NPO Blog Archive

Background: Tim Russert’s Wisdom of Our Fathers has hundreds of stories men and women tell about their fathers. It’s a remarkable book–to learn more, see my co-authored column America’s Father Hunger (World Net Daily, 10/13/06).

This story is from Frank A. Zedik of Vestal, NY about his father Frank J. Zedik, a state trooper. It’s called “The Bicycle”:

“My first bicycle was a Christmas present when I was seven. This was in 1943, right in the middle of the war years, and there wasn’t a new bike to be found anywhere. All available metal, including scrap iron, was being used to support the war effort.

“At the time, I just had to have a bike. I can remember pleading with my dad for one (Santa having been exposed as a fraud during the previous year)–any kind, as long as it had two wheels. He was very patient with me and explained that it just wouldn’t be possible that year. Deep down I understood, but a little begging never hurt, so I persisted.

“Christmas Eve finally arrived and I looked everywhere; there wasn’t a bike in the house. But as I came downstairs the next morning, my eyes almost popped out of my head. There, right next to the Christmas tree, stood the biggest, most beautiful red and silver bicycle I had ever seen. I don’t think my feet even touched the bottom stairs as I dashed to inspect that miraculous sight.

“The bicycle had big widespread handlebars, a bright red frame, silver fenders, and a large leather saddle supported by two coiled springs. But the most impressive feature was that it had just two wheels. What a wonderful sight to behold!

“There was a light dusting of snow Christmas morning, and I had to wait another whole day before I could take that bike for a spin. Soon I was happily riding all around the neighborhood, oblivious to everything but the wind in my face.

“Several days later, I began to notice a couple of imperfections on my marvelous machine–an almost invisible dent on the fender, a little smudge on the paint–just enough to make me realize that the bike wasn’t new. I waited a few days, trying to get the courage to ask my dad where and how he got it. When I finally asked, he told me how he and a friend had scoured swap shops, junkyards, and other friends’ basements looking for bicycle parts. After a month of searching, they had three unworkable bikes from which they assembled my red and silver beauty. Dad was somewhat apologetic as he told the story, but there was no need to apologize for giving me the best Christmas present I ever had.”

I never particularly cared for Van Halen, but you’ve got to like this story. During a recent Van Halen reunion concert, Eddie Van Halen’s 16-year-old son, Wolfgang, played the bass and sung back-up vocals. According to the San Jose Mercury News article below, “For this, he received several kisses on the cheek from his dad.”

Even better, actress Valerie Bertinelli, Eddie’s ex-wife and Wolfgang’s mom, was in attendance. The story is below.

Van Halen family reunion
By Shay Quillen
Mercury News, 12/18/2007

This time, they left the Jack Daniel’s whiskey and the Cabo Wabo tequila on the shelf.

Van Halen’s show Sunday night at HP Pavilion – its first in the Bay Area with singer David Lee Roth in more than 20 years – revealed a fun but thoroughly professional hard-rock band whose ethos has evolved from “lock up your daughters” to “bring along your sons.”

Over two hours and 10 minutes with nary a power ballad in sight, a newly sober Eddie Van Halen expertly spun out his epochal guitar riffs while brother Alex pounded out rhythms and Eddie’s 16-year-old son, Wolfgang, the band’s newest member, competently reproduced the bass and vocal parts of exiled founder Michael Anthony. For this, he received several kisses on the cheek from his dad. (In keeping with the familial theme, Wolfgang’s mom, actress Valerie Bertinelli, was spotted in the crowd.)

Meanwhile, Roth was positively aglow at his chance to be part of this family reunion, and to be back in front of an enthusiastic crowd made up mostly of folks old enough to have seen the band in its 1978-85 heyday, many with sons in tow.

Now free of the long blond mane that let him assume the role of ’70s sex god, the clean-cut 53-year-old front man was revealed as a showbiz pro, a born performer who would have been slinging one-liners and doing song-and-dance in the Catskills if he’d been born 25 years earlier.

To read the full article, click here. Thanks to Paul, a reader, for sending it to me.

Background: Dwayne Allen Dail, who was pardoned after spending 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn’t commit, was recently sued for back child support. Dail, 39, was cleared in August of the 1987 rape of a 12-year-old Goldsboro girl. The girl identified him as her attacker and hair found at the scene was similar to his. But DNA evidence found on a fragment of the girl’s nightgown years after the trial proved Dail wasn’t involved in the attack.

Dail will receive a chump change $360,000 from the state – $20,000 for each year he spent in prison. Upon his release he was served with a lawsuit by ex-girlfriend Lorraine Michaels, the mother of his son, who is seeking back child support. Dail said he was devastated by the suit, and that his son had recently moved to Florida to live with him. To learn more about this case, see my blog post This Takes Being a Greedy Ex to a Whole New Level.

Thankfully the child support lawsuit against Dail has now been dropped:

Child Support Lawsuit Dropped Against Dwayne Dail
WRAL.com
12/21/07

Goldsboro — A child support lawsuit for back child support against a Wayne County man who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit has been dropped.

Dwayne Dail said the suit, filed in November by his former girlfriend Lorraine Michaels for back child support while he was in prison, was dismissed Friday.

But he said he could not comment on the deal but was happy the matter was resolved.

“I am very happy and relieved to have this black cloud removed from me and my son’s bonding process,” Dail said. “And I hope that there can begin some healing between me and Lori, too. This has been extremely difficult for everyone involved.”

Michaels sued for a “reasonable sum” of a $360,000 compensatory payment Dail is due from the state for his wrongful imprisonment.

Earlier this month, a judge ruled Michaels should receive only a portion, if any, of the payment

Dail spent 18 years in prison for the rape of a 12-year-old girl. He was exonerated by DNA evidence in August.

He is expected to receive that by the end of January and said he plans to use it to buy a house for him and his son and enroll them both in college. Dail said he wants to pursue a career in criminal justice to help other innocent people in prison.

“I want to have that feeling of having helped someone who is desperately in need of help,” he said.

“When one man says ‘No’, all Rome begins to tremble.”–Spartacus, gladiator and leader of the largest slave rebellion in ancient history

For many of my readers, the Christmas holiday is not a joyous one, but instead a time of incomparable sadness. Many, many fathers have been driven out of their children’s lives, or to the edge of them. For them, the holidays are more a time to grieve than a time to celebrate.

These men are the victims of one of the worst tyrannies in our society’s history, and one largely unheard of before the modern era–the tyranny of being denied the right to play a meaningful role in the lives of one’s own children.

It is also during this time of year that I think of the heroism of so many modern fathers. In the era of the so-called “deadbeat dad,” hundreds of thousands of men have fought long, hard, costly battles to remain fathers to their children. This struggle, this heroism, goes almost completely unrecognized in our popular culture.

There is one man who above all others for me symbolizes this heroism–David Chick.

The mayor of London compared Chick to Osama bin Laden. He was dubbed a “menace” holding a city for “ransom,” as well as a lunatic and an extremist.

What did this middle-aged window washer do to arouse such anger? He loves his little daughter, from whom he was forcibly and unjustly separated, and he had the courage to do something about it.

Chick launched a world famous, traffic snarling, six day, one-man protest atop a 150 foot high crane near the Tower Bridge in London in November 2003. Dressed as Spiderman because that is his little daughter’s favorite comic book character, Chick had been to court 25 times and spent the equivalent of $30,000 in unsuccessful attempts to get English courts to enforce his visitation rights.

Chick explained:

“[My daughter] is the most precious thing in my world. I was there for the scans when she was still in the womb. I was there for her birth. I fed her, bathed her, got up in the night with her, cuddled her when she cried.

“Now I’m just another statistic–another dad who has no part in his daughter’s life. For me, it is a living bereavement.”

Facing a prison sentence for his protest, Chick was acquitted by an English jury, some of whom were reportedly moved to tears by his testimony. In 2003, Chick came in second in the Evening Standard London Personality of the Year contest and was the runner-up Political Personality of the Year on a major English television station.

In September 2004, Spiderman struck again, climbing the London Eye (pictured), an enormous 450-foot-high Ferris wheel on the banks of the River Thames. Chick spent 18 hours there–one hour for every month that had passed since he had been able to see his little daughter. Nearly 20,000 people were prevented from visiting the attraction because the police closed it down during the protest.

Popular still, a London jury again acquitted Chick of causing a public nuisance. Moreover, Chick was able to successfully fight his way back into his little daughter’s life.

To learn more about Chick, go to http://spidermandad.com/.

[Note: the quote from Spartacus above is from the movie of the same name.]

I’m not a particular admirer of President Bush, but the leading feminist blog www.feministing.com took a cheap shot at Bush yesterday. It’s one thing to criticize Bush’s policies on the war in Iraq, or immigration, or his head-in-the-sand approach to climate change, but to criticize Bush as a father–particularly in this manner–seems rather low rent.

In People magazine’s end-of-the-year review with George Bush, there is the following exchange:

Q: Tell us about your future son-in-law, Henry Hager. Did he do right and ask for Jenna”s hand?

The President: “He kind of sidled up to me and said, ‘Can I come and see you?” We were sitting outside the presidential cabin here, and he professed his love for Jenna and said, would I mind if he married her? And I said, ‘Got a deal.” [Laughter] And I”m of the school, once you make the sale, move on. But he had some other points he wanted [to make]. He wanted to talk about how he would be financially responsible.’

In the blog post titled Sexist Quote of the Year, By Yours Truly, Vanessa of www.feministing.com writes:

“How lovely. Nothing like your traditional daughter-for-sale language from the leader of our great nation to get me all warm and fuzzy this holiday season. And shame on the magazine (not like we should expect much from them) to say that ‘asking for a daughter’s hand’ is the ‘right’ thing to do. This isn’t the fucking ’50s, People.”

So a warm, humorous moment where the president relates his future son-in-law’s awkward but sincere attempts to do the right thing, to respect his future in-laws, and to respect his future wife, is, in reality, yet another example of our terrible patriarchy and the way fathers allegedly treat their daughters as property for sale. Bush isn’t a proud dad, he’s an “owner” who just completed a sale.

Whatever men do, it’s always wrong.

In a culture where fathers too often hesitate to parent properly because they’re afraid of being criticized, or of hurting their children’s tender feelings by disciplining them, it’s refreshing to see a father behave a bit like a father. The story is below.

[For a good example of masculine parenting, see my blog post We Need More Fathers Like This (Video Available).]

Dad buys his son a hard to get video game for Christmas and gives it to him early. When he catches him smoking pot, he sells the $90 video game on ebay as a punishment and gets $9000 for it!

MONTREAL (AFP) – After catching his 15-year-old smoking pot, a father sold the hard-to-get “Guitar Hero III” video game he bought his son for 90 dollars for Christmas at an online auction, fetching 9,000 dollars.

The sale took place after the father spent two weeks searching for the video game for the Nintendo Wii gameboard.

“So I was so relieved in that I had finally got the Holy Grail of Christmas presents pretty much just in the nick of time. I couldn’t wait to spread the jubilance to my son,” the father wrote on the eBay website.

“Then, yesterday, I came home from work early and what do I find? My innocent little boy smoking pot in the back yard with two of his delinquent friends.”

The man, a school teacher, who kept his identity private, said he sold the coveted video game to punish his son and discourage him from smoking dope.

The sale was a boon for the family’s bank account, since the game the father purchased for 90 dollars (US) was finally sold to an Australian who plunked down 9,100 dollars for it.

The naughty son, however, will not go without a present on Christmas.

“I am still considering getting him a game for his Nintendo. Maybe something like Barbie as the Island Princess or Dancing with the Stars … I know he will just love them,” the father said, tongue-in-cheek.

Dr. Helen has a new article out called “Should Alimony Die a Quick Death?” (Pajamas Media, 12/19/07). Dr. Helen writes:

“Personally, I have a hard time justifying long term alimony payments to men or women in today”s society. Years ago, when one spouse (typically women) was expected to stay home with the kids, tend the house and generally had no training or as many opportunities to make a living as women do today, I would say that alimony might have been more fair.

“However, in today”s world, in which women have fought for the right to equality, alimony seems more like a kid getting an allowance from daddy and I believe it should be abolished altogether except for extremely dire circumstances where a spouse is older, cannot work at all, and for only a short term period. No man or woman should be held to being a slave to an ex-spouse after a marriage ends.”

The concept of “alimony as slavery” is common in the men’s and fathers’ movements, and it is valid, but only to a point. Dr. Helen makes some good points above, but she goes further than I would. I am not against the concept of alimony, I am against the abuse of it.

When alimony is part of a “don’t get mad, get everything” type of post-divorce fleecing, I am opposed. When it is done out of vindictiveness, as in the divorce attorneys’ anti-male ad pictured, I am opposed. When it is done because the law demands that a divorced man support his ex-wife at the standard of living to which she is accustomed, I am opposed, because I believe that this is an unfair and unrealistic burden.

That being said, however, I believe there are situations where alimony is called for. Let’s say that Bob and Jane got married in 1995, and had three children. The couple realized that it is very difficult for the children and for the family in general if both parents have demanding, go-all-out careers. In light of this, they decide that one of them will stay home, or will work part-time, or will do a job that is not as demanding or gives flexible time, so that someone is there for the children.

In the majority of cases, this will be the woman instead of the man, but the gender is irrelevant. Over the subsequent period, Bob works 50 hour weeks and now has a career which earns him $120,000 a year. Jane works 30 hours a week and is the primary caregiver for the children, and earns $25,000 a year.

Now it is 2008 and Bob and Jane are divorcing. (I will leave aside for the moment why they are getting divorced, issues surrounding no-fault divorce, etc.). I believe that both Bob and Jane, absent a finding of parental unfitness, should have shared parenting and a relatively equal timeshare with their children.

I also think it is entirely appropriate for Bob to pay Jane both child support and alimony. Not an extortionate amount, not an amount designed to punish him, not an attempt to preserve her living standard while impoverishing him, but a reasonable amount to take into consideration Bob’s vastly greater earning capacity. This vastly greater earning capacity did not come about because Jane is lazy, or because Jane lacks talent. It came about because her contributions to the household were different than Bob’s.

Dr. Helen’s full article can be seen here.

First an excerpt from the article, and then a few thoughts:

Rape claim was cover for cheating on husband, charges allege
Minneapolis Star Tribune
12/18/07

A St. Paul psychologist who claimed she was raped by a patient in her office in October 2006 has instead been charged with falsely reporting a crime.

Authorities say that Jill Ajao, 41, made the rape claim to conceal an extramarital affair and to “protect herself and her family.” The false report prompted a detailed police investigation, the release of a suspect sketch and surveillance photo and the sifting through of hundreds of tips, according to the criminal complaint filed last week.

Police spokesman Tom Walsh said Tuesday that it was unusual for his department to seek the charges against a woman who claimed to be a victim and police did so only after a thorough investigation.

“It’s extremely rare. It’s rare because we don’t want victims not to report” a crime, he said. “But it’s very clear that this young woman was not sexually assaulted. And given the fear that she created in our community, we felt that this action was necessary.”

Falsely reporting a crime is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine…

“A factor in seeking charges, Walsh said, was that the man she said raped her had been subjected to public attention when his photo was shown in the media to help police solve an alleged rape”…

A few thoughts:

1) It is interesting that the police spokesman said that it is unusual for his department to charge women who have made false rape reports. For one, he does not deny that false claims happen, or try to say they are rare. Also, he sounds almost apologetic about charging the woman. Here the woman did great harm to an innocent man, and at worst she may get a whopping 90 days in jail, yet the police seem almost embarrassed to be bringing charges.

2) In these types of cases usually everybody ignores another factor– this man was publicly identified as a rapist on the loose, and could easily have been the target of vigilante action.

3) The police claim that they do not want to prosecute false accusers because it will make genuine rape victims hesitant to come forward. I’ve never seen much validity to this argument. I can’t imagine that a woman who came forward with a credible rape accusation would ever be prosecuted for it. Perhaps one of the feminists who read this blog knows of such a case–if so, please feel free to bring it to my attention.

It seems to me that by prosecuting false accusers we will not reduce the number of genuine victims reporting rape but instead reduce the number of false accusers.

4) I try hard to be fair to feminists and feminist organizations, but I find their silence over false rape accusations to be increasingly infuriating. “Silence” is actually a kind way of putting it, since they usually deny that false accusations are a problem. (To learn more about the prevalence of false accusations of rape, see my recent column U. of Maryland right to deny protesters a forum to publicly name alleged rapists, Baltimore Sun, 10/15/07).

I wish that in reading these types of articles, which readers send to me continuously, that once, just once, I would read something like this:

“Jane Doe, executive director of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women, expressed her displeasure with Ajao. Doe explains:

“‘What Ajao did is very harmful. It is terrible to falsely accuse a man of a serious crime like rape. It hurts him, and it also hurts all women who are victims of sexual assault, because it undermines the credibility of their claims. We want rapists in jail. We do not want innocent men victimized.'”

Is that too much to ask?

The full story, with a timeline of the case, can be seen here.

Thanks to Justin, a reader, for sending me the article.

The media generally has a rule when covering domestic violence cases–if it’s domestic violence, and it’s committed by a woman against a man, it’s not domestic violence.

Happily, Tim, a reader, recently sent me an exception, at least a little bit–the story mentions “domestic violence” at the end, which is nice.

Police Say Woman Shot At Husband, Hit TV
Husband Calls 911 From Basement
WISN.com
12/18/07

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A Michigan woman, accused by police of trying to shoot her husband in the head and missing, hitting the plasma TV instead, could face prison time.

Washington Township resident Cheryl Grucz, 61, was arraigned on charges ranging from assault with intent to do bodily harm, which carries a 10-year sentence, to possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, which carries a two-year sentence. She also was charged with a misdemeanor because the firearm did not pass safety inspection, WDIV-TV in Detroit reported.

Her frantic husband locked himself in a room in the basement of their home and called 911 after she fired the shot, police said.

“My wife’s got a gun, and she’s shooting at me,” said her husband, who is 65.

A Romeo District Court judge set a bond of $50,000 or 10 percent, with conditions.

The court also ordered Grucz to enroll in a domestic violence program.

Grucz’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15.

[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.]