Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

This post will be further edited after publishing.  I made a decision to “just publish” July 27, 2019. It has enough content for relevant reading. Links are all present, not all quotes have been included or smoothly formatted towards the end.  Bonus material keeps surfacing…and I am reporting in part on short-term (half-year) Workgroups on Custody (in one state) and trying to encourage all to, if necessary, take crash-courses on CAFRs and how government works, in part because of how it’s been working up til now!

This post came from More, Some Earlier, Sidebar Widgets Now Live Here (+ See Related July 9 post) [This one, Published July 19, 2019]* (shortlink ends “-ahh”) but you certainly don’t need that excuse to read it.  The terms CAFR, GFOA, GASB are searchable on this blog; look for posts with some of those acronyms in a title.

This Post is:  The “C” in “Comprehensive Annual Financial Report” Doesn’t Mean “For Nerds Only”! Short Pre-|Review Sampler. (Published July 27, 2019) (short-link ends “-ajs”) (about 8,500 words)

No, it certainly doesn’t.  CAFRs are not just for nerds!

I’ve been working some of these topics long enough that it’s second nature to know where to look and how to find illustrations; I have a labeling syntax, stored folders with date and time (for most), try to save all originating links.  Wrestling text (alone) or text and images into pleasant-looking blog posts is another matter; doing so with a nice, friendly tone and voice isn’t going to happen. Being sweet and friendly, long-suffering and above all patient seems just inappropriate to the situations developing right now in family courts inside and outside the USA.  Some mental lights need to start going on outside the assigned, typically given more “take-it-on-faith” leeway standard experts canvassing the country for recruits and trying to, as ever, federalize and internationalize their pet perspectives on “what happened?!?” when kids are getting hurt by virtue of decisions made within the family court system and NOT made regarding some of the same actions in the criminal system.

Private court divisions and sytems which have only been set up “just in time” for welfare reform are now embedded, so the debate about DIS-embedding them would affect existing political powers in, probably, every state.

Lack of understanding of other countries’ systems or innovators (i.e., private associations featuring civil servants), similar-sounding but different-meaning terms (like “family courts”!) and differences in levels of public accountability (theoretical at least) for private associations a.k.a. foundations/charities/societies), is an issue.

Similarly lack of understanding differences in systems of taxation — i.e., government itself — particularly when it comes to federal vs. state or (Canada) provinces or (UK) the various countries involved blurs the significance of what is taking place now, but which has been set in process decades earlier.  In other words, people who were thinking beyond their own generation of what they wanted the world (and I can speak for, the United States) to look like, are getting what they wanted now — chaos, division, exploitation, and, generally, a population which doesn’t bother or cannot read its own country’s financials, and know when it’s been lied to through withholding, or told the truth.  THAT’s a gullible population which can be prodded into voting against its own best interests nearly any time of day or night. What I’m saying — “it’s a massive cattle drive.”

We can’t (logically) just “bail” on all skills involved in finding and reading financial statements (either public or private) and understanding where one intersects with the other (i.e., organizing principles) and expect to have some form of “justice” long-term.

CAFRs represent the government part.  They have a message to tell; they are not just for nerds.*

* UrbanDictionary definition * Wikipedia

A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly technical, abstract, or relating to topics of science fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities.[1][2][3] Additionally, many so-called nerds are described as being shy, quirky, pedantic, and unattractive.[4]

Originally derogatory, the term “nerd” was a stereotype, but as with other pejoratives, it has been reclaimed and redefined by some as a term of pride and group identity. ..

Some of the stereotypical behaviors associated with the “nerd” stereotype have correlations with the symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome or other autism-spectrum disorders.^[25]

Looking up Hans Asperger (Austrian pediatrician active during Nazi era, his paper on Asperger’s pre-dated another’s on Autism):  “Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and ‘race hygiene’ in Nazi-era Vienna” by Herwig Czech in Molecular Autism 9: article 29 (2018):  Wow… Read the Abstract! and (not too surprising).

That subject deserves its own post. Apart from the stunning similarities to situations today, the back-story on the article is about the journal it’s in “Molecular Autism”, and the co-chief editors. The co-editor in chief from the UK, who’s made a career, basically developing theories and running centers featuring Autism (with Asperger’s being deemed on the AS — Autism Spectrum), was until 2016 married to a well-known and apparently loved family rights lawyer and “OBE” Bridget Lindley (she died, unfortunately and suddenly, at home, in 2016. That’s not the story but should also be explored for fuller understanding of how these things can still be…)

Illuminating article for sure, and situation, and its formal layout (and being open-access) is definitely appreciated..
Read the rest of this entry »