April 2001
Ontario Court of Appeal ruling may override final divorce settlements: April 28, 2001 - Children grown, divorced, no further connection with ex, support obligations a thing of the past? Don't count on it. A new ruling could force alimony payments if the courts find a "financial need." "Family law lawyers predict a surge of legal attacks on separation agreements and marriage contracts as a result of the ruling." - National Post.
Ellen Goodman sides with deception against duped dads: April 29, 2001 - Typically, Ellen Goodman is opposing men's rights. But this time she's so clearly aligning herself against the victim that one must wonder how she can do so without blushing. First, she casts the response of duped dads to parental fraud as trying "to cut their fatherhood ties and responsibilities." Responsibilities based on lies. Then she raises the spectre of men being harmed rather than helped by the truth: "But what would happen to men's rights if DNA was used in the opposite way, to strip them of contact with children?" Like we should let fear get between us and the facts. Then she casts the duped dads as co-conspirators against the "real victims," asking if "the real innocent, the real victim of deception is the child?" - Boston Globe.
The murder she wrote: April 28, 2001 - Like so many other mothers in King County, Barbara Opel violated a child custody agreement by refusing to let her ex see his children after they divorced in 1991. Bill Opel kept up his part of the agreement, sending support payments, but, as is far too often the case the courts refused to enforce his visitation rights, and he despaired of ever seeing them again. But now he can read all about his children in the newspapers and on the Internet. "Prosecutors say Barbara Opel, 37, goaded and bribed the teens into stabbing and beating her boss, Jerry Heimann, with baseball bats April 13. She also forced her two youngest children - Bill Opel's son and a 7-year-old daughter from a different father - to help clean up the bloody mess, according to court papers." - Seattle Times.
Gene Messer cleared of sexual harassment charges: April 27, 2001 - Gene Messer will be reinstated as head of Arizona's sexual offender treatment program after an investigation by a private firm cleared him of making inappropriate sexual comments to Cathi Harris, a sex offender program counselor. She claimed he "entwined" his legs with hers and said she had a nice butt. Harris, who has been transferred to another department, was unthrilled. "I wasn't fired, but it feels like I was. This is retribution." - Arizona Republic.
Another female offender gets off lightly: April 21, 2001 - After Antina Campbell, a former Microsoft accounts-payable manager, got caught embezzeling $1.36 million, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman sentenced her to just 18 months in prison. The lower than usual sentence is referred to as a "downward departure." "Downward departures, especially with the acquiescence of federal prosecutors, are rare." - Seattle P-I.
Father wins right to time off for birth: April 26, 2001 - Dean Matthews was dismissed from his job for poor attendance. In part, this was from taking care of his pregnant girlfriend and then attending her labor while she gave birth. Under Britain's family-friendly legislation, he won a settlement. "His solicitor, David Mole, said it was the first time the new laws had been used successfully." - Independent.
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upholds women's right to defraud men: April 25, 2001 - When his girlfriend told him he was the father of her child, he signed the paternity agreement and paid child support until friends told him he was not the father. A DNA test confirmed the child was not his, so he went to court. Chief Justice Margaret Marshall wrote, "No judgment can force him to continue to nurture his relationship with Cheryl [a pseudomym], or to protect her from whatever assumptions she may have about her father, but we can protect her financial security and other legal rights." Too bad, so sad, men's rights and financial security are of no concern to Massachusetts' courts. - Boston Globe.
April 16-22
Sophie Goodchild - Women initiate DV more often than men: November 12, 2000 - Another study supports men's advocates' long-standing contention that women are more likely to initiate domestic violence than men. According to John Archer, professor of psychology at the University of Central Lancashire and president of the International Society for Research on Aggression, "Feminist writers say most of the acts against men are not important but the same people have used the same surveys to inflate the number of women who are attacked. In the past it would not even have been considered that women are violent. My view is that you must base social policy on the whole evidence." - Independent.
Non-custodial parents' obligations may sometimes hinge on child's performance: April 20, 2001 - Essex Probate Judge John C. Stevens ruled that a divorced father's estate was off the hook for his son's college tuition at Boston University due to his son's failing grades. Harriet Schechter, the lawyer for the estate of the father, George Vinal Sr., noted that, "In an intact family, no one can go to court and have an order that your parents pay for college. In a divorced family, you can have that." - Boston Globe.
Frank MacEachern - Crystal Brunet placed family in mortal danger, gets 15 months: April 12, 2001 - Joanne Ricard did not want to pay child-support to her ex-husband, so her friend, Brunet, planted blasting caps behind his toilet then called the police. Assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Burke said their intention was "to frame a father of three children so that the co-accused (Joanne Ricard) would not have to pay child support." - Standard Freeholder.
Jack Dunphy - Where have all the (black) fathers gone? April 16, 2001 - Everyday a multitude of fatherless black men commit crimes while the cops who police them are accused of racism. But how many of these young hoods owe their criminal careers to the absence of their father? Meanwhile, in Cincinnati NAACP president Kweisi Mfume escorted Angela Leisure at the funeral of her son, Timothy Thomas, who was gunned down by police. "How sadly ironic it was that it was Mfume who escorted Angela Leisure from the funeral: As a young man he fathered five illegitimate children." - National Review.
April 9-15
Carol Finlay attacks 70-year-old father: April 14, 2001 - Armed with knives, first she pepper-sprayed her father while he lay in bed, but when he fought her off with his walker she went for a loaded AK-47 assault rifle, which gave her mother time to run for help. According to Thurston County sheriff spokesman Capt. Dan Kimball, "It's pretty clear ... that this lady intended to commit serious harm against her mother and father, and possibly even to kill them." - Seattle P-I.
Number of nuclear families on the rise in America: April 13, 2001 - "Between 1991 and 1996, the percentage of American children living with both their biological parents jumped from 51 percent to 56 percent, according to a report released today by the US Census Bureau." - Christian Science Monitor.
Does "ladies night" discriminate against men? April 12, 2001 - Sam Pappas argues that bars in Chicago are discriminating against men by giving women discounts on "ladies night" and letting women come right in while men have to wait. "The Illinois Human Rights Act of 1979 prohibits businesses from engaging in discrimination "because of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, marital status, physical or mental handicap or unfavorable discharge from the military.' " - Chicago Tribune.
Billionaire cosmetics mogul Ron Perelman wins custody battle: April 12, 2001 - Perelman's ex, Patricia Duff, couldn't live on $12,000 a month, the poor dear, and pleaded with Justice Franklin Weissberg to increase her pound of flesh to $132,000 a month. Perelman, perhaps because he's just a man, couldn't understand why a woman would need $4,700 a day in child-support, so he went back to court and, two years and 44 lawyers later, won a limited victory. "Judge Eileen Bransten designated Perelman, 58, the legal guardian for Caleigh, while giving shared physical custody to both the mother and father, a source said." - New York Post.
Abused daughter becomes abusive mother: April 10, 2001 - Aretha Sconiers' mother abused her, then when she became a mother she killed her daughter. "Sconiers' miserable childhood offers a plausible explanation -- though not an excuse society accepts -- for the death of her 3-year-old, Zy-Nyia Nobles." Sconiers was sentenced to 29 years and nine months. - Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
31-year-old woman poses as teen: April 10, 2001 - In 1997, a Camas, Washington state man was convicted of statutory rape after having sex with Brianna Stewart. She attended Evergreen High School in Vancouver, Washington, and received foster care. Problem is, her real name is apparently Treva Throneberry and she's 31-years-old. "Throneberry's story has stunned her former classmates and the Vancouver families who thought they were helping a troubled street teen who had been abused." - Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Abandoned baby murdered: April 10, 2001 - A newborn baby boy was found dead in a grocery store in Marshall, Minnesota. "At the Hy-Vee store Sunday afternoon, a woman in the bathroom at the store's edge apparently quietly delivered the baby, then left the store. The infant was found dead in a toilet, police said." Although the cause of death has not yet been determined, the baby was not stillborn. - Star Tribune.
Did Rose Hancock conspire to murder her husband? April 11, 2001 - Mining magnate Lang Hancock was evidently murdered by his wife, who reportedly instructed her housekeeper to harm him in the hope he would die. "The former housekeeper, Ms Maxima Simidrescu, also said Mrs Hancock (now Porteous) argued several times with her husband about why his 'bitch' daughter, Ms Gina Rinehart, was in his will." - Sydney Morning Herald.
Sean Fine - What are little boys made of? April 6, 2001 - For several years the media has ignored the men's rights movement; now that the problems pop feminists have caused boys with their social experimentation can no longer be ignored, they're blaming it on the men's (mythopoetic) movement and co-opting the men's (rights) movement. At an April 5, 2001, event organized by the Peel District School Board in Ontario and attended by 600 educators, Dan Kindlon, psychologist and co-author of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, said, "It (referring to the "so-called men's movement") meant you couldn't watch football or play poker. The idea was to be more like a woman." And following in the footsteps of Susan Faludi, who, with her book "Stiffed" ignored decades of work by men's rights activists and claimed all the insights for herself, Rita Zanatta, a consultant with the York Catholic District School Board, said, "I'd like to coin a phrase: we need 'masculinism.' " It's good that our schools are beginning to realize they need to stop marginalizing boys, but by blaming the problems on the people who have been trying to bring attention to it and pre-empting their efforts, while they will make careers and names for themselves, ultimately they will do more harm than good. - Globe and Mail.
Cathy Young - Children and the Gender Wars: April 2, 2001 - Jane Fonda is stomping into the center of the gender war waged by pop feminists against men with a $12.5 million donation to the Harvard Graduate School of Education for a new gender studies center. "Unfortunately, judging by its ideological pedigree, the proposed Gender Studies Center at Harvard is likely to be mired in a simplistic, outdated view of boys and girls as victims and of American society as a rigidly oppressive patriarchy. The conservative alternative - upholding traditional ideals of manhood and womanhood - is equally unsatisfying." - Independent News.
Father of orphaned girl denied custody by South African courts: April 8, 2001 - Annie Tromans kidnapped her daughter, fled to South Africa and committed suicide. Rather than return the girl to her father, Richard Tromans, who resides in England, the South African court turned her over to her maternal grandparents. :"Mr Tromans says the British and South African authorities have done nothing to help him be reunited with his daughter." - Independent News.
Dominatrix Barbara Asher faces murder rap: April 8, 2001 - "A Quincy dominatrix who allegedly butchered a client who died in her makeshift dungeon is still working the clandestine sex circuit - possibly in Rhode Island - and could face murder charges, even if the man's dismembered remains are never found, sources said." - Boston Herald.
April 1-8
Feminism Unclothed: April 5, 2001 - "The trouble with men is that they cannot take no for an answer." Now there's a sexist generalization.
Stephen Baskerville - The great divorce: April 1, 2001 - "Judges are not only availing themselves of (the right to decide when a marriage had irretrievably broken down); they are offering lucrative financial and emotional incentives to parents, usually mothers, to request the divorce. These incentives include virtually automatic child custody and the power to expel, plunder and criminalize the father." - Washington Times.
Daughter's fate up to U.S. court: April 2, 2001 - Bruce Davitt's daughter, Betsy, has been kidnapped by her mother, who lives in Michigan. Davitt and his daughter live in Ontario. So he "is petitioning the U.S. district court in Grand Rapids, Mich., under Hague Convention protocols on international child abduction." - Toronto Sun.
Ex-husband, not ex-father: April 2, 2001 - "While family law is supposed to be blind to the parents' needs, because the children are its prime concern, the reality is that many fathers are getting a raw deal." - Independent News.
Man wants custody of son he didn't know he had: April 2, 2001 - Juan Campoverde didn't know his girlfriend was pregnant when she broke up with him. He didn't know until she told him after she gave up their son for adoption. But as soon as he learned about it he sued for custody. The judge said no, because he didn't ask. (Like, guys are supposed to ask their ex-girlfriends if they're pregnant.) But now he has been given a second chance. Says Campoverde, "You don't know how much I want to just see my son, to hold him." - New York Post.
Most rape accusations proved false: April 1, 2001 - Most accusations of rape in UK are proven false. "Crime statistics for Scotland show that only one in 20 reported rapes leads to a conviction. In England and Wales, the figure is one in 13." - Sunday Times.
Female stalkers: April 1, 2001 - Andrew Motion, poet laureate and University of East Anglia professor, is being stalked and harassed by a female student. "I have reluctantly been obliged to make a formal complaint to the university authorities about a mature student, in which I have accused her of harassing me, and of slandering me." The news item also noted that last year pop feminist author "Germaine Greer was held hostage in her home by a mentally disturbed female student admirer." - Sunday Times.
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