Couple Celebrates 81st Wedding Anniversary
May 31, 2009
Kelly, a reader, sent me this story and writes:
I think we are missing something very important in the modern world. The ability to take the time to work things out and the ability to meet in the middle.
From 81st Wedding Anniversary:
A British husband and wife who say a little arguing and a "happy outlook" keep them together just celebrated their 81st wedding anniversary.
Frank Milford, 101, and his wife, Anita, 100, were married on May 26, 1928. They are currently the longest-married couple in the United Kingdom, the Daily Mail said.
The couple, who met at a YMCA dance in 1926, celebrated their anniversary Tuesday at the nursing home where they live in Plymouth, southwestern England.
"We're always here for each other. It is all about give and take on both sides," Frank Milford said last year. "You need a happy outlook and to just get on with it. I don't know where the years have gone to. It's marvelous really."
The couple also credited "a little argument every day" for their long union.
"They are happy," their 74-year-old son, Frank Jr., told the Mail. "They spend most of their time together, with dad being almost completely deaf and blind, so it's very difficult for him. Mum is a chatterbox and nothing has changed there."
In addition to their son, the Milfords have a 79-year-old daughter, Marie, as well as six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
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Pink’s ‘Please Don’t Leave Me’ (Video): DV Against Men Is OK–After All, She’s Angry…
May 31, 2009
I don't know if I can yell any louder
How many time I've kicked you outta here?
Or said something insulting?
I can be so mean when I wanna be
I am capable of really anything
I can cut you into pieces
But my heart is broken
Please don't leave me
Please don't leave me
I always say how I don't need you
But it's always gonna come right back to this
Please, don't leave me
How did I become so obnoxious?
What is it with you that makes me act like this?
I've never been this nasty
Can't you tell that this is all just a contest?
The one that wins will be the one that hits the hardest
But baby I don't mean it
I mean it, I promise
I forgot to say out loud how beautiful you really are to me
I cannot be without, you're my perfect little punching bag
And I need you, I'm sorry
The song and music video for singer Pink's (pictured) Please Don't Leave Me is a compendium of the ills of modern gender issues--an "empowered," entitled woman injuring, insulting, and abusing her man with impunity. She's psycho but that's OK and you'd better not make her angry...
When witnessing female domestic violence such as in the video, society says "it's not a problem, it's just a woman." However, women commit half the domestic violence and inflict a third of domestic violence-related injuries--their actions matter.
Watch the video here.
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Keanu Reeves’ Manager: ‘It’s Clearly Wrong to Claim Child Support after the Kids Have Grown’
May 31, 2009
Check out this woman's sense of entitlement-- $3 million a month in spousal support and another $150,000 in child support.
Beyond simply denying that Keanu Reeves is the father, Reeves' camp, to their credit, also point out "there's clearly something wrong with someone who claims child support after all the kids have grown."
From Keanu Reeves slams child support lawsuit (WENN.com, 5/29/09):
Keanu Reeves has blasted a Canadian woman who alleges he fathered her four children, insisting he has no idea who she is.
Karen Sala, 46, claims she's childhood friends with the Speed star and that he is the father of her grown-up children.
She is taking legal action against the actor, demanding Reeves undergoes a DNA test to prove he's her kids' dad in a bizarre bid to land $3 million a month in spousal support and another $150,000 in child support.
Sala, who is representing herself in the lawsuit, further alleges she has been trying to settle the matter "privately" with Reeves over the years.
But Reeves, 44, has slammed the accusations.
His spokesperson says, "Karen Sala's allegations are completely false and absurd. Mr. Reeves has no knowledge of who she is."
And the actor's business manager has warned media outlets against giving more coverage to Sala's crazy claims, adding, "Before you disparage my client and lend validity to this, there's clearly something wrong with someone who claims child support after all the kids have grown. I'm just pointing that out."
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Dad’s an Idiot in Johnson & Johnson Ad
May 30, 2009
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High School Kid ‘Throws No-Hitter to Honor Dad’
May 30, 2009
"This one was for Dad.
"Just a day after the emotional funeral for his father, Jordan Wiener threw a no-hitter Thursday in a playoff game for Robert F. Kennedy High School."
From Assistant principal Wiener's son throws no-hitter to honor dad (New York Daily News, 5/22/09):
This one was for Dad.
Just a day after the emotional funeral for his father, Jordan Wiener threw a no-hitter Thursdayin a playoff game for Robert F. Kennedy High School. His father, Mitchell, was the Queens educator who died on Sunday night, becoming the city's first swine flu fatality.
Jordan said that after breaking down during the funeral, he decided that he was going to pitch in RFK's B-League first-round matchup, just as his father would have wanted him to.
"When my father was put in the hospital on (May 13), I told myself, 'Death or survival, I was going to pitch,' " Jordan said. "I knew that's what he would have wanted from me, to go out there and pitch. I was going to pitch no matter what"...
The Panthers wore caps with Mitchell Wiener's initials on them. Wiener served as an assistant principal at Intermediate School 238 in Hollis for 30 years. He is survived by his wife, Bonnie, and two other sons, Adam and Farrell.
Mitchell, a lifelong Mets fan, taught Jordan the game and coached his son's Little League team.
"People shouldn't feel bad that we lost our father," Farrell, 18, said on Wednesday. "We had the greatest father in the world."
Hundreds of mourners, including 400 students, gathered at Sinai Chapels in Queens on Wednesday to .remember Mitchell Wiener, three days after he died at age 55. He was the country's sixth swine flu fatality.
On Wednesday, Jordan sobbed while quoting from the college application essay he wrote about his father:
"Although my dad would look awful ridiculous in tights and a cape, he had the elements of a hero. Mitchell Wiener is the rock of my family."
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Another Teen Boy’s Life Ruined over ‘Sexting’
May 30, 2009
An 18-year-old boy was dating a 16-year-old girl. She had texted him a naked photo of herself. After they had a fight, he got angry and "sexted" her photo to the people on her contact list. The result? He's a "sex offender," was kicked out of college, and can't get a job.
I think he was a vindictive SOB for sending her photo out like that but it's ludicrous to call him a "sex offender" or anything close.
Watch the Fox news interview with him here.
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Another Teen Boy’s Life Ruined over ‘Sexting’
May 30, 2009
An 18-year-old boy was dating a 16-year-old girl. She had texted him a naked photo of herself. After they had a fight, he got angry and "sexted" her photo to the people on her contact list. The result? He's a "sex offender," was kicked out of college, and can't get a job.
I think he was a vindictive SOB for sending her photo out like that but it's ludicrous to call him a "sex offender" or anything close.
Watch the Fox news interview with him here.
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Katha Pollitt’s Got Some Strange Ideas about Violence Against Women
May 29, 2009
On May 6th, of this year, a student at Wesleyan University in Connecticut was gunned down at her place of work. The killer apparently was a young man who had stalked her previously. Stephen Morgan has been described as a troubled loner who had few, if any, friends. What his victim, Johanna Justin-Jinich had done to excite his enmity, no one seems to know. Her friends describe Justin-Jinich in glowing terms as smart, outgoing and caring. Her senseless death is a terrible tragedy for her family and loved ones.
Unfortunately, certain feminists have seized on her death as an opportunity to misrepresent the facts about the dangers women face in the United States.  One such feminist is Katha Pollitt at The Nation, who wrote in the June 1st issue of that magazine here, "But in one way, she (Justin-Jinich) was far from unusual. She was a woman killed by a man because she was a woman." (The Nation, 6/1/09)
Really? Â
Pollitt went on to describe Morgan in some detail, so you'd think she would have noticed what seemingly every article about him or his crime repeats - that, in addition to being deeply troubled in other ways, Morgan is a rabid anti-semite. He kept close at hand a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the book faked by Russian secret police in the 19th century to assist them in persecuting jews; his journals were full of hatred for Jews; his parents knew of his anti-semitism. Of course Justin-Jinich was Jewish. And as far as we've been told so far, there's nothing to suggest Morgan is misogynistic. But none of those facts deflected Pollitt from her single-minded goal of claiming that Justin-Jinich was killed because she was a woman.Â
But even if Morgan had been the most ravening misogynist on the planet, how does Pollitt figure that his crime was "far from unusual?" Unless she's using some definition of the word 'unusual' that the OED hasn't discovered yet, Pollitt's statement is simple nonsense.Â
The facts, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, are that, in 2005, there were a total of about 18,000 homicides in the United States. Of those, 22.7% or about 4,100 were female victims killed by male perpetrators. If all of those were murders and all done because of the victim's sex, that's about 1 woman out of 37,000 in the country. That, to Pollitt, is "far from unusual."
If one out of 37,000 is not unusual to her, maybe she'd like to know that women killed men almost half as often (42%) as vice versa. So that rate must qualify, by Pollitt's logic, as at least fairly common. But of course, that's not common enough for her to mention.
Pollitt takes a single, horrible crime committed by a man with a lengthy history of psychological problems and tries to use it to promote the ever-greater incarceration and psychiatric "treatment" of men. From her article, you'd think her ideal world is Nurse Ratched's ward in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which all the men are either jailed or too stoned to care that they can't leave.
But when Pollitt calls one death in 37,000 "far from unusual," I think I know who's cuckoo.
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Christian Psychologist: Fathers Should be Outraged by Christians ‘Blaming’ Dads for Homosexuality
May 29, 2009
Warren Throckmorton, PhD, a psychology professor at Grove City College, a top-ranked Christian college, sent me an interesting letter the other day. Dr. Throckmorton had followed my conflict in April with anti-gay activist, Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth about Homosexuality. Dr. Throckmorton writes:
Glenn--Have you ever covered the damage to father-son relationships done by the reparative theories? Fatherhood groups should be the most outraged by stuff like this. Of course fathering is crucial to a child's development, but there is no evidence that a break like this can cause homosexuality. Father-blaming is prevalent and this theory has its share of responsibility for that, at least in Christian circles.
Dr. Throckmorton refers me to his recent article in the Christian Post--Fathers, Sons and Homosexuality (5/14/09). Dr. Throckmorton writes:
The causes of homosexuality continue to both fascinate and divide people. Recently, in London, a conservative group of Anglicans, called the Anglican Mainstream hosted a conference to discuss the causes of homosexuality and promote change from gay to straight.
Featured at the conference was American psychologist, Joseph Nicolosi. Dr. Nicolosi stirred much controversy when he said, without research support, that most of his clients show some degree of change in their sexual orientation.
Nicolosi's views regarding causes of homosexuality are also controversial. In response to a question about the existence of a gay gene, Nicolosi said:
In other words, that fact remains that if you traumatize a child in a particular way you will create a homosexual condition. If you do not traumatize a child, he will be heterosexual. If you do not traumatize a child in a particular way, he will be heterosexual. The nature of that trauma is an early attachment break during the bonding phase with the father.
In a popular book written with his wife, A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, Nicolosi pegs the "crucial period" for bonding between father and son at "between one and a half to three years." Elsewhere, Nicolosi argues that fathers of homosexual sons are unavailable, detached and/or hostile. To fathers in London, he advised, "If you don't hug your sons, some other man will," suggesting that male homosexual attraction is a search for a father's love.
The father-deficit theory is considered outdated by mainstream sexuality researchers, but is popular among conservative Christians. This evangelical acceptance has always puzzled me because Nicolosi's statements regarding the origins of homosexuality can be discounted not only by research but by common experience.
His theory is contradicted in at least two ways. The first way should be quite obvious to Nicolosi's audiences: there are many men who experienced poor fathering not only during the first six years of life but throughout childhood and are nonetheless, exclusively heterosexual.
Since many in Nicolosi's audiences are either unhappy with their homosexual attractions or do not know many secure gay people, the second problem might not be so clear. In contrast to Nicolosi's depictions of the typical family of gay males, many such men experienced loving, close relationships with their fathers throughout childhood with no break in attachment. Listen to one such father who spoke to me recently about his gay son.
When my son was 18 months to 3 years old (and on into childhood), we enjoyed a wonderfully close relationship. We explored the world behind the YMCA and called it traveling, looking for creatures in nooks and crannies.
When it would snow, we bundled up and follow the same path. We hunted for snakes together in the creek, built a swamp world for various amphibians and generally loved each others' company. Wherever I was, there was my son; as my wife would say, we were like "Peel and Stick."
As he got older our relationship changed, but in a way that it should change. It matured into a friendship as father and son. After our son came out to us, our relationship did not change.
Does this sound like an uninvolved, detached father? This man's son concurs with his dad's assessment of the relationship. They were and are close, with no breaks during the period Nicolosi theorizes should cause homosexuality.
Devout Christians, the family attended conferences put on by conservative Christians who believed parental deficits were responsible for homosexuality. The answers they heard were very much like what Dr. Nicolosi promotes. These parents also took their son to a reparative therapist (i.e., counselor who holds to Nicolosi's theory) who evaluated the potential for sexual orientation change. The father reported that it wasn't helpful...
Read the full article here. And kudos to the father quoted above for standing up for himself and his parenting, as opposed to meekly accepting "blame" for his son's homosexuality. How many loving, devoted fathers have had their parenting unjustly maligned by these asinine theories?
I don't see anything wrong with homosexuality, so I don't speak in terms of "blame" for it, but just for argument's sake, let's say that parenting is to "blame" for homosexuality? Was there any doubt that it would be the father's parenting, not the mother's, which would be to "blame"?
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UK False Rape Victims Can get Compensation
May 29, 2009
Not too long ago I wrote about a London man who was falsely charged with raping his former girlfriend 40 times. The video recordings of their encounters forced her to recant her false claims and he was saved from prison. At the time I said he should sue her, but the courts ruled (astonishingly) that he had no cause of action.
Now another falsely accused man has tried another route and prevailed. Read about it here (BBC, 5/13/09). An appelate court has held that the British crime victim's compensation scheme will compensate him even though he is not the victim of physical violence.
The woman in Clive Bishop's case was sentenced to 10 months in prison for her false allegation, and Bishop lost his taxi business as a result of the publicity her charges caused. So Bishop has financial losses that can be compensated. My guess is that if he were simply trying to recover for emotional and psychological damages, he'd have been out of luck, but the loss of income is compensable. Likewise, if he had to get counselling or medication, my guess is those expenses would also be reimbursed.
All 50 states plus the District of Columbia have crime victims compensation funds and it would be worthwhile for anyone who's been wrongly charged with rape (or any offense) to at least ask an attorney if he can recover for it. My experience is that the recoveries from those funds aren't great and they take a long time to process claims. But in many cases that's all there is.
But a simple finding of 'not guilty' won't suffice. To recover you have to be a victim of a crime which means, in the case of false allegations, that the perpetrator would have to have intentionally filed a false claim, i.e. knowing it to be false at the time of filing. But state laws are not all the same, so, if you think you've got a claim, check with a lawyer in your state.
Thanks to Malcolm for the heads-up.
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