s young democracy inherited problems from decades of dictatorships and little has been done to reform the system, it is not an overstatement to describe the system as a failure

HAITI, post-earthquake, 2010

By PAISLEY DODDS – Associated Press Writer

Tags: CB Haiti Earthquake

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Bernice Chamblain keeps a machete under her frayed mattress to ward off sexual predators and one leg wrapped around a bag of rice to stop nighttime thieves from stealing her daughters’ food.

She’s barely slept since Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake Jan. 12 forced her and other homeless women and children into tent camps, where they are easy targets for gangs of men.

Women have always had it bad in Haiti. Now things are worse.

. . .

Rape was only made a criminal offense in Haiti in 2005.

Reports of attacks are increasing: Women are robbed of coupons needed to obtain food at distribution points. Others relay rumors of rape and sexual intimidation at the outdoor camps, now home to more than a half million earthquake victims.

A curtain of darkness drops on most of the encampments at night. Only flickering candles or the glow of cell phones provide light. Families huddle under plastic tarps because there aren’t enough tents. With no showers and scant sanitation, men often lurk around places where women or young girls bathe out of buckets. Clusters of teenage girls sleep in the open streets while others wander the camps alone.

Out of all the things to take away from women who have been suffering, what a crime it is to attempt to take away, and re-phrase their own interpretations of their stories, their own reports of their own lives.

It has to be some kind of crime, these conferences ABOUT our families to which our families are not invited, nationwide.  This is made possible by the digital divide, and economic constraints as well.  It is an US/THEM mentality which is a poor/rich divide. 

In the US, another family in Idaho was wiped out by court-ordered visitation.

Police: Father kills young son in Meridian murder-suicide

by Scott Evans
Idaho’s NewsChannel 7 

Posted on February 9, 2010 at 8:30 AM 

Updated today at 11:09 AM 

MERIDIAN — The Ada County coroner has identified a father and infant son in an apparent murder-suicide in a home on S. Pelican Way. 

Meridian Police say it appears Nicholas Bacon, 20, shot his 8-month old boy Bekm, then turned the gun on himself. 

According to police, Bacon’s estranged wife received a series of telephone calls from her husband Monday, the last of which she said he threatened violence. 

“Her husband was making suicidal and homicidal threats; he had their baby with him,” said Meridian Police Deputy Chief Tracy Basterrechea. 

The couple was going through a divorce, but because they had joint custody of their son, Bacon had the child for the afternoon and was supposed to return him that night. Bacon’s wife called police after her husband threatened to harm the baby and himself. Officers went to the home around 8:30 p.m. 

“My oldest boy looked outside and saw all the cop cars and all the emergency vehicles out in front of the home,” said neighbor John Meyer. 

Officers knocked on the door and called inside, but got no answer. They entered the home through the garage after Bacon’s wife gave them the code to open the door. 

Officers found Bacon and his son on the floor of the living room, dead from gunshot wounds. A .40-caliber handgun was nearby. An exact time of death is not known, but Basterrachea says the shootings happened before officers arrived. 

“We were surprised to see the (crime scene) tape out front,” said neighbor Frank Lane. “That’s what drew our attention.” 

Basterrachea says the Meridian Police Department had no previous contact with the family. Bacon, who graduated from Mountain View High School in 2008, had no criminal record and no known history of domestic violence. Basterrachsa said Wednesday that Bacon got the gun from the home of a family member without that person’s knowledge. 

“We probably will never be able to explain how somebody could do this, or why, but we’re trying to bring all of the pieces together to at least give us a little more clear idea of what happened there,” Basterrachea said. 

Neighbors say the family, who moved into the rental house about one month ago, kept to themselves. 

“I’m sorry to hear about it. It’s sad to hear something like that is going on in your neighborhood, you know,” Lane said. 

WHEN will we just “get smart” and NO DEAL on that joint custody thing? 

I can’t keep up with this, but if you’re not alarmed, sickened, or politically active, something is wrong upstairs — in the thinking. 

These situations are not just dropping down out of the sky, they are the products of some truly very sick dogma, philosophies, and practices.

How could a 20 year old “man” do this to a son less than a year old? 

Here’s another, December 2009 — this one was jealousy, not about kids, evidently:

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Idaho Falls School District 91 says it will have counselors and crisis teams available Monday for students and staff following what police describe as a murder-suicide involving an Idaho Falls High School instructor.

Police say 49-year-old math teacher Keith Matthias on Friday evening shot and killed a man having an affair with his wife and then shot and killed himself after police forced his vehicle to a stop a short time later.

Matthias’ wife, Jennifer Matthias, 41, is a sixth-grade teacher at A.H. Bush Elementary School in Idaho Falls.

The Post Register reports the couple have three children.

Police say Jack Purcell, 46, died about 8 p.m. Friday while sitting in his truck at a Wal-Mart parking lot after being shot in the head numerous times with a large-caliber revolver.

In 2003, Purcell was sentenced to 18 months in prison following convictions for grand theft and domestic violence in Kootenai County in northern Idaho.

 

The Idaho church folk that went to Haiti to rescue children should’ve been looking closer to home..  Here’s an Idaho “Silent Witness” initiative.

The figures before you represent the Idaho women killed in acts of domestic violence in 1996.

As you look at these figures be aware of the many women still being hurt. They are our mothers, daughters, sisters, and neighbors. STOP, LOOK, LISTEN!

These figures are blood red, life size wooden cutouts representing adult domestic violence victims that were murdered in Idaho last year. Each figure bears a shield with the victim’s name, dates and story of how the murder occurred.

go to: 2001 2000 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996

I keep coming back to POORMAGAZINE.Com (see my very first or second blog here). 

SILENCED MAMAS II

The Un-just actions of Commissioner Marjorie Slabach continues -unchecked

Marlon Crump/PNN
Saturday, September 5, 2009;

“What do we want?”
“JUSTICE!”
“Who do we want it for?”
“Poor mamas struggling!”
“With?” “When do we want it?”
“NOW!”

. . .

the California Commission on Judicial Performance really that oblivious, ignorant, or even the least bit concerned of Slabach’s unethical judicial misconduct? A recent inductee was Jana Farrell, a single mother of an eleven-year old son. Miss Farrell arrived in the U.S from St. Petersburg, Russia in 1994, without any knowledge of English. In spite of that, she still wanted to contribute to this country’s work force. Jana worked one year in her current career in real estate, at Pacific Union and at Coldwell Banker for nearly three years.

In her native country, Jana earned a bachelor’s degree in Economic and Management from St. Petersburg’s University of Economics and Management, graduating with high honors. Her path of finding a job began with her enrollment at Heald Business College, where she received a science degree in accounting.

After Jana’s embrace of the United States as her second home, she attended Golden Gate University for a year and a half. While enrolled at Golden Gate, she took English as a second language program. Along the way, she met wonderful people teachers, and got married.

The marriage, however, became a failure, stating,
“It was due to his violent abuse towards me.” In 2006, Jana sought custody of their son in court.

“My ex-husband’s lawyer would often submit an application for these types of motion hearings (ex-parte) and Judge Slabach would continuously grant these motions, sometimes even twice in one week without question. These motions also required me to appear at 8:45 a.m, and this conflicted with my work schedules.” Jana explained.

Jana is one of the masses of young women who are victims of these rights-robbing motions. As I mentioned in the previous “Silenced Mamas” article, these “motions” attack a person’s 5th and 14th Amendment of the U.S Constitution’s Right to Due Process of law, because there is no advanced notice to the other party, from the moving side.

“I cannot agree more. As a matter of fact, those ex parte motions were leading me to a bankruptcy, loss of my job and other hardship. I’m not mentioning the toll all this will take on my son in the future.” Jana explained, in response to an online petition that I personally implemented to ultimately have Judge Slabach removed from the bench.

 

AND:

CPS ABUSE IS CHILD ABUSE 

Queennandi Xsheba/PoorNewzNetwork
Thursday, October 8, 2009; [[False report by Social Worker…]]

“Yes, I called em’ (cps) and reported abuse and neglect, because I didn’t like her!” The voice of new SF resident Sherie Lewis still echos in my ears as she confessed to me her part in the separation of Christana Martel’s family. As we further spoke, she also admitted that she called the calworks department (Alameda county) and falsely reported that Christana sold all of her food stamp benefits on her EBT card for in exchange for marijuana, (that accusation resulted in Christana paying a HEFTY price) which according to (then) neighbors Mertis Bowden and Michelle Howell was a “f-ed up lie!”, and that Christana kept “plenty of food”- Michelle explained to me that she was a guest over for dinner often. Ms. Lewis boasted on with her vengeance against Ms. Martel, attacks ranging from “manipulating” Christana’s family members just to cause dissent, and too in one case, to win a frivilous lawsuit against a former landlord.I stood there in awe as I literally watch this sista take sadistic pleasure in tearing down another sista. When I asked Ms. Lewis why, the sad and simple answer was that Christana was a poor mama. Far as CPS goes, people like Ms.Lewis whom in this case overstepped her boundaries and abused it (the Sssystem) tend to do this to “get back” at someone who was either an adversary to them, or out of plain jealousy. Either way, what is more than always overlooked is the children and their feelings towards being torn apart from their families, for no ligitamate reason other than their mama wasn’t very well liked, or “crossed” by a certain individual. CPS “stands” for Child Protective Services, indicating that if a child is in immediate danger, or if the child is being abused, there is a hotline number to call and report such actions- granted. However, there are mamaz like myself, tiny, vivian and jewnbug who strongly believe in “Tribal Intervention” and the “It takes us to heal us” theory, which is unfortunately not practiced amongst all of the members of our tribes (communities), thus the results are tribal dissent, and definitely reasonable (understatement) mistrust for the outside Sssystem.The impact of being removed from the home affected baby girl Destiny a bit more than her brothers, Dalevon and Deshawn. She was depressed, withdrawn and suffered from massive hair loss, but has been improving since Christana was given more time to spend with the children, and to see about Destiny’s mental well-being. Why is this type of CPS abuse allowed to continue? The question remains in the “smokeblower”, while mamaz such as Christana and myself ponder on non-exsistent penalties for folks like Ms. Lewis who abuse the law and walk away laughing, taking high stride pride in helping to break up fellow black families. “Looking back at the Hassani case, in my opinion, placing the children in foster care isn’t always the best option.” Ms. Martel said. “If a mother is able- bodied, mind and willing, she should be given more access to resources that would enable us to become indpendent caretakers, rather than just snatch our children away from us.”Christana Martel is a single mother of four now, who loves her beautiful, talented children dearly. Fighting and overcoming a heartbreaking situation like hers took alot of strenght, and we @poormag call for others to press on, at the same time we commend Christana on her perserverance.

 

Social Workers Always Know Best? 

Like this one? Around Thanksgiving, 2009?

Former State Official Charged With Phone Threats

Tamara T. Hoffman, newly-former chief of staff for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, has been charged in Springfield with making harassing phone calls and texts to a woman who is supposedly involved in a love triangle with a man that both her and Hoffman have been seeing. Police say Hoffman made the calls/texts from her state issued cell phone. Authorities also say Hoffman tried to throw her political weight around with the downstate woman, allegedly telling her, “If you see him again, something bad is going to happen to you. I work for the State of Illinois, and you don’t know who you’re messing with.”

Hoffman also allegedly threatened the officer when contacted about the incidents, and posted 2 photos of herself — one posed with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and another with her and a man holding guns — on the victim’s daughter’s Facebook page.

Followers of the Blago impeachment hearings might remember Ms. Hoffman’s testimony in front of the Illinois House Impeachment Committee, when her and department director Barry Maram got legislators’ panties in a bunch when they played dumb in regards to Blago’s controversial health care program, All Kids. Lawmakers had rejected expansion of Family Care coverage, and claimed that since Blago continued with it anyway, he displayed an abuse of power.

Hoffman had resigned her $119,400-a-year job a day before the arrest.

Associated Press – November 25, 2009 5:44 PM ET

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – A top official in a state social service agency is out of a job after allegedly using her state-issued telephone to harass another woman because the two were romantically involved with the same man.

Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz (REETZ) says Tamara T. Hoffman was arrested Saturday in McLean County and posted $2,500 bond. She will appear in court Dec. 11.

The 50-year-old Chicago woman left her $119,400 job as chief of staff for the Department of Healthcare and Family Services Friday. Agency officials would not comment further.

Rietz says Hoffman began calling a Rantoul woman about Aug. 14 threatening “something bad” if the woman continued to see the man. Hoffman did not return a message left at her home.

 

WELL, that’s enough for today, and not what I even came here to blog.  But when you are dealing with this situation, it is thought-provoking.