Category: Blog

Evansville, IN–It’s hard to get police to arrest a female offender on a domestic disturbance call, but if she’s drunk, screams at the police officers, and the victim is a famous baseball player, you’ve got a decent chance.

Former New York Yankee first baseman Don Mattingly is lucky his estranged wife blew it with her over-the-top behavior, just as actress Tawny Kitaen did in 2002 when she attacked her baseball spouse, former California Angels pitcher Chuck Finley.

(Tawny had substance abuse problems and was prone to violence and, according to her nanny, had endangered her kids. Her punishment was a horrific injustice–they (gasp) treated her like they treat a fit, loving father, as she lost custody to Finley and got every other weekend visitation. Of course, it was really all Finley’s fault–Tawny reminded me of this herself a few years ago after I criticized her on my radio show).

Mattingly is lucky–he could’ve ended up like former baseball pitcher Scott Erickson, who in 2002 was arrested for his girlfriend attacking him–no, that’s not a misprint–who was arrested for his girlfriend attacking him, and was humiliated in the national media over it.

Mattingly’s estranged wife arrested after refusing to leave his home
Associated Press
February 5, 2008

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The estranged wife of Los Angeles Dodgers coach Don Mattingly was arrested and charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct after police say she refused to leave his property in Indiana.

Police arrested 45-year-old Kim Mattingly after they were called to the home of the former Yankee first baseman to investigate reports of a person refusing to leave on Saturday, a probable cause affidavit said. The affidavit, signed by a Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Deputy Chad Howard, said she smelled of alcohol and screamed at officers.

The couple filed for divorce in November on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. The divorce has not been finalized, and no further action has been taken.

Kim Mattingly was released from the Vanderburgh County Jail after posting $50 bond shortly after her arrest and made her first court appearance Monday on the charges. She is scheduled to appear next on March 3.

Her lawyer, Angela Freel, did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

Kim Mattingly told investigators that Don Mattingly had taken her phone and she wanted it back, the affidavit said. Police spoke to Mattingly, who said he did not have the phone.

Police had told her not to go to the house earlier in the day, Howard said in the affidavit.

On Monday, Don Mattingly filed for a protective order against his wife, which the court granted. In the petition, Mattingly cited three examples of his wife appearing at his home, including an incident on Jan. 22 during which she tried to kick down his door.

Read the full story here.

New York–Background: Recently New York State NOW president Marcia Pappas excoriated Ted Kennedy for his endorsement of Obama over Hillary. I criticized her for this, writing:

“Ted Kennedy has been a huge advocate of women’s and feminist issues for decades, but like a carping wife with a memory that never forgets, Pappas feels compelled to remind him of every time he apparently didn’t snap to fast enough for New York NOW. Pappas says that, graciously, ‘women have forgiven Kennedy.’ But now that Kennedy has chosen one liberal candidate (Obama) over another (Hillary), it is ‘the greatest betrayal,’ the ‘ultimate betrayal,’ and ‘abandonment.’

“Note that Pappas does not mention any political differences between Hillary and Obama–it’s all about voting for a woman. This is particularly ridiculous because here the contest is between a white woman and a black man. Despite women’s struggles, white women have always had and continue to have it vastly better than black men.”

To learn more, see my blog posts NY NOW’s Pappas Throws Baby Fit over Kennedy’s Endorsement of Obama over Hillary–and This Woman Defeated Us?! and NOW: ‘Gang Raping of Women is Commonplace in Our Culture both Physically and Metaphorically’.

One might think that Marcia would have calmed down by now and would respond with something more reasonable and accommodating, but this lady is a slow learner.

In the letter below to the Albany Times Union, Marcia justifies her infantile behavior by saying, “Social change isn’t made with tempered voices.” She may be right, but social change is made with sane voices. Marcia doesn’t qualify.

What’s particularly offensive is her comparison to Sojourner Truth–a heroic 19th century abolitionist and feminist. Marcia Pappas bears as much resemblance to Sojourner Truth as I do to a ballerina.

One positive on this–many other feminists didn’t like Pappas’ comments and said so, including the ladies at Feministing.com, who I’ve often criticized.

The letter is below–thanks to Dan, a reader, for sending it to me.

Social change isn’t made with tempered voices
Albany Times-Union, February 7, 2008

My response to Kathleen Parker’s Feb. 3 criticism of the Jan. 28 NOW-NYS press release (and while I am at it, my response to anyone who believes I should have kept my mouth shut about Sen. Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama), I say the following:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Alice Paul and most other feminist leaders had their critics, even within their own movement.

There will always be those who speak their truths and, on the other hand, those who temper their voices to please others. I am not the latter.

Anyone who knows me knows that I, along with my NOW-NYS organization, will continue to speak the truth without apology.

No social change was ever made by those who compromise their beliefs.

If the great activists of the suffrage movement had listened to their more timid “temper your voices” sisters and brothers, women would still not have birth control, abortion, or the right to vote. Indeed: “Well-behaved women rarely make history.”

MARCIA A. PAPPAS
President NOW-NYS
Albany

Los Angeles, CA–The other day my dad told me that he remembered that Charlie Chaplin (pictured) had been a victim of paternity fraud during the 1940s. We looked it up and sure enough, it was true. According to Wikipedia:

“Chaplin had a brief affair with Joan Barry (1920-1996) in 1942, whom he was considering for a starring role in a proposed film, but the relationship ended when she began harassing him and displaying signs of severe mental illness (not unlike his mother).

“Chaplin’s brief involvement with Barry proved to be a nightmare for him. After having a child, she filed a paternity suit against him in 1943. Although blood tests proved Chaplin was not the father of Barry’s child, Barry’s attorney, Joseph Scott, convinced the court that the tests were inadmissible as evidence, and Chaplin was ordered to support the child.

“The injustice of the ruling later led to a change in California law to allow blood tests as evidence. Federal prosecutors also brought Mann Act charges against Chaplin related to Barry in 1944, of which he was acquitted. Chaplin’s public image in America was gravely damaged by these sensational trials.”

The Mann Act itself was often employed against men, quite unfairly. To learn more, see below or click here.

The Mann Act (via Wikipedia)

The United States White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910 prohibited so-called white slavery. It also banned the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes.’ Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking. The act is better known as the Mann Act, after James Robert Mann, an American lawmaker.

The first person prosecuted under the act was black heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson, who encouraged a white woman, Belle Schreiber, to leave a brothel and travel with him to another state. Though he later married the girl, and took her away from a brothel, he was nevertheless prosecuted and sentenced to a year in prison.

Thomas’s academic career at the University of Chicago was irreversibly damaged after he was arrested under the act when caught in the company of one Mrs Granger, the wife of an army officer with the American forces in France, although he was later acquitted in court.

British film actor Charles Chaplin was prosecuted in 1944 by Federal authorities for Mann Act charges related to his involvement with actress Joan Barry. Chaplin was acquitted of the charges, but the trial permanently damaged his public image in the US, and contributed to his departure for Switzerland in the early 1950s.

Canadian author Elizabeth Smart describes being arrested under the Mann Act in 1940 when crossing a state border with her lover, the British poet George Barker, in her (partly fictionalised) book By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. She memorably intertwines the callous police interrogation aimed at arresting her under this law with quotations about love from the Song of Songs.

In the late 1950s, Kid Cann, a notorious organized crime figure from Minneapolis, Minnesota, was prosecuted and convicted under the Mann Act after transporting a prostitute from Chicago to Minnesota. Although his conviction was later overturned on appeal, Kid Cann was later prosecuted and convicted of offering a $25,000 bribe to a juror at his trial under the Mann Act.

Wisconsin–Background: Recently I asked you to help Wisconsin Fathers for Children and Families try to get their shared parenting bill out of committee. To learn more, click here.

Sharon, a reader, sent a letter via my site to the Wisconsin legislative committee titled “I do NOT Support Wisconsin’s Equal Placement bill AB-571.” I asked and received her permission to share her views on shared parenting with my readership–her letter to the committee is below.

Dear Wisconsin Representative:

Equal parenting / shared parenting ONLY works when BOTH parents can cooperate for the best interest of the child.

I have a drunk for an ex-husband who abused me both physically and emotionally throughout my entire short marriage. We have a 2 1/2 year old son that is being cut in half emotionally and tortured every weekend he is forced to spend under his father’s care. I have termed this abuse of my son to be “Solomonizing”.

It is clear through psychological studies that children thrive in happy homes consisting of 2 loving parents. They can also thrive in happy homes of a single parent. And they can thrive in broken homes with split parents that both love and focus on them. They do not, however, thrive in situations where they are taken away from their mother and picked up by an aunt and left at grandma’s while dad gets drunk. They do not thrive in situations where medical information is withheld because the parent doesn’t want to risk being held accountable for neglecting the child. They do not thrive in situations where telephone calls are restricted and refused and tampered with to prevent the baby from talking to mommy when he is away from her.

If the divorce is a custody battle full of lies and horrific accusations, and the parents can not even handle a possession transfer at the child’s home, and has to be mandated to transfer the child at a police department, then forced shared parenting is not going to work. It becomes a license to take away the civil liberties of the custodial parent and put that parent on county arrest until the child turns 18.

Arizona–Background: I recently discussed McCain’s candidacy in Reflections on Super Tuesday, Part I: The Far-Right’s Hysterics over John McCain & Immigration. To learn more about my views of the presidential election, click here.

Now that John McCain is apparently going to be the Republican presidential nominee, several readers have written to me asking how I think he’ll be for fathers and noncustodial parents. I don’t know, of course, but from what limited information we have, the answer is not a positive one. I’ve heard McCain refer to the issue once and only once, in the incident described below. If anyone else knows of McCain expressing an opinion on the issue, please let me know.

Below I reprint the posting I made right after the McCain/Fathers’ Rights incident last March.

Aspiring Republican presidential candidate John McCain contemptuously dismissed fathers’ concerns over family law at a mid-day town hall meeting in Cedar Falls, Iowa today. Shared parenting activist Tony Taylor asked McCain if he “would be bold enough to address the issue of equal access to children for fathers that have gone through divorce.” McCain testily replied:

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, I am not going to overturn divorce court decisions. That’s why we have courts and that’s why people go to court and get a divorce. If I as President of the United States said this decision has to be overturned without the proper appeals process then I would be disturbing our entire system of government… But for me to stand here before all these people and say that I’m going declare divorces invalid because someone feels that they weren’t treated fairly in court, we are getting into a, uh, uh, tar baby of enormous proportions.”

In other words, McCain is saying, “the family court issue is a mess. Given the power of the women’s groups and the lack of power of fathers’ groups, there’s nothing for me to gain and much for me to lose in tackling the issue.”

It”s unfortunate, but McCain’s assessment of the politics of the issue is probably accurate at this point, and is one reason why we often can”t get politicians to meaningfully act on our issues. And as unfortunate as McCain”s response is, to be fair, he at least answered the question honestly. Whereas most politicians will give some vague, meaningless answer designed to appease the questioner into thinking he was going to do something about the issue, McCain made it clear he had no interest in the issue.

Also typifying the weakness of our movement, McCain’s remarks have been very controversial, but not for the right reason. McCain referred to the issue as a “tar baby,” meaning a sticky mess, which reforming family law certainly is. Yet “tar baby” also has a racist connotation, and Tony Taylor is black, perhaps the only black person in the room. McCain’s use of “tar baby” is being widely reported, and McCain apologized for using the term.

To watch video of the incident, which begins right after Taylor asked his question, click here (Note: It is now available by subscription only–GS). To learn more, see the CNN story McCain apologizes after using the phrase ‘tar baby’.

Taylor, to his credit, has been traveling around confronting candidates’ on fathers’ issues. He told me that as of today he has yet to receive a meaningful, positive response to his questions from any candidate.

New York, New York–Interesting perspective on marriage from William Hamilton of the New Yorker.

Milwaukee, WI–In the amazing story below, a woman sought a restraining order against a police detective who was investigating her boyfriend for a string of burglaries. It’s a clever way for a suspect or possible co-conspirator to derail a police investigation. And of course, since we have very little judicial oversight on restraining orders, the judge just went ahead and rubberstamped the order anyway.

The writers, Cary Spivak and Dan Bice, see the story as humorous, but it’s no joke to all of the innocent men who are tossed out of their homes by false restraining orders. Spivak and Bice can be contacted by phone at (414) 223-5468 or e-mail at sb@journalsentinel.com. Their blog is www.jsonline.com/links/spiceblog.

The judge was Court Commissioner David Pruhs. The story is a couple years old. Thanks to Mark, a reader, for sending it.

Woman enlists court to ditch the law
Cary Spivak and Dan Bice
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
October 15, 2006

There are many ways to avoid the cops: Some folks run, some lie and others hide. But one creative Milwaukee woman came up with a novel idea, one that police hope never catches on.

She got a temporary restraining order in family court against a detective.

“I”ve had suspects talk about doing this before, but this is the first time I ever saw it,” Milwaukee County sheriff”s Detective John Davis said last week. “I was somewhat amused by it, but it was a little aggravating.”

The creative strategy was tried by Latoya Anderson, a west side resident who Davis said is the girlfriend of a man he wants to question about a string of burglaries. The first time Davis went to Anderson”s home, the man — whom he declined to name — wasn”t there. But Anderson reached him on her cell phone. Not surprisingly, the man declined to stop over to chat with the detective.

The next day, Davis and a Milwaukee detective returned. This time nobody would let them in, even though Davis said it looked like somebody was home.

Anderson”s response: She rushed to the courthouse, filed a petition accusing Davis of harassment and received a temporary restraining order banning him from harassing her or coming near her home. Thousands of similar orders are issued annually.

Anderson”s petition actually makes a pretty compelling case for why she needed protection from what sounded like an abusive ex.

“John came over banging, knocking, kicking at the door,” she wrote. “He was looking through my blinds. He took the plates off my car. He also had my car towed. He was calling my house asking for someone who does not live there.”

Wisconsin–Background: Wisconsin Fathers for Children and Families is trying to get their shared parenting bill out of committee, and recently I asked you to write letters to the Wisconsin Assembly’s Children and Families Committee in support of the bill. Steve Blake, president of WFCF, wrote me and said that he spoke with one of the Committee’s clerks and was told that they are receiving “many, many E-mails” from you in support of the bill.

During the recent hearing on the bill, Tamara Grigsby, one of the legislators on the Committee, stood up and asked, “Why is my mailbox filled up with letters over this bill?!” The Committee has heard testimony but has not voted yet. Below is the testimony against the shared parenting bill from the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

To learn more about the bill, click here. I make the case for shared parenting in my co-authored column HB 5267 Will Help Michigan”s Children of Divorce (Lansing State Journal, 5/28/06).

Testimony in opposition to Assembly Bill 571
Patti Seger, Executive Director, Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to provide testimony today regarding opposition to Assembly Bill (AB) 571. I am testifying on behalf of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WCADV). WCADV is the statewide voice and membership organization of over 70 Wisconsin domestic abuse programs, victims of domestic violence and their children, and citizens who are concerned with ending domestic violence.

AB 571 creates a one-size-fits-all solution to the concerns of some parents who, despite their desire for equalized placement, are not awarded equal placement by the court. While we wonder if this is a resolution that is even desired by all parents, WCADV’s concerns are specifically focused on families affected by domestic violence and the devastating impact equalized placement could have on victim and child safety. Under current law, the courts are already directed by a presumption of joint custody (decision making) and are to enter court orders that maximize the time each parent has with each child. Under 2003 Act 130, the courts additionally must consider the impact of domestic violence on the safety of the children and must make attempts to protect children from further violence whenever possible. AB 571 creates yet another presumption that the courts must equalize placement unless it can be shown, by clear and convincing evidence, that it is not in the best interest of the children to do so.

Despite the overall trend in Wisconsin, and nationally, to recognize the seriousness of domestic violence, particularly within the criminal legal system, abusive men who fight for custody win 70% of contested custody actions, obtaining at least joint physical and legal custody or sole custody. As research has increasingly established, men who are violent and abusive towards their wives or partners often use the legal system as a tactic of abuse after separation and divorce. They pursue custody of the children, equalized physical placement, and unsupervised access as a means to continue to exert control over or to harass their estranged partners.

Albany, New York-In a stunning upset, New York  has snatched the prize for worst family law bill of the year in a late surge that overwhelmed Massachusetts” seemingly invincible “Babies in Prison.’ Sounds eerily similar to the Super Bowl. The winning entry mandates that any person who receives an order of protection must wear an electronic dog collar (OK, so it”s actually an ankle bracelet). No exceptions. This is a device that allows a person”s location to be monitored 24/7 by law enforcement personnel. See the full text of S. 04796. For those of you who subscribe to the racketeering theory of family court, the dog collars and the personnel needed for real-time monitoring of the wearers are provided by for-profit firms. The cost approaches $4,000 per year per wearer.
Let”s see – with about 50,000 restraining orders per year in New York State, that comes to about $200,000,000 per year. No wonder Omnilink Systems, a vendor, issued a delirious press release when this bill was introduced in the New York State Senate on April 23, 2007. It actually passed the Senate on June 19, 2007, but mercifully died in New York”s other chamber, the Assembly. I fully expect it to return next year. In their haste to pump up the hysteria for this bill, the Assembly published the following pseudo-statistical garbagio, “In 1999, New York State . . . received 55,558 police reports of family offenses involving adult intimate partners. In one out of five of these cases the victim knew the offender . . .’ So Senator Clinton of New York, do you agree that intimate family partners in your state know each other in only one out of five cases? What is your plan for helping these people get to know each other? The dog collars may actually be a good idea in some cases  — where a person has been convicted by a jury of a crime and is out on parole  — but this bill went way beyond any reasonable bounds. For any of you new to this topic, the short version is that these orders are obtained without the presence of the accused, with no opportunity to defend oneself, without the need for evidence, without the need to even claim that a crime has been committed  — in short, in an assembly line fashion, in huge numbers. See more on this by Glenn Sacks. I ask my usual question: where are the ACLU, the privacy advocates, the law school professors, the Innocence Project, the legal aid defenders, Justice Watch, the Supreme Court . . .  . . . .? And I give my usual answer:  no one is going to reform the family courts except us  –those who personally care about the injustice. (Winning entry submitted by Rinaldo del Gallo of Pittsfield, Massachusetts)

Glendale, AZ–The Super Bowl ads in general were pretty fair to men this year, but there was one major exception–Pepsi’s “Magnetic Attraction” commercial. According to the MySpace Super Bowl ads description:

“The Pepsi Stuff promo shows Justin Timberlake being drawn toward a woman and somehow pulled through space, off the ground, by some magnetic force. He crashes and gets beat up by his strange experience being pulled through space and having close and sometimes painful encounters with immovable objects and experiencing near misses with death.”

I understand slapstick humor but this was way over the line–Timberlake is in severe pain in the ad, and gets painfully whacked in the nuts on three separate occasions. All because some pretty girl is sucking him in by drinking her Pepsi (pictured). To watch the ad, click here.

The two people to contact at Pepsi regarding the ad are:

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi. A very high profile individual, she was #1 on Fortune”s list of the 50 most powerful women in business in both 2006 and 2007. She can be reached at indra.nooyi@pepsico.com, headquarters phone: 914 253-2000, headquarters fax: 914 253-2070

Pepsi CMO Cie Nicholson. She is the Pepsi executive with the most direct responsibility for the ad. She can be reached at cie.nicholson@pepsi.com, or headquarters phone: 914 253-2000. Her personal fax is 914 249-8361

To email them both, click here.

The ad was designed by BBDO, a prominent advertising agency with a track record of making commercials which denigrate men and fathers. To view some of them, click here.

To contact their corporate offices, see the contact information below:

Andrew Robertson, BBDO CEO, andrew.robertson@bbdo.com, Phone: 212 459-5000, Fax: 212 459-6645

Bill Bruce, BBDO-NY Chief Creative Officer (The BBDO executive with the most direct responsibility for the ad), bill.bruce@bbdo.com, Phone: 212 459-5000, Fax: 212 459-5280

To email them both, click here.

Thanks to advertising guru Richard Smaglick of www.fathersandhusbands.org .

To be fair, while BBDO does have a track record of anti-male commercials, they also produced the fine AT&T ad “Monkey,” which can be seen here.