You ever play a “game” with rules, but the rules were rigged? This is the experience of family law. It’s taken me a long time (years) to understand this, but the main thing it does is take participants out of the work force

Then, those who have outside resources can come back in for another beating (or winning). In the long run, “Justice” becomes a moot point. Justice is something that takes place when there is social agreement, generally speaking, to comply with some rules, and/or more ethical enforcers of such rules. Yeah, . . . . …..

I am about to switch from this (overweight) blog to another one I’ve already named. I’m calling it:

“BOYCOTT CHILD SUPPORT”

First, to get our attention, and second, to talk about money in a way most just aren’t taught to.

The longer I stayed in this system (as it happened, my family took — the opposite — side. IT has gotten really ugly at this point) the less stable my job history. I was a good worker, and this was wearing on the independent streak in me. One way an abuser keeps a victim IN the relationship is by curtailing the means to get out. Sometimes, she has to jump. If she jumps into ANOTHER system with the same, controlling, exploiting attitude, more time goes by, further compromising the work history. I did the usual (“more bricks with less straw”) and threw what intelligence, diligence, problem-solving and negotiating I had into this, reducing expenses and increasing hourly wage. THere’s a surge of energy and optimism one sometimes have when a batterer is thrown out; you feel like you can achieve, and many do.

However, if you’re still in similar mentality systems (and a good deal of our culture IS this type of slave/master mentality) there’s a law of reverse efforts at work. In a just system, effort and ethics are rewarded by natural increase of results. However (see my “Milk Sucks” post for an illustration) in an unjust one, the leveling instinct is inspired by jealous or controlling others. My response to that was to attempt to separate (after realizing no cessation of hostilities was imminent, in fact, it began to escalate. And I began to widen the range of to whom I reported. I was NOT going back into begging!)

However, my mistake was to keep on reporting — or seeking intervention. Unfortunately, things are not what they are advertised to be. It’s been a GREAT business lesson, and I eventually began moving out of my (beloved and reasonably paying) profession into sales, figuring that the things could sell while I was in court (etc.). All this time, my kids were growing up — fast, and seeing their Daddy frequently, which meant more opportunity for harassment (once the R.O. was lifted). Hmm. . . . .

So, when the DEFENDERS ONLINE (a civil rights blog of the NAACP), I was glad to see this discussion. Because by this time, I had “figured out” that the large, multi-level agencies and corporations working through the child support, family law, welfare, and domestic violence systems (yeah, I know that’s a mouthful) — and doing so on federal $$ (meaning, the foundations who didn’t pay those $$ were at an advantage, as were the nonprofits who paid LESS $$ at least and were in on the federal spigot — or should I say, “teat”? Sucking off the $$ that were supposed to provide social services, and the less they succeeded, the more $$ they got…

The U.S. economy is rigged AGAINST the taxpayer (employees) and FOR those who have tax loopholes, or assets producing wealth. Your time (labor) for $$ is selling yourself as an asset, even if it’s REALLY high. MOreover, out basic currencty itself produces debt no one can pay off, because it’s bought at interest from the Federal Reserve System, which is not on a gold standard. The entire economy is run by, basically, ultra-elite, ultra-rich families (basically) who set the rules and the standards. It’s most definitely in their best interest NOT to teach so much about wealth, and to focus more on managing the “populace,” if not in a pure version of slavery, or Jim Crow, at least a modified version.

I didn’t begin to understand this, and couldn’t have, had I not experienced what I did since leaving a batterer and thinking I’d be just “let out,” like that. No, one has to fight out. I have a fight going on currently (which I plan to win). o

This is why I believe books like Irwin Schiff’s (about the IRS) or Dr. Popp’s (about “bona fide money”), or Susan George’s (about “The Debt Trap”), let alone even basic, simplified stuff like the Richard Kiyosaki info-books (Rich Dad/Poor Dad) are vital to understand.

The IRS really does insert itself between the producer and the consumer, and rig the game, such that power becomes more and more centralized, and wealth scarcer and scarcer — rather than us solving our problems more centrally.

What happens — when goods — and even services — are produced CHEAPER over seas, for example today’s NYT  — it affects economy in Southern and in Northern Hemispheres.  Add a few banks (IMF, etc.), and systematic encouragement of, say, exports — then those overseas of course need to buy these products — then, of course a culture of consumerism in the Northern hemisphere needs to be maintained — it gets a little thorny for the average worker.  We’re encouraging U.S. students to, we HOPE learn to read, and aim for  a good job (and of course healthy marriages…) but where?  For whom?  THen when they go into prison, the child support debt IS still accruing, but in will come another program (fatherhood, related) to help reduce the arrears (possibly by bargaining it down, or simply increasing more time with the mother, which could have either good or bad impact on the relationship, or children (i.e., sometimes people die over this!): — it’s a large business flow economy managed too centrally and with too little information.

If any readers are old enough (or Western enough?) to remember a teenaged Tom Cruise in “Risky Business,” he falls head over heels in love with a prostitute, who is business minded, and in the end, makes a wad of cash with his young, testosterone-high friends (and quantity helps the endeavor, too) and ends up having the content of his parent’s (wealthy) home stolen by her pimp.  Then, with the proceeds of the former business adventure, he buys his own property back.

That, in essence, is this system I’m blogging about.  What are we buying?  I think, socially and economically, it’s a net loss.

Just an example of outsourcing, then below it, more discussion on wealth from The Defenders OnLine.

Outsourcing to India Draws Western Lawyers

By HEATHER TIMMONS

Published: August 4, 2010

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Christopher Wheeler met last month with some of the lawyers he supervises at a legal outsourcing firm in Noida, India.

Enlarge This Image

Brian Sokol for The New York Times

Christopher Wheeler, a former assistant attorney general for New York State, met with his staff at Pangea3, a legal outsourcing firm, in Noida, India.

Today, he works in a sprawling, unfinished planned suburb of New Delhi, where office buildings are sprouting from empty lots and dirt roads are fringed with fresh juice stalls and construction rubble…

SO, NOW LET”S TALK ABOUT WEALTH v. ASSETS, and the relative assets of most of our (asses).  I had planned my adult life on, say, WORKING.  I worked in fields I loved, and then married a man I, at the time (pre-assaults) loved.    Enter 2 decades of hell and reduced income, exploitation, etc.  I didn’t raise children to have them watch me being degraded or humiliated, and I didn’t work that hard to get OUT of abuse, to thereafter beg — from anyone.  Especially not as an older worker with zero assets.  HOW did this happen, and what can be done about it?  Because I think I’ve run around the ring enough times after grants, time’s probablyh up.  A GOOD business deal has profit when the deal is closed, to start with — not a promise of it from an unreliable vendor, which many of the social services ones are.  Which the child support agency SURE is, and which welfare ALSO is.  If you leave an abusive relationship, attempt to get REAL far away and REAL solvent REAL quick, OK?  ANd stay smart, and accumulate wealth, if possible.  With a tax shelter and away from the pre-emptive divorcing or separating partner.  Figure it out — there has to be a way!

No Money in the Bank: Black Women, Wealth and Assets

Posted By The Editors | March 16th, 2010 |

By C. Nicole Mason

If the average single black woman went to the bank and withdrew her wealth, she would only withdraw $100.00. And nearly half of single black women have zero or negative wealth—meaning if they inserted their cards into an ATM machine, it would more than likely be rejected. A new study by the Insight Center for Economic Development finds that single black women have one penny of wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by black men and only a tiny fraction of a penny for every dollar of wealth owned by white women. Nationally, five out of ten African-American women have had trouble paying bills on time and one-third of black women are worried about their debt-to-income ratio. In tough economic times, this news is particularly devastating as it means without wealth and assets, black women who lose their jobs or have a financial emergency will have very few reserves to draw upon to get them through. Over the last few decades, black women have made tremendous strides in terms of educational attainment, entering careers with high income potential and homeownership. However, these gains have met with rollbacks and have not necessarily translated to wealth or assets. In fact, in the case of homeownership, black women were 256 percent more likely than white men to receive subprime loans. And upper-income black women were nearly five times more likely than white men to be saddled with high-cost mortgages. Low-income black women and single mothers also have a difficult time accumulating wealth and savings. Black single mothers with children under 18 have a median net wealth of zero compared to $7,970 of wealth held by white women with children under the age of 18. Among black families, 68 percent of black women have no net financial savings and live from paycheck to paycheck. The question is what keeps black women from accumulating wealth and assets? The answer is manifold. First, there is a prevailing myth that income equals wealth. Many people measure their economic well-being by how much money they bring in the door each month. This is a mistake.

Another site illustrates this:

• The L-Curve graph represents income, not wealth. The distribution of wealth is even more skewed. Quoting from a recently-published book by political philosopher David Schweickart,

If we divided the income of the US into thirds, we find that the top ten percent of the population gets a third, the next thirty percent gets another third, and the bottom sixty percent get the last third. If we divide the wealth of the US into thirds, we find that the top one percent own a third, the next nine percent own another third, and the bottom ninety percent claim the rest. (Actually, these percentages, true a decade ago, are now out of date. The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation’s wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%.)

Our economy produces tremendous wealth but it also produces tremendous poverty. Sure, some people can be lazy, but when large numbers of hard working people live in poverty and the middle class is shrinking, it is a systemic, not an individual problem. There is plenty to go around, but it doesn’t adequately go around. It goes to the top, and leaves the masses to fight over the crumbs. (If you are mathematically inclined, check out a recent study of the income distribution that identifies two distinct income classes in the US with different mathematical b(e)havior.) True, it has been this way through the ages, but that doesn’t mean we should be satisfied with such a system. I believe we can do better.

Here’s another site,I googled “{income is not wealth)”:

INCOME AND WEALTH INEQUALITY

According to the Federal Reserve, in 1990 the richest 1 percent of America owned 40 percent of its wealth -- the greatest level of inequality among all rich nations, and the worst in U.S. history since the Roaring Twenties. Furthermore, the richest 20 percent owned 80 percent of America -- meaning, of course, that the bottom four-fifths of all Americans owned only one fifth of its wealth.

Another revealing way of expressing this statistic is that the top 1 percent owned more than the bottom 90 percent combined.

What caused this growing inequality? The most underlying reason may be that it takes money to make money. This is why many call for a progressive tax system: to redistribute at least a percentage of the wealth back to the middle class, thereby avoiding modern serfdom. We will explore the tax cuts for the rich in detail in the next section. But tax cuts are not the only way to polarize wealth. There are several others, and they can all be lobbied through Congress. A complete list follows in More.

T

When it does, which one wins? I mean, typically, the Fatherhood movement would jump right in and switch custody to the Dad and put Mom in jail if she, say, stole the kids or interfered with custody. Defrauding her or bending the law would be a non-issue (happened to me, I should know).

Or, say, he committed some horrible crime and was in jail. The custody would go, obviously, if Mom was not available (or if he’d had custody at time of the crime), even perhaps, to the PATERNAL grandparents, i.e., whoever raised the criminal.

But what, pray tell are they going to do when the custody by fraud is HER parents and the real Dad wants his kid, and the fraud was discovered?

This is exactly a case for the Father’s Rights’ movement — they certainly have clout and representatives in all states. In California, it’s boasted they even have a full-time lobbyist at the capitol. This young man could sure use their help. Let’s see how the case went:

Couple Retains Custody even after court ruled they obtained custody by fraud

A woman called 17 News regarding a custody battle involving her grandson. A brutal three-year long court battle is brewing over custody of 3-year-old Kadyn Riley

The Rileys have used the legal system, in my opinion, to steal a child that is not theirs to make up for the failed parenting of their own daughter,” Shattuck’s attorney Michael Kilpatrick said.

According to court documents, after Kadyn was born in 2007 the Rileys had Shattuck and another man’s DNA tested to find out who was the father.

Records show after they DNA results were available online, showing Shattuck was the dad, they went to court to get custody of Kadyn, and on at least seven occasions stated that the “father was unknown.”

They were granted sole custody of the boy.

“I’m completely shocked,” Shattuck said. “They are correctional officers so they are supposed to uphold the law and tell the truth,” Shattuck said

Shattuck must not have been raised in the inner city.

For more on that myth, well, I wasn’t raised in the inner city, and learned the hard way who the law is and isn’t for. It’s definitely context-specific. When it’s a father vs. a mother, well, if you ask the father’s rights or the mothers’ rights groups, you’ll get a different answer. For the truth, one lead is my blog — I track the programs aimed at getting Dads BACK in kids lives, for which you (USA) guys (if you’re an employee and don’t have a LOT of deductibles or some loopholes around), are paying taxes; you are enablers. Granted, not enabling once you know might involve unpleasant adversaries, like, the IRS, or various government agency representatives, etc.

A separate court later ruled Kadyn should be with his father, because of the Riley’s “omission” and “half-truths” about the father’s identity. Years later, Kadyn is still with the Riley family. Now there is another custody case, which keeps Kadyn in limbo.

Since when are OMISSIONS and HALF-TRUTHS an obstacle to a forcible custody switch? It must be because of what they were about. Presumably the father initiated that case in another jurisdiction, or court? What “separate court”? (news articles sure leave some important details out in the quest for readership . . .. Makes our job harder, to find out which end is up and safely navigate life. For example, I would personally like to know which trumps which — fraud in a courtroom, parent/child biology, or criminality.)

READERS’ QUIZ: Give this news story your own unique title

_________________________________

Time’s up. Here’s mine:

“Where’s the Mom”?

Here’s the only clue I had that she existed, there’s a beautiful baby girl (ALL baby girls and boys are beautiful by definition.), because the artificial womb hasn’t been invented yet — surrogates, yes.  Fake wombs — not in the headlines yet.  Ergo, conscious or unconscious, nursing aftrer or not, some woman somewhere gave birth.  In fact, the grandparent’s daughter gave birth, which presumably included some labor.   Here, nice to know might have been Mom’s age — was she a teenager?

Oh, and this clue, which I didn’t pick up even on the first read. That Mom in general appears to be a real non-entity, which is administration policy, these days:

the failed parenting of their own daughter

Did she run away (I might have, with parents that controlling)? Is she in rehab? Did she die? Is she at college or technical school? WHY was paternity testing going on (maybe something else going on in the household?) Was it needed to get custody; what does that court order read initially granting them custody — on the basis of abandonment? This happens a lot – a parent will move to a new state, file for full custody, saying they “can’t” locate the other parent. Sometimes, rarely, a kid gets tracked down and returned.

Or did parents want that kid, without daughter, and find someone to label her a bad parent (what would that make the — if they raised her…)  The article barely mentions her.  Even if she’s not an actor in the current story (actually, by definition she was — she had a baby and somehow “failed parenting.”  Had she not had a baby, or passed “parenting” — this story wouldn’t have been.

One dialogue on this post regarding CA Penal Code 278.5 relates to a young man who was taken to Texas, and finally found, after several years. He felt bad that so little punishment (jail time) resulted, given what he’d gone through. Oh yes, and he was taken by his father….

Regarding:

“the failed parenting of their own daughter”

Either family court terminology really has drifted down to general use, or (speculating here), some court professional was hauled in to handle the case by the parenting, in which case it would be a piece of cake (particularly if the father wasn’t told he had a child) to discredit the Mom and nab the children.

I’m going to open up and again share something that some of us mothers who have actually gone to jail, or gone homeless, or spent as long as our kids have been alive, or are having their wages garnished to pay for batterers who managed to get custody — because they were biologically what Shattuck, above, was, i.e., the father

— what some of us are thinking about, and I’m not quite sure how seriously:

We are saying women should boycott having children.

Not because we don’t value them or want careers more, but because we DO value them, and we have learned to respect ourselves enough to realize how much personal hell we can or cannot take. 20 years or more is a lot.

If you have children, the labor is the least of it, and soon over. Having my daughters, with whom I did, both made and broke my life. It made my life because of what motherhood is naturally, it’s a joy, it lets you see children growing up, sides of them teachers don’t always get to see, if not parents. It made my life because my daughters are terrific.

And it made my life hell because their very wonderfulness brought the customers in like windowshoppers at an estate sale. They ignored the domestic violence and my saying HELP! and asking for resources, referrals, anything, while raising them, and working, and dodging or recovering from incidents.  Where I said, Help, stop it, please talk to the batterer (or had obvious signs of this taking place), it was read as “babies for sale, cheap, in a few years…”

This goes on to this day. My ex still at times calls and taunts me about what they are doing out of my grasp and tries to “bargain” his way back in on a religious basis. Like this court system, there is no rational “reasoning” behind it unless you get the operating principle which is:

A mother’s worth is measured by the amount of federal programs it takes to get her kids away from her and keep them there, that is, if her marriage isn’t “healthy.”

It is measured by the federal $$ that can be drawn towards the children, while she goes to work to support the government, or her ex. Alternately, if out of work, she can be a cog in the wheel of the welfare system.

Sometimes the ROI is questionable. Time will tell, when they are older adults.

WARNING TO FUTURE MOMS:

Think about this seriously, please. Because sooner or later the artificial womb WILL be invented, and you WILL be superfluous, at least in this part of humanity which you are doing something else no man can do. Dannie DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger even had to fake it, that movie was a comedy and was fiction, but fiction is OFTEN foretelling the truth of something in the works, and comedy is often quite serious. This incessant need to put women out of the home working, and men back in it, nurturing, or at jobs (and keeping chid-care workers and scholars IN jobs)is not male external equipment envy, it’s female INternal equipment envy, and more than that, envy also of the grounding and power we can get from it.

Unless you really enjoy being used to give birth, and do the labor, but not enjoy the results of it (would you like to work a job with no pay?), think about this, I pray).

INCIDENTALLY, THIS JUST IN. . ..

SOME OF THE ACCESS VISITATION FUNDING AND/OR FATHERHOOD FUNDING APPEARS TO HAVE MOVED INTO DIFFERENT CATEGORIES, NONE OF WHICH INDICATE A MOTHER BEING WITH HER BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN IF THERE ISN’T A MAN IN THE HOUSE:

• EARLY CHILDHOOD (HEAD START),
• FOSTER CARE
• ADOPTION ASSISTANCE
• CHILD SUPPORT AGENCY

HOW YOU CAN CHECK:

Go to Taggs.hhs.gov and advanced search, of awards, I believe the one with abstracts allows you to tailor which field the results come up on. This is the default, but you should select more columns for this experiment:

~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

RIGHT COLUMN: -Select all fields, because I am going to have you select ONLY one (or two) CFDA numbers and want to see where you also get different codes coming up than what you selected. And you should see what the Award Activity Type is (i.e. what is the money used for) Presumably that’s relevant, right? Award Class and Action Type, I forget which is which but one of them shows whether it’s NEW, CONTINUING or (which is significant) NON-COMPETING.

In the middle, because one might as well select Opdiv ACF (They come up mostly ACF any), more the check from Operating Div (the larger category) to Program Office (smaller category, i.e., subset of an OpDiv.). I’d also suggest Award Number (to get an abstract of an individual award, if you’re further curious and one exists) (some listed under the category “Abstracts” have nothing — at all — written under “notes.” Some of them give you a flavor of the thinking behind the designer family mentality — every aspect of being a human being in motion and all conceivable interactions with said human being with other human beings, or their environment, probably has an award dedicated to its study, and sometimes over a good part of that human’s lifespan. . . . .

There seems to be a particular interest in sexual activity partners, and of course transitioning to fatherhood (if a definition of fatherhood exists, please post it in the comments, I don’t think there’s a consensus yet. In fact, if there WERE, then all we’d need to do is publicize it, and Order people to imitate it. Of course this wouldn’t be constitutionally justifiable, but I”m not sure the progressive income tax that made all these studies possible in part is, either. )

Regarding the fascination with the sexual activities of certain categories of humans (in this OPDIV, meaning, Administration for Children and Families, as opposed to, say, National Institute of Health, where I could see it might be more useful for medical and safety reasons), PERHAPS it’s because the people doing all these studies are in front of databases, and computers, and in the books so much, they aren’t getting enough?

Speaking of which (habit), let me finish how to do this search, and maybe we can reach a consensus (without taking tax dollars for it) on whether tax dollars and contributions from private foundations to support

(1) Marriage/Fatherhood (of Bush origin, continued by Clinton)

alternately (1a), the “New, Improved”** Fatherhood/Marriage (Obama)

[**New Improved smacks of a new brand of cereal; the correct grants-getting term is ‘Innovative,” which explains why for over 15 years prominent men can keep showing up in new places claiming that fathers have been ignored in the social service delivery systems, and the courts^^ are biased against them as a gender, so they need more nurturing from “us” so they can learn how to be more “nurturing” of what are called, in these circles, “OUR” children. ][[^^never mind who designed those systems…]

Or/AND:

(2) Access/Visitation funding ––

which is to help NCP’s (Noncustodial parents, meaning — for purposes of the funding — fathers) get better access to the children. The fact that this process and the above one has also created a whole population of FEMALE NCPs (a.k.a. mothers) doesn’t seem to slow down the process much, nor can they access this same service and get help to see their own children after the custody switch. SEE MY POST ON “Who submitted testimony for H.R. 2979” which has the names, or links to them. I believe Mothers of Lost Children (or, one out of Indiana area) has related the experience.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here are those two for California, showing only county. This should show WHO is getting the access visitation funding — the child support agency. Through the Judicial Council, Grantee Institution. So now, go tell me child support and custody are not related, when in court? Yet, they are often heard separately. Different departments, different judges. BUT, to help a parent, an NCP (Dad) get more time with his kids, the outreach agency (which works with subcontractors, or most certainly could) is the CHILD support agency.

While this chart will be unreadable (because of width), it’ll give an idea of how the results. After that, I’m going to show the state where I thought the change was showing up in the grants searched:

<!–

–>

<!– HHS is the U.S. Government’s principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves. –>
Search Awards Advanced Search Search Abstracts By Keyword Advanced Search	TAGGS Advanced Search Results Results 1 to 108 of 108 matches. Page 1 of 1 1 Fiscal Year Program Office Grantee Name County Award Number Award Title CFDA Number CFDA Program Name Award Class Award Activity Type Award Action Type Principal Investigator Sum of Actions 2010 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 1010CASAVP FY 2010 STATE ACCESS & VISITATION 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES NEW $ 946,820 2009 OCSE CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES SACRAMENTO 9901CASAVP 1999 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES OTHER REVISION $- 38,917 2009 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0010CASAVP 2000 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES OTHER REVISION $- 48,827 2009 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0110CASAVP 2001 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES OTHER REVISION $- 26,938 2009 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0210CASAVP 2002 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES OTHER REVISION $- 46,392 2009 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0310CASAVP 2003 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES OTHER REVISION $- 15,092 2009 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0910CASAVP FY 2009 STATE ACCESS & VISITATION 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES NEW $ 942,497 2009 OFA BILL WILSON CENTER SANTA CLARA 90FR0096 RESPONSIBLE FATHERWOOD WORKS- PRIORITY AREA 3 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION SPARKY HARLAN $ 243,469 2009 OFA Brighter Beginnings ALAMEDA 90FR0099 PROMOTING ADVANCES IN PATERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND SUCCESS (PAPAS) PROGRAM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION BARBARA BUNN $ 250,000 2009 OFA CAMBODIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC LOS ANGELES 90FE0065 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION KIMTHAI R KUOCH $ 450,000 2009 OFA CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ORANGE COUNTY, INC ORANGE 90FE0080 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION REGINA LINDNER $ 369,832 2009 OFA CENTERFORCE MARIN 90FR0004 HEALTHY MARRIAGE AND RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROJECT 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION CAROL BURTON $ 481,556 2009 OFA CHILDREN`S INSTITUTE , INC LOS ANGELES 90FR0076 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION HERSHEL K SWINGER $ 500,000 2009 OFA CHILDREN`S INSTITUTE , INC LOS ANGELES 90FR0088 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD, COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION HERSHEL SWINGER $ 1,000,000 2009 OFA CHW DBA CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER SHASTA 90FR0071 PROMOTING REOPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION VICKIE KROPENSKE $ 238,156 2009 OFA California Healthy Marriages Coalition SAN DIEGO 90FE0104 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 1 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION DENNIS J STOICA $ 2,400,000 2009 OFA Comprehensive Youth Services of Fresno, Inc. FRESNO 90FR0053 POMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION LISA M BROTT $ 250,000 2009 OFA Council of Orange County Society of St. Vincent De Paul ORANGE 90FR0003 THE ST. VINCENT DE PAUL ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM IS A RESPONBLE FATHERHOOD PROGRAM PROMOTING HEALTHLY, MARRIAGE, PARENTING AN 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION OTHER REVISION EDWARD C HARTMANN $- 148,172 2009 OFA EAST LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY UNION LOS ANGELES 90FE0056 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION GRANT PRIORITY AREA 2 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION JOSE VILLALOBOS $ 1,100,000 2009 OFA HOOPA VALLEY BUSINESS COUNCIL, EDUCATION DEPARTMENT HUMBOLDT 90FN0001 INSTITUTE WRAP-AROUND SOC WITH INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION TO DEVELOP STRATEGIC PLANS, EARLY INTERVENTION, PRESERVATION EM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION LESLIE M COLEGROVE $ 146,750 2009 OFA Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program IMPERIAL 90FE0075 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION MARY CAMACHO $ 531,778 2009 OFA Metro United Methodist Urban Ministry SAN DIEGO 90FR0016 SAN DIEGO’S RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION JOHN R HUGHES $ 268,349 2009 OFA PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT CENTER LOS ANGELES 90FE0092 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 3 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION COMPETING CONTINUATION TANYA MCDONALD $ 550,000 2009 OFA PITTSBURG PRESCHOOL COORDINATION COUNCIL, INC. CONTRA COSTA 90FE0012 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION FRANCES GREENE $ 530,428 2009 OFA Relationship Research Foundation, Inc. ORANGE 90FR0058 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION M.P. P WYLIE $ 242,960 2009 OFA Sacramento Healthy Marriage Project SACRAMENTO 90FE0015 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION CAROLYN R CURTIS $ 549,256 2009 OFA THE DIBBLE FUND FOR MARRIAGE EDUCATION ALAMEDA 90FE0024 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPLEMENT ( + OR – ) (DISCRETIONARY OR BLOCK AWARDS) CATHERINE M REED $ 137,500 2009 OFA THE DIBBLE FUND FOR MARRIAGE EDUCATION ALAMEDA 90FE0024 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION CATHERINE M REED $ 547,153 2009 OFA VISTA COMMUNITY CLINIC SAN DIEGO 90FR0024 VCC CLUB DE PADRES 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION BARBARA MANNINO $ 250,000 2008 ACF BILL WILSON CENTER SANTA CLARA 90FR0096 RESPONSIBLE FATHERWOOD WORKS- PRIORITY AREA 3 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION SPARKY HARLAN $ 243,469 2008 ACF Brighter Beginnings ALAMEDA 90FR0099 PROMOTING ADVANCES IN PATERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND SUCCESS (PAPAS) PROGRAM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION BARBARA BUNN $ 250,000 2008 ACF CAMBODIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC LOS ANGELES 90FE0065 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION KIMTHAI R KUOCH $ 450,000 2008 ACF CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ORANGE COUNTY, INC ORANGE 90FE0080 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION REGINA LINDNER $ 550,000 2008 ACF CENTERFORCE MARIN 90FR0004 HEALTHY MARRIAGE AND RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROJECT 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION CHARLES GREENE $ 481,554 2008 ACF CHILDREN`S INSTITUTE , INC LOS ANGELES 90FR0076 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION HERSHEL K SWINGER $ 500,000 2008 ACF CHILDREN`S INSTITUTE , INC LOS ANGELES 90FR0088 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD, COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION HERSHEL SWINGER $ 1,000,000 2008 ACF CHW DBA CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER SHASTA 90FR0071 PROMOTING REOPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION VICKIE KROPENSKE $ 250,000 2008 ACF California Healthy Marriages Coalition SAN DIEGO 90FE0104 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 1 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION DENNIS J STOICA $ 2,400,000 2008 ACF Comprehensive Youth Services of Fresno, Inc. FRESNO 90FR0053 POMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION LISA M BROTT $ 250,000 2008 ACF EAST LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY UNION LOS ANGELES 90FE0056 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION GRANT PRIORITY AREA 2 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION JOSE VILLALOBOS $ 1,100,000 2008 ACF HOOPA VALLEY BUSINESS COUNCIL, EDUCATION DEPARTMENT HUMBOLDT 90FN0001 INSTITUTE WRAP-AROUND SOC WITH INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION TO DEVELOP STRATEGIC PLANS, EARLY INTERVENTION, PRESERVATION EM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION LESLIE M COLEGROVE $ 146,750 2008 ACF Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program IMPERIAL 90FE0075 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION MARY CAMACHO $ 515,615 2008 ACF Metro United Methodist Urban Ministry SAN DIEGO 90FR0016 SAN DIEGO’S RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION JOHN R HUGHES $ 268,349 2008 ACF PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT CENTER LOS ANGELES 90FE0092 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 3 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION TANYA MCDONALD $ 550,000 2008 ACF PITTSBURG PRESCHOOL COORDINATION COUNCIL, INC. CONTRA COSTA 90FE0012 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION FRANCES GREENE $ 550,000 2008 ACF Relationship Research Foundation, Inc. ORANGE 90FR0058 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION M.P. P WYLIE $ 250,000 2008 ACF Sacramento Healthy Marriage Project SACRAMENTO 90FE0015 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION CAROLYN R CURTIS $ 549,256 2008 ACF THE DIBBLE FUND FOR MARRIAGE EDUCATION ALAMEDA 90FE0024 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION CATHERINE M REED $ 550,000 2008 ACF VISTA COMMUNITY CLINIC SAN DIEGO 90FR0024 VCC CLUB DE PADRES 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION BARBARA MANNINO $ 250,000 2008 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0810CASAVP 2008 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES NEW $ 957,600 2007 ACF BILL WILSON CENTER SANTA CLARA 90FR0096 RESPONSIBLE FATHERWOOD WORKS- PRIORITY AREA 3 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION SPARKY HARLAN $ 243,469 2007 ACF Brighter Beginnings ALAMEDA 90FR0099 PROMOTING ADVANCES IN PATERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND SUCCESS (PAPAS) PROGRAM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION BARBARA BUNN $ 250,000 2007 ACF CAMBODIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC LOS ANGELES 90FE0065 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION KIMTHAI R KUOCH $ 450,000 2007 ACF CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ORANGE COUNTY, INC ORANGE 90FE0080 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION REGINA LINDNER $ 378,020 2007 ACF CENTERFORCE MARIN 90FR0004 HEALTHY MARRIAGE AND RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROJECT 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION BARRY ZACK $ 474,555 2007 ACF CHILDREN`S INSTITUTE , INC LOS ANGELES 90FR0076 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION HERSHEL K SWINGER $ 500,000 2007 ACF CHILDREN`S INSTITUTE , INC LOS ANGELES 90FR0088 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD, COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION HERSHEL SWINGER $ 1,000,000 2007 ACF CHW DBA CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER SHASTA 90FR0071 PROMOTING REOPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION RICHARD N HUME $ 174,034 2007 ACF California Healthy Marriages Coalition SAN DIEGO 90FE0104 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 1 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION DENNIS J STOICA $ 2,400,000 2007 ACF Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents LOS ANGELES 90FE0085 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION DR DENISE JOHNSTON $ 384,951 2007 ACF Comprehensive Youth Services of Fresno, Inc. FRESNO 90FR0053 POMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION LISA M BROTT $ 250,000 2007 ACF EAST LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY UNION LOS ANGELES 90FE0056 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION GRANT PRIORITY AREA 2 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION JOSE VILLALOBOS $ 1,100,000 2007 ACF HOOPA VALLEY BUSINESS COUNCIL, EDUCATION DEPARTMENT HUMBOLDT 90FN0001 INSTITUTE WRAP-AROUND SOC WITH INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION TO DEVELOP STRATEGIC PLANS, EARLY INTERVENTION, PRESERVATION EM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION LESLIE M COLEGROVE $ 146,750 2007 ACF Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program IMPERIAL 90FE0075 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION MARY CAMACHO $ 399,253 2007 ACF Metro United Methodist Urban Ministry SAN DIEGO 90FR0016 SAN DIEGO’S RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION JOHN R HUGHES $ 268,349 2007 ACF PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT CENTER LOS ANGELES 90FE0092 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 3 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION TANYA MCDONALD $ 550,000 2007 ACF PITTSBURG PRESCHOOL COORDINATION COUNCIL, INC. CONTRA COSTA 90FE0012 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION FRANCES GREENE $ 550,000 2007 ACF Relationship Research Foundation, Inc. ORANGE 90FR0058 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION M.P. P WYLIE $ 250,000 2007 ACF Sacramento Healthy Marriage Project SACRAMENTO 90FE0015 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION CAROLYN R CURTIS $ 549,256 2007 ACF THE DIBBLE FUND FOR MARRIAGE EDUCATION ALAMEDA 90FE0024 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION CATHERINE M REED $ 550,000 2007 ACF VISTA COMMUNITY CLINIC SAN DIEGO 90FR0024 VCC CLUB DE PADRES 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION BARBARA MANNINO $ 250,000 2007 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0710CASAVP 2007 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES NEW $ 950,190 2006 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0610CASAVP 2006 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES NEW $ 987,973 2006 OFA BILL WILSON CENTER SANTA CLARA 90FR0096 RESPONSIBLE FATHERWOOD WORKS- PRIORITY AREA 3 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW SPARKY HARLAN $ 207,469 2006 OFA Brighter Beginnings ALAMEDA 90FR0099 PROMOTING ADVANCES IN PATERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND SUCCESS (PAPAS) PROGRAM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW BARBARA BUNN $ 250,000 2006 OFA CAMBODIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC LOS ANGELES 90FE0065 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW KIMTHAI R KUOCH $ 450,000 2006 OFA CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ORANGE COUNTY, INC ORANGE 90FE0080 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW REGINA LINDNER $ 550,000 2006 OFA CENTERFORCE MARIN 90FR0004 HEALTHY MARRIAGE AND RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROJECT 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW BARRY ZACK $ 481,555 2006 OFA CHILDREN`S INSTITUTE , INC LOS ANGELES 90FR0076 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW HERSHEL K SWINGER $ 500,000 2006 OFA CHILDREN`S INSTITUTE , INC LOS ANGELES 90FR0088 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD, COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT DEMONSTRATION NEW HERSHEL SWINGER $ 1,000,000 2006 OFA CHW DBA CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER SHASTA 90FR0071 PROMOTING REOPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW RICHARD N HUME $ 249,034 2006 OFA California Healthy Marriages Coalition SAN DIEGO 90FE0104 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 1 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW DENNIS J STOICA $ 2,342,080 2006 OFA Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents LOS ANGELES 90FE0085 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW DR DENISE JOHNSTON $ 461,186 2006 OFA Comprehensive Youth Services of Fresno, Inc. FRESNO 90FR0053 POMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW LISA M BROTT $ 250,000 2006 OFA Council of Orange County Society of St. Vincent De Paul ORANGE 90FR0003 THE ST. VINCENT DE PAUL ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM IS A RESPONBLE FATHERHOOD PROGRAM PROMOTING HEALTHLY, MARRIAGE, PARENTING AN 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW EDWARD C HARTMANN $ 388,193 2006 OFA EAST LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY UNION LOS ANGELES 90FE0056 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION GRANT PRIORITY AREA 2 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW JOSE VILLALOBOS $ 1,100,000 2006 OFA HOOPA VALLEY BUSINESS COUNCIL, EDUCATION DEPARTMENT HUMBOLDT 90FN0001 INSTITUTE WRAP-AROUND SOC WITH INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION TO DEVELOP STRATEGIC PLANS, EARLY INTERVENTION, PRESERVATION EM 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW NORMA MCADAMS $ 146,750 2006 OFA Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program IMPERIAL 90FE0075 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW MARY CAMACHO $ 479,031 2006 OFA Metro United Methodist Urban Ministry SAN DIEGO 90FR0016 SAN DIEGO’S RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW JOHN R HUGHES $ 268,449 2006 OFA PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT CENTER LOS ANGELES 90FE0092 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 3 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW BENJAMIN HARDWICK $ 550,000 2006 OFA PITTSBURG PRESCHOOL COORDINATION COUNCIL, INC. CONTRA COSTA 90FE0012 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW FRANCES GREENE $ 527,664 2006 OFA Relationship Research Foundation, Inc. ORANGE 90FR0058 PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW M>P> WYLIE $ 250,000 2006 OFA Sacramento Healthy Marriage Project SACRAMENTO 90FE0015 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 7 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW CAROLYN R CURTIS $ 549,256 2006 OFA THE DIBBLE FUND FOR MARRIAGE EDUCATION ALAMEDA 90FE0024 HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW CATHERINE M REED $ 549,999 2006 OFA VISTA COMMUNITY CLINIC SAN DIEGO 90FR0024 VCC CLUB DE PADRES 93086 Healthy marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants DISCRETIONARY DEMONSTRATION NEW BARBARA MANNINO $ 250,000 2005 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0510CASAVP 2005 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES NEW $ 988,710 2004 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0410CASAVP 2004 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES NEW $ 988,710 2003 OCSE CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES SACRAMENTO 9801CASAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $- 250,805 2003 OCSE CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES SACRAMENTO 9901CASAVP 1999 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $- 139,812 2003 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0310CASAVP 2003 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $ 970,431 2002 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0210CASAVP 2002 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $ 970,431 2001 OCSE CA ST DEPT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES SACRAMENTO 0001CASAVP SAVP 2000 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $- 987,501 2001 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0010CASAVP 2000 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $ 987,501 2001 OCSE CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO 0110CASAVP 2001 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $ 987,501 2000 OCSE CA ST DEPT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES SACRAMENTO 0001CASAVP SAVP 2000 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $ 987,501 1999 OCSE CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES SACRAMENTO 9901CASAVP 1999 SAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $ 987,501 1998 OCSE CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES SACRAMENTO 9701CASAVP SAVP 1997 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $ 1,113,750 1998 OCSE CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES SACRAMENTO 9801CASAVP 93597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs CLOSED-ENDED SOCIAL SERVICES UNKNOWN $ 1,113,750 Results 1 to 108 of 108 matches. 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@ @ @ @NOTE:  Blog author posting several days after initial drafts.  There may not be a mixup of the A/V funding, however, I’m going to leave the examples up here to encourage others to at least start some searches and asking some questions.  These are good to know about.

Well, possibly not for your peace of mind, but I still say, it’s good to be aware, and know how to do some of the search and selects.

Sometimes, the words “Family Court Archipelago” come to mind. Many times, I see it as a bottom-trawling, eco-system destroying huge net that grabs the bottom of society’s personalities, criminal, psychotic, narcissistic, megalomaniac, sociopath(ological), manipulative, or simply mercenary, greedy, control-freaks.

And I bet you thought I was referring primarily to some of the litigants. Nope...

Then of course there are the enablers, the gatekeepers, the naive, the people that gotta eat and work SOMEwhere, and that most dangerous of all creatures, those determined to rescue society through “therapeutic jurisprudence.” But I suspect that only Jesus, or some other saint, could continue working in these halls and not be transformed (jaundiced, calloused, or blinded) by them, or dragged down.

What’s helped me is to adopt something of the detached attitude that befits (or does it?) a scientist studying a new, alien species. Or looking at a familiar species with new eyes. Jane Goodall, for example has done this, but I believe she came out at least as compassionate as going in. What can get distracting is the fact that English is spoken, and that all living inhabitants (except seeing eye dogs) are human.

Aha! — but HOW human? Prepare to have your theories challenged.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~The real workings of the family law system are subterranean, even beyond the he-said, she-said, let’s reform this system dialogue. It’s also beyond the many nonprofits breeding faster than the fatherless children households that all those grants are supposed to save. It pretty much goes to the foundations behind the government behind the nonprofits, etc.

The CULT ANALOGY (not the main one, but watch out!)

I entered the system years ago (how many might compromise anonymity, if any remains on this site). The intense isolation and alienation it brings on are akin to the problems it claims to address, as described HERE.

(the article is from a man who successfully got free from the Unification church. The list of symptoms is similar to those experienced IN battering or otherwise controlling , cult-like relationships, including some religious groups One of the most common techniques is reframing reality, re-interpreting it according to a new, and centralized in ths leader(ship)(heirarchy) language. The BAD news is that there’s significant Unification church influence in the U.S. government and playing itself out in the family law venue. The GOOD news is that, like any good innocculation, a non-lethal does of the toxin can become an antidote. The challenge is the “non-lethal” aspect.)

The unending parade of “experts” with rapidly shifting terminology to define peoples private lives, and the simultaneous charging of them for this privilege, sometimes to the point of poverty, homelessness, being forced to beg to eat, and isolated from family, etc. (it’s an experience that can’t be really described, but those who went through it know each other, and do not come out the same as before. I doubt there is any “going back” to innocence or the sense that our own government (US) is one of the most hazardous to our health beasts around. I believe that by taking people’s productivity and creativity out of the work force a generation at the time, a pliable, gullible, and too-passive populace is being “made.” Divide and conquer. While the rich and the poor fight this out, the middle class, besides being as equally affected and involved (when it comes to divorce, custody, violence, and being accused of it issues) is also paying for its own oppression, in the form of prisons, schools, mental health institutions, juvenile halls, courts, and so forth. What I fear has been lost is the best of humanity, in the truest meaning of the word.

You may notice I didn’t post last week. I did research, however we (meaning those involved in my life and case) are in another transition and spin of the cycle of trauma. A generation ago, I thought it was just about one person, then maybe the enablers I knew about. I was SURE I could get free, being honest and diligent, I could get out with children, and do better for them, if I tried hard, stuck to it and was smart enough. This may be true, but part of the smarts is noticing how the scales are tipped. This requires instinct, not just data, and a little “archaeology” of the themes involved. It is fascinating too.

As a citizen and contributor to this world, I have ceased being concerned for just my own family, and am sounding some alarms. Don’t know who will hear. Few heard while I was being assaulted in the home, which is minor by comparison to what is described above as spiritual rape. Spiritual and physical go hand in hand, and we need to change course somehow.

YOU WON’T FIND THIS BEAST IN THE LOCAL ZOO . . . .

SOUNDING THE DEPTHS:

Intense interest, some specialized skills, persistence, and possibly even advanced technology (pressurized cabins, special cameras, bait, etc.) are required to catch a snapshot of this huge almost living organism, which has captivated the primal fears of men and women, devout and atheistic, politically right and progressive, and inspired thousands of fables over its awesome feats, stealth attacks, and invincible onslaughts.

“Jaws” has nothing on this — I think a different sea creature captures the essence —

Holy Squid! [National Geographic article] Photos offer first glimpse of live, deep-sea Giant.

Like something straight out of a Jules Verne novel, an enormous tentacled creature looms out of the inky blackness of the deep Pacific waters.

But this isn’t science fiction. A set of extraordinary images captured by Japanese scientists marks the first-ever record of a live giant squid (Architeuthis) in the wild.

The animal—which measures roughly 25 feet (8 meters) long—was photographed 2,950 feet (900 meters) beneath the North Pacific Ocean. Japanese scientists attracted the squid toward cameras attached to a baited fishing line.

The photo sequence, taken off Japan’s Ogasawara Islands in September 2004, shows the squid homing in on the baited line and enveloping it in “a ball of tentacles.”

“Architeuthis appears to be a much more active predator than previously suspected, using its elongated feeding tentacles to strike and tangle prey,” the researchers write.

They add that the squid was found feeding at depths where no light penetrates even during the day.

Giant Breakthrough

Despite people’s fascination with this deep-sea behemoth, the giant squid’s life and habits have remained largely a mystery. The little information known has been mostly based on dead and dying specimens that were caught by commercial fishing boats or washed ashore.

The mysterious creature has inspired countless sea monster tales and has been the subject of various scientific expeditions.

(SEPT. 27, 2005 ARTICLE, JAMES OWEN FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS, paragraphs not in order necessarily)

After the H.R. 2979, “new improved” Julia Carson Let’s Promote Fatherhood some more (“Shh! don’t alert the new subclass of noncustodial MOTHERS about this vote”) hearings of June 17, 2010, announced all of June 10,2010 on the (U.S.) House (of Representatives) Ways and Means committee page fiasco (my description), I did my usual “who are THESE dudes?” google searches.

ONE thing many of them are is simply colleagues at Institutes, whether virtual ones, or academic ones, they are not being publicized at the local family courthouses, family facilitators’ offices, or domestic violence shelters and police stations, hospitals, etc. — where the impact of these policies are felt. Did I say food banks and soup kitchens?

Which is not to say that participants won’t be recruited from there, or prisons, or child support agencies after a license has been revoked for nonpayment (not to worry, we have pro bono legal help to help any red-blooded American (male) father — excuse me, “noncustodial parent” — reconnect with his children.

It’s not as though it’s the first time they’ve published the same thing from different platforms, whether The Urban Institute, or Brookings, The Center for Research on Father, Child and Family Well-being (rearrange words to match logo, no matter how you cut it, the word “mother

” won’t be in the title), Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, and one I just found, above. In fact, I might make a patchwork quilt of the various logos and acronyms one day…

Then, more directly related to the courts, you have: AFCC, CPR, PSI, MDRC, BWJP (and the “Duluth model” groupings), MPDI, FVPF, and the entire NCADV nationalized network of knowing what’s up.

==========

Anyhow, just for fun, I strung together some of the author’s names, tossed in Sara McLanahan (who as I recall worked on the Fragile Families, or other research projetc) and hit Search:

Here are: (google search):

Kirk Harris, Ronald Mincy, Sara McLanahan, all Ph.D.’s

And here, from 2001, is a nice publication on how Community Foundations can help Fatherhood Programs.

(can anyone help me retain an infrastructure sufficient to support myself after becoming noncustodial and losing a profession while going to court, police stations, mediator’s office, child support office, two conferences in one year specifically addressed to help women in my situation (I couldn’t afford entrance fee and kinda talked/volunteered/audited myself in. It was great, and validating, and in the process of sharing some of my story (and protesting some “New Warrior” model program being promoted in one of them), I got a little PTSD, left my keys there, came home and almost spent a night on the street, until two (gentlemen) cooperated with phone calls to locate it, and I returned for the errant keys, and even made it to my job the next morning.

The key situation addressed how compromised my situation was, between the no credit, and the repeated job losses, such that I didn’t feel it appropriate to call up former colleagues or clients and ask for help I had family in the immediate area — that was out of the question for help, would compromise the hearings then in place. My phone was out, too. This happened to be in an area where the shops close up early. That was a few years ago. Situation is worse now. . . . that was only the FIRST year I had lost contact with the girls, and at the time I had at least one job left..

SO, here they are, and I wish to show part of that SQUID. Its intent is to affect (almost) everyone; but few get to realize how connected it is centrally. MOst of us are taught to think (especially in public schools) in a fragmented compartmentalized manner. Go to classes, do your homework, obey orders, and all will be well. There’s another life track for those who don’t buy that routine as well. Anyhow:

[PDF]

What Community Foundations Can Do (“Fathers Matter 2001”)

– 1:32pmFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
Casey Foundation and Ronald B. Mincy, then of the. Ford Foundation, drew more than 100 …… Sara McLanahan, Irwin Garfinkel, Yolanda Padilla. The …
http://www.cfleads.org/ccfy/toolbox/docs/ccfy_fathers_matter.pdf

This is a 38-page pdf. On page 30, “Funding for Fatherhood Programs.”

(note: women going to family justice centers aren’t generally told about these, at least last I checked, that they even exist!). IT lists various sources:

• State and Local Welfare Agencies
• State and Local Child Support Agencies
• Local Workforce Investment Boards (formerly Private Industry Councils, “PICs”)
  
• Foundations, among the largest listed:
  • The Coalition of Community Foundations
  • The Annie E. Casey Foundation
  • The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
    
  • The Ford Foundation
  • The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

(Poor, underappreciated bubba fathers, not enough Presidents, judges, scholars, initiatives, or foundations are paying any attention to them once she’s impregnated . . . . )

“Research demonstrates that fathers matter in the lives of their children.” (OK, whose? research. Who paid for that research? Go back to square one, and repeat til saturation point is reached).

This is not about the children, or the fathers. It’s the Road to Serfdom — no privacy, and a completely planned economy. It’s about money, certainly — but not primarily for the fathers, or the children. After all, our currency itself is debt-based, and the more low-income employment workers are around, the higher the profits for the tax-exempt corporations.

So, Steer Clear of the Squid.

It’s an economic, centralized (with multiple coalitions, or coalition of coalitions) system that sucks life out while promising to put it back in. The Inky Depths of the IRS collect $$ and bait of projects and conferences are dangled. Those who get some, get some. Then they learn to dangle bait of “we’re helping you” to others. … Show me reduced homicide rates, show me, fewer traumatized families. Show me a President who can acknowledge his birth mother and call her “my mother” in public! (Dr. Mincy, you too — you did all right, can we accept that you had a decent Mom somewhere along the line? What’s the story? Hit the top echelon and then work out your previous history on the rest of us? )

And like it does, if one of its tentacles is caught, it can regenerate, or even spare one or part of one. Individuals had better start re-tooling their lives to be prepared to do the same, because sooner or later it’s going to become a science fiction nightmare, except the fiction part

!By the way, another interpretation of the “Ink” (I don’t know if Squids do ink, but Octopi do. And I hear they’ve got large brains; scuttlefish are no dummies, nor octopi, nor squid. You can’t be a predator and grow large by being stupid…) – – is the “ink” on the page. Internet aside, that “ink” could be called the language.

Get an accountant, get to Guidestar.org, or get involved and ask questions.

Please forgive a rambling post; it helps me defer some of the more pressing concerns, but writing it is sort of like using a computer with too many programs running at once. The human body is not meant to run on emotional overdrive for such prolonged periods, but ongoing litigation where even winning a “point” or a favorable court order doesn’t bring closure (or even enforcement of the same), it’s wearing.

I just watched an elderly parent go, from afar, and cannot mourn, and haven’t heard from my kids since. The manipulations and conniving barely stopped a week for the memorial service, nor could I. For another example of this, google “Claudine Dombrowski,” whose petition is also before an international appeals.

The other day, I also ran across a humorous post by a young woman who fled overseas with her mother for safety, after Minnesota and the U.S. failed to protect her. The U.S. (I forget what stage this case is in, currently) of course wants her mother back to reprove her for failing to stick around and watch her kids be beaten, or herself. They lived in refugee camps for some years before getting asylum: Jennifer Collins.

She speaks back to Glenn Sacks, who has been “dogging” her mother’s case for years, on behalf of fathers everywhere. This young lady enquires about the silent MRS. Sacks. Some of us are thinking we might want to hear her side of the story . . .. .

And, FINALLY IN PHOENIX — An older daughter, being molested by her father, tells her pastors who encourage her to forgive him and restore the relationship. Boy, does that sound typical. Daughter #1 ages out. Later, Daughter #2 reports, and this time finally, something is done.

The pastors were arrested for their “failure to report.” I can’t think of a single example of this I’ve heard anywhere outside Catholicism. This practice would send a message to fathers that churches are not safe havens for perps. Here’s the story, and the blogger asks where was the mother here? (Invisible, as usual)

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/07/28/20100728phoenix-father-sexually-abuse-daughters-abrk.html

Phoenix father, pastors arrested in molestation case
by Krystal Klei – Jul. 28, 2010 10:34 AM
The Arizona Republic

A father was arrested on suspicion of molesting his two daughters, and two of the family’s pastors were arrested on suspicion of failing to report the accusations to authorities, according to the Phoenix Police Department.

The father was booked in connection with one count of sexual abuse, two counts of child molestation, and eleven counts of sexual conduct with a minor on July 9, Phoenix police spokesman Detective James Holmes said in a written statement. The Arizona Republic is not releasing the father’s name to protect the identities of the victims.

The man was arrested after his then 16-year-old daughter told a neighbor that she had been molested by her father for several years, Holmes said.

According to police, when the neighbor confronted the father about the accusations, he apparently admitted his involvement. The father also told the neighbor he knew what he was doing was wrong.

Following the confrontation, Phoenix Police officers were flagged down, Holmes said. The girl was with the neighbor when she talked to the officers, he added.

During an interview with Phoenix Police Child Crime detectives, the girl told officers of at least one instance of sexual intercourse, several instances of sexual contact over nearly a five year range, and of the molestation of her older sister by her father, Holmes said. He added that she told officers the molestation lead to her older sister moving out when she turned 18 years old.

PAUSE TO DO THE MATH: 16 – 5 == ______ yrs old when molestation began… One victim aged out, no problem, there were two girls involved.

According to police, the father admitted to sexually abusing both his daughters when questioned and was then arrested.

The older daughter, now 19, told her two pastors, Daniel and Laura McCluskey, about the alleged abuse in 2008 at Church On The Word on the 8000 block of West Camelback Road, but they did not report the accusations to police, according to Holmes.

Instead, the pastors met with the older daughter and the father. During the meeting, according to police, the father said he snuck into his daughter’s room at night to touch her. The pastors suggested the girl forgive her father, because he was repentant, Holmes added. The pastors told the girl to restore her relationship with her father.

They do the same when women report violence. Men, realizing this, suffering no public reproof, humiliation, shunning, nothing — get even worse. Our hell coulda been over with if these pastors cared as much about their flock as the wallets and services and “numbers” attached to leading their flocks. These are what the Bible called “hirelings” — they push “peace” when there is no peace. See Jeremiah 23 if you’re a Bible reader….

According to police, the father stopped sexually abusing his older daughter after meeting, but continued to sexually abuse his younger daughter.

Under Arizona Revised Statute, the pastors were arrested for their failure to report the abuse. The Statue states the pastors had the duty to report to Child Protective Services and/or law enforcement.

Under Arizona Revised Statute, the pastors were arrested for their failure to report the abuse. The Statue states the pastors had the duty to report to Child Protective Services and/or law enforcement.

The pastors were arrested on Tuesday in connection with one count each of failure to report sexual abuse, Holmes said.

Let’s see what the follow-up is. Will their flock say, well they repented (i.e., got caught) and we should take them back in?

Do stories like these ever make it all the way back to Washington, D.C.?  Apparently not — here’s the Housee Ways and Means COmmittee, same old, same old, in 2001 — must not’ve heard about situations like the one in Arizona (Or, the news coverage omitted that this Dad was a stepdad??  ? Because having a biological father in the home WILL cure society’s ills, fo’ sure..)

Child abuse occurs most frequently within stepfamilies, and, in fact, most sexual abuse occurs in stepfamilies.²⁴ Sexual abuse of girls by their stepfathers can be at a minimum six or seven times higher, ²⁵ and may be up to 40 times ²⁶ that of sexual abuse by biological fathers in intact families. When it comes to the risk of abuse with unrelated males, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead explains:

“Stepfathers also pose a sexual risk to children, especially stepdaughters. They are more likely than biological fathers to commit acts of sexual abuse, and are less likely to protect daughters from other male predators. According to a Canadian study, children in stepfamilies are forty times as likely to suffer physical or sexual abuse as children in intact families.” ²⁷

It is worth noting that stepfathers cannot make up for the lack of a biological father. In fact, Maggie Gallagher notes:

“Children in stepfamilies do no better on average than children in single-parent homes…Failing to understand the erotic relations that are at the heart of family life, they [sociologists] failed to predict what, sadly and surprisingly, later research strongly suggested: Remarriage is not only not necessarily a cure; it is often one of the risks children of divorce face” ²⁸

[EARLIER in this post — see it has footnote 3…)

Even a diligent absent father can’t supervise or protect his children the way a live-in father can. Nor is he likely to have the kind of relationship with his daughter that is usually needed to give her a foundation of emotional security and a model for nonsexual relationships with men… ³

Hmm….

Promiscuity, teen pregnancy, child sexual abuse, and ongoing difficulties in later family life are results of feminist misandry infecting society with a “father hatred” causing father-absence;

Well, there’s nothing like blaming half of humanity for the whole of humanity’s problems.   Oh, it’s only the misandrists, not ALL women . . . .  What do we then, call a husband who beats his wife?  A loving spouse concerned for her moral upbringing?

Father-absence promotes anti-social behavior as well as criminal activity and psychological problems.

Father-absence?  The older daughter, above, might’ve had to pick up with an inappropriate relationship (if not in college or financially independent yet) get to compensate for Father-PRESENCE — inside her vagina…

How about Pastor-silence?  During the next set of National Prayer Breakfasts, how’s about a moment of Silence representing the silence of the pastors on child abuse, including incest, and domestic violence within their ranks?

HERE’S DAVID BLANKENFOGHORN AGAIN, SELLING HIS BOOK ON FATHERLESSNESS:

Fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this generation. It is the leading cause of declining child well-being in our society. It is also the engine driving our most urgent social  problems, from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women. Yet, despite its scale and social consequences, fatherlessness is a problem that is  frequently ignored or denied. Especially within our elite discourse, it remains largely a problem with no name.

I had a father growing up.  So did my children’s father, growing up.  So did our own children.  NEVERTHELESS, our father’d childhoods met in respectable circumstances, married, and produced healthy babies, who also grew up with a father in the home — him.  But my kids’ and my own sleep was disturbed more than once by assaults.  One developed a sleep disturbance I know from nightmares from this time.  Sometimes they and more often I, was kept awake late (or wakened early) for lectures and interrogations.  I knew more poverty and violence in this marriage and trying to leave it, than I ever did growing up, or working. I got up, out, and back to work.  Family law put me down, him back in, exit the work, on both parents’ parts.  Your tax $$ at work.

My personal nightmare, to this day, is this man attempting to get back in my life, even without the children in it.  He “bought” this perfect family myth hook line and sinker, and it sunk us.  See “Squid,” above.

If this trend continues, fatherlessness is likely to change the shape of our society. Consider this prediction. After the year 2000, as people born after 1970 emerge as a large proportion of  our working-age adult population, the United States will be divided into two groups, separate and unequal. The two groups will work in the same economy, speak a common language, and  remember the same national history. But they will live fundamentally divergent lives. One group will receive basic benefits – psychological, social, economic, educational, and moral – that are  denied to the other group.

The primary fault line dividing the two groups will not be race, religion, class, education, or gender. It will be patrimony. One group will consist of those adults who grew up with the daily  presence and provision of fathers. The other group will consist of those who did not. By the early years of the next century, these two groups will be roughly the same size.

HE’S WRONG.  We are rapidly dividing into two social strata — those who pay taxes to enable demonstration projects to reinstate marriage, fatherhood, abstinence, parenting, and paying child support, and possibly with a little extra help from the True Parents, Rev. & Mrs. Sun Myung Moon’s contacts within American ultra-right.  INcluded in this group are the families owning or having started the foundations that endorse this.  The taxpayers will get poorer and poorer and eventually either jump ship (become a social scientist, clinical psychologist, or other form of behavioral trainers, or their support staff (the statisticians) — or, become the subject matter.  I predict there will be no middle ground sooner or later.

When Restorative Justices (circles) meets a need to draw some lines (Women leaving violence) — what’s next.

NO WORD FOR ‘PRISON’ from TheDefendersOnline:

January 20, 2010

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen

What does a woman do after coming-of -age in Birmingham in the 1950s, after losing two friends in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four little girls in the 1960s, after helping free her very high-profile sister from the clutches of the FBI’s Most Wanted List during the height of Black Power in the 1970s? What does she do after advocating for the end to Apartheid in the 1980s, after working as a Civil Rights trial lawyer through the 1990s?

Fania Davis

For Fania Davis, the answer is simple: Continue the fight by helping to increase the peace.

An Oakland, California-based lawyer and professor with a Ph.D. in indigenous studies, Davis is co-founder and Executive Director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY). RJOY’s mission is to “to fundamentally shift the way we respond to wrongdoing” by giving young people the tools they need to resolve conflict in holistic ways.

Davis’ sister is Civil Rights icon Angela Y. Davis, and her daughter, Eisa Davis, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright and Obie Award-winning actress. Fania Davis helped establish RJOY in 2004 after apprenticing with traditional healers around the world, particularly in Africa.

By bringing young people who are in conflict into a circle that implements restorative justice, RJOY has reduced suspension rates by 75 percent and helped eliminate violent fighting and expulsions at one low-income Oakland middle school,.

According to Davis, in most traditional languages there is no word for prison. Meanwhile, our land of the free has the highest incarceration rates in the world. If current trends do not change, one out of every three black men born today can expect to spend some time in prison. RJOY’s mission can help free our young people. Davis and I discussed old and new ways of thinking about conflict, retribution, and personal liberation.

========

RJOY makes a whole lot more sense to me than Wade Horn conversing with Ronald Mincy, Ph.D., Ron Haskins, and multiple others in remote academic institutions and collaborative (with each other) institutes, talking about their prime target subject matter, young underemployed black men, Fragile Families, Fathering Courts and a lot more theory, without exactly genuinely seeking outside input. In fact, it’s discouraged. I had to hunt these things down in an attempt to heal my own soul after being ravaged by the cognitive dissonance of the “family court” realm, in which theory is treated as if fact, and fact is treated as a psychological problem in the messenger relating the facts.

I don’t think that justice can be rebalanced by the same population that has no word for “mother,” which I have blogged on, also. The word I want is JUSTICE and HONESTY, too.

Here’s a sample of THAT dialogue — good grief:

Five Questions for Karin Martinson

Karin Martinson and Demetra Nightingale, coauthors of “Ten Key Findings from Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives,” reviewed studies of several programs for low-income fathers who don’t have custody of their kids. The programs are designed to help these fathers become more financially and emotionally connected to their children. Martinson answers five questions about the study and the lessons drawn from this early generation of programs.

RJOY works in a metropolitan area that is predominantly African American, Latino, and Asian. Restorative juvenile justice holds great promise not only in lowering overall rates of incarceration and recidivism but also in helping to eliminate unequal treatment of African Americans and Latinos…

…The process of bringing people together in face-to-face encounters also inherently reduces the “otherizing/demonizing” of young people of color that our adversarial criminal justice system tends to foster

It’s not the half of the adversarial systems that otherize and demonize young people of color. This can be done underhandedly and is done in social science cirlcles. I have started to become a “fly on the wall” (via internet) on some of the discussions, and they are unbelievably condescending. And the participants to say, “that’s ridiculous! ~ ~ you’re not SERIOUS, are you?” are not invited. Intentionally. And although the words may not be intended at face value, what they ARE serious about is continuing the programs.

Q: What led you to this program? Why are criminal and social justice so important to you?

A: Looking back, I see my life as sort of a quest for social transformation. [This was said in the introduction ] I come from a lineage of activism. My mother was involved in the Scottsboro Brothers case, the unemployed councils of the 1930’s, the Southern Negro Youth Congress and other progressive movements of her time. The Ku Klux Klan murdered two of my close childhood friends in the Sunday School bombing in 1963. This horrific event crystallized within me a passionate commitment to social justice, and for the next decades, I was active in the civil rights, black students’, women’s, prisoners’, peace and anti-hate violence and anti-apartheid movements.

I also helped lead the international movement to free my sister Angela who, based upon her radical activism, was falsely accused of murder and conspiracy to murder in 1970. Witnessing the remarkable lawyers on her defense team led me to the decision to pursue a legal career. After receiving my law degree from UC Berkeley, I practiced in the Bay Area as a civil rights trial lawyer specializing in employment discrimination.

However, by the mid-1990’s, after a lifetime of following the way of the warrior, I began to feel out of balance. I yearned for more healing, spiritual, and feminine energies to counterbalance the hyperrational, hypermasculinist and bellicose qualities I’d been compelled to cultivate as trial lawyer and activist. Serendipitously, I entered a Ph.D. program in Recovery of Indigenous Mind at the California Institute of Integral Studies and apprenticed with traditional healers around the globe, particularly in Africa. Not long after returning, I learned about the field of restorative justice. This was an epiphany. This new approach to justice—rooted in ancient indigenous processes—allowed integration of the healer and warrior and the spiritualist and activist within me.

Q: In what ways do traditional constructions of criminal and social justice differ from our Western approach to law and order?

A: Traditional and modernist constructions of justice differ in a number of ways. First, a communal and participatory ethos pervades indigenous justice approaches. Indigenous justice proceedings tend to involve an expansive range of participants. All affected persons are actively engaged—each of the parties in conflict, their extended families, traditional elders, and community members at large. The process tends to be consensus-based and more egalitarian than hierarchical.

On the other hand, in modern justice proceedings, the range of participants is quite restricted, typically limited to the two sides in conflict, along with a group of justice professionals who dominate the proceedings. Crime is impersonally viewed as an offense against the state rather than as an injury to a person or to relationships. The victim is usually excluded, except as a witness to support the “state’s” case. Offender-focused, modern justice asks: What law was broken, who broke it, and what punishment is deserved?

Ancient justice—and this applies to restorative justice too—is inherently more democratic and inclusive, actively engaging everyone affected by the wrong doing. It shifts the locus of the justice project from courtroom to community. It is balanced and wholistic, giving equal attention to victims’ needs, community interests, and offender accountability and growth. It asks: Who was harmed, what are the needs and responsibilities arising from the harm, and how do all affected collaboratively figure out how to repair it and prevent recurrence?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MY RESPONSE,

MY SKIN HAS LESS COLOR,

BUT MY HEART DOESN’T

Our U.S. culture overall is warrior, and angular, because that has been considered the Manhood Way, but I am beginning to think it is the (not so) Great White Way, in which until the last definition has been settled and funded from remote superior powers (networked through all agencies available) the superficial version of the INCLUSIVE AND INTERACTIVE CIRCLE will become a mere tool of the BOXED UP WORLD VIEW.

In the name of FIXING the world, this society is creating boxes, which creates eventually creates gangs, and that I can document.

I believe, and have blogged that there really is a ruling elite that intends to structure the rest of the world — without exaggeration — according to their image of it. They have inclusive circles, but most people are not in them. How come that’s not called a “gang”?

I am very moved by this remarkable site, and also disturbed because while this woman was being transformed and eventually came to establish a nonprofit that had a more natural and Indigenous way, addressing issues unique to the population and the civil rights climate, I was, as a white woman who’d found her communities outside the family that wasn’t there, for many years, including in and around many of thes epopulations (and through the arts), I found myself boxed in by the definition of this very CIRCLE view — of a single, unique household, Christian variety, Head/Doormat. This was apparently satisfying my white male spouse’s need to find HIS warrior side, having also had less than I of what one might call “family.”

The result was a lot of destructions, and physical injury, chaos, and constant competition. To get out, I had to DRAW THE LINE and find my warrior side, defining these behaviors as crimes, which they were, and were experienced as too.

Lo and behold, and there was a universal push, in the courts, that women exiting the situation be forced back in, under the “conciliation” and “whatsa matta with you, can’t you reconcile your differences?” No, I cannot reconcile my differences with violence, domination, and subjugation as a continuing directive in my life, and particularly not for my children’s. DEFINING TERMS and SETTING BOUNDARIES post separation allowed me to become a better mother to my daughters by — with a safety zone, now, though a virtual one on a piece of paper issued by a civil judge — engage in precisely that creative, in-person, rebuilding, networking and participating in the local community — as a woman, as a person, as a member of the world, which I could not do being treated as an alien within the marriage.

Given how much healing this world really does need, and the gaping hole in many successful people’s souls, I do know, I have only recently become willing to reconsider my own Christian religion. I am still considering whether it was just co-opted by some absolutely insane personalities (ruling ones), ignoring the transformative message of Jesus Christ, or whether the narrating of the world as ONE GOD is of itself the problem. See my “Defining the World” post.

Balanced people can negotiate with others; they EXIST as a person, and don’t need to win every encounter, as their definition has integrity, leaving time to actually see what another is doing.

We need our circles and our freedom.

However, we live in this world, this time, this country, this century, with this history, and our individual personal, family, and ethnic, racial, cultural histories also. I know.

But on another level, books such as The Chalice and the Blade, or Crone, or others re-introducing feminine spirituality are sometimes as forced and artificial as the masculine variety is, demonizing the symbol of the serpent (from former cultures, and associated with feminine gods), and women as a whole, sometimes works out in practice. Scratch that — DOES work out in process.

I have always felt that the place where dialogues can happen has to involve the arts. It has to involve our bodies, whether in dance, singing, painting, aikido, capoeira, and preferably in a place of total engagement. Maybe, outside, where this is snow, wind, breeze.

Somehow, plans drawn up in conference rooms with whiteboards, I just don’t know about that . . . .

If more of these are not released and allowed to permeate through our society, we are going to see more and more of alienated WHITE men trying to find their way back to life in unacceptable ways, like the more extreme, the married Phillip Garrido, who had in his backyard and a ramshackle set of tents, for 18 years a kidnapped woman, fathered two kids by her, utilized her innate administrative ability to help support his print business, and eulogized on-line about God and transformation with The Man Who Spoke with his Mind.

There’s a post on here about being Boxed In — a (kidnapped by a couple) woman literally kep in a coffin-sized box under a bed, when she was not out being used for sex, and tortured, for some YEARS. That was not a low-income man of color.

While these make headlines, what frightens me MORE (unless I do my season of life as Warrior Woman. . .. ) is the less overt, and under-reported sessions of men trying to fill up their blank souls, and regain their Warrior sides in male-only retreats (Robert Bly, New Warrior Training, The Mankind Project, etc.) and, having been thus transformed and restored to their “right” side, come back and pound on their women. PromiseKeepers has a side of this as well.

There’s a group out of Virginia, reportedly called “The Family.” A reporter, Jeff Sharlett, has managed to write on them. He also in 2005 got

Jesus killed Mohammed:

The crusade for a Christian military

By Jeff Sharlet

Gol-dang suicide by stupdity, assuming the  article is true. . ..

. . .

The Bradley seemed to draw fire from every doorway. There couldn’t be that many insurgents in Samarra, Humphrey thought. Was this a city of terrorists? Humphrey heard Lieutenant DeGiulio reporting in from the Bradley’s cabin, opening up on all doorways that popped off a round, responding to rifle fire—each Iraqi household is allowed one gun—with 25mm shells powerful enough to smash straight through the front of a house and out the back wall.

Humphrey was stunned. He’d been blown off a tower in Kosovo and seen action in the drug war, but he’d never witnessed a maneuver so fundamentally stupid.

The men on the roof thought otherwise. They thought the lieutenant was a hero, a kamikaze on a suicide mission to bring Iraqis the American news:

jesus killed mohammed.

---

When Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office in January, he inherited a military not just drained by a two-front war overseas but fighting a third battle on the home front, a subtle civil war over its own soul. On one side are the majority of military personnel, professionals who regardless of their faith or lack thereof simply want to get their jobs done; on the other is a small but powerful movement of Christian soldiers concentrated in the officer corps.

And, 2006, from “Soldiers for Christ: Inside America’s Greatest Megachurch” a description of the family as WAR, at the marriage of Ted Haggard’s son:

The morning service on the second Sunday of 2005 was devoted to the marriage of Pastor Ted’s eldest son, Pastor Marcus. It began with worship, just like an ordinary service, but the light show was a royal purple-and-gold, the hymns more formal, the dancing more ecstatic. I sat with Linda Burton in the front row; she curtsied and bowed, over and over, her right hand sweeping the carpeted floor.

Pastor Ted wore a black suit and a red tie. Earlier in the week, at a staff meeting, he had announced that he would use the wedding as an illustration, and to that end he delivered a lengthy prenuptial presentation with slides, in which he laid out a fractal-like repeating pattern of relations, shrinking and expanding: that of God to man, reflected in that of man to wife, which is in turn a model for a godly society. Just as we conform ourselves to God’s will, so, said Ted, must “the Woman.” The Woman must take on her man’s calling, her man’s desire.

“Mmm-hmmm,” murmured Linda, eyes closed.

In return, Pastor Ted continued, the Woman gets the Man’s love; authority just wants to serve. “Total surrender!” he called. “True or false?”

“TRUE!” answered the 8,000 assembled.

The Man is the Christ; the Woman is the Body. He is coming; she is the church; she must open her doors. United, they are the Kingdom, ready for battle. “The Christian home,” preached Pastor Ted, “is to be in a constant state of war.” This made many so happy they put their hands in the air, antennae for spirit transmissions. “Massive warfare!” Ted cried out.

The language of the Christian right was, I realized, hardening, collapsing. “Spiritual war,” a metaphor as old as the Gospels, has been invoked for the sake of power before—the Crusades, the conquest of the Americas—but for most of Christian history it has been no more bellicose than “jihad,” a term that once referred primarily to internal struggle. But the imagination of the Christian right has failed, and its language has become all-encompassing, mapped across not just theology but also emotions; across not just the Church but the entire world.

Perhaps the structures themselves were not conducive for personal interaction, unmediated unsaturated by collective identity. THis was in Colorado Springs. I hate to pollute the image of HOPE of DIALOGUE within this post, but I wish to remind us of some nice, neat, midwest sanitized reality ready to take on the world. This is an urban flight brave new world, forget history, forget your roots, sideline your intellectualism in favor of the cause brand of something entirely new, shiny, and artificial, in the genuine sense of humanity any circle of any healing might have. BUT, this reality too, exists. Look at the setting and the structure:

(from the same article):

Crime, of course, looms over this story. Not the actual facts of it—the burglary rate in and around Colorado Springs exceeds that in New York City and Los Angeles—but the idea of crime: a faith in the absence of it. And of politics, too: Colorado Springs’ evangelicals believe they live without it, in a carved-out space for civility and for like-minded dedication to common-sense principles. Even pollution plays a part: Christian conservatives there believe that they breathe cleaner air, live on ground untainted by the satanic fires of nineteenth-century industry— despite the smog that collects against the foothills of the Rockies and the cyanide, from a century of mining, that is leaching into the aquifers and mountain streams.

But those are facts, and Colorado Springs is a city of faith. A shining city at the foot of a hill. No one there believes it is perfect. And no one is so self-centered as to claim the perfection of Colorado Springs as his or her ambition. The shared vision is more modest, and more grandiose. It is a city of people who have fled the cities, people who have fought a spiritual war for the ground they are on, for an interior frontier on which they have built new temples to the Lord. From these temples they will retake their forsaken promised lands, remake them in the likeness of a dream. They call the dream “Christian,” but in its particulars it is “American.” Not literally but as in a story, one populated by cowboys and Indians, monsters and prayer warriors to slay them, and ladies to reward the warriors with chaste kisses. Colorado Springs is a city of moral fabulousness. It is a city of fables.

The city’s mightiest megachurch crests silver and blue atop a gentle slope of pale yellow prairie grass on the outskirts of town. Silver and blue, as it happens, are Air Force colors. New Life Church was built far north of town in part so it would be visible from the Air Force Academy. New Life wanted that kind of character in its congregation.

“Church” is insufficient to describe the complex. There is a permanent structure called the Tent, which regularly fills with hundreds or thousands of teens and twentysomethings for New Life’s various youth gatherings. Next to the Tent stands the old sanctuary, a gray box capable of seating 1,500; this juts out into the new sanctuary, capacity 7,500, already too small. At the complex’s western edge is the World Prayer Center, which looks like a great iron wedge driven into the plains. The true architectural wonder of New Life, however, is the pyramid of authority into which it orders its 11,000 members. At the base are 1,300 cell groups, whose leaders answer to section leaders, who answer to zone, who answer to district, who answer to Pastor Ted Haggard, New Life’s founder.

Pastor Ted, who talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday, is a handsome forty-eight-year-old Indianan, most comfortable in denim. He likes to say that his only disagreement with the President is automotive; Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas Pastor Ted loves his Chevy. In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation’s most powerful religious lobbying group, and also over a smaller network of his own creation, the Association of Life-Giving Churches, 300 or so congregations modeled on New Life’s “free market” approach to the divine. Pastor Ted will serve as NAE president for as long as the movement is pleased with him, and as long as Pastor Ted is its president the NAE will make its headquarters in Colorado Springs.

We have got to deal with this mental model also — it’s REAL, and it’s affecting a different set of communities. The mentality is immune to the worldly considerations of, say, laws, including laws against violence against women. And if this mentality is conscious of a discrepancy, a cognitive dissonance between the “she really wanted it, to be dominated forcefully and disappear into her man’s shadow” and “assault and battery is a misdemeanor or felony, STOP it or we will arrest you, religion or no religion” – – GUESS WHICH HALF is likely to prevail.

Only a little later, this godlike leader, crusader for Christ, was in need of some grace, but the authoritative structure didn’t quite have room for publicized sexual immorality; after all what would happen to the antihomosexual agenda and the redemption of the warrior masculinity in the populations of this world?

Disgraced Minister Fired From Church In Colorado

Associated Press
Sunday, November 5, 2006

COLORADO SPRINGS, Nov. 4 — The Rev. Ted Haggard was dismissed Saturday as leader of the megachurch he founded after a board determined the influential evangelist had committed “sexually immoral conduct,” the church said Saturday.

Haggard resigned Thursday as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, where he held sway in Washington and condemned homosexuality, after a Denver man claimed to have had drug-fueled trysts with him.

He also had placed himself on administrative leave from the New Life Church, but its Overseer Board took the stronger action Saturday.

“Our investigation and Pastor Haggard’s public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct,” the independent board said in a statement.

Haggard was “informed of this decision,” the statement said, and he “agreed as well that he should be dismissed.”

Haggard, 50, acknowledged on Friday paying the man for a massage and for methamphetamine, but said he did not have sex with him and did not take the drug.

[[This is yesterday’s news, but the inherent message goes on . . .. ]]]

I think we do have a culture unable to face its own sins and in need of Restorative Justice, not just in the young men of color parts, but perhaps a LARGE SWATH of these populations also war-torn and tired of the effort of keeping up the mask and mental myth of “America” will admit:  This theology, and the segmented society model is bringing out the worst in our men.p; they are killing themselves and their framilies, because they don’t know how to lose, to be an underdog in this society.

And we are going to talk about it, TOGETHER, us, and the Harvard Yale MIT Columbia Princetons along with the Libertarians who still don’t “get” what women have been angry about, along with the Patrick Henry colleges and the Baylor Universities, along with the unbelievably patronizing architects of

“Healthy Marriage Responsible Fatherhood Parenting Education Parental Alienation Access Visitation High-Conflict is a Crime” (but racketeering is not) language that has labeled every thing that moves, until it cannot move or sometimes even work without that label.

(sometimes I just keep talking until an appropriate string of analogies comes along.  Sometimes they don’t come along.  But when you see that serpentine string (I’m female, deal with it!), know that gushing prose is in FELT response to the expanse of the issue.  The gushing represents movement; the problem itself is frozen people.)

I expect there would be a fight.  And in a sense, yes, it IS about spirit.  What has happened to ours?

Speaking of movement, I need to.  There is much more on THEDEFENDERSONLINE.com that relates to this blog; for example, and another essay on fatherhood correctly identifies that it was a white man’s movement, and not having a father doesn’t automatically equal having a psychic wound.

Similarly, the Internet sometimes fails as a place of dialogue.  “talk to you later….”

Well, I promised Part 2 on the MILK Wars, so here’s some more material for rumination.

NOTE: Not for filing under “the author of Let’sGetHonest is an earth mother health nut.”

Well, the “nut” maybe, about health, plus some: subtract the earth, though

But I hope you file this under “the Pedigree of Ideas” and ask, what other nutty thinking fell off the same tree.

First of all, we saw how vicious the retaliation against small, self-sustaining and health-producing farms (and cows) who didn’t leave a large footprint, require cow food to be imported, or cows to be fed ground up parts of almost any refuse while stacked on top of each other, and use up more fossil fuel in the process of bringing their food in, and their output out, after which they could be abused some more shortly before slaughtering.

There MUST be some reasoning behind this. It’s clear some thought process went into trying to eliminate the small organic dairy farmers, and preventing people from choosing their own foods which don’t make them sick. Hmm…. It takes coordination to pull off a raid of a dairy farm, right?

THIS has a Business History, yes it does:

Not Milk: The USDA, Monsanto, and the U.S. Dairy Industry
By Ché Green

The dairy industry has spent billions of dollars convincing us that milk is healthy, all the while pumping chemicals into cows and the milk itself that makes it deadly.

Milk, they say, is an important source of calcium that helps kids grow up big and strong. Milk is said to contain vital nutrients and to help prevent osteoporosis. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, through its food dietary guidelines, says that everyone should get 2-3 servings of dairy every day. Milk is advocated by various agencies of the U.S. government, legions of physicians, and the $180 million annual advertising budget of the dairy industry itself. Britney Spears, Carson Daly, Neve Campbell, Spike Lee, and other fine celebrities have endorsed milk, decorating thousands of billboards with their mustachioed mugs.

And, indeed, America has a love affair with milk. The average person living in the United States consumes over 600 pounds of dairy products every year, including about 420 pounds of fluid milk and cream, 70 pounds of various milk-based fats and oils, 30 pounds of cheese, and 17 pounds of ice cream. In aggregate, U.S. dairy farmers produce 163 billion pounds of milk and milk products a year.

But what if Britney and Spike were lying to us? What if milk doesn’t do a body good? Instead, what if milk is a major contributor to breast cancer, heart disease, asthma, diabetes, and more? What if the U.S. government and the dairy industry are colluding to hide the ill effects of dairy consumption?

According to Amy Lanou, Ph.D., the nutrition director of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), “Besides prostate cancer, milk has been linked to asthma, anemia, allergies, juvenile-onset diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and ovarian and breast cancer.”

Why then, is milk still widely regarded as wholesome?

The USDA’s Food Pyramid Scheme

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to its mission statement, is charged with “enhancing the quality of life for the American people by supporting the production of agriculture.” Created by the pro-business Lincoln administration in 1862, today’s USDA has the dual responsibility of assisting dairy farmers while promoting healthy dietary choices for Americans. Not surprisingly, this creates a conflict of interest that puts at risk the objectivity of government farm policy and the health of all dairy-consuming Americans.

In December 1999, the PCRM filed suit against the USDA, claiming the department unfairly promotes the special interests of the meat and dairy industries through its official dietary guidelines and the Food Pyramid. Six of the eleven members assigned to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee were demonstrated to have financial ties to meat, dairy, and egg interests. Prior to the suit, which the PCRM won in December 2000, the USDA had refused to disclose such conflicts of interest to the general public.

I’m not done yet, not with this site. Because we have to look at that school system, and which populations are probably LEAST likely to be able to get out from under it.

”

Government Cheese

With the recent passage of the Farm Bill on May 13, 2002, dairy farmers and processors will receive $2 billion more in subsidies over the next three and a half years, largely realized through price supports that inflate costs for consumers. Dairy subsidies are a carryover from the Depression era, when survival of small dairy farmers was considered essential to maintaining a national food supply.

Today, a large chunk of that additional $2 billion in subsidies is going to large dairy farms in twelve northeastern states. Further, as consolidation continues to occur in the dairy industry, federal subsidies are going to an increasingly small number of highly concentrated dairy operations, hanging small farmers out to dry and encouraging the demise of family farms. This increase in large industrial farms bodes ill for both cows and humans.

Lactose Intolerance and Ethnic Discrimination

Another assertion of the suit brought by the PCRM against the USDA is that the status of milk as a staple in school lunch programs unfairly discriminates against non-whites who have a high incidence of lactose intolerance. In total, there are an estimated 50 million lactose intolerant adults in the U.S., including 15 percent of the white population, 70 percent of the black population, and 80 to 97 percent of Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Jews of European descent. These 50 million people suffer from a variety of digestive symptoms that result from consuming milk and other dairy products, including gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, and indigestion.

Currently, the USDA requires that every public school in the country serve milk. There’s even a push by Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) to offer financial incentives to schools that install milk vending machines (after California, New York is the second largest dairy-producing state). Further, students cannot get free or subsidized alternatives to milk, such as juice or soy milk, without a note from their physician, so for 70 percent of black kids in public schools, a negative response to lactose intake is practically mandated by the U.S. Government. Same goes for 90 percent of Asian American students and 74 percent of Native American students.

The PCRM asserts that huge dairy subsidies and broad-based promotion of milk by the government’s school lunch program is a form of economic racism that isolates minorities and encourages them to consume something they’re disproportionately intolerant of or allergic to.

rBGH and the Damage Done

Girls in the U.S. are beginning to menstruate at younger and younger ages. According to the Cancer Prevention Coalition, some girls are now experiencing the effects of puberty as young as three years of age. Fifty years ago the incidence of breast cancer risk among U.S. women was one in twenty, a percentage that has grown to one in eight women as of 2001.

Here’s a big part of the reason why: Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) is a naturally occurring hormone produced by milk cows. Closely resembling the natural growth hormones in human children, the presence of BGH in milk has been shown to significantly elevate hormone levels in people, creating a host of growth problems.

That’s not even accounting for the use of artificial hormones. Recombinant BGH (rBGH) is an unnaturally occurring, genetically engineered hormone produced by Monsanto Company, a giant in the agrichemical industry, which has also made such other fine ecological and humanitarian contributions as Agent Orange and PCBs. Through a series of research cover-ups and a network of conflicting interests with government policymakers [see sidebar], Monsanto in 1994 managed to get approval for Posilac, the company’s commercial form of rBGH, which increases cows’ milk production by an estimated 15-25 percent.

According to Monsanto, over a quarter of U.S. milk cows are now in herds supplemented with Posilac. The vast majority of the country’s 1,500 dairy companies mix rBGH milk with non-rBGH milk during processing to such an extent that an estimated 80-90 percent of the U.S. dairy supply is contaminated.

What Monsanto doesn’t tell consumers is that supplementing the American diet with additional growth hormones is causing secondary sex characteristics to appear earlier in young children, particularly girls. Monsanto also won’t tell the public that rBGH-injected cows produce milk with exceedingly high levels of Insulin Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1), a cancer promoter that occurs naturally in the human bloodstream at levels that generally do not result in tumors. Monsanto and the FDA refuse to acknowledge recent research directly linking elevated levels of IGF-1 to increased risk of breast and prostate cancer. Going even further, Monsanto and the FDA colluded in 1993 and ’94 to block labeling requirements for rBGH milk. Consequently, the average dairy consumer has no idea if they’re increasing their own risk of getting cancer.

Since 1994, every industrialized country in the world except the U.S. — including Canada, Japan, and all fifteen nations of the European Union — has banned rBGH milk. The United Nations Food Standards Body refuses to certify that rBGH is safe. Even the WTO, or more specifically its food standards body, the Codex Alimentarius, has refused to endorse Monsanto’s claim that rBGH is safe for use in the dairy supply. In the face of facts and the majority opinion of the global political and scientific community, Monsanto and the United States continue to endorse rBGH milk for general consumption, at the same time scratching their heads about increases in breast cancer deaths and the continually declining age of puberty for girls.

What about the Cash Cows?

Okay, so milk is bad for people. Really bad, in fact. But what of the effect on cows producing that milk? The life expectancy of the average cow in natural conditions is about 25-30 years; on the typical factory farm, where well over half of U.S. milk cows reside, they live only four to five years.

The increased milk production spurred by dosing cows with Monsanto’s Posilac causes them to suffer from mastitis, a bacterial infection of the udder, and widespread occurrences of cystic ovaries and disorders of the uterus. In addition to harming the cows, these conditions may produce discharges that are passed to consumers along with the milk.

It turns out that keeping dairy cows constantly pregnant — the only way they will produce milk — creates (surprise!) baby calves. The veal industry was created because the dairy industry didn’t know what to do with male calves that otherwise had no economic value to dairy farmers (female calves are the future milk producers). The process is cruel from start to finish: the cows are artificially impregnated by being bound to what the industry terms a “rape rack,”

{{Good grief — see my blog under “the Pit of Despair” and experiments, conducted by a man of course, on monkeys, i.e., Maternal Deprivation results in craziness such that they couldn’t have sex as adults. No problem, this dude came up with a “rape rack,” thereby probably starting the movement against cruelty to animals in laboratories. I kid you not — rape racks?? At what point in time does the process migrate to human beings, who are being treated like lab rats through this system and for $$, to start with? ???}}

then injected with a series of bull semen, hormones, and antibiotics; veal calves are then immobilized in small wooden crates so that they can’t move around, therefore ensuring the tenderness of their flesh when slaughtered. Over a million veal calves were slaughtered in the U.S. in 2001.

In the end, it boils down to a familiar story: Big business and the U.S. government joining forces to dupe the American consumer. The USDA tells us to drink more milk while subsidizing large dairy farms and federally mandating dairy consumption for schoolchildren. The government spends billions to buy unused milk and dairy products, one of the biggest forms of subsidies, while the industry spends almost $200 million every year promoting dairy consumption. Meanwhile, The FDA and Monsanto conspire to pollute the already unhealthful dairy supply with a genetically engineered hormone banned virtually everywhere else in the world.

So while the American public might fairly answer the dairy industry’s ubiquitous question of whether it “Got Milk?” with a resounding, mustachioed “Yes,” the better question might be whether people have gotten screwed in the process.

~ ~ ~ ~

Ché Green is the founder and director of The ARMEDIA Institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization focusing on farm animal issues in the United States. http://www.alternet.org/story/13557/

Fair Use Notice: This document may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owners. We believe that this not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law). If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

(ME TOO, obviously). ..

ARE YOU UPSET YET? I HOPE SO, EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIVE IN THE U.S.A. …

THE LINK ABOVE HAS AN INSET NEAR THE BOTTOM (NOT PASTED HERE) CALLED “MONSANTO’S MOO JUICE.” (more on hormones)

Read it please. Towards the bottom, is a phrase about “incestuous relationships between Industry and the U.S. Government. . . . advisory boards (FDA) made by scientists and executives from the meat and dairy industries, with a few university executives thrown in for good measure.”

NOW do you see why I’m blogging this?

Of course, in social science, a lot more university academics can be brought in, BUT the funding often comes from some major foundations. Their wealth didn’t come from being middle class employees, typically (maybe originally), but you can be sure that the recommendations for fixing society will recommend the employee route, not the acquiring assets that will spin off some wealth (whether sales, investments, or owning businesses that have profits and almost run themselves) which might leave certain ethnicities time to think about WHY their kids are ending up in prisons, or in school systems which not only underperform, but push food that they might have some innate intolerance to, producing further health problems.

Or become themselves part of the ACADEMIC and CORPORATE food chain, namely the subject matter of experimentation IN social science field and behavioral management fields.

FORCES intent on centralization and eliminating competition MUST be nationalized.

For example, look at the school system.  THIS  is from today:

2. Many States Adopt National Standards for Their Schools – NYTimes.com

   Jul 21, 2010 … Many States Adopt National Standards for Their Schools … The common core standards, two years in the making and first released in draft …

I am not an Arne Duncan fan.

Below here is more data about MILK questioning WHY we Got’s to have it . . . .

But I think the Monsanto article kinda nailed the situation.   Anyone remember a  reference  to babies and cow’s  milk from the garden of eden?

KINDA makes me think of CRONE, and the migrations and evolutionary change from agricultural societies to nomadic.

MOST things can be measured more clearly by the profit motive than a psychological diagnosis.  Whatever the excuse for certain economies to work, there have to be forcible consumers.  More and more low-wage workers equals higher profits for the employers.

IF LOS ANGELES ALONE can keep a taxpayer’s rights group tied up in the courts for over a decade, and about a mere $30 million, how would such a mentality with more scope and reach act given authority over an entire nation?

Don’t blame just a President — none of them operates in a vacuum  (although you’ll pick up I am no Obama fan.  I noticed prior to election the Messiah-like claims; Clinton was no different (I voted Obama, incidentally).   Perhaps generations of dumbing us down has taught even the most academic to let their opinions be formed elsewhere.   They study and someone else pays the bills ….)

MORE MILK LOGIC:

FIRST OF ALL, in NATURE, who, generally speaking, sucks milk from Mama?

I could be wrong, but generally speaking in Mammals, YOUNG mammals.

Therefore, to fix this, young Mamas should always nurse and not do cow’s milk, right?

Well, not necessarily; it depends on what drugs they are on (none, let’s hope)>

Well, if they don’t abuse drugs, or alcohol, then it’s cool, right?

Not necessarily: as the first article points out, what she eats counts, too. And if she eats cows fed some of the stuff we read about in the last article, or other indirect forms of pesticides and growth hormones, well, maybe not.

And if she’s in a very abusive situation, it’s possible some of the stress hormones (which can really get out of whack) may affect her milk too.

Some of the articles below might make us go “Huh?” and question, along with the concept of eliminating mothers and introducing instead child care workers, as well as the consequences of the dairy industry sucking up to the captive audiences in the school systems, and then we wonder what’s with the behavioral problems, obesity and other things associated with this — and consider which ethnicities in particular, are going to be stuck in the public school systems, we might want to reconsider a thing or two.

After a few articles, I’ll just put up some links — it’s been a long day …. I’LL DO THE LINKING AND YOU CAN DO THE THINKING, if you want to, including how come the nation’s banks and all ages’ of health needs so much regulating that the ship is SINKING.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

FIRST, a little Common Sense from Dr. Kradkjian, whoever he is (I used search function to locate articles on the topic):

THE MILK LETTER : A MESSAGE TO MY PATIENTS
Robert M. Kradjian, MD
Breast Surgery Chief Division of General Surgery,
Seton Medical Centre #302 – 1800 Sullivan Ave.
Daly City, CA 94015 USA

"MILK" Just the word itself sounds comforting! "How about a
nice cup of hot milk?" The last time you heard that question
it was from someone who cared for you--and you appreciated
their effort.

The entire matter of food and especially that of milk is
surrounded with emotional and cultural importance. Milk was
our very first food. If we were fortunate it was our
mother's milk. A loving link, given and taken. It was the
only path to survival. If not mother's milk it was cow's
milk or soy milk "formula"--rarely it was goat, camel or
water buffalo milk.

Now, we are a nation of milk drinkers. Nearly all of us.
Infants, the young, adolescents, adults and even the aged.
We drink dozens or even several hundred gallons a year and
add to that many pounds of "dairy products" such as cheese,
butter, and yogurt.

. . .

I believe that there are three reliable sources of
information. The first, and probably the best, is a study of
nature. The second is to study the history of our own
species. Finally we need to look at the world's scientific
literature on the subject of milk.

Let's look at the scientific literature first. From 1988 to
1993 there were over 2,700 articles dealing with milk
recorded in the 'Medicine' archives. Fifteen hundred of
theses had milk as the main focus of the article. There is
no lack of scientific information on this subject. I
reviewed over 500 of the 1,500 articles, discarding articles
that dealt exclusively with animals, esoteric research and
inconclusive studies.

How would I summarize the articles? They were only slightly
less than horrifying. First of all, none of the authors
spoke of cow's milk as an excellent food, free of side
effects and the 'perfect food' as we have been led to
believe by the industry. The main focus of the published
reports seems to be on intestinal colic, intestinal
irritation, intestinal bleeding, anemia, allergic reactions
in infants and children as well as infections such as
salmonella. More ominous is the fear of viral infection with
bovine leukemia virus or an AIDS-like virus as well as
concern for childhood diabetes. Contamination of milk by
blood and white (pus) cells as well as a variety of
chemicals and insecticides was also discussed. Among
children the problems were allergy, ear and tonsillar
infections, bedwetting, asthma, intestinal bleeding, colic
and childhood diabetes. In adults the problems seemed
centered more around heart disease and arthritis, allergy,
sinusitis, and the more serious questions of leukemia,
lymphoma and cancer.

I think that an answer can also be found in a consideration
of what occurs in nature & what happens with free living
mammals and what happens with human groups living in close
to a natural state as 'hunter-gatherers'.

Our paleolithic ancestors are another crucial and
interesting group to study. Here we are limited to
speculation and indirect evidences, but the bony remains
available for our study are remarkable. There is no doubt
whatever that these skeletal remains reflect great strength,
muscularity (the size of the muscular insertions show this),
and total absence of advanced osteoporosis. And if you feel
that these people are not important for us to study,
consider that today our genes are programming our bodies in
almost exactly the same way as our ancestors of 50,000 to
100,000 years ago.

WHAT IS MILK?

Milk is a maternal lactating secretion, a short term
nutrient for new-borns. Nothing more, nothing less.
Invariably, the mother of any mammal will provide her milk
for a short period of time immediately after birth. When the
time comes for 'weaning', the young offspring is introduced
to the proper food for that species of mammal. A familiar
example is that of a puppy. The mother nurses the pup for
just a few weeks and then rejects the young animal and
teaches it to eat solid food. Nursing is provided by nature
only for the very youngest of mammals. Of course, it is not
possible for animals living in a natural state to continue
with the drinking of milk after weaning.

IS ALL MILK THE SAME?

Then there is the matter of where we get our milk. We have
settled on the cow because of its docile nature, its size,
and its abundant milk supply. Somehow this choice seems
'normal' and blessed by nature, our culture, and our
customs. But is it natural? Is it wise to drink the milk of
another species of mammal?

Consider for a moment, if it was possible, to drink the milk
of a mammal other than a cow, let's say a rat. Or perhaps
the milk of a dog would be more to your liking. Possibly
some horse milk or cat milk. Do you get the idea? Well, I'm
not serious about this, except to suggest that human milk is
for human infants, dogs' milk is for pups, cows' milk is for
calves, cats' milk is for kittens, and so forth. Clearly,
this is the way nature intends it. Just use your own good
judgement on this one.

Milk is not just milk. The milk of every species of mammal
is unique and specifically tailored to the requirements of
that animal. For example, cows' milk is very much richer in
protein than human milk. Three to four times as much. It has
five to seven times the mineral content. However, it is
markedly deficient in essential fatty acids when compared to
human mothers' milk. Mothers' milk has six to ten times as
much of the essential fatty acids, especially linoleic acid.
(Incidentally, skimmed cow's milk has no linoleic acid). It
simply is not designed for humans

WHAT I THINK HE’s SAYING HERE IS, APART FROM WHETHER THE MILK IS RAW OR COOKED, OR WHETHER THE COW IT CAME FROM WAS TREATED AS A LIVING ANIMAL, OR A LIVE PROFIT-MAKING MACHINE, OR FED CRAP AND THEN DRUGS TO PRODUCE MORE, EVEN PERFECT RAW COW’S MILK FROM HAPPY BESSIE MIGHT NOT BE THE NORM. IN FACT (NEXT ARTICLE) IT COULD BE AN EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTION FOR CERTAIN NOMADIC TRIBES TO KEEP ON DRINKING IT, AND NOT NECESSARILY JUST THE MASAI.

GOT MILK? What else comes with it:

• Are you Lactose-Intolerant or Lactase Persistent?

It may depend on “Who’s Your Daddy?

STUDY LINKS ETHNICITY AND LACTOSE INTOLERANCE

Dairy & Milk Allergy

Dr. Frank Oski, the late Director of Paediatrics, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, wrote a book titled “Don’t drink your milk!” This pioneering book written more than 25 years ago, described in detail, the diseases caused by taking cow’s milk. These included leukemias, ear infections, nephritis, skin problems, diabetes, atherosclerosis, breast cancer, and auto immune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. He also found that cow’s milk caused gastrointestinal bleeding in babies leading to iron deficiency anaemia. Allergy to cow’s milk is increasingly seen both in adults and children, due to the presence of pesticides and due to the widespread administration of antibiotics, animal residues, growth additives and hormones in the cow’s feed. In contrast people who drink cow’s milk and take milk products, taken from cows which graze naturally on grass in fields, have a much lower incidence of allergy to cow’s milk. With safe inputs to the cow the output (milk) will also be safe. In India, milk allergy is common in big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Madras & Bangalore where imported milk powder from the European community is used to provide reconstituted milk. Milk allergy in India used to affect less than 5% of the general population in 1990. In my estimation over 50% of people who live in the metropolitan cities of India suffer from health problems caused or aggravated by milk and milk products, beef & gelatin (commonly used to make capsules). Capsules made from gelatin are used commonly to administer antibiotics and vitamins. Many vegetarians are unable to digest this animal protein, and suffer from nausea & diarrhoea because of the capsule. This side effect is wrongly ascribed as a side effect to the use of the antibiotic, and disappears when the same medication is given as a tablet! In the same cities those people who consumed cow’s milk from their local dairy continued to have a low incidence of allergy (less than 5%). With the increasing promotion of commercial fodder, enriched with animal wastes, fish meal, hormones and antibiotics as well as the use by various cooperative milk producing societies, the incidence of milk allergy is rising in other parts of India. This allergy to cow’s milk is normally unsuspected and undiagnosed, and is a common cause of many health problems including stomach pain, peptic ulcers, hyperacidity, hiatus hernia, chronic diarrhoea, Ulcerative colitis, Type1 (childhood onset) diabetes, asthma, eczema, depression, hyperactive or aggressive behaviour, backaches, infertility, endometriosis., ovarian cancer, Rheumatoid arthritis and flatulence.

WHY THIS POST.

I’m a little defensive these days at taking issue with Rep. Danny K. Davis, or Ronald B. Quincy, or Wade Horn saying how much he loves families, and children, and THAT’s why inner-city (especially faith-based) initiatives are being targeted to move the HHS policy, namely, regulating our sex lives, childbirths, work lives, and legal system.

URBAN AREAS (who designed ghettoes, by the way?  Who designed where the functional grocery stores were?  Who put together their school systems?  Who determined in individual cities, where the rich folk live?  Poor folk?  (not exactly).  The US Prison system is full of young men of color, yet I don’t see that crime is particular to color.  Just PROSECUTED crime.

Now if the aftermath of (1) slavery and (2) institutions designed to support it, and we must admit that a war was fought over states’ rights to perpetuate slavery (which is an ECONOMIC theme, and color or race just the justification, or even (i hope formerly), scripture) obviously is going to affect a culture’s marital choices, what kind of sense does it make to then BLAME the women for being single and having children without marrying the fathers, to COMPLAIN that a welfare system exists, and then totally revise it to tip the balance the other way?

NONE.   It’s either justice, or profiling.  PICK ONE.  You can’t have both at the same time.  Accordingly, it’s either “manhood” or “personhood.”  Persons come in male and female, and need each other; what we do NOT need is one side dicttating to the other side just to keep order in the room.  “HEALTHY MARRIAGES” are not made in heaven, or conceived in the mind of a Wade Horn or of a Wade Horn whose programs have been conceived in private and promoted in public, once the federal gran stream was set in motion.  HEALTHY MARRIAGES don’t have invisible matchmakers.  Same with healthy SOCIETIES.  They stop making society-altering decisions behind closed doors.  The word “healthy” itself is a value judgment, and should go jump in the lake.

And I do not buy that it’s a left/right issue.

I am a female, non-minority 3rd generation domestic violence survivor with a college education.  I WATCHED my life dismantled up close and participating, and I OBSERVED while in the middle of it who did this in association with whom, and eventually their WHYs surfaced.  They always do.  I am not the same person going in as coming up, except for a few basics which I got, probably from my family (including a deceased father) OUTSIDE the school system.

I have seen school systems public and private, large and small, religious and nonreligious (and worked in a lot of them).  The primary lessons I observed growing up were nothing to do with subject matter and everything to do with values.

The primary values I observed, starting early, were about bullies, gangs, and how a small child must either join one, disappear into the woodwork (or, sometimes for girls, daydreaming) or fight back.  I fought back once for a girlfriend who was being harassed, sexually (about 5th/6th grade level) and was taken on by males & females both, by the entire (very small) school yard (several grade levels) at recess — for weeks, it seemed.  I did some time in a private school: same deal.  I didn’t tell my parents and my siblings didn’t help either.  These were not poor kids or minority kids, they were what KIDS do when in herds and without something better to engage in.   I did some time in a private school: same deal. Eventually, I gravitated to more urban areas to live in, possibly because there were interesting things to do there, and more types of people to associate with than I grew up with.

I went to TheLoop21.com, a blog I read, hoping it might explain from a different perspective how we understand that part of this race thing is economic.  I googled “domestic violence,” and found this article, by a man to a man, and the man blogging also has connections to Columbia.  He is saying, the concept of trying to put black women down LOWER because their men have already been put there isn’t exactly smart.

He has a second blog on the gun issue, which I think I’ll post next.

If I pick on African-American Healthy Marriage Institutes, and highly educated black males, Harvard, Columbia, MIT, etc. (our President just married into Harvard) it’s from the perspective  of an educator with some understanding of the influence Harvard has had on the current school systems, and how they are (under)performing.

And of how when it comes to Black vs. White, there is always a WOMAN somewhere that can symbolically be put in her place.  I hope, some day, that some of these highly-fronted black pastors will get tired of picking up the pieces of the homeless, presiding over funerals of young men AND WOMEN, and the ceaseless need to send chaplains into prisons, and re-prioritize between needing the ASSISTANCE of government, and their own need for tithes to pay mortgages, and do like Jesus did.  NOTICE the woman at the well, and take a NONstandard approach to her.

The governmental plan is a planned society, and “creating jobs” and helping match boys with girls (but not til they’re married), and people with jobs.  It’s failed.  There is also the “theory” that right versus left is going to make a difference.  Not as far as mothers can tell, I assure you.

This reads better on the original link, but I have bolded some sections below.

Let me recommend, first, these two, no, three, books.  None too recent:

• THE END OF MANHOOD (wikipedia link; by John Stoltenberg)

Career

He holds degrees in divinity and fine arts. He is well known as a feminist activist and author. He has written a series of books and articles criticizing traditional concepts of manhood or maleness, such as “Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice” (Meridian, 1990), “Why I Stopped Trying to be a Real Man,” [1] and “The End of Manhood: A Book for Men of Conscience” (Dutton, 1993).

{{THIS basically talks about men’s responses to a situation when in a group, as opposed to alone.  When they cater to the group, justice loses.  He also (with humor) characterizes the ideal male, and engages in conversations with him, after reaching the top of the heap.  Masculinity is identified with Hierarchy, so one is NEVER secure on the ladder, no matter where on it one is.  Made sense to me…  In an appendix, or is it preface, he talks about betraying his sister, and relates that she’d commented “it didn’t go down like that” (approximate quote).  Cruelty was involved.}}

He created “the Pose Workshop,” which entailed men adopting the poses that women strike in pornographic shots (intended partly for men attending Christian retreats), a version of which was broadcast on BBC television. He was Andrea Dworkin‘s life partner for thirty-one years. They began living together in 1974; in 1998 they married. He is a founder of the group ‘Men Can Stop Rape’ [2] and developed the group’s ‘My Strength’ [3] campaign which aims to educate young men on sexual relationships, consent and rape. He also creative-directs the group’s ‘My Duty’ [4] sexual-assault-prevention media campaign, which is licensed to the Department of Defense, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. [5]

Stoltenberg is credited with the quote “Pornography tells lies about women. But pornography tells the truth about men.” The quote is from the essay The Forbidden Language of Sex in his book “Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice” (Meridian, 1990).

Below is not a picture of Stoltenberg, but of Andrea Dworkin, his wife, who died at age 58, making Stoltenberg, who is gay, a widower.  I want us to think about the headline here, and whether we really want to continue along nationalizing the canonization of sex roles as MEN are ABC and WOMEN are XYZ (or else).  So far, from men, we have plenty of bad things (rape, pornography, war, theft and slavery and pyschology to rationalize some of the above) and plenty of good things (beautiful buildings, the internet — I THINK this is a potentially good thing still — the Bill of Rights, and some others).  Moreover, they make sex more interesting when they get it right and can be fully present as a PERSON.  Culture isn’t making it easy, but hear tell this happens (my marital experience was too violent outside the sex to allow either him — or for that matter me — to present what we had AS PEOPLE.  It couldn’t bear the weight (“wait’?) of all that junk or redeem it, nor is this what sex is for…)

MAYBE people are just tired of being used, and find different ways to express this and respond to it.  But here’s an article on Andrea Dworkin, and her photo.

The Prisoner of Sex

A victim of abuse as a child, briefly a prostitute as a young woman, Andrea Dworkin married a gay man and spent three decades fighting hypersexualized America. She lost.

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• By Ariel Levy
• Published May 29, 2005

Andrea Dworkin, April 20, 1990. (Photo: Elsa Dorfman)

When John Stoltenberg, the widower of the feminist writer and anti-pornography activist Andrea Dworkin, the woman whom Gloria Steinem called the feminist movement’s “Old Testament prophet,” first met his spouse, he remembers feeling “like we had walked off a cliff.” As if the force of their connection had rendered the world weightless beneath his feet. He was 29 and she was 27, and they started talking out on the street in the West Village after they’d both walked out of a benefit for the War Resisters League because they thought the protest songs were sexist. They started spending most of their time together. Dworkin and Stoltenberg both considered themselves gay. “She said, ‘I met someone,’ ” remembers Dworkin’s lifelong agent, Elaine Markson, “ ‘and it’s a man

. . .

Once she found a home for her rage in the anti-pornography sect of the women’s movement, Dworkin became America’s least likely superstar—a kind of inverted sex symbol. There were other feminists who were as zealous in their conviction that pornography was the “undiluted essence of anti-female propaganda,” as Susan Brownmiller once put it, but nobody else could elicit the same disgust and fascination from the public as Andrea Dworkin—they didn’t have her overalls or her anger; they weren’t as big.

. . .

he really would yell at her audiences: “The First Amendment was written by slave traders!”

Dworkin wasn’t big on compromise, and she wasn’t one for looking on the bright side. Much of society is set up specifically to assist people in their process of ignoring the horrors of the world. Dworkin’s agenda was the opposite. She had little sympathy for anyone with too weak a stomach to dwell with her in the darkness. “The worst immorality,” she wrote, “is in living a trivial life because one is afraid to face any other kind of life—a despairing life or an anguished life or a twisted and difficult life.”

Dworkin was molested or raped at around age 9—the details, in her writing, and according to her closest friends, are murky, but something bad happened then. In 1965, when Dworkin was 18 and a freshman at Bennington, she was arrested after participating in a march against the Vietnam War and was taken to the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village, where she was subjected to a nightmarish internal exam by prison doctors. She bled for days afterward; her family doctor looked at her injuries and started to cry. Dworkin’s response to this incident was her first act of purposeful bravery: She wrote scores of letters to newspapers detailing what had happened, and the story was reported in the New York Times, among other papers, which led to a government investigation of the prison. It was eventually torn down, and in its place today is the idyllic flower garden at the foot of the Jefferson Market clock tower on Sixth Avenue.

Like many members of the women’s movement, Dworkin started out as an antiwar activist and found her way to feminism when she became disillusioned with the men of the New Left. . . .

Because she wanted adventure and experience, and because she wanted to escape all the media attention following her battle against the prison, and because her family—her mother in particular—was deeply ashamed that she had been jailed, Dworkin decided to leave Amerika for Europe when she was 19.

More bad things happened there. She ran out of money and turned some tricks. For a time, she had a passionate romance with a man in Crete—“We’re so much joined in the flesh that strangers feel the pain if we stop touching,” she wrote—but somehow she left her beloved perch above the “gem-like surface” of the Aegean and married a Dutchman, an anarchist, who beat the living shit out of her.

Years later, Dworkin’s comrade Susan Brownmiller, the author of the radical feminist classic Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, spoke out against Hedda Nussbaum’s complicity in the murder of her daughter, Lisa Steinberg. In response, Dworkin published a piece in the Los Angeles Times called “What Battery Really Is,” in which she tried to explain her experience—Nussbaum’s too, she asserted. “When I would come to after being beaten unconscious, the first feeling I would have was an overwhelming sorrow that I was alive. I would ask God please to let me die now. My breasts were burned with lit cigarettes. He beat my legs with a heavy wood beam so that I couldn’t walk. I was present when he did immoral things to other people. I didn’t help them. Judge me, Susan.”

IN THIS ONE ARTICLE, ABOVE, I RELATED THINGS THAT ARE THE FREQUENT FABRIC OF THE FAMILY LAW SYSTEM, AND WHILE ALL PROFIT OFF THEM, FEW CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE.  Andrea Dworkin pretty perfectly represents the profile of an Adverse Childhood Experience adult; she went from molestation at NINE, to what sounds like sexual assault, to the point of injury, by a prison doctor,  spoke out about it bravely, to leaving the country (family support gone) to prostitution for survival, to being battered, and had enough of heterosexuality.  She was obese, had health issues and died early.  She never had a child.

She was a young white woman who had been attending Bennington, not exactly the urban minority status deprivation profile that Healthy Marriage things are aimed at.  Of course, her experiences predated a lot of this.

HOW MUCH OF THIS WAS ENABLED BY HER (INTACT?) FAMILY OF ORIGIN.  WHO COVERED UP THAT INITIAL MOLESTATION.  THEY COULDN’T STAND BY AND SUPPORT HER AFTER THE VALIANT PUBLICITY TO SHUT DOWN THE PRISON?

She went through hell in the realm of sex, and took hell for protesting it, she left the country being barely an adult, surely without a work life to support her yet.

One thing survivors of some of this kind of abuse have is a sense of justice and valuing it, they fight back for their “personhood” and often make a difference.  They also have a LOT of anger, and justifiably so.  If society (particularly religions society) won’t let it out, it will maybe go in.

Another factor I see in the above account is how, being battered, she stood by while others were hurt, probably for her own survivla.  The anti-feminists who like to say, women are just as violent, might do well to take some of this into account.

A last thing I see is, she had to eat.  It was a MONEY issue.

As to hypersexualized, and mis-use of women, which none of the authors (today) are appreciating, here’s a telling phrase:

Dworkin’s dissection of gender in that book, her assertion that “ ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are fictions, caricatures, cultural constructs . . . reductive, totalitarian, inappropriate to human becoming,” was to Stoltenberg a revelation, and he quoted that passage in a book he published in 1989 called Refusing to Be a Man, which he dedicated to her

The overdefinition of the world (I think I have a blog of this title) tends to violence.  We all need some definitions to navigate life.  But we cannot LIVE outside our own definitions if we don’t sometimes break the boundaries.  I bet there’d be a lot more healthy faith, marriages, and businesses if so many “powers that be” (they are not immutable) would just give it up and allow the rest of humanity a little privacy.  That’s not a friendship, labeling someone else!  That’s not help, and that’s not reality.  The reality is, all of us are capable of change, until perhaps the last breath.  But the capacity for change is not always allowed by the communities we live in.  So, we find other ones.

The need to continue having other kinds of communities is one of THE biggest arguments I can make against the “Healthy Marriage Responsible Fatherhood” funding.  Trying to dominate the discussion beyond legitimate reach, whether pro, or con, has GOT to be a fundamental original sin, if such exists in the world.

I don’t really think that life without sex is healthy.  There’s plenty of indication it’s good for you — but not like Andrea experienced it!  On the other hand, sex minus one’s soul isn’t much better, particularly if nothing from the relationship contributes to the moments.  Such a choice . . . .

(Obesity can become a form of protection from rape, or even “dealing” with men, one can protect onesself, theoretically, with extra flesh.  Also, stress hormones don’t help maintain lean body weight in women.  I was not molested OR battered as a kid, so I can certainly understand Andrea’s size, possibly, from that angle.)

After separation, and once my life became more balanced and healthy, the health followed, and I lost a lot of weight, kept it off a good while, began really enjoying life in my own body again, a major turnaround to regain control of this primary area.  I also experienced loving another human being (adult), which I couldn’t do to a husband that didn’t want my humanity in the marriage, and even the services were always DEMANDED, so it was hard to give anything voluntarily, though ways were found in smaller spheres.

BUT because we had a typical family court order (frequent contact with the father), this was seen, and became an issue, I saw increased escalations, possibly from jealousy (things were said, not just done, indicating this), and after a few years of that, the stress helped put the weight back on.  Clearly I was not “allowed” to have my feminine gender back along with him out of the house.  Large madonna, if separated from him (and bearing the bulk of the responsibility financially and as to parenting) was acceptable — individual functioning in the larger world of work and friends, was NOT.  I paid heavily, and so did my kids and others associated.  That is craziness, to me, to be punished for functioning OK in this world!

And years later, I see who was partially responsible.

OK, BOOK #2:

AND — another side of the same coin, from an orthodox Rabbi who received an award  from the National Fatherhood Initiative.  So, am I balanced, OK?  But his writing has some sense, and sensitivity.  As with other google searches, I initially forgot to include the author’s name, and the title of the book brought up more shocking Schlock, violent and ugly in intent.  Such qualities are spiritual qualities, and they “suck,” to put it bluntly.

This is

• HATING WOMEN:  AMERICA’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE FAIRER SEX
  

Boteach envisions a way to correct this downward spiral — which he sees as far more than just a feminist issue. Now is the time, he says, for men to start respecting women and for women to start respecting themselves. Women must band together and fight back for their rightful place of honor. For anyone who has ever wondered where our popular culture is taking us, HATING WOMEN is at once an electrifying social commentary and a clarion call for change.

He doesn’t deal with economics [of slavery, of women as a class] at all, and is focused more on the popular culture.  Nevertheless, he describes archetypes (all of them negative, male & female), and correctly observes that a woman CAN run her life without a man, if possibly without the drama attached, and at the end of the day, everyone will still be alive, which cannot always be said from the other side.  He talks about the Circle(s) (Feminine) vs. the Lines.  Reminds me of the (broader in scope) The Chalice and the Blade.  Given the warlike and hard character of today’s society, I have to grant there is some truth in the analogies.  Possibly the Fatherhood Initiative appreciated him telling WOMEN they need to MAKE them be better men, if necessary by boycotting sex til they are, nationally etc.

Obviously, he hasn’ been dealing with the family law system, where a man will go get another woman, then go extract the children from the Mom.  Or, vice versa.  In worst case scenarios, the father gets back by having sex with the kids instead.  So how practical is that theory, really, that it’s our responsibility to make men grow up?

Shmuley Boteach makes the wise point that misogyny is the ultimate weapon against the family, the culture, and the spirit. He breathes new life into this feminist point by stating it as a father of girls. Who knew it was to be an orthodox rabbi that would so cleverly critique the dumbing down of the American culture through the attack on female intelligence? I am proud to be his friend.”
– Roseanne Barr

“The next evolutionary leap for humanity will happen with the feminine archetype of our spiritual domain becomes the dominant force that shapes culture and history. This book is an important contribution toward increasing our awareness of this very basic principle.”
– Deepak Chopra

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Over the past decade Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has made a name for himself not only as an author (penning the likes of Kosher Sex and Why Can’t I Fall In Love?) and counsellor, but also as a friend of the stars, hanging out with Michael Jackson and grabbing headlines in the process.

But not any more. Because Rabbi Boteach has turned his back on the celebrity world – and is so concerned about the public’s obsession with stars and their lives that it forms the basis of his latest book The Private Adam. Initially inspired by a sermon he gave at the 1998 Preacher of The Year competition (he came second), the book focuses on how celebrities have been elevated to hero status over more ‘worthy’ role models, and how the balance can be redressed. Rabbi Boteach clearly feels strongly about the issue, and the time he has spent with public figures both on a social and professional level leaves him well qualified to write on the subject.

AND, well, this one, too while I’m at it:

• BACKLASH:  America’s Undeclared War on Women – Susan Faludi – AND “STIFFED”
  

(1991 / 1999)

• Faludi’s 1991 book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women argued that the 1980s saw a backlash against feminism, especially due to the spread of negative stereotypes against career-minded women. Faludi asserted that many who argue “a woman’s place is in the home, looking after the kids” are hypocrites, since they have wives who are working mothers or, as women, they are themselves working mothers. This work won her the National Book Critics Circle Award for general nonfiction in 1991.^[1]

BACKLASH, being before VAWA or NFI were formed, or President Clinton issued his famous 1995 Executive order, telling ALL federal agencies to revamp themselves to accommodate Fatherhood, has a chapter on WARREN FARRELL and his change from feminist to fatherhood promoter, anecdotal.  This ties into some of the groups NOW BEING PROMOTED (the Mankind Project, New Warriors Training, Robert Bly, etc.) among men, and should be read.

It also has another chapter talking about HOW the DSM board, basically all male  handled feminist and domestic violence issues, narrowly preventing a term about “masochism” from being mainstreamed.   This is far before “Parental Alienation” theory, and after reading that, I realized why Psychology is simply Reframing Reality Conveniently, and should not be practiced as a national policy.  NB:  The newly reformed Warren Farrell (who I’ve blogged already, plenty, and so have others) works through A.P.A. (psychological) organizations.  It’s an eyeopener, for sure.

• In her 1999 book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man Faludi analyzes the state of the American man. Faludi argues that while many of those in power are men, most individual men have little power. American men have been brought up to be strong, support their families and work hard. But many men who followed this now find themselves underpaid or unemployed, disillusioned and abandoned by their wives.
  
• {{True, but an inferior character of man responds to this by wife-beating, which is also a cause of men not having women around.  We have not in this answered the question of where responsibility for behavior lies.  I say, the only proper place for it is in the individual.  Those setting policy and in the topmost echelon (this includes foundations, remember, not just legislators) think otherwise and have a designed a society that communicates its distrust of the individual from the TOP throughout the system.  It couldn’t have done this without the IRS and the progressive income tax, collecting I presume billions from people who already have employers interest in profit margins staying high.  But that’s another topic.  I should get this book, and will.}}
• Changes in American society have affected both men and women, Faludi concludes, and it is wrong to blame individual men for class differences, or for plain differences in individual luck and ability, that they did not cause and from which men and women suffer alike.^[2]

Her bio (wikipedia):

Faludi was born to a Jewish family in Queens, New York in 1959 and grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York. Her mother was a homemaker and journalist and is a long-time New York University student. Her father is a photographer who had emigrated from Hungary, a survivor of the Holocaust. She graduated from Harvard University in 1981, where she wrote for The Harvard Crimson, and became a journalist, writing for The New York Times, Miami Herald, Atlanta Journal Constitution, San Jose Mercury News, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Throughout the eighties she wrote several articles on feminism and the apparent resistance to the movement. Seeing a pattern emerge, Faludi began to write Backlash, which was released in late 1991. She lives with fellow author Russ Rymer.

Unlike orthodox Rabbi Boteach, who now has nine children and was raised in Los Angeles and Florida, and is known more as a public commentator (and author), Susan Faludi is first generation post-Holocaust, a Pulitzer prize-winner and journalist.  Any children are not mentioned here.

By contrast, His wikipedia bio is short, and doesn’t even mention a mother (hmm….):

Born in Los Angeles, California, Boteach grew up in Florida. Boteach’s father was an Iranian Jew from Isfahan.

While Faludi was in the U.S. in the 1980s, writing about feminism and observing it, the Rabbi was sent to to Oxford to start student groups.  He is younger, and from a different part of the world (Iran vs. Hungary), and has attached more to celebrities and radio than books and journalism.

Finally (and this is where the blog started — I get long intros, for sure…), Marc Lamont, younger yet, and blogging, but still associated with Columbia University.  A wordpress blog describes him:

I must admit that I am a big Marc Lamont Hill fan, a professor of African-American Studies and Education at Columbia University; he is an intellectual; he has a certain “sense” of vitality and cockiness that I like. Moreover, he is smart and realizes it, especially when dealing with pundits that make various contentions predicated on pure emotions — as was the case the other day by Bill O’Reilly on The factor. Their debate centered around race and politics. And more, it dealt specifically with matters regarding the Tea Party and the New Black Panthers…. Both of these groups deal with complex issues of race, but the Tea Party tends to be more covert than that of the panthers.

And the Columbia Bio

Professional Background

Associate Professor of English Education

Educational Background

Faludi:  Born 1959; Boteach — born 1966; Hill — born 1978.  OK

This letter, below, although addressing a different topic, makes more sense to me than any hyperbolized attenuated social science theory propagated by Wade Horn, and friends (black or white) in various places (Washington, at universities, or at church-sponsored conferences).  Don’t they realize, this population is being FRONTED to pass socialization policies that are going to hurt ALL CULTURES AND ECONOMIC CLASSES except the MOST elites, of any country, and those serving their agenda?

“An open letter to Slim Thug How much more “down” do you want Black women to be?”

By: Marc Lamont Hill (Add to your loop)

Wed, 06/09/2010 – 00:11 0

Slim Thug made some very untrue and hurtful comments about Black women. In a recent interview, rapper Slim Thug unleashed a very disturbing attack on Black women, here’s an excerpt: …Most single Black women feel like they don’t want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now. They have to understand that successful Black men are kind of extinct. We’re important. It’s hard to find us so Black women have to bow down and let it be known that they gotta start working hard; they gotta start cooking and being down for they man more. They can’t just be running around with their head up in the air and passing all of us.

I have a brother that dates a White woman and he always be fucking with me about it saying, ‘Y’all gotta go through all that shit [but] my White woman is fine. She don’t give me no problems, she do whatever I say and y’all gotta do all that arguing and fighting and worry about all this other shit.’… While many people dismissed it as a publicity stunt or the rant of an ignorant rapper, I felt compelled to respond to him in the form of an open letter.

Slim, A few days ago, you made comments in Vibe magazine that have caused a great deal of controversy. While I appreciate your willingness to offer your opinion in public, you made several statements that were not only unfair and untrue, but deeply damaging to our community. Normally, I would reach out to you privately, but since your comments were made in a very public place, I feel compelled to respond in the same manner.

A Black woman’s say on the Slim Thug debate As an artist who is respected by millions of fans, particularly young ones, I found your comments to be hurtful and irresponsible. For good or for bad, our children follow the lead of you and other artists for everything from fashion and slang to self-esteem, body image and relationships. Imagine how a young black girl feels to hear from you, her role model, that her “standards are too high” and that she should “bow down” and “settle for less.” Consider the pain that our beautiful brown skinned babies feel when Yung Berg says he doesn’t date “dark butts.” Think about the self-esteem of our community when Nelly refers to our mothers, sisters, and daughters as “Tip Drills.”

As celebrities, your public comments are not just your own. Instead they influence the choices, beliefs, and lives of an entire generation of young people who look to you for direction. Of course, you have every right to say things that you think are true. The problem, however, is that there was very little truth in your comments. In your interview, you talk about how much better white women treat their partners than black women. If what you’re saying is true, why do Whites have the highest divorce rate of any group? Do white men get tired of being treated like kings?

In reality, it seems that you are buying into (and selling) a stale but dangerous ideal that constructs White women as ultra-feminine, loving, queens, and Black women as angry, selfish, and untrustworthy hoes. Even more disturbing was your comment that “Black women gotta start being down for their man more.”

Since slavery, Black women have had to withstand rape, torture, and humiliation (from both white and black men) in order to sustain their families. Now, in 2010, 1 in 3 Black men between 20 and 29 years old are incarcerated or otherwise under criminal supervision. Every day, Black women are raising children without men in the house, working multiple jobs (for less pay!), and supporting brothers as they finish their prison bids.

With Black male unemployment as high as 50 percent in some cities, sisters are often holding down households without child support or other financial assistance. Black female incarceration rates are skyrocketing, partly because Black women are “riding” for their men, hiding guns and drugs, operating as mules, and refusing to snitch to authorities.

In addition, Black women are the group most likely to be victims of domestic violence and the least likely to be married. Still, in spite of all this bad news, Black women are less likely to date outside their race than Black men. How much more “down” do you want Black women to be?

Let’s focus on what’s right in the lives of Black women I agree with you that both brothers and sisters have work to do. Over the last year, we’ve seen countless TV shows, movies, and bestselling books telling Black women how broken they are, how ugly they are, why they don’t have a man, and how they need to behave. Instead of adding to this pile of pain and ignorance, I would encourage you to turn the mirror on yourself. How does the image of the pimp/player/baller/dopeboy promoted in your music help to create the “gold diggers” that you badmouth in your interviews?

How might your own admitted failures at monogamy undermine the type of loyalty that you find missing in Black women? Criticizing the vulnerable is easy. Working on yourself is the difficult part.

I hope you don’t take this letter as an attack, but as an act of concern and love from one brother to another. Through your fame and wealth, you have tremendous power. You can use it to hurt or to heal, to injure or to inspire. The world is watching. What will you do?

Your Brother, Marc Lamont Hill Marc Lamont Hill is

Associate Professor of Education at Columbia University. He blogs regularly at MarcLamontHill.com. He can be reached at marc@theloop21.com.

ABOUT:

About

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading hip-hop generation intellectuals in the country. His work, which covers topics such as hip-hop culture, politics, sexuality, education and religion, has appeared in numerous journals, magazines, books, and anthologies. Dr. Hill has lectured widely and provides regular commentary for media outlets like NPR, Washington Post, Essence Magazine, and New York Times. He is currently a political contributor for Fox News Channel, where he appears regularly on programs such as The O’Reilly Factor, Huckabee, and Hannity. Prior to joining Fox News, Dr. Hill was a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, and CourtTV. A nationally syndicated columnist, his writing appears weekly in Metro Newspapers. His award-winning daily blog is updated on his website, www.MarcLamontHill.com.

In Fall 2009, he join(ed) the faculty of Columbia University as Associate Professor of Education at Teachers College. He will also hold an affiliated faculty appointment in African American Studies at the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University.

OK, Here’s Jesus (by the way, I bet Jesus was black, at least by European standards.  Egypt is, after all, part of Africa, and he went down there with his parents (sic) to hide, earlier Moses (coming out) was mistaken for an Egyptian also.  There are certain places in United States where I wouldn’t blend in too well, but apparently they did.  Most of us tend to reflect a good portion of ourselves onto others, but sometimes this really gets out of hand.

ANYHOW, as recorded, HE was NOT a good role model.  He had a profession, but was not employed in it.  He didn’t have the right credentials (academic initiation) and MOST of all, he was not a landowner, a business owner, a husband, or a father.  In our day  he might have been considered a  burden to society, on this basis alone.  To be in the Sanhedrin, you had to have a wife & kids, so he didn’t qualify there.  Maybe, had He lived longer, He might’ve had kids.  Or seen the destruction of Jerusalem in his lifetime, after having become a landlowner, father, and respected member of the community.

If so, maybe then we wouldn’t have to deal with all this Fatherhood Crap and pay for it, too, as if it was His idea, when one of his later comments, protesting the divisive legalism of RIGHT (codified and interpreted from above) vs. THEM, which had this man hauling (without gender discrimination) “men and women” out of their homes and put into jail, later writing:

But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ (NOTE the voluntary character, there?)

There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female (he just there hit the prime distinctions of his time, AND OURS:  “bond” refers to indentured servants, i.e., slavery)

for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

(Galatians 3)

One has to kinda respect comments like that one.

There is always plenty of bloodshed going around, usually in the name of God, or some justice, or some theory.  But these are the words of an “elite” zealot who TURNED, and did some cultural migrations, before which he had been responsible for murders in the name of his religion, from what we can tell.

Nowadays we take things much too literally, in this culture, the figurative and parables were understood.  “Christ” represents the word “anointed” and something spiritual, good, and transformative received from God, something eternal, something that has closer to a pure quality of concern for others than any program ever will.  It also required of those who received it, change of attitude as exemplified by change of behavior (and NOT vice versa!)

Such kinds of beliefs ALWAYS shake up the economic situation, which is generally based on USE of people, and extracting things from them to keep the machinery going.

And like I pointed out before, Jesus was crucified and (now, though it’s commonly understood, I think) Paul was eventually beheaded in a Roman prison, or certainly died there.

We are currently living in a highly managed, and intentionally so, society.  WHERE PEOPLE ARE is becoming more and more stratified, and where they can work, also.  This is most definitely turning parasitic, and until we begin to understand it in some new light which is NOT based on force, and NOT based on institutionalizing others, but personally CHANGING and SERVING (in person) by living with the people one teaches (versus delegating others to do this, and extracting finances from the larger group to carry out delegated programs) . . .

it’s going to get worse before it gets better.  People are fired up about causes, but they have lost something vital as to HEART in dividing up the world so neatly. Others, experiencing the downside of this, are struggling not to lose HEART to simply survive and find a meaning in it.

It is indeed a STIFF, HARD, STRANGE and BEAUTIFUL WORLD, and with some luck, chaos, chance, fortune or the simple weight of the superstructure collapsing the thing, will lead to some change for those who survive the collapse.  I hope this includes my offspring, and I’d like to be there also.

(well, another 6,000 word post, what can you say?  I write because I am?  Writing helps speak me into existence?  Will blogs outlive people?  Though this isn’t a “fatherhood initiative,” will it bear some fruit and propagate after someone tastes it?

(That’s not my responsibility; I just write!)