I’ll have to show this to the leader of my son’s Boy Scout troop. From Boy Scout saves Maldives president (Associated Press, 1/8/08): “COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – A quick-thinking Boy Scout foiled an assassination attempt on the president of the Maldives on Tuesday, grabbing an attacker’s knife as the man leapt from a crowd and lunged at the leader, an official said. “President Maumoon Gayoom was unhurt, but his shirt was ripped as the attacker tried a second time to stab him before being overpowered by security guards, government spokesman Mohammed Shareef said. “‘One brave boy saved the president’s life,’ he said.
“Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim, wearing his blue Maldives scout uniform with a blue kerchief, was standing in the crowd to greet Gayoom on Hoarafushi, one of the 1,190 coral islands in the Indian Ocean that make up the Maldives. “The attacker hid a knife in the Maldivian flag as he awaited Gayoom’s arrival, then lunged at the president, Shareef said. “Ibrahim reached out and grabbed the blade, and he was cut on the hand, according to the government. “There was blood on the president’s shirt, but it was not his but the boy’s,” Shareef said… “Boy Scouts in the Maldives are similar to their U.S. counterparts, receiving training in first aid and participating in activities like camping. Their motto is the same as well: ‘Be Prepared.'” The full article is here.
Author: Super User
Background: The issue of Single Motherhood by Choice has been getting a good deal of press lately. For some examples, see There’s no shame in going solo, says mum (Guardian Unlimited, UK, 11/4/07) and Knocking Yourself Up–The ongoing debate over going it alone (Newsweek, 11/5/07). To watch me debate Single Motherhood by Choice on Fox’s nationally-syndicated Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, click here. To learn more about Single Motherhood by Choice,
click here. To learn more about what research says about the importance of fathers, see my co-authored columns Why Dads Matter (Houston Chronicle, 6/18/06) and Tyler Perry”s Daddy”s Little Girls Tells an Important Truth About African-American Fathers (Los Angeles Watts Times, 6/14/07). Australian Single Mother by Choice Clare Edwards has one child via a sperm donor and says she wants to have 10 more. When asked if it is right to inflict fatherlessness on her present and future offspring, she says: “I didn’t want a dad in the child’s life…I’m not denying my children anything.” This TV report explains that Edwards “lives on government handouts” and “being a modern woman gives her that right to make that decision [to have fatherless kids].” We can see where Edwards, 21, gets it from–her mother says that her grandchildren “need male role models but it doesn’t have to be a father.” As I’ve noted, “male role model” is code for “I’m too selfish to want to compromise with the father of my children, and having a husband may limit me or be inconvenient, so I’ll just cut dad out of the child’s life or use a sperm donor and, when (and if) convenient, shop for ‘role models’ for my son.” In my column Raising Boys Without Men: Lesbian Parents Good, Dads Bad (World Net Daily, 9/10/05) I explained: “[Single Motherhood by Choice advocate Peggy] Drexler does allow that some male figures can be positive for boys. Who? ‘Grandfathers, godfathers, uncles, family friends, coaches’–in short, anybody but dad. In fact, boys being raised without fathers benefit because they enjoy ‘more male figures in their lives than boys from traditional families.’ But more does not mean better, and a group of men with little stake in a boy”s life are a poor substitute for a father”s love and devotion to his children. Nor can they provide the modeling that boys need–the best way for a boy to learn how to become a good husband and father is to watch his father do it.” To read more and to watch the video, click here. Thanks to Stephen, a reader, for sending it.
Livonia, Michigan–On Sunday, January 13, I hand-delivered approximately 300 falsely accused fathers” stories to Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. These described the often heartbreaking effects of false restraining orders on parents and on children. I delivered the statements to Romney at his campaign rally in Livonia, Michigan, near Detroit. Romney is competing in the Michigan Republican primary contest, which will be decided on January 15.
On January 6, activist Richard Smaglick had asked Romney about the false restraining order issue in New Hampshire. (Hear the question and Romney”s full response by clicking HERE.) Romney had replied that he did not recall a case in which the restraining order law had improperly interfered with the rights of parents, “but if you”re familiar with such, let us know.’
So we decided to let him know. Last Friday and Saturday, our members responded in droves to our request for their restraining order stories. We compiled over 100 from Romney”s home state, Massachusetts, and Glenn Sacks provided over 150 from elsewhere around the country, all of this in less than 24 hours.
I hopped a plane early Sunday and attended the noon rally in Michigan. There, I handed Romney the 300 statements. Richard and I also distributed a press release to major media, and discussed the restraining order issue with reporters and campaign staff. Press stories about the event may appear before long. Michigan activists such as James Semerad and Larry Holland also were busy on behalf of family court reform, buttonholing various politicians at the numerous political events leading up to Tuesday”s primary election.
The 300 statements came from a retired Massachusetts judge, several attorneys, fathers, mothers, grandparents, stepparents, aunts, uncles, doctors, engineers, teachers, veterans, and more.
Here”s something else Romney said in response to Smaglick”s question in New Hampshire: “I would like us to see a more aggressive and vigilant going-after of people who frivolously bring actions against one another when they know it”s falsely provided.’ Hmmmmm. . . .
These actions are a good step towards educating major politicians about a serious flaw in our laws that is damaging the lives of children and bringing down injustice onto many adults.
Thanks to all who answered the call for an email account of your personal experiences with restraining orders — we”re just sorry that we cannot thank each one of you individually.
From TMZ.com’s Pam to Rick — I’m Pregnant, Get Lost! (1/9/08):
“TMZ has learned the divorce between Pam Anderson and Rick Salomon is back on and Pam is pregnant!
“You’ll recall Anderson filed for divorce last month, but called it off just days later. But sources tell TMZ she is now moving forward with the divorce, even though we know she’s pregnant with his baby.
“Salomon has told friends he believes she is ‘acting crazy’ because of the pregnancy and hopes she will settle back into the marriage. Interestingly, in her divorce petition, Anderson asked for spousal support but not child support.
“The couple were married in Las Vegas on October 6.”
Is that a misprint? Let me summarize:
1) Pamela Anderson makes vastly more money than Rick Solomon.
2) Pamela Anderson marries him and divorces him three months later.
3) Pamela Anderson demands alimony.
And she deserves alimony because…..huh?
To learn more about alimony in general, see my blog post Some Thoughts on Dr. Helen’s Piece ‘Should Alimony Die a Quick Death?’ or click here.
I sometimes play Halo 3 with my son on Xbox LIVE. (On Xbox LIVE you can play in 8 or 16 man games with players from all over the world on your TV via an internet connection). It’s a nice thing to be able to do for an hour at night after the homework’s done. Sometimes my son and I will play against other friends or acquaintances of his who have their own Xboxes at home, or sometimes we’ll play with strangers. There are headsets and audio,
so the players can communicate with each other via the TV. Of course, whether we’re playing against my son’s friends or with strangers, the fact that he is playing with his dad is a great source of shame. So when we play, I’m always my son’s unidentified “friend” or “the neighbor kid.” If my son’s friends or acquaintances knew I was his dad, my abilities as a player would probably get some feigned respect. Instead, since they think I’m just a teen kid, they say what they really think of my play. So time after time I hear comments like these: “Dude, your friend sucks.” “He flew right into the enemy base–what an idiot.” “Do we have to have your friend on our team?” The game just moves too damn fast–sometimes watching these kids and how fast they move, I feel like I’ve entered another dimension where everything moves twice as fast. I always feel that if I could just push a button and enter that twice-as-fast dimension, I’d do fine. I was talking about this briefly the other day with Mike McCormick, who told me that he’s no match for his son in video games, either. So here’s my question–is there any dad out there who plays video games with his kids who doesn’t get his butt kicked? And no, don’t post a comment bragging because you are able to beat your four-year-old. Let’s make the minimum age eight or nine. Is there anybody who can win? And at what game? And can you send me the cheat codes?
Categories
The Feminist Intentional Walk
In baseball, a pitcher will sometimes intentionally walk a strong hitter in order to face a weaker hitter. In the photo, a catcher is signaling for an intentional walk to Barry Bonds, baseball’s greatest hitter over the past 20 years.
In political debates on gender issues, feminists often “intentionally walk” strong opponents in order to deal with weaker ones. The purpose is to avoid arguing with articulate, reasonable advocates and instead get easy wins by counterposing feminist views with those of the loonies, misogynists, conspiracy theorists, homophobes, and others who inhabit the nether regions of the fatherhood movement.
One recent example is feminist Peggy Drexler’s recent Huffington Post column Of Basters And Bias (12/31/07). Drexler, who authored Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men in 2005, is an advocate for Single Motherhood by Choice and lesbian double mothers.
It”s one thing to be respectful of gays and gay parents. It”s quite another to engineer a deceptive study and use it to assert that lesbian families are a better environment in which to raise boys than heterosexual families, as Drexler has done. In Drexler”s world, lesbian families–protected from fathers and their toxic masculinity–are the best environments in which to raise boys. Married heterosexual mothers try their best, but the positive influence these hapless moms try to impart to their children is overwhelmed by that of the malevolent family patriarch.
I have criticized Drexler’s work in several newspaper columns, including Are Boys Really Better off Without Fathers? (San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post Intelligencer & others, 9/6/05), Raising Boys Without Men: Lesbian Parents Good, Dads Bad (World Net Daily, 9/10/05), and Are Single Mothers the ‘New American Family?’ (World Net Daily, 9/28/06).
Drexler is aware of these criticisms. Yet in Of Basters And Bias, as she has done many times, Drexler disparages opponents of Single Motherhood by Choice by quoting a few cranks who wrote nasty letters and blog comments. Instead of quoting and critiquing my arguments or those of other critics such as Maggie Gallagher, she quotes loony gems such as “Go back to Russia where you belong, you commie bitch.”
Well, in the spirit of Russia and commies, it was Lenin who said that the proper way to win a political debate is to counter your opponents’ best arguments, not their worst. Peggy, if you want to make a convincing and intellectually honest argument, you’ll have to deal with real opponents and real arguments. But you won’t. So even though I’m certainly no Barry Bonds, I guess I’ll just shut up and walk to first base…
Dear Glenn,
I was married in May 1994 to a woman I had been dating for 4 years. It hadn’t been the best relationship, but we thought we loved each other. I wound up getting her pregnant on our honeymoon, and while we knew it was going to be hard, we were joyfully looking forward to our child’s birth. I was very excited and happy, and couldn’t wait. I was working hard to earn money, and while she never worked full time in her life, she had a small part time job that helped.
The end of August I arrived home early as I was sick as a dog, and when I entered our apartment, I was confronted with her having sex with her boss at the time. I got very angry and lunged at the man and began screaming at him, etc. She jumped on MY back and DEFENDED HIM!!!! I kicked him out and we were verbally fighting for a while although nothing that bad. No police were called, and in the end we decided she should go to her parents’ house for the night until we could calm down and discuss things further.
I went to work the next day and when I came home the apartment was empty, as was the bank account (we still had over 10k in wedding money in there). I didn’t know what was going on so I called her at her parents house where I was informed by her mother that she won’t be coming back because I beat her up and they had a bruise on her arm to prove it. Glenn, I never laid a hand on her, and can only assume that it happened when she jumped on my back.
To make a long story short she got a restraining order on me, I had to contact my attorney to get progress reports on my unborn child, and I wasn’t even allowed to participate or view the birth. My son was born 2.5 months premature, and I wouldn’t have even know she was having medical difficulties had a friend of mine not called me to tell me about it. I had to find out hours later that my son was born and was so premature he might not make it. I was told I couldn’t be at the hospital the same time as her, so I was forced to go late, often 11PM-1AM, and then to work the next day!!! I did this for months until he was released. Once he was released, our divorce was finalized and I was told that I was abusive and I could only have 2 hours on Sundays at her parents house of visitation, with a court appointed person.
I showed up for my first visit and was told that she “had moved” and nobody knew where she was, but I could continue to send child support to her parents’ house and they would hold it for her.
Categories
CBS Anchor Suzanne Rico Discusses Her Father
I was at an awards banquet recently which honored several “Women of Achievement,” and one of them was CBS Los Angeles television anchor Suzanne Rico. Rico covered the 9/11 terror attacks in New York, the war in Afghanistan and the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
Rico had some interesting things to say about her childhood and her father. She said that the only time she ever got in trouble when she was a kid was when she was 13 and she shoplifted a bathing suit. She says that when the security guards nabbed her and were calling her house, she was praying that her mother, not her father, would answer the phone. She said her mother would take away her television and ground her. She said she did not know what her father would do.
In the end, she says, her punishment was worse than anything she could have anticipated. It was her father who answered the phone, and he came to the store to pick up Suzanne. When they were in the store and the security guard explained to him what Suzanne had done, she said his face had an expression of incredible disappointment.
He hardly said a word to her, and did not give her a punishment. She said that her father’s look of disappointment was a worse punishment than anything he or Suzanne’s mother could have given her. She said she has never forgotten it, and that it helped make her who she is.
Background: Research clearly shows that women are just as likely to physically attack their husbands or boyfriends as vice versa, and that between 30% and 40% of the injuries sustained in heterosexual domestic violence are sustained by men. Nevertheless, the domestic violence establishment continues to ignore male domestic violence victims, instead putting forth the discredited myth that domestic violence is synonymous with wife-beating.
Max Patkin (January 10, 1920 – October 30, 1999) was an American baseball player and comedian, best known as the “Clown Prince of Baseball.” According to one source:
“Wherever [flamboyant baseball owner] Bill Veeck ran a major league team (Indians, Browns, White Sox), Max Patkin (pictured) was a baseline coach and a comic attraction. The gangly, double-jointed Patkin barnstormed the minor league circuit with his pantomime, contortionist act…Proud of being a bona fide baseball man, capable of doing an actual coaching job, Patkin was a one-time minor league pitcher.”
In 1988, Patkin told writer Steve Wulf:
“Things got so bad [with my then-wife], I was sleeping alone in a room in my own house. One day I came out of my room, and she hit me over the head with a hammer. She laughed. My daughter saved me. She picked up the bloody hammer. I stumbled out onto the lawn with a slightly fractured skull. Fortunately, my neighbor, who was an FBI man, took me to the hospital.
“Two weeks I spent in the hospital. I got out just so I could attend this banquet in Norristown (Pa.) for Tommy Lasorda. So there I am with my head all bandaged. Joe Garagiola is the emcee. Don’t get me wrong, Joe has been beautiful to me over the years. But when he introduces me, he says, ‘There’s Max Patkin. His head is bandaged because his wife hit him with a hammer.’ Got a big laugh, too.”
[Note: If you or someone you love is being abused, the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women provides crisis intervention and support services to victims of domestic violence and their families.]
I’ve at times been surprised and dismayed at the way the trend towards women dressing in skimpy clothes has filtered down to young girls.
I think it’s a trend our daughters can do without.
The shirt pictured is not exactly an example of that, but it fits the general trend.
Feminist writer/blogger Jill Filipovic says the shirt–“Hooters Girl (in training)”–is in a toddler size.
See Filipovic’s Hooters for the kiddies.