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Archive for February 2010

Don’t Box Me In…. or Shut Me Up…

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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?
 
[1]
Expression cannot be contained forever.  it’s going to get out somehow.
This statement so reminded me, immediately, of

Ayaan Ali Hirsi.

The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam

 Its Preface is short, and worth reading. 

Here is a foundation she established in 2007 to address these issues:
 

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.

 “AHA” is a great acronym, don’t you think?  I will add this to my blogroll.
Women’s voices — more than “batterer intervention programs” have helped me, I know, survive violence in the home, and just keep on hanging on.  That, plus a concern for the futures of my children. 
I do not — I hope — take for granted freedoms in this country. 
BUT, I wish to note, that evangelical churches (at a minimum), in concern about the dropping numbers of men, and in reaction to the apparent “feminization” of churches, have been coaching each other how to attract and maintain the men’s attendance — and dollars, no question about it.  Buildings have mortgages, pastors have salaries, programs need maintaining.
The corollary of this is an overidentification of GENDER with FAITH, and the bastardized, caricatures of what passes for “Christianity,” that values the gender more than the humanity.  I don’t see this in the Bible:  Both God, Jesus, and the apostle Paul, at times described themselves with feminine qualities.  What happens here is the pendulum of hate and cartoonish substitute of group identity for actual humanity goes on, generation after generation, like war. 
It took me, an American citizen, a long time to piece together WHY wouldn’t anyone to whom I was reporting what was happening at home, adn seeking help to resist or stop it, interesting in doing a damn thing to stop it?  What blinded them?  Once you’ve been assaulted, you aren’t exactly “blind” to the quality of the feeling.  When it’s habitual, ditto. 
So here’s the Americanized (?) version, reported in the NYTimes recently:

Where Fist, Feet and Faith Collide

(title of a church in the article, not the article):
Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Diego Sanchez before a  bout in Memphis.

By R. M. SCHNEIDERMAN
Published: February 1, 2010

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.

According to this blog, “Muscular Christianity Will Destroy the Gospel of Peace.”
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.”

And he (??) goes on to write:

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.

. . .

Men watch from the distance to women lined up during a food distribution operation near the slum of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010. Since the Jan. 12 earthquake ravaged much of Haiti’s capital, women say gangs of men have been stealing their food coupons used at distribution points in the outdoor camps, now home to more than half a million earthquake survivors.
 
. . . 

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.

 Idaho Council on Domestic Violence and Victim Assistance

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.

2009_11_27_ihfs.jpg

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. 

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

February 10, 2010 at 12:40 PM

Posted in "Til Death Do Us Part" (literally), AFCC, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Domestic Violence and/or Suicide Threats, Fatal Assumptions, History of Family Court, Lethality Indicators - in News, Split Personality Court Orders

Fear-based decision making, and appealing to the Reptilian brain

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Don’t think attorneys don’t know how to do this.

Just a few links — I mentioned the “reptilian” brain.  Earlier searching had shown me a link to attorneys being coached on how to appeal to it, in jurors.

Family Court rarely gets to actual jury trials (it’s about psychology in this venue, right?) but the whole existence of this system, and others parallel to it, originated in this appeal to communal danger.  For example, the “fatherhood” movement to start with . . . .

I felt my readers should see a few links:

This is an advertisement for a service “JURISPRUDENCE.”  I don’t know the product, I am linking to it for teaching purposes only.  The more we know about tactics, and can pull from different venues (this is not directed towards family law venues, but from what I can tell, torts…), the better.

Maybe it will help some women.  Excuse me, I mean “protective parents.”  I have read one of my own transcripts, and remember the psychic shock I was in at the time, from the lost children.  I sounded like a fool, and didn’t go for the jugular of the legal issues, like I should have, or for violations of due process that resulted to the state of shock I was in to start with.

I utterly did not have control of the courtroom dialog — I was a mother in trauma, not a litigator.  As often happens, the attorney that began the proceedings was almost immediately dropped — who can afford one? Leaving us to muddle my way into trying to reverse the radically upended status quo.  Go figure about how well this went.

Don’t think that’s accidental! …..

Pre-Trial Research: Find the Facts that Tell Your Story

Each juror will tell themselves a different story about your case.  They will pay attention to the evidence which supports this story and they will disregard what does not.  Their individual stories depend on jurors’ life experiences, attitudes and personalities.  It also depends on how you present your case.  It is possible to shape any juror’s perception of your case by emphasizing the right facts and de-emphasizing others. Pre-Trial research illuminates which facts lead to a given story, what confuses people and what evidence, on both sides, resonates with jurors.

Overcoming Juror Bias

Given the technical expert testimony, you cannot win a toxic torts trial unless you research jurors’ biases and how they individually decide and collectively deliberate your case.   It is human nature to use short-cuts (psychologists call these short-cuts heuristics) to reach a decision when a problem is complicated.  Understanding and overcoming these resulting biases is essential in a complex case, where technical legal instructions and scientific evidence are presented.

Science Made Simple

The key evidence and testimony must be clear and memorable so that jurors will think about it first when deciding the case.  Not only are memorable facts more likely to be considered, but people erroneously believe that more accessible facts are also more credible.

People typically must hear something 9 to 12 times to memorize it, i.e., incorporate it into their subconscious, where it is not re-analyzed again for accuracy but simply referenced for decision-making.  Emotional experiences and powerful visuals are memorized faster, sometimes immediately.

It is just as important to know what evidence to exclude, as is what evidence to emphasize.  What issues are clear and require less explanation?  What testimony is too confusing and simply distracts from your key points?  Pre-trial research answers these critical questions so you are armed to present your strongest case and obtain the highest verdict amount possible.

And another page, same site:

Persuade “The Reptile” and Win

David Ball is fired up, here at the American Association for Justice annual convention. The attorneys are fired up. I’m fired up! David Ball says that he and a team of attorneys and trial consultants have figured out why tort reform rhetoric has worked so well — and they are using this new information to create a “nuclear bomb” that wins every time. David is convinced that the defense cannot do anything to effectively fight back.

I know this sounds too good to be true, but David’s uncharacteristic excitement about the future of public justice lawsuits convinced most of the attorneys in the standing-room-only ballroom. Based on what I know about how jurors make decisions, I also think this will work in my cases.

In a nutshell, the plaintiff wins if jurors believe that the kind of thing the defendant has done in this case is an immediate threat to the jurors and their kids. David spoke at length about the “reptilian brain” that has kept our ancestors alive for millions of years – that it has 100s of times more connections to the rest of the brain than any other structure, including the prefrontal cortex that gives rise to our conscious thought. That it is very powerful in our decision-making, yet resides in our unconscious.

I just gave a talk on Friday at HB’s benzene conference and spoke about the power of emotions in juror decision-making, that emotions are the conscious representation of a decision that takes place in the unconscious and that everyone, including more analytical “thinking” types, makes decisions based on which neurons win an emotional tug of war in the unconscious, between the pleasure and pain centers. Scientists who use MRI machines can see this neural activity and can predict how people will decide a research question before those people consciously know. For those attorneys who heard me talk about the neuroscience behind decision-making and the power of fear, the “double-edged sword” that drives jurors to assume causation and blame the plaintiff in toxic tort cases, David’s talk was even more enlightening. I think I “get it” now.

David’s book, Reptile, comes out August 7th. You can order it online at http://www.reptilekeenanball.com/ I also recommend the “Reptile Seminar,” since this technique has a “slow learning curve,” according to David. Obviously, you can’t tell jurors that what happened in the case is a threat to them. But you imply this – without violating the golden rule – by saying to a witness “you would agree, wouldn’t you, that a [manufacturer, physician, etc] is never allowed to NEEDLESSLY ENDANGER a [user of a product, patient, the public].” To do this well, throughout trial and in depositions before… to even know what facts you will need at trial to convince “The Reptile” (as David puts it), you must practice, practice, practice. I hope to put this to work in our mock trial CLE workshops, so I’ll need to work with attorneys who have read the book. Perhaps I’ll demonstrate some of it myself in an opening statement.

This is powerful stuff. It’s simple in theory and makes sense to me. I know fear drives juror decision-making and I’ve seen the reactions of jurors with perception analyzer dials, dialing down against Plaintiff when the attorney is making a strong, rational point that should be helping her case. Even the plaintiff-oriented jurors dial down against the plaintiff in these situations, where their rational prefrontal cortex must know this helps Plaintiff’s case, yet that reptilian brain wins the neural tug of war and the prefrontal cortex is put to work, justifying, verbalizing and defending an irrational decision. This is when jurors selectively attend to evidence, pull in life experiences and even make up facts to justify their decision – to protect themselves from their own fear.

That’s all I have time for now.  See also California Family Law Institute, and my blog on it where this site (directed towards MEN), appeals to the Divorce as War paradigm — not exactly what people are being taught, most likely, at the February 2010 AFCC conference (see my prior posts) — that “conflict” is the enemy.

I suppose that’s why US Troops are all over the world helping establish democracy, overseas, at least, or defending it….  Because “conflict” and “war” are wrong.  Go figure.

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

February 9, 2010 at 11:29 AM

Posted in Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Funding Fathers - literally, Who's Who (bio snapshots)

The Hidden Price Tag of Child Support….

with 4 comments

Women: Beg, borrow, don’t sleep (we did this when kids were little, and if you have also lived with domestic violence, many of you already know how not to have a sound night’s sleep), figure SOMETHING out.

“Beware Greeks” (or government employees) bearing “gifts.”

There is NO such thing as a “free lunch.”

But if you are living in poverty, as many single mothers are for various reasons, and you enlist the support of your local government by applying for TANF or Medicaid, the Child Support Division will GET YOU (LMAO) so that they can collect from the absent parent. The government got tired of supporting single mothers so they figured out (many years ago) that they should get reimbursed by the absent parent….
which was when the absent parent decided “he” wanted shared/50-50/equal parenting/custody (in recent years).

Well said.  That’s not QUITE how it developed, Randi, but I’m posting your warning / opinion link below, because women deserve to know up front.

Nonprofits need warm bodies as clients.  Nonprofits that take funding from the federal system (through states, through counties, sometimes through courts) actually RECRUIT fathers — in various institutions, and offer them help to abate child support arrears in exchange for more custodial time with their kids.  This is a win-win situation for most people — except the kids, and the parents of those kids.  Why?  Because the mothers are told one thing, and the fathers another.    Then, naturally, we are labeled for having indignation, including at that.

The word “noncustodial parent” is code for “father.”  If you haven’t figured this out yet, don’t blame me!

The child support system is incredibly opaque to mothers, so many times.  Easy in, hard to get out.  For example, I haven’t seen my own children for far too long, they have not been in my “custody.”  The normal, average, street understanding of the word “custody” has to do with either a sheriff that just took a criminal or someone off the street into “custody,” or — in these fields, which parent has the child.  Or, do child protective services, or foster parents receive, I guess “custody.”

NORMAL WORDS HAVE DIFFERENT MEANINGS IN THE CHILD SUPPORT SYSTEM. 

But this system calls parents who are OWED money “custodial” in its electronic calculations, regardless of where any children live.  For example, if I want to go check on how much my ex has not paid me on the outstanding arrears he had before he (or someone helping him) figured out a way to at least stop child support from accruing — take the kids — I must still sign in under “custodial” parent field in this statewide distribution system.

IS IT IN EFFECT CHILD RENTAL?  OR IS IT NOT?

Then they repeatedly assert (falsely) that it’s NOT about children for time (i.e., children’s time for SALE, essentially.  Consider the message this sends growing young ladies….and what a “healthy” marriage message it is…).  However, in calculating who owes what, time IS a factor.

And if you can follow that, you should be able to graduate from at least calculus, let alone be able to add, subtract, multiply, and project what direction income is heading, and where.

NO, she is right.  Child Support is a misnomer.

There is NO “free lunch,” no matter what you are told on the posters.

My involvement:

I, too, after a decade of abuse, really relished the reliability — for just a few months — of actual predictable income, welfare level plus Food Stamps — that I could actually spend, and determine how to use for my (then young) children’s needs.

It was just a single stair-step out of the abuse. I was off it almost immediately, and with him out of the house, and then one move, I had my act together.

Then, WHAM!  You have no idea how THREATENING it is to certain powers to actually be a self-supporting, good, single mother. Of for an ex-batterer to have actual proof that, once he was out of the home, the home was doing better (even if he was not out of the children’s lives).  Either way, you are cutting in on someone else’s business.

Besides, poverty of any sort is your own fault, right?

RESULTS?

What I paid for thinking that someone helping us AFTER and OUT of abuse was actually altruistic, and didn’t have an ulterior motive:

I paid with the custody of my children, the viability of my profession, and was eventually forced BACK onto Food stamps, only years older, with a further broken job history (broken by years in family court answering ridiculous allegations that a single phone call — or a single examination of probably less than 3 pages of paper evidence proving the allegations false — would have easily proved baseless). Both parents — neither who could afford this — alternately hired an attorney; me, to defend from custody action, he to stop my second attempt to reinstate a restraining order.

I have news for you. Restraining orders are hard to get once you’ve been in family court. The police tend to defer to that venue; their job is tough enough already.

Wade Horn (below) was eventually “outed” and as I recall, had to resign, but the programs he initiated remain. The OCSE (Office of Child Support Enforcement) is basically a fatherhood and healthy marriage programs recruiting center.

In my own case, once the kids were switched, the child support agency went deaf, dumb and blind. They couldn’t get a document served.  I couldn’t get a response until I talked to someone who knew someone who knew someone, after which it turned over, lumbering in sleep, and started to act. 

N ot nearly so swift as the father and friends, who had a VERY fast learning curve as to the system (or some help navigating it, apparently).   While it was thinking about thinking about moving, our situation heated up, especially around the frequent exchanges. 

After the snatch, a significant arrears was retroactively abated, reduced by a significant portion, and payments almost eliminated.  The almost-eliminated payments didn’t come in regularly, anyhow, and my rights to enforce contempt, hard enough to start with, were snipped.

So, while this child support organization (locally) goes on TV crowing about their successes, I keep my doggie-bag handy at the time, for spit-up (gag reflex).  Besides, the OCSE, and Fatherhood AND . .. DV agencies are basically in (bed, may I say?) together in some of these matters.  At least they are conferencing together….

So, DO NOT GO FOR CHILD SUPPORT AGENCY — IT”S A TRAP! IT’s A SINKHOLE! For further documentation, see http://www.NAFCJ.net, among others.  (Disclaimer:  Obviously this is opinion, and not legal advice!  Am I your counselor?  No….  I’m a blogger….)

Thank you, Randi James, for saying this better (and in better fonts) than I could.

Here’s an older post of hers citing the 2005 open letter from CA NOW to investigate Fatherhood Funding and citing their 2002 family court report.

Randi asks (or Helen Grieco does, read for yourself) who is going to audit those funds?

Then Ms. James (Randijames) comments — what’s happened since then?]

I’ll tell you what I think happened: NOW’s agenda changed. They are active, but not as active in this venue. STILL, the work remains on-line, at least I think so…

Thursday DHHS, Responsible Fatherhood, the Family Court: Your Tax Dollars Being Wasted On an Illegal Hype

August 2, 2005

California Member of Congress, California National Organization for Women (CA NOW) is respectfully requesting that you join the call for a federal investigation, by the U.S. Government Reform Committee, into the operations of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration of Children and Families’ Access/Visitation and “Responsible Fatherhood” programs, including those operating in California.  

CA NOW believes that these fatherhood programs misuse funds, do not account for their spending nor evaluation of their programming, and encourage illegal court practices that result in harm to women’s safety and well-being. We believe that fathers’ child support arrears are frequently abated by these groups, in violation of the Bradley amendment.

We also believe that Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration of Children and Families, has a conflict of interest serving in this capacity, and operates from a dangerous political ideology that actively favors fathers’ rights and seeks to minimize mothers’.  

CA NOW believes an investigation would expose serious system failure and fraud in these fatherhood programs. They are funded with federal money intended for resolving parental disputes, but instead give legal representation to fathers, which often results in high conflict litigation against perfectly fit mothers. CA NOW believes many fathers use these resources in order to avoid paying child support, and that many batterers do so in order to continue to abuse and manipulate their spouses and children through financially draining and emotionally devastating litigation, that often stretches on for years and years.

Fatherhood programs operate on the false premise that there is a “crisis in fatherlessness,” which is contradicted by Census data. CA NOW asked HHS, and the National Fatherhood Initiative (the most cited program on the HHS website) to justify this claim of crisis, and to date have not received an answer from them.

{{Comment: This is like asking a pimp to stop collecting wages from the fees of his “stable.” Or ASKING a crack addict to stop. There’s a high off that power!

{{I am starting another page, and plan to post some of the $$ quoted (at least on HHS own’ site). NFI is again receiving funding, although initially they were more in the breeding (of programs like themselves) business. Chronologically: 1994 — NFI formed. Then its key player goes to key position within HHS. Then he’s out, but the programs remain. The work is done, and ongoing. I just haven’t figured out how to upload spreadsheets yet.}}

We believe the entire premise for the programming is erroneous, and that mothers and their children are suffering harm from the consequences of such a focus. Through political connection, legal trainings, and funding diversions, these fatherhood programs emphasize false syndromes, such as Parental Alienation Syndrome as a technique to remove children from their mothers. Fatherhood groups train court appointed minors’ attorneys, mediators and evaluators to discriminate against mothers, and create a vacuous draining of mothers of funding, faith in the system, and ability to fight to protect their children.

{{And where Joe Public, or Jane Doe are taken in is credulity.  “SURELY, no one would do that; that’s outrageous.  This is a JUSTICE system, right?  Everyone “knows” that mothers have an advantage in custody trials…”  ((oh???))}}

Tell that to the mother in Victorville who lost a 9-month old infant on court-ordered visitation, and her attempts to get safety dismissed because a judge affirmed she was making it up.  This is now the new “model” in too many families, and it’s GREAT business all round — for certain professions — except for the families and kids who have to pick up around this, and society, who picks up the tab..}}

These are primary caregiving mothers. Single mothers whose children’s fathers come back after years without contact, and demand and receive full or partial custody. Mothers are losing custody to their abusers, to men who have abused or neglected their children, and men with criminal backgrounds.

Often fathers are awarded custody based on frivolous justifications, such as insufficient cooperation with the father, while documented evidence of domestic violence and abuse, even sexual abuse, goes ignored.

In 2002 California NOW analyzed 300 complaints from California mothers who believed family courts ignored laws, procedures and evidence in their cases. We used this analysis as the basis of our report, the CA NOW Family Court Report 2002.

{{Read it, or be uninformed.  Find out which BANK morphed into which BANK funding the AFCC.  Same BANK is in charge — at least in this state — of the statewide child distribution system, as far as I can tell.  That’s reassuring…}}

The report shows that in these particular cases, where women had lost custody of their children, there was a high correlation between grounded evidence of child abuse by the father and the mother losing custody. 86% could prove that their children’s father had a history of domestic violence, child abuse, or a criminal record. In many cases, illegal maneuvers, such as the labeling of mothers with false syndromes, as well as the use of ex parte hearings, and biased and unqualified extra-judicial personnel, were used to remove children from their primary care-giving mothers, thus violating the woman’s parental rights and injuring the child(ren) by loss of contact with their non-offending mother.

Other professional comprehensive studies show similar results, including the Wellesley Women’s Center Battered Women’s Testimony Project, and sociologist Amy Neustein, PhD and attorney Michael Lesher’s book, Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts—and What Can Be Done About It. In addition, CA NOW believes that Wade Horn, current Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, has a major conflict of interest in his role overseeing such programs, given his past affiliation as president of the National Fatherhood Initiative.

Horn, as President of National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), promoted (in collaboration with fathers rights groups) during 1999 and 2000, “Fathers Count” legislation, which would have mandated $10,000,000 in total annual funding to fathers organizations. According to the legislative language, only NFI and the leading fathers’ rights group, Children’s Rights Council, would have qualified for the grants. The bill passed the Congress, but was stalled by the Senate Finance Committee. In March 2001, NFI received a $500,000 non-competitive grant, shortly after Horn became “Acting” HHS Assistant Secretary ( February 2001), while he was still NFI President (not resigning until July 2001). This grant was authorized by a December 2000 Congressional “ear-mark” inserted in an appropriations bill after the “Fathers Count” bill failed to pass the Senate Finance Committee.

NFI refuses to disclose how this money was used. Also, Horn conceals he has on-going conflicts-of-interest with NFI and the implementation of the fatherhood programs.

California NOW has HHS evaluation reports that show that the “Responsible Fatherhood” program is used for unauthorized practices such as soliciting fathers through the child support system with offers of abatements on their child support arrears (in violation of the Bradley Amendment) and free attorneys for their custody litigation. Some litigating mothers have provided us with county payment records that show the attorney of the litigating farther was paid from these programs. These unauthorized practices are so common that flyers soliciting fathers into ‘litigation assistance’ groups have been found displayed in county court buildings, while some state court web sites display links to their fatherhood programs. This practice violates the mission of the judicial system, as it provides special litigation assistance to one-side of a legal dispute.

While being funded by federal money, these court-based fatherhood services do not admit non- custodial mothers into their programs. (In fact, a search of the HHS website includes 286 references to “motherhood” and 824 references to “fatherhood.”)

California NOW has copies of internal HHS e- mail showing Wade Horn’s staff have obstructed investigations of mothers’ complaints about the Responsible Fatherhood and related programs.

California NOW is asking for you to join the call for a thorough investigation by the Government Reform Committee into the fatherhood programs—including those in California– and HHS Assistant Secretary, Wade Horn’s conflict of interest in these programs.

We implore you to support the Government Reform Committee’s investigations–already now underway–by contacting the staff investigator and urging that California be included in the investigation. The staff director is David Marin, phone number 202-225-5074, address c/o Government Reform Committee, 2157 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515. Thank you for your time and immediate attention to this matter.

For Justice, Helen Grieco

Executive Director California National Organization for Women (CA NOW) _____

(Randi James writes):

This was 2005. What came of this? Where is NOW, now? See below this post for other posts of mine on topics that are covered in this letter.

Here’s another one of her posts, and if you don’t like the blunt truth in blunt language, go be politically correct and euphemistic elsewhere, but realize this is a mutual bottom line we are talking about here.

If you want to know what a WAR is like, remember to talk to the Veterans of it, not just the Congressional people who authorized the war, and sent other people’s kids (or their own) off to it!

A recent NYT featured books written from the front lines about war. Well, these blogs are “from the front lines” on these issues. We are RIGHT about the Child Support farce, and mothers would do well to take heed to it.

The other thing that may happen — and happened to some of us — is that when a father is actually pursued for money, a very important status symbol to men in this culture, and most cultures — a number of reactions may happen, only ONE of which is going for custody of children he previously cared little about.

Anoither version of the same type of struggle is worse, and if you are familiar with the Hans Reiser case in Lafayette, California, his wife NINA disappeared on a court-ordered exchange of their young children.

It was high-profile, he was convicted with killing her before a body was shown up, and then plea-bargained his sentence down by saving the police time and showing where she was buried.

Not so frequently reported about, on that case, was that at this time, he had a $10,000 child support arrears, and had been arrested with thousands of dollars cash on his person.

DECENT fathers understand that children need money to survive, but when feelings are involved, and the “reptilian” part of the brain is active — and when the environment (in the gender wars in the courts) is favorable towards this, and not reason and common sense — things can go seriously haywire. The loser is ALWAYS going to be the kids, FIRST, and thereafter, society.

JUST DON’T DO IT!

Again, that’s not legal advice, that’s my opinion.

As Ms. James says:

I Don’t Want Child Support

Dear Reader,

I don’t want the shit (child support) either. In fact, many of us mothers, at this point, would gladly retract the child support in exchange for the ability to raise our children without interference from our abusers. Legal auction.


(AND that IS what’s in the fine print…That’s what’s at stake!


My advice to you, if you can do without, live in abject poverty and fuck child support. In fact, write FATHER UNKNOWN on the birth certificate. You may feel like you’re losing, and it isn’t right, but everyone will win.

Consider your situation, I’m writing this half jokingly, but 100% seriously.

Well, that’s not always practical, but the point remains….

Stop presenting children to be fleeced, along with yourself, if at ALL possible.  Don’t say you weren’t warned!

(Formatting difficulties below…)

OMB REPORT DESCRIBING ACCESS VISITATION FUNDS — PROGRAM PARTICIPANT SURVEY (This one, 2008):

State Child Access Program Survey:
Instructions
 

Purpose
 
 

The purpose of this survey is to provide information to Congress on the progress of services provided under the Child Access and Visitation Grant, the goal of which is to “…support and facilitate a noncustodial parents’ access to and visitation with their children.”
 
 

Survey Components
 
 

The
The state is:
… responsible for summarizing much of the data provided by its grantees and reflecting this information in the “State Agency Program Survey” part of the form. The state is also responsible for making sure that local service providers or grantees complete the “Local Service Provider Survey” part of the form. In the instance a state transfers its child access grant funds to another state agency (e.g., Office of the Courts) who, in turn, issues grants to local courts and/or community-based organizations, {{this could be called (??) “Separation of Powers” (Legal, Judicial, Executive, right?  Yeah, sure.  It ALSO is, “separation of church and state.”  Yeah, sure.*** }} the state must ensure that these “sub-grantees” complete the “Local Service Provider Survey.”

State Child Access Program Survey is comprised of two-parts: 1) the State Agency Program Survey; and 2) the Local Service Provider Survey. “State Child Access Program Survey” to OCSE by REQUIRED OUTCOME

  

#1. Increased NCP parenting time with children. (NCP = non custodial parent)
:

DEFINITION of Required Outcome:
 
 

“An increase in the number of hours, days, weekends, and/or holidays as compared to parenting time prior to the provision of access and visitation services.”
 
 
 

 

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT:  OUT-COME BASED JUDICIAL PROCESS.  Of course, this doesn’t exactly mean equality of “DUE PROCESS.”  They are kind of at the opposite ends of the spectrum, right?   How is one to “increase parenting time” if the facts just don’t support the wisdom of this?  LIke CPS says Daddy was waterboarding, or Mommy was doing something incorrect too, or so forth?  Well, a judge examining facts/law couldn’t, but a mediator sure could.  Someone NOT subject to cross-examination, due process, and particularly if immune for prosecution for slander, bias, etc. — that would be a lot harder to deal with, for the shocked parent that wondered “what happened?  What part of this don’t you “GET”??”  Well, the part that parent didn’t GET is what went on behind closed doors with ONE parent, but not the other, at federal expense.  THAT’s what tipped the scale…. 

 

In addition, Section D: Local Service Provider Worksheet was developed to assist service providers in compiling information on clients served. The “Case Reference/Identification Number” can be the same “case” number used by a service provider at client intake. It must be emphasized, however, that personal social security numbers are not to be used since this would be a breach of client confidentiality.

SOURCE (and better viewed on the PDF):

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/forms/omb-0970-0204.pdf

Here’s the FEDERAL GRANTSWIRE description, in part:

Program

93.597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs

Federal Agency

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Office: Administration for Children and Families

Authorization

Social Security Act, Title IV, Part D, Section 469B, Public Law 104-193.

Program Number

93.597

Last Known Status

Active

Objectives

To enable States to create programs which support and facilitate access and visitation by non-custodial parents with their children.   {{of course “support and facilitate” in practice typically may include the reality of “mandatory…”  No meet the “required outcome” of the court process — more NCP time with the kid  = may compromise next year’s funding.  ….}}

Activities may {{??}} include mediation, counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.

(WOW — sounds like a list of the professions represented in large part by the AFCC…) (What a coincidence….)

Eligibility Requirements

Applicant Eligibility

All States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and Guam.

Beneficiary Eligibility

Custodial and non-custodial parents and children.

My total loss of custody, and other mothers’, was a definite “beneficiary” of these types of services.  I suppose…

Credentials/Documentation

The Governors have designated a single State agency to represent the State in carrying out this responsibility. OMB Circular No. A-87 applies to this program.

 

(Formatting loophole — this info is from the OMB reporting requirements, prior link): 

Last, the state is responsible for submitting the

November 30th of each year that the survey is authorized.

The local service provider is: …responsible for completing the “Local Service Provider Survey” for clients served and submitting this information to the state who, in turn, will submit it to OCSE . A new feature of the survey (see Section D: Local Service Provider Worksheet) requires that grantees report on the following:

{{Typical of our government:  Grammar off – it doesn’t even agree in number:  “a noncustodial parents’ “(is that singular or plural?  I think singular was intended by “a” but parents’ is definitely plural.  Maybe we can figure it out in context..  let’s read on…  )..”access to and visitation with their children.”   (Was the NCP a singular or a plural person?  Maybe it was plural, because it’s access to “their” children.” 

And we wonder why our kids have deficit attention disorder?  And need remedial reading?  The government can’t even pay attention to number (singular/plural?) for a complete sentence…)  Or, maybe there was a sperm donor, so “NCP” — which we know means Dads anyhow — MAY refer to more than one NCP per child.  Well, you go figure it out….)}}

{{Now as to the hypocrisy — I already posted on why I don’t copyedit around here, so MY ____ is covered in that regard, I hope.}}

As part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, states are required to monitor, evaluate, and report on programs funded through this grant program in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary.

My personal recommendation is that we citizens get out our GUIDESTAR free registrations, and do this ourselves.  After all, whose dollars are they?  Whose country IS this?

A final rule delineating the program data reporting requirements was published by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement in the Federal Register (64 FR 15132) on March 30, 1999, and specifies the collection of data as follows:

“Section 303.109(c) REPORTING. The state must:

(1) Report a detailed description of each program funded, providing the following information as appropriate: service providers and administrators, service area (rural/urban), population served (income, race, marital status), program goals, application or referral process (including referral sources), voluntary or mandatory nature of the programs, types of activities and length and features of a completed program; and

(2) Report data including: the number of applicants/referrals for each program, the total number of participating individuals, and the number of persons who have completed program requirements by authorized activities (mediation—voluntary and mandatory, counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement—

including monitoring, supervision and neutral drop-off and pickup) and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.”

Let’s look at this funding in, say, California, Florida, NY, and Texas — typically among the largest states in grants searches.

93.597 — seen at THIS link:

Trend

Bar chart is from the data in the below table

2000Data from census.gov $9,800,000
2001 $9,800,000
2002 $19,543,038
2003 $9,643,505
2004 $10,000,000
2005 $10,000,000
2006 $0
2007Data from Agencies $10,000,000
2008 $10,000,000
2009Agencies start send Recovery Act data $7,141,989
2010 $10,000,000

 

93.601:  Child Support Enforcement and Demo Projects HERE:

Trend

Bar chart is from the data in the below table

2000Data from census.gov $0
2001 $0
2002 $0
2003 $0
2004 $0
2005 $0
2006 $0
2007Data from Agencies $1,556,856
2008 $1,295,662
2009Agencies start send Recovery Act data $1,051,645
2010 $0

 

OK, something new coming down the pike, obviously…

And  93.563, Child Support Enforcement:

Federal dollars: $31,546,418,240
Total number of recipients: 157
Total number of transactions: 85,611

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

February 9, 2010 at 11:05 AM

Posted in After HE Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, Designer Families, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Funding Fathers - literally, History of Family Court, OCSE - Child Support

War comes home: Waterboarding a 4 yr old

with 9 comments

QUIZ:

Do you think it was a MOTHER or a FATHER that did this?

Was there an enabling 2nd woman around at the time?

As I say, there is approximately one a week coming to the press.

How cast iron is your stomach? Because if you can’t stomach what’s happening to this society and why, there may come a time when the blinkers must come off, and concerns worse than foreclosure, or inflation, become paramount in one’s life..

=====

This reference comes from a newspaper via Michael Moore website, and from this site referenced below. I hope you will take some time to read her comments 9n this case on the Michael Moore site (linked on the title to this article, below).

February 8th, 2010 2:54 PM

U.S. soldier Joshua Tabor waterboards his daughter, 4, because she couldn’t recite alphabet: police

By Brian Kates / New York Daily News

A GI waterboarded his 4-year-old daughter in their suburban Tacoma, Wash., home because she couldn’t recite the alphabet, police reported.

Joshua Tabor, 27, allegedly admitted to police he used the torture technique because his daughter was terrified of water and he was furious she didn’t know her ABCs.

Tabor was arrested Sunday and charged with assault of a child.

Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Wash., told police he held the little girl’s head backward in a sink of water, Yelm Police Chief Todd Stancil told the the local newspaper, the Nisqually Valley News.

Stancil said Tabor had admitted to using this means of punishment three to four times.

Police found the little girl locked in a bathroom with bruises on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.

Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied, “Daddy did it.”

Police did not release Tabor’s rank or the nature of his military service. His base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The girl, who was not identified, had been in Tabor’s court-ordered custody for about a month and a half.

After his arrest, she was placed in the care of Child Protective services, Stancil said. She had moved to Yelm from Montana where she lived with her grandparents. Her mother lives in Kansas.

Cops arrested Tabor after neighborhood residents reported him walking around his neighborhood drunk, wearing a Kevlar Army helmet and threatening to break windows.

Tabor’s girlfriend told police that Tabor has an anger problem and beats his daughter, Stancil said.

Tabor reportedly said his girlfriend helped hold the girl down in the water. She had not been charged.

The couple has a 2-month-old child together, Stancil said

================

============

I’ve been speaking about this sad profit-making practice for few years now. [1], [2], [3] My latest speeches are posted at:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id79.html

References:

[1] Dr. Sidiakina, N.A. (2010) STOP Family Courts’ Torture And Abuse of Protective Parents And Self-Represented Parties:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id79.html

[2] Dr. Sidiakina, N.A. (2009) Family Courts’ Reliance on Parental Alienation Syndrome Theory Turns Normal Children Into Mental Retards:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id79.html

[3] Dr. Sidiakina, N.A. (2009) The Family Courts’ System in California Turns Children into Slaves:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id79.html

ANYONE want to track that case? Why did the mother of this 4 year old move to Kansas (or him to Washington)? When, where and why was this little girl in Montana, with “grandparents.”

For the uninformed, “grandparents” in custody battles, particularly any ones that involved domestic violence or child abuse, or allegations of it, come in TWO brands:

1. His (in which case, what kind of sense does it make putting a kid in the custody of the parents who raised a man that has been abusive? Or woman?)

2. Hers (another factor to consider is that SOME families respond to the breakup of their child’s relationship, or marriage, differently than others. Some families support their biological (adult) child, others turn on them. This becomes interesting when one figures that one generation of poor boundaries, and lack of understanding that it’s wrong to hit may produce an adult woman who doesn’t have the greatest boundaries in marriage. Or, other scenarios may include a young adult child needing so desperately to get away from an abusive (or simply emotionally bloodless/cold) family of origin she mistakes lust for love. Or doesn’t mistake it, but simply takes the closest apparent exit.

I don’t know about this case. I’m just providing the links.

Do you (“Gentle readers”) Understand the power of multiplication? Any good business person, network marketer, or affiliate of any product, should understand the principle.

Well, guess where these incidents are ‘bred’? The Family Courts ARE the incubators for sure. They are a hotbed of profit — for some. Not the four year olds, of course…
LOOK: A need is a market niche. If problems were simply solved in the most direct, honest, and sensible way, there goes a business opportunity, and it would have to knock on other doors.

What better constant stream of cash than a SYSTEM which generates problems? And when people are MANDATED to go through it, basically, unless their marriages are intact (and 1 out of 2, approximately, in the US aren’t), there’s practically No Exit.

We have in this one case, apparently a vet applying Boot Camp procedures (and worse) to a kid. Thankfully, this one got caught.
Go figure!

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

February 9, 2010 at 10:17 AM

Posted in After She Speaks Up - Reporting Domestic Violence and/or Suicide Threats, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Context of Custody Switch, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Funding Fathers - literally, Split Personality Court Orders, Where's Mom?

Tagged with

“However, in Victorville [family] court…” (Mind-reading by a judge leads to 2 deaths…)

with 9 comments

 

This follows up to the Twin Peaks murder-suicide of a father and his 9 month old son, in the Tagle, Garcia case.

A newspaper article relates the sequence of events….

Family say courts shut down restraining orders

By Stacy Moore
Hi-Desert Star
Published: Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:01 AM CST
TWIN PEAKS — Sunday’s murder-suicide was the culmination of months of threats and online and text rants from Stephen Garcia to Katie Tagle of Yucca Valley and her family.
The mother of a 9-month-old boy, Wyatt, with Garcia, Tagle was never able to secure a restraining order against him for herself or an order for supervised visitations for their son.

“This was preventable. This didn’t have to happen,” Tagle’s mother, Maria Brown said the day after Wyatt’s death.

“The system failed Wyatt. It cost him his life.”

Her family said Garcia abused Tagle throughout their two-year relationship, which ended in August 2009, when, her family said, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious.

Tagle brought Wyatt back to her family house in Yucca Valley, but frequently took him to visit Garcia’s parents in Piñon Hills. 

Garcia, her family said, did not seem especially interested in Tagle or their son until December 2009, when he discovered she was involved with another man.

 

At the risk of losing some colleagues here, and not that it diminishes the bad treatment of the courts, this does show lack of judgment.  It also appears to me (from the court records) that Garcia himself was a rebound relationship (at least within 2 years of the last one) from a marriage to Ricardo Tagle (Jr.?)  Maybe there was overlap, but this woman does have an active love life, and producing children, too.
With men getting less and less accountability for knocking around pregnant women (seems to me), relationships, per se, it seems, are going to become more and more dangerous for women.  The word is apparently already out, at least in the newspapers, that you might get a slap on the wrist.  OR, you might get a judge like Mazurek, who says, “that’s just what you’re saying to get an edge in the custody battle.” 
That is, by the way, the attitude in the Family Law Venue to start with!  Our job as on-lookers (and taxes funding this) is to find out WHY judges go deaf, dumb, and blind, and unconsciously identify with the men, too much.  For that, I think we have to look at the cash flow in the court system…

 

“That’s when he wigged out,” Tagle’s sister Andrea Rodriguez of Hesperia said. 

In letters on a Web site he set up to chronicle his communications to her and her friends, Garcia cursed at Tagle and told her to return to him.

During one custody exchange with Wyatt, he proposed to her, then knocked her to the ground.

Judge denies first restraining order

On Dec. 15, Tagle asked for an emergency restraining order against Garcia, telling Judge Debra Harris in a Joshua Tree courtroom that Garcia had threatened Wyatt.

“He had sent me text messages before that if his son was around certain people … that he would kill him,” Tagle told the judge, according to transcripts of the hearing.

“And that if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, he’d find me and kill me.”

“What about the threat to shoot you, where did that occur, to hunt you down and shoot you with a gun?” the judge asked.

“That was in a text message, Tagle replied.

When Harris asked for copies of the text messages, Tagle said she had no way of printing them out and her phone was shut off.

The judge denied the emergency order and set a hearing.

Garcia ‘doesn’t pose a threat’

At that hearing, on Jan. 12, Tagle went before Judge David Mazurek in the Joshua Tree courthouse to show cause for a restraining order.

“…On Dec. 31, we were doing our exchange, and he proposed to me, and I said no. He got angry and stole my phone and pushed me down. I made a police report about that,” Tagle told the judge, according to a transcript.

Garcia told the judge the report was “falsely made up.”

Mazurek denied Tagle the restraining order.

“If I grant the restraining order, how do you think that’s going to help with respect to you two being able to raise Wyatt together or work together to make sure Wyatt grows up happy and healthy?” the judge asked, according to the transcripts.

{{Pause for my blood pressure to go down . . . .   WELL, the judge had his way, and no NOW one is going to raise Wyatt.  That’s the benefits of the shared-parenting presumption when mixed with bad examples, like a man knocking down a pregnant woman.  What kind of potential do you think a man knocking down a pregnant woman because she didn’t accept his marriage proposal, and before that punching her in the face, might be for a Dad?  Great start in life, eh?}}

{{Go back to NOMAS and read Jack Straton, “what’s fair for children of abusive men?”   Like staying alive to at least adolescence???}}{{See Lundy Bancroft’s “The Batterer As Parent” book…}}  {{Well, what kind of society do we want?  Violent?  OK then, get those batterer Dads back in the action}}.

{{Consider if she’d punched HIM in the face!  Would she be in jail, AT ONCE?  Or would the father be put in a parenting class to teach him how to get along with her?  Yeah, sure…}}

“He would have both of us still,” Tagle responded. 

Asked about an e-mail in which he confessed to hitting Tagle, Garcia told the judge he had slapped her during a fight, but it was Tagle’s fault for “pushing and pushing and pushing until she could get something from me.”

Tagle pointed out she was nine months pregnant when Garcia hit her.

“I kind of get an idea of what’s going on,” Mazurek said.

So glad the judge “kind of got an idea.”  Are rulings from ideas, or from facts, and patterns of behavior?  He kinda forgot that assault and battery (which this was) is either an (A) misdemeanor or (B) felony.  …


He denied the restraining order, saying, “I don’t think that Mr. Garcia poses a threat to Ms. Tagle.” 

Mazurek went on to suggest Tagle might have ulterior motives for alleging domestic violence.

{{That sure beats looking for evidence, or listening to witnesses, or knowing squat about how abuse goes…}}
“I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between. It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other,” he said, according to the transcripts.

 

WHICH CAME FIRST?  THE SEPARATION BECAUSE OF THE VIOLENCE, AND THEN BECAUSE OF THE SEPARATION, A CUSTODY/VISITATION ORDER (KNEE-JERK REACTION)?  OR THE CUSTODY/VISITATION ORDER AND then THE ALLEGATIONS OF VIOLENCE?  THE WOMAN SEPARATED TO START WITH BECAUSE OF VIOLENCE, IT SAYS!

WHAT NORMAL SINGLE MOTHER WITH ANOTHER CHILD AND A NEWBORN IS GOING TO SEPARATE FROM THE DAD?  SHE’D NEED THAT DAD’S HELP TO SOME EXTENT…  THERE IS GOING TO BE A REASON SOMEWHERE. 

Story predicts real-life ending

The day after the hearing in Mazurek’s courtroom, Garcia sent a text message telling Tagle to check her e-mail. In it was an anonymous message containing a story called “Necessary Evil.”

The story describes in detail Tagle’s and Garcia’s relationship, from their fights over his video-game addiction, to their breakup, to her new relationship and his failed proposal.

In the end, the story has two endings. In “Happy Ending,” the female character returns to the man.

In “Tragic Ending,” the character takes his son to a lake, puts him to sleep with Benadryl and the baby dies. “He will have a better life with you then (sic) we can give him here,” the man tells God before taking his own life.

Criminal Venue vs. Family Court Venue

Tagle called 9-1-1 after reading the story, and the responding deputy immediately went to the courthouse and obtained an emergency restraining order for her, signed by Mazurek.“Just from the very beginning, he didn’t want to listen,” said Rick Tagle, who was in the courtroom. “He started out by saying, ‘One of you is lying and I think it’s you,’ and pointing at Katie.”

The judge also allegedly warned Tagle there would be consequences for lying.

Lemkau did not respond to an e-mail request for comment; the county does not provide judges’ office telephone numbers.

The following Sunday, when Garcia missed his arranged custody transfer with Tagle, she had to call a deputy to get Wyatt back from Garcia’s house.

However, in Victorville court Jan. 14, Judge Robert Lemkau would not uphold the restraining order and ordered Tagle to immediately give Wyatt to Garcia, as it was the day his scheduled visitation was to begin.

Transcripts from that hearing are not yet available, but family and friends who were in the court that day with Tagle said the judge appeared not to have read the evidence she presented, including the “Necessary Evil” story and the emergency restraining order obtained by a sheriff’s deputy.

{{Been there, done that…}}
Friends say discouraged and frightened by her last appearance in court, she did not seek another restraining order or custody change.

“She was afraid she would go before the judge who called her a liar,” her sister said.

{{Had that feeling too, and hesitated because of it.  I have limits to my traumas…}}

 

Thanks to her family and friends, and Rick Tagle, for getting this information out to the papers, so the rest of the world can see the bad attitude women leaving violence get in these courts, as if the initial violence wasn’t bad enough.  Do you think Mazurek is going to say “oops!” and apologize to her family?  Or suffer some severe consequences for that screwup?

He DIDN’T screw up, from one point of view.  It’s simply one less set of customers for family strengthening classes, or parenting classes.  There are more where these came from….

 

As I’m blogging this — surprise, surprise — here’s another one in the papers, involving a restraining order.  No children, that I’m aware of, just some blood.

 Oy!!!, here’s the google search for that one.  As usual, it shows more than one:

Claw Hammer Restraining Order Ex Boyfriend

And the one in question:

Feb. 5–ANTIOCH (California)– Prosecutors charged a man with attempted murder and numerous other crimes Thursday, more than a week after a woman was severely beaten with the claw side of a hammer and pushed from a car outside a hospital.

The 39-year-old victim, whom police did not identify, had a fractured skull and a broken neck when she crawled inside the emergency room at Sutter Delta Medical Center at 2:20 p.m. Jan. 26 and suffered a seizure in the lobby. Doctors placed her in a medically induced coma.

She recently awakened and identified her attacker as ex-boyfriend Bradley Ruffin. She told police he had beaten her during an argument over a $1,000 winning lottery ticket.

Police reviewed surveillance video footage of her being pushed from a vehicle in the hospital parking lot. Officers then searched her court history and found that she had a restraining order against Ruffin, 47, stemming from a 2007 assault for which he was convicted.

A warrant was out for Ruffin’s arrest for violating probation, Antioch police Lt. Scott Willerford said.

Police drove to Ruffin’s home in the 2300 block of Peppertree Way and arrested him on the probation violation.

“He was in custody within a couple of hours,” Willerford said.

Now, let’s look at that info.  He assaulted her in 2007 (about 3 years ago, if that, right?) and went to jail.  Now he’s out again. . . . . Restraining orders around there, if I’m not mistaken, last about 3 years… 

Why was she around him at all?  For a damn LOTTERY ticket?

The victim told police that Ruffin had given her three scratcher lottery tickets, One of which was a winner of $1,000.

In the ensuing argument over how the winnings were going to be split, Ruffin allegedly struck her head six times with the claw side of a hammer.

When her head began to bleed, he at first told her to go wait in the street while he called an ambulance, the victim told police. When she could not move, he loaded her into a car and reclined her seat so no would see her.

When they arrived at the hospital and she could not exit the car on her own, he used his feet to push her out, police said. He then drove away, leaving her alone.

He didn’t want to go back to jail, obviously.  Maybe he thought she’d just die, and he’d not be nailed?  But why the hospital, then?

Ruffin is charged with attempted murder, battery with great bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, violating a restraining order and enhancements for the use of a deadly weapon and causing brain injury.

That’s why I call the restraining order process a JOKE.  And women, get smart!  JUST SAY NO (if possible, safely….)  Because this is the direction it’s going…Whether or not the person is actually punished for the prior violence.

He remained at the County Jail in Martinez without bail.

Roman Gokhman covers public safety. Contact him at 925-945-4780.

Read more: http://dailyme.com/story/2010020500002110/woman-beaten-hammer-fight-winning-lottery.html#ixzz0egref6du

In the Garcia case, the Family Court judge was, in his mind, obviously smarter than the sheriff who issued the EPO.

I actually READ some of the junk Garcia posted.  It’s volatile, for sure. 

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

February 5, 2010 at 12:19 PM

Posted in "Til Death Do Us Part" (literally), After She Speaks Up - Reporting Domestic Violence and/or Suicide Threats, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Fatal Assumptions, Lethality Indicators - in News, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Split Personality Court Orders

re: “History of race and medicine in America”

with one comment

 

So little time, so much to blog.  I could blog most major issues just through, sometimes I think, the NYT. 

Here’s an article that, to me, explains “how it goes” with low-income, black, and basically anyone running through the bottom of this “system” in the courts becomes fresh meat for someone else’s experiments. 

These days, the pharmaceutical angle (think “Ritalin” and more) hasn’t exactly diminished, but social sciences just got added.  This is about how it works with the subject matter, too — namely people. 

I look forward to reading this book.  Here’s the NYT article, page C1, “The Arts” section, on:

 

“A Woman’s Undying Gift to Science.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/books/03book.html

Published: February 2, 2010
The best book blurb I’m aware of came from Roy Blount Jr., who said about Pete Dexter’s 1988 novel, “Paris Trout”: “I put it down once to wipe off the sweat.” I’m not sure I know what that means. Was the sweat on Mr. Blount’s forehead? On the dust jacket? On the inside of his fogged-up reading glasses? But I like it.

I put down Rebecca Skloot’s first book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” more than once. Ten times, probably. Once to poke the fire. Once to silence a pinging BlackBerry. And eight times to chase my wife and assorted visitors around the house, to tell them I was holding one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time.

A thorny and provocative book about cancer, racism, scientific ethics and crippling poverty, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” also floods over you like a narrative dam break, as if someone had managed to distill and purify the more addictive qualities of “Erin Brockovich,” “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” and “The Andromeda Strain.” More than 10 years in the making, it feels like the book Ms. Skloot was born to write. It signals the arrival of a raw but quite real talent.

From “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”

Henrietta and David Lacks, circa 1945.

…

The woman who provides this book its title, Henrietta Lacks, was a poor and largely illiterate Virginia tobacco farmer, the great-great-granddaughter of slaves. Born in 1920, she died from an aggressive cervical cancer at 31, leaving behind five children. No obituaries of Mrs. Lacks appeared in newspapers. She was buried in an unmarked grave.

To scientists, however, Henrietta Lacks almost immediately became known simply as HeLa (pronounced hee-lah), from the first two letters of her first and last names. Cells from Mrs. Lacks’s cancerous cervix, taken without her knowledge, were the first to grow in culture, becoming “immortal” and changing the face of modern medicine. There are, Ms. Skloot writes, “trillions more of her cells growing in laboratories now than there ever were in her body.” Laid end to end, the world’s HeLa cells would today wrap around the earth three times.

Because HeLa cells reproduced with what the author calls a “mythological intensity,” they could be used in test after test. “They helped with some of the most important advances in medicine: the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization,” Ms. Skloot writes. HeLa cells were used to learn how nuclear bombs affect humans, and to study herpes, leukemia, Parkinson’s disease and AIDS. They were sent up in the first space missions, to see what becomes of human cells in zero gravity.

Bought and sold and shipped around the world for decades, HeLa cells are famous to science students everywhere. But little has been known, until now, about the unwitting donor of these cells. Mrs. Lacks’s own family did not know that her cells had become famous (and that people had grown wealthy from marketing them) until more than two decades after her death, after scientists had begun to take blood from her surviving family members, without their informed consent, in order to better study HeLa.

Ms. Skloot, a young science journalist and an indefatigable researcher, writes about Henrietta Lacks and her impact on modern medicine from almost every conceivable angle and manages to make all of them fascinating. She reports, for example, on the history and science of cellular research, about its pioneers and its calumnies. But “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” resonates most as a complex and vital human document and a searching moral inquiry into greed and blinkered lives.

Ms. Skloot tells the story of Mrs. Lacks’s life, from those tobacco fields in small-town Clover, Va., to the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in the 1950s, where she was treated for her cancer, and where her cells were harvested. She follows the members of Mrs. Lacks’s family to East Baltimore, where many of them live today, still struggling with her complicated legacy. As one of Mrs. Lacks’s sons says: “She’s the most important person in the world, and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?”

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is packed with memorable characters, from quirky if brilliant early researchers to Nobel Prize-winning Nazi sympathizers to long-haired Rolling Stone reporters in the 1970s to a con artist known as Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield. (Just when you think things can’t get weirder, Judge Joseph Wapner — the “People’s Court” television judge — makes a cameo.)

Ms. Skloot is a memorable character herself. She never intrudes on the narrative, but she takes us along with her on her reporting, as she moves around the country in her battered, muffler-free black Honda. Her most complicated job is to get Mrs. Lacks’s family, who are tired of white people trying to pry information from them, to speak with her. She does eventually win them over. And Mrs. Lacks’s daughter Deborah is dead-on when she says to Ms. Skloot: “Get ready, girl. You got no idea what you gettin’ yourself into.”

Ms. Skloot writes with particular sensitivity and grace about the history of race and medicine in America. Black oral history, she points out, is full of stories about “night doctors,” men who could pluck black patients off the streets to experiment on their bodies. There was some truth behind those tales.

The author traces events like the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, in which poor and uneducated black men with syphilis were recruited and then allowed to die terrible and entirely preventable deaths, while doctors lied to them and kept life-saving penicillin from them. Ms. Skloot makes it abundantly clear why, when Henrietta Lacks’s family learned that her cells were still living, the images that ran through their minds were straight out of science-fiction horror movies.

STOP.  THINK.  LISTEN.  Now, regarding “domestic violence,” again, WHY can’t these judges, attorneys, advocates, case workers, and Ph.D.’s talking about its causes, characteristics, and so forth, do a _ _ _ _ thing to actually STOP it?  
What, and stop the profit from it?  You gots to be kiddin’…..

This is the place in a review where critics tend to wedge in the sentence that says, in so many words, “This isn’t a perfect book.” And “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” surely isn’t. But there isn’t much about it I’d want to change. It has brains and pacing and nerve and heart, and it is uncommonly endearing. You might put it down only to wipe off the sweat.

 

Mrs. Lacks had another daughter, Elsie, who was deaf and mute and possibly retarded. Elsie was shipped off at a young age to Crownsville State Hospital in Maryland, formerly known as the Hospital for the Negro Insane, and died there at 15. Perhaps the most devastating moment in this book comes when Ms. Skloot, along with Deborah, finds a grim photograph of Elsie in the hospital’s records and uncovers some of the horrors of what life there must have been like.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is also, from first page to last, a meditation on medical ethics — on the notion of informed consent, and on the issue of who owns human cells. When they’re in your body, it’s obvious — they’re yours. But once they’ve been removed? All bets are clearly off.

 

For comparison, think “The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed.”

“A wake-up call to women about unquestioningly accepting doctors’ orders”. –Donna Chavez, Booklist, July issue”Seaman passionately and convincingly argues that women have been unnecessarily put at risk by doctors treating menopause as a disease.” —Publishers Weekly“Barbara Seaman is the first prophet of the women’s health movement and her prophesies are still coming true.” –Gloria Steinem”Barbra Seaman started a revolution in women’s health by questioning what was taken for granted and meticulously exposing how little had been established about the safety of many common drugs and practices.” –Devra Lee David, Ph.D.”Barbra Seaman is one of the heroines of the women’s health movement. She was one of the first people to point out that postmenopausal hormones could be dangerous and has been a relentless fighter for the health of women.” –Susan Love, M.D.

“If a menopausal woman has pain or makes trouble, pound her hard on the jaw.” –Egyptian medical text, 2000 B.C.

For almost a century women have been taking some form of estrogen to combat the effects of menopause and aging, and more recently to prevent a host of diseases, from osteoporosis to Alzheimer’s to heart disease. For most of that hundred years, doctors have been prescribing estrogen in either its organic or synthetic forms, and women have gone to their pharmacists and dutifully filled their prescriptions. In some cases, menopause sufferers who were experiencing the most extreme symptoms were in search of relief from hot flashes, night sweats, dryness, and more, but increasingly in recent years, women began receiving estrogen sometimes with progesterone as “hormone therapy,” not because they were in immediate danger of anything but rather as a preventative. But was this regimen warranted? Did doctors know enough about estrogen and its effects to be widely prescribing it for such a range of ailments? Or were women being used as guinea pigs in a great experiment, an experiment the author terms “The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women”?Since the 1960s, women’s health icon Barbara Seaman has been one of the lone voices in journalism to question whether doctors have sufficient justification to be writing so many estrogen prescriptions, or whether it is the pharmaceutical industry that is driving the research, marketing, and use of hormone replacement therapy. In 2002, several important women’s health studies revealed that estrogen may cause more problems in patients than it is correcting or preventing, and that in fact it has a dismal record in terms of prevention.This groundbreaking book illuminates today’s “menopause industry,” tracing the history of estrogen use from its early purveyors, including a well-meaning British doctor who lost control of the marketing of DES and therefore inadvertently led to the DES baby crisis, to Nazi experimentation with women and estrogen, to the present, and looks at how an experiment of this proportion could have been conducted without oversight, intervention, or real knowledge as to what its effects would be.A women’s health advocate for more than forty years, Barbara Seaman is a national judge of the Project Censored Awards, an advanced science writing Fellow at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, and the cofounder of the National Women’s Health Network, a women’s advocacy group in Washington, D.C., that refuses money from the drug industry as part of its charter. A frequent contributor to the New York Times and the Washington Post, she has been either a columnist or contributing editor at the following publications: Ms., Omni, Ladies’ Home Journal, Bride’s, Family Circle, and Hadassah magazine. She is the author of The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill, For Women Only: Your Guide to Health Empowerment, Free and Female, Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones, and Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann. She lives in New York City.

 Irrelevant?  Maybe, but another lead paper today says that maternal deaths are up because of too many C-sections.  Gee, wonder why…

Well, folks, that’s about all the time I have for today.  Don’t forget to also track what’s up with the Haitians and the Baptists, if you’re not following that, you’re just not awake. 

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

February 4, 2010 at 4:42 PM

Posted in History of Family Court

(Yet another) Court-enabled infanticide on court-ordered visitation

with 12 comments

 

You want to know why I call the DV Restraining order process “certifiably insane?”   Whether granted, or NOT granted?  Here’s why.

  • Local News in Victorville, CA

Pinon Hills man plans murder of infant son, suicide on Facebook

Comments 55 | Recommend 8

February 01, 2010 11:19 PM

In a chilling letter posted on Facebook for anyone to see, Stephen Garcia, 25, of Pinon Hills appears to detail how he planned his suicide and the murder of his 9-month-old son.

…..

Thinking that it is going to help us is grasping at straws.  Instead, make a safety plan.

However, this mother had a choice of possibly going to jail for contempt if she decided to disobey a court order that overrode her mother’s instincts.

“I led everyone on my side of the family to believe I wouldn’t of done this because I did not want them to know…” the letter reads. “I had been thinking about doing this for months.”

 In other words, the guy was deceitful, deceiving even his own family.  However, the mother of his son, who apparently knew him more “intimately” saw the danger, and tried to stop it.  She tried with the usual tools that women in this position are given:  Seek a restraining order.

She didn’t even GET one, because there had been no prior criminal record..  Therefore, he could not have possibly been a danger.  Sure…

The post may help San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Homicide investigators piece together what led to the Sunday morning tragedy, when Garcia took his infant son during a court-ordered visitation, drove to a dirt road in Twin Peaks and ended both of their lives.
In the letter posted to his Facebook profile, Garcia claimed the deaths were an attempt to save his son from a difficult life — and to punish the baby’s mother, Katie Tagle, for refusing to come back to him.
“Our deaths are a lot for her,” the post continues. “It will have to suffice as her punishment. But that is not the reason I did it. It was the only way we could be happy without Katie. I did this out of love for our son, to protect him and myself.”
Saved letters, text messages and massive files containing e-mails and other correspondence give a glimpse into Garcia’s obsession, cursing Tagle and her family in some posts and asking her to return to him in others.
Court documents tell more of the story, with Tagle filing a request for a domestic violence restraining order on Dec. 11, 2009. On Jan. 12 that order was denied, as it was found Garcia was not a “threat to petitioner or the minor child.”
A search of his criminal record showed no history of domestic violence, battery or similar offenses in San Bernardino County. However, in one of a slew of other online letters attributed to Garcia, it states, “I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry I made the wrong choices.”
On Jan. 17, shortly after the final visit with Judge David Mazurek, Garcia joined a Facebook group called “Organ Donor.”
In the days leading up to the murder-suicide, Garcia posted a half-dozen videos and dozens of photos of Wyatt with cryptic captions such as, “Please, it’s not too late.”
On his MySpace page, his mood over the last week was listed as “tested,” “bummed” and “scared,” with “one more day :(” his final post.
Hours before officials got a call Saturday night that Wyatt was missing and Garcia had threatened to kill him, he made his final online post: “We love you all.”
The suicide note was posted on Garcia’s Facebook profile Sunday, about eight hours after Hesperia Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies in Garcia’s car. It appears Garcia left directions for someone to post the letter and make it public for everyone to see.
The lengthy post also reads as a will, with directions for how to distribute his possessions and personal notes to family members and friends. It also states that Garcia left a signed letter in his truck, confessing to the killings and explaining why he did them.
Though Garcia mentions using a gun, investigators have not released information on how he killed Wyatt and himself, stating only that they both died from “traumatic injuries.”
Anyone who may have information about this case is asked to call Detective Ryan Ford or Sgt. Frank Montanez at the Sheriff’s Homicide Detail at (909) 387-3589 or call WeTip at (800) 78-CRIME.

Brooke Edwards and Natasha Lindstrom contributed to this report.

Beatriz E. Valenzuela may be reached at 951-6276 or at BValenzuela@VVDailyPress.com.

Here’s the SFGate Report on this:

SoCal man mentioned son’s killing on Facebook

 Tuesday, February 2, 2010

(02-02) 09:04 PST HESPERIA, Calif. (AP) —

 A newspaper says a San Bernardino County man who killed his 9-month-old son and himself left a Facebook message saying he did it out of love.Sheriff’s officials say 25-year-old Stephen Garcia of Pinon Hills was on a court-ordered visit with his son Sunday when he drove to a dirt road in Twin Peaks, killed the boy and committed suicide.

The Daily Press in Victorville says Garcia left a message on his Facebook profile about eight hours after his body was found. The note, apparently posted on his behalf by someone else, says Garcia had been thinking of the crime for months and wanted to punish the baby’s mother for leaving him.

Garcia says the deaths are the only way he and his son can be happy without her and says he did it out of love to protect the boy.

Information from: Daily Press, www.vvdailypress.com (the first article, above).

He did it for “love.”  Some kind of love….

Here’s a fellow-blogger’s reaction. 

http://justice4mothers.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/california-judge-denies-protective-order-to-mother-bam-father-murders-young-son-and-kills-himself/

And a site worth spending time on. . . . 

See the heartbreaking MySpace page that belongs to the father and the bizzare RIP on it.
Judge J. David Mazurek needs to held accountable on this, and charged as an accomplice in this murder.  This needs to happen to every judge that allows abusers to take children, and then hurt or murder them.  Maybe then judges will start taking domestic violence seriously.  Thanks to the father’s rights advocates and their “false allegations” drivel, they have turned America’s judges into a bunch of pussies who absolutely have no clue.  Just get the child to the father….doesn’t matter if he is violent or not.  It is time to stop listening to the mantra from these groups and start taking these violent guys seriously, and start putting judges in prison that don’t.

We Moms are NOT de-sensitized to this insane callousness to who lives, or who’s going to die.  But if a Mom goes to jail in protest, what good is that to her children?  If she doesn’t go, then the risk goes to the children.  And/or her, and/or innocent bystanders, in some cases.

THIS overentitled, disillusioned, and unable to have a vital purpose in life other than punishing the mother of his child (how perverted is THAT?) was only 25.  Bet he attended a public school system, possibly in this great state.  Did he do college too?  If so, to what point?  Whether or not, there is clearly an attitude problem, a spiritual problem, and a moral problem.  I don’t think the millions upon millions (literally) going to the California Healthy Marriage Coalition are going to stop troubles this entrenched.  This guy was narcissistic, period.  And to a point, he was a product of a system that encourages — and does not DIScourage — this.  It’s a system where women have to fight uphill to get away from ground zero in their own lives.

I wonder how well we (well, people) are also reading characters before having babies.  Makes you think, right?

BUT: Apparently the courts are, and clearly the judges are callous.  Or, they are bound by the requirement to keep an ongoing stream of unwilling clients to their cronies.  Excuse me, colleagues. 

Well, no, I don’t think the judges are not clueless, and they are not pussies, I believe.  They just don’t care!  Why?  What’s at stake if they do? . . . .   An entire system.

A bribe perverts justice.   I’m not accusing this particular judge of taking a bribe, but the court docket below tells clearly that they passed the buck to family court because there were custody and visitation orders.  That’s how it goes. 

And family court was SET UP from the start, at least per some sites (CANOW.org family law page, NAFCJ.net, and some others) to be abuser-friendly, and father-friendly (despite allegations to the contrary). 

It was just business as usual.  And if you want “business as usual” to change, friends, you have to change who is paying for the “business as usual,” and in the bottom line, this is the taxpayers.   The Dept. of HHS in combo with some DOJ (Office of Violence Against Women) sources are conferencing together, educating together, declaring together, but the ONE thing they are NOT doing is confronting t he mandated mediation or custody evaluation where there’s conflict.  And that “required outcome” model of the court process.

The judge is not going to be charged as an accomplice to murder.  With luck, and persistence, he MIGHT be held accountable if this becomes a pattern.  The people most highly motivated to do this are probably already victims of the court system, and are still in the process of trying to stay housed, alive, and their kids alive also. 

However, what we MIGHT do for the next batch of innocent young mothers who show up thinking that family court is something you can walk into, and then also walk OUT of with a restraining order, is warn them…

 

HERE’s the Docket:

12/11/2009  – She requests ex parte DV restraining order. 

12/15/2009 8:29 AM DEPT. M3 EX-PARTE MOTION RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – Minutes Pre-D Complete

 

 

WOW, lots of “Tagles” in this jurisdiction.  This appears to be Katie Tagle in a previous relationship, or another Katie Tagle.  In this one, she was charged with domestic violence.

Either way, the KNEE-JERK reaction of the court is to:

1.  Consolidate with a family law (dissolution, I guess case).

2.  Make a really STUPID order as to where violence has been alleged.  THIS one has a daughter, “Dakota” and they are to alternate every other DAY, and — of course — go to mediation, or else. 

Here:  2007 DOCKET, different couple (or at least, father)….

Case MFLMS010721 – RICARDO TAGLE JR -N- KATIE MARIE TAGLE
Action:   (Choose)04/04/2007 – EX-PARTE HEARING RE:TEMPORAR…04/03/2007 – EX-PARTE HEARING RE:TEMPORAR…
EX-PARTE HEARING RE:TEMPORARY ORDERS (DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION)REQUEST FILED BY RICARDO TAGLE JR
04/03/2007 – 8:29 AM DEPT. M2
 

 

BERT L SWIFT PRESIDING.  
CLERK: PEGGY JIMENEZ  
REPORTER: GARY RAGLE  
– 
PLAINTIFF RICARDO TAGLE JR PRESENT  
DEFENDANT KATIE MARIE TAGLE PRESENT  
– 
PROCEEDINGS: 
DECLARATION RE: 4 HOUR NOTICE FILED. 
WITNESS — RICARDO TAGLE JR IS SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
WITNESS — KATIE TAGLE IS SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
EX-PARTE HEARING IS HELD. 
CASE CONSOLIDATED WITH CASE(S) MFL010729 MASTER FILE MFL010729  
– 
 {{NOTE:  THis “consolidation” is where the issue of the DV gets basically lost, and is intentional.  It happened to me.  …  This consolidation action violates due process for at least one of the parties, but is routine…}}HEARINGS: 
CURRENT HEARING CONTINUED TO 04/04/07 AT 08:29 IN DEPARTMENT M3.  
– 
TEMPORARY CUSTODY ORDERS: PARTIES STIPULATE TO  
SHARE CUSTODY OF DAKOTA TAGLE ON AN ALTERNATING  
BASIS BEGINNING 04/01/07 EVERY OTHER DAY UNTIL  
FURTHER ARRANGEMENTS ARE MADE. WEDNESDAYS DAKOTA  
IS TO BE PICKED UP BY FATHER FROM DAYCARE UNTIL  
04/18/07. IF IT IS MOTHERS DAY FOR EXCHANGE IT  
IS TO BE MADE AFTER MOTHER GETS OFF WORK.  
THESE ORDERS ARE TEMPORARY UNTIL FURTHER ORDER  
OF THE COURT.   THINK:  IF violence truly occurred, the Court just buried discussion of it, and made SURE that the child IS going to be in the full, unmonitored (not that I’m thinking monitoring makes a difference) custody of the abusive parent.    
– 
THE PARTIES ARE ORDERED TO REPORT ON 04/11/07, AT 08:00 TO FAMILY COURT SERVICES AND TO COOPERATE FULLY WITH THE FAMILY COURT SERVICES COUNSELORS DURING ALL STAGES OF THE MEDIATION/EVALUATION   {{Do you GET this yet?  The racket is going through mediation and evaluation and counseling.  Yes, I said “racket.”  See “Access/Visitation funding” which was thinly veiled way to get more fathers (although it says “noncustodial PARENTS, in practice, and even the language frequently slips into saying, FATHERS) more time with their children.  I have blogged on this earlier..} 
PROCESS. CUSTODIAL PARENT(S) SHALL MAKE CHILDREN AVAILABLE AT ALL TIMES REQUESTED BY COUNSELOR. 
PARTIES ARE ORDERED TO ATTEND ORIENTATION ON  
04/09/07 AT 3PM.  
ACTION – COMPLETE 
=== MINUTE ORDER END === 
==MINUTE ORDER CHANGED OR CORRECTED BY P MARTIN; CHANGES MADE ARE AS FOLLOWS: TO CHANGE TO ORIENTATION ==  

It might be that she filed for divorce, and he quickly filed for DV.  I don’t know without further research.

Here’s the minutes of the order, the next day.  As you can see, the court called the DV “mutual combat” (Sure, right….) and ordered them to a “Strengthening Families Class.”

Here it is.  We are talking, now 2 YEARS (almost) before another infant son died:

EX-PARTE HEARING RE:TEMPORARY ORDERS (DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION)REQUEST FILED BY RICARDO TAGLE JR (==link here)
04/04/2007 – 8:29 AM DEPT. M3

BERT L SWIFT PRESIDING.  
CLERK: PEGGY JIMENEZ  
REPORTER: GARY RAGLE  
– 
PLAINTIFF RICARDO TAGLE JR PRESENT  
DEFENDANT KATIE MARIE TAGLE PRESENT  
– 
PROCEEDINGS: 
WITNESS — RICARDO TAGLE IS SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
WITNESS — KATIE TAGLE IS SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
WITNESS — SOMMER MERCER IS SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
WITNESS — CARLOS TAGLE IS SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
WITNESS — MARIA BROWN IS SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
EX-PARTE HEARING IS HELD. 
EX PARTE ORDERS GRANTED AS FOLLOWS:  

EX-PARTE HEARING IS HELD. 
EX PARTE ORDERS GRANTED AS FOLLOWS:  
COURT FINDS MUTUAL COMBAT AND ORDERS PERSONAL  
CONDUCT ORDERS AGAINST EACH PARTY.  
THE RESTRAINED PERSON MUST NOT DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS TO THE PROTECTED PERSON OR PEOPLE: 
HARASS, ATTACK, STRIKE, THREATEN, ASSAULT (SEXUALLY OR OTHERWISE), HIT, FOLLOW, STALK, MOLEST, DESTROY PERSONAL PROPERTY, DISTURB THE PEACE, KEEP UNDER SURVEILLANCE, OR BLOCK MOVEMENTS. 
– 
THESE ARE NON-CLETS ORDERS.  
– 
PARTIES ARE ORDERED TO ATTEND THE STRENGTHENING  
FAMILIES PROGRAM AT THE NEXT START CYCLE.  
– 
HEARINGS: 
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SET FOR 08:30 AT M4 IN DEPARTMENT  
PETITIONER TO PREPARE ORDER AFTER HEARING.  
ACTION – COMPLETE 
=== MINUTE ORDER END === 
COURT FINDS MUTUAL COMBAT AND ORDERS PERSONAL  
CONDUCT ORDERS AGAINST EACH PARTY.  
THE RESTRAINED PERSON MUST NOT DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS TO THE PROTECTED PERSON OR PEOPLE: 
HARASS, ATTACK, STRIKE, THREATEN, ASSAULT (SEXUALLY OR OTHERWISE), HIT, FOLLOW, STALK, MOLEST, DESTROY PERSONAL PROPERTY, DISTURB THE PEACE, KEEP UNDER SURVEILLANCE, OR BLOCK MOVEMENTS. 
– 
THESE ARE NON-CLETS ORDERS.  
– 
PARTIES ARE ORDERED TO ATTEND THE STRENGTHENING  
FAMILIES PROGRAM AT THE NEXT START CYCLE.  
– 
HEARINGS: 
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SET FOR 08:30 AT M4 IN DEPARTMENT  
PETITIONER TO PREPARE ORDER AFTER HEARING.  
ACTION – COMPLETE 
=== MINUTE ORDER END === 

 

There are “Strengthening Families” programs across the nation.  A search found one from San Bernadino, UTAH (not this case, obviously), but this is probably typical of how it’s organized and got started:

(see original link, above for visuals.  This is, naturally, an “Evidence-based” practice.  The evidence in the Tagle case, out of San Bernadino, CAL is still that something ain’t getting that job done.  ….  No matter, the court-ordered parenting classes continue…)

The Strengthening Families Program (SFP) is a parenting and family skills training program that consists of 14 consecutive weekly skill-building sessions. Parents and children work separately in training sessions and then participate together in a session practicing the skills they learned earlier. Two booster sessions are used at 6 months to 1 year after the primary course. Children’s skills training sessions concentrate on setting goals, dealing with stress and emotions, communication skills, responsible behavior, and how to deal with peer pressure. Topics in the parental section include setting rules, nurturing, monitoring compliance, and applying appropriate discipline.

SFP was developed and tested in 1983 with 6- to 12-year-old children of parents in substance abuse treatment. Since then, culturally modified versions and age-adapted versions (for 3- to 5-, 10- to 14-, and 13- to 17-year-olds) with new manuals have been evaluated and found effective for families with diverse backgrounds: African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, American Indian, Australian, and Canadian.

 

Goal / Mission The goals of this program are to improve parenting skills and children’s behaviors and decrease conduct disorders; to improve children’s social competencies; and to improve family attachment, harmony, communication, and organization.
Results / Accomplishments SFP has been evaluated at least 18 times on Federal grants and at least 150 times on State grants by independent evaluators. {{I question HOW independent…}}The original National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) study involved a true pretest, posttest, and follow-up experimental design with random assignment of families to one of four experimental groups: 1) parent training only, 2) parent training plus children’s skills training, 3) the complete SFP including the family component, and 4) no treatment besides substance abuse treatment for parents.

SFP was then culturally adapted and evaluated with five Center for Substance Abuse Prevention High-Risk Youth Program grants by independent evaluators using statistical control group designs that involved quasi-experimental, pretest, posttest, and 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month follow-ups. Recently, SFP was compared with a popular school-based aggression prevention program (I Can Problem Solve) and found highly effective (effect sizes = .45 to 1.38), employing a true experimental pretest–posttest, 12-month, and 24-month follow-up design in two Utah school districts. A NIDA four-group randomized clinical trial with about 800 primarily African-American families in the Washington, DC, area also found good results.
Categories Social Environment / Family Structure
Social Environment / Children’s Social Environment


WHICH (to me) JUST GOES TO PROVE, THERE’S NO “FREE” LUNCH.  YOU GO TO A NONPROFIT (POSSIBLY FUNDED B Y THE US GOV’T OR A STATE, OR BOTH) OR THE GOV’T (VIA AN AGENCY) FOR HELP — OR FOR THAT MATTER, ENROLL A CHILD IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL FOR EDUCATION– AND YOUR CHILDREN, AND PROBABLY YOU, will, (read my lips), will BE “AT RISK” of becoming the subject of a demonstration, or randomized trial of some behavioral management theory. 

in this case, Ms. Tagle went to a judge seeking protection for her (new) infant son, and lost.  Again, I do not know that this is the same Tagle.  Possibly, possibly not.  Different man, though.  Last names not changed.  Was this a rebound relationship?

 

Oh yes, the 2009 docket, in reverse chronologic order.  No dissolution in this one:

  • Case FAMMS900840 – KATIE TAGLE -N- STEPHEN GARCIA
    Viewed Date Action Text Disposition Image
    01/26/2010 FEE PAYMENT Not Applicable
    01/26/2010 FEE PAYMENT Not Applicable
    01/12/2010 9:00 AM DEPT. M3 OSC RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FILED BY KATIE TAGLE – Minutes Pre-D Complete
    01/11/2010 ANDREW H. LUND IS REMOVED AS ATTORNEY FOR STEPHEN GARCIA, AND PRO/PER IS ADDED AS ATTORNEY OF RECORD. Not Applicable
    01/08/2010 PROOF OF SERVICE OF SUPP DECL BY KATIE TAGLE BY MAIL ON 01/07/10 AS TO ATTORNEY ANDREW LUND, FILED. Not Applicable
    01/08/2010 DECLARATION OF KATIE M TAGLE FILED Not Applicable
    01/05/2010 PROOF OF SERVICE OF ANSWER TO TRO/IE BY MAIL ON 01/05/10 AS TO KATIE TAGLE, FILED. Not Applicable
    01/05/2010 INCOME AND EXPENSE DECLARATION FILED BY STEPHEN GARCIA Not Applicable
    01/05/2010 ANSWER TO TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER FILED BY STEPHEN GARCIA, PARTY REPRESENTED BY ANDREW H. LUND. Not Applicable
    12/15/2009 8:29 AM DEPT. M3 EX-PARTE MOTION RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – Minutes Pre-D Complete
    12/11/2009 CERTIFICATE OF ASSIGNMENT RECEIVED. Not Applicable
    12/11/2009 EX PARTE RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FILED BY KATIE TAGLE
    12/11/2009 REQUEST FOR ORDER DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION Not Applicable
    12/11/2009 REQUEST AND PARTY INFORMATION ENTERED.(DV) Not Applicable

 

Case FAMMS900840 – KATIE TAGLE -N- STEPHEN GARCIA
Action:   (Choose)02/01/2010 – ORDER FOR TRANSCRIPT02/01/2010 – ORDER FOR TRANSCRIPT01/26/2010 – FEE PAYMENT01/26/2010 – FEE PAYMENT01/12/2010 – OSC RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FI…12/15/2009 – EX-PARTE MOTION RE: DOMESTIC…
EX-PARTE MOTION RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
12/15/2009 – 8:29 AM DEPT. M3

 

DEBRA HARRIS PRESIDING.  
CLERK: KIMBERLEY HATCH  
COURT REPORTER GARY RAGLE GARY RAGLE  
– 
PETITIONER KATIE TAGLE PRESENT  
RESPONDENT STEPHEN GARCIA PRESENT  
SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY LORI SMITH FOR ANDREW EUND FOR RESPONDENT.  
– 
PROCEEDINGS: 
OSC/MOTION HELD.  
BOTH PARTIES ARE SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
DECLARATION REGARDING EXPARTE NOTICE FILED. 
EX-PARTE HEARING IS HELD. 
EX PARTE ORDERS DENIED.  
– 
HEARINGS: 
OSC RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FILED BY KATIE TAGLE IS SET FOR 01/12/10AT 09:00 IN DEPARTMENT M3.  
ACTION – COMPLETE 
=== MINUTE ORDER END === 

 

For those unfamiliar with the process, let me narrate:

  • She asks for ex parte protection (12/11/09) which starts a process, and gives the respondent time to go get an attorney, which he does.  The request for protection stands, it’s just not ex parte — a requirement which is for safety purposes, because of potential for retaliation.
  • 12/15/09 the OSC for EX PARTE (immediate, without telling the other party) protection is apparently denied and the request for protection is continued to 01/11/10.  NOTE:  Christmas seasons, holiday seasons, can be very dangerous for the parties when there’s been a breakup; as it highlights “family” and a family is breaking apart…
  • On 01/05/10 the man, who by now has an attorney (WONDER WHO PAID FOR HIM…  ACCESS / Vistation FUNDING?), Mr. Lund, and files an answer.
  • The parties exchange income and expense reports (if family law is going to make some money off this, it’s important to know which side has the money…. If not, they’ll be sent quickly through mediation, not evaluations….).
  • On 01/07-08/10 the woman files and serves (by mail) a supplemental declaration to the man’s attorney, properly (Proof of service).
  • On 01/11/10, the man’s attorney QUITS.  (not enough money in it for him?  Or, the case has already been, basically, decided).
  • On 01/12/10, the OCS for a normal domestic violence protection order occurs, as follows:

OSC RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FILED BY KATIE TAGLE
01/12/2010 – 9:00 AM DEPT. M3

J. DAVID MAZUREK PRESIDING.  
CLERK: KIMBERLEY HATCH  
COURT REPORTER JENNIFER BARNAKIAN POLAND JENNIFER BARNAKIAN POLAND  
– 
PETITIONER KATIE TAGLE PRESENT  
RESPONDENT STEPHEN GARCIA PRESENT  
– 
PROCEEDINGS: 
OSC/MOTION HELD.  
BOTH PARTIES ARE SWORN AND EXAMINED.  
COURT FINDS THERE IS A PENDING PROCEEDING IN  
THE VICTORVILLE COURT THAT IS SUBJECT TO CUSTODY  
AND VISITATION ORDERS.  
– 
COURT FINDS THERE IS NOT THREAT TO PETITIONER  
OR THE MINOR CHILD.  
THE OSC IS DENIED.  
– 
ORAL MOTION FOR ATTORNEY FEES BY RESPONDENT IS  
DENIED.  
– 
BOTH PARTIES ARE REMINDED BY THE COURT OF THEIR  
FAMILY COURT SERVICES APPOINTMENT FOR THEIR  
VICTORVILLE CASE.  
COMPLAINT STAGE AT DISPOSITION – OTHER DISMISSAL BEFORE HEARING (FL)  
DISPOSITION OTHER DISMISSAL BEFORE HEARING (FL)  
COURT ORDERS ENTIRE ACTION DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. REASON: REQUEST DENIED..  
ACTION – COMPLETE 
=== MINUTE ORDER END === 
  • This (civil, I presume) venue tosses the ball back to the FAMILY law venue, and reminds them to be good little girls and boys, and go to Family Court Services.
  • 01/26/2010 (LAST week, folks), something regarding fees is filed.
  • 01/30/2010 — Father kills son on court-ordered visitation, and then himself.  (NOT ON DOCKET).
  • 01/31/2010 — Sheriff’s Dept. reports to press (see top of post):

01-31, 18:38 PST HESPERIA, Calif. (AP) —

Authorities in San Bernardino County say a 25-year-old father and his 9-month-old son have died in what investigators believe is a murder-suicide.  A sheriff’s news release says deputies found Stephen Garcia and son Wyatt Garcia dead in a vehicle on a rural dirt road in the Twin Peaks area early Sunday.
The release says the Hesperia Sheriff’s Station had received a report Saturday night that Garcia took his son during a court-ordered visitation and threatened to kill the child and himself.  The department did not say how the pair died, only that they “sustained traumatic injuries.”  The county coroner will conduct an autopsy on both father and son this week.
Stephen Garcia was from the Pinon (pin-YONE) Hills area and his son was from Yucca Valley.

  • 02/01/2010 Someone requests a Court Transcript.

I had not meant to spend so long on this case, After all, EVERY WEEK, even in my own Golden State, it seems someone ground up by this system, dies.  If not a child also.  I can’t keep up.

But it does illustrate the futility of (I think– make your own decision, and this is NOT legal advice) seeking a civil restraining order, versus criminal, versus, better yet, some kind of safety plan.  Then again, for women with kids leaving abuse in the family law, there does not appear to be any safety.  Congressmen (Danny Davis was active in a case) will help fathers haul kids back from overseas (China, Brazil, come to mind recently), but good luck getting yours back from your own state, or a next door state.  

And again, a word to the wse — not that it’s an excuse — but cool it on the rebound relationships, if this was one.

AND — whoever posted on Facebook, and whoever SAW what was posted on facebook (i.e., a cry to have his threats taken seriously, as they should’ve been), YOU are responsible if you knew this couple, and did nothing.  Sorry, but you are. 

AND all of us need to get on the stick about this family law system.  The AFCC and all their experts that PROFIT from these situations leading to, basically, more deaths, is convening in February — this month.  Do research, people!  It’s not rocket science, just an investment of time!

I think that if marriage, and relationships are continuing to be this dangerous to have, and leave, it is a testament to the strength of testosterone (and other hormones) that people continue to engage in sex, let alone ongoing relationships.  Good grief!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A task force or a committee is not going to stop this stuff.  A good audit, ongoing, by someone with courage (and other source of income) MIGHT make a dent….

Wish I had time to say more, but I don’t.

 

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

February 2, 2010 at 1:55 PM

Posted in "Til Death Do Us Part" (literally), AFCC, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Domestic Violence and/or Suicide Threats, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Designer Families, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Fatal Assumptions, Funding Fathers - literally, History of Family Court, Split Personality Court Orders

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Haiti, Idaho, 33 traumatized kids, 10 arrested Baptists and ChurchThink

with one comment

 

(A)

I am going to start posting this, I think, at the top of every post:

https://commerce.guidestar.org/GuideStar/newaccount.aspx

Know thyself, and Know Thy Nonprofits (including churches).  ONE way to know someone is to take a look at their books.  I mean Income, Expense, Assets & Liabilities, and request proof of who got which services.

Register for FREE with Guidestar, and start looking things up.  That’s what the 2 men from Albany, GA did in the nonprofit hospital scam… 

Do a local audit.  After all, if you pay taxes, aren’t those YOUR taxes?  And if a tax-exempt organization is tax-exempt and NOT providing whatever actually qualifies them for tax-exempt status (presumably a healthy does of altruism and concern for the common good, or picking up some of what the government can’t cover itself….) (say WHAT is government for, again?  Health? and Human Services ???  Linguistic transformations, etc….). 

and

(B)

OK, not one of my best post titles, but who could resist this article?

‘Right Thing’ or Recklessness?

Arrests of Baptists stir debate about trafficking

By Frank Bajak and Paisley Dodds
Associated Press Posted: 01/31/2010 08:39:52 PM PST Updated: 01/31/2010 10:34:56 PM PST

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten U.S. Baptists arrested trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-shattered Haiti say they were just trying to do the right thing, applying Christian principles to save Haitian children.

Prime Minister Max Bellerive said Sunday he was outraged by the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.

One thing I’ve noticed about people intent on grabbing children is a total insensitivity to their former culture or values, let alone parentage…

But the hard reality on the ground in this desperately poor country — especially after the catastrophic Jan. 12 quake — is that some parents openly attest to their willingness to part with their children if it will mean a better life.

It was a sentiment expressed by all but one of some 20 Haitian parents interviewed at a tent camp Sunday that teemed with children whose toys were hewed from garbage.  {{“hewed”?  Isn’t that what you do to trees?}}

“Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners,” said Adonis Helman, 44. “I’ve been thinking how I will choose which one I may give — probably my youngest.”

Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the quake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold.

Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, they could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.

The orphanage where the children were later taken said at least some of the kids have living parents, who were apparently told that the children were going on an extended holiday from the post-quake misery.

The church group’s own mission statement said it planned to spend only hours in the devastated capital, quickly identifying children without immediate families and busing them to a rented hotel in the Dominican Republic without bothering to get permission from the Haitian government.

Whatever its intentions, other child welfare organizations in Haiti called the plan reckless.

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were only trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children.

IDAHO has a family court system.  There are certainly traumatized children being manufactured over there — why not practice this form of “love” locally, or have CPS and other agencies already marked out this territory?  There are battered mothers on the verge of poverty and homelessness there.  Were they simply in need of kids without going through the approval process?  Or is the Bill of Rights over here getting in the way?

“In this chaos the government is in right now, we were just trying to do the right thing,” the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, said at Haiti’s judicial police headquarters, where she and others were taken after their arrest Friday night trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic in a bus.

Silsby, 40, admitted she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children, whose names were written on pink tape on their shirts.

Dang those pesky laws.  The “right thing” in this case was obviously to ignore them, or be totally unconscious that such restraints might exist, and be appropriate.

The children, ages 2 months to 12 years old, were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said they arrived “very hungry, very thirsty.”

WERE taken, or HAD been taken?  Did the church go to this orphanage to get some abandoned traumatized kids?  Or were they taken here after the Haiti-fleeing church folk were caught?

A 2- to 3-month old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. An orphanage worker held and caressed another, older baby, who was feverish and looked disoriented.

“One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that,” Willeit said.

The orphanage was working to reunite the children with their families, joining a concerted effort by the Haitian government, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other nongovernment organizations.

In Idaho, the Rev. Clint Henry denied that his Central Valley Baptist Church had anything to do with child trafficking and said he didn’t believe such reports. He urged his tearful congregation to pray to God to “help them as they seek to resist the accusations of Satan and the lies that he would want them to believe and the fears that he would want to plant into their heart.”

{{pls. note on my blogroll link to copyright use…}} 

And there, my friends, you have a typical church reaction to being confronted on violations of laws by its members.  It wasn’t the members’ illegal activities that count, but Satan that motivated whoever reported them.

That US/THEM mentality is the breeding ground for gangs as much as other areas.  Add to it the herd mentality, and people with needy children in the emotional portion of their thinking, and voila — an overseas trip comes together. 

I promised in an earlier blog I’d make up for having failed to offend ALL groups, so this is part of my delivery.

=========

(C)

Miscellaneous programs in Idaho (Taggs.hhs.gov.  These were REALLY random selections of CFDA programs I thought some of those church folk might want to get involved in, some of which refer to adoptions…

Number of rows returned: 40
Rows 1 through 40 displayed.
Records Searched: 161306

Award Number Award Title OPDIV Program Office Sum of Actions
1001ID1407  FY 2010 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE  ACF  CB  $ 3,149,636 
SM059054  MADISON CARES  SAMHSA  CMHS  $ 996,964 
90RG0083  REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT  ACF  ORR  $ 200,000 
0901IDAIPP  FY 2009 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM  ACF  CB  $ 356,800 
0901IDCJA1  2009 CJA  ACF  CB  $ 130,414 
90RX0090  REFUGEE PREVENTIVE HEALTH  ACF  ORR  $ 128,085 
09PAIDFPSS  2009  ACF  CB  $ 38,214 
09PCIDFPSS  2009  ACF  CB  $ 23,032 
0901IDCA01  2009 NCCAN  ACF  CB  $ 178,963 
0901IDFPSS  2009  ACF  CB  $ 1,217,307 
90RU0163  UNANTICIPATED ARRIVIALS  ACF  ORR  $ 451,468 
0911IDFPCV  2009 FPSSCV  ACF  CB  $ 36,142 
0901ID1407  FY 2009 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE  ACF  CB  $ 5,207,087 
0801IDCJA1  2008 CJA  ACF  CB  $ 130,413 
08PAIDFPSS  2008 PSSF  ACF  CB  $ 38,432 
0801IDAIPP  FY 2008 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM  ACF  CB  $ 72,000 
08PCIDFPSS  2008 PSSF  ACF  CB  $ 23,164 
0811IDFPCV  2008 FPSSCV  ACF  CB  $ 18,717 
0801IDCA01  2008 NCCAN  ACF  CB  $ 174,928 
0801IDFPSS  2008 PSSF  ACF  CB  $ 1,260,832 
0801ID1407  FY 2008 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE  ACF  CB  $ 4,468,573 
10YO0052  STREET OUTREACH PROGRAM  ACF  FYSB  $ 150,000 
90CU0011  IMPROVING POSITIVE OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN THROUGH FAMILY DRUG COURT  ACF  CB  $ 2,575,000 
0701IDCJA1  2007 CJA  ACF  CB  $ 124,244 
90ZI0068  REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT  ACF  ORR  $ 603,054 
0701IDAIPP  FY 2007 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM  ACF  CB  $ 68,000 
90RL0137  SERVICES TO OLDER REFUGEES  ACF  ORR  $ 435,183 
90ZR0004  REFUGEE AGRICULTURAL PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM  ACF  ORR  $ 303,582 
90RT0123  TARGETED ASSISTANCE  ACF  ORR  $ 633,376 
90RG0062  REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT  ACF  ORR  $ 760,000 
90ZE0092  REFUGEE SCHOOL IMPACT  ACF  ORR  $ 660,000 
90RX0186  REFUGEE PREVENTIVE HEALTH  ACF  ORR  $ 240,000 
07PCIDFPSS  2007 PSSF  ACF  CB  $ 25,188 
0701ID00FP  2007 PSSF  ACF  CB  $ 1,336,795 
0701IDAEGP  2007 AEGP  ACF  FYSB  $ 208,264 
H21MC07735  TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY IMPLEMENTATION  HRSA  MCHB  $ 568,600 
0701ID01FP  2007 PSSF  ACF  CB  $ 41,791 
0701IDCA01  2007 NCCAN  ACF  CB  $ 171,365 
0701ID1407  FY 2007 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE  ACF  CB  $ 3,792,023 
0301ID00FP  2003 PSSF  ACF  CB  $ 1,067,762 

C’ouer D’alene city blogspot (in Idaho) has this on Child Abduction Prevention:

Although the Coeur d’Alene Police Department receives very few cases of child abduction, the correct response and investigation of missing or abducted children remain a high priority for the department. Last year, Chief Wayne Longo spearheaded up-to-date training in Amber Alert for all members of the police department. Idaho State Police and Kootenai County Central Dispatch have been vital in offering and providing such training in the use of the statewide Amber Alert system. This training initiative has assisted officers in responding quickly and appropriately to these types of cases.

In the fall of 2007, Chief Longo attended a two-day workshop in Alexandria, Virginia, hosted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC, a non-profit entity supported by corporate sponsorships and grants, paid for all expenses associated with the training.

The executive-level training has a focus on a standardized law enforcement response and policies nation wide in child abduction cases. NCMEC also offered additional information and resources such as “Team Adam” to local law enforcement agencies.
Team Adam is a deployment of retired police officers specifically trained in child abduction who respond to a community and assist local law enforcement in the case of an abducted child.

. . .

In 2005, Chief Longo was part of a multi-agency team that investigated the devastating Groene case that sent shock waves through North Idaho and the nation. In the past year, the FBI requested that he travel around the nation with other commanders involved in this investigation to share the lessons learned from that difficult case with other law enforcement leaders. FBI Special Agent Mike Genecko, Major Travis Chaney of the KCSD, FBI Supervisor Don Robinson, and assistant US Attorneys have accompanied him. The FBI has paid the expenses associated with all of the trips. Important lessons learned in Idaho are shared with our counterparts around the nation to assist other jurisdictions with best practices and ideas. The concept of cooperation and the Unified/Incident command system (Chief Longo refers to it as the “Blurring of the Patch”) are strongly emphasized.

“Our children are our most precious resource and it is the goal of the men and women of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department to provide the highest level of protection and service to our community,” Chief Longo stated. “This investigation [Groene] has forever changed all who were involved. The response by our community was unbelievable and continues to this day.”

The Coeur d’Alene Police Department encourages citizens to report any suspicious activity or information regarding a child abduction case. For more information on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, please visit their website at http://www.missingkids.com.

Posted by Victoria Bruno at 8:49 AM
Well, I just kind of think they ought to spread some love around closer to home.
The teaching point:
Our OWN U.S. Systems are creating abandoned and traumatized children and families faster and faster.  It has become an art form, practically.  If the churches would care equally about this, there might be more people with more resources to go to Haiti or other emergency areas, if need be, and LEGALLY find out how to help.
Traumatized kids are vulnerable.  Keep your hands OFF them unless there is a legitimate cause to put them on!  Recognize they have parents, and play by the rules.
My own life has been devastated, to this point, by people that don’t.  Many of them religious, and all of them having their own motives, and  spreading out apron skirts or whatever when I have approached with the simplicity of the laws that already exist.   Laws are not “satanic,” they are good, and they are to protect vulnerable populations, crisis or no crisis. 

(D)

Lessons from Luzerne County, PA:

Disclaimer:  I am aware of the case, and this website.  I have not screened it; you can get the same story from other sources on-line.  The United States is engaged in child-trafficking through its own courts.  Take your spare church (etc.) time and do some financial audits.  Families in the middle of this can hardly afford to!
This is a link on the page “San Diego Child Trafficking.com”

Despite Red Flags About Judges, a Kickback Scheme Flourished

Published: March 27, 2009

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Things were different in the Luzerne County juvenile courtroom, and everyone knew it. Proceedings on average took less than two minutes. Detention center workers were told in advance how many juveniles to expect at the end of each day — even before hearings to determine their innocence or guilt. Lawyers told families not to bother hiring them. They would not be allowed to speak anyway.

The 56-foot yacht in Jupiter, Fla., used by the two judges.

“The judge’s whim is all that mattered in that courtroom,” said Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a child advocacy organization in Philadelphia, which began raising concerns about the court to state authorities in 1999. “The law was basically irrelevant.”

Last month, the law caught up with Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, who ran that juvenile court for 12 years, and Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, a colleague on the county’s Court of Common Pleas.

In what authorities are calling the biggest legal scandal in state history, the two judges pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud in a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks.

WHY WON’T CHURCHES START INVESTIGATING THIS TYPE OF ACTIVITY, FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM?  THEY CERTAINLY HAVE AUDITORS IN THEIR MIDST…  AND AN AUDIT CAN STOP SOME THINGS, LIKE — CHILD-TRAFFICKING…. AND UN NECESSARY INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF U.S. CHILDREN!

On Thursday, the State Supreme Court ordered that the records be cleaned for hundreds of the 2,500 or so juveniles sentenced by Judge Ciavarella, and in the coming weeks, the two judges will be sentenced, under a plea agreement, to more than seven years in prison.

While the scandal continues to ripple nationally as legal experts debate whether juvenile courts have sufficient oversight, here in Luzerne County people are grappling with more immediate questions: How did two native sons, elected twice to the bench to protect children and serve justice, decide to do the opposite? And why did no one stop them?

Old Friends Hatch a Plan

It all started in June 2000 with a simple business proposition, according to the judges’ indictment and more than 40 interviews with courtroom workers, authorities and others.

Robert J. Powell, a wealthy personal-injury lawyer from Hazleton, Pa., and longtime friend of Judge Conahan, wanted to know how he might get a contract to build a private detention center. Judge Ciavarella thought he could help.

The two men agreed to meet and, according to prosecutors, somewhere in that conversation a plan was hatched that courthouse workers and county officials would later describe as a “freight train without brakes.”

First, Judge Ciavarella put Mr. Powell in touch with a developer who also happened to be an old friend, Robert K. Mericle, to start work on finding a site. Then, in January 2002 — the month Judge Conahan became president judge, giving him control of the courthouse budget — he signed a secret deal with Mr. Powell, agreeing that the court would pay $1.3 million in annual rent, on top of the tens of millions of dollars that the county and the state would pay to house the delinquent juveniles. And by the end of that year, Judge Conahan had gotten rid of the competition by eliminating financing for the county detention center.

“They were unstoppable,” said Judge Chester B. Muroski, who sent a letter to county commissioners raising concerns about detention costs, only to be transferred days later to another court by Judge Conahan. “I knew something was wrong, but they silenced all dissent.”

Other dissenters were also steamrolled.

When the county controller, Steve Flood, leaked a state audit that described the state’s lease of the center as a “bad deal,” the center’s owner filed a “trade secrets” lawsuit against Mr. Flood, and Judge Conahan sealed the suit to limit other documents’ getting out. His decision was later overturned.

“Everyone began to assume that the judges had some vested interest in the private center because they were pushing it so doggedly,” one courthouse worker said. Virtually all former colleagues and courthouse workers would not allowed themselves to be identified because the federal investigation into the kickback scheme was ongoing and they feared for their jobs if they alienated former allies of the judges.

Mr. Powell has not been charged. His lawyer said that the judges had coerced him into paying the kickbacks and that he was cooperating with investigators.

The few officials who had concerns at the time say their hands were tied. Probation officers say they suspected that something was amiss but were overruled every time they requested lighter sentences or for sentences to be served at home. County commissioners were the only ones authorized to sign contracts for detention centers. But by eliminating money for the county center, Judge Conahan left them little alternative but to sign on to the deal for the private facility. . .

IF YOU CAN ANALYZE SOME OF THESE PATTERNS, YOU KNOW WHICH TREES TO BARK UP AND WHICH NOT TO.
 

Stop the carpetbagging!

(I know I also just ‘sandbagged” this post, i.e., started on one topic, and ended on another.  But this is the blog that talks about money trails, like we all should teach each other to understand.)
The religious sentiment in people can go one way, or it can — like lemmings, or that herd of swine that Jesus gave some cast-out spirits called “Legion” permission to infest, sparing the man but causing the pigs to go “over the edge” like some overentitled spouses do, sometimes.
Come to think of it, in that incident (you can look it up at bible.cc if you want: google “Gadarenes”) the villagers were far more concerned about their lost swine (and profits) than the deliverance of a man who had a death fascination and was cutting himself — like some young survivors of childhood abuse, including molestation, sometimes do.
If you want to stop the hurt, stop the profit that comes from it.  And start using your head, including the analytical part of it, if there is such  — ALL the time, not just when there’s a disaster…
 
Even with a devastated country, the Haitian Prime MInister recognized that this behavior was “off.”:
 

Prime Minister Max Bellerive said Sunday he was outraged by the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling….

Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the quake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold.

Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, they could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child

Congratulations for recognizing that Haitian children are Haitian children, and may still have parents who love them.  Congratulations for learning from history and taking some precautions against the next load of church folk with a warm fuzzy feeling in their hearts, extra resources, a sketchy plan, and a pastor who apparently believes that people, including foreign countries, who respect due process are somehow Satanic for interfering with the insatiable hunger for more children aged 2-12 to hug, mother, and be seen rescuing..
 
(This post written by a non-church-attending Christian mother who found NO help –ESPECIALLY not from any faith institution — when her own children were taken illegally within her own state when she was NOT in a devastated state.  Her apparent sin was leaving the devastation of domestic violence and starting to prosper, without state aid.  So I feel I have some right to be sharp-tongued in this matter!)
 
 

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

February 1, 2010 at 1:51 PM

Posted in After She Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Context of Custody Switch, Designer Families, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, History of Family Court, My Takes, and Favorite Takes, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Where's Mom?

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