The Angry Dad

Phony rape statistics

2012-01-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

Christina Hoff Sommers write in the Wash. Post:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a study suggesting that rates of sexual violence in the United States are comparable to those in the war-stricken Congo. How is that possible?

The CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that, in the United States in 2010, approximately 1.3 million women were raped and an additional 12.6 million women and men were victims of sexual violence. It reported, “More than 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced rape, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hailed the report for giving “a clear picture of the devastating impact these violent acts have on the lives of millions of Americans.”

In fact, what the study reveals is the devastating impact that careless advocacy research can have on truth...

The agency’s figures are wildly at odds with official crime statistics. ... It found them by defining sexual violence in impossibly elastic ways and then letting the surveyors, rather than subjects, determine what counted as an assault.

The rates of domestic violence and other crimes are actually going down, so the leftist-feminists keep changing the definitions and survey methods in order to promote alarmism and their man-hating social policies.

Turn the clock back 40 years

2012-01-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

A leftist-feminist news site reports:

Since the 1970s, New Hampshire police have operated under a progressive policy for handling domestic violence cases that has saved countless lives. Under current law the presumption is that an arrest will be made when police observe evidence of abuse. They have a large degree of discretion and don't need to witness the assault firsthand or obtain a legal warrant before they can separate the alleged attacker from his victim.

All that will change if Republicans get their way. The state's GOP legislators are pushing two bills that will reverse a half century of progress, the Concord Monitor reports:

Domestic violence is no longer taken lightly legally or by society. That's the way it should be, but two bills under consideration by this most unusual of legislatures, would undo that progress and put lives in danger. Both deserve a speedy defeat.

House Bill 1581 would turn the clock back 40 years to an age when a police officer could not make an arrest in a domestic violence case without first getting a warrant unless he or she actually witnessed the crime. That's an exceedingly dangerous change.

I haven't seen the bill, but if it turns the clock back 40 on domestic violence policy and gets these progressives so upset, it must be good. The New Hampshire cops have a policy of always arresting someone on a domestic violence call. That someone is usually the man. That starts an even worse chain of events. Not even the San Fran sheriff can get a fair hearing.

Touch

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

I just watched the pilot for Touch, a new TV series that Fox describes as:

Blending science, spirituality and emotion, the series will follow seemingly unrelated people all over the world whose lives affect each other in ways seen and unseen, known and unknown. At the story’s center is MARTIN BOHM (Kiefer Sutherland), a widower and single father, haunted by an inability to connect to his emotionally challenged 11-year-old son, JAKE (David Mazouz). Caring, intelligent and thoughtful, Martin has tried everything to reach his son.

The kid has autism and never talks to or touches anyone. But he is really a genius who climbs cell phone towers so that he can control cell phones all over the world. He spends all day scribbling the number "318" onto paper over and over. Meanwhile, the dad is constantly fighting with a CPS social worker who is scheming to take the boy away from him, and institutionalize the boy.

Yeah, I know, it is just a silly TV show. But there are probably some family court judges who watch this junk and think that they are learning to be experts on autism. At least the show portrays a dad as being a dad, in spite of hostility and disapproval from all of the prejudiced govt officials and shrinks that he encounters.

This country is destroying my family

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco Examiner reports:

Despite the impassioned pleas of Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s wife, a judge has renewed a court order barring him from seeing or contacting his spouse or son until his domestic abuse trial is over.

“This country is trying to pull my family apart,” Eliana Lopez told Judge Susan Breall at her husband’s arraignment Thursday. “This is the real violence, I believe.” ...

Breall, who handles domestic violence cases for the court, said, “When you cry out for help, you don’t always cry out for police intervention. But the police are involved in this case, and a child is involved in this case.”

Breall said Lopez “clearly is educated, intelligent … a strong individual, and quite charming.”

“I believe that Eliana never wanted this to go to this extreme and end up in court,” the judge added. But she reiterated her concern for the couple’s young child and said the situation remains “extremely volatile.” The police arrest warrant affidavit more than justified renewal of the stay-away order, she said.

“I’m going to treat this case, at this point, like every other,” Breall said.

Outside court, an emotional Lopez told reporters that “this country has not allowed me to work on my marriage in a healthy way. I feel like … everybody is using my family, myself, in a political game just to destroy Ross.”

She added, “This country is destroying my family.”

Yes, this country is destroying her family. The prosecutor, judge, cops, and double-crossing friend have all contributed. But most of all they are being destroyed by laws. American laws encourage child custody disputes instead of shared custody, arrests even when no victim makes a complaint, restraining orders designed to bust up a family, hearsay used as evidence in court, child punishment that is called child protection, always blaming the man, assuming the woman is incompetent to assert her interests, exaggerating a minor tiff into a criminal case, ignoring the marital privilege, etc.

This case is an example of how our American laws and law enforcement system are evil and have the purpose of destroying families.

Yes, I know that both the husband and wife have apparently made private remarks that make them look bad. So what? Most people have intimate conversations that would embarrass them if broadcast to the world. They are finding out who their friend are:

Well-known politicians have mostly shied away from the domestic violence case against Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, but not former Mayor Art Agnos, who has become the embattled sheriff’s most prominent public defender. ...

“I know this man and this woman. They love each other. They support each other. They love their child. They want to be together again. It does not rise to the level, in my opinion from what I know as an intimate friend, to anything close to domestic violence,” Agnos said.

He went on to suggest the charges were politically motivated, and said Mirkarimi should continue serving as sheriff during the legal proceedings.

Ross Mirkarimi and Art Agnos are radical leftists with all sorts of anti-American views that are only popular in San Francisco. They belong to the movements that brought us these Orwellian domestic violence laws. I hope that this case gets a lot of publicity, so that everyone can see how ridiculous the laws are.

God's Jury

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

A new book titled God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World, by Cullen Murphy has gotten a lot of attention. It is medieval history combined with leftist rants about Gitmo and other modern-day political issues. The point of this book, according to a Boston Globe review, is:

Kurt Vonnegut once wrote something that predicted the contents of this fascinating book. “You want to know something?’’ Vonnegut wrote. “We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages - they haven’t ended yet.’’

I just heard the author interviewed on NPR. He says this, about the Spanish Inquisition:

MURPHY: Well, it's a very typical case. Women were tortured, just as men were. There was no discrimination based on gender. And this was the interrogation of a woman from Toledo. And she had fallen under suspicion because neighbors had said that she did not eat pork. So she was suspected of Judaizing. So she was put on the rack. Here's a verbatim transcript of what happens as the winches are being turned.

(Reading) She was told to tell what she had done, for she was tortured because she had not done so, and another turn of the cord was ordered. She cried, loosen me, senores, and tell me what I have to say. I do not know what I have done. Oh, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. More turns were ordered, and as they were given, she cried, oh, oh, loosen me, for I don't know what I have to say.

This reminded me of family court. The family court authorities were always trying to get me to confess to something, but never telling me what I was supposed to admit.

The medieval Spanish inquisitors were enlightened liberals compared to the hateful anti-Christian bigots Irwin H. Joseph and Ken Perlmutter.

Sixteenth century Spain had a law against practicing the Moslem and Jewish religions. Heresy was also a crime. It was a reaction to the country having been previously conquered by Moslems, and the Christians having to live as second-class citizens. By today's standards, Spain overreacted, I guess. But Spain was civilized compared to the American family court. Spain had rule of law. A citizen of Spain had a clear understanding that practicing Judaism or Islam was illegal, and that if he engaged in the customs of the forbidden religions like refusing to eat pork, then he would come under suspicion.

For all its faults, the Spanish Inquisition never took kids away from their parents.

By contrast, I am accused of setting an alarm clock for 7:00 to wake up my kids for school, and for entering them in a math contest above their grade level. This was not contrary to any rule of law that is written down anywhere. Even if I had narcissism or aspergers, these are not banned as Judaism or Islam were in 16th century Spain. And yet Joseph, Perlmutter, and others have acted to take my kids away. No, they have not put me on the rack yet. I don't want to exaggerate. But they have also acted with cruelty and spitefulness in ways that the medieval inquisitors did not dare act.

The above book makes a big deal about the two Moslem terrorists who were subjected to water-boarding in order to extract intelligence about future attacks. That seems trivial to me. We have millions of kids who do not see their dads because of evil corrupt bigots like Joseph, Permutter, and Judge Heather Morse. These officials are torturing kids and parents out of their personal ideological hatreds, and not because of any rule of law.

New autism definition

2012-01-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Judge Heather Morse took my kids away, saying that I might have a biological disorder such as Asperger's Syndrome, even tho the shrinks said that I did not.
The criteria for such a diagnosis has been very controversial among the experts:

Proposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and might make it harder for many people who would no longer meet the criteria to get health, educational and social services, a new analysis suggests. ...

The results of the new analysis are preliminary, but they offer the most drastic estimate of how tightening the criteria for autism could affect the rate of diagnosis. For years, many experts have privately contended that the vagueness of the current criteria for autism and related disorders like Asperger syndrome was contributing to the increase in the rate of diagnoses — which has ballooned to one child in 100, according to some estimates. ...

The proposed changes would probably exclude people with a diagnosis who were higher functioning. “I’m very concerned about the change in diagnosis, because I wonder if my daughter would even qualify,” said Mary Meyer of Ramsey, N.J. A diagnosis of Asperger syndrome was crucial to helping her daughter, who is 37, gain access to services that have helped tremendously. “She’s on disability, which is partly based on the Asperger’s; and I’m hoping to get her into supportive housing, which also depends on her diagnosis.”

The new analysis, presented Thursday at a meeting of the Icelandic Medical Association, opens a debate about just how many people the proposed diagnosis would affect.

The changes would narrow the diagnosis so much that it could effectively end the autism surge, said Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine and an author of the new analysis of the proposal. “We would nip it in the bud.” ...

At least a million children and adults have a diagnosis of autism or a related disorder, like Asperger syndrome or “pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified,” also known as P.D.D.-N.O.S. People with Asperger’s or P.D.D.-N.O.S. endure some of the same social struggles as those with autism but do not meet the definition for the full-blown version. The proposed change would consolidate all three diagnoses under one category, autism spectrum disorder, eliminating Asperger syndrome and P.D.D.-N.O.S. from the manual. Under the current criteria, a person can qualify for the diagnosis by exhibiting 6 or more of 12 behaviors; under the proposed definition, the person would have to exhibit 3 deficits in social interaction and communication and at least 2 repetitive behaviors, a much narrower menu.

Here is the new DSM-5 definition:

Autism Spectrum Disorder
Must meet criteria A, B, C, and D:

A. Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across contexts, not accounted for by general developmental delays, and manifest by all 3 of the following: ...

B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities as manifested by at least two of the following: ...

C. Symptoms must be present in early childhood (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities)

D. Symptoms together limit and impair everyday functioning.

Condition C makes autism impossible to diagnose in adults, without evidence of it as a young child. Condition D means that it cannot be diagnosed for just an eccentric personality; it must cause some sort of daily disability. In particular, TV characters such those on The Big Bang Theory and Bones would not qualify.

Condition A sounds like what can be called "not a people person". But it does not just mean anti-social habits. The person has to have some inabilities in social interactions.

Condition B seems just like harmless personality characterists to me. They include stereotypced use of objects, intense interests, and fascinations with spinning objects. Studies consistenty show that boys like to play with objects more, while girls play with dolls more. There is nothing pathological about having stereotyped male interests. In the DSM-5, it is only a symptom if conditions A, B, and D are also met.

Even if any of these things were true about me, they should have no bearing on the family court unless there is some demonstrated harm to the child. No one even alleges any such harm. It is not the law or the public policy in California to take kids away from parents who have some anti-social personality characteristics or intense interests or fascination with spinning objects.

The effeminate psychologists might say that it is better to be a people person than not. I don't agree with that. It is not my personal experience. There are no scholarly papers demonstrating that. There is no law giving preferential treatment based on that. The people person might make a better nurse but a worse engineer. And it is certainly no business of the family court.

Seattle paper exposes DV problems

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

The Spearhead blog quotes an article on domestic violence:

The Seattle Weekly, a middle-brow, usually liberal Seattle publication, has come out with a long article about the abuses men are subject to in family court. Those of us who have been through it are already all too familiar with what happens, but people are still surprised by the blatant anti-male bias ...

Given their extremely rushed proceedings, family-law commissioners often punt to such “expert” evaluations to make recommendations that can be heard in later hearings. Smith did that in Richard’s case, ordering a “risk assessment” from a counselor who specializes in domestic violence.

Richard says he welcomed the assessment. “OK, great,” he says he thought. “Now I’m going to go to somebody whose job it is to ferret out the truth.” He says he didn’t even mind paying the $1,000-plus fee.

But when counselor Doug Bartholomew came out with his report a month later, Richard was even further in the hole. The counselor did say that he couldn’t determine whether Richard had assaulted his wife. Yet Bartholomew still recommended that Richard attend a domestic-violence treatment program, as well as a class called “DV Dads.”

Why? For one thing, he held out the possibility that Richard was dangerous. He attached extreme importance to the engineer’s attempt to have the counselor look at a mental-health self-evaluation his wife had done. “Since submitting someone’s private records against their will is so inherently antisocial, it raises the question of whether or not he’s capable of similar ‘stop at nothing’ behavior,” Bartholomew wrote.

Richard’s personality and background were also suspect, according to Bartholomew. For one thing, he was successful. “The downside of success, and he’s been very successful, is that we tend not to learn compassion, empathy, or insight.” Richard, he wrote, “has never experienced tragedy.”

Richard suffered from a “Puer complex,” the condition of being an “eternal boy,” in Bartholomew’s estimation. The engineer was unable to describe his son in an “I-Thou manner,” an apparent reference to philosopher Martin Buber’s description of seeing other people as possessing distinct wants and needs. This seemed to account for Bartholomew’s finding that Richard posed “some risk of further psychological abuse.” As the counselor put it a year and a half later at trial, “the most conspicuous feature” of his evaluation was Richard’s “indifference” to his wife’s “feelings and needs.”

One of his readers writes:

You are I think being quite unfair to Bartholomew. Whatever his personal failings, he has a part to play (apparently) in the Democratically mandated system of Family Law in your State. He is doing his job, badly perhaps, with anti-male prejudice, quite possibly but it is his living, and probably the only one he has. It is not Bartholomew who makes the decision of the Court, but the appointed Judge, neither is Bartholomew responsible for the system in which he works.

Even arms dealers (though usually it is States) to Third World countries are doing their job, and a quite legal job too. ...

Hard on him? If he is giving expert testimony to the court, then he is responsible for everything he says. It is no excuse to say that he is just applying the court's prejudices.

If an FBI expert lied in court to frame a terrorist suspect, then I would say that he should be prosecuted for perjury. It is no excuse at all to say that the USA has an official policy of imprisoning terrorists. We don't have an official policy of lying in court.

Likewise, when these supposed expert submit a cooked report because that is what the judge expect, then they are both contemptible. And when they are greedy, incompetent, corrupt, anti-Christian bigots, then we should all point it out.

Pressure Point

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

I happened to see the 1962 movie Pressure Point. It is a racial drama, with Sidney Poitier as the good-guy black psychiatrist and rock star Bobby Darin as an American prisoner with Nazi beliefs in the 1940s.

It is funny to see these old movies treat nonsense-babbling psychiatrists with great respect. Poitier cures Darin of his nightmares by figuring out that they are rooted in symbolism of his unhappy childhood. But Darin also manages to push Poitier's buttons, and Poitier loses his objectivity and tries to block him from being paroled from his sedition sentence. The authorities decide that Poitier must have some sort of personality conflict with him, and they parole him.

Like other Poitier movies, this has a strong anti-racism theme. Poitier is a black man in a white man's job, but he cannot get the respect of a white man. But it also seems to me that he is abusing his power as a psychiatrist. He is personally offended by Darin's political beliefs, and he uses his discretion as a psychiatrist to keep Darin in prison because of a personal disagreement with those beliefs, and not for any psychiatric disorder.

It seems to me that it is grossly unethical for a shrink to imprison someone for his beliefs or for his disrespect for authority. The movie seems to approve of it. I know, it is just a movie. I saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest also. Being a racist Nazi sympathizer during World War II is about as offensive as a political belief as can be. Still, I did not like the shrink using his power to punish someone for a political belief.

Batgirl takes down the sheriff

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

I posted below about the new SF CA sheriff being charged with domestic violence. Here is the accuser:

Ivory Madison is the founder and CEO of ..., which the press calls "Facebook for authors." A former management consultant, Madison has trained teams at startups and Fortune 500 companies, and coached CEOs and executives, on effective writing.

Madison also ... was named "Best Writing Coach" by San Francisco Magazine. Madison had earlier dropped out of high-school and gone directly to law school; her legal career included ..., and serving as a Law Fellow for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Her recent graphic novel, Huntress: Year One, was published by DC Comics and is in its second printing. ...

She writes comic books! That is, she writes the text and someone else does the illustrations. Huntress is a Batman/Batgirl spinoff:

As the last survivor of a crime family eliminated by bloody rivalries among the mobs of Gotham City, the orphaned Helena Bertinelli grew into the mysterious vigilante known as the Huntress.

New writer Ivory Madison shines a light on the dark underbelly of the mob world spanning from Gotham to Sicily, exploring exactly what led Helena away from a life in the Cosa Nostra criminal society and set her on a path of vigilantism. Also, find out more about Batman's first meeting with the fledgling female crime-fighter and why, to this day, they struggle to see eye-to-eye.

So Madison is a smart unmarried feminist San Francisco lawyer who lives in a fantasy world of being a vigilante Batgirl.

I say that Madison is the accuser, but she is not the alleged victim. She is just a self-appointed do-gooder who decided to intervene into a friend's marriage.

The LA Times reports:

Appearing slightly stunned, Mirkarimi said he was "confident that in the end we will succeed in showing the missteps" of the investigation. Asked if he would step aside while the case proceeds, he said he has "no intention of leaving.… We'll prove that we are right."

Lopez has hired an attorney, is not cooperating with the investigation and has not spoken with the district attorney's staff. She was more strident Friday than her husband, repeatedly calling the charges "unbelievable."

"As I've said before, I don't have any complaint against my husband," Lopez said. "We are together and we are fine. We are going to fight this. This is my family, my husband and my son.… This is completely wrong."

The incident came to light after Lopez confided to a neighbor about a New Year's Eve fight with Mirkarimi. The neighbor, Ivory Madison, photographed and videotaped a bruise on Lopez's arm, texted with Lopez about the incident and later called police.

Madison, who co-hosted an October fundraiser to benefit Mirkarimi's run for sheriff, declined to turn over the messages and photos to authorities, saying Lopez had asked her not to. But investigators seized the materials after serving a search warrant.

Gascon would not discuss specifics of the incident, except to say that "we feel very comfortable based on the evidence presented that we have sufficient evidence" to obtain a conviction.

He acknowledged that "a case is always stronger if the victim is willing to testify," but he said that it is "very common for victims to be uncooperative in domestic violence cases," either because they fear retaliation or the consequences to the family.

Lopez is a former Venezuelan TV star from Spanish soap operas. She probably had no idea about the evils of the American justice system, or how easily she could be double-crossed by an American woman friend.

The DA is probably right to be confident about getting a conviction based on such flimsy evidence. Usually a criminal case requires witnesses who can testify that the defendant committed each element of the crime, and hearsay is not permitted. Here, they have a friend who can testify that she took some pictures of some bruises, but there is no one to say how it happened. Usually the wife cannot be forced to testify. Maybe they will try to make the son testify.

Sheriff Mirkarimi probably understands what he is up against. He has probably taken similar actions against other men himself. He knows that he won't get a fair trial on the merits, and he is reduced to showing the missteps of the investigation.

Madison is a smart lawyer who knew exactly what she was doing when she made a police report. She knew that the cops would get a search warrant so that it would look as if she was not betraying her promise to her friend.

San Francisco is famous for drama like this. I am looking forward to the trial, and I hope it exposes all the ugly warts in the domestic violence system.

50k kept in jail each day

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

Dr. Helen quotes a US Supreme Court decision from last year:

A person being in arrears on child support payments is not unusual: in 2008, 11.2 million U.S. child support cases had arrears due.[1] The number of persons kept in jail or in prison for child support arrears is not generally tracked. Based on a publicly available collection of relevant data, an estimated 50,000 persons are kept in jail or in person [sic]on any given day in the U.S. for child support arrears.[2] Hence Turner v. Rogers does not merely concern a technical question of legal procedure. Being in arrears on child support payments is a situation that many persons experience. Moreover, as a result of child support debt, many persons in the U.S. are being imprisoned.

The decision was no help. But the issues are not going away. They affect too many people.

Britain announces better family law policy

2012-01-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, some govt official will announce some obvious truth, and I think that there is some hope for mankind. Here is an example.

A UK newspaper reports:

Divorced parents will have right to see their children under new law

Ministers are drawing up new rules to put courts under a legal duty to ensure divorced parents are guaranteed access to their children.

Parents who refuse to accept the orders will be in contempt of court and risk serious penalties or even jail.

The move will delight fathers’ rights campaigners who believe dads are penalised under the present system which usually grants mothers custody. ...

Last night children’s minister Tim Loughton said: ‘Our vision is to establish that, under normal circumstances, a child will have a relationship with both his or her parents, regardless of their relationship with each other.

'We must do everything we can to improve the system so that it gives children the best chance of growing up under the guidance of two loving parents. ...

'All the evidence tells us that children genuinely benefit from a relationship with both parents, with the potential to make different contributions to their child’s development.

'The culture has shifted away from the traditional view that mothers are primarily responsible for the care of children. Increasingly society recognises the valuable and distinct role of both parents.

'We are looking closely at all the options for promoting shared parenting through possible legislative and non-legislative means.'

Mr Loughton’s comments indicate that ministers have gone against a key finding of November’s family justice review, which rejected equal access for mothers and fathers, saying it would put too much pressure on judges.

Two months ago the UK said that it was too much trouble for judges to let both parents have relationships with their kids? And now they say it is a good idea after all!

I don't understand British politics, so I can't tell what is going on here. Maybe the forces of evil will block the new policy. But maybe things are not as hopeless as I thought.

Sheriff arrested for wife-beating

2012-01-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

The hottest story in San Francisco is that the new sheriff has been arrested. AP
reports:

Prosecutors on Friday charged San Francisco's newly sworn-in sheriff with three misdemeanors, including domestic violence, related to a New Year's Eve incident with his wife.

Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi faces one count each of domestic violence battery, child endangerment and dissuading a witness, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon said.

"While I do not relish having to bring charges against a San Francisco elected official, I have taken an oath to uphold the laws of the state of California, and as the chief law enforcement official for the city and county of San Francisco, it is my solemn duty to bring criminal charges when the evidence supports such action," Gascon said.

"Whether this was the elected sheriff or any other San Francisco resident, this type of behavior is inexcusable, criminal and will be prosecuted," the district attorney said.

Gascon said the basis for the child endangerment charge was that the couple's son saw the alleged incident occur. Gascon declined to explain the allegation that Mirkarimi influenced a witness.

Mirkarimi was booked at San Francisco County Jail, said San Francisco police Sgt. Michael Andraychak. He was released on $35,000 bail.

Gascon said prosecutors have also requested an emergency protective order prohibiting Mirkarimi from having contact with his wife and son. He is also ordered to stay away from his home while police investigate other possible domestic violence incidents involving Mirkarimi and Lopez, Gascon said.

The sheriff should not be above the law, of course, but this seems bogus to me. The wife is not even alleging a crime:

His wife spoke briefly, and much more emotionally.

"This is unbelievable," she said. "I don't have any complaint against my husband. This is unbelievable."

A neighbor reported that Mirkarimi grabbed and bruised Eliana Lopez's arm during a heated argument at their home, according to a police affidavit.

The injury was shown on a video recorded by the neighbor, and a text message conversation between Lopez and the neighbor included details of the incident, according to the affidavit requesting a search warrant to obtain the video camera and phone.

Lopez, a former Venezuelan telenovela star, defended her husband in a written statement, saying the episode was "completely taken out of context."

The couple was married after having their first child in 2009.

So the sheriff had a heated argument with his wife, and grabbed her arm, leaving a bruise. She did not complain. A neighbor saw the bruise and took a picture of it.

And he is not allowed to see his son because his son witnessed it?! This is crazy.

He probably asked his wife or son not to testify, and that is the basis for the third charge.

This is crazy. Why is this any of anybody's business? Some people bruise easily. Some regularly play sports where they get bruises. A picture of a bruise is nearly meaningless. This is a victimless crime in the sense that no one is claiming to be a victim.

The sheriff is fighting this. I hope he gets a jury trial, and demonstrates the absurdity of these sorts of charges.

In other news, a Louisiana county wants to ban wearing pajamas in public. Silly as this is, it makes more sense than the domestic violence law.

New federal lawsuit

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

This lawsuit story is from a month ago:

ARAB, Alabama (Examiner.com) – A local parent, Brad Patterson, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the State of Alabama and eleven other defendants in United States District Court last week. Now, a federal judge has approved his petition to waive filing fees and ordered the US Marshal Service to serve the complaint to the defendants.

In the complaint, Mr. Patterson alleges that State officials violated his property rights by denying him due process and equal protection of the law, rights safeguarded by the US Constitution. The allegations stem from a series of events over four years that began in late 2007 with what Mr. Patterson claims to be a false affidavit for past-due child support.

I don't doubt that he has a legitimate case, but the feds will figure out an excuse to dismiss. The federal judges do not have the guts to address family court issues.

Judge punishes frat house stunt

2012-01-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a 2004 story about Judge Almquist, the new local family court judge:

The boozy frat boys reveled in their 15 minutes of reality show fame, laughing and mugging for MTV cameras that captured them stealing a beloved jumbo golden fish from a UC Santa Cruz pond last summer -- then bludgeoning it with a beer bottle and gutting, frying and eating it at their off-campus fraternity house.

But Casey Loop and Matthew Cox weren't smiling Friday when a prosecutor played 11 minutes of damning outtakes of the infamous fish slaying -- which never aired on MTV's "Fraternity Life" series -- before Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Jeff Almquist sentenced them to 200 hours and 300 hours of community service, respectively. The hours are to be served working at either the county animal shelter or Long Marine Laboratory and at an institute for raising ornamental koi.

They also have to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, pay $500 restitution each to UCSC and send a written apology to the university professor who donated the fish to the koi pond. ...

Almquist stressed that MTV filmed the events, rented the frat house and provided the young men with two SUVs, mounted with automatic video cameras, that were used in the midnight May 20, 2003, raid of the pond at UCSC's Porter College.

"It's clear that these were a bunch of guys playing to the TV sets," Almquist said. "This act offended the entire community," he added, stressing that the frat members had "desecrated" the peaceful koi pond that students enjoyed as "a place of reflection." ...

Defense attorneys for the two men stressed that soon after the incident, before being charged, they went to campus officials to take responsibility and paid $650 for a replacement koi. ...

Almquist noted that Loop, speaking with his probation officer, compared the incident to "fishing out of season" and added that only in Santa Cruz would he be convicted of a crime.

It seems clear from this story that Judge Almquist's primary concern was that the community was offended by how Santa Cruz was portrayed on MTV. It was a harmless student prank.

Ordering restitution makes no sense because the boys had already paid restitution before they were arrested. It is also unconstitutional to order a defendant to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, when no secular option is offered. See, e.g., Griffin v. Coughlin (N.Y. 1996), among other cases. It is also inappropriate because the boys were not alcoholics. Hitting a fish with a beer bottle is not a symptom of alcoholism.

If MTV was so culpable in conspiring to get this fish, why wasn't MTV prosecuted?

Maybe I am reading too much into an isolated story, but I think that this tells us something about Judge Almquist's character. No sense of humor. Willing to violate constitutional rights. Punish someone for his attitude instead of what he actually did. Make a statement in order to please some overreaching prosecutor. Pick on the most defenseless party.

TV shows bogus abuse prosecution

2012-01-07T08:00:00.001-08:00

Last night, ABC TV 20/20 has a show on:

Michigan Family Outraged After Dad Jailed, Kids Taken Away Over Unfounded Abuse Allegations
Prosecutors focused on allegations obtained through controversial method.

A family, a firestorm, a fiction, exposed. ...
A justice system determined to tear your family apart.

There is more info at
Sex abuse claims in Wendrow case fall apart in court.

The first mistake was that the Oakland parents of an autistic daughter got duped by a bogus therapy called FC - Facilitated Communication. The facilitator started out doing the child's homework for her, and later moved on to sex abuse allegations. The daughter and her brother were put in foster care. The parents were arrested, and faced life in prison. The dad was in solitary confinement for 80 days.

ABC TV 20/20 exposed a similar case in 1994. There have been dozens of other such cases.

The Wendrows managed to get a court hearing with the girl's testimony. A demonstration of the facilitated communication showed that the girl was so disabled that she could not have possibly made the accusations. She could not talk, and could not type answers to questions. She did not know an "A" from a "B". There was no physical evidence or any other kind of evidence.

The Oakland prosecutor continued to press charges. He said that maybe the facilitated communication does not work, but that does not mean that the parents are innocent. It is up to the jury to decide whom to believe, he said, and denied any responsibility for the prosecution.

Eventually the charges were dropped, and the parents tried to sue for damages. No one ever apologized.

There was never anything to any of the charges, except for the accusations of a charlatan with the equivalent of a Ouija board. The process supposedly had the girl doing homework that she was obviously incapable of doing. Any fool should have been able to see in 5 minutes that the whole thing was a sham.

One matter left unresolved was the motivation of the facilitator. That is crucial, because the whole case depended on her credibility, and the prosecutor only believed her because she had no motive to lie or to frame the parents. I see two possibilities. (1) She is an evil con woman who makes money on autism therapy from state programs for handicapped kids or desperate parents, so she uses her Ouija board to take advantage of people and build her reputation. (2) She has somehow fooled herself into thinking that the facilitated communication works, and is subconsciously guiding the child's hand, and according to some "Savior Effect" she also subconsciously tries to save the child from imagined abuses. The TV show tried to interview the facilitator, but did not succeed.

I have discussed before whether the problem with the social workers, shrinks, and other leeches is one of Incompetence, greed, or ideology. It is often hard to figure out people's motivations, but as long as prosecutions are based on assumptions about motive, I as might as well speculate also. I do not think that honest incompetence explains her, as she was unwilling to recognize her errors when they were pointed out to her. I do not think that greed fully explain her either, as she probably could have made more money without making the accusations. If she had some ideological belief about the care of autistic girls, or some grudge against the Wendrows, the show did not say. Maybe she had some combination of motives. Regardless, I say that she is evil no matter what.

Before the new judge

2012-01-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

My ex-wife and I appeared before Judge Almquist at 8:30 this morning. He called us first, and told us to come back at 11:00. The courtroom was empty when we came back.

Call me paranoid, but I get the impression that the judges do not want any witnesses to our case. Every time we appeared before Judge Morse, she always called our case dead last after everyone else had left the courtroom. Sometimes that meant waiting 3 hours thru 25 other cases. What do the judges accomplish by this? They know that the case is on my blog, so there is no secret about it.

At 11:00, the judge said that there were visitation orders in effect, so that there was no need for court action. He bought my ex-wife's argument that Judge Morse did not want any more motions for 2 years. When I complained that I was not getting any visitation, he rambled about how it was all my fault because I wrote about the case on my blog and now Ken Perlmutter does not want to have anything to do with us.

Nothing he said made much sense. Perlmutter was the court-appointed psychologist who testified in 2010. He did not even say that there was anything wrong with my parenting methods and was in favor of visitation.

The asked my ex-wife why I was not getting visitation. She rambled about how I violated a visitation supervision agreement once by taking a picture of our child, and how the supervisor did not believe my promises to not bring a camera and wanted to search me before each visit.

I said, "Can I respond to that?" The judge said "No." I responded anyway, and explained that the written visitation contract only prohibited pictures on the first visit, and that I complied with the contract and with the supervisor's commands.

The judge suggested that we get another supervisor. I proposed one, who is a licensed MFT in the area who specializes in situations like mine, but my ex-wife rejected him.

I asked, "Is it up to the supervisor whether I can have pictures of my own children?" The judge stumbled on that question. He said that this was only his second day on the family court, and he doesn't really know how the visitation supervisors work. But he assumes that they are trained and licensed and capable of making a decision like whether I can have a picture of my kids.

Actually, most of the visitation supervisors do not have any training or licensing, and the judge should certainly not be delegating to them such a decision. But I was not able to educate him on how the system works.

It is pretty crazy to try to prevent me from having pictures of my own kids. Even if I were a convicted felon in prison, I would still be allowed to have pictures of my kids.

At this point, the judge wanted to get rid of us. He kept saying things like, "It is all in your own control." That said something about his character. Nothing is in my control. My ex-wife has total temporary legal and physical custody of our kids, and I do not even have a visitation order. It is all at her discretion and I have not even seen my kids for a couple of months.

The judge also issued a veiled threat. He said that I have alienated others and he is going to be the family court judge for the next three years, so if I alienate him then he can prevent me from seeing my kids. Wow, it is his second day on the job, and the power has gone to his head already.

My motion for visitation

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

I just got a brief by my ex-wife opposing me getting any custody of visitation. She said:

The Petitioner, George AngryDad (hereinafter, “George”), brings a motion for child custody and visitation, in contradiction to the ruling of the August 10, 2011 Court Order, stating that “the[re] shall be no modification to the custody order for two (2) years”. ...

1. An August 10, 2011 Court Order is in place, stating “the[re] shall be no modification to the custody order for two (2) years”.

a. This Court Order had at least the following information before it (since November of 2007) to make such a decision:
-multiple trials with numerous witnesses;
-numerous court hearings;
-interviews with the therapeutic visitation supervisor for the children;
-interview with the children by Family Court services;
-a CPS narrative report with witness testimony;
-a full child custody and visitation evaluation and recommendations;
-years of records of George’s interaction with the children and/or lack thereof;
-George’s in and out of court behavior;
-the childrens’ express wishes;
-the Court’s study of and personal experience with George;
-the appellate record;
-my testimony:
-the testimony of Court appointed experts;
-the testimony of visitation supervisors and therapeutic visitation supervisors;
-George’s testimony; and
-testimony of George’s experts and witnesses.

2. George’s description of the Case History in his moving papers is intentionally
and consistently severely distorted and misleading. I respectfully direct the Court to Dr. Perlmutter’s 2010 40 page single-spaced full child custody and visitation
evaluation report for an accurate and unbiased description of the case history. Dr.
Perlmutter was the child custody evaluator appointed by the Court to perform the
evaluation in 2010.

Her briefs nearly always accuse me of lying, and yet she is never able to give an examples. Here, she merely suggests that the judge read a 40-page single-spaced report and compare it to my summary to find discrepencies between that report and my brief. How crazy is that? The judge is not going to read that report, or find any errors in what I wrote.

It is a problem that Judge Morse said that she did not want any modifications for two years. But she also refused to make a permanent order. Under California law, I can request a change to a permanent order once a year. I only have a temporary order. Surely a temporary order is more temporary than a permanent order.

Yes, the court has had a lot of info, but it did not find me unfit and it did not issue a permanent order. The worst Judge Morse found was:

experiences being adduced into evidence, such as enrolling them in a math test which was reportedly way above their abilities; and resetting their alarm clock which prevented them from being prepared for school.

and that I might have Aspergers. For that my parental rights have been eliminated. Temporarily. For two more years. In addition to the temporary orders for the last four years. Meanwhile, I don't even have any visitation.

Simple intelligence test

2012-01-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

The most common intelligence test is the Mini–mental state examination (MMSE). It is used in emergency rooms to test for dementia. You only need 23 out of 30 points to pass. Less than 19 points gets you diagnosed as impaired. Here is the test, as paraphrased to avoid copyrights:

1. (5 pts) What is today? (Detail as needed. Score 1 point for year, month, date, day-of-week, season.)
2. (5 pts) Where are we? (Detail as needed. Score 1 point for building, floor, city, county, state.)
3. (3 pts) Repeat 3 objects. (After being give 3 names, such as apple-table-penny or ball-flag-tree.)
4. (5 pts) Count backwards from 100 by sevens. (Stop after 93-86-79-72-65.)
Alternately, spell WORLD backwards.
5. (3 pts) Recall the 3 objects named earlier. (1 point for each.)
6. (1 pt) Identify the given object (after being shown a watch).
7. (1 pt) Identify the given object (after being shown a pencil).
8. (1 pt) Repeat "No ifs, ands, or buts".
9. (3 pts) Take the given paper, fold it, and place it on the table. (1 point for each task.)
10. (1 pt) Read "close your eyes" and do what it says. (1 point for closing eyes.)
11. (1 pt) Write a sentence. (1 point for any intelligible sentence. Ignore grammar and spelling.)
12. (1 pt) Copy a diagram of intersecting pentagons.

You can download a printable version here. Recently, someone claimed a copyright on this test, so an alternate test, The Sweet 16 was developed and shown to give similar results. But now that has also been shut down by copyrights.

I post this because I object to this commonly-used test being censored from the web. The concern is not cheating by patients. If a patient is smart enough to study a similar test, then he is smart enough to pass the test anyway. No, the purpose is to put the diagnosis of dementia under the control of psychologists so that they will have authority to decide who goes free in our society.

If your kid gets an injury to the head, you might want to use some of these questions in order to test for a concussion. You do not need a psychology degree or permission from lawyers. Nobody owns counting down by sevens.

Chinese justice

2012-01-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

The UK Guardian newspaper reports:

A Chinese court has handed down a 10-year jail sentence to Chen Xi, the second dissident in four days to be convicted of inciting subversion through online essays. ...

"The judge said this was a major crime that had a malign impact," his wife, Zhang Qunxuan, told Reuters by phone after the trial. The judge said Chen was a repeat offender who deserved a long sentence, she added.

Chen has insisted he was innocent, but will not appeal. "The court ignored all the points raised by the defence lawyer at the trial, so what point is there in appealing?" said Zhang.

To answer her question, the purpose of appealing is to demonstrate the trial court errors to another court. But her question is rhetorical, of course, as no one expects a Chinese appeals court to reverse a conviction.

Are our American courts any better? We do not jail dissidents for writing subversive online essays. We just take their kids away.

We also have no effective appeals court. When have you ever heard about an appeals court reversing a child custody decision? It never happens in this county.

Here is what Judge Heather Morse wrote in her decision against me:

During our days of hearing, George did not appear to be mean-spirited, but rather physically incapable of perceiving why he was being prevented from having unsupervised time with his children. Whether as a result of a narcissistic personality disorder that could benefit from individual therapy (which George distrusts), or from a medical perspective of a biological disorder such as Asperger's Syndrome where individuals with genius I.Q.'s can have difficulties withsocial relationships, the court finds that the parties' time and money could be better spent to improve the parental relationships while there is still time to do so.

This was after all five court psychologists testified that I did not have Aspergers or any other psychological disorder.

Not even a Chinese judge would say anything so outrageous.

More info on new judge

2011-12-31T08:00:00.001-08:00

A reader sends info on the new Santa Cruz family court judge:

George, I read your recent blog updating the county court assignments, and I found this article reporting on a controversial ruling the new family court judge Jeff Almquist made on a local murder case. In May 2008, Almquist reduced the murder charges of Mateo Tiago Marquis to voluntary manslaughter; the victim's father expressed outrage over that. Eventually, Marquis pled guilty and by the end of the year was sentenced (by another judge) to 7 years. Marquis, then age 20, was arrested in June 2007 after killing a teenager from Arizona during a fight at a beach. Anyway I'm sorry for you and outraged at what the court did to you and your kids and regarding Almquist hope this info is helpful. You can also search his name in the Santa Cruz Sentinel archives (scsextra.com) or the regular santacruzsentinel.com for info on cases he's presided over.

Almquist was also a county supervisor. As supervisor he was involved in opposing a water rake hike of some sort in 2002.

I am cautiously optimistic. He has probably never been a family court judge, and may still be under the delusion that he will be able to hear the parties fairly, and follow the rule of law. Having been a local politician, he may have some sense of being accountable to the public.

Therapists revolt against psychiatry’s bible

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Salon magazine
reports:

The most surprising critic of the DSM is a one-time pillar of the psychiatric establishment. Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University, chaired the task force that created the DSM-4. Now he’s railing against both the process and proposed content of the new DSM in blogs on the website for Psychology Today that blast the new revision as “untested” and “unscientific.”

Psychiatric diagnoses are loose enough already, Frances told me, and that laxity has led to “epidemics of over-diagnosis in child psychiatry” causing huge numbers of children to be unnecessarily labeled with attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder and treated with medications.

The new DSM-5 will be designed for one main purpose -- facilitating drug prescriptions.

Fingerprint evidence

2011-12-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

NewScientist reports:

FINGERPRINTS were once the cornerstone of forensic identification. Now a report into a miscarriage of justice has renewed pressure on print examiners to improve their methods, while two new studies reveal the extent of their fallibility. The results could change the fingerprint profession worldwide.

The Fingerprint Inquiry was launched by the Scottish government after detective Shirley McKie was acquitted of perjury. Flawed fingerprint analysis was the only evidence against her. The report, published on 14 December, concludes that human error was to blame and voices serious concerns about how fingerprint analysts report matches. It recommends that they no longer report conclusions with 100 per cent certainty, and develop a process for analysing complex, partial or smudged prints involving at least three independent examiners who fully document their findings.

The recommendations lay bare fundamental problems which have demanded attention for decades, says Jim Fraser, a forensic scientist at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK.

Yes, fingerprint evidence is fallible. It is not 100% certain. Just like all other expert evidence.

FBI fingerprint experts have always testified that their matches are 100% certain. They are not. They are lying every time.

A basic requirement of any expert witness is to describe how often he is wrong. If he does not know how likely his opinion is to be wrong, then his opinion is worthless.

Family court psychologists and other expert witnesses are orders of magnitude worse than the fingerprint experts. The psychologists are never able to say anything about the reliability of their opinions about child custody and visitation. That alone is reason to reject their testimony.

New Santa Cruz judge

2011-12-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

Santa Cruz California announces its just assignments at the beginning of each year:

Judicial Assignments - Effective January 3, 2012

Watsonville:

Department A: Judge Denine J. Guy
Dependency/Adoptions

Department B: Judge Heather D. Morse
Delinquency/Truancy/Small Claims/Civil Limited

Department C: Judge Jeff Almquist
Family Law

Department D: Commissioner Stephen S. Siegel
Family Law/Domestic Violence/Family Preservation Court/Family Law Pro Per Court

Department D: Commissioner Jana Kast-Davids
Child Support

I don't know much about Almquist, but it is hard to see how he could be any worse than Morse.

Apologizing for being men

2011-12-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

This video of men apologizing for being men circulated a few months ago. You have to see it to believe how shrinks are neutering the modern man. Here is a sample of the transcript:

A Manifesto for Conscious Men

Dear Woman:

I come to you today as a man committed to becoming more conscious in every way. I feel deep love, great respect and a growing sense of worship for the gifts of the feminine. I also feel deep sorrow about the destructive actions of the unconscious masculine in the past and present. I want to apologize to you and make amends for those actions, in order to bring forth a new era of co-creation with you. ...

I honor your intuition and your profound capacity for feeling. As men, we have often devalued feeling and intuition in favor of a view dominated by data and logic. This way of being seemed necessary to move humanity beyond superstition and animalism, but in the process we lost much of the heart of life. ...

As a conscious man I am willing to feel those hurts fully within myself and release them. I forgive you for any ways you may have acted unconsciously, as I forgive myself and my gender for our own waking sleep.

I am not sorry to be a man, and there is nothing wrong with masculine thinking. It seems to imply that only effeminate men are conscious. That is crazy. Effeminate men are the least conscious about the world.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

Someone just sent me this:

Top 10 Last Minute Holiday Gifts for Psychiatrists
Lobotomy Tool Travel Set
Beautifully crafted 14 piece tuck-and-go lobotomy travel set includes all the essentials needed for a successful lobotomy on the go. It’s every psychosurgeon’s dream! Opt for a personalized monogram to make the gift even more special. Set comes in a leather case with surgical stainless tools. Anesthesia not included. Monogram extra.

There are some other such funny things on the blog, if you can laugh on Christmas about evil psychiatrists giving lobotomies.

Petty tyrant judge gets booted

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes public scrutiny can finally get the better of a judge. The NY Times reports:

ATLANTA — In her courtroom in Brunswick, Ga., Judge Amanda F. Williams told lawyers to “sit down and shut up.” She once jailed a defendant for using the words “baby momma.” And she detained offenders “indefinitely” without access to lawyers, state judicial investigators say.

But on Monday, Judge Williams, the chief judge of the Superior Court of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit — a powerful, controversial figure who gained national exposure when the public radio program “This American Life” devoted an hourlong episode to her — announced that she was leaving the bench after 21 years.

Judge Williams, 64, who said she would resign on Jan. 2., faced wide-ranging misconduct accusations. She vowed not to seek another judgeship, and, as a result, those complaints will be dropped, the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission said. She could still face criminal charges related to her conduct.

She probably thought that she was doing a good job for 20 years, because no one ever reprimanded her. Judges are good at rationalizing what they do. But family court judges like Irwin Joseph and Heather Morse would be run out of town if there were more public scrutiny over what they do. Well, there is a public record on what they have done, and it will follow them forever.

Corrupt forensic psychology

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

Criticism of forensic psychology is not new. A famous 1880 novel said this:

In the trial scene from Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky, speaking through the lips of the defense attorney, issued a stern warning to the legal profession:

Profound as psychology is, it's a knife that cuts both ways.... You can prove anything by it. I am speaking of the abuse of psychology, gentlemen.

The 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street is shown often at Christmastime every year. It is about a psychologist who gives an evaluation to Santa Claus, and then tries to get him committed to a mental hospital. The corrupt judge finds an excuse to avoid the unfavorable publicity. There is also a single mom with no faith. It is actually an excellent feel-good movie that is much better than its remakes.

Critics who take this movie too seriously have accused it of bad law and bad logic. But at the time the movie was made, it really was possible to commit a man to a mental institution based on a psychiatrist saying that he was delusional. Nowadays, there has to be evidence that the man is a serious threat to harm himself or others. So I guess that the field of forensic psychiatry has made some progress. The field has gotten worse in other ways, such as forcing dangerous psychotropic drugs.

Here are more examples of using bogus psychology for political purposes. Wikipedia explains:

In the Soviet Union, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place. Soviet psychiatric hospitals were used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate hundreds or thousands of political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally. This method was also employed against religious prisoners and most especially against well-educated former atheists who adopted a religion. In such cases their religious faith was determined to be a form of mental illness that needed to be cured. Formerly highly classified extant documents from “Special file” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union published after the dissolution of the Soviet Union demonstrate that the authorities of the country quite consciously used psychiatry as a tool to suppress dissent.

Kevin MacDonald argues:

A major theme of The Culture of Critique is that several Jewish-dominated intellectual movements developed theories in which ethnocentrism by Whites (and only Whites) was an indication of psychiatric disorder. This was true not only of the Frankfurt School, perhaps the main offender, but also Richard Hofstadter’s diagnosis of “status anxiety” for Whites concerned about their displacement and Erich Fromm’s analysis in terms of “sado-masochistic reaction formations” (see here, p. 195ff). All of these movements were facilitated by psychoanalysis, an infinitely plastic bit of anti-science that was able to get any desired result.

We are now seeing a trend for psychiatric diagnoses to be given to Whites who are angry about the massive invasion of non-Whites that are destroying the traditional cultures and threatening the status of the traditional populations of White countries. Anders Breivik was recently diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic for his rampage, mainly against young activists and the children of the leftist Norwegian elite he viewed as responsible for the immigration assault on Norway. This despite the fact that his operation was well-planned and despite the fact that his manifesto shows that he is quite intelligent and has read widely on the ongoing disaster of the Muslim invasion of Europe.

Apparently Norway authorities have some sort of purpose in declaring Berwick insane. My guess is that it is either to discredit his ideas or to keep him locked up without trial or both. Either way, the psychiatrist is a dishonest tool of the govt. (Berwick ought to be kept locked up for his murders, of course, but they don't need crooked psychiatrists to do it.)

Economic Effects On Marriage

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

NPR radio is always complaining about some sort of economic hardship that the govt should be remedying, and now it is that we would have more divorces if the filing fee was lower. NPR news reports:

"I couldn't afford to get divorced. It wasn't an option because I didn't have the money," she says.

Reynolds finally saved up enough to file for divorce in 2009. The divorce came through this year. She says she's more stable now, but her experience perfectly illustrates new research that finds the bad economy has had two effects on many marriages. ...

So losing a job makes many couples unhappy, and when people find themselves out of work, it becomes harder to get divorced. Experts say there is strong historical precedent for these effects.

I don't know where NPR find people for these stories. It is ridiculous. It goes on:

"If I were able to stand on my own economic feet at this time, I would divorce him," she says. The woman told NPR she's worried her ex may be unstable; he seems depressed. "He's trying to break his thumb. [It] is his thing right now — he keeps trying to injure himself."

She also worries about her safety and that of her kids.

"There have been absolutely no threats, emotional or physical," she says. "But if he's trying to hurt himself and he's being vocal about it, you know, I'm not sure what else he'd be capable of doing if he slipped further into his depression."

'Divorce Provides A Safety Valve'

Historian Coontz says she's seen the same patterns over and over again in the last century. During the Great Depression, the divorce rate went down and domestic violence went up. In the 1970s, when states began to permit no-fault divorces, it had an immediate effect on domestic violence.

NPR finds a domestic violence story even where there are no threats of any kind. My guess is that the wife is delusional for thinking that her husband is trying to break his thumb.

Texas has counseling for over-prescribers

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

A Dallas News editorial says:

All eyes in the U.S. Senate committee room were fixed on the star witness as he carefully read his testimony from prepared text. Senators leaned forward, and cameras recorded the moment from all angles. Mom sat in the next chair for moral support.

Ke’onte Cook, 12, a seventh-grader from McKinney, had a story to tell that was as heartbreaking as it was uplifting.

He was invited to share his experiences as a former foster child who was kept on different regimens involving 20 mind-altering medications for more than four years, at times reaching five drugs at once, changing through a series of homes and mental hospitals. Ke’onte said he was sometimes in a falling-down stupor, irritable, with an aching stomach and no appetite. ...

The issue is a financial one, since Medicaid paid for more than $200 million in psychotropic drugs for children in Texas alone in 2008. Senators also made clear that the issue is one of child welfare, and they bored in on a new, five-state study, including Texas, showing that foster children are prescribed psychotropic drugs at rates far beyond those in the general population of Medicaid children.

This story has gotten a lot of press, including on this blog, but it turns out to be an old story:

The trend line in Texas, however, is a positive one. Even as the number of foster kids continues to climb — from 27,000 to 47,000 over the past 10 years — the rate of medicating these children has been declining. In 2003, nearly 30 percent of all foster children in Texas were on a mind-altering drug; that number fell to less than 20 percent this year. The potentially risky practice of putting kids on multiple drugs has been curtailed as well.

Credit a multi-agency network in Texas that tracks tax-paid drug prescriptions and triggers added scrutiny when a physician’s use of mind-altering medications strays from statistical bounds. That doctor may have his or her practices reviewed and may receive counseling. The state has also mapped out and circulated clear drug-use guidelines for medical professionals to consult.

So Texas recognized that this foster child drug problem was out of control in 2003, and took systematic steps to curtail it. They tracked the over-prescribing doctors and threatened to force them to get counseling!

Wow, I had no idea that a state agency could be so competent. But the system still seems corrupt to me. In 8 years, they only reduced the drug use from 30% to 20%. My guess is that they are effectively giving license to physicians to give bogus drugs to foster kids, as long as the rate stays below 20%.

Still, I am encouraged that there is at least some accountability in the Texas foster care system.

Autopsies Now Scarce At U.S. Hospitals

2011-12-20T08:00:00.001-08:00

I believe that the problems with the family court, CPS, and other govt officials will not be fixed until those officials are held more accountable for what they do. Unfortunately the trend is in the opposite direction.

NPR radio reports:

When a loved one dies unexpectedly in the hospital, getting answers to how and why isn't as easy as it was 50 years ago.

Back then, doctors would often order a clinical autopsy. But an investigation published today by ProPublica shows that hospital autopsies have become a rarity:

"A half-century ago, an autopsy would have been routine. Autopsies, sometimes called the ultimate medical audit, were an integral part of American health care, performed on roughly half of all patients who died in hospitals. Today, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show, they are conducted on about 5 percent of such patients."

The findings are part of Post Mortem, a reporting partnership by NPR News Investigations, ProPublica and PBS Frontline, about deep flaws in the U.S. death investigation system.

Over the past year, the series has uncovered the lack of skilled forensic pathologists who can perform autopsies, wrongful convictions among child death cases, and disputes among the medical and legal communities.

Today's ProPublica report details "hospitals' powerful financial incentives to avoid autopsies" and explains that without information from these procedures, diagnostic errors are often missed. This gap not only leads to lost opportunities for improved medical treatment, but skews health care statistics.

Maybe social service screwups should be followed by live autopsies, where some sort of objective social science pathologist writes a report on what happened.

Of course medical schools train pathologists to do autopsies, and the profession is not completely corrupt. I don't know to find someone with the competence to evaluate CPS screwups. It is just an idea. Could it work?

Expanding CPS power

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

I am afraid that CPS is going to get more power as a result of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State. I agree with this:

JILL FARRIS writes the following in regard to Senate Bill 1877, which would require all adults to report any suspected child abuse

Our social services system is only interested in “saving” a child when there is money to be made in the effort. Always follow the money trail. I believe that our social services system and Child Protection Services constitute one of the greatest evils unleashed on our land.

Teachers, physicians and others in authority are already required to report any suspicion of abuse resulting in many false accusations and ruined lives. After all, it’s easier to report it “just in case” than to be held liable for not reporting it if it turns out to be abuse. Remember, the psychologists, social workers and judges define abuse in any way that will cause a child to need their assistance because there is great financial gain to be had by doing so.

A friend of mine was falsely reported to CPS by a neighbor who had a drug problem and a felony record. She was interrogated by police and the CPS worker (and yes, I am not overusing the word “interrogate”) and she was spied on regularly by a woman in an unmarked van from social services. Reasonable people would consider the source of the complaint but social workers (and their ilk) are not reasonable. Studies have shown (by the NCCPR -see below) that social work attracts people with “issues” and many have a vendetta. They see abusive families behind every bush.

Are children being abused and killed? Yes, not just by their parents or step parents but by foster parents. Yes, I know there are wonderful foster parents but why are we not calling the psychologists and social workers and judges into account for the babies and children who die in foster care? There are thousands (do a search for the children who die in foster care). How hard is this to stop?

In the name of “Child Protection” we are losing our rights. Family courts do not operate under constitutional law and many states have closed courts where no outside witnesses are allowed to be present. A site I highly recommend for further information on the subject is that of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform . This article addresses false reports of abuse. If you are not convinced that false reporting is a problem, do a quick web search with the word “false allegations” and be afraid…be very afraid.

The Penn State hysteria is out of control. Last Friday, NBC TV Dateline had show on
The Case of the Missing D.A.:

Disturbing news out of Penn State put a cold case back in the spotlight. A decade ago, in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, a tiny town just a few short miles away from the Penn State campus, the accusation that Coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused a child, first came to the attention of Ray Gricar, the local district attorney.

Then, seven years ago Gricar went missing. Investigators uncovered his laptop but the hard drive was unreadable. The question being asked now is – could there be a link between Gricar’s disappearance and the Sandusky scandal? Lester Holt reports.

The Gricar disappearance is mysterious, but the obvious explanation is that he was killed by some gangster or someone else angry about one of his prosecutions. The only connection to Sandusky is that Gricar decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him in 1998. I guess that they were hinting that maybe Sandusky murdered Gricar, but no one could explain how Sandusky would have anything to gain by that.

This is a witch-hunt. Sandusky will not get a fair trial. He is being demonized, and used as an excuse to expand the power of evil people who are out to destroy the American family.

Domestic violence scare statistics

2011-12-18T08:00:00.001-08:00

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) from the US CDC has gotten a lot of publicity. It says:

On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States, based on a survey conducted in 2010. Over the course of a year, that equals more than 12 million women and men. Those numbers only tell part of the story—more than 1 million women are raped in a year and over 6 million women and men are victims of stalking in a year. These findings emphasize that sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence are important and widespread public health problems in the United States.

These numbers keep going up, mainly because of expanding definitions. It was recently announced:

The FBI’s definition of “rape” is about to get a long-awaited update, for the first time since 1929.

The revamped description will be broader, pleasing activists who say the current definition leads to the low-balling of sexual assault cases, and also discourages victims to come forward. ...

The new definition, which will more closely match the ones that police departments around the country already use, will remove the word “forcible,” along with several other amendments.

Rape will now include sex attacks by relatives, and include non-traditional penetration.

According to the FBI’s website, the proposed new definition is “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

These changes are crucial, according to women’s rights advocates.

The CDC study defined sexual violence to include "non-contact unwanted sexual experiences" and "stalking, including the use of newer technologies such as text messages". So I guess many women have gotten unwanted suggestions or text messages. Hasn't everyone? Soon these surveys will be reporting incidence rates of 100%. But as reported before, the actual violence rates have been going down for 40 years.

People Defend Unjust, Inept, and Corrupt Systems

2011-12-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

The Association for Psychological Science reports:

Why do we stick up for a system or institution we live in -- a government, company, or marriage -- even when anyone else can see it is failing miserably? Why do we resist change even when the system is corrupt or unjust? A new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, illuminates the conditions under which we're motivated to defend the status quo -- a process called "system justification." ...

When we feel we can't escape a system, we adapt. That includes feeling okay about things we might otherwise consider undesirable. ... "You'd think that when people are stuck with a system, they'd want to change it more," says Kay. But in fact, the more stuck they are, the more likely are they to explain away its shortcomings. Finally, a related phenomenon: The less control people feel over their own lives, the more they endorse systems and leaders that offer a sense of order.

The research on system justification can enlighten those who are frustrated when people don't rise up in what would seem their own best interests. Says Kay: "If you want to understand how to get social change to happen, you need to understand the conditions that make people resist change and what makes them open to acknowledging that change might be a necessity."

Yes I am frustrated that people do not rise up against the family court and its corrupt network of shrinks. So I guess I need to understand why they resist the change that I think is necessary.

In other psych news, an article claims to tell How to spot a liar in 20 seconds flat. Life would be simpler if that were really true. I think a big problem is people who think that they can spot liars when they cannot. I would like to spot them in 20 seconds.

Parents often disagree

2011-12-16T08:00:00.001-08:00

One of the arguments against shared custody is that the parents may not agree on everything. Parents should agree on everything, they say.

I find this argument bewildering. Did all these people really grow up with parents who agreed on everything? When I quiz them, they always admit that their parents often disagreed on things, but they nevertheless argue that everyone should have parents who agree on everything.

Comedian Louis C.K. was on the NBC Tonight Show with Jay Leno Wednesday night, and he addressed this issue with some funny stories:

I had my kids this week. I share custody of my kids with my ex-wife. So I had to get them to school ... [funny story]

Me and the kids have great times together. Being a single parent is a little easier, because you don't
have to agree with the other parent. That's the hardest part of being a parent is the other parent, because you have to agree on everything. No two grown-ups ever agree on anything. Just one of them goes "Fine!". That's all that ever happens.

So, anyway, when you are a single parent, you can just say, "Let's go camping." I just said it in June, "Let's go camping." So we just put a bunch of stuff in the car, and we drove down to Maryland. That's where we went. We went to a little state park, and it was beautiful. We walked around. We borrowed marshmellows from neighboring campers. You can do that when you have kids because they are like little ambassadors.

He is right. It was much easier to do something like camping after my divorce. Disagreements often make shared parenting easier, not harder. The mom can do what she wants on her time, and the dad can do what he wants on his time.

The biggest potential disagreements are in where to live and where to attend school. Almost everything else is trivial.

Michigan mom gets kid back

2011-12-15T08:00:00.001-08:00

I mentioned in August this story of CPS-forced drug use, and NaturalNews has this update:

The horrific saga of Maryanne Godboldo's battle with domestic terrorists in the government of her home state of Michigan appear to finally be coming to an end. The Detroit Free Press reports that two higher courts have confirmed the ruling of a lower court several months ago that Godboldo's refusal to administer the dangerous Risperdal drug to her daughter was fully legal, and that all charges and actions taken against her by the state were unwarranted.

In case you missed the story, Child Protective Services (CPS) in Michigan sent a SWAT team and tank to Godboldo's Detroit home back in April after the mother refused to keep giving her 13-year-old daughter Risperdal (risperidone), a dangerous schizophrenia drug that had been causing her daughter to experience severe adverse reactions. Godboldo's doctor had recommended that she discontinue use of the drug, but CPS felt otherwise, and decided to launch a full-scale terrorist raid on the woman's home, where they proceeded to illegally kidnap her daughter.

For months, these domestic terrorists held Godboldo's daughter, Ariana, in captivity at a CPS facility in Northville, Mich., until finally, after a long and grueling court battle, it was determined that Godboldo's choice in taking her daughter off the dangerous drug was fully legal. In fact, when she first began administering Risperdal to Ariana, it was plainly stated in the consent document she signed that Ariana was free to "stop taking it at any time".

It is rare that a court will directly order a psychotropic or other drug. The spineless bureaucrats will not take responsibility for that. Instead they will just threaten to take the kid away if the drugs are not taken. Most people are easily intimidated, when CPS threatens to put the child in foster care.

Saved by a cellphone camera

2011-12-14T08:00:00.003-08:00

Here is a story of a dad in a custody dispute who was nearly killed by his mother-in-law, and nearly framed for attempted murder. He would probably be in jail today, except for a cellphone that recorded the incident. The Smoking Gun has the
evidence:

Anticipating a “confrontation” when he went to pick up his son Wednesday afternoon at his mother-in-law’s residence, a Florida man activated his iPhone’s video camera to record the handover of his three-year-old child.

As it turned out, Salvatore Miglino’s premonition proved to be accurate, as he was shot twice by Cheryl Hepner, the 66-year-old mother of Miglino’s wife (whom he is in the midst of divorcing). Miglino, 39, was shot in the shoulder and rib cage by a .22 Beretta brandished by Hepner, according to a probable cause affidavit. ...

In a 911 call after the shooting, Hepner claimed that Miglino tried to kill her. “Somebody just shot at me,” she told a police operator. She described her alleged assailant as a “son of a bitch” who was involved in a “horrible divorce” with her daughter.

The video camera just got the audio, but that was enough. Maybe all contentious child handoffs should be videorecorded.

Cameras in the Supreme Court

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

The US Supreme Court has scheduled 5.5 hours of oral argument on the constitutionality of Obamacare, including whether the tax law can be used to force individuals to buy health insurance. Now Congress is considering forcing the court to televise the hearing:

A proposed law ordering the US Supreme Court to provide live television coverage of its public proceedings threatens to spark a constitutional showdown pitting Congress against the nation’s highest court, legal experts warned members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

The experts were asked to analyze the Cameras in the Courtroom Act of 2011, which, if passed, would require television coverage of all open sessions at the high court.

The committee hearing was broadcast on C-SPAN on Saturday, and can be viewed here.

The Senators have no sympathy for the court, since they broadcast their own proceedings on C-SPAN.

The main argument against televising was that the Supreme Court justices are in a better position to know what is in the interests of the court, and a majority of them are against video. Justice Souter once said that video clips of him in his previous position on the state court sometimes showed up on the evening news, and he always looked like a fool.

So far, Congress has not had the nerve to force cameras, but they want the Supreme Court to accept cameras voluntarily. There are state supreme courts and federal appeals courts with video cameras, and no harm has resulted.

To me, this is a simple case of judges being afraid to be held accountable for what they do. This Obamacare decision could affect us all, and we citizens have a right to see the process. The more govt officials are held accountable, the better.

State shrink fakes her own rape

2011-12-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

AP reports:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Authorities allege a woman was so determined to convince her husband of a need to move to a safer neighborhood that she faked being raped.

She split her own lip with a pin, scraped her knuckles with sandpaper, had her friend punch her in the face, and even wet her pants to give the appearance she had been knocked unconscious, authorities said Friday. ...

It didn’t work. Instead, the couple filed for divorce six weeks after the April 10 incident, according to court records. ...

In reality, the items were all at the home of her friend, Nicole April Snyder, authorities allege. Investigators say Martinez had Snyder punch her in the face with boxing gloves they bought for that purpose.

Martinez began crying hysterically when police arrived, according to court papers.

Wondering what kind of low-life would pull a stunt like this? Here is the best part -- she is a California prison psychologist!

Martinez, 36, a psychologist for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, reported she had come home that day to find a stranger in her kitchen, authorities said.

I am happy to say that she is not Jewish. No Jewish psychologist would do anything so stupid.

Psychologist sued for implanting memories

2011-12-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Here is another story about a corrupt psychologist:

US psychologist, Mark Schwartz, has been accused of carelessly hypnotizing a patient, Lisa Nasseff, 41, in order to keep her there long-term and run up a bill that eventually reached $650,000, while she was seeking treatment for anorexia at the Castlewood Treatment Centre in St Louis, Missouri.

Under hypnosis, Ms. Nasseff was led to believe she had multiple personality disorder (20 different personalities),she had been sexually abused and raped multiple times and had participated in various criminal and horrific acts of abuse. She was led into believing she had once eaten babies as part of a satanic cult.

The article calls Schwartz "careless", but that is not the right word. I am sure Schwartz knew exactly what he was doing. I could be wrong, but I think that Schwartz is a Jewish name and Nasseff is an Arab name.

Incompetence, greed, or ideology

2011-12-09T08:00:00.001-08:00

A recurring theme on this blog is whether the enemy of the family court justice we seek is incompetence, greed, or ideology. It is all three. The question is what to emphasize. My opinion on this has shifted in the past few months.

One argument says that if judges, shrinks, and social workers were competent, and had wisdom about the BIOTCh (Best Interest Of The Child), then they would make reasonable decisions that we would all accept and appreciate. If so, then we should advocate better training for the govt officials.

Another argument is that the love of money is root of all evil. The corruption and bad decisions are fueled by financial biases. If so, we should work to cut off the money.

The third argument is that official are driven by faulty ideologies, and they will continue to do evil no matter how much training they get, and no matter how much their financial conflicts of interest are removed.

I have recently posted some of my beliefs, such as rule of law, confronting witnesses, not using psychotropic drugs for misbehaving kids, restricting experts to their expertise, and avoiding therapists. And most of all, I frequently argue that family autonomy should not be subject to some govt official's opinion of the BIOTCh.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with me. Maybe even most people, I don't know. And they disagree for ideological reasons. I thought that everyone agreed that our Bill of Rights guaranteed us the right to confront witnesses against us, but this right is hanging on by a thread in the US Supreme Court.

The arguments before the supreme court this week cannot be explained by incompetence or greed. Both sides were articulate and well-reasoned. The justices are split 5-4 on the issue. It is an ideological dispute that goes to the core of what fairness and justice mean. It is not exactly a Right-Left dispute, as conservative ex-prosecutors and statist liberals have lined up in favor of rules that fail to hold govt experts fully accountable in court for their work.

I can attack incompetence and greed on this blog, and everyone agrees with me. But when I attack the ideologies that seek to destroy family relationships, then I offend some people. I have become convinced that it is necessary to attack ideology to get at the root of the problem. Because if Judge Morse were more competent, she would do more damage.

Witness case argued in supreme court

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

One of the corrupt practices of the family court is the way they use experts to sneak in inadmissible evidence. The court may ask a psychologist to give an opinion, and give him wide leeway in his testimony because he is an expert. But his opinion is based on a lot of hearsay and dubious allegations, and he does not necessarily apply any psychological expertise at all. It is just a crooked way for the court to turn gossip into legally-accepted facts.

The US Bill of Rights was written to forbid this sort of thing, as explained below, where a pending Supreme Court case is discussed. The NY Times reports on the oral argument:

Justice Antonin Scalia, who has led a movement to breathe new life into the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause, said that expert testimony may not be used to smuggle evidence into a criminal trial without testimony from those who created it. The clause gives a criminal defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” ...

The controversy in the case concerns the material recovered from the assault. It was analyzed by Cellmark Diagnostic Laboratory in Maryland, but the lab’s report was not entered into evidence at trial and no one from that lab appeared to testify about it. But an expert witness for the prosecution was allowed to offer her opinion that the two profiles matched. ...

“We have a confrontation clause, which requires that the witnesses against the defendant appear and testify personally, and the crucial evidence here is the testing of the semen found on the swab,” he said. “That’s the crux of this evidence, and you’re telling me that this confrontation clause allows you to simply say, Well, we’re not going to bring in the person who did the test; we are simply going to say, ‘This is a reliable lab.’ ” Mr. Dreeben replied, “The confrontation clause, Justice Scalia, does not obligate the state to present a strong case.”

This seems analogous to the family court saying, "This is a reliable psychologist; do what he says." It should be obvious that only a kangaroo court would let experts testify with conclusions about inadmissible evidence.

I was amused by this paragraph:

“In Bullcoming, at least you had an expert say how the laboratory works,” Justice Kennedy said, in a tone approaching exasperation. “Here, you don’t even have that. You have less here with reference to Cellmark than you did in Bullcoming.”

Kennedy is saying that the sperm testimony did not meet the Bullcoming standard. That happened to be the name of the defendant in the previous supreme court case. I don't know how the lawyers will keep a straight face if that becomes the rulel. The briefs for the current case are here.

Power corrupts, and the psychologists are not reliable. I got a Palo Alto psychologist named Ken Perlmutter and he gave testimony that would never be admissible in a real court. He did not apply any psychological expertise at all, and just gave an incompetent opinion. I have detailed his incompetence and bias on this blog. Maybe someday the legal system will recognize that a crook like Perlmutter should never testify in court.

Update: Canada has a related issue:

The Supreme Court of Canada will attempt to balance Islamic beliefs against the bedrock elements of a fair trial on Thursday in major clash of constitutional rights.

At the centre of the case is a sexual assault complainant known as N.S., who does not want to testify against two men accused of raping her unless her face is obscured by a religious veil, or niqab.

The defendants assert that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees them the right to confront their accuser and observe her facial nuances as she testifies.

Witness have to show their faces in American courts, with rare exceptions involving children.

Driver of increasing income inequality

2011-12-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Nick Schulz writes in an LA Times op-ed about Occupy Wall Street:

A third dynamic widening income disparities is in some ways the most inconvenient of all: the collapse of intact families. The explosion of out-of-wedlock births and of children living outside of two-parent households has widened economic disparities of all kinds, including income.

The reason is straightforward. The role that human and social capital plays in helping a person generate income in an advanced economy has increased over the last half a century. And over that same time, the primary institution for inculcating human and social capital has badly weakened.

Social scientists routinely find that individuals raised in intact families are generally better equipped to thrive in the economy. Today's 99% is teeming with tens of millions of Americans who were not raised in a stable home environment, and their earnings potential is compromised as a result.

The problem of family breakdown doesn't lend itself to easy fixes. And its cultural roots run quite deep at this point. But it's a safe bet that in the several months they occupied Zuccotti Park and other public spaces, not one new idea was raised by Occupiers that would help arrest this driver of increasing income inequality.

It is not that hard. If we had the political will, then we would start by shutting down all the govt programs contributing to family breakdown. A good step would be to abolish CPS, the family court, and welfare programs that favor single moms.

The Occupy protesters don't go around saying that we should have more competent bankers. It is tempting to say that the banking panic of 2008 was caused by incompetent bankers who were unprepared for a housing crash. No, it was caused by structural problems that allowed bankers and others to profit from bad loans.

The Occupy folks are driven by the bigger picture. They have a conviction that there is a financial elite that is running our economy to the detriment of the other 99%. The banking system is just a tool of the elite.

I believe that the welfare system, CPS, family court, and even the public schools are just tools of the people who are breaking down our social structure.

Expert evidence requirements

2011-12-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

The family court relies on experts in ways that would never be acceptable in a real court that followed rules of evidence. The Federal rules of evidence say:

Rule 702. Testimony by Expert Witnesses

A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if:

(a) the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;

(b) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;

(c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and

(d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.

First, the expert must be qualified. Having a PhD in psychology is not a qualification unless there is some issue in dispute where the psychologist has specialized training. For example, if the mom is accused of having a borderline personality disorder, and the psychologist is trained at making a DSM-IV diagnosis, then he would be qualified to give an opinion on that. But if he is trained to advise men on coming out of the closet and the court issue involves setting an alarm clock, then he is not qualified.

Next, the purpose of the testimony is to help the judge understand the evidence, and not to draw conclusions about the outcome of the case. So if the mom says that her manic episodes are controlled by drugs, an expert might explain the practical meaning of that.

The expert testimony should be all about how generally accepted principles and methods apply to the facts of the case. The expert should be explaining, not drawing conclusions or writing orders.

The expert does not necessarily have to determine the facts. If some key fact is under dispute, he can simply state his assumptions, and explain how his analysis would differ depending on whether his assumption is correct. Eg, an expert might say that the blood on the crime scence does not match the defendant, assuming that the samples were collected properly. The defendant is free to argue that the assumption is invalid, in which case it should be obvious how that affects the expert's opinion.

Most states have adopted the federal rule for expert evidence. California has not, and still uses and older rule. The difference is not significant to my points here. I cite the newer rule because it is more clearly written, as it has been refined several times over the last 20 years.

When you get an expert forensic report, the first things to look for are the assumptions, the principles and methods, and the explanations of how those principles and methods were applied to the facts. Everything else in the report is just inadmissible fluff.

I have yet to see a family court report that even satisfies these bare-bones requirements for admissibility as evidence. Have you? For those of you who have had the misfortune of being subjected to one of these reports, what percentage of the report contained admissible evidence?

Argument for confronting witnesses

2011-12-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

I mentioned below that the US Supreme Court was hearing another case on the right to confront witnesses. The leader in this subject, law professor Jeffrey L. Fisher explains it:

ON Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Williams v. Illinois, the latest in a string of cases addressing whether the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause — which gives the accused in a criminal case the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him” — applies to forensic analysts who produce reports for law enforcement. In other words, should an analyst responsible for, say, a fingerprint report have to show up at trial to face questions about the report?

A logical application of the law produces an easy answer: Yes. The court has defined a “witness against” a defendant as a person who provides information to law enforcement to aid a criminal investigation. That is exactly what forensic analysts do.

Subjecting forensic analysts to cross-examination is also good policy. ...

Despite all this, the Supreme Court has been sharply divided on the issue. In similar cases in 2009 and earlier this year, in which I represented the defendants, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. accepted claims by state governments that, simply put, confrontation in this context costs too much. It is far more efficient, these justices contend, to let analysts simply mail their reports to court. Having to appear at trials pulls them away from their labs, and only occasionally proves more revealing than their written testimony. Hence, these justices maintain, “scarce state resources” are better committed elsewhere.

It is distressing that four justices could give such a ridiculous argument. They could just look the famil court to see the folly of letting experts just mail in their reports.

I reported on a local court expert with a mail-order degree who wrote a court-order requiring a psychotropic drug for a child. Such a witness would be out of business if she were held accountable with vigorous cross-examination. Someone would ask: What his your expertise on this drug? Who have you ever treated? Why does your university have an address in the Cayman Islands? How would you recognize adverse side-effects of the drug?

This current Supreme Court case is an important case. If the defendant loses, we will be on the way to having phony govt experts deciding who get punished in our society.

Angel Adams story

2011-12-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

I have posted many times about holding CPS and other govt officials accountable for busting up families.

Here is a video of Angel Adams, who also wants to hold the social service agencies accountable. She says, "Somebody needs to held accountable, and they need to pay." The reporter says DCF, but that is the same as CPS.

Angel has 15 kids by 3 men. They were evicted from a 2-bedroom apartment. She was put in jail for contempt of court because she refused to tell the judge whether she was pregnant. The kids have been in and out of foster care. Watch the 10-minute video, and have all your prejudices confirmed.

Drugging foster kids

2011-12-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

I posted a story about over-drugging foster kids on Nov. 22, as well as some other gripes about the local family court ordering the excessive use of psychotropic drugs for kids. This has apparently become a hot topic. Readers posted stories here, here, here, and here. Last night, ABC TV 20/20 had a show on Doctors Put Foster Children at Risk With Mind-Altering Drugs. The site says that you can watch the full episode online.

ABC said that they spent a year investigating this story.

Across America, doctors are putting foster children on powerful, mind-altering drugs at rates up to 13 times that of children in the general population. What's more, doctors are prescribing foster children drugs at doses beyond what the Food and Drug Administration has approved, sometimes in potentially dangerous combinations, according to a new report by the federal Government Accountability Office.

The show gave the impression that the problems might be solved with better shrinks or more loving foster parents. I doubt it.

I have actually looked at some of the research papers that were used to get FDA approval for some of these drugs. The evidence for their effectiveness is very thin. I would not use them for myself, or for my kids. But I would not object to parents who chose to use them to treat their kids. Parents need to have the autonomy to decide what is best. But the whole idea of courts or social service agencies forcing these drugs on kids is truly offensive. This is a conspiracy of corrupt psychiatrists and social workers who have to be doing something to justify their existence.

The new psychiatric bible

2011-12-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

The San Fran Chronicle reports:

The "bible" of American psychiatry - a manual of mental health used around the world by doctors, consumers and insurance providers - has come under fire from a growing group of psychologists who worry that proposed revisions will feed into a culture of overdiagnosing, and overtreating, otherwise healthy people.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM, is undergoing its fifth major revision in the more than 60 years since it was first published by the American Psychiatric Association. The last update was in 1994, and the new manual is expected to be released in spring 2013.

Revisions to the DSM are often hotly debated, but after two decades of major, and frequently controversial, shifts in how mental health problems are diagnosed and treated in the United States, this latest update has become especially contentious, many mental health providers say.

Last month a group of psychologists with the Society for Humanistic Psychology posted a petition against many of the suggested DSM revisions, citing what they see as a broadening of the definition of mental health disorders, which, in turn, would lead to overtreatment with drugs. ...

Since the last diagnostic manual update, research has increasingly pointed to biological causes for a wide variety of mental health conditions and, in response, treatment has turned toward pharmacological answers, some psychologists say. Drugs are being used to solve mental health problems that aren't problems at all, they add.

In 2010, 1 in 5 American adults was using some type of mental health medication, a 22 percent increase over the past decade, according to a report released last week by Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy-benefits management company. ...

Grief after the death of a loved one, for example, may be included under the diagnosis of major depressive disorder. That means a person's grief could be labeled a pathological disorder, and not a normal human experience, said psychologist Brent Robbins, a professor at Point Park University in Pittsburgh and an author of the petition.

"Another diagnosis, dysphoric mood dysregulation disorder, is basically temper tantrums," Robbins said. "Next thing you know, you could have 2-year-olds on psychotropic medications."

If you feel depressed after the death of a loved one, that is not a pathological condition. That is a normal human response. But more and more, people are getting psychotropic pills from non-psychiatrist physicians in order to feel better, without a diagnosis. And the psychologists and other counselors are upset because they cannot prescribe the pills. Only physicians (including psychiatrists) can.

All this talk of "biological causes" is exaggerated. People like to talk about chemical imbalances and brain mis-wiring, but these psychiatric disorders cannot be diagnosed with brain scans or blood tests or anything objective like that.

You can get the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria from Morrison's simplified version. The psychologists made him shut down his website, but the info is available on a Canadian and a Russian website. I will put my own up, if these are lost for any reason.

My guess is that the DSM-5 will invent a bunch of new excuses for prescribing pill, getting counseling, and otherwise promoting the rise of therapism.

More on NY family courts

2011-12-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

The NY Times published a couple of letters in response to its family court secrecy article, including:

I practiced in these courts in the mid-1980s, representing low-income clients in custody, neglect and child-support matters. Back then many Family Court judges routinely got on the bench late, court-appointed lawyers regularly failed to appear, and court officers treated with disdain the litigants who thronged the waiting areas until the late afternoon hoping that their cases would be called.

Important matters, such as child custody cases, were often adjourned multiple times; months, even years, elapsed before decisions were issued. Those who ran the Family Courts then were largely white; the people who mistakenly depended on these institutions for justice and some sensitivity were largely black or brown.

I suspect that little has changed in these Family Courts. That may be why their power structures react with fear to the opening of their doors to reporters or any other interested person. Exposing these enclaves to the light of public scrutiny is the only hope for curing their dysfunction.

Exposing will not be enough. The public must then be convinced that there is a better way.

Racist rant goes viral

2011-11-30T08:00:00.001-08:00

The UK Mirror newspaper reports:

A MUM was kept in custody for her own safety yesterday after a video allegedly showing her launching a racist rant was posted online.

Emma West, 34, appeared in court charged with a racially-aggravated public order offence. Magistrates denied her bail over fears of revenge attacks.

The clip shows a woman with a child sitting on her lap on a tram shouting at other passengers. At one point she declares they should go back to their own country, saying they’re not British because they are black.

Here is the video. She is being obnoxious, but she is not threatening the anybody. I guess there is no free speech in the UK. I never heard of anyone denied bail for a racist comment.

If she did this in the USA, she could not be prosecuted for her rant, but my guess is that someone would call CPS. She has a toddler on her lap, and someone would claim that she was endangered her child with her provocative comments. With mandatory reporting of suspicions, I am not so sure that she would be free to express her opinions.

Shaming single moms

2011-11-29T08:00:00.001-08:00

Chateau Heartiste writes a blog under the slogan "where pretty lies perish". It is a crude and irreverant analysis of the human nature of male-female relationships. It is also brilliant, funny, and well-written. I don't know whether he is the last of a dying breed of neanderthals, or a prime example of a new generation of hedonists who are destroying modern civilization. Either way, he is always thought-provoking.

Currently he argues Why It’s Good To Shame Single Moms:

With all the data pointing to an entrenchment of epidemic-like proportions of single momhood in the U.S., it’s helpful to remind ourselves why this is so bad not only for the health of the nation and its posterity, but for the well-being of the children who suffer under a regime of single moms. As we are neck-deep in an era of selfishness, it’s no surprise that the scourge of single momhood leads the vanguard of cultural dissolution. At 70+% among black Americans, 50+% among Hispanics, and 30% among whites, we are heading for a future of grown-up bastard spawn bringing all their neuroses and dysfunction to bear on the social contract, which is already frayed beyond rescue.

Of course, middle-upper and upper class whites think they are immune to the tidal wave of illegitimacy, and so far they can take cold comfort in the fact that their rates are considerably lower than those of their lessers (you’ll never get them to admit they have lessers, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they *believe exactly that*.) However, strong social forces can work both up and down the class and race ladder, and it is entirely plausible that a dystopian event horizon, like widespread illegitimacy, that bellies up the lower and middle classes will eventually consume the upper classes as well, either directly by the osmosis of bad habits or indirectly by the levying of trust-destroying and community-fracturing Danegeld. ...

Boys of single moms are more likely to end up huffing paint under overpasses. Way to go, single moms.

Interestingly, the study claims girls do not suffer as much from missing fathers, but the metric used in the study was degree of delinquency, which would naturally favor girls since they are the sex less predisposed to criminal behavior, regardless of parental environment. Studies that have expanded the measured variables to include other dysfunctional behaviors find clear links between fatherlessness and sluttiness in teen girls. Mothers nurture, fathers guide. Both are required to fully form the child into a self-possessed adult.

How did we ever get to the point where single moms are praised? Our society would be much better off if single moms were shamed. Single moms are doing more damage to modern society than any other demographic group.

The most popular story on Huff Post is this:

CLEVELAND -- An Ohio third-grader who weighs more than 200 pounds has been taken from his family and placed into foster care after county social workers said his mother wasn't doing enough to control his weight.

The case is the first state officials can recall of a child being put in foster care strictly for a weight-related issue.

Lawyers for the mother say the county overreached when authorities took the boy last week. They say the medical problems he is at risk for do not yet pose an imminent danger.

A spokeswoman says the county removed the child because caseworkers saw his mother's inability to reduce his weight as medical neglect.

Saying that he was "taken from his family" is a little exaggerated. He had already been separated form his dad and was being reared by a single mom. The problem here is that there is no longer any shame in being a single mom on welfare with a fat kid.

Naming the accuser

2011-11-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

A reader asks how I know who complained to CPS about me.

I first heard about a CPS investigation when I posted this Nov. 9, 2007 summary of a CPS agent interviewing me. A week later, the Sheriff seized my kids, based on an ex-parte motion from my ex-wife, Julie Travers.

The CPS agent, Sally Mitchell, later released a report to the public record. I posted it on the net, but later had to take it down. Some of my readers probably have copies of it. It describes a "reporting party" with a bunch of bizarre and false allegations, such as running over dogs with my car. Mitchell later implied that the reporting party had some connection to the school, but there was a false allegation about me being banned the classroom, making it unlikely that she talked to either of my kids' teachers. I had recently volunteered in their classrooms, and was obviously not banned. Mitchell notified my ex-wife of the investigation, but did not ask her for an interview.

At a later custody trial, my ex-wife testified that she called CPS with her own complaint, the day before she brought her motion to seize our kids. She implied that she did not really agree with the previous complaint, but wanted to use the opportunity to gain sole custody. She did not say what her complaint was, except that we missed one day of school.

It was a very radical step for Cmr. Irwin H. Joseph to order the sheriff to seize my kids, on the ex-parte request of a bitter ex-wife who wanted sole custody. The CPS report did not recommend any action to the court, and Mitchell admitted that she did not get any adult confirmation of any of the allegations. None of the allegations involved health or safety or any cause for immediate concern. Cmr. Joseph made it clear on Dec. 6, 2007 that his action was entirely contingent on being led to believe that a forthcoming CPS report would justify what he had done.

The only allegations that Judge Heather D. Morse recognized in her April 7, 2011 decision were (cited in this motion):

the court asked George how he thought his children might feel about experiences being adduced into evidence, such as enrolling them in a math test which was reportedly way above their abilities; and resetting their alarm clock which prevented them from being prepared for school.

My ex-wife obviously complained about me to CPS, and then made some sort of back-room deal with Mitchell. Sometimes I say that, and one of my readers accuses me of having a conspiracy theory, and not having proof of the deal. I don't know why he would doubt the deal, as the above events could not have happened without a CPS deal. But if you don't want to believe in a deal, that's fine with me, as the parties are even more culpable if there was no deal.

The above story is why I say that my ex-wife made a bogus complaint to CPS. She did take the initiative to call CPS on Nov. 15, 2011 with a complaint about me, and she used it the next day to make a motion to gain temporary sole custody of our two kids. I say that the complaint was bogus because it was not about anything that would be considered abuse or neglect under California law. Mitchell admitted, under oath, that there were no allegations that would give CPS any jurisdiction over the case. And the psychologist that Joseph appointed to investigate the allegations, Ken Perlmutter, testified under oath that there was nothing that could be considered abuse under California law or psychology standards, and that he was unable to find anything wrong with my parenting practices. Every other witness also testified that there was no abuse.

It has now been over four years that my ex-wife got temporary sole custody pending an evaluation, and our kids are still living under temporary court orders.

Part of the problem is that no one will admit that the court has made a terrible mistake. At this point, I wish that I had made some identifiable mistake. Then the court could have ordered some sort of corrective measure. As it is, none of their experts has ever been able to identify anything that I have done wrong. So Judge Morse just continues to issue temporary orders, and ignore the fact that this entire mess is completely the result of a bogus CPS complaint from Julie Travers four years ago.

Accusing the Accuser

2011-11-27T10:10:00.000-08:00

Here is today's NY Times ethicist advice about a false report to CPS:

The Ethicist
Accusing the Accuser
By ARIEL KAMINER
Published: November 25, 2011

Someone wrote an anonymous letter to the Administration for Children’s Services stating that I had physically abused my children on various occasions in broad daylight in my neighborhood. With nothing to hide, I allowed the A.C.S. to interview my children and their caregivers, and I was cleared. Against all odds, I then found out who wrote the letter. I’m mad, but I’m reluctant to turn her in lest she face a harsh penalty. Should I pursue the case or let karma do its job? ANONYMOUS

Getting the rude surprise of a lifetime, being accused of monstrous behavior and potentially seeing your own children removed from your care, you might wonder how much retribution it’s possible to enact. Instead you ask how much forbearance it’s ethical to show. I bet the A.C.S. caseworkers don’t hear that question very often.

It’s a crime to file a false report, but prosecutors rarely go after isolated offenses. So as a practical matter it might not be worth your time to turn your accuser in. But as an ethical matter, there are good reasons for you to seek justice.

False reports don’t just terrify the accused (and their families); they further strain an already overburdened system, diverting help from children who most need it. If this woman intentionally deceived investigators just to spite you, you should report her — quick, before she does it to someone else.

But can you be sure? As Michael J. Fagan, an A.C.S. spokesman, pointed out, your accuser might have thought she was doing the right thing. Perhaps she saw something ambiguous and drew a mistaken conclusion. Perhaps she, too, hesitated to speak lest you face a harsh penalty. If you don’t know what her motivation was, and if there is a chance that your awful experience has colored your judgment about her, then let the matter drop.

A system like ours, in which we rely on one another to sound the alarm when children are in danger, is bound to produce a few false positives. If every mistaken accuser got called before a jury, who would ever speak up?

We are becoming a society of snitches were anyone can make an anonymous report and cause misery to others without any accountability. The law and CPS protect the complainer's anonymity. Even this newspaper ethicist, who recognizes the harm from a false report, ends up saying that we should tolerate false reports.

As explained below, our justice system is based on our right to confront the witnesses against us. If I were reporting genuine abuse, then I would be willing to make a police report under my name and testify in court, just like any other crime. In a real court, mistaken accusers are called before the jury just like any other witness, and that is how it has worked for 220+ years.

In my case, I eventually learned that the bogus CPS report was made by Julie Travers, but she was never held accountable for what she did.

Right to confront witnesses

2011-11-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

The LA Times reports:

Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's most outspoken and combative conservative, is not often described as friendly to criminals.

But in recent years, Scalia has led an unusual pro-defendant faction at the high court in reversing convictions for murder, drug dealing, wife beating and drunken driving.

Next up in early December is a Chicago rapist who claims his 6th Amendment right to confront his accusers was violated because prosecutors did not put on the witness stand a lab technician from Maryland who conducted the DNA test that sent him to prison. ...

The 6th Amendment to the Constitution says the "accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him." To Scalia, this clause not only gives defendants the right to challenge actual witnesses, but also the right to bar testimony from all those "witnesses" who did not or cannot testify in court. He takes this view even if the witness is dead. ...

In June, the court went one step further. The Scalia bloc, by a 5-4 vote, overturned the drunken-driving conviction of a New Mexico man because the lab analyst who testified about his blood alcohol did not actually work on the defendant's blood sample. ...

"This is not a left-right split. This is principle versus pragmatism," said University of Michigan law professor Richard Friedman. For Scalia, "this is all about adhering to originalism," regardless of whether the results seem strange.

This is not complicated. It is a core principle of the Bill of Rights, and in the founding of our republic. The state cannot convict someone based on a bunch of affidavits. The witnesses have to testify live in court, and answer questions.

The only bad part of this rule is that gangsters sometimes murder witnesses, and thereby eliminate their testimony.

Apparently some states think that certain prosecution witnesses should not have to testify. That is wrong. If they do not testify under oath, then they are not accountable for what they do. They must also be cross-examined to force them to explain their reasoning. Otherwise we would be headed to the day when a jury is asked to find a defendant guilty just because some nameless faceless lab technician says that he is guilty. That would not be a trial.

The family court tries to get away with relying on expert reports, whenever it can. These reports often result in a change of custody, even tho the report does not really explain the evidence for and against a change. Sometimes the experts are not really witnesses to anything. They are just quacks who collected some unsworn statements and give some conclusion about what the judge should do.

Lawyers call such statements conclusory. That word is not even in my dictionary, but lawyers use it all the time. It is not to be confused with conclusive. When a witness gives conclusive evidence, then that means proof of inncence or guilt. That is, the testimony gives a conclusion to the case.

But a conclusory statement is one that tries to give some sort of conclusion without supporting evidence. In a real court, testimony is dismissed as soon as the lawyer points out that it is conclusory. The quack court shrinks write conclusory reports that no legitimate judge would accept.

The right to confront witnesses against you in a criminal case is hanging on by a thread at the US Supreme Court. Someday, civilized societies will realize that family courts need to be following rules of evidence also.

Rant against local family court

2011-11-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

One of my readers wrote this letter on what is wrong with the local family court. I don't know too much about her case, except that her grandson is being forced to take some psychotropic drug that doesn't even work. The know-nothing judges and know-nothing shrinks have no business making such a decision.

Ordering a drug might be justifiable if the child had some life-threatening condition and the parents were ignoring some medical necessity. But this child does not have an illness, the drug would not help if it did, and no physician has testified that the drug is necessary.

Here is her letter:

Superior Court of California, County of Santa Cruz
1 Second Street Watsonville, CA 95076

Case #FL 0xxxxx

Dear Judge Morse:

On October 9, 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB499 into law. Now 12 year old children have the right to get vaccinated against STDs without needing the permission of their parents. Yet, in Santa Cruz County a 13 year old boy held in bondage to the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency for 5 ½ years does not have the right to refuse an unnecessary drug that makes him sick.

Dan H., an Asperger boy, was born in 1998 to a mother who not only didn't know boys, didn't know anything about Asperger Syndrome. Fortunately for Dan, his Asperger father knew about both. Unfortunately for Dan, Santa Cruz County, the Family Law Court, Judge John Salazar, and Judge Heather Morse have continuously contrived to keep the father from having any ability to protect his son.

Santa Cruz County is filled with people who lie and no one cares about that fact, nor do they make the liars prove their allegations. From Dan's mother who has lied in her many court documents, to the County Health Services doctor who, in 2006, persuaded the boy's parents to lie and say he was mentally ill in order to get him into a program which would bring the County more of the State MHSA funds. He still keeps the boy on an antipsychotic he knows makes the boy sick.

Also on the list of liars is the mother's lawyer who freely puts down his client's falsehoods, while adding his own. The father's do-nothing, question-nothing lawyer brings a colossal fraud into the picture with her colleague/friend who calls herself a `Parent Coordinator', though the Court Clerk says the County has no such program, nor is he even aware of this `PC' and her program. She lies about her credentials, one of which is from an unaccredited school. I wrote to you, Judge Morse, asking you about the Santa Cruz County's `PC' program, which this person says she worked on creating, and also about who the supposed `PCs' were. You sent me a very short note saying `The Court has looked into your concerns.' That was all. What did this mean? That you had also found the program and the `PCs' to be bogus, as I had?

Another prevaricator in the County is the psychologist used by the County in the majority of custody cases. You told the parents that if they chose this evaluator, they would have to abide by his ruling. You are the judge, yet you gave over this responsibility to an ignorant subordinate. This man who is knowledgeable about helping himself and others out of the closet, knows nothing about children, families, and Asperger Syndrome. I have lived all my life with Aspies; half my family are or were Asperger. The support group O.A.S.I.S. says the true expert on Aspergers is the person who has raised an Asperger child. Three of my four children are Asperger: I am an expert and I don't need a doctorate from a bogus, non-accredited online school based in the Cayman Islands. Being able to quote from DSM-IV doesn't make one an expert.

This evaluator's report was filled with the mother's lies. He spoke to very few people, one being the children's therapist whose lies he quotes. The evaluator seems to have great respect for the `PC' and her lies. She is allowed to file a `confidential' report. Where are his ethics or those of all the others? I was sitting in the Family Law Court waiting room when the father's and the mother's lawyers were discussing who to choose for an evaluator. One was Elizabeth Lee, the other was this man. They chose the latter. They chose him knowing what they'd get: he gives custody to the mothers and makes the fathers take parenting classes. Mothers don't have to take classes. Apparently they know everything about raising children, even if they neglect their children, drink, and have live-in alcoholic lovers. The father's lawyer was the same lawyer for the two mothers in two other cases that the evaluator handled. She defends her female clients, threatening the fathers with loss of custody. Her male client, Dan's father, she doesn't defend and tells him to do what the `PC' and the other side wants, because he `could lose custody.'

When preparing her client for his meeting with the evaluator, my son's lawyer said that the evaluator `didn't want to read much,' so she wanted him to submit only the one page questionnaire. She said that he should come in to her office so she could `help' him with it. She gave him no copy of what was submitted. The mother's lawyer, on the other hand, had her submit 175 pages! These were filled with the usual lies, beginning with the first page where he pointed out all the letters that `were written by me.'! In putting together the report for his slipshod evaluation, (he spent all of 14 ½ hours on the entire process) he made things easier on himself by copying freely the lies the mother had in the auxiliary pages to her questionnaire. As the mother's lies, the therapist's lies, the so-called `PC's' lies were all about me, shouldn't he ethically have spoken with me? Certainly he was able to. But speaking to more people would have cut into his bottom line and he would have gotten less money. The outcome of his `evaluation' was as the two lawyers wanted: custody for the mother. The evaluator gave no reasons for taking away the father's legal right to oversee the health of his son, or my right to visit with my grandchildren, nor were any reasons asked for by you, your Honor.

The mother recently had her 15 year old Asperger daughter put on Zoloft and the therapist thinks she should also be on a drug for ADHD. Having her children on drugs is exactly what all these people were aiming at. She can do whatever she wants and one of the things the County wants is that the boy should stay in the County's Mental Health Services program and keep bringing in the lucrative MHSA funds.

But worst of all in Santa Cruz County are the judges. It's one thing for worthless lawyers to not question what is said and not defend their clients. It's another for judges not to question or examine what comes before them. There is no `Best Interests of the Children' in Santa Cruz County, because the children don't matter. Lies prevail and children can be poisoned by unnecessary drugs. All of this colluding was about me because I questioned the treatment of my beloved grandson and wrote 4 letters. The First Amendment and the Constitution don't have any value in Santa Cruz County. Rather than being direct and aiming their SLAPP lawsuit against me, they punished my son who, as the mother's lawyer stated in court on Dec. 3, 2009: `I appreciate Mr. H. He's a good dad. Rebecca respects him. She relies on him. She needs him to be in her children's lives'. No one ever had the courage to speak with me, citing only the letters I wrote and all the lies the mother, et al, said about me. My son was punished because he was supposed `to control his mother and keep her from writing letters.' At least Judge John Salazar had the decency to read my letters: `I actually agree with her. She's a very good writer.'

So, why do we even need Family Law Court judges? They don't do their jobs. They fob them off on inept and unqualified subordinates. They wait for incompetent lawyers to come up with a done deal to give them, one they need only sign off on. Your Honor ignored and refused to acknowledge your responsibility to this father, his two children and their grandmother, and for what reasons?

[name omitted]

CC: Judge John Salazar
[2 local lawyers]
Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye
Governor Jerry Brown
Attorney General Kamala Harris

She is right, but this letter is falling on deaf ears.

Drugging the irritable boy

2011-11-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

A local grandmother filed this complaint against a local psychiatrist. It seems to me that the core of the problem here is that the schools will not do anything to accommodate a child with minor special needs. They want to treat the kid just like every other kid, or get the kid declared handicapped so that they can qualify for special govt programs. But once the parents acquiesce to that, they are going down the rabbit_hole. You might want to read this letter before you go there.

September 6, 2011
Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission
1300 17th Street, Suite 1000 Sacramento, CA 95811

Robert L. Brown, MD (C50186) is a psychiatrist with the Santa Cruz County Mental Health Services Agency. In 2006, he persuaded my son and his ex- wife to say that their, then, 7 year old son was mentally ill. The boy is Asperger Syndrome, a mental condition, not a mental disorder, let alone a mental illness. They did this because Santa Cruz County and the Pajaro Valley School District make no provision for Aspergers and the Rio del Mar Elementary School did not know what to do with him. The parents were told that if they took the boy to the county he could get in the new MHSA program. They would be able to get all the help they needed and they wouldn't have to pay for it. They weren't told, until they met Robert Brown, that their son would have to be declared mentally ill. Brown persuaded them to do this.

Once he got the boy into the program, Robert Brown prescribed Risperdal. Obviously, Dr. Brown knows nothing about Aspergers. Because it's a condition, drugs, especially an antipsychotic, would have no effect. An anti-anxiety drug can help Aspies with their anxiety, but that's all. Aspies need training to deal with society, not drugs. At least half my extended family are, or were, Aspergers; none was ever on drugs. But, once the boy was on Risperdal, Robert Brown would not deviate from his prescribing. He has the mother's approval, but not the father's.

Dr. Brown has been prescribing Risperdal for this little boy for 5-1/2 years. He sees the boy 3 or four times a year to order blood tests and write a new prescription. The boy, now 13, has had significant side effects. The father reported these to Janssen (subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson). The Janssen representative said that the boy had all the side effects exhibited by 10% of Risperdal users and that the `treatment should be stopped.' But Dr. Brown has ignored all these side effects and continues to prescribe this dangerous antipsychotic. He needs to keep boy on the drug and have him declared mentally ill for the boy to continue with the Santa Cruz County MHSA program. It's not just the 4 times a year Brown sees the child, the boy has been seen by a myriad of counselors, MFTs, and psychologists over the last
5-1/2 years. These latter are supposed to help the boy with his behavior, but they don't realize that the boy's behavior is all the side effects of Risperdal.

Janssen says that Risperdal is to be used `short- term' for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the `irritability' of autism. It's also to be monitored every three weeks. Dr. Brown has never done this. After 5-1/2 years this little boy has lost all his self-confidence and has become even more anxious. He has chronic sinusitis, has frequent stomach upsets and vomiting. His usual mental state is fuzzy, and frustration can make him erupt. They have kept him in Special Ed, something the experts say should not happen, as Aspies are very bright. He's lost the friends from the mainstream second grade class, and now only interacts with a kleptomaniac/compulsive eater, an autistic boy who doesn't speak, and an emotionally disturbed boy.

Santa Cruz County officials from the Mental Health Services Agency, CPS, and the Family Law Court have worked together to keep the boy in the MHSA program. The father is allowed no voice. The mother, who works for the county, is the only one allowed to speak and she denies that the boy has any side effects. She wants him quiet in his downstairs bedroom. The mother sued the father for full custody (didn't get it), but the father's lawyer, who doesn't support him in anything, told him not to fight it - `[he] could lose custody' - and had him go with a Parent Coordinator. This person with dubious credentials, a friend and colleague of the father's lawyer, sided with the mother and always against the father. She saw the boy once 3 years ago and put together a court order, signed by a judge who questioned none of it. There is no `Best Interest of the Child' in Santa Cruz County. The PC never spoke with Dr. Brown, yet said that the father must follow Dr. Brown's treatment. There was a second doctor who said that Risperdal should not be used. In the court order, the PC said that this doctor's `report' should be followed. However, the PC had told this doctor NOT to write a report, and the doctor did what she said. All the while, Robert Brown is ignoring the boy's side effects.

In addition to the unethical PC, Santa Cruz County has a couple of psychologists they use to do `Full Custody Evaluations.' One, a gay man who has spent years helping himself and others out of the closet, is, nevertheless, considered an expert on children and families. They use him over and over. His MO is to give custody to mothers (in this case, the mother drinks and has a live in alcoholic boyfriend.) But the mother wants to keep the boy on Risperdal and in the MHSA program, and the biased psychologist is in agreement with this. The fathers also have to take parenting classes, but the mothers never do. This psychologist, for no reason, gives full legal custody to the mother: she will, after all, keep drugging the boy. The father has been made impotent in matters of his child's health.

The Santa Cruz County Family Court is notorious for sitting on their hands and letting the lawyers and psychologists come up with their own plan, which the Family Court judge, unquestioningly, signs. Children have no rights to be drug free in Santa Cruz County. Not only does the boy not need the MHSA programs, his being in them denies the services to someone who really needs them. Dr. Brown is part and parcel to this waste. How many thousands of dollars have been spent on this one little boy? Dr. Brown's salary in 2009 was $205,000; very high for a county salary. He wants to protect this money, of course, and the boy is an easy patient. In addition to Dr. Brown are all the counselors, etc. And a little boy has to pay the price of this hubris. Dr. Brown has been quoted as saying that `were [he, Brown] in the private sector, [he] would not have [the boy] as a patient.' A very curious thing to say.

Risperdal was FDA approved for kids in 2006:

Risperdal has been approved since 1993 for the short-term treatment of adults with schizophrenia, and since 2003 for the short-term treatment of adults with acute manic or mixed episodes associated with extreme mood swings.

The product’s effectiveness in the symptomatic treatment of irritability associated with pediatric autistic disorders was established in two 8-week, placebo-controlled trials in 156 patients aged 5 to 16 years, 90 percent of whom were 5-12 years old. The results, which were evaluated using two assessment scales, showed that children on Risperdal achieved significantly improved scores for certain behavioral symptoms of autism compared to children on placebo. The most common side effects of the use of Risperdal included drowsiness, constipation, fatigue and weight gain.

So if you have a kid who has some annoying behavior, you can put him on this drug. It has been tested in an 8-week study.

It seems to me that since the FDA only approved it for short-term treatment in adults, and it was only tested for 8 weeks in kids, then it should have only been approved for short-term treatment in kids. And it should never be given based on a court order or against the wishes of the parents. I post below a NY Times story about how the drug is overused on kids by non-parental authorities.

Finally, I will get flack for this, but I must comment on the complicity of a gay shrink in this. Forty years ago, aspergers kids were considered normal and homosexuals were considered to have a mental disorder. It was the opinion of the psychiatry profession that gays were the ones who needed drugs to stifle their impulses and control their behavior. Even the gay psychiatrists considered themselves disordered. Now they are drugging the aspies. This whole story seems like black people dressing up in KKK white sheets and lynching Mexican-Americans.

Federal judge should hear Arlington CPS case

2011-11-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

The Washington DC examiner editorializes about a Virginia case:

One of the most disturbing stories I've ever written for The Washington Examiner was about a 3-week-old baby girl who was snatched from her mother's arms and placed in foster care by Arlington County Child Protective Services because she lost 10 ounces after birth. Baby Sabrina's story hit me hard in the gut because that could have been me; my youngest daughter lost a whole pound postpartum.

Newborn weight loss is normal, Sabrina was under a doctor's care and had even regained all of her lost birth weight when she was taken. Kit Slitor, a freelance video editor, and his wife, Nancy Hey, a federal employee, were never charged with or convicted of child abuse or neglect, and the Virginia Department of Social Services exonerated them of any wrongdoing. It didn't matter.

After doing everything social workers and the Arlington Domestic and Juvenile Relations Court, or DJR, demanded of them -- including home inspections, supervised visitation, and psychological testing -- their parental rights were terminated and Sabrina was put up for adoption. They spent more than $250,000 fighting for her, all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court, which declined to hear their case.

Four years later, their story still haunts me.

On Sept. 16, a class-action lawsuit modeled after a similar pleading in Massachusetts was filed in federal court in Alexandria on behalf of eight children -- including Sabrina -- who have been placed in foster care by Arlington County. ...

If social workers and judges can take your child away without due process, the Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper the powerful can continue to ignore with impunity.

I think that my readers can answer that. Our Constitution is toilet paper, on these issues.

In another case, the feds have been forcibly giving anti-psychotic drugs to the 23-year-old shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has, Jared Lee Loughner, and his lawyer is appealing. I mentioned this case before, as the big issue is whether the feds can drug him without due process. The Wash. Post reports:

Loughner lead attorney Judy Clarke said in Monday’s brief that their client has been denied a prompt review for the “four- to five-drug cocktail currently forced on him” by the federal court.

“Did the prison deprive Mr. Loughner of liberty without due process by failing to seek a prompt hearing to determine whether continued forced medication was justified?” Clarke wrote. “Have the prison’s actions denied Mr. Loughner due process by forcibly medicating him without an adversarial hearing and a judicial determination that anti-psychotic medication is medically appropriate and, considering less intrusive means, essential to the safety of Mr. Loughner and others?”

The opening brief by Loughner’s lawyers challenging to the medication ruling wasn’t due until Nov. 28. It was unclear Monday why Clarke filed it a week early.

The funny part of this is that it is newsworthy that a lawyer filed court papers a week before the deadline. Nearly all lawyers wait until the deadline every time, regardless of whether there is any advantage to waiting.

Drugging our kids

2011-11-22T08:00:00.001-08:00

The NY Times reports:

Foster children are being prescribed cocktails of powerful antipsychosis drugs just as frequently as some of the most mentally disabled youngsters on Medicaid, a new study suggests.

The report, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to investigate how often youngsters in foster care are given two antipsychotic drugs at once, the authors said. The drugs include Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa — among other so-called major tranquilizers — which were developed for schizophrenia but are now used as all-purpose drugs for almost any psychiatric symptoms.

“The kids in foster care may come from bad homes, but they do not have the sort of complex medical issues that those in the disabled population do,” said Susan dosReis, an associate professor in the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and the lead author.

The implication, Dr. dosReis and other experts said: Doctors are treating foster children’s behavioral problems with the same powerful drugs given to people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. “We simply don’t have evidence to support this kind of use, especially in young children,” Dr. dosReis said.

Psychiatrists used to claim that mental illnesses like schizophrenia were caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, usually involving serotonin or oxytocin. They also claimed that these new anti-psychotic drugs corrected these imbalances. But researchers have never been able to confirm that, and now these pills are handed out to anyone with a complaint.

Drugging foster kids does not do them any good. It is just a way for the govt authorities to label them as damaged, treat them as subhuman, and pretend that they are being helped.

Meanwhile, other parents cannot get enough ADHD drugs. NPR radio reports:

When it's time to renew her son's prescriptions for medicine to treat his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Roxanne Ryan prepares for another wild goose chase.

The Philadelphia mother says she typically has to call around to 10 to 15 different pharmacies to find where the prescriptions can be filled. And when 10-year-old Sergey doesn't get his medication, he's a bundle of uncontained energy. ...

Whatever the root causes, for people like Roxanne Ryan in Philadelphia, it doesn't do much good to know there's plenty of medicine out there – somewhere. If she can't get what Sergey needs, she'll continue to give him the medication prescribed for her. (She was diagnosed with ADHD after he was – a not-uncommon story.)

"It's sacrificing so that my son can have," she says. "Every parent does that."

You might wonder why the drug industry would make all the drugs that they can sell. I think that the key is that ADHD drugs are addictive, and rationing drugs to addicted customers makes them want the drugs all the more.

There are no studies saying that the ADHD drugs work any better than a cup of coffee. This Philadelphia mom has the panic of a drug addict. Otherwise, she would just get a cup of coffee and not worry about it. As one ADD journalist explains:

The best of the addiction-based business models are "addiction-proof" addictive drug, and the Adderall story is at its core the saga of a nearly century-long quest for this unattainable ideal. Amphetamine salt -— Adderall’s active ingredient -— has been the subject of heady dispute within the medical profession since the drug company Smith, Kline and French began peddling the stuff in 1935, but for decades just about the only thing medical community generally agreed about was that it was not addictive. The SKF sales department did, however, have a term for the loyalty it engendered among consumers: “stick.” ...

Today the $4 billion ADD drug industry is about ten times its 1996 size, and Adderall is the reigning market leader.

I think that this is evil. More and more, I think that there is a systematic effort in our society to break down the family. To accomplish this, they do everything they can to put kids under the control of judges, psychiatrists, social workers, and drugs. It used to be that when a mom had a 10-year-old boy who is "a bundle of uncontained energy", the dad would teach him to play football or work on the farm to burn up that energy and make a man out of him. But now our society has convinced this mom to kick out her husband, drug the boy, and let him get fat and lazy. She even brags about what a good self-sacrificing parent she is, because she shares her amphetamines with him.

I will post a letter this week that details how the Santa Cruz court has forced unnecessary and harmful drugs on a boy, in an attempt to control him. Some of you will probably say that it a story of incompetent but well-meaning do-gooders. I don't buy it. They are evil, and they have a purpose.

Explaining a bruise

2011-11-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

This black eye was caused by a soccer ball to the face. The picture drew hundreds of comments from women who have accidental bruises, and then find themselves repeatedly explaining to people that they do not need to be rescued from the violent boyfriend. No matter what she says, people assume that the boyfriend beat her up and she is lying to protect him.

What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

2011-11-20T08:00:00.001-08:00

The NY Times reports:

What they did not get, for all that time and money, was much practical training. Law schools have long emphasized the theoretical over the useful, with classes that are often overstuffed with antiquated distinctions, like the variety of property law in post-feudal England. ... “They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.” ...

Consider, for instance, Contracts, a first-year staple. It is one of many that originated in the Langdell era and endures today. In it, students will typically encounter such classics as Hadley v. Baxendale, an 1854 dispute about financial damages caused by the late delivery of a crankshaft to a British miller.

Here is what students will rarely encounter in Contracts: actual contracts, the sort that lawyers need to draft and file. Likewise, Criminal Procedure class is normally filled with case studies about common law crimes — like murder and theft — but hardly mentions plea bargaining, even though a vast majority of criminal cases are resolved by that method.

If you hire a lawyer for a family court case, do not expect him to apply anything he learned at law school. If he paid attention during his evidence or constitutional law classes, he would have learned a bunch of rules that the family court judges ignore anyway.

That is not to say that a lawyer is totally useless. He ought to have the experience to know how to file court papers. He might know which court evaluators have prejudices in your favor. He might tell you that the system has a vice-grip on your balls and there is nothing you can do about it. Or he might take all your money and let you figure it out for yourself.

Family court secrecy

2011-11-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

A front page NY Times story exposes a big family court flaw:

Today, the culture of secrecy has hardly budged. Leah A. Hill, a Fordham Law School professor who has written about and practiced in New York Family Courts, said the courts were largely as unaccountable today as they had ever been, even though they can hold a central place in the lives of poor New Yorkers.

“There hasn’t really been a public discourse about what goes on in Family Court, and part of the reason is that it is a closed institution,” Professor Hill said.

Here is the story:

New York State’s Family Courts were ordered to be opened to the public with much fanfare in 1997, supposedly allowing anyone to witness the cases of domestic violence, foster care and child neglect that inch through by the hundreds of thousands every year. But now, 14 years later, the Family Courts remain essentially, almost defiantly, closed to the general public.

Recent visits to the courts across New York City revealed officials and security officers routinely disregarding the open-courts rule in ways both large and small, direct and implied, insistent and even hostile.

Some courtrooms were locked, and many were marked with “stop” and “do not enter” signs. Court officers stationed at courtroom doors repeatedly barred a visitor, sometimes with sarcasm or ridicule, frequently demanding to know who he was and what he was doing. Armed court officers at times appeared so rattled by a visitor’s efforts to enter courtrooms that, in several instances, a group of them nervously confronted the visitor, their holsters in easy reach. ...

In Brooklyn, a judge, Michael Katz, was quickly alerted to a visitor who had managed to slip briefly into a seat. “These proceedings are generally confidential,” the judge said.

But they are not, according to the law. ...

American legal principles have long favored open courts as a check on government, and New York law has specifically said for more than a century that “the sittings of every court within the state shall be public.”

But by 1997, the Family Courts had been closed for decades, with rare exceptions. Critics said the chaos of the courts was amplified by their secrecy — a veil that had grown over the years with the support of many of the courts’ judges, lawyers and social-agency representatives. Closed courtrooms, critics argued, kept hidden the courts’ struggles, as well as the sometimes controversial ways they dealt with those who ended up in the resource-starved system plagued by delays.

In Santa Cruz, the family court is open to the public, altho I was once asked to leave someone else's trial. But it is still very secretive about evaluations and other back-room deals that are so important to the process.

I would like to put a webcam in the family court, and broadcast proceeding on the internet. If people saw how really bad the system is, it would have to change. It is worse that what you expect. Just sit in a court sometime, and find out.

The article has some excellent comments, such as this:

These courts are closed so that no one sees the justice taking place. There are child abuse proceedings dragging on where the only injury to a child is a mark or only on the basis of a child's words. There are child support proceedings taking place where men are presumed to always lie about their income. There are custody cases where children are flipped from one parent to another without a hearing. There are domestic violence cases taking place where men are always deemed inherently violent and the woman's words are used as evidence.

The apparent goal of this courtroom secrecy is the imposition of government will upon the public at its roots: the family. There is a preference for the creation of single parent homes where natural vulnerabilities of single parents are further exploited. There is a zealous desire to stamp out violence against women to such an extent that even illegal alien women who claim domestic violence are able to circumvent deportation proceedings and level horrendous charges against their American men. Children are used to build a case through their voluntary hospital admissions into psychiatric wards for the creation of reports of abuse.

There is also a hiding of biased methodologies. Judges determine who the winner of a case is sometimes by mere intuition. Then they start to sanitize the record by precluding the loser's documents and experts. They bolster the winner's case by allowing the winner's documents and experts into evidence. For example, in IDV cases, crisis center advocates will take the stand and offer expert testimony on issues they have no background on.

The most important aspect of this system of courts is that by the removal of a child from a parent, families are made to spend all their money on lawyers and white collar professionals for their kid's return to the home. Hence secrecy leads to enhanced income production for industry members and the statutes that guide all this were created at the very top of political echelons.

That is what is wrong with the family court, in 4 paragraphs.

The broccoli test

2011-11-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

Harvard law professor Einer Elhauge writes a NY Times op-ed in support of Obamacare:

Opponents of the new mandate complain that if Congress can force us to buy health insurance, it can force us to buy anything. They frequently raise the specter that Congress might require us to buy broccoli in order to make us healthier. However, that fear would remain even if you accepted their constitutional argument, because their argument would allow Congress to force us to buy broccoli as long as it was careful to phrase the law to say that “anyone who has ever engaged in any activity affecting commerce must buy broccoli.”

That certainly sounds like a stupid law. But our Constitution has no provision banning stupid laws. The protection against stupid laws that our Constitution provides is the political process, which allows us to toss out of office elected officials who enact them. This is better than having unelected judges decide such policy questions, because we cannot toss the judges out if we disagree with them.

He uses broccoli as an example because of the obvious absurdity of any lawmaker or judge trying to dictate a broccoli policy. But I really did have a court psychologist take me to task for feeding my kids broccoli. He recommended that I be ordered to consult a dietician to determine whether my vegetable rotation would be acceptable to the family court.

I don't know about Elhauge's Obamacare analysis, but he is right about the absurdity of broccoli law. If it were really desirable to have govt oversight of a parent's vegetable rotation, then our elected officials should pass some such stupid law, assuming that they have the constitutional authority. The last thing we want is some unelected judge deciding broccoli policy on his own.

It seems as if I am belaboring the obvious, but I have gotten into many discussions about the authority of the family court, and heard someone say something like, "What's wrong with a disinterested expert applying common sense to force a parent to improve?" These so-called experts nearly always make things worse.

To placate my more liberal readers, I am not going to mention the psychologist's religion or sexual orientiation, but he was the one who was fussy about how I brushed my daughter's hair. Elhauge is a first-generation Argentine-American, and I don't know his religion or sexual orientation.

Wrong lesson from Penn State

2011-11-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

The LA Times reports:

Outrage over the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal has led to calls for federal legislation that would require anyone witnessing child abuse to report it to law enforcement or a child protection agency.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) announced plans Wednesday to introduce the Child Protection Act, which would compel states to enact child-abuse reporting laws or risk losing some federal aid. States would set the penalties for people who fail to report abuse.

A similar bill, the Speak Up to Protect Every Abused Kid Act, was introduced Wednesday by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). ...

Thirty-two states do not require all adults to report suspected child abuse or neglect, according to Casey's office. Instead, many states have in place a requirement that people with regular contact with children, such as healthcare providers and teachers, must report child abuse.

Sigh. That is the lesson they draw from Penn State?

The Democrats will use any excuse to subvert the family, andhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif put people under the control of social service agencies. Boxer is a San Francisco Jew, Casey is a Pennsylvania Catholic, facing reelection. Is that relevant? Maybe or maybe not. Boxer has all the same anti-family political views that other Jewish Democrats have. Casey is probably trying to avoid insinuations that he is soft on child molesters like Joe Paterno, the bishop, and other Pennsylvania Catholics. I expect a reader to point out that there are lots of other bad politicians, besides Jews, Californians, Catholics, and Democrats.

The article goes on:

A Penn State assistant football coach who, according to a grand jury report, saw Sandusky raping a boy in the football team’s showers has been widely criticized for not reporting the incident directly to police. He did report it to the university. In an email obtained by the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call, the assistant coach, Mike McQueary, said that he did discuss the incident with police and stopped the assault.

If that is correct, then there was no failure to report. There was a failure to act by the police. Even the current Sandusky indictment required a 3.5 year investigation. So the DA failed to act for 3.4 years. This proposed law would not have helped the Penn State situation at all.

What this law will do is to encourage busybodies to meddle in the lives of others, and for CPS social workers and other troublemakers to expand their authority.

Five Jewish stereotypes

2011-11-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

This is a touchy subject, but here are five Jewish stereotypes:

Matriarchy. Under Jewish law, Jewish identity is defined by maternal ancestry. The Jewish mother stereotype generally involves a nagging, overprotective, manipulative, controlling, smothering, and overbearing mother or wife, who persists in interfering in her children's lives long after they have become adults.
Emotional dependence on outside psychotherapists and belief in therapism. From ancient rabbis to Sigmund Freud to Woody Allen, Jews are famous for believing people are dysfunctional emotional wrecks who need outside guidance to manage their lives.
Opposition to Christian family values. Whenever an American politician extols the merits of family values, about 90% of the Jews vote against him. This happens even when the politician is firmly pro-Israel.
Greed. From Shakespeare's Shylock to Bernie Madoff, Jews are famous for preying on human trust and vulnerability, and extracting every dollar they can.
Emasculated boys. The nice Jewish boy stereotype is that of an emasculated neurotic wimp who is especially vulnerable to domination and manipulation by women, including his possessive and infantilizing Jewish mother as well as the Jewish-American princess whose consumption he slaves to bankroll.

In contrast, John Wayne symbolized American ideals such as rugged individualism, emotional restraint, and physical aggression, and Leave It to Beaver exalted traditional American familialism and the nuclear family.

Jews themselves acknowledge most of these stereotypes. Glenn Sacks writes:

Why didn't I marry a Jewish woman? The reason I lost interest in many Jewish women was the generally contemptuous, belittling, and bigoted attitude that so many of them have towards men.

Lots of Jews don't match these stereotypes at all, of course. About 25% of them even vote Republican.

Commissioner Irwin H. Joseph ordered a child custody evaluation by Kenneth B. Perlmutter, a Palo Alto psychologist whose personality, attitude, and opinions matched all of those stereotypes. Perlmutter wrote the court order that took away my joint legal custody of my kids, and charged me $28,000. Joseph rubber-stamped it. Joseph and Perlmutter are common Jewish surnames.

When I asked Perlmutter, under oath, for the basis of his conclusions, he admitted that they were not based on any legal or psychological principles, and that he had no evidence of any validity to his method. So why did he do it? If he gave some reason other than his personal prejudices, then maybe I would take that at face value, but he did not.

As noted below, the psychology profession is dominated by Jews, and an unethical quack like Perlmutter would have been run out of town if it were not for other Jewish psychologists and court officials who approve of what he does.

If I had a Mormon evaluator who applied Mormon law against me, then I would complain about Mormon influence on the court.

If I had a math-phobic social worker complain that teaching math to a girl was child abuse, then I would complain about that. (That is more or less what happened, and I have complained about it on this blog.)

I know that this is politically incorrect subject matter, but I disagree with my kids being taken away from me, and I would like to address the reasons for that happening. It seems to me that a big factor is the prejudice of Jewish psychologists. Am I wrong?

I am trying to get at the root of the problem. Several of my readers argue that the shrinks are just incompetent and greedy, and not subject to any other biases. I used to think that, but I don't anymore. They are ideologically driven to destroy American values.

New court motion

2011-11-15T08:00:00.001-08:00

I just filed a court motion for better child custody and/or visitation, even tho Judge Heather D. Morse said not to for two years. She said that the kids need a break from the litigation.

Her argument does not make any sense. My kids are not getting a break. They have been put court supervision for the last 4 years, while the court has only issued temporary orders.

Here the case background I filed, with some names changed.

Case history
This case began in 2003 with a signed marital settlement agreement for 50-50 shared joint child custody of our two daughters. Jill made a motion for sole legal custody in 2004, but a full custody trial in 2005 resulted in a permanent order for 50-50 joint legal and physical custody.

Jill got temporary sole physical custody in Nov. 2007 as the result of an ex parte motion alleging emotional abuse, and Cmr. Joseph ordered a psychological evaluation to investigate the allegations and make recommendations. When he refused to appoint a psychologist, I appealed, and the 6th District ruled that there was indeed a final permanent child custody determination in 2005, but that the allegations constituted a sufficient change in circumstances for a temporary order pending the evaluation.

Ken Perlmutter eventually did the evaluation in early 2010. He did not find any abuse, or any other problem with our four years of joint custody. He said that we had no psychological disorders and no need for counseling. He said that Jill is not any better parent than I am, and he disagreed with how the court has handled the case. He recommended a six-month visitation plan, and suggested going back to him for an update. That plan ended in Fall 2010.

We had a trial on several days from Nov. 2010 to Jan. 2011 where Jill and her witnesses were invited to present whatever evidence they had against returning to joint custody, and to say what changes would be required of me, if any.

An April 2011 order upheld Perlmutter’s recommendation, but did not disturb the permanent 50-50 custody determination of 2005. Jill’s subsequent motion for permanent sole custody was denied.

We are currently operating under temporary orders, as we have since Nov. 2007. Jill has permitted some visits with [local court babysitter] supervising. She does not know why the visits are supervised, and has not reported any problems. Visitation is at Jill’s discretion.

Testimony and findings
All witnesses testified that our kids love me and want a relationship with me. Perlmutter's report said:
A key and incontrovertible finding in this evaluation is that these children love and want a relationship with their father. [p.38, start of last paragraph]
All witnesses agreed that there has been no abuse, and there is no threat of abuse.

All witnesses agreed that there are no psychological disorders, and there is no recommendation for counseling. There is no testimony that anything would be gained by counseling.

No witness testified that Jill is any better parent than I am. Perlmutter testified that the chief difference between Jill and me was the court has wrongly given her temporary sole custody:
11 Q. And did you find evidence favoring one parent
12 over the other?
13 A. I found existence of what the current
14 situation is. She's not a better parent than you.
15 She's not -- they are not more in love with her than
16 you. They've developed a different relationship with
17 her based on the fact that you've spent minimum time
18 with them over the last two and a half years. [June depo., p.94]
The findings from the April 2011 order after hearing were:
1. George is to follow Perlmutter's plan and to read a book. (Completed in 2010.)
2. George is to request an update from Perlmutter. (Done, but he refused to do it.)
3. “George's daughters have a resilient love for their father and still wish to have a relationship with him, but on their terms and not his. They hope he can change.”
4. George is “physically incapable of perceiving why he was being prevented from having unsupervised time with his children.”
5. “the court finds that the parties' time and money could be better spent to improve the parental relationships while there is still time to do so.”

I don't see how anyone can read this and think that the court has been reasonable, or that the kids need a break from litigation.

Penn State scandal

2011-11-14T08:00:00.001-08:00

The hot news story is the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State. Coach Joe Paterno's reputation has been destroyed faster
than anyone I've seen, without ever being committed of a crime.

Sandusky is the child molester and Penn State fired him back in 1999. So what does this scandal have to do with Penn State? The complaint against Penn State officials is that they should have called CPS based on hearsay and suspicions about Sandusky.

I think that CPS is evil. Child molesters are also evil. University officials are usually spinelss jerks. But I don't see where the officials did wrong in this case.

After some 1998 allegations, they confronted Sandusky and got him to admit to inappropriate behavior. They turned the case over to the police, but there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. They fired him. Most of the blame on the Penn State officials is based on their handling of a 2002 allegation.

My theory is that McQueary is lying about that 2002 incident. He says that he witnesses a brutal rape of a 10-year-old boy in the shower, and he walked away without doing anything. I say Sandusky was showering inappropriately, but not committing sodomy. Years later, the DA puts the heat on McQueary and tells him that they need his testimony to put away a child molester. He cooperates. Then the DA says that they’ve widened the investigation to nail officials in a cover-up. McQueary starts to get cold feet. The DA threatens to charge McQueary with failure to report, unless he testifies against Paterno and Curley. McQueary agrees, in exchange for immunity from prosecution and anonymity in the grand jury report. McQueary complies with DA pressure to exaggerate the allegations.

I think that it is pretty crazy to blame someone for not calling CPS in 2002, when no one knows what happened, or who the boy was, or what was said about it. It is also pretty crazy for prosecutors to base their whole case on a witness who, by his own admission, walked away from a child rape without intervening or reporting it.

The state mandated reporter laws usually people in the child care business to report suspected child abuse in kids under their care. I am not sure how this applies to an ex-employee who brings a non-student child onto campus. Some people are probably going to say that this case shows that officials should not just report suspected child abuse to CPS, but also any inappropriate behavior with a child. I do not agree, but I am afraid that public opinion seems to tilting toward reporting everything as a result of hysteria about cases like this.

Everyone blames Penn State for delays in taking action. But the current evidence against Sandusky was presented to the DA in Spring 2008, and they investigated for 3.5 years before arresting Sandusky. I really don't see how the DA can blame Penn State for not seeing that he was a child molester when the DA took 3.5 years to figure it out.

Grandparent visitation rights

2011-11-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

The US Supreme Court is considering whether to hear this case:

Issue: Whether under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, grandparents who seek court-ordered visitation with their grandchildren must prove that a compelling circumstance necessitates visitation, or whether constitutional requirements are instead satisfied where the court considering the visitation request applies a presumption in favor of the parents' wishes and places on the petitioning grandparent the burden of proving that visitation is in the children's best interest.

I agree with the Alabama SC, and disagree with everything in the cert petition, except that these cases will keep coming back and Troxel was ambiguous.

(The link to the "opinion below" is wrong; the Alabama decision is here.)

The cert petition agrees with giving the grandparents visitation because:

The trial court’s detailed opinion in this case perfectly reflects that delicate balancing; the judge carefully considered all of the affected parties’ in-terests, while paying an extra measure of deference to the parents’ wishes.

Parents have no rights if minor parental decisions can be overridden by a judge who merely says that he is "paying an extra measure of deference to the parents’ wishes."

I guess that some people might read the factual history as favoring the grandparents, but I do not. Consider:

[The mother] testified that when the children were very young, the two families had basically blended together and had acted as a single unit, with the paternal grand-mother asserting a great deal of control over the care of the children, sometimes even in violation of the mother’s desires.

I suppose that some would read this as suggesting that the judge should try to reconstruct that happier period when the grandma often got her way with the kids. I don't see it that way at all. If that were the rule, then parents would be prudent to always overrule whatever the grandparents say, for fear that they might set a precedent that would be used against the parents later in court.

This grandparent visitation issue is just an amusing sideshow. There are about 20 more important issues where the family court is denying parental rights in what ought to be violations of constitutional rights. But the federal courts won't hear any of it.

Followup on husband killer

2011-11-12T08:00:00.001-08:00

I posted last month about this acquittal for murder, and now the NY Times reports on the sentencing:

A Queens woman who killed her husband after suffering years of abuse at his hands was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison on a weapons charge, less than the maximum sentence of 15 years but short of her request for further leniency.

The woman, Barbara Sheehan, shot her husband, Raymond Sheehan, 11 times in their home in Howard Beach in February 2008; although she used two guns, she claimed that she fired in self-defense after he had first threatened her life with one of the guns. Ms. Sheehan was acquitted of murder, but convicted of gun possession — the second gun that she used that day. ...

Judge Kron had the discretion to send Ms. Sheehan to prison for as little as 27 months. The sentence included two and a half years of supervised release.

Ms. Sheehan was allowed to remain free on $1 million bail while her appeal of her verdict is pending. After the sentencing, she walked out of the courthouse and headed for the subway to go to her job as a school secretary.

She expressed deep disappointment in an interview that the judge had imposed such a harsh sentence and had failed to account for the fact that she had been the victim of vicious domestic violence.

As she walked, a passer-by hugged her.

“Keep praying for me,” Ms. Sheehan said.

I guess that the lesson is that if a woman wants to murder her husband, she should just use one gun and be prepared to whine everything he might have done years earlier.

Unmarried try to hire divorce lawyer

2011-11-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Louisiana TV reports:

Unmarried Couples Find Divorce Difficult
Couples Who 'Live Together' Are Hoping To Divorce Legally

NEW ORLEANS -- Divorce isn't easy; but it's even harder for couples who didn't get married in the first place.

One New Orleans attorney says he has seen an increase in the number of unmarried couples who want to file for a legal divorce.

"If you do not have a plan or you don't know your situation and you're not really understanding of the law it could be really bad for you, you could have a rude awakening at the end," says Hamilton Law Associates lawyer Peter Hamilton.

Louisiana is a community property state, a measure that applies only for married couples.

The Pew Research Center looked at the marriage trend and found that 39 percent of people feel marriage is becoming obsolete.

They want divorce lawyers in family court when they never got married? Really?

Maybe they have kids. Family court judges want to take control of parents whether there was any marriage or not. Yes, marriage is becoming obsolete, and part of that is because family courts require parenting plans, support payments, character assassinations, etc, whether the couple was ever married or not.

Need for psychoeducation during infancy

2011-11-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

I have posted many times on the evils of the psychology profession, and here is some new bogus research that demonstrates more ideology than science:

A new research study suggests prejudice based on generalized beliefs about certain social groups could be a personality trait.

Researchers from the University of the Basque Country confirmed the link between two types of discriminatory behavior: sexism and racism. They also urge education in encouraging equality. ...

As a result of the findings, the authors strongly believe in the importance and need for psychoeducation during infancy and adolescence as a way of encouraging equality among both sexes and respect for others. ...

“Men with higher levels of hostile sexism describe themselves using adjectives associated with masculinity, i.e. physically strong, brave, sure of themselves, determined, admirable, etc” said Garaigordobil.

“Women who display hostile sexism described themselves using characteristics that go against femininity such as not very cooperative, not very tolerant, not very compassionate and not very sensitive or sentimental.”

Just what "psychoeducation during infancy" are they advocating? I hate to think what sort of brainwashing they have in mind. This is an example of misrepresenting science in order to promote an ideology.

Yes, a lot of people believe that men and women are different, and that it is only natural and appropriate that they serve different roles in our society. I think that it is fair to say that the vast majority of all people in the history of human civilization have believed that.

For a contrary view, Yahoo sports reports on female atheletes who want to be just like the men:

Women will get a chance to box in the Olympics for the first time in 2012. If the Amateur International Boxing Association has anything to say about it, they will be wearing skirts. ... Unsurprisingly, many top female boxers are against this plan. Three-time world champion Katie Taylor from Ireland does not want to wear something that she would find uncomfortable while fighting:
"It's a disgrace that they're forcing some of the women to wear those mini-skirts. We should be able to wear shorts, just like the men.
"I won't be wearing a mini-skirt. I don't even wear mini-skirts on a night out, so I definitely won't be wearing mini-skirts in the ring."

No, I do not agree with Olympic medal for female boxing, but I guess I am a sexist.

I would not be surprised if some new edition of the psychiatric diagnostic manual, the DSM-IV, says that you have a psychological personality disorder if you think that the women boxers should wear skirts. Next there will be govt day care centers with psychoeducation for infants in order to eradicate such views.

Opinion of a court psychologist

2011-11-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

A reader asks how I know the views of the court psychologists. Let me quote from Coming Out Every Day: A Gay, Bisexual, and Questioning Man's Guide (alse here), a 1997 self-help book written by a child custody evaluator for the family court:

Getting Beyond Homophobia
In Greek mythology, Hercules slew Hydra, the many headed serpent. Unfortunately, you have your own modem day Hydra. As the hero of your journey, you will face the multifarious evil of homophobia many times before it's conquered. You've already read about internalized homophobia in chapter 7. You studied ways of managing internal fears about your sexual orientation. When you can win your internal battles, you'll be in a good position to deal objectively and authoritatively with the external battles.

Consider the following quote - an unfortunate but classic example of homophobia: "The poor homosexuals - they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution." This statement was uttered by Patrick Buchanan, American conservative and 1996 presidential candidate.

How do you feel when you read what Buchanan said? What do you think about such attitudes?

Do you have trouble believing that these attitudes (or people) exist? If so, that probably means you're one of the lucky GBQ men whose exposure to intolerance and prejudice has been minimal, or at least manageable. But believe it: These people long on judgment and short on truth are out there. As long as there are oppressive religions and cultures; as long as there are unenlightened teachers and preachers command that homosexuality is wrong; as long as there are racists and bigots, fear and ignorance, jealousy and hate, and insecurity, there be homophobia.

Homophobia is something you'll need to face, I urge you to gather your supports around you; try to find constructive ways to educate those who are misinformed and challenge those who aim to hurt or punish. Of course if you're constantly worrying about all the differences of opinion and meanness in the world, you'll never get your work done, animals won't get fed, your fun time will be spoiled, and your laundry and dishes will pile up into a big, moldy mess. But because homophobia exists and must be acknowledged, your goal will be to get beyond it and not let it have power in your life.

Sometimes getting beyond homophobia means you have to write a few people off. Sometimes you must take a stand to let them know they’re misinformed. Sometimes you'll be able to muster up the love and passion to take time to educate them, but there will likely be few whom you care enough to do that. Sometimes getting beyond homophobia means taking on more responsibility to fight it, perhaps by being more active in community or political gay and bisexual issues.

A Personal Story
After years of living as an out gay man, I am still amazed and troubled when homophobia rears its ugly head from unlikely places and in unlikely forms. I am lucky to live in California, in a relatively open-minded (if not necessarily politically liberal) community that is accepting of diversity. Even here, however, reality sometimes brings me roughly back to earth. Not too long ago, at a board of supervisors meeting in Santa Clara County, the issue of domestic partner registration was under consideration. I was astonished to encounter an elementary school age child in the crowd of antireferendum protesters carrying a sign that read, "Please don't molest me." I cannot help but marvel at the things people choose to teach their children.

How to Respond to Homophobia
Go back now and reread what you wrote about your feelings and attitudes toward Buchanan's statement and what it represents. These feelings and thoughts are your clues to understanding your role in dealing with homophobia. Your internal reactions and logic can guide you to understand what (and whom) you are meeting when homophobia shows up at your front door or knocks you down in the street when you're walking along minding your own business.

Did you write about feeling angry at Buchanan's words? That's healthy. Are you frightened by this attitude? That's normal, as well. In fact, all your feelings are valid here; you just get to make some choices about what to do with them. ... [p.210-211]

Discrimination and Prejudice: The Real Shame
We believe that the rights of all people must be protected and guaranteed. We believe that the gay and lesbian community must be supported in their civil rights as well as their right for their sexual preference. --Coretta Scott King, The Gay Almanac

Discrimination against people because of their sexuality occurs every day Fundamental human rights taken for granted by most people in the United States are often denied to openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Fortunately, groups such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Human Rights Campaign, and the Lambda Legal Defense Fund in the United States are laboring to change the legal and political playing field by actively lobbying against discriminatory legislative measures. These groups and others are working to introduce bills and constitutional amendments that will guarantee freedom from discrimination based on sexuality.

For the present, however, gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals in the United States have no such guarantee of employment, domestic partner insurance benefits, medical visitation rights, or housing rights. We do not have the right to visit as a "family member" a partner who is in the hospital. We cannot serve in the military unless we keep our sexual orientation a secret. We cannot get married, adopt a child without suffering major legal encumbrances and social disapproval, or have legal (in some states) oral or anal sex (which is illegal for some heterosexuals, too). All of the latter rights, however, are in the process of being challenged to one degree or another by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign (amongst others).

An additional disadvantage suffered by GBQ people is the misinformation and scare tactics perpetuated by groups such as the Moral Majority and Coalition for Family Values. These organizations, along with conservative religious and political groups led by people such as Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Lou Sheldon, and Senator Jesse Helms, work to create a climate of fear among the unenlightened public. By targeting and misinforming church members, conservative families, and naive individuals, they are able to propagate false and biased information that gays, lesbians, and bisexuals want special rights and threaten "family values." There have been several recent attempts to pass anti gay initiatives in various states - for example, Colorado's approved 1992 Amendment 2, later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. [p.215-216]

He is entitled to his opinion that GLB folks are entitled to guarantees of employment, and to his hatred of conservative politicians who promote family values. But I really have trouble understanding how he can complain about gays being able to visit each other in the hospital, and then be in the business of writing court orders that prevent normal and fit parents from seeing their own kids.

He says, "These people long on judgment and short on truth are out there." That is just how I would describe his court reports. He makes no attempt to ascertain any facts, and he is much more judgmental than Pat Buchanan or that schoolchild opposing a domestic partner program.

In my case, he collected a few gripes about vegetables and hair brushing, and he wrote a court order for me to attend counseling for at least 6 months or "until released", whatever that means. He had no facts, law, or psychology to substantiate what he did. He never even asked me about the gripes, and when I offered to address them, he refused to hear it. He obviously would not like it if gays were ordered to attend counseling until released.

It seems to be that this guy is ideologically opposed to normal family relationships. He abuses his power to destroy those relationships whenever he can. He is the bigot, not me. I am not opposed to him being an out gay man. I do object to him imposing his twisted values on others.

Texas mom murders her son

2011-11-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

Texas is the one state with jury trials for child custody. You would think that a mom who is a psychologist and a college professor would have an easy time convincing a jury that she is a fit mother. The U. of Texas has now taken down her web page, but the bing cached copy says:

Dr. Karen Hayslett-McCall is a faculty member in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences (previously, Social Sciences) at UT-Dallas. She teaches courses on geospatial information systems, research methods, communities and crime, victimology, and policing. The broadest swath of her research involves the study of crime and its relationship with neighborhood resident characteristics (i.e., social ecology) as ell as neighborhood infrastructure data (i.e., physical ecolotgy). She graduated from The Pennsylvania State University and joined the faculty at UTD in 2002.

Here is her impressive resume in pdf. (The above typos are in the original -- not sure if they are her fault.)

No, the jury saw right thru her, for the crazy and vindictive woman that she. I mean that she was, because she just killed herself and her son:

A woman shot and killed her 7-year-old son before turning the gun on herself late Friday morning in Sachse, police said.

Officers forced their way into the home after hearing gunshots and found 43-year-old Karen Hayslett-McCall and 7-year-old Eryk Hayslett-McCall in an upstairs bedroom at about 10:30 a.m.

Sachse police were at the home in the 7100 block of Longmeadow Drive as a precaution when her estranged husband, Rodney McCall, arrived to pick up his son.

McCall had received sole custody of the child in a court hearing at 10 a.m.

"The father knocked on the front door," Sachse police Chief Dennis Veach said. "We were simply standing by and at both front and rear of the house when we heard three shots from within the house."

Veach said police had been to the home on several locations but there were not allegations of serious violence.

Maybe no violence, but the backstory is that the mom was vindictively framing her husband with false accusations:

Hayslett-McCall had accused her husband of molesting their son last fall. A grand jury later found no evidence of a crime, and McCall was cleared.

But McCall had lost his job as a high school teacher.

McCall's attorney told the Wylie school board in November that the case was "an allegation brought by a woman who is about to lose custody of her children," the Wylie News reported.

He also told the board that Hayslett-McCall, a former police officer who has a doctorate in criminal justice and a master's degree in psychology, knew how to manipulate the justice system, the newspaper reported.

The couple had been battling over custody of Eryk for more than a year.

They filed for divorce in Collin County in March 2010, and temporary custody orders were in place in April 2010. By November, an attorney was appointed for the child.

The judge ordered psychological evaluations in January 2011. Jurors were sworn in on Monday for opening statements, and McCall won custody of his son Friday.

A feminist blogger supports the mom:

Let’s just say, Karen Hayslett-McCall was no dummy when it came to detecting sexual deviants. She allegedly believed her husband was acting on some sort of perverse sexual deviency with their own child. It is possible that she killed herself and her son because she lost parental rights and not because her child was being totally given over to a man she believed was a child molester. It is more likely she did it because of both.

I don’t know what I would do if faced with the same circumstances.

Really? She doesn't know whether she would murder her son as some sort of sick revenge on her husband?

A professor of criminology should know that it is extraordinarily rare for a natural father to molest a 7-year-old. I have never even heard of it happening. She should also know that accusations require evidence in order for action by the authorities. They are supposed to, anyway. Apparently she did succeed in getting him fired from teaching based on her unfounded accusations.

Wait a minute -- she doesn't teach criminology, she teached "victimology". I never heard of that, but I am pretty sure that the U. of Texas does not need more feminists teaching victimology.

A comment disagrees with the blogger:

You have no idea of the facts in this case. I am one of the jurors who terminated her parental rights this morning. She was a truly vile person who destroyed her child and her husband. She knew how to manipulate the system. Why do you immediately think she was the victim in this? You really should have been at the trial. Amazingly, everyone that knew her more than a couple of years, including former friends and colleagues testified in the husband’s behalf.

It would be interesting to see those psychological evaluations of her that the judge ordered. My hunch is that the jurors had her figured out much better than the psychologists and other authorities.

A female reader adds:

As a matter of fact, Mr. McCall had reached out to CPS two weeks prior to the trial to have his son put in protective custody during the trial pending whatever the outcome was to be. He was worried about Eryk’s well being and would have preferred that he be protected by strangers than with either side’s families and friends to avoid bias.

It also should be known that Karen is the one that kicked Mr McCall out of the house in March of 2010 and filed for divorce because of her new boyfriend. She was not abused, but in reality was the abuser by verbally abusing her husband. Back in December of 2010, they had their first trial and the judge awarded joint custody. Mr McCall was happy with that decision, but it was Karen that filed the motion to have the decision overturned and requested a new trial. Karen was the one that did not want to share her son with his father and was the first to seek termination of parental rights. Mr McCall’s reasoning to seek termination was because she was coaching their son to make these false allegations and possibly even abusing him herself or one of her new found friends that had moved into that house.

The reality is Mr McCall never abused his son in any manner, but loved him very much. Yes, he was arrested, but the grand jury did not indict since there was no case there.

There are so many things wrong here, I cannot list them.

Christian-hater wants censorship

2011-11-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

A Christian-hating reader left this comment yesterday:

The United States needs to look towards Europe and adopt their policy of prosecuting those that publicly spread hate speech. ... Christian values and white males have caused nearly all of the heart ache, misery and injustice in this world.

Wow. I expected criticism, but I did not expect someone to (1) express anti-Christian hatred, (2) fail to dispute anything I said, and (3) favor laws censoring me from telling the truth.

Christian values and white males made America great. That should be so transparently obvious that I do not see how anyone can dispute.

But there are anti-Christian bigots who are working to destroy America, and they want laws to censor anyone who exposes them for what they are.

I mentioned the California psychologists Bret K. Johnson and Kenneth B. Perlmutter, who do child custody evaluations for the family court. They testified in my case, and demonstrated their hatred of Christian values. I asked them under oath if their opinion was based on any facts, law, research, or expertise, and they were both unable to give any explanation for their opinions other than their own anti-Christian hatred.

Perlmutter's Yelp page now has 23 reviews. 21 of them give him one star, the lowest possible rating. Unfortunately, some of them are hidden from view.

Perlmutter told me that whenever possible, he avoids letting the parents see his report on them that he sends to the court.

These two evaluators are not just isolated examples of incompetence. The entire profession is corrupt, and hardly anyone in it speaks out against the horrible work being done.

I favor exposing these creeps for what they do. If they were doing honest legitimate work, they should not mind having their court testimony publicized.

In Europe it is getting harder and harder to praise Christian values without being accused of hate speech. I must have hit a nerve is someone wants a law against me telling the truth about what the court accepts as expert testimony.

Jewish psychologists

2011-11-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

A reader warns me that I risk criticism by referring yesterday to a big-shot Jewish Harvard psychology professor, Steven Pinker.

Tiger Woods' ex-caddie just apologized for a negative comment that had the word "black" in it. Maybe he did not mean it to be racist, but it sounded that way. I certainly do not want to sound anti-Jewish, as that would distract from my message here.

But I do criticize psychologists a lot, and psychology is a very Jewish profession, so I still run the risk of offending people even if I never explicitly mention Jewish issues.

A Jewish site says:

Jewish psychologists and the influence of Jewish tradition have been instrumental in creating the field of modern psychology. The fundamentals of several psychological movements can be traced directly to Jewish values, ideas, and practices, and Jews in the 20th century were at the forefront of research about the psyche and the varieties of human behavior.

Jewish psychologists founded several branches of psychological inquiry. All of the major theorists of the Gestalt school, except Wolfgang Kohler, were Jews. Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Kurt Lewin, and Kurt Goldstein posited theories of perception and understanding based on holistic understanding, rather than a previous model based on the computation of parts.

Psychoanalysis was founded by Sigmund Freud and, with the notable exception of Carl Jung, most of its early proponents were also Jews.

Freud and Jung were also quacks. Freud faked his work, and nothing that he did
had any scientific merit. His reputation was created largely by other Jews who idolized him.

Why the Jews?

Some intellectual historians speculate that it was particular Jewish personality and cultural traits that led Jews to lead the field of psychology in its early days. ...

According to studies conducted by Mark Zborowski, an anthropologist who investigated cultural aspects of pain, Jews respond more quickly to physical discomfort than non-Jews. Jewish families often discuss issues and problems in great detail, and suffering individuals are encouraged to "let out" their feelings and achieve catharsis through communication.

According to Peter Langman, "Jews differ from many cultural groups in that they place less value on self-reliance and are less suspicious of taking their problems to professionals." Thus, the traditional role of rabbi/rebbe involves extensive counseling or psychotherapy.

My ex-wife and I had two child custody evaluations by psychologists, one gay and one Jewish. Both appear to be seriously emotionally damaged shrinks who project their own personal problems on others. I originally thought that they were just incompetent, but they are much worse than that. They are vindictive and malicious charlatans.

Maybe Jews have a tradition of psychological problems, counseling, and emotional dependence, but other Americans have a tradition of self-reliance and family autonomy.

Woody Allen made movies that popularized the image of Jews as dysfunctional neurotics who need regular psychotherapy to cope with daily life. Most Jews are not like that, of course, but the court psychologists do not seem to understand that normal Americans have no use for psychotherapy.

So is the destructive value of the child custody evaluation work related to them being gay and Jewish? I think it is. I do not believe that a Christian heterosexual family man would write reports anything like what these jerks did. He would not charge $28,000 either.

I don't want to blame all gays and Jews. I have no doubt that most gays and Jews would sharply disapprove of the practices of these child custody evaluators. But the psychology profession is dominated by gays, Jews, and others who are opposed to traditional American Christian family values, and they abuse their power and influence to destroy the families of others. They are the bigots, and political correctness should not prevent me from pointing it out.

If there are any gays or Jews or psychologists who speak out against what the psychology profession is doing in the family court, please let me know so that I can credit them. There is a war going on between decent Americans, and those who are trying to destroy American values. I want to know who is on which side.

In other news, a New Jersey newspaper reports:

The price was steep. As much as $160,000 to secure a donor willing to give up a human kidney for transplant.

And Levy Itzhak Rosenbaum — who told neighbors in Brooklyn he dabbled in construction and real estate — bragged on surveillance recordings that he had participated in many such black market deals.

Today, the 60-year-old Israeli pleaded guilty in federal court to helping an FBI informant procure a kidney as part of an elaborate federal sting. At the same time, he admitted arranging transplants for three other New Jersey patients with failing kidneys — all of whom underwent surgery in out-of-state hospitals after paying Rosenbaum. None of the patients or hospitals was named, nor were they charged.

It marked the first time in this country anyone has ever been convicted for brokering illegal kidney transplants for profit. ...

Separately, five Orthodox rabbis from Brooklyn and the Jersey shore were charged with laundering millions of dollars through various religious charities.

If the feds can do a sting and prosecute the kidney sellers, they ought to do a sting against the corrupt family court psychologists.

All violence is down

2011-11-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports:

SANTA CRUZ — Monday marked the conclusion of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the District Attorney’s Office reports that emergency calls related to domestic violence dipped slightly this October compared to last.

But the drop from 546 to 528 calls is slight, and some who work to combat the problem point to a trend of more violent abuse.

Laura Segura, director of Women’s Crisis Support-Defensa de Mujeres, said she believes domestic violence has increased in severity due to the recession, and she said shelters nationwide have reported increases.

“There may be a slight decrease from last year, but when you look at previous years, the numbers are still higher and the violence more severe,” she said. “We’re attributing that to the stresses in the family from unemployment and from families doubling up in homes, which creates more stress. Over the past year, our shelter has rarely had beds available.”

These folks are always claiming that things are getting worse. But Harvard professor Steven Pinker plugs his new book on violence and writes:

The women's rights movement has seen an 80 percent reduction in rape since the early '70s when it was put on the agenda as a feminist issue. There has also been a two-thirds decline in domestic violence, spousal abuse, or wife beating, and a 50 percent decline in husband beating. In the most extreme form of domestic violence, namely uxoricide and matricide, there's been a decline both in the number of wives that are murdered by their husband's and the number of husbands that have been murdered by their wives.

So who do you believe? A big-shot Jewish Harvard psychology professor or some feminist activists? Yeah, it is a tough call, but I think that I am going to go with the psychologist this time.

Famous psychologist exposed

2011-11-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

The family court relies on an assortment of quacks with mail-order degrees and other phony credentials. But even some of the leaders of the field are charlatans. The NY Times reports:

A well-known psychologist in the Netherlands whose work has been published widely in professional journals falsified data and made up entire experiments, an investigating committee has found. Experts say the case exposes deep flaws in the way science is done in a field, psychology, that has only recently earned a fragile respectability.

The psychologist, Diederik Stapel, of Tilburg University, committed academic fraud in “several dozen” published papers, many accepted in respected journals and reported in the news media, according to a report released on Monday by the three Dutch institutions where he has worked: the University of Groningen, the University of Amsterdam, and Tilburg. The journal Science, which published one of Dr. Stapel’s papers in April, posted an “editorial expression of concern” about the research online on Tuesday.

The scandal, involving about a decade of work, is the latest in a string of embarrassments in a field that critics and statisticians say badly needs to overhaul how it treats research results. In recent years, psychologists have reported a raft of findings on race biases, brain imaging and even extrasensory perception that have not stood up to scrutiny. Outright fraud may be rare, these experts say, but they contend that Dr. Stapel took advantage of a system that allows researchers to operate in near secrecy and massage data to find what they want to find, without much fear of being challenged.

“The big problem is that the culture is such that researchers spin their work in a way that tells a prettier story than what they really found,” said Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It’s almost like everyone is on steroids, and to compete you have to take steroids as well.”

In a prolific career, Dr. Stapel published papers on the effect of power on hypocrisy, on racial stereotyping and on how advertisements affect how people view themselves. Many of his findings appeared in newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, which reported in December on his study about advertising and identity.

Real scientists disclose their raw data so that results can be checked and replicated by others. Psychology is a joke.

(Note: A post yesterday was from another angry dad, not me.)

The Joys of Child Support

2011-11-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

Child support called to let me know that my ex filed for a mod. They want to come in with an Income and Expense declaration, pay stubs, etc, etc. OK, no problem. Set up appointment, confirm the date and time, I'm good to go. I'm not exactly thrilled (when the system rewards a parent for moving away needlessly, I take a bit of an issue with it), but the law is the law and I'm being as polite as can be. The lady informs me that if the documents I provide show a modification of more than $X, we'll hopefully work out a stipulated agreement there in the office and it'll be easy as pie. I like easy.

But that got me thinking. Well, based on what the ex filed, what's the preliminary increase? 270%. That's right. A 270% increase. Wow.

This leads to a very understandable question: Why? So I ask, "Now, since she's filed her Income and Expense declaration, I'm assuming that at some point I'll receive a copy, and likewise she'll receive one of mine?" This is the legal system. If I file any court document, she gets a copy; mind you, I am legally required to serve her a copy of any legal paperwork I file in regards to a custody case.

Yet this is not the case with Child Support, when the local Child Support Office is involved. They refuse to provide me a copy of her claimed income or expenses. I stated I don't find that to be particularly fair, only to be met with the response of: "If you refuse to meet with us and sign a stipulated agreement for child support, we will file this action in court and you can receive a copy of her declaration at that time."

Hmmm. "So, if I agree and sign a stipulation, your office will file the paperwork with the court, saving me some time, money, and hassle?"

"Yes", she responds.

"And at that point in time, I will be served with the legal child support order, an attachment to which will be her declaration?" Again, the response is affirmative.

"Or I can receive a copy when you file the legal action, assuming I don't agree to any stipulation?" Again, affirmative.

What the hell is wrong with our system? When going through the courts, I receive a copy of everything she files and claims. At that point, we can reach an agreement or leave it to a judge to decide. Yet if dealing with child support through the local office, I am not at all entitled to anything in advance, expect for the threat of filing court action?

Doesn't exactly seem fair to me. What are your thoughts or experiences?

Texas judge beats his daughter

2011-11-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

A comment yesterday posted a link to a video, as described here:

2004 video shows Texas Judge beating disabled daughter with belt

A 2004 video that shows a father beating his disabled daughter with a belt has gone viral on the Internet and various news outlets. The recently uploaded clip contains graphic images of physical and emotional abuse and may be disturbing to some viewers.

“Judge William Adams beats daughter for using the Internet” is the latest YouTube video to make the rounds on the Internet, and not for the right reasons.

The video allegedly shows Aransas County Court-At-Law Judge William Adams beating his daughter with a belt. The daughter, Hillary Adams, who suffers from ataxic cerebral palsy, was downloading music and games from the Internet – she has a passion for technology.

When her father discovered this, he became enraged and punished the young girl by viciously hurting her back, bum and legs with a belt. He threatened several times to hit her in the face. About midway through the video, her mother assisted in the beating, but the daughter noted that she does not blame her for what happened because she was also emotionally abused.

NPR has more on this story, and says that the judge is now "the subject of a police investigation," The Associated Press reports.

A reader writes:

The judge should receive an "in kind" treatment in public, as well as a very lengthy prison sentence or possibly even capital punishment for his actions against his daughter. His hypocrisy is monumental and I think it clearly demonstrates the complete failure of the judicial system that would allow such a sadist to be in a position of power over suspected child abuse cases.

If only there could be cameras in all Family Law Courtrooms, there might be incentive for judges and lawyers to follow the rule of law. It might take a ballot proposition, but just the process of trying to get on the ballot should bring about a lot of awareness of the insanity of Family Courts.

Too bad we cannot get videos of this same judge taking someone's kid away because of trivial allegation, or lecturing on how to be a good parent. I would also like to see videos of the child custody evaluators doing their sloppy work.

My impression is that the kind of people who want to be judges and child custody evaluators are bullies who crave forcing others to do their bidding.

I was debating some commenters on another blog, and one

said:

Why is the arbitrariness of 50/50 better than having somebody not emotionally caught up in the dispute applying common sense, using guidelines worked out in advance?

This is like believing that our republican govt should be replaced by some sort of wise and enlightened dictator or monarch who somehow knew what was good for everyone.

The simple answer to the problems of dictatorship is to just visit a country that has one, and seeing how it works for yourself. Likewise, if people saw this Texas judge in action, both in court and at home, no one would want him telling you how to rear your kids.

Update: USA Today says no charges will be filed:

McALLEN, Texas (AP) – A Texas family law judge whose daughter secretly videotaped him savagely beating her seven years ago won't face criminal charges because too much time has elapsed, police said Thursday.

Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams likely would have been charged with causing injury to a child or other assault-related offenses for the 2004 beating of his then-16-year-old daughter, but the five-year statutes of limitations expired, Rockport Police Chief Tim Jayroe said.

"We believe that there was a criminal offense involved and that there was substantial evidence to indicate that and under normal circumstances … a charge could have been made," Jayroe said. He said the district attorney determined he couldn't bring charges, and that police would discuss the case with federal prosecutors even though he doesn't believe federal charges would apply.

I am surprised that they would say that this is criminal. His real crime is that he is a family court judge.

Update: (Nov. 23) The Texas judge has been suspended with pay.

Rule of law

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday that a legal blog was debating how the so-called legal standard of BIOTCh could apply to fast food for kids. This discussion inevitably draws questions like this:

But what if the parents can’t reach an agreement, and equal physical custody isn’t feasible? What happens to the child?

If the guy were from some Third World country, I might patiently explain to him how we have Rule Of Law in the USA. That is defined:

The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says (at least) that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application. [Black's Law Dictionary]

This is, of course, a great pillar of civilized societies all over the world. It was clearly explained by Aristotle in ancient Greece. But it is routinely violated by the American family court. It does not decide child custody or visitation based on known principles or laws. It is entirely in the discretion of the judge.

I expect people to disagree with me about child-rearing, but it is especially distressing to find lawyers who do not even seem to understand the desirability of rule-of-law being applicable to the family court.

Is it so much to ask that rule of law apply to family court?

BTW, there seems to be some disagreement among lawyers today about the meaning of rule-of-law. The same blog collected these definitions:

“Everyone must follow the law”; “Leaders must obey the law”; “Government must obey the law”; “No one is above the law.”“The rule of law means that judges decide cases ‘without respect of persons,’ that is, without considering the social status, attractiveness, etc. of the parties or their lawyers.”

This is just weird. The term has been understood for 2300 years since Aristotle, so it should not be so confusing.

My biggest complaint about the family court is that it does not follow rule-of-law. My kids have been taken away for reasons that are not written down anywhere. No court should ever be doing such things in a civilized society. That was obvious to Aristotle.

As an example, consider fast food. Some people like it, some don't. Some say it is healthy, some don't. If our society were to collective decide that it is bad, then maybe laws could be passed to ban McDonalds or to require adult ID, like bars. I would not agree with that, but I could learn to live with whatever laws get passed. But our lawmakers have not done that. Therefore, fast food is not the concern of the family court. For a family court judge to consider fast food would be contrary to rule-of-law as that has been understood since Aristotle.

How can anyone not understand that rule-of-law is desirable? If anyone can explain it, please tell me in the comments.

More on the law and obesity

2011-11-01T10:38:00.001-07:00

I posted below about child custody fights over fast food and obesity, and the Volokh blog is arguing it today.

As usual, the lawyers advocate that the courts become petty nanny-state dictators based on the Best Interest Of The Child (BIOTCh), and others say that only statutory 50-50 joint custody will work.

Ten minutes was enough

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

I happened to tune into the 2002 movie Enough on TNT last night. There is info on Wikipedia and IMDB. It stars Jennifer Lopez ("J-Lo") who was a huge star at the time. She was in a rage about her husband's infidelity, got into a fight, and kidnapped their daughter. After being advised of the illegality of kidnapping, she gave the kid to a friend to hide in another state. That was all in about 10 minutes, and I could not bear to watch anymore.

According to the plot summary, the husband went looking for him while she trained to kill him. At the end of the movie, he finds them, she murders him, and runs off with her daughter and an old lover.

The movie was a box office flop.

As you can see from the movie poster, J-Lo is presented as some sort of hero for this.

Admittedly, I did not watch this movie, but it seems to me that no matter how much J-Lo's husband was a jerk to her, he still has a right to see their daughter. J-Lo makes no attempt to find a lawful and peaceful settlement. The movie poster says "Self defense isn't murder", but that is not plausible when she is spending many months planning to kill him while he is merely insisting on his right to see his daughter. The soundtrack has a song titled "Setting the Trap", which I guess is her plan to trap and kill her husband.

I am hoping that this movie was a flop because most people were disgusted by it.

Obesity Fuels Custody Fights

2011-10-30T08:00:00.001-07:00

The WSJ reports:

The nation's waistline is expanding, and so too is the role of obesity in child-custody battles in the U.S.

Family-law practitioners and legal experts say mothers and fathers in custody lawsuits are increasingly hurling accusations at each other about the nutrition and obesity of their children, largely in attempts to persuade judges that their kids are getting less-than-optimal care in the hands of ex- and soon-to-be-ex-spouses.

The evidence used to support the allegations varies. In some cases, it's a grossly overweight child. In others, it's evidence that soft drinks and potato chips make up a disproportionate part of a child's diet. In still others, it's that the other parent is too obese to perform basic child-rearing functions.

"It's come up quite a bit in the last couple of years," said Douglas Gardner, a family-law practitioner in Tempe, Ariz. "Typically, one parent is accusing the other of putting a child at risk of developing diabetes or heart disease -— or saying that the child is miserable because he's getting made fun of at school."

For judges in many states, the question of custody turns largely on one question: What is in the best interest of the child? Some states such as Pennsylvania recently altered their definition so that the criteria now clearly include the physical as well as the emotional well-being of the child.

So family courts are now regulating whether a kid can eat potato chips?!

As absurd as this is, it makes more sense than asking psychologists about the child's emotional well-being. At least the weight of a child can be objectively measured, and a parent with a potato chip court order will know how to comply with it.

In my case, the only complaints about me concern subjective opinions about the future emotional well-being of my kids. There is no substantiation of any of the complaints, and no way for me to comply with their silly parenting ideas.

I have no doubt that the family court would come to completely wrong conclusions
about food. The Sacramento Bee reports today:

Fast food alone cannot be blamed for high obesity rates among people with low incomes, according to a new UC Davis Center for Healthcare Policy and Research study.

The research calls into question stereotypes that have led some cities in Southern California to cite obesity when passing laws limiting or banning new fast-food restaurants in poorer communities.

It turns out that people making $60k/year eat more fast food than poor people. They have busier schedules, it appears.

If the court were really concerned about the best in terest of the child (BIOTCh), then of course that would include physical well-being, diet, exercise, athletic skills, and fat. These are all things that psychologists have no expertise in, and they should not be giving court-ordered opinions on the matter.

The next step should be to consider the intellectual well-being of the child. I had a CPS social worker claim that it was child abuse to teach math to a girl at above her grade level. The woman obviously knows nothing about development of a child's intellectual well-being.

Rise of therapism

2011-10-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

I just learned a new word. It is therapism, as defined here with example usage:

therapism n. a culture or ideal of mental therapy, empathy, or sharing of feelings, especially as a cure.

Therapism is an overvaulation of feeling. In a real sense, it is a tyranny of feelings where women have come to believe that what realy counts in their life is their “psychology.”…We might say that therapism promotes a psychological hypochondria with women as the major seekers of emotional health. [1993]

Some are put off by the New Age rhetoric of crystals, spiritualism, and therapism. [1995]

Once we saw ourselves as serving God, then science, then the state: now we turn inwards and serve ourselves, worship our individuality. This is what I mean by Therapism. It is a religion which began a hundred years ago in the consulting rooms of psychotherapists, and which now, in its wider social and political context, sweeps all before it. [1997]

The first step that women took in their emancipation was to adopt traditional male roles: to insist on their right to wear trousers, not to placate, not to smile, not to be decorative. The first step men have taken in their self-defense is to adopt the language of Therapism: a profoundly female notion this-that all things can be cured by talk. [1998]

“Therapism,” they write, is a doctrine that “valorizes openness, emotional self-absorption and the sharing of feelings.” [2005]

This is a disease that has infected our society. I did not know that there is a word for it. It is not in any regular dictionary yet, but it ought to be.

A distressingly large number of people seem to believe in therapism like a religion.
This is especially true of family court personnel. They rely on psychotherapists who overvalue feelings and talk therapy, to the detriment of much more important issues.

Therapism. I am against it. It undermines what made America great.

Local murder trial starts

2011-10-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

A high-profile local murder trial is starting:

SANTA CRUZ -- On the evening a 28-year-old pregnant woman went missing, she'd told her college friend she planned to ask the man she believed was the father of her child for a paternity test, a witness testified Wednesday in the murder trial of a former Ben Lomond man.

Michael McClish, 42, is charged with killing Joanna "Asha" Veil and her unborn baby. The two worked together at the Ben Lomond Market. Prosecutor Jeff Rosell has said the two also had a personal relationship and Veil believed McClish was the father of her child.

I have read dozens of stories about this case, but this is the first that I have read that the real father was the victim's husband:

Experts have determined that Richard Veil was the father of the unborn baby, but Rosell maintains that McClish thought the baby could be his.

This is going to be a long trial:

McClish's ex-wife is expected to be one of the 140 witnesses who will testify in McClish's trial, which will last until at least December.

This murder took place 5 years ago. I assume that the evidence is very weak, or McClish would have been tried years ago. I don't think that they have any proof that McClish was having an affair with Asha, or was at the scene of the crime, or had the murder weapon, or anything like that. They mainly have this theory that Asha falsely accused McClish of paternity, so he killed her.

I commented before that McClish was convicted on a rape charge. It appeared to be that he was framed on the rape charge because the authorities believed that he was a murderer, but could not prove it.

I guess that we will finally get to see the evidence against McClish. I don't know why everyone has considered him a murderer for 5 years. He should be innocent until proven guilty.

Baby seller convicted

2011-10-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that Child Protection Services (CPS) causes more harm than good. But I occasionally hear of some really screwed up situations.

The Monterey California Herald reports:

A jury Tuesday convicted a Salinas man of endangering the baby girl he exposed to methamphetamine and offered to sell in a Walmart parking lot last year.

What the jury did not know, and what Judge Pamela Butler will take into consideration when sentencing Patrick Fousek, 39, is that it is not the first time one of his children has been taken from him because of methamphetamine exposure. ...

Fousek and his live-in
girlfriend, Samantha Tomasini, 21, were arrested after two women told police Fousek offered to sell them his infant daughter for $25 in the Salinas Walmart parking lot on June 22, 2010. ...

Tomasini, who pleaded guilty to child endangerment and is serving a jail sentence, told police she and Fousek smoked methamphetamine in the apartment — though never in the same room as the baby — and that she was breast-feeding three times a day.

Tomasini, still appearing strung out after more than four months in jail, changed her statement on the stand and said Fousek wasn't using and ordered her not to breast-feed. The jury rejected that account after viewing a video of her original statement. ...

"I tried my best for my children. I tried to be the best citizen I can. I don't know what I did wrong," she sobbed. "I'm so ashamed."

She was accompanied throughout the trial and Tuesday by the mother of Fousek's son, who asked not to be named to protect her other child, who is not related to Fousek.

I mentioned this story last year, because Fousek was given a chance to get his kid back by getting off of the meth.

There are so many things wrong with this situation, that I don't know where to start. The mom says that she is ashamed, but does not know what she did wrong? She would only be ashamed if she knew what she did wrong.

So do we need CPS to manage the interests of the child in cases like this? I say that it would have been much better to have just bought the child for $25, and then treated these lowlife parents just like any other drug addicts.

Judge cannot delegate

2011-10-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

A reader asked about my recent claim that a family court judge cannot delegate a custody or visitation decision to an evaluator or psychologist.

Here is the California court precedent:

"The power of decision vested in the trial court is to be exercised by a duly constituted judge, and that power may not be delegated to investigators or other subordinate officials or attaches of the court, or anyone else .... It is the constitutional right of every citizen and every litigant to be governed by the law as expounded by the judges, and not by officials or employees provided by the legislature to assist a judge in an administrative or quasi-judicial capacity. Such help as may be accorded a judge to assist him in the exercise of his judicial functions may never be permitted to reach the point where someone else decides the case or an issue before him."
In re Marriage of Matthews (1980) 101 Cal. App. 3d 811 [161 Cal.Rptr. 879]

Yes, Judge Heather D. Morse does it anyway. Technically, the parties need to object, and make sure that the evaluator is just giving a recommendation that requires further court action.

Unsubscribing the dad

2011-10-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

This is from today's Rhymes With Orange.

What if a father said this during a supervised visit, and the supervisor intervened to tell the bratty teenager that she does not have to listen to her dad and can do whatever she wants. Should he fire the supervisor?

I am afraid that most supervisors would disapprove of what the father says here, and intervene.

Right reasons for divorce

2011-10-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

I am going to have to quit reading this stupid newspaper advice column, but my local newspaper prints it next to the comics page.

Today's advice:

She's Leaving for All the Right Reasons

Dear Annie: I am 29 years old, have been married for eight years and have two toddlers. I have decided to leave my husband.

When we met, I was in college and my husband had just graduated. I quit school with the assumption that he would pass his licensure exam. He has since failed it three times. ...

He has told me to quit school, knowing we would have to pay back every cent of the tuition. He said he doesn't believe it is God's will for me to attend school. (He's also said that if I don't have sex with him, it will be my fault if he fails his exam again.)

I don't have the resources to leave him until I graduate, ... How do I ensure that I get primary, residential custody of my kids? — Surviving in Virginia

Dear Virginia: In his desperation to control you, your husband's frustration has become emotional abuse. We are concerned that this will escalate. It is possible that joint counseling, particularly with your clergy, might help him realize that his attitude is hurting everyone.

In the meantime, custody arrangements do not come with advance guarantees, so please talk to a lawyer. And call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org) at 1-800-799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233).

Maybe the husband is a jerk, or maybe the wife overreacted to a couple of minor comments. There is not enough info to tell. I am posting this for the bad advice.

The husband supported the wife for 9 years, while they had 2 toddlers and she went back to school. Now that she realizes that he is not going to achieve the earnings potential that she expected, she is planning to bail out as soon as she can get a better job. But her plans depend on getting primary custody of what she calls "my kids".

The advice is to get a lawyer, make a phony domestic violence accusation, get a unilateral divorce, use the accusation to get primary custody, and sue for child support.

Maybe if he had passed that licensure exam, he would have made the big bucks and she would be happy as a housewife. But now, he is not good enough for her, and she would rather just collect the child support check, pursue her own career, keep their kids, and find new lovers.

This is marriage today in the USA. There is no mention of whether she loves him, or he loves her, or anyone loves the kids, or anyone feeling bound to a commitment. The comments at the above link are even worse than the advice columnists'.

The Santa Cruz paper used the headline "Husband is jealous of my success". The advice
columnists themselves suggested, "She's Leaving for All the Right Reasons". What right reasons? Her reasons are (1) he failed his licensure exam, (2) she regrets having dropped out of school, (3) he wants to have sex with her, (4) he made a couple of unkind remarks, (5) she will soon be making more money than him, and (6) she wants primary custody of their kids.

Sybil Exposed

2011-10-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

NPR Radio just broadcast a news program and a Science Friday episode on the new book, Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case.

I posted last year that I thought that Sybil had been debunked.

The CS Monitor summarizes:

The book “Sybil” by Flora Rheta Schreiber introduced the idea of multiple personality disorder to America – but a new book is now saying that the entire case may have been fabricated.

In Debbie Nathan’s new book Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Multiple Personality Case, Nathan introduces a letter written by Shirley Mason – the real name of the girl dubbed Sybil – to her therapist Connie Wilbur.

“I am all of them,” Mason wrote of her multiple personalities in the letter presented in the book. “I have essentially been lying… as trying to show you I felt I needed help.”

Mason, who had indeed been abused as a child, Nathan writes, was prescribed multiple drugs by Wilbur, including Pentathol, which is today thought to encourage those who take it to describe experiences that never actually occurred. At the time, however, Pentathol was believed to be the equivalent of a truth serum.

Nathan says that when Mason presented herself as multiple people in one session, Wilbur suggested she become the focus of a book and in exchange, she would cover Mason’s medical school tuition and other expenses.

The two went to Schreiber, who, according to Nathan, told Mason and Wilbur that stories of abuse would interest people. Schreiber had written stories for women’s magazine stories that were billed as real-life accounts and had seen the appeal these held for the public, Nathan writes.

“Quite thrilling,” Mason wrote in her letter to Wilbur of the book. “Got me a lot of attention.”

The authenticity of the book, which was turned into a miniseries starring Sally Field as Sybil in 1976, has been debated for decades. However, because the last surviving member of the group, Mason, died in 1998, no conclusion has ever been reached. Researchers have recently been investigating multiple personality disorder to determine if it is, in fact, a true syndrome.

I always assumed that these sensationalized cases were not taken seriously by professionals. I was wrong. The profession is deeply split over this. You might say that the profession has its own split personality. Some say that the Sybil story is an embarrassing fraud, and others say that she was an extremely influential case study.

I expect that one of my readers will comment that he had a crazy wife, and that diagnostic criteria for conditions like borderline personality disorder are useful for identifying aberrant mental conditions. Maybe so. But I still think that the whole profession is so permeated with frauds and con men that it has no ability to discipline the phonies.

What more can I do?

2011-10-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

When a wife complains about her husband, she usually makes it sound as if she has a legitimate complaint. Sometimes not. Here is yesterday's letter Dear Annie:

Dear Annie: My husband and I have been married more than 40 years. ... I rarely, if ever, let him see me undressed. I turn off any TV program that makes any reference to love or sex as soon as he comes into the room. I never participate in any pastime that he enjoys.

I always make sure I am reading or applying hand lotion when I come to bed. I push him away anytime he approaches me. I never respond to his inquiries as to why he is so repulsive to me or what he could do to make his approaches less objectionable. I don't want it to be "better." I want him to stop.

I suggested separate bedrooms, but he said, "Then move out." In spite of all this, every six or eight weeks, he wants to grope me for half the night. He expects me to respond — even participate. ... What more can I do? — Sick of It

What more can she do? Is she serious? Does she really believe that she is doing all that she can for a happy marriage? She sounds like Hell to me.

The multiple personality hoax

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

A reader sends this new story:

If you were a kid in the early 70s, this was the book everybody's mom had on her nightstand. I recall being especially disturbed by one of the paperback covers as a child, because I thought it literally depicted the events of the book, and I thought having your head sliced into sixteen pieces would be very painful.

"Sybil" was the supposedly true story of a girl whose horribly traumatic childhood caused her to manifest sixteen different personalities. Interviews with her were like demonic exorcisms, except the psychologist was taking on sixteen different demons at once, or maybe one demon with really potent multi-tasking capabilities.

Her "real-life" drama, filled with lurid details of abuse, fit neatly into the nightmare-child vibe that illuminated so much of the decade's pop fiction. A lot of unholy, unhinged, and undead little girls leered from paperback shelves in those days.

In Sunday's New York Post, Kyle Smith reviewed a "darkly absurd" new book called "Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case," which reveals the whole story was cooked up by a somewhat disturbed young woman named Shirley Mason, an enterprising psychiatrist with a well-stocked medicine cabinet, and a trashy journalist:

As a student in New York City in the 1950s, [Shirley] met a Park Avenue therapist named Cornelia "Connie" Wilbur. The two women adored each other even as Connie gradually got Shirley hooked on a series of "therapeutic" drugs, many of them new and seemingly wondrous, including Seconal, Demerol, Edrisal and Daprisal. (The last two were so addictive that they were soon banned.)

Connie also strongly believed in giving patients Pentathol, which invariably got them blabbing, sometimes about fantasies that could not possibly have occurred. Still, the drug was widely believed to be a "truth serum."

One day, Shirley started talking about blackouts in which, she claimed, she became others with various names and personalities -- Peggy Lou, Peggy Ann, Vicky, etc.

Fascinated, Connie offered, "Would you like to earn some money?" She suggested that her patient could be the subject of a book. Connie offered to pay Shirley's medical-school tuition and living expenses.

The personality split was a lie, Shirley confessed in a five-page 1958 letter that sits in the archives at John Jay. She said she was "none of the things I have pretended to be."

I post this just to point out the low standards of the whole psychiatric and psychological profession. A complete quack and phony can generate huge amounts of publicity, and fellow professionals do not expose the hoax.

Fighting paternity fraud

2011-10-20T08:00:00.001-07:00

Here is an organization that seems to be doing some good. Fathers and Families reports:

In a stunning victory, duped dad Pedro Soto and his attorney Richard A. Lowe, Esq. have prevailed against the Orange County Department of Child Support Services in a paternity fraud case emblematic of the numerous outrageous injustices faced by men and fathers in family court. In this case, Soto has paid over $75,000 in child support for a child DNA tests have established is not his, and who has been living with both of his biological parents for many years.

Glad to see a fathers group accomplish something.

This whole paternity problem should be a non-problem. 99% of the time, the mom is 100% sure who the dad is. When the mom fills out the birth certificate form, there should be a blank for the dad, and a checkbox for whether she is 100% sure. If she does not check the box, then no child support is ever paid without a DNA test. If she does check the box, demands child support from the wrong father, and a DNA test later proves that she was lying, then she should be liable for criminal fraud and monetary reimbursement.

Eventually, the DNA tests will be so cheap that the authorities will test everybody and maintain a giant database with every person, his relatives, his bank account, and his GPS coordinates. Ending paternity fraud will just be a byproduct of ending personal privacy.

Men who need teaching

2011-10-19T08:00:00.001-07:00

A comment
on this blog yesterday said:

For one thing... they're making the men take classes, not the women, so it's the men who need teaching. Secondly, the reason most of these marriages aren't working out is because 1) they aren't marrying for love, ...

The context was Korea, which I don't know anything about, but this is one of silliest comments on this blog.

Commie countries have sent men, but not women, to reeducation camps. Does that mean that it's the men who need teaching?

The Santa Cruz family court primarily sends men (and some women) to silly parenting classes. Does that mean the men need it? The parenting classes are not learning at all. The classes only serve as tools to separate parents from their children.

If the marriages suffer from cultural differences between Koreans and Filipinos, why is that the fault of the husbands? Maybe the brides should take classes on understanding those differences, and on what to expect from marriage.

And why assume that they are not marrying for love, and assume that is a problem? They have arranged marriages in India, so they are not marrying for love, but they have long-lasting and happy marriages. I always thought that international marriages were usually for love, and that divorces were more likely to be caused by cultural differences rather than lack of love.

Perhaps my post yesterday encourages from woman-bashing, which I don't really want to do. I have this blog to complain about the family court, and to comment on related matters. Women get screwed by the family court also. But my perspective is that of a man, and I really disagree with the mentality that "it's the men who need teaching".

More on the efficacy of counseling

2011-10-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

I quoted a letter to newspaper advice column on the efficacy of counseling, so I am posting a followup letter in yesterday's paper:

Dear Annie: This is for "Didn't Need It," who went for counseling after getting out of an abusive marriage and it didn't help: Don't give up so quickly.

My husband and I went to seven different marriage counselors before we found one who didn't take sides. The eighth was well worth the search. It's up to you to find the one best for you, and to follow their advice (or not).

So I guess that they needed a counselor who never said anything that either of them disagreed with.

I have the impression that when most women seek counseling, they have no interest in solving problems or getting advice. They want to get their feelings validated. So this one searched 8 counselors in order to find one who could validate the feelings of her and her husband at the same time. That must be a rare talent in a shrink.

Korean men must take classes

2011-10-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

With the growing number of foreign brides in South Korea – and the rising number of unhappy marriages – South Korean men marrying foreign women now have to take a class to prepare themselves.

I am wondering -- does their textbook have a chapter on how to treat an American woman? What could they possibly say to prepare a man?

Bill Bennett gives advice

2011-10-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

William J. Bennett writes on CNN.com:

For the first time in history, women are better educated, more ambitious and arguably more successful than men.

Now, society has rightly celebrated the ascension of one sex. We said, "You go girl," and they went. We celebrate the ascension of women but what will we do about what appears to be the very real decline of the other sex?

The data does not bode well for men. In 1970, men earned 60% of all college degrees. In 1980, the figure fell to 50%, by 2006 it was 43%. Women now surpass men in college degrees by almost three to two. Women's earnings grew 44% in real dollars from 1970 to 2007, compared with 6% growth for men.

In 1950, 5% of men at the prime working age were unemployed. As of last year, 20% were not working, the highest ever recorded. Men still maintain a majority of the highest paid and most powerful occupations, but women are catching them and will soon be passing them if this trend continues.

The warning signs for men stretch far beyond their wallets. Men are more distant from a family or their children then they have ever been. The out-of-wedlock birthrate is more than 40% in America. In 1960, only 11% of children in the U.S. lived apart from their fathers. In 2010, that share had risen to 27%. Men are also less religious than ever before. According to Gallup polling, 39% of men reported attending church regularly in 2010, compared to 47% of women.

If you don't believe the numbers, just ask young women about men today. You will find them talking about prolonged adolescence and men who refuse to grow up. I've heard too many young women asking, "Where are the decent single men?" There is a maturity deficit among men out there, and men are falling behind.

Bennett has a curious past. He got rich on a book that was ghostwritten by others. He was a drug czar under Pres. G.H.W. Bush while he was addicted to nicotine. He has frittered away millions of dollars on a gambling addiction.

He gives his opinion:

Man's response has been pathetic. Today, 18-to- 34-year-old men spend more time playing video games a day than 12-to- 17-year-old boys. While women are graduating college and finding good jobs, too many men are not going to work, not getting married and not raising families. Women are beginning to take the place of men in many ways. This has led some to ask: do we even need men?

So what's wrong? Increasingly, the messages to boys about what it means to be a man are confusing. The machismo of the street gang calls out with a swagger. Video games, television and music offer dubious lessons to boys who have been abandoned by their fathers. Some coaches and drill sergeants bark, "What kind of man are you?" but don't explain.

Movies are filled with stories of men who refuse to grow up and refuse to take responsibility in relationships. Men, some obsessed with sex, treat women as toys to be discarded when things get complicated. Through all these different and conflicting signals, our boys must decipher what it means to be a man, and for many of them it is harder to figure out.

For boys to become men, they need to be guided through advice, habit, instruction, example and correction. It is true in all ages. Someone once characterized the two essential questions Plato posed as: Who teaches the children, and what do we teach them?

That's his solution? Guiding young men with advice?

Planning video games is better than compulsively losing millions in Las Vegas.

There are larger cultural trends at work here, and they cannot be solved by people like Bennett urging young men to take responsibility. I think that the young men have figured it out better than Bennett.

Husband killer is acquitted

2011-10-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

A husband-killer got acquitted last week:

She had always admitted to killing her husband, using two guns to fire 11 bullets inside the couple’s home in Queens. But she insisted she had no choice: if she had not shot him, he would have surely killed her first.

On Thursday, a jury in State Supreme Court in Queens agreed, clearing the woman, Barbara Sheehan, of second-degree murder charges in a case that had been viewed as a strenuous test of a battered-woman defense. ...

During the trial, the jury heard how Ms. Sheehan had been relentlessly abused by her husband, Raymond Sheehan, a former police sergeant, during their 24 years of marriage. But the critical question at trial was whether Ms. Sheehan was in imminent danger when she killed her husband; New York State’s self-defense law justifies the use of lethal force when a threat to a person’s life is deemed immediate. ...

The physical evidence appeared unpersuasive: Mr. Sheehan had been shaving before he was killed; his body was found on the bathroom floor, the faucet still running.

Ms. Sheehan testified that the couple had a fierce argument the day before, and she had decided to leave, carrying one of her husband’s guns for protection. When her husband saw her, she said, he reached for a gun on the bathroom vanity and aimed it at her.

That story drew this NY Times letter:

To the Editor:
Re “Wife Who Fired 11 Shots Is Acquitted of Murder” (front page, Oct. 7):

Your article on the acquittal of Barbara Sheehan, a domestic violence survivor, included problematic language. For instance, it said, “Legal experts said the verdict was a vindication for the so-called battered-woman defense.”

This language suggests that there is a special defense, a get-out-of-jail-free card for claiming a history of abuse. This creates both social and legal pushback to the introduction of evidence that all defendants are constitutionally entitled to present.

There is no special battered woman’s defense. What we are talking about is evidentiary support — highly relevant and admissible — as to whether or not the defendant reasonably believed that her life was in danger.

The use of admissible evidence should not require any “vindication.” It is a disservice to domestic violence survivors — and a detriment to how we respond to this epidemic — to suggest that introducing the truth in a court of law is somehow seeking special treatment.

HEATHER B. WARNKEN
NANCY K. D. LEMON
Berkeley, Calif., Oct. 11, 2011

Ms. Warnken is a lawyer and a legal policy associate with the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Ms. Lemon, also a lawyer, directs the domestic violence program at the law school.

Huhh? I didn't really get their point, so I tried to google these two dames to see if they have written scholarly papers on the subject. For Warnken, I just found this 2007 story:

Heather Warnken had the great fortune of winning Modern Bride of the Year. But then, she had the great misfortune of being noticed by Gawker, who Gawker's excoriated her and her husband-to-be for registering for a honeymoon rather than for traditional gifts.

That is too weird. Maybe Heather Warnken is a more common name than I thought.

I did find the Nancy K.D. Lemon faculty page. It says that she is a woman, but I couldn't tell from the picture. It says, "Lemon holds a B.A. degree in Women's Studies, a major she co-founded, from the University of California, Santa Cruz." That figures. We sure attract the goofballs. She looks a little like k.d. lang, the Canadian lesbian animal rights pop singer. Is "K.D." some kind of lesbian code?

For my politically correct readers here, I am not gay-bashing. I really don't care about her sexual orientation or identity. I do care if a whole generation of judges and lawyers has learned completely wacky notions of marriage, domestic violence, and justifications for husband killing.

On Lemon's scholarly work, I found this debate:

Christina Hoff Sommers, in her essay "Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship" (The Chronicle Review, online edition, June 29), criticized Nancy K.D. Lemon, a lecturer in domestic-violence law at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Law, for publishing errors in the popular textbook she edits, Domestic Violence Law, and for not taking seriously her continuing criticisms of the book. "One reason that feminist scholarship contains hard-to-kill falsehoods is that reasonable, evidence-backed criticism is regarded as a personal attack," Sommers charged.

Here is a sample of what Sommers criticizes in Lemon's textbook:

"The history of women's abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. … The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man's right thumb. The law became commonly know as 'The Rule of Thumb.' These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe."

Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology —the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase "rule of thumb" did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.

Amazingly, Lemon persists in publishing these errors, even after they are pointed out to her. She does not even seem to grasp the concept that a university textbook should correct factual errors. She seems to think that Rome really was founded by the brothers Romulus and Remus, after being suckled by a wolf. Or that it is okay to cite a myth as if it were fact, I can't tell.

I got my PhD at U.C. Berkeley. I taught a class at U.C. Santa Cruz. I once had a slide that quoted a "rule of thumb". A boy came up to me after class and told me that I should never use that phrase because of its wife-beating origin. That was the first I had heard that there was any controversy about the word. So I looked it up, and found that the phrase had completely innocent origins. So I ignored him and figured it was an isolated case of a silly student with a silly idea. Now I think that I should have asked him whether he learned that in some sort of required diversity class where Lemon learned it, because maybe all the other students learned the same nonsense, and I could have corrected them.

These are fine universities, if you stay away from the feminists and other political crazies. Now I think that I live in a looney land. Barbara Sheehan's husband of 24 years was in the bathroom shaving, and she shot him with 11 shots from 2 different guns. How can anyone defend this verdict?

Update: A reader sends this Texas story to prove that husbands can also be acquitted of spousal murder.

There is a big difference. The Texas man was only released when DNA evidence proved that someone else committed the murder, and the husband is only being released after serving 25 years in prison.

Not jailed today

2011-10-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

I just got out of court where I was to be sentenced for contempt of court. The charges were dropped, and I have not been jailed.

We were scheduled to appear before Judge Heather D. Morse at 10:30. There was one case going on at the time, with a mom and dad both represented by lawyers. The facts were not in dispute. The court keeps sending them to mediation with Mellissa Berrenge, who then recommends a plan that they both accept. But then the mom reneges on the plan, and they end up back in court.

Judge Morse did not seem to get it, and sent them back to Berrenge again, and said that they should agree on a plan. The dad's lawyer explained again that this did not work before, and asked that Berrenge's recommendation become the order of the court. The mom's lawyer did not object. Judge Morse continued to say that they ought to agree on what Berrenge says. Finally, the dad's lawyer offered to write up the order. Again, the mom's lawyer did not object. It is not clear to me that the judge really ruled in his favor, but since he gets to write up the order, I guess that it is going to work out that way.

No one mentioned the underlying legal problem, which was that California law prohibits a family court judge from delegating a decision to a private shrink like Berrenge. Berrenge would make a horrible judge, and there is no due process for whatever she may decide in her private office. So maybe that is why Judge Morse did not explicitly say that she was delegating the decision to Berrenge.

This was really a simple case. If the parents are really agreeable to letting Berrenge dictate their plan, then all they have to do is to bring the plan back to court and get it ordered. Judge Morse seemed incapable of doing the obvious.

My case started at 11:00. Judge Morse noticed that my ex-wife, Julie Travers, was sitting on the opposite side from the plaintiff's side where she usually sits. Judge Morse said that I faced sentencing on two counts, unless they were cured.

The first count was money, where I contested two amounts. Julie wanted to pay for her half of Ken Perlmutter's evaluation, and for half of our daughter's orthodontic treatment. At the contempt trial in August, Judge Morse said that I was never ordered to pay her half of the evaluation, and I did not have to pay that. I only had to pay my half of the $19,000 evaluation, and pay all of his $9,000 in witness fees. The judge also said that I had not been ordered to pay orthodontic fees, but that she would order it if Julie produced evidence that the treatment was necessary. Julie produced a bad xerox of dental xrays, and Judge Morse announced halfway thru the contempt trial that she could see that my daughter had too many teeth, and ordered me to pay for the treatment. Two hours later, she found me in contempt for not paying. I still don't see how I could be in contempt for not paying something that was never ordered until the contempt trial, but that is what happened.

Today, I said that I paid the money. Julie agreed that I paid it, altho she refused to admit that it was for orthodontic treatment. I don't know why she said that, as that was the only issue she won on. But she agreed that I paid, and the judge said that count was purged.

Next, Judge Morse said the much more complicated issue was count no. 2, as that involved posted personally identifying info about our daughters on the web, such as pictures, and that had to be weighed against my free speech rights. Julie explained that info about the kids was not at issue. She said that her only concern was a report by Connie Jo Neustadter that said that I was an excellent father and that strongly recommended joint custody, and a posting on this blog that briefly quoted a Ken Perlmutter report on how Julie got temporary sole legal custody of our kids. As she explained at the contempt trial, she did not like the Neustadter report because I had pointed out that the report was done to comply with an order of the court and she did not like there to be anything online to suggest that the court had found me to be a good father. She did not like the Perlmutter quote because it proves that she lied to Perlmutter about having already gotten sole legal custody when she had not, and because it shows that he was either incompetent or corrupt.

I have a regular commenter who talks about finding a smoking gun for incompetence or corruption. This quote is a smoking gun, and I was ordered to remove it from the blog.

Judge Morse acknowledged at the August contempt trial that I had not been ordered to remove these items before the trial, but she found me in contempt at the end of the trial for not having removed them.

Today, Julie acknowledged that I had removed the two things that she had complained about, and Judge Morse purged that contempt count also.

Before dismissing us, Judge Morse asked us how the visits were going, and that opened a can of worms. Julie said that I was getting two supervised visits a week, one for each kid separately, except that she canceled yesterday's visit on account of the kid playing basketball. I said that I was going to bring a motion to improve the situation, and then we got into an argument about whether I was prohibited from bringing motions for two years. I said that we only had temporary custody orders, and that even if there were a permanent custody order in effect, I would not be prohibited from bringing a motion. Julie said that I was prohibited. Judge Morse said that she wanted to protect the kids from litigation, and see how much progress we make on our own. She said that maybe we could go to mediation, but that it was entirely at Julie's discretion. Judge Morse also said that the kids need to work out their feelings in counseling. I pointed out that they were not in counseling, but she said that the supervised visits were like counseling. They are nothing like counseling. In the last couple of visits, the supervisor just read a book for two hours and never said a word beyond hello at the beginning and goodbye at the end. For that, she gets $100 each visit.

As a practical matter, I believe that the clerk will let me file a motion, but if it goes before Judge Morse, she will surely refuse it. I think that I will file a motion anyway. On my way out I asked Julie if she were willing to discuss unsupervised visits, and she said that it was out of the question.

Women lawyers get new lectern

2011-10-13T08:00:00.001-07:00

The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports, as a reader sent me:

SANTA CRUZ -- The state's top jurist says the California court system needs to move into the digital era and she plans to help make that happen.

State Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye spoke to members of the legal community about the state of the California judicial system Tuesday evening at an event co-sponsored by Women Lawyers of Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz County Bar Association. ...

As the state has undergone budget cuts across the board, the judicial system has hardly been immune. Cantil-Sakauye said she hopes the court system will be able to stanch the cuts and seek restorations in the next several years.

"Even though we have budget concerns, we are still a strong institution," she said.

To make it even stronger, a number of efforts are under way, she said, including the formation of a committee of judges tasked with reviewing and overseeing the case management systems. A major push will be made to get more documents online and to provide more cohesion when it comes to case management systems. Within the state's 58 trial courts, there are more than 100 different computer systems being used, she said.

"We will be working hard to bring it into the 21st century," she said.

Is she joking? Five years ago Santa Cruz had minute orders online. No more. They ought to have audio recordings of court proceedings online. Some federal courts now have all the briefs online.

Cantil-Sakauye, who toured the Santa Cruz County Superior Court earlier in the day, praised the court as one of the best-run in the state. She said court workers had clearly made necessary sacrifices and educated themselves pre-emptively in light of burgeoning budget cuts.

"We expect to be hearing from many courts starting over the next few months about bailouts, but we don't expect to be hearing about this from Santa Cruz," she said. "They took their leadership and skill and crafted a solution."

Cantil-Sakauye was the first speaker to use a new podium custom-made in honor of Judge Kathleen Akao, the second female judge to have been elected in the county, who died in 2005. The new lectern was presented by Heather Morse, the county's first female judge.

A podium is a platform for the speaker to stand on. A lectern is a slanted stand to hold the speaker's notes. Which is it, a podium or a lectern?

I was going to make some comments about all these women judges and lawyers, but that might be ruder than my much-criticized comments about Dr. Gay. Besides, I have to sentenced by Judge Morse tomorrow.

So I'll just say that I am glad we have a new podium or lectern or whatever it is, and we don't need any bailouts.

I watched the TV show Revenge last night. The main character had been institutionalized by a psychiatrist as a young girl, as part of a plot to punish her father and prevent him from seeing her. Years later, she exposes the psychiatrist. The truly guilty parties have not yet gotten what they deserve. It is a TV show, and there are more episodes to come. Hmmm. Shrinks who separate dads from their daughters should always have to worry that they will be exposed for what they have done.

Protest ideas

2011-10-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of good comments below. I am still unsure about what we can do.

A couple of people suggested that I stop referring to the sexual orientation of incompetent and corrupt court psychologists. They say that it is a distraction from the great harm being done.

Research shows that you need 10% for a political movement:

"When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority," said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. "Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame."

So we do not need to convince everyone, but we do need to convince at least 10% to be committed to the cause.

I attended a public Occupy Santa Cruz meeting, just to study their organizational structure. That movement has gotten a lot of momentum rapidly. They do not have any coherent goals. Just a conviction that there is a financial elite that is running this country to the disadvantage of the other 99%.

The Occupy movement seems to include college grads complaining about student loan debt. Possibly they would be sympathetic to dads with child support debt.

I have to be at the Watsonville courthouse on Friday morning for my contempt sentencing. I assume that Judge Heather Morse will not actually punish me, since she had to make up new orders during my contempt trial in order to claim that I was violating her orders. I would be happy to join in a protest, but I don't think that we have enough yet.

Court reporters are getting scarce

2011-10-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Law.com reports:

Are Court Reporters a Luxury Item in California?

For a growing number of California's trial lawyers, a briefcase isn't the only thing they need to bring to court anymore.

A handful of courts, struggling with severe budget cutbacks, are now requiring lawyers and litigants to hire their own court reporters for many types of civil proceedings -- or face going without one.

San Francisco Superior Court announced Thursday that it is dropping reporting services in 16 courtrooms, including most of its civil departments. Napa, Alameda and Stanislaus are among other courts that have already adopted, or are in the process of adopting, a bring-your-own-reporter policy. ...

Lawmakers, usually Republicans, have proposed in the past that courts switch to electronic court reporting to save money. Those proposals have quickly died, however, in the face of stiff opposition from the reporters' lobbies and unions as well as many lawyers who say recording is unreliable.

San Francisco court leaders are considering the use of electronic recording in misdemeanor cases, but not as a replacement for reporters in civil matters.

Court reporters are just not practical anymore. Universal electronic recording of courtroom proceedings is inevitable.