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58 More Essays (Pages) on Essentials** of the Family Court Arena. **IMHO, as expressed 2009-2019.

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You are reading: 58 More Essays (Pages) on Essentials** of the Family Court Arena. **IMHO, as expressed 2009-2019(WordPress-generated, case-sensitive short-link ends -ar9. //LGH July 31, 2019.  About 8,000 words as updated Aug. 4, 2019)   This title will be repeated a few inches below (that time with a Footnote [1]).

ANY post may be further edited (as in, condensed, or expanded, or both) after publishing. Blogger’s privilege!


Speaking of which, I’m adding TWO HELPFUL LINKS here, Sept. 1, as you see here.  They are blog navigation (two years’ worth of tables of contents, only one of which (2018) is among these top “sticky” posts).  TOC for 2019 (“so far”) was published Aug. 5 and updated through August 31 (“so far”) as well as added separately to the blog sidebar widget, and (that’s new) TOC 2018 right underneath it.They are also inserted here to recommend browsing this blog’s titles (in table format) for a quick, informal, overview of subject matter and to better help understand where I’m coming from, taken as a whole.I may add this specific TWO HELPFUL LINKS  inset (with attached image) of information to about one post a month, moving forward, and have inserted it to some as far back as May, 2019.  //LGH September 1, 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’)


 

58 More Essays (Pages) on Essentials** of the Family Court Arena. **IMHO, as expressed 2009-2019(WordPress-generated, case-sensitive short-link ends -ar9. //LGH July 31, 2019.  About 8,000 words as updated Aug. 4, 2019) [1].

I had fun writing these; hope you enjoy reading them.  Browse their titles, pick somewhere and dive in!

The “58 Essays” referenced in the title came from ‘PAGES’ (widget) from off right sidebar with all the links. The list of those titles with links directly to each one, also a 3X3 (nine total screenshots index) of all titles as seen formerly on the sidebar widget are the only illustrated (images involved) items on this post and are at the bottom. Look for images with some colorful lines and arrows, a bit of side-line commentary like these next two:

4

8

All material is my writing except where quoted, and all 58 pages were previously written across that ten-year time span. Now pinned to the top of the blog (designation “Sticky”), this post features them as basic content (and shortens the sidebar considerably). 

As ever, I voice my concerns about and continue to raise awareness of both current developing and longstanding situations whenever/wherever I have opportunity, including while writing this introduction.

Having written too much while creating this administrative/index post, I then off-ramped extra introduction text to:

That post holds key content on current developments and actors seeking to change family court legislation “locally” (within certain United States) and, I see, the battle pro/con “parental alienation” continuing internationally, with some of the same players on the “opposed” side, regarding publication by WHO of another “ICD-11” nomenclature for diseases. … (July 10 2019, Collective Memo of Concern  to WHO … RE: Inclusion of “Parental Alienation[2]  

I just happened to write the material on my mind while setting up this post.  There are still some opening comments here, though; some navigation, some, just want I want to say: call it my opening spiel.  (That too may be condensed later)…

Cambridge English Dictionary, ‘spiel’ (Cambridge Univ Press)checked Aug 3, 2019.

(It’s a spiel to me because I’ve had to say it so often, was written impromptu and could be an “elevator speech,” depending on for how many floors we were in an elevator.  Not always used in positive sense.  The above link from Cambridge English Dictionary says it’s for “American English” then cites several examples from Wikipedia and “the Hansard archive” (“digitized (parliamentary) debates from 1803), which for some reason, I think is funny.) https://hansard.parliament.uk (see nearby image).


MY SPIEL.

My main concern as a United States citizen and as a human being is that those involved** seem to have little respect for basic concepts of representative government, although plenty of them are lawyers.  It is one thing to exchange ideas on an academic level among universities, or through private networked associations.  It’s another to seek to have those voices drown out and deluge the places where decisions are made as purported “intermediaries” or “the voice of the people” when they clearly aren’t.

**(including but not limited to those both pro AND con on the parental alienation issue (I call it #ArguingPAS), whether or not addressing the World Health Organization’s ICD-11, or whoever determines what does or doesn’t make it into each new version of the DSM  (The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual).[3])


PLACEMENT ON THE BLOG: This post now becomes the top-most post of ten “sticky” posts on my “Current Posts” home page of this blog near the top, on the right sidebar, also known as:

Once I split it, the count is now eleven “sticky” posts pinned to the top of this blog, below which the current posts will show, most recent on top.

This may not be the best first stop on the blog if you’re new to the it (or the fields it covers), but, hey, we all have our different approaches to taking in new information… so whatever works… and those pages hold solid, under-reported information. Over time, exposure and repetition of key concepts, I expect the main ideas will come through on most posts or pages, no matter where you start.  This is not a book or a weekly newsletter: it’s a blog, and an extemporaneous quality will always be present. I have done my best to keep studying and building scope, depth, adding subject matter relating to the main subject matter, and where possible, getting to the origins (creators) not just administrators of the family court systems.


Reviewing exactly what are those top (with this one) ten (soon to be eleven) “sticky” posts, I see that about half are indexes or tables of contents for specific years. I pin these all to the top partly because of their surrounding summary and still-relevant information, also a snapshot in time (of my understanding and/or current related events) [4].

(Footnotes [1-4] are several paragraphs below, not at the very bottom of this post.  My practice: If an explanatory comment is short enough, I’ll often just use “*” or “**” and include it at end of or right below a paragraph) I include cites in the text or with the quote.By contrast, footnotes are more often expansions or commentary, and sometimes become their own separate posts, individually, or as a group.  I have a few posts named “Footnotes to: _____”  I added two footnotes while revising this blog, to expand on a specific topic.

NEED A SHORTCUT?  SCROLL, SWIPE, OR PAGE-DOWN TOWARDS THE BOTTOM UNTIL YOU SEE IMAGES:  (THE FIRST AND ONLY IMAGES THUMBNAIL SCREENSHOTS (3 rows of 3 each), A VISUAL INDEX OF THE PAGE TITLES.  THE PAGE LINKS AND FULL TITLES ARE BELOW THEM.  To break up the links even more, I put in dividing lines and the corresponding screenshot (from where they used to be on the sidebar) with some stars, arrows, and comments (on the images).


Any page or post can take comments.  I don’t do a lot of polls. I do not get a lot of feedback (comments);

JUDGING BLOG BY NUMBER OF VISITORS, FOLLOWERS, COMMENTS:  FAIR ENOUGH IF YOU’RE JUST LOOKING FOR AN EXISTING MOVEMENT TO JOIN, NOT TO BECOME A RESOURCE/LEADER, BUT, BE AWARE

I do notice**  are visiting and repeat visitors, or those with unknown business relationship (but a state geography) who stay on for an hour or sometimes several hours at a time   Over time, this shows the blog is being reguarly watched from certain countries outside the USA, and by a variety of universities or government entities from state level, state agencies, and/or private businesses, as well as some at the federal level (i.e., Dept. of Health and Human Services).  This is to be expected when I’ve been reporting on some of these.  Any university IP might be a student or a faculty or administrator; I’m not tracking which and probably couldn’t.  **(Through embedded “statcounter.com” html; it’s free.  “Statcounter” is based in Ireland) what types of entities — where browsers have proprietary labels identifying them, (unlike the retail or residential common carriers:  Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc.). I do notice when I post on something and then a flurry of visitors from that geography or agency suddenly show up on the “recent visitors” log.

Another issue I know I face as someone who has been stalked and had safety concerns about speaking too openly, we are mostly aware that submitting a comment to a blog will reveal an email address; while that’s not shown to the public usually (it isn’t here), it could be to any blog administrator. Having been there myself, I know it’s quite possible to read, even study contents of, this blog, without saying a word on a comments field, or tweeting about it.  What I find most interesting — few people are arguing (directly to me, on the blog, or that I’m aware of so far, directly against the key points I raise, elsewhere.  The usual practice seems to be, just ignore them, or try to take credit for a small percentage of them, while continuing “business as usual’ as advocates.

I read many websites (blogs, and at times Twitter feeds) without becoming a direct follower or always even commenting also; so do not take the sidebar “stats” as an absolute indicator of the importance of this blog.  Instead, decide whether I’m “full of it” or “onto something” then start asking sensible questions.  Decide whether it’s worth your time reading more.  That’s where I also started, regarding what I’ve been looking at these many years. If you NEVER review conflicting points of view outside those already “in your face,” then I suspect the issue is short-sightedness.  I try to stay aware of (and recently have begun to talk more about) media sponsorship and again, PAY CLOSER ATTENTION (TO FAMILY COURT EVENTS, ACTORS, MOVEMENTS, AND — MY KEY THEME — HISTORY, PRACTICES, OPERATIONS).   ASK GOOD QUESTIONS:  IT’S a MINDSET AND COULD BE MADE A HABIT.  IT’S ALSO AN ACQUIRED TASTE.


If you are NOT from the USA, I hope you will understand that with our (it seems) radically different tax system, i.e., the IRS (vs. the VAT system, which I don’t pretend to understand, although I understand it seems more incremental, built-in than the income tax on all taxable profits, whether of a corporation or of an individual), USA-domiciled charities must produce — with some types of exceptions — not only audited annual financial statements (depending on their size) but also tax returns and cough ’em up for the public.  People and private businesses must too, but those are not expected to be coughed up for the public.  The tax returns of tax-exempt organizations are — however certain major categories are still exempt, as in the religious.  So at no time is a total financial picture really available.

But those tax returns are full of clues and indicators for any organization and for organizations functioning in a coordinated fashion — which the response to domestic violence, child abuse, preventing them both, not to mention divorce, custody/visitation (whatever it’s called), CRIME (however categorized) and payment of child support, works.

By “charities” we are talking: their exempt-purpose revenues are federal income-tax-exempt, and if they continue to meet standards, a greatly reduced tax on NON-exempt-purpose revenues (from all those assets held, where it applies) is the incentive to form more and more of them, especially the wealthier one is.  I gather the general idea is that by working side-by-side with government to cover services it doesn’t naturally cover, but people need, a tax perk is granted.  Actually producing those services in a neutral and legal manner is another thing.

With this situation it IS possible to look up and look for those tax returns, corporate filings, and to a degree (though convoluted) perceive the flow of money THROUGH some TO another, also TO and FROM government in the forms of grants TO and FROM government entities.

Because of this expectation that some accounts we can read should and by law must be made available, where they’ve been late, missing, absent, or simply not credible, that reflects on any filing entity’s design.  over time it becomes clear that neither the private nor the public sector (i.e., granting and financial-statement-reporting to the public) has a consistent intent, held to and followed through on, of giving the public a legitimate account of its activities, operations, and their costs — as opposed to sales pitches for the same, forever.  {{I am not a certified public accountant (CPA) nor a lawyer and that was not tax or legal advice..It’s an individual thinking about a common situation and expressing an opinion on it!}}



Having spent some (I’m too old now to spend “enough!”) time on various other countries’ databases, while struggling with SLOW internet personally and NOT interconnected reporting databases, in the era of internationally connected HIGH-speed networks for: governments, educational institutions, research institutions, and I gather the military and probably health / medical institutions, I realize also that there may be major differences in the requirement to produce audited financial statements of government entity balances (assets & liabilities | revenues & expenses) and both naming and posting the actual account numbers associated with all legislated use of tax receipts for public benefit.

I believe that if we are living in a country and supporting it with our life energies through productive work, OR supporting/justifying its expenditures for in ANY way needing some help or protection from that country (or, state) we deserve to see the financial trail and be given an account.  I see that the current setup makes that nearly impossible — but the concept still exists.  That it’s nearly impossible works to the advantageous of the criminally minded, and against those seeking to operate legally within the constraints of any government’s laws.

Americans, it seems to me (speaking of those I’ve been around, deal with, or hear of through, for example, major media reporting, work, social networking, school (when I was in it), etc., have been groomed to NOT look for those financials or talk about them, NOT notice which non-profit entity is referenced (to the point of looking it up, identifying: age, size, location, leadership, and filing habits, including frequent name changes, or movement of assets from one to another, disrupting the traceable path).  We ought to be looking at these things and able to talk about them, but have been coached, distracted, discouraged, and — for those who attempt to look — often obstructed from finding out TIMELY things we ought to know.

That’s my spiel.  Now here’s the post:

 The nine-image thumbnail index gallery, and names and links to the 58 Essays (Pages).

OK, and bit more spiel.  (After these four quick footnotes from above).

[1] From the top of post re: my “short-link labeling protocol.” With 800 posts and 58 pages (not counting about as many more posts in draft), short-link endings are helpful reminders of exactly what url works.  The rest of the “shortlink” never varies (within each category of Posts vs. Pages). It’s like a blog-specific “tinyurl.com” or “bitly.com.” It’s an administrative tool; anyone can use it also with the basic url:  wp.me/psBXH- for posts and wp.me/PsBXH- for pages — this blog only. Add the short-link to the appropriate one, and you have a concise link to that post (or page)).

[2] (more specifically on July 10, 2019 “Collective Memo of Concern to WHO“) “RE: Inclusion of “Parental Alienation” as a “Caregiver-child relationship problem” Code QE52.0 in the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11)
From: Concerned Family Law Academics, Family Violence Experts, Family Violence Research Institutes, Child Development and Child Abuse Experts, Children’s Rights Networks and Associations{1}

[3] #ArguingPAS – the ‘include it in the next DSM debate: [CraigChildress, 2013; | Newsweek  (July 20, 2014 by Chris Weller, [Isn’t in the DSM yet, but it’s in plenty of arguments] long, anecdotal, eventually quotes some experts) (PsychCentral.Com, updated July 2018, 2 min. read by PsychCentral’s (2001ff) founder & editor, John M. Grohol) lists Darrell Regier (over the DSM-5 task force, referencing his being pressured to get it in there), William Bernet (pushing to get it in there; i.e.,  on the “pro” side) and in general, opposition since the 1980s by “feminists and their advocates”).  2013, a (6-page) article in “The American Journal of Psychiatry and the Law” by Wm. Bernet, MD and Amy J.L. Baker, MD, talks about PAS in BOTH the DSM-5 and ICD-11:  Parental alienation, DSM-5, and ICD-11: response to critics.” (J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 41:98–104, 2013).  Here’s an Oct., 2016 article (pre-highlit as posted here) by, essentially, The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence, published in The Journal of Child Custody and Shepard Pratt.. (Baltimore) “Recommended Treatments for “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) may cause children foreseeable and lasting psychological harm“.  The title is almost longer than the piece; one of the authors is on the editorial board of that journal which is chaired, if I recall it right, by Robert Geffner of Alliant International University and a small nonprofit out of Texas (FVSAI) now in San Diego, commonly going by “IVAT.”…

OBVIOUSLY, this could go on (and it seems to have been going on) as long as there remain: journals run by impassioned, opinionated professionals, particularly in the mental health field; nonprofits they may form separately organized around key themes (and there are MANY around this theme!); and, over time, public health grants or institutions willing to continue discussing it in technical terms, which I also saw in this recent search but didn’t post in Footnote [3] above.   This also then can create news headlines if a celebrity (as with the Newsweek article 2014 above), or if exceptional horror stories or violence are associated (as also happens). Each incident and debate can be leveraged for more publicity (or, task forces, etc.), helps develop citations for the arguing professionals, and probably also helps subcriptions, i.e., drive readership and revenues. I PREFER A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE, AND IN THESE (REPETITIVE) DEBATES, WHOSE AUTHORS ARE BY NOW SO FAMILIAR (THEY CITE, CO-AUTHOR, AND DEBATE EACH OTHER “CONSTANTLY” — SOME NAMES CHANGE, BUT THERE’S ALWAYS A BASIC CORE LIST, IT SEEMS, REGARDLESS OF THE ORIGINATING COUNTRY).  I LOOK AT THE ORGANIZATION THEY DO NOT REPORT ON, WHICH SEEMS TO BE PART OF THE GENERAL AIR BEING INHALED, AND (IN GENERAL) I LOOK AT THE NONPROFITS PUBLISHING THE JOURNALS, OR CLOELY ASSOCIATED WITH THEM, FOR COMMON THREADS ON THE PRO/CON OF ANY KEY ISSUE)


[4] Re: why I keep so many tables of contents and indexes with their extra “family court current events” snapshots as pinned (sticky) posts: Organizations may change names, but not the larger ones behind them.  U.S.A.’s (federal) government grant-making agencies do sometimes changed, but haven’t significantly since I started blogging (i.e., there are still certain Departments). What parts I focus on each year may change, but not the whole.  Other factors include privately-sponsored university centers, some whose directors then spin off nonprofits named similarly, but not identically, and certain types of nonprofits which echo (mimic, shadow, borrow names from, and consist of social organizations of civil servants) their corresponding government roles. This constantly raises the accountability (money trail) factor and risk of undue influence upon government, not to mention misappropriation of public funds.  THE MORE KEY, NAMED, POINTS OF REFERENCE AND KEY CONCEPTS, THE BETTER.


ABOUT THE LIST:

 

These links represent pages spanning ten years of this blog. Their dates and links are not automatically added to “Archives” (the calendar widget at top right of blog) so the only way to be aware of them is:  if reading a post which includes a link; running across it in some on-line search on a topic a page happens to cover (some topics I write on are so under-reported, that happens more often than you might expect for someone not using press releases, etc.); or you really scroll far enough down on that sidebar to see the whole list with its VERY long and often sarcastic (though specific, descriptive) titles.  Now that I’ve removed that sidebar widget, this is your best route to the full list.  Unlike most tables of contents, which only show a slice of the whole (whether one year’s worth, or just a bit more than it), these span ten years.

Some of them also may pre-date anything on the Tables of Contents I’ve posted, none of which go back further than (as I recall) about September, 2012.

Here’s one:

[SAMPLE PAGE TITLE:  The Longest on the List]

When I get that long, I’m upset about something and want its true colors and components emphatically identified.

RE:  “Nearly Twice That..“:  It took this long for me to notice the math error in the title:  9/11 was in 2001; PRWORA was in 1996, only five years earlier.  September 2017, when this page was published,  would’ve been about twenty years (not “nearly twice that” or 32 years, etc.)  The point being, however, many years had passed since welfare reform…and to wake up about it.

That page is actually short.  Revisiting it (today) I see that I was basically taking on AFCC’s use of the word “professionals” as a noun, where in most fields, it’s an adjective that goes with a noun describing IN WHAT (architect, artist, etc.)… AFCC instead seeks to regulate and control the professions it has helped create.  Basically, the mental health specialists seem to have  a chip on their shoulder about standing “shoulder-to-shoulder” with (judges and lawyers).  Many psychoanalysts are also involved, which brings up the history of psychoanalysis in this country and its cultic characteristics.

Another interesting point (on that page).  An anecdotal account how an American psychoanalyst trained in the “Washington-Baltimore” school ended up mentoring the 12-year old son of a woman, on a long cruise back to meet her husband. The psychoanalyst’s hobbies included breeding Burmese cats, and studying snakes and salamanders.

Incidentally, the 12-year-old boy’s became later the founder of Scientology; his name was L. Ron Hubbard.  3 images right below:


The post introducing it, also quite long, was published Sept. 15, 2017, and has some detailed drill-downs on involved nonprofits.  And some rants.  It was a Labor Day Weekend.  However, go for the images on that page for a window into what I’m documenting here.  (WILL RETURN WITH THE LINK, or use ARCHIVES (displays as calendar) drop-down (to pick month and year) function on top right sidebar.

Two posts published in Sept. 2017 (which go with the very long page title, above):

#1.

EVERYCRSReport.com: Project of Demand Progress (a 501©3 + 501©4 each w/ fiscal agent~New Venture Fund (formerly Arabella Legacy Fund), Sixteen Thirty Fund), the R Street Institute (formerly DC Progress). So, Will the Real Sponsors Step Out from behind their Fiscal Agents, WITH NameTags, or Shall I Continue Outing Them?) [Last revised Sept.11, published “As-Is” Sept. 21, 2017] (case-sensitive short-link ends “-7zh”).

I just, mid-September, added a new page, and a post introducing the new page, not particularly focused on this topic, but instead on Collaborative Justice Courts, or how California at least worked over some decades to turn the courts into “problem-solving” justice system, and who (such as the Center for Court Innovation in New York, the National Center for State Courts, and as it turns out when considering “Government:  The Final Frontier” and whether the courts are better off like universities, as “loosely-coupled organizations” (a 2013 publication) with the help of Harvard Kennedy School of Government) has been helping this happen. …

and, #2.., Published it seems 9/15/2017:

…I have been working on both post and the new page over Labor Day weekend, a major US holiday from September 2, 3, and (Monday) Sept. 4, 2017…. [[several paragraphs later in a VERY long post…]]   Full post title, THIS post: Introducing A New Page, How and When Problem-Solving (make that ‘Collaborative Justice’) Courts were Institutionalized and other Consolidate/Coordinate/Standardize/PRIVATIZE Stories at Courts.CA.Gov. AND, some of the Backdrop (My Personal Experience of Turn-of-Century Social Policy towards Women Reporting Abuse and Efforts to Exit It … (short-link ends “-7xs”)

The above post is embarrassingly long, but also a function of the stress of those times (and, it notes, a season of over 100′ heat, prolonged, for No. California where one choked on the air, literally)… If you go there, scroll down to the annotated images section, which “payload” shows tax returns and board of directors connections to, for example, the National Fatherhood Initiative, Inc. or a California-based Collaborative Courts agency, and more, including one board of directors tie (by marriage) to leadership in El Salvador involved in privatization of the country’s utilities of more than one, kind, “the Washington consensus” etc.  In other words, it’s about far more than the name would imply — promoting certain behaviors within personal relationships among all people…. It is indeed a drill-down on several entities’ tax returns and several different court-involved situations. (Not recommended for cell-phone viewing unless your phone is huge).


From the PAGES list, I’d like to feature two three other “runner-up” extra-long titles as particularly relevant to what I’m blogging these days, what with some of that involving (again) the state of Maryland and within it, Baltimore.  The other one deals with common nonprofits whose names and existence we (minimum: in the USA) should by now understand. In alphabetical order:

OTHER, ALSO LONG, SAMPLE PAGE TITLES:

CFCC = Center for Families and Children in the Courts.  One center is in a (public) university law school.  The other is in state government, the ruling body of courts, administrative sector. One’s city is an East-coast US seaport not far from the U.S. Capital; the other a West-coast one, not far from the state capital. Despite this, they share the same descriptive name and were created around the same time (turn of this century). Coincidentally (?) loyal, activist AFCC members have historically been and still are employed in both places., driving reforms and overseeing their progress and sometimes, grants streams.


(All four titles also shown, alpha by title, in the list below).

For the page “Belated Lessons from Baltimore and San Francisco’s” (“Belated” because the reforms were passed outside the normal legal processes in the 1990s, i.e., having failed a legislative pass, they were executed by previous agreement as an Administrative rule (!)), a more thorough resource would be the related post/s, published late December, 2013.  I remember writing this up, but on checking that page, see that the main content was on the post — not the page.  I located (among my 809 now published) three related posts from Dec. 2013.  The first one listed has the most introduction tying it to this page and current events.  The second, with some overlap, features more how current law students/interns seem to be mentored now that the center is in place, and the third shows some of the big money and craziness behind it (i.e. “Rx” billions).

In this description, and I’m quoting sources, not making it up: family courts were indeed modeled on drug courts with an emphasis on referrals to extra services for ALL, ideally.  One of the largest tax-exempt foundations specifically backing this (in the billion-dollar range, just its main foundation alone, not all of them together) had a family line notable for substance abuse, drug problems, and dysfunctional relationships — possibly because so few of them had to grow up earning a living the normal way.  This organization also goes back to the Civil War and, as it turns out, even cheated a famous nurse (Clara Barton) out of the famous red cross logo.  Real nice…

Also recommended (From Dec., 2013), in this order:

I guess it only makes sense if one’s going to be pushing drugs for profit (huge profits) on people of all ages, especially the most vulnerable, one might need drug courts to also order therapy and counseling for them.  An endless cycle of revenues…   While one has the drug courts thing going, why not add “family courts” then combine them all into a UNIFIED family court, such that anyone walking  — or dragged in when an ex-partner files — for any reason might be court-ordered into therapy, evaluations, etc. That seems to be the outlook I had at least when writing the third post above.  Not sure I disagree six years later, either….


(MOVING ON WITH THE POST GENERAL TOPIC):

As a sole blogger/writer/blog administrator, I don’t really want to repeat myself when something was explained well the first time and could be linked to instead. PAGES arise when I either decide to emphasize a topic that otherwise might be lost in the parade of posts, or sometimes to complement a post but provide a more stable way to link to it. Some (not most) were just ways to expand a few comments without interrupting the flow, i.e., I’d enclose the link to that page on the post.

While this helps me administratively, I also I figure, why not share this information?  Sharing as I go is a policy, generally, I have with what I’ve been discovering during and after my journey (sic) through (sic) the family court system. With all the networking, investigative blogging, problem-solving and shocked observations at what is just not talked about at the policymaking level, as some of the top sticky posts emphasize:  Censorship of key elements, actors, and how they inter-act (literally)* continues, it makes sense to keep communciating.

*Public versus private personas involved.  When it comes to analyzing situations and institutions where life itself is at stake, but lives continue to be lost (“roadkill”) or simply destroyed, I’m not interested in the persona.  I want to hear the truth of the matter, not theatre, spectacle, or staged debates from the audience.  See my username which reflects that intent.

I’ll continue adding more examples, or noting new progress — usually along paths already discerned through paying more attention to the public/private entities (across state and sometimes national borders) than the “table talk” — but  I don’t want to re-teach the basics so often I can’t get new posts out timely.  Some better way to refer to them is needed.  Seeing these may help me just refrain from doing it again on each upcoming post.

Documenting the progress also helps me not go “bats” when dealing with new crops / rounds / cohorts of angry parents who want action now without looking at the previous actions already taken:  “So long as it has a good branding, defuses some energies, and uses the right-sounding language, it MUST be good — right?”

Far from it.  Wrong!

In my experience when those intent to fix and improve lives over which they have no natural jurisdiction — for good reason — obtain that influence through other, more devious means, it rarely turns out well for those “fixed.”  The definition of “improve” is highly subjective, and while resolving all conflict, world peace, and violence-free futures (and crime-free societies, no poverty and all the things we can may love to IMAGINE, and should) the level of violation of basic personal boundaries, human rights, law, due process, and (may I add here) common sense in the achievement are wearing thin as justifiable means to the alleged ends.

Credibility, at least to me, in all forms of government, has worn thin. My advice to most is, don’t go riding in the car with strangers.  Do your homework before joining a cause, and get a birds-eye view of the context (the organizational, governmental “biosphere”) before joining those always looking for new fields (populations) to plow.

I am two decades post-domestic violence restraining order (in just a few months), and before that order had expired, I was again neck-deep in a different form of abuse, apparently for trying to leave abuse female at JUST the wrong time (after USA’s 1996 Welfare Reform stigmatizing single mothers, regardless of why many of us became single) and having, previously as a working citizen parent or non-parent, minded my own business, focused on that work — not politics, and not economics, social science.  I was happy to do so also.

As this blog documents in part, in the 1990s, some states were still setting up their own family court divisions to divert criminal cases (“differentiated domestic violence”) into venues which would forget about the criminal past and order relationships and behavioral modification services instead. “Such a deal,” for those who got in on it.

In California, where I lived, those court services and the courts themselves also increasingly centralized control at the top (California Judicial Council) and substantial power into the Administrative Office of the Courts. etc. This coincided with the years before and especially after Welfare Reform, and it’s unreasonable to believe that the two major processes were unrelated.

Now that the “powers that be” in the USA (and in my own family line) have had their say — devastating — and to the last breath (as to one individual) shown no remorse for it — I am certainly not through having mine, even if only on this blog and social media.

“It’s been real” learning how so many systems work and what languages and practices they share. 

LAY-OUT (Format):  First, I just took several (9) images, from top of the ‘PAGEs” menu to the bottom.

All imageshave a date and time stamp at the top (the year, not shown, is 2019).  Images have been numbered and labeled, some of them annotated (comments on specific pages), and put into a nine-image “thumbnail index” gallery, an alternate way to break up and read the titles, and perhaps pick from among them which ones to read.

Then, Below that, I am JUST copying the links to the pages without re-arranging the order.

This is a minimal task. Moving all the links on the “PAGES” widget is a straight “copy and paste” in one motion, which the blog software allows.  Most of these pages will not have short-links.  To read any one, click on it.

Some, not all, have published dates as part of post title.  The more recent (2012ff) the more likely — because of the learning curve and constant accumulation of more information (data and types of data) deepening perspectives —  to contain significant and easily searchable system details.  I got somewhat better over time (like to think anyhow) at putting the puzzle together, and illustrating the various categories of entity, sometimes by key themes, sometimes listing particular organizations on a specific federal grants stream, sometimes focused on a single state or geography (i.e., metropolitan area).

However, earlier posts also outlined key principles, I believe, the moment I was introduced to the very types of searchable terms and tools most often omitted from coalitions of protective parents, violence prevention, social science, and official family court-produced literature aimed at pro-se litigants (cf. “litigants in person,” I believe, in the UK, or at least England & Wales).

I had fun writing these; hope you enjoy reading them — at least their titles.  Pick somewhere and dive in!


THE THUMBNAIL IMAGE GALLERY INDEX (click on any image to navigate to the others), in 3 rows of 3 images each.).  This image gallery is just a point of reference, not really meant for viewing.  Clicking on images won’t bring you to any pages. These are for browsing only; and they are in order:  From left to right (row by row) = from top to bottom on the list. For links, look further down on this post.

“PAGES” contents copied from Right Sidebar Widget (near the very bottom) “As Is”

= in the order shown above, which seems to be alpha by title, with some pages bearing symbols (“*” or “-“) to keep them on the top of the list, I see.  I inserted dividing lines to match the images above.  As you can see, while doing those dividing lines, it was an easy task to add the corresponding image (from above) for each set of posts.

The single yellow-highlit page title focuses attention on University of Baltimore School of Law’s CFCC (correlated to San Francisco’s — same name, different setup).  Individuals working with that CFCC’s predecessor were influential in setting up (and pushing through over legislative, i.e., the people’s objections) the area’s family court division.  About that, see next mini-section, which contains the “related posts” inset box I also showed above.


MINI-SECTION before “PAGES” LIST:  “Baltimore & San Francisco”

(Setting up Family Divisions (Maryland) | Pushing Through Unified Family Courts, Timeline and Cast of Characters, Tactics; the “CFCC” naming convention.

Quick, Impassioned (?), Comments on the UBaltimore School of Law<~~>California Judicial Council CFCC<~>AFCC connections:

[This inset shown above also, near sample post titles.  I’m giving a brief summary, so repeated the inset showing three related posts from Dec., 2013]

Also recommended (From Dec., 2013), in this order:

From what I’ve read and understood since at least as far back as late 2013 (unfortunately, it seems a full decade after the situation was under way, in a different seaport city (Baltimore vs. Oakland/San Francisco) about 3,000 miles away (East Coast vs. West Coast), who was involved in that push and how it succeeded is an issue of fact, not opinion and key to understanding both the family courts, and the organization “AFCC’s” (more activist) membership’s operating strategies and long-term goals. The “Center” based within a public law school continues until today, with one of its two directors also now editor in chief of the AFCC’s primary journal, “Family Court Review” — co-published out of another law school center.  No wonder I have begun to pay better attention to “Centers” whether within a government entity or a well-known university.  Tracking their finances without a coordinated letter-writing / “FOIA” (Freedom Of Information Act) campaign seems virtually impossible, yet this is where policymaking is often focused.  Tax-exempt foundations (the big ones) seem to love establishing such centers.  I don’t believe the public should — it’s our tax dollars:  “show us the money” and handle it responsibly! I actually ran across the Baltimore CFCC looking on-line for the California one, whose policies (and AFCC member control of the access visitation grants aimed at increasing “noncustodial” parent contact) with which I had to deal as a parent while this center had just been established, through consolidating to previous statewide “services” providers:  One for “Families” and the other for “Children’s.”  Simultaneously other legislation established increasing control (literally, ownership, and employment of judges) at the State level; heavily significant to anyone who might wish to challenge policies (see sovereignty / Eleventh Amendment issues, it seems.  I.e., you can only sue a state or its agencies “by consent” — ITS consent.

There was a judge in common, but I do not remember offhand which one.  She’d (it was a “she”) come through Baltimore and was working now in California.  There are many cross-country connections among various family court-involved professionals, but this was a specific judge. (Not that I recall, one involved directly in our family’s case, but again, I’d have to re-check; it was many years ago).


 That said, I’m not a lawyer, and that’s my perception, NOT legal advice or absolute). As a layperson, it shows increasing centralizing at higher levels of government while handling the most private and individual-choice parts of peoples’ lives.  Put this together with private associations collaborating to produce policy from outside the state (and country); it really is an assault on basic representative government processes — at least in the USA, and probably in other countries too.


“PAGES” contents copied from Right Sidebar Widget … “As Is”

 

1



2

3


4



5


6

(**This post title as you can see overlapped between Image 6 and Image 7)


7


8


9 (of 9 images)


The End” (of the migrated “PAGES” menu from my bottom-right sidebar, as of July 30, 2019).


Thank you for your time and remember, if you quote me, include the link & (also nice would be) at least part of the post title and date published, especially if I am expected to respond based on the contents.

To go back to the top of this post, click the Title again:

58 More Essays (Pages) on Essentials** of the Family Court Arena. **IMHO, as expressed 2009-2019.

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

July 31, 2019 at 6:21 pm

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