Archive for June 2019
Three Footnotes to About 2,500 Words on Why I Still Bother (to Blog). (#2 of 2,June 29, 2019)
Three Footnotes to About 2,500 Words on Why I Still Bother (to Blog). (#2 of 2,June 29, 2019) (short-link ends “-ad3” | just under over 2,000 words). Two Posts published in a row only to segregate the footnotes from post In About 2,500 Words,** Why I Still Bother… (short-link ends “-ac4″/ #1 of 2) which really should be read first. It’s more important and has more content.
These footnotes are named, not numbered; each has its own text box and background color.
Footnote: Taxation + Tax-Exempt Sector: “Not quite the level-playing field facilitator…”
The private, tax-exempt sector can’t even be seen as a whole without significant and ongoing attempts to follow tax returns (audited financial statements, often in rare supply, are also necessary). Unfortunately (?–is it really fortune/happenstance, or coincidental?), structure and access to databases of IRS tax returns are designed, organized, and controlled by the same tax-exempt sector (increasingly, merging into each other, as “Foundation Center” recently did by acquiring “Guidestar” and now labeling it “Candid”) Or, The Urban Institute did by re-structuring its previous data base “NCCS” (National Center for Charitable Statistics), which I just revisited after having noted a year or so back that it’d been shut down; readers were directed to just a few alternate providers). IRS.gov holds much, but doesn’t upload several years worth of returns, and not all organizations that file or once filed are searchable on its Exempt Organization Search list.
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In About 2,500 Words,** Why I Still Bother… [Published June 29, 2019/#1 of 2]
In About 2,500 Words,** Why I Still Bother… [Published June 29, 2019/#1 of 2] (short-link ends “-ac4”).
**Post title originally: “In About 1,000 Words…” I had to adjust the title several times but quit, cold-turkey, before 3,000 words.
Then I <>added two image galleries with captions and connecting text and three or four more individual images ….<>expanded one of the early “**” references while copyediting for grammar, then footnoted it… <> added to the very bottom a bio blurb from one of the added image captions for a Mark Rodgers, of The Clapham Group (Charlottesville, Virginia), on the Alliance for Early Success‘s (“AES” in Kansas but legal domicile Nebraska) Board of Directors, which information is fascinating, I’m currently writing on because its a classic example of why we all need better language and to establish the habit of identifying, digging up the financials, and comparing them to the public relations material, even when it shows up at Harvard University (https://developingchild.harvard.edu), or backed by people (with heirs) listed in Forbes if not THE richest in a state, others in the same class.
Please see after this, Footnote “Clarification“ at the bottom of this post, (Three Footnotes to About 2,500 Words on Why I Still Bother (to Blog). (#2 of 2,June 29, 2019) (short-link ends “-ad3″| published the same day).
Here, it does and there are already major discrepancies surfacing. It’s also interesting in its own right.
I have to bite my tongue even now to not add to that information, knowing as much as I’ve just discovered within the past week (but had made mental notes of as far back as September 2016)…
It did only take about 2,500 words to state my case. The rest is “for example” and some examples, details behind the declaration.
Details matter. They reveal who’s involved in which roles in any mass social transformation targeting public institutions (i.e., source of ongoing revenues). Discernible practices discourage fair and open debate before any side has enough backing on questionable methods, or even purposes.
Privately networked, cross-jurisdictional collaborations and layered tax-exempt entities obscure full awareness of how few are at the top. Like any pyramid (marketing) scheme: highly networked, compartmentalized by cause at the lower levels.
… Still under 6,000 words (or so) …
Why I still bother to blog: Not just for fun!
I write to communicate what I see in fields whose established leadership do see, but have chosen not to say — including in fields developed essentially within the last two decades or so.
I write for those who like me, should’ve had better validation over two decades ago of things which just didn’t smell right in and around the family courts, on-line complaints and media exposes of the family courts. Those things that weren’t and still aren’t right, if you, like me, have smelled but (unlike me) haven’t yet found the source, know that the “what’s not right” can be seen and identified in objective terms — but not the cause-based rhetoric we are all being fed, constantly. So there’s a matter of functional vocabulary leading to expression in forms of what is seen — and from there, what to do about it, and only from there, how.
It starts with understanding there’s an existing taxonomy, the scaffolding of any operational support for ANY cause, to be considered. IS IT PUBLIC or IS IT PRIVATE — IS IT AN ENTITY or IS IT A PROGRAM POSING AS AN ENTITY shows WHERE IT TIES INTO THE ECONOMY. For collaborations and coordinated programming or any cause, the whole still has parts, and these parts still should be identified.
I also write to show how suppression of functional vocabulary is commonplace, cannot be accidental, it’s nearly universal, and the intent is subjugation of an entire population (and engaging them in keeping others down). In this language and vocabulary are a technology… key tools… leverage. The antidote is self-education. It takes some time and practice, but it’s achievable. One challenge will be time when people’s time is spent fighting to survive economically.
Basic literacy on how we are governed must be in economic terms, and must deal with concepts on submission to taxation in exchange for accountability for use of those tax receipts. Not just trust in leadership, and not just rebellion without understanding how to govern ourselves. (The intended level of dissonance with reality seems to parallel with a historic intent for South Africa: “Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water”). That’s not the ideal society or a “just and sustainable world” when applied globally.
I write so women (mothers, in particular) might have a choice not just between forms of exploitation or abusing others (& becoming an abuser because it seems safer) or having been driven out of one field, need to make “family court reform” the new one — but walking in without a perspective on the usual guides to “family court reform.”
If what I’m saying is: untrue — challenge it; true, but irrelevant — show me how*; If it’s true and relevant — deal with it, which will require making hard choices.
I know that challenging, or proving irrelevance, or dealing with this material would be itself challenging — because you’d have to consider enough of the material to debate it, and then figure out ways to dismiss it.
It seems to me that too many “thought-leaders” have not accepted that the easy route — dismissal, silence, censoring the discussion, encouraging dependency of followers; let them run interference — won’t work forever.
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“By Now We Should Know!” (Impromptu Re-cap of Key Players addressing [how to handle] Domestic Violence especially as it impacts Family Courts) (Apr 28 ~> June 22, 2019).
“By Now We Should Know!” (Impromptu Re-cap of Key Players addressing [how to handle] Domestic Violence especially as it impacts Family Courts) (Apr 28 ~> June 22, 2019). (short-link ending “-9NU,” post drafted as insert to “More Perspectives” in late April, under 4,000 words, for starters…). (now exactly 6,000 words; latest revisions for clarity and extra links, 6/23/2019).
re: ‘TWO HELPFUL LINKS’ — Image from TopRightSidebar, ‘GO TO POSTS’ widget, shows TOC 2019 & 2018 + ‘Key Posts 2012-2017’ (LGH, @ Sept. 1, 2019)
TWO HELPFUL LINKS added Sept. 1, 2019 (for recent subject matter overview):
Table of Contents 2019, Family Court Matters’ Posts + Pages: January 1 – August 31 (so far). (Shortlink ends “-ayV.” About 6,300 words,posted August 5, updated Aug. 31) (You can also link to this TOC post any time from the top right sidebar, under”GO TO: All Posts, incl. Sticky, Tables of Contents..” widget, which holds several boxes for navigating to specific important places (posts or pages, incl. the home page), and,
(Table of Contents 2018, Posts and Pages.. (publ. 24Mar2019, short-link ends ‘9y7’)
This post (that you’re reading now) prepares people for another post, already written, which asks a hard, “what-if” rhetorical question. I hope readers on considering that (coming post’s) rhetorical question have the integrity to consider where they may have been radically mis-led about the real purposes of family court reform/fix/correct movements. Even though it may be embarrassing, confronting, or disturbing.
IF I COULD FIGURE THIS OUT 2006-2010, especially (and subsequently)…
If I could figure this out with what I was going through 2006 through 2010 especially (and subsequently) under the related conditions post-DV, post-overnight-custody-switch and all kinds of family betrayal, amid professional livelihood destruction, repeated stalking over the years, and at this point it seems about every other year, another lawsuit of some sort — when I don’t have the ongoing income to predict a future at times more than a half year, or a quarter-year in advance — then I know other, more consistently employed and less family-court-plagued individuals, including professionals such as lawyers, psychologists, law professors, psychology professors, state court administrators, and politicians could have chosen, IF not in on it, to figure it out and, for mutual public benefit and “out of the goodness in their hearts” share it.
And share it not just among the mutual professional circles within court-connected and cause-related [abuse prevention, etc.] fields, but also with the people they are charged to help, while dealing with the issues named and as reflected in the respective organization’s business names (i.e., “Family” or “Battered Women” or “Violence Prevention” etc.)…
What’s more, outside the professionals, there are plenty of women (and men) who have been in my situation who could’ve figured out and reported (blogged! spoken consistently) about the same things I did as just a human being with (I admit) at most times — some times a lot harder to access than others — access to the internet and (eventually) a laptop so that access wasn’t limited to library hours and time limits (where I lived, generally maximum 1 to 2 hours at a stretch)… And common sense enough to pay attention!
“BY NOW, WE SHOULD KNOW!”
In fact (looking for a certain reference to include just before publishing this post), about a year ago, I see I went through it again last spring (May, 2018), even though at that time I was being gradually pushed out of temporary housing, and within just two or three months of having to flee the state:
Post title: How Relevant is AFCC — and Who, UNLIKE many ‘Crisis in (or ‘Enhance/Reform’) the Courts’ groups and associated professionals who won’t, in public or on-line — Acknowledges Its Existence and Significance? (started May 7, 2018) (Case-sensitive shortlink ending “-91l”; that’s two numbers, as in the year “1991” and a lower-case “L”) (Posting “as-is” about 5,680 words on Mothers’ Day (USA) May 13. Subject to later updates for clarity and/or towards bottom of the post).
(I was also active on Twitter today with more links, documentation and as ever, reminder of terms in use in current fatherhood policy, particularly as involves Temple University-housed, Center for Policy Research-organized “FRPN.org” (also previously posted herein). http://bitl.ly/2KVQHOi) {{<~~may be multi-Tweet/ a thread; see the whole thread if so and I tend to have attachments (media) to Tweets to explain them}}
This post will illustrate both those who won’t (while talking on the same topics) and those who, obviously do acknowledge AFCC when presenting at its conferences or listed among its ongoing board of directors or other activist members (i.e., on individual C.V.s)
That post has has some typos I see but its contents are still relevant. Some emphases added.
I even found a post written almost exactly EIGHT years ago, featuring the general operations and co-operations among key organizations. It doesn’t drill-down tax returns so much, but it does show tendencies and business relationships among them (reference, background, cream-colored, inside green borders added one day post-publication here);
Post Title with shortlink and enclosed comments added June, 2019. Post written eight years earlier.(This post came up in a search and I needed to add a “Read-More” link anyway).
See Gilder-Lehman Center at Yale or his NYT Obituary April, 2019. Undated photo.
[WordPress-generated, case-sensitive short-link here ends in just two characters, probably because it’s so early in this blog: “-K7”]. As first published, about 10,800 words, incl. any & all quotes, image captions, tables, etc. //LGH June 23, 2019]
On review of this post, I see that perhaps the final ⅓ is quoting (at length) three sources on Irish Slavery, including “Tangled Roots’ “Barbadosed: Africans and Irish in Barbados” (2008, I think) from GLC.Yale.Edu, a center originally inspired when businessmen/history buffs G&L heard lectures by a Yale history professor David Brion Davis, who I now see died this past April after a long, productive life:”Prizewinning Historian of Slavery Dies at 92” NYT April, 2019.
Professor Davis wrote or edited 16 books, but paramount were the three that examined the moral challenges and contradictions of slavery and their centrality in American and Atlantic history. ~~|~~The first, “The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture” (1966), won a Pulitzer Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. The second, “The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823” (1975), won the National Book Award as well as the Bancroft Prize, one of the most prestigious in the study of American history. ~~|~~The last book of the trilogy, “The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation,” was published in 2014 as Professor Davis approached 90. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award…~~|~~President Barack Obama presented Professor Davis with a National Humanities Medal in 2014 for “reshaping our understanding of history,” as the citation said. ~~|~~The fundamental problem of slavery, Professor Davis wrote, “lay not in its cruelty or exploitation, but in the underlying conception of man as a conveyable possession with no more autonomy of will and consciousness than a domestic animal.” [ “~~|~~” = para. break omitted]
I was (and still am) pretty irritated at the exclusionary practices of the above-named groups in deciding how to solve “family” problems involving abuse; see concluding paragraph. And there are many parallels between abuse and slavery.
Most of the July, 2011, post deals with and quotes the entities its title names (starting with the OVW as part of the US DOJ, the associated “entity” here is the U.S. federal government (with DOJ under its Executive, not Legal or Judicial Branch, despite the word “Justice” in the Department name); all other “entities” referenced are either nonprofits, or projects of them)..
I don’t know how many “re-caps” and reminders it’s going to take to sink in….or what it’ll take, but I write (in part) because I know for some, it’s not reminder — it’s news. On hearing this news, some decisions might need to be made (unless you’re OK continuing to “float” and becoming a “floater” when it comes to effective strategy, or even figuring out what’s going on…. “just go with the closest flow that sounds friendly… or go against the closest hostile currents around, and hope that’s got some real impact, makes a splash, makes a difference (etc.)….).
(Impromptu re-cap, with attention to the key players addressing “DV” aspect hitting family courts.)
By now people should also be aware of to what extent and HOW the “sleeper organization” Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (“AFCC”), working often in tandem with the better-known “National Council of Juvenile and Family Courts (“NCJFCJ”)## all but runs the family court system as we know it today …
(I’m referring to in the USA, while aware of a longstanding intention to align practices across country lines, not to mention through private association influence as has already been taking place, across state lines.)
This Impromptu Recap isn’t going to post tax returns or extensive documentation, which are spread throughout the blog and searchable on it (or search even post titles throughout the blog). For the most part here, although there are some links and images, I’m going to just say it.
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Mix ‘n Match Misleading Terms: QIC, Coordinating Councils, Collaboratives and Commissions | Which Organizations Use Them | Which Parts of Government Control and/or Fund Them…(June 16, 2019)
The moral of this story? What’s my point in this post?
Mix’ n Match Misleading Terms: QIC, Coordinating Councils, Collaboratives and Commissions | Which Organizations Use Them | Which Parts of Government Control and/or Fund Them…(June 16, 2019) (Short-link ending “-9ZS.” About 15,000 words; about a third of them subject to “sudden post-publication re-allocation”),
(By definition, almost, any post this length needs about one-third, one-half or even two-thirds moved elsewhere! We’ll see! Tags to be added within 48 hours, I want to make sure tags naming nonprofits include any related EIN#s).
This post has been a long time in draft– in fact it stretched I see from Memorial Day in late May right up to Fathers’ Day mid-June, today. Finding a stopping point on endlessly connected issues, some of them disturbing, new-to-me examples of the same theme, was a challenge.
I’m writing these first paragraphs just before publishing. They are my personal expression and reactions, not the main substance, the arguments and supporting exhibits/illustrations below. I recommend just reading straight through them. It was written in one sitting, copyedited and developed some, developed sections off-ramped for further detailing.
My arguments begin with a Q&A “Think About It!” section in this color and after that, it’s showtime.
When you have read even further down and see these two images (together, my last ten posts from the sidebar), you are near to the starting point of this post…they will be on the right side.
Some of the showtime introduces in detail (texts, links, images) certain off-ramped material which has gripped my attention. I am increasingly shocked by the blatant omission, misdirections, indications of new age terminology spun off more ancient forms of spirituality behind backers of “early childhood development,” some aspects of which definitely raise a few red-flag alerts on the touchy/feely healing-from-trauma involving children aspects. (Somatic Meditation, Integrative Manual Therapy Meditating with the Body®
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the body is considered the gateway to enlightenment—to discover the body is to discover awareness—to uncover the most direct and effective path to profound spiritual transformation.
Commentary: That’s fine, but spiritual transformation should not be the goal of public policymaking aimed at institutions which will be and are sponsored by U.S. federal agencies. We have no official religion on this country — not “new age” not Buddhism or Hinduism, nor the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic-kind. Whether from the one aspect, sex and the body is “bad” except as religiously certified (and women are second-class citizens), or sex and the body are not only good, but a pathway to the divine, a debate that’s older than the Bible, I think the aspects of personal boundaries is a live issue, especially where children are involved with teachers and in association with university-based child care clinics or centers.
Neither viewpoint should be imposed upon or snuck in the back door of public-funded programs under the label of science — which, face it, public schools and Head Start / Early Head Start programs (along with many others) certainly are; in part because very religious people continue to flock towards situations where they can impact, influence, and mentor others: the fields of psychology, psychoanalysis and interfacing with traumatized adults and children attract people of such mindsets. The coaching/mentoring field is full of organizations and associations run by gurus and evangelists for their own world views. NOT my main concern in this situation, though. Lack of accountability and adequate terminology to track the accounts, is.
This topic came up (this time) along with FrameWorks Institute and Harvard University’s new Center on the Developing Child only because the Hemera Foundation, among its top investors (ranked by cumulative amounts of donations) was an unknown to me. Understandably — no website up, only formed in 2005, and registered outside the United States run by someone who’d spent much of her young and adult life also outside the U.S.
(Blog Admin/Writer) (I) decided on reviewing this years later to miniaturize the font for this section. It may affect photo layouts.//LGH))
Even without that fascinating, and due to Caroline E. Pfohl‘s (Wellesley, Wharton, London School of Economics) Hong-Kong connection, historically interesting aspect (relating to the Hemera Foundation incorporated 2007? in Bermuda (listed alpha, it’s Reg. # 40623, but you cannot view without log-in), but run by ‘Hemera Regnant, LLC’ in Boulder Colorado.
Ms. Pfohl at one point (? per Philanthropy Impact) was the daughter in law in a very wealthy and well-known Hong Kong family (and philanthropists) line and involved with the Robert H.N. Ho family foundation and was chairman of it until 2010 (See image nearby). Ms. Pfohl now seems married to “Dr. Reggie Ray” Dharma Ocean Institute director also in Boulder. || What about donations to fake entities (also discovered), ongoing involvements with public/private alliances (some even called that in their business names), all creating major spin?
Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation 2010 Press release (Appointing successor to Chairman Caroline Pfohl-Ho, gives a bit of foundation context. See also Hemera Fndtn (Bermuda-based, U.S. Registered agent via an LLC in Boulder, Colorado is Ms. Pfohl who seems now re-married. Hemera Foundation (previously unknown to me) listed as a top funder at Harvard University’s Center for the Developing Child, established in early 2000s.
**See pp. 27-28 of “Investing in Bermuda, A Piece of Paradise | Opportunity for Foreign Investors” which specifically names Hemera Foundation along with Atlantic Philanthropies and others as among those helping start the Bermuda Community Foundation formed during the 2008 financial crisis, and the inset on the next page about how, conveniently, how some charities need not register in Bermuda. Or, (2015) (“Zero to Three in Bermuda” (Hemera working through that Bermuda Community Foundation, with a BSMART1 Foundation: brain science, early neurodevelopment, etc.)) Hemera Foundation also contributing to Harvard University’s Center mentioned below.
“Hemera” is the name of a Greek goddess of the day, with her brother “Aether” god of the light, both of them sons of night and darkness. (Source: GreekLegendsandMyths.com) They are said to pre-date the gods of the Pantheon (Mt. Olympus, etc.). Interesting choice for a foundation name.
Here’s a quote** from that “showtime” on off-ramped material section, below the first Q&A “Think About It!” blue section on this post and borrowing (bright-yellow highlit) a question from it. Definitely one to keep an eye on, which is hard because of all the non-entities citing their famous donors, and at least one of their famous donors, primarily a grantmaking (front) based in Kansas with strong Buffet family flavoring (plus, as typical in the field, Annie E. Casey Foundation and others).
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 