Husbands are jackasses, kids are pigs, and mom is mom in the anti-male iRobot commercial “Animal House.”
To watch the ad, click here.
For those who’d like to express their views of the commercial to iRobot’s Corporate Headquarters, see:
iRobot Corporate Headquarters
63 South Avenue
Burlington, MA 01803
Phone: 781.345.0200
Fax: 781.345.0201
info@irobot.com
M-F 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.EST
Thanks to Rick, a reader, for sending me the commercial.
Background: A couple months ago we discussed Garland M. Baker’s A.M. Costa Rica piece Her word rules, and he goes to jail Some women swindle with domestic violence law. Baker wrote:
“Women are kicking their mates out of the house in record numbers in Costa Rica. Some of them are enjoying it and using the law designed to protect women against domestic violence to swindle expats [American expatriates]…
“Police in Heredia say women are abusing Law 8589 Article 7 [the protction / restraining order law]…
“Yes, an expat male — or any male in Costa Rica for that matter — can be tossed out of his own home by his wife or girlfriend by merely having a complaint filed against him by the woman if she says he was being abusive. Abusive, as it stands today, can mean anything, including just raising one’s voice.
“Two weeks ago a woman put her expat boyfriend in jail all night when he raised his voice to her adult son — he is over 18 years of age — for popping bubble pack and painting satanic symbols on the wall. The son, who has tested positive for drugs in the past, became vocally abusive, so the expat called 911. When the police arrived, the girlfriend and her son asked the police to take the expat to jail. Officers did so without question…
“The man who was jailed is the legal owner of the home…In the morning, the police escorted the tired man from his jail cell to the court…The judge told the man that the police would take him to his own house where he could pack two suitcases of essentials but that he had to vacate his home immediately.
“A police officer escorted the expat and his attorney into the house. While the retired man gathered his belongings, the police officer told the attorney that throwing men — mostly foreign men — out of their homes in Heredia was their daily routine. He said they use to chase robbers and other bad people, but now they were bored because mostly they just deal with domestic violence cases. The police officer further said: ‘Women in Costa Rica are taking advantage of this new law. They throw out their boyfriend and then steal their things and leave.’
“Other women do not leave. They start court cases against expats for damages or palimony to wear them down to get a payoff.”
Baker now updates us on the saga of the falsely accused man in New chapter: ‘I want my house back!’ Judges are a girl’s best friend when extortion’s afoot. He writes:
“The second part of a true story of an expat’s agony and defeat is supposed to end today. The Gringo has to pay his girlfriend to get his house back.
“This poor man was thrown out of his house one evening for raising his voice to his girlfriend”s adult son, a punk rock type known to use hard drugs like crack cocaine. The expat spent the night in a very cold and uncomfortable jail cell…The morning after, the police took him in front of a judge who gave him a cold shoulder and would not listen to his side of the story. Every since that awful day the poor man has had to rent another place and fight for his rights. In the hotel where he is now living, there are two other men in the same predicament.
“Rights? What rights? No one at the court ever listened to him. The judge set a preliminary hearing for Sept. 27, but on the day of the audience, the judge canceled the hearing and set a new date of Nov 1. This was maddening for the expat. He had arranged to travel back to the United States to accompany his elderly mother through some medical treatments and did not expect to be back in Costa Rica Nov. 1. His father passed away last year leaving his aging mother alone. He wrote a petition to the judge asking for an earlier court date. What a mistake. The judge set the hearing back even more to Dec. 4, three long months from the date he was forced out of his own home by a live-in girlfriend.
“The expat could do nothing but wait for Dec. 4 so he could have his date in court and, hopefully, an honest hearing of the facts. He wanted to be well prepared so he asked the court if he could have a translator. Officials at the court told him he could bring any translator in whom he had confidence.
“Dec. 4…The judge appeared at around 10 a.m. for the scheduled 9:30 a.m. hearing only to say she had another case and would have to postpone the hearing again until after the holidays. The court system closes this year from Dec. 21 to Jan. 7. The expat”s lawyer insisted on a hearing. The judge conceded but said everyone would need to wait three hours for her to finish the other case. Everyone decided to wait.
“The girlfriend’s attorney walked over to the expat”s lawyer and gave him a file. He said, ‘Does your client want his house back?’
Canadian New Democrat MP Irene Mathyssen (pictured), the shadow cabinet minister for the anti-male Status of Women Canada, chose to falsely accuse and humiliate a male colleague on the floor of the Canadian House of Commons last week. In a recent column, Canadian National Post columnist Barbara Kay wrote:
“New Democrat MP Irene Mathyssen looked over the shoulder of Conservative MP, James Moore where he sat in the front row of the government benches Tuesday night, and saw what seemed to her to be a seductively dressed woman on the screen of his laptop computer. This is his personal computer, you understand, so her inspection of his screen was tantamount to viewing his private papers or mail, and she had not asked permission or been invited to look at it. Just so we”re clear on the principle.
“OK, so let”s start again. Ms Mathyssen was eavesdropping on Mr Moore. She didn”t know who the ‘scantily clad’ woman on the screen was, but having brooded on the possibilities overnight, then rose the next day on a point of privilege to allege he was viewing inappropriate material. The implication in such an allegation, let”s be clear, is that the man is a pervert. As a result a mortified Moore was forced to issue a public denial that he was looking at pornography. Turns out it was his girlfriend. Oops, my bad, Ms Mathyssen realizes, so she calls Mr Moore and apologizes. Case closed for her.
“But perhaps not for Mr Moore. He just got put through a bit of a wringer for nothing.
“Let”s unpack this incident a bit. What MP would be so idiotic as to take the risk of visiting a porn site in the House of Commons on a computer whose screen is open to any busybody? What was Ms Mathyssen”s motive in ‘outing’ him when she had no evidence to support her supposition? Scantily clad women are all over the Internet and also all over real life. Scantily clad is in fact the norm in fashion.
“What would Ms Mathyssen have done if she happened to look over the shoulder of a female MP and actually did see soft porn? Would she rise on a point of personal privilege to humiliate a woman colleague? I think not. I think she would have protected her. And let’s not pretend that women never look at porn. Ms Mathyssen clearly relished the opportunity to embarrass a man caught in the act of being a typical man according to the feminist playbook.”
Kay suggests that the men in Mathyssen’s district vote her out of office. I heartily agree. The full article is False allegations claims another male victim, this time MP James Moore (12/7/07).
This AOL/McAfee software security ad portrays an obese black man as being too stupid to operate his computer properly, while the woman is, of course, super smart and competent.
To watch the commercial, click here.
Thanks to Jon, a reader, for sending it to me.
My new co-authored column, Biden”s Misguided S1515 Will Exacerbate Domestic Violence System”s Problems (Philadelphia Daily News, 12/7/07), criticizes a new bill which will enlist 100,000 volunteer attorneys to help purportedly abused women win custody of their children from their alleged abusers. Our principle objection to the bill is that there is no mechanism within it to distinguish between false accusations and legitimate ones.
The National Organization for Women is currently running a campaign in support of the bill. The bill is also supported by the American Bar Association and the Family Violence Prevention Fund. The bill can be seen here. Biden’s recent presidential campaign pitch for the bill can be seen here.
To write a Letter to the Editor of the Philadelphia Daily News regarding the column, click here.
The column, co-authored with Mike McCormick, Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, is below.
Biden”s Misguided S1515 Will Exacerbate Domestic Violence System”s Problems
By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks
When it comes to domestic violence legislation, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) owns an asphalt company. Biden”s latest domestic violence bill is the National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act, which amends Biden”s Violence Against Women Act to create an extensive network of volunteer attorneys to help abused women. The attorneys would provide free legal help in forging divorce or separation agreements and in winning child custody.
According to Biden, S.1515, which will soon be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee and is co-sponsored by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, will enlist 100,000 volunteer attorneys. The bill is supported by the American Bar Association, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, and the National Organization for Women, which is currently running a campaign in support of the bill.
S.1515 will do some good in aiding abused low-income women. The problem is that the bill will also greatly exacerbate the already widespread problem of false domestic violence claims being used to strip decent, loving fathers of custody of their children. There is no mechanism within the bill to distinguish between false accusations and legitimate ones.
Currently, domestic violence service providers assist women who claim to be abused. Let”s say Bob and Jane are married and have two kids. If Bob abuses Jane, Jane can go to a local shelter and receive legal assistance in obtaining a personal protection order (aka restraining order) against Bob. Bob is forced to vacate his house immediately. A couple weeks later there is a hearing to determine if the protection order will be made permanent, and the domestic violence service provider again furnishes assistance for this hearing. At these hearings, the protection orders are usually extended.
All this is as it should be–provided Bob is guilty. The problem is that the same process and laws which protect a battered Jane from an abusive Bob also allow an unhappy but not abused Jane to boot an innocent Bob out of their home and set a child custody precedent with herself as sole caregiver. This aids Jane greatly during the divorce process.
Below are some recent articles and items of interest from Fathers & Families’ latest News Digest.
26 arrested in raid over child support allegations (Courier-Post, 12-6-07)
Holidays a high time for divorce (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 12-6-07)
Rhode Island court denies same-sex divorce plea (Reuters, 12-7-07)
The plight of divorced dads (National Post, 12-8-07)
Arizona coach Olson files divorce petition (Baltimore Sun, 12-8-07)
Correct Call: Free divorce lawyers? State court says no (The Columbian, 12-8-07)
Holiday sweep nets $354,000, and 1,020 deadbeat parents (NorthJersey.com, 12-9-07)
Meditation can make divorce more tolerable (TheDay.com, 12-9-07)
New Mexico advocate for dad’s rights takes on child support (Albuquerque Tribune, 12-10-07)
Background: The domestic violence establishment is not telling us the full truth about domestic violence, and many destructive family law and criminal law policies have been based on misinformation. Research clearly establishes that women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat, often employing the element of surprise and weapons to compensate for men’s strength. Yet arrest and prosecution policies are stacked against men, as is the public dialogue on this important issue. Perhaps worst of all, misguided women’s groups’ distortion of the domestic violence issue has been the leading impediment to passing shared parenting legislation.
Last year dozens of leading authorities in the domestic violence field formed the National Family Violence Legislative Resource Center (NFVLRC) to change the domestic violence system. The NFVLRC advocates for non-discriminatory and evidence-based policies and seeks to correct the many damaging laws and policies which have been based on misleading claims. NFVLRC co-founder John Hamel, LCSW, a court-certified batterer treatment provider and author of the book Gender-Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse, explains:
“The founding members of NFVLRC have recognized for some time that current policies are politically driven rather being based on scientifically sound information, and are seeking to change them. As a result of flawed policies, many children are being denied the same range of services simply because of their victimized parent’s gender. Current policies have in many instances also resulted in a loss of civil liberties, and research indicates that they have sometimes resulted in increased danger to victims…NFVLRC believes that unless domestic and family violence policies are reformed, victims, children and future generations will continue to suffer from this social problem.”
Last year over 50 of these authorities signed a letter urging the California legislature to stop the state’s policy of excluding male victims and their children from domestic violence services.
The California Alliance for Families and Children is sponsoring an historic, one-of-a-kind conference–“From Ideology to Inclusion: Evidence-Based Policy and Intervention in Domestic Violence.” The conference will be held Friday/Saturday, February 15-16, 2008 in Sacramento, California, and will feature speakers from the NFVLRC.
There will be 5 Plenary Sessions and 15 Breakout Sessions. Topics include: Current Policy Issues * Research Trends * Male and Female Victims* DV in the LGBT Community * DV in Ethnic Minority Groups * Restraining Orders* Female Perpetrators * DV and Child Abuse * DV and Child Custody * Co-ed Shelters * Gender-Inclusive and Research-Based Interventions * DV and Adolescents * Family Treatment * Working with Victimized Children.
Many of the leading authorities in the domestic violence field will be speaking at the conference. These include: Erin Pizzey, founder of one of the world’s first battered women’s shelters in 1971; author and psychologist Don Dutton, who served as a domestic violence expert on the prosecution team in the OJ Simpson trial; Linda Mills, PhD, LCSW, JD, New York University; Murray Straus, PhD, of the University of New Hampshire; clinical psychologist Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling of the University of South Alabama; Philip Cook, author of Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence; Janet Johnston, PhD; forensic psychologist Dr. Tonia Nicholls; Marlene Moretti, PhD, coauthor of the book, Girls and Aggression: Contributing Factors and Intervention Principles; Miriam Ehrensaft Ph.D, of the Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, at Columbia University; Nicola Graham-Kevan, BSc, PhD, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Central Lancashire [UK]; and numerous others.
The conference will be held at the Clarion Hotel Mansion Inn in Sacramento, CA, and discounted hotel rates are still available. For the conference schedule and to register, visit www.NFVLRC.org and see the bottom of the home page.
Mike Robinson of the CAFC says:
“We already have had a great response in registration, with several county probation departments registering, one state’s Supreme Court staff and justices, family court and private mediation groups, custody evaluators, attorneys, and many more.”
To donate to help support the Conference, click here. To learn more about the National Family Violence Legislative Resource Center, visit their website at www.nfvlrc.org. To contact them, write to John Hamel by clicking here.
[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.]
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”–Mark Twain, novelist
Michelle, the director of my daughter’s superb preschool, gave me this book as a gift when my daughter was four or five. I had expressed my irritation at the many “dad as idiot” children’s books, like the anti-male Berenstain Bears series. Michelle sympathized, and got me Lois G. Grambling’s Daddy Will Be There, a sweet children’s book about a dad and his little girl. Remarkably, in the book the dad actually manages to care for his daughter all by himself, without a wife to show him how to parent and explain how he’s doing everything wrong.
The New York Times says: “A young girl plays in her room, learns to ride a bicycle, goes to a birthday party and watches insects in a field, in each case secure in the knowledge that her father is in the next room or just around the corner if she needs help. In the final pages, the confident youngster is smiling broadly as she goes to kindergarten, brimming with newfound independence but aware that her dad will be there later when she steps off the bus. The color illustrations, by Walter Gaffney-Kessell, leave the father in the background for the most part, relying instead on the girl’s expressions to reinforce the book’s sweet, pragmatic message about the joys and benefits of having a dad close at hand.”
Background: Child support enforcement agencies are relentless with their errors and bureaucratic bungling, and it’s men and fathers who pay the price. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (pictured) often beats his chest during his frequent crackdowns on low-income fathers he labels “deadbeat dads,” but I get more complaints about screw-ups and abuses regarding his office as I do about CS enforcement in all other 49 states combined. To learn more about Abbott, click here.
It seems that if you’re a Latin guy in Texas or California and your last name is Garcia or Lopez, sooner or later child support enforcement is going to get you mixed up with someone else and start taking your money. And let’s be clear–in the case below, the error was apparently resolved in reasonable time only because a local TV station got involved.
Money being taken out of check for nearly two months
(KRGV 5, 12/7/07)
HARLINGEN – A Harlingen man is paying child support for children he doesn’t have.
Ricardo Garcia says money has been taken out of his monthly check for almost two months.
He tells us, “In the process of refinancing our house, they showed us the paperwork that the government was taking child support from my checks.”
Garcia and his wife, Monica, have been married for more than 15 years. They have two children in high school. Garcia doesn’t have any other children and have never been in trouble for child support payments.
But every week, $30 to $40 was being taken out of his paycheck.
Garcia called the Attorney General’s Office. But he says he got nowhere.
“It kind of upset me. Because I already knew that name was very common,” says his wife. “I never knew it would come to this.”
Garcia tells us, “They were saying someone was falsely using my identity. Then it ended up being my driver’s license, then my social security card. So they weren’t really clear on what exactly it was.”
NEWSCHANNEL 5 called the Attorney General’s Office in Austin. A spokesperson for the Child Support Division admits they’ve got the wrong guy.
She tells us these things take time and they hope to get everything worked out in the next month.
Garcia says he hopes things get worked out quickly. For now, he warns other people with common names about the situation. He says, “Check your background at least once or twice a month to make sure they’re not getting falsely accused of anything.”
Right before this story aired, NEWSCHANNEL 5 received a call from the Attorney General’s Office. They wanted to thank NEWSCHANNEL 5 for bringing the problem to their attention. They tell us Garcia will be receiving a refund check very soon.
[There’s also a video of the TV report–to watch, click here. Thanks to child support expert Jane Spies of the National Family Justice Association. Jane discusses problems with the child support system in her recent article The Myth of the Successful Child Support System.]