antimisandry.com

Man as an Appliance

Lester Burnham — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Joe Bob searches his home futilely for a place to store a box of baseball cards he�s collected since childhood. Everywhere he looks is already packed to the edges with something else. The bedroom closets, all four of them, are choked with enough clothing and shoes to start an EBay business. The ones in the hallway are equally spoken for, stacked chin level with cardboard boxes much like the one he�s holding, except they haven�t been opened in a generation.

With a sigh he lumbers to the garage and wedges the box in a corner, feeling the sides buckle a little as he forces it between his fishing gear and some power tools. Back inside, something starts to claw at him somewhere in the pit of his stomach, like talons sinking into a small animal. It was the trip to the garage. It was a little too�familiar.

There were two things that all his closets had in common. One, as you know, they were all full. Two, almost none of that stuff was Joe Bob�s. Between wife and kids his home was fully occupied. And it wasn�t just the closets. Everything from bathroom counters to bookshelves to basement was the terrain of others. What remained for him was trying to squeeze in what little he had around the property of those considered to actually live there.

Joe Bob�s heart sank with an intractable sense of the walls closing in around him. It was as though he had become the baseball cards, stuffed into a cardboard coffin and shoved in the corner with no room to breath. It wasn�t just a shortage of square feet. It was something much more personal; more important.

He thought about the fishing gear. If he were to actually use it again he�d have to replace all the line. By now it was brittle with age and neglect. Somewhere along the way, exactly when long forgotten, the fishing trips just ended. They had been shelved with other childish things that interfered with his duties to provide for a family. His wife was instrumental in helping this along. Any mention he made of fishing, or any personal enjoyment, was met with cold disapproval and not so subtle questioning of his priorities. The few times he didn�t cave in to that he paid for with guilt being tied around his neck like a noose. Eventually he got the point. He might go fishing, but he wasn�t going to be allowed to enjoy it.

As time passed by, so did life in a way. Friends slipped away, personal interests and hobbies became memories. The lack of personal space became a lack of personal identity. Somewhere between the early days and where he stood now his life had morphed into something defined only by automated compliance with the needs, and frequently whims, of others. Eventually he reached a place where he could barely remember that he liked fishing to begin with. He wasn�t sure he could remember liking anything.

Not that there wasn�t an abundance of rewards from taking care of his family. He loved his family, would lay down in traffic for them. In the end, though, robotic caretaking leaves a lot to be desired. Ask any women. Rebelling from it is inviting a firestorm into your home. Ask any man.

As you probably know, Joe Bob is an imaginary friend. Rather he is a composite of a lot of men I have known. And while the character is fictional, his story is not. It�s a story not often told, much less in mixed company.

Contrary to popular worldview, men feel. They feel as deeply and profoundly as any woman. If you peel back a mans skin, you find flesh and blood, not gears and wires. Men have wants, needs, desires and dreams outside their role as protectors and providers. They are not whole without these things and yet they all too often surrender them without so much as a struggle.

Many men are Joe Bob; working to provide, complaining little about their lot in life and sacrificing much for the sake of those they love. But sooner or later something gives. It always does.

Joe Bob is average as far as men go. Likely as not he can�t really identify and articulate why the world seems like it is closing in around him. It just is. He doesn�t know that standing up to his wife and insisting she support his taking time for his own interests might solve the problem, or at least lessen it. If he thinks of it at all, he knows such an effort would only result in heated conflict and fishing gear gathering more dust in the corner of his garage.

So he reaches for stuff. He does it without exactly knowing why. A bottle, drugs, violence, even another woman. Anything to feel alive again. He is reaching for the wrong things for the right reasons.

I am not excusing Joe Bob, or trying to say that this explains the worst to be found in some men. What I am saying is that it might indeed explain some of it. And it surely needs explanation. For when all the wrong things Joe Bob reaches for ultimately fail him, he sometimes reaches for a gun. This isn�t a blanket explanation of suicide. Nor would any one thing explain it so simply. But I do know this: People who take their own lives often feel like they are alone.

Joe Bob doesn�t feel like he is alone, he is unshakably certain of it.

A Little Girl's Dying Wish Is To See Her Father

Kim — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Father Released From Prison To Visit Dying Daughter

POSTED: 8:04 pm CDT March 26, 2008
UPDATED: 8:24 am CDT March 27, 2008

OMAHA, Neb. -- An imprisoned father went to his dying daughter's bedside Wednesday, a visit federal authorities allowed only after being deluged with letters and phone calls from across the nation.

Jayci Yaeger, 10, has terminal brain cancer. Her family has been pleading with federal prison officials in Yankton, S.D., to allow her father, Jason Yaeger, to see his daughter before she dies.
On Wednesday afternoon, prison guards drove Jason Yaeger to a Lincoln hospice, where he spent several hours at her bedside. No one else was allowed in the room except Jason Yaeger, Jayci and the escorts.

Sources said Yaeger did leave the girl's side to consult with hospice counselors and get some direction on how to speak with the girl about what she was going through.

Prior to Wednesday, the prison warden had allowed Jason Yaeger three visits to his daughter, but had denied requests for a longer furlough or an early transfer to a halfway house in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The warden told Yaeger it was not viewed as an extraordinary circumstance.

Letters and e-mails from across the nation have reached the Yaeger family and appealed to the prison to allow the man to see his daughter. The family asked the media to share their story with the hope of encouraging prison officials to allow the visit.

He's scheduled to be released to a halfway house in August.

Yaeger asked President George W. Bush for clemency. Yaeger spent four years in a federal prison on meth-related charges. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons would not confirm a visit took place.

Officials said they would only comment on a possible visit after a prisoner returned from a furlough.

On Thursday, Jayci's mother described Jayci's condition as minute-by-minute, saying the girl had gone into respiratory distress three times that day.

Here is the original story...

A little girl fights for her life, and her last wish is to see her father. But that wish
may not come true. "They didn't expect her to still be here. She's fighting,
day by day, minute by minute," said Vonda Yaeger, mother.
10/11 has followed the story of 10-year-old Jayci Yaeger as she battled brain tumors. Now doctors say she is about to lose that fight. Her last wish is to spend what time she has left with her father, but he is in a federal prison for drug charges.

Less than six months ago, Jayci was energetic, fun and upbeat. Now she's just a shadow of what she used to be -- lying in a hospital bed.

Jayci has brain tumors and doctors say she's dying. "What doctors say? They say there's nothing they can do for her. The tumors are growing and hemorrhaging, and right now nothing they can do for her, just keep her comfortable," Vonda Yaeger said.
In less than two months, cancer turned an energetic little girl into someone those who know her hardly recognize. During the fight, her family has been hopeful, but now reality is setting in.

"It's really hard to say it, but it's time now and she doesn't need to suffer anymore. She needs to be where she can be peaceful and happy and not in pain," Yaeger said.

There's one more thing Yaeger said her daughter needs -- her father, Jason. But he's in federal prison in South Dakota and has been denied repeated attempts to grant him a 30-day release. Yaeger was convicted of methamphetamine charges nearly five years ago.

"She expressed many times that she misses him, and he talks to her on the phone now and she cries. That's the only time I see her cry," Yaeger said.

In fact, Yaeger said the need to see her father is the only thing keeping Jayci going.
"I think she understands. She knows what the outcome is going to be. She's very
scared, and I think she's holding on for her father," Yaeger said.
Yaeger said denying Jayci's last wish is cruel, and goes beyond punishing Jason for any crime he ever committed.

"She didn't do anything wrong. He was there for her when she was born. He should be there for her when she goes," she said.

Jayci's family said they aren't looking to get Jason out of prison, or
shorten his sentence. They even asked for him to be put on electronic
surveillance while was in Lincoln, and he offered to serve double his remaining
time when he went back. Yankton Federal Prison Camp officials said they had
no comment on the situation.

Jayci's family just hopes they have a change of
heart before it's too late.

For those of you who have not already done so, please contact some or all
of the following people and ask that they help this dying girl to see her
father. I contacted the Make a Wish Foundation which is working on making this
young girls wish come true.
Then I sent this to the Governors of Nebraska and
South Dakota:
Governor,
A young soldier in Iraq emailed me about 10-year-old Jayci
Yaeger's wish to see her incarcerated father before she dies from brain tumors.
He's in a federal prison in South Dakota and earlier requests to prison
officials for Jayci to see her father have been denied.
Please intervene and help this small girl see her father.
Help her.
Sincerely,
Harry Crouch, President
National Coalition of Free Men

This was posted in response to the story
about the young girl:
Posted by: Do Something!
Location: USA on Mar 20, 2008 at
10:25 AM
If you want to do something about this case, contact the following people. I've already made calls and explained my feelings on this (yes, I feel tough on crime, but we should still be human. As long as the guy does not have a history of violence, what's the harm in letting him see his dying daughter?) and the politicians have been receptive.
I also called Gov. Mike Rounds. The more calls the better. Linda Asher / public relations - Yankton FPC Phone: 605-665-3262 Fax: 605-668-1113 E-mail address: yan/execassistant@bop.gov You could also contact the federal SD congressional delegates: Senator Tim Johnson........ (800) 537-0025 Senator John Thune..... Sioux Falls: (605) 334-9596 Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth......... (866) 371-8747 or the Yankton (18th) district state delegates: Jean Hunhoff (senate -R) Business: 605-668-8312 Garry Moore (house - D) Business: 605-665-3294 Charlii Gilson (house - R) Business 605-260-1600

Andrew Borden: Misandry

Denise Noe — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Has Andrew Borden�s reputation suffered as the result of misandry?

The general perception of Andrew Borden is of a singularly unpleasant man. He is frequently written of as a cold, tyrannical patriarch and, most especially, a miser. Like the tight-fisted fictional characters of Silas Marner and Ebenezer Scrooge, he is believed to have been constantly scrounging for money and pathologically vigilant in holding on to it.

An overview of various descriptions of the elder Borden will help frame the mythology that defines our modern understanding, and hopefully, allow us the opportunity to explore the historical Andrew Borden in ways not yet attempted.

Ann Jones in Women Who Kill writes that Andrew �made money�lots of it�for the sake of making money. Yet, as a Christian, Andrew Borden knew that money could be the root of all evil�if one took pleasure in money and used it as a source of enjoyment. The trick then, for a good Christian capitalist, was to make money but to enjoy it not at all. And that skill Andrew Borden had perfected.� Andrew�s tightwad ways, she continues, meant the Borden house lacked �those amenities one might reasonably expect in the household of a man who was well on his way to becoming a millionaire� including �even a toilet.�

Frank Spiering in Lizzie defines Andrew�s character in terms of his thrift, declaring that saving money �became his obsession, and with it a dread of ever falling into debt. He boasted that he had never signed a promissory note or borrowed a penny.� Spiering later elaborates, �He was considered brusque, dour and tight-fisted.� Using an inaccurate understanding of Andrew�s business, Spiering states that Andrew Borden began his career as an undertaker and that his reputation for penny-pinching triggered some truly macabre stories: �It was rumored that he cut off the feet of corpses so that he could cram them into undersized coffins that he got cheap.� Spiering also claims that Andrew showed a peculiarly penny-pinching fanaticism on the day of his death. Seeing a broken lock on the floor of his business, he �picked up the broken lock and slipped it into his pocket.� The author sardonically notes, �It was Andrew�s final act of thrift.�

Arnold R. Brown, in Lizzie Borden: The Legend, the Truth, the Final Chapter, also portrays Andrew as an extraordinary tightwad. His Andrew likewise was maniacal about saving his money, and Brown states that while thrift may be a virtue, Andrew �made it a vice.� Andrew�s penurious ways meant hardship for his family:

Andrew refused to have his home connected to gas mains (the primary use of gas at that time was illumination�cooking and heating quickly followed). Kerosene was good enough for his household, and he sternly restricted its use. Electricity was not yet commonly available, but telephones were. Andrew did not have one because he could see no use for it nor for the added expense.
There was no hot water in the house other than what a teakettle or pot could produce. The better wood and coal burning kitchen ranges had water-warming reservoirs built in; the range in the Borden kitchen did not. When Andrew bought the house, it had running water. He declared the running water on the second floor an unnecessary luxury and had the plumbing changed to cut it off and limit the running water to a sink room off the kitchen and one in the basement.

David Kent, in Forty Whacks, also writes of Andrew as a cheapskate and says that Andrew�s �penurious thrift was practiced in 14 hour days of saving this, reselling that, and hoarding the other.� Like Spiering, he sees Andrew�s actions regarding the lock as symptomatic of an obsessive concern with saving: �How typical it was that on the morning of the day he was murdered, he had picked up a broken, discarded lock, wrapped it carefully in a bit of paper, and taken it home with him.�

A hysterical stinginess is not the only failing attributed to Andrew. Brown accuses him of adultery and claims that when Andrew Borden was still married to his first wife Sarah, mother of Emma and Lizzie, he had an affair with Phebe Borden, wife of Charles Borden. Brown never says what the relationship of Charles and Andrew was but claims a child was born of the doubly adulterous union between Andrew and Phebe.

A far nastier accusation of sexual misconduct has been laid at Andrew�s doorstep by several authors, including Marcia Carlisle, Stephen Kane, and Eileen McNamara�that of incest. Carlisle postulates that Andrew had sexually abused both Lizzie and Emma, and assumes the acquitted woman�s guilt. However, she says the motives of jealousy and greed usually ascribed to her do not adequately �account for the extreme violence of the crime.� Carlisle sees in the sheer physical brutality of the slayings �the awakening rage of the incest survivor.�

The well known lack of warmth between the Borden sisters and Abby suggests to Carlisle that the abused girls may have been jealous of her, seeing her as a usurper of their places in their father�s (however warped and criminal) affections. She also believes that the gold ring a teenaged Lizzie gave her father, which he wore until the day of his death and which was buried with him, may have been a sign of her confusion about being characterized as her father�s special girl.

Carlisle believes Lizzie may have repressed the memory of the incestuous abuse, and then exploded with homicidal fury when it surfaced. Of course, Abby was murdered first and even more viciously than Andrew. Carlisle thinks Abby was targeted �because her stepmother had known about the incest and had been unable to stop it, or worse, had blamed Lizzie for it.� Another possibility would be that, as sometimes happens in incestuous families, the mother or mother-substitute actually condones the abuse or even assists in it. If Andrew was brutal and perverse enough to sexually abuse his daughters, he may also have intimidated or persuaded Abby into going along with his nefarious doings.

So what, then, is the truth of Andrew Borden�s life and character? We know that Andrew Jackson Borden was born in Fall River on September 13, 1822. He did not grow up rich, but was the son of a yeoman laborer. Andrew started his working life as a carpenter employed by Southard Miller for two years until he left in order to manage his Uncle Thomas Borden�s property. Andrew and William M. Almy formed a business partnership in 1845 at 5 Anawan St. Apparently it was a most diverse sort of partnership as the businesses in which they engaged included real estate dealings, furniture and cabinet making and undertaking. Disputing Spiering, Borden historian Leonard Rebello found that �there is no evidence that Andrew Borden engaged in the practice of embalming at his home or business. Records do exist to show that Andrew Borden was an undertaker, that is, supplying coffins, chairs, hacks, horse, clothing for the deceased, and burial assistance.�

The general perception of Andrew Borden�s dour personality, however, does not appear to be completely off the mark. There are no descriptions of him as a gregarious, outgoing, hail-fellow-well-met type. According to Rebello, on the day of his murder the Fall River Daily Globe called him a �dignified, reserved man, courteous in manner and strictly honorable in all his doings.� The Globe also wrote the next day that, �although he had considerable leisure time, [he] was rarely to be found where men are accustomed to congregate.�

Andrew Borden appears to have shared some of his daughter Lizzie�s social views, although perhaps he first influenced her in forming her beliefs. She was a member of the Woman�s Christian Temperance Union and the Boston Advertiser wrote that Andrew �was outspoken in his advocacy of temperance and moral issues.�

Could he have been a hypocrite, pursuing extramarital dalliances despite his public �advocacy of � moral issues�? That is hardly impossible. Many people do. But Brown�s theory of his fathering of an out-of-wedlock son is not backed up by evidence. Brown tells us he had a friend and that this friend claimed his father-in-law knew the Borden murderer�who was not Lizzie. Shortly before his death, the father-in-law, Henry Hawthorne, wrote what he said was the true story of the Borden slayings. Brown got hold of this account, calling it �a collection of disconnected ramblings with events choreographed backwards, with simple timing wrong, and with major characters totally ignored or, at best, moved from their traditional locations.�

Right there, the wary reader should raise an eyebrow: this is not a recollection to inspire confidence. However, Brown found it compelling and did further research that he says supported the Hawthorne papers in all major claims. Andrew Borden�s mentally ill and mentally retarded son, born to a woman married to another man, was the killer. He writes, �Henry Hawthorne says he spoke with a woman who claimed to be the midwife who delivered Phebe Hathaway of Andrew�s son and to have full knowledge of the affair.� This second-hand story is hardly rock-hard proof that Andrew fathered a child out of wedlock and does not even constitute strong evidence of an extramarital affair.

The incest accusation is also tenuous. It relies on the Borden household having certain things in common with families in which this type of abuse most occurs. However, many households have absent or sickly mothers without incurring incest. Correlation is not causation nor is it proof of anything in any particular case. It is entirely possible to see Lizzie�s gift of a ring to her father as a wholesome expression of filial devotion (which would not rule out the possibility of her developing hatred for him years later and even murdering him). Perhaps Governor Robinson was on to something when he suggested in his summation at the trial that Andrew wore that ring ever after out of a healthy fatherly love:

He was a man that wore nothing in the way of ornament, of jewelry but one ring, and that ring was Lizzie�s. It had been put on many, many years ago when Lizzie was a little girl, and the old man wore it and it lies buried with him in the cemetery. He liked Lizzie, did he not? He loved her as his child; and the ring that stands as the pledge of plighted faith and love, that typifies and symbolizes the dearest relation that is ever created in life, that ring was the bond of the union between the father and the daughter.

There is little solid evidence concerning the state of Andrew and Abby Borden�s marriage. At the inquest, Hosea Knowlton raised the possibility that the union may have been unhappy or distant. He asked Lizzie, �Were your father and mother happily united?� She answered after a pause, �Why, I don�t know but that they were.� Later he pressed her on whether or not they were affectionate as a �man and woman who are married ought to be?� and she replied, �So far as I have ever had any chance of judging.� The replies betray a troubling ambivalence. However, even if we knew that Abby was basically in the house as a home manager rather than a true �beloved,� we could not conclude that Andrew was a child molester because of it or even state with certainty that he was an adulterer.

Neither of the sexual accusations against Andrew Borden is as popularly accepted as the portrait of him as a cheapskate extraordinaire. However, there are good reasons to doubt that he was an ogre of miserliness. The Fall River Daily Herald quoted Southard Miller as calling him �generous.� Emma Borden gave an interview to the Boston Post in 1913 in which she staunchly defended her father:

Some unkind persons have spread the report that my father, despite his great wealth, was niggardly and that he refused to even give us sufficient to eat. That is a wicked lie. He was a plain-mannered man, but his table was always laden with the best that the market could afford.

There is no question that, in some respects, Andrew Borden husbanded his financial assets with great care and that there were ways in which the Borden family lived below its means.

The house on 92 Second Street was not in the most fashionable part of Fall River, which is still commonly called The Hill. It was also a rather modest residence for a family of the Borden�s affluence. The house was originally built as a two-family dwelling by Southard Miller, but was remodeled by Andrew J. Borden as a single-family home. The home had cumbersome aspects with an interior that had no central hallway on either floor. A person had to pass from room to room to get to another part of the house or to go upstairs.

Lizzie may well have wanted to live in the best neighborhood her father�s money could afford. She also may have yearned to hold functions and parties at her home and felt frustrated because the small house in which she lived was so ill suited to entertaining. Andrew�s insistence on the small residence and Lizzie�s desire for a better home could have been the source of family tension.

Why did Andrew live in such a modest house? Saving money might have been a reason for this choice. Another was that it was close to the business district and Andrew liked the convenience of being able to take a brisk and brief walk to work each day. While the choice of abode may be an example of Andrew�s frugality, it is simply untrue that he deprived his household of indoor plumbing in order to save money as both Jones and Brown write. As recently as 1997, it was discovered that the Fall River Historical Society�s cataloguing of 19th century ledgers showed that not only did Andrew Borden furnish his Second Street home with running water in 1874, but also his business, Borden, Almy & Co. Andrew�s application for the convenience and the �subsequent installation in his home were done not six months after the convenience was first made available to the residents of Fall River.� What�s more, Andrew had his home painted on May 10, 1892. These are not the actions of a man determined to avoid all creature comforts and force his family to live in deprivation for fear of spending an unnecessary penny.

Maynard F. Bertolet, who edited the Lizzie Borden Quarterly, believes that there are several instances in which Andrew Borden displayed appreciable generosity. �Would a stingy man have sent his daughter to a boarding school?� Bertolet asks. It is known that Emma attended a boarding school because at the inquest she was asked if she had ever lived away from home and replied, �I was away at school about a year and a half.� Bertolet also asks, �Would a stingy man have sent his daughter on a European tour?� Andrew paid for Lizzie to take a trip to Europe in 1890. She was there for nineteen weeks. This had to be fairly expensive and ought to be taken as evidence that Andrew could financially loosen up to indulge his daughters. In a family with three adult women, Andrew hired a fulltime, live-in maid (Bridget Sullivan). Even granting that household chores took more time and effort in those days before our modern conveniences, this bespeaks a man who was willing to pay quite a bit to l ighten the loads of his female family members and provide them with leisure. In Lizzie�s inquest testimony, she states, �I had nothing to do with the work down stairs.� Andrew�s generosity meant she had few chores beyond the cleaning of her own room and caring for her own clothes and enjoyed the freedom to be a gentlewoman of good works.

Perhaps most ironically, a well-known incident that caused friction within the Borden household and is sometimes cited as leading to the murders also displays Andrew�s strongly generous side. Abby�s stepmother, Mrs. Oliver Gray, wanted to sell her share of a house that had been left to her and to Abby�s half sister. Andrew purchased the Widow Gray�s share of the building and then gave it to Abby.

This was the occasion for what Lizzie, at the inquest, termed a �difference of opinion.� She and Emma thought he should be as generous with his daughters as he had been to a stepmother. Soon after they made their feelings known, he was. Lizzie testified that he deeded Emma and Lizzie �Grandfather Borden�s house on Ferry Street.� Just a few weeks before his death, Andrew bought the property back from them for $5,000. So when his daughters wished to be treated the same as Abby, Andrew had made a gift to them of the house, and later gave them money for it, although it had been free.

Yet, Andrew could be exacting with his money. Hiram C. Harrington, Andrew�s brother-in-law, gave an interview to the Fall River Daily Globe recounting the following story: �When his father died some years ago, he offered my wife [Lurana Borden Harrington, sister of Andrew Borden] the old homestead on Ferry Street for a certain sum of money. My wife preferred to take the money, and after the agreements were all signed, to show how close he was, he wanted my wife to pay an additional $3.00 for water tax upon the homestead.�

Andrew may sometimes have given the appearance of being a tightwad due to a lack of interest in certain areas. Rebello also quotes a report by the Boston Globe as describing Andrew as a man who �dressed very plainly, almost to the point of shabbiness.� The same article says he �retained a tie until it was almost threadbare.�

There are reports that Andrew lived by the Shakespearean maxim �neither a borrower nor a lender be.� Frank Spiering wrote that Andrew never borrowed money and a Boston Advertiser piece stated that, �during his whole business career [he] never gave a note nor borrowed a cent of money.� However, these reports appear to be simply wrong since, as Rebello notes authoritatively, �Andrew Borden borrowed money to purchase some of his properties.�

That Andrew picked up an old lock from the floor and put it in his pocket may not have indicated an extreme stinginess. In a newsgroup posting in reply to a query from this writer about the reason for saving a possibly broken lock, Gilles Deacur of the Sunshine Locksmith Team wrote, �If the lock were to be replaced, then keeping the lock would help solve the reason as to why the lock broke in the first place. For instance, locks can break due to a misalignment between the door and the strike plate, or because of a hole that drilled crooked. The broken pieces would show where the stress on the lock occurred, and prevent the replacement lock from breaking again.� It is also possible that saving the broken lock would have saved unnecessary expense. Deacur continues, �If the lock were to be repaired instead of replaced, having all pieces may cut the repair expense down, especially if some pieces are hard to come by, or need to be special ordered in.�

Jack Wynn of Allied Lock & Security, Inc., seconds that perception:

If this is a lay person without knowledge of such things, then yes, if that person was to call our office, we would dispatch a technician with the hopes of repairing the old lock and saving them some money. The technician would be armed to replace the lock if such repair is not viable. Sometimes the hardware that is previously existing on a door is not available on the open market and it is helpful to know what WAS on the door to purchase the closest replacement.

Thus, the fact that Andrew did not immediately discard the old lock if it was broken was not an act of extraordinary thrift but an act of simple common sense.

The popular portrait of Andrew as frugal and sometimes penny-pinching is incomplete�misleadingly and unfairly so. He seems to have been quite divided in how he treated his money, strictly husbanding even tiny amounts here and willingly spending a great deal there. He probably spent little on his own clothes simply because that was something that did not much matter to him. Indeed, the pattern that emerges when examining both his frugality and his generosity is that of a man who was tight-fisted when spending on himself but generous when spending on his wife and daughters.

A fresh look at the life of Andrew Borden shows a flawed, reticent, and, yes, �austere� man who worked hard to provide comfort and enjoyment to the women about whom he cared.

Just how much did Andrew care about his wife and daughters? The money spent on them supports the hypothesis that he cared deeply as does the way he spent his time. The Globe wrote that that, �although he had considerable leisure time, [he] was rarely to be found where men are accustomed to congregate.� Thus, it must be deduced that he spent much time at home with Abby, Emma, and Lizzie. Ironically, Andrew Borden, believed by many people to have been the victim of a patricide, may have been a man with an especially strong and abiding love for his adult children.

Petition To Treat The Accused And Accuser With The Same Anonymity

Marx — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/rape-equal-right/

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Assign equal anonymous rights to both rape victim and accused until verdict is given. More details

Submitted by Christopher Thomas of none � Deadline to sign up by: 27 February 2009 � Signatures: 5

It seems more than obvious that whilst rape is a very serious crime, being accused of rape is just as serious. With rape, the stain of being accused does not wash away with the verdict, it stains a character and prevents an equal footing guarenteed by law, especially since until the verdict is given, the accused is innocent.

There is no plausible argument for releasing the name of the accused as this does nothing to further justice, but only serves to punish them outside of the judicial system. The only punishment for rape, should be passed down by a judge, not by newspapers, their peers, or their employers. Therefore revealing their identity is an unjust punishment without basis in english law.

We therefore request that ALL parties to a rape case are anonymous, until a verdict is reached. You have to be a British citizen or resident to sign.

Please comment in this thread: Petition To Treat The Accused And Accuser With The Same Anonymity

This man needs our support.

Percy — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Mary Winkler, who shot her sleeping husband in the back, convicted only of voluntary manslaughter and released after about a year in custody.
Melissa Drexler, the infamous “prom mom,” who gave birth in a restroom stall, strangled her newborn, pled guilty to aggravated manslaughter, and was paroled after three years in prison.
Gertrude Baniszewski committed what might be the worst torture-slaying ever perpetrated against a single victim. In 1965, she starved, beat, scalded, and burned 16-year-old Sylvia Likens. I wrote an article about the barbarism Baniszewski visited on her teen victim and that story can be found at

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/young/likens/1.html. Baniszewski was convicted of first-degree murder – and paroled after twenty years in prison.

In the above cases, the victims were killed and killed not by accident but on purpose. In the third case, the victim was murdered with extraordinary and protracted cruelty.

By contrast, the supposed victim of Mr. Hetherington was left very much alive. Yet he has been subjected to the horrors of prison life for over two decades. It is a blight on American justice that he is still behind bars.

I again urge my readers to write to the Michigan Parole Board at the following address.

Michigan Parole Board
C/o Executive Secretary
PO Box 30003
Lansing, MI 48909

Letters should mention Mr. Hetherington's name and his inmate number of 186155.

Mr. Hetherington likes copies of letters sent to the parole board to be mailed to him. His address follows:

William J. Hetherington #186155
Boyer Road Carson City Correctional Facilities
PO Box 5000
Carson City, MI 48811-5000.

The above is quoted from Denise Noe.

I want to make a point and a proposal here.

MRAs here and elsewhere are constantly complaining that women (in particular) do not support the MRM.

Do we, here, on this board, support the MRM or just whine?

I want to see 10 board-names of members posted here saying 'Yes I have written to the Parole Board and to Bill, giving him my personal support.'

I want to see that by feb 28. That's 10 days.

If the members of this Board cannot get off their arses for 10 minutes to senf two friggin' letters, then I am wasting my time here.

And I will be off.

Percy

Please leave your responses/ letters/ names here in THIS THREAD.

We're Back!

Marx — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:00:00 -0500

Welcome back folks,

It was a long, treacherous journey, but I made it.

We're now on a VPS as opposed a shared host.... So we have a LOT more power to play with than previously.

Please consider helping towards the cost of running the new VPS...

Thank you :o)

Some holiday cheer - NOT

Marx — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:00:00 -0500

link

Despite DNA, child support may be enforced

By JOE LAMBE

The Kansas City Star

When David Salazar�s estranged wife gave birth six years ago, both he and she told state officials he was not the father. But it didn�t matter.

Officials declared him father. A Buchanan County judge later ordered him to jail for 28 days for not paying child support.

Advocates for men�s rights say his case, like many others, shows the need for a new law that would allow men wrongly declared as fathers to prove the mistake and escape payments.

Salazar won a rare partial victory for such alleged fathers when the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Oct. 30 that he does not have to go to jail. Breaking new ground, the court found that Salazar can�t be jailed without a hearing before a judge and a chance to prove he is not the father.

That will only apply to the small number of men who are declared fathers by Missouri Child Support Enforcement alone. The agency does that without a court hearing for fathers who are married at the time their wives have children.

That is because under state law that ties back to English Common Law, a married man is presumed to be the father of his wife�s child. No matter that Salazar and his wife both said they had been separated for 14 months before she gave birth.

Salazar now gets a chance to prove to a judge he is not the father, �but he�s not over this deal,� said his attorney Merle Turner. �It is a can of worms.�

Even if he convinces the judge he is not the father, he still has to pay child support. State officials can garnish wages, take tax refunds or revoke any licenses he has to get thousands of dollars in child support.

That is because state law sets a one-year statute of limitations on a finding that a man is the father, unless the man can somehow prove a high level of fraud. Alleged fathers who are not married are ordered to court hearings where they can get DNA tests, but many do not appear, and judges find them fathers by default. After a year, they owe child support payments, with almost no way out, until the child is at least 18.

Advocates for children say that is best for the children, and the men rightly lose their rights if they don�t show up in court.

Several other states have passed laws allowing men to escape child support payments if DNA proves they are not the fathers.

A similar bill failed in Missouri this year. Sen. Chris Koster, a Harrisonville Democrat, said he would introduce it again next year.

Larry Swall, a Liberty lawyer who is chairman of the Family Law Committee of the Missouri Bar, said the state treats men harshly from the start.

�It just smacks of unfairness not to have any relief,� he said.

link

Dad Blood

If DNA tests prove that you're not your children's father, do you still owe child support?

Imagine raising a family for years, only to find out one day that your children are not really yours.

Imagine, after the divorce, being told by the courts that you have to continue paying financial support for these children.

Is this a Kafkaesque nightmare, or an unfortunate necessity to protect the children's interests?

No one knows exactly how many men -- and children -- around the United States are confronting this question in their own lives, but the individual cases that have made it into the spotlight are wrenching.

One such story, told recently on NBC's Dateline, is that of Morgan Wise, an engineer in Big Springs, Texas. Wise's fateful discovery, several years after his divorce, was prompted by the desire to help treat his 6-year-old son for cystic fibrosis: When he took a blood test to find out which cystic fibrosis gene he carried, it turned out that he didn't have the gene at all. Both parents have to be carriers for a child to inherit the gene.

Subsequent genetic tests showed that of the four children born to Wise's former wife during their 13-year marriage, only the eldest was his. "I never experienced a heart attack, and I can tell you, I had one that day," Wise told Dateline. "I mean...a part of me died."

When Wise went to court asking to be relieved of the child support payments that consumed a third of his take-home pay, he was turned down. Wise was later barred from contact with all four children because he had discussed the issue of their parentage with them in violation of the judge's order, but he still had to keep the checks coming. In January the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Wise's appeal.

To some extent, Wise and others in his position are victims of a gap between law and technology. The law basically presumes, as in ancient Rome, that a woman's husband is the father of any child born during the marriage. While a court may rule in favor of the cuckolded husband, what legal precedent exists is not on his side. Rulings in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and California have also held that if the husband acknowledged the children as his for the duration of the marriage, he cannot deny paternity afterward.

When it comes to unmarried fathers, the law is more flexible, but a man who did not initially dispute a paternity claim may also find it tough to do anything about it later, particularly if he at some point acted as a father to the child. In Georgia, Carnell Smith, now 41, voluntarily assumed responsibility for a child his former girlfriend told him was his, paying more than $40,000 in child support during an 11-year period. In 1999, when the mother went to court to seek more money, Smith, by then married with two children, sought genetic testing and learned that he wasn't the girl's father. The courts were not swayed, and by now Smith's total child support bill has reached $120,000.

The 1996 federal welfare reform law directs that voluntary acknowledgment of paternity by an unwed father should be treated as a conclusive and binding establishment of paternity, although it allows for a 60-day rescission period; a 2000 Department of Health and Human Services report on paternity establishment strongly urged state child support collection agencies to follow these guidelines and to encourage the courts to do so as well. Interestingly, the report also noted that over 40 percent of local child support agency staffers surveyed supported genetic testing for putative fathers. Many of these employees felt that affidavits acknowledging paternity were often signed in the flush of excitement over the birth of a child, and some even expressed concerns that a mother's new boyfriend might acknowledge paternity knowing that he was not the father, "out of kindness, pity or foolishness."

At present, four states -- Louisiana, Colorado, Iowa, and Ohio -- allow men to use DNA tests to disprove previously acknowledged paternity. Similar "paternity fraud" legislation is pending in California and in Georgia, where the initiative has been spearheaded by none other than Carnell Smith.

It might seem like a matter of simple justice. Why should a man support a child who isn't his? If DNA testing can be used to exonerate people accused of rape or murder, why not use it to exonerate men accused of fathering children?

Nevertheless, such proposals remain controversial. Earlier this year, an editorial in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that the Georgia bill dealing with DNA and paternity was "moving forward at an alarming pace" and warned, "Somebody in the General Assembly needs to apply the brakes to it quickly."

What exactly is the peril opponents of such legislation are trying to avert? One common response is that one has to consider the best interest of the children. Yet the exoneration of a falsely accused "father" does not mean that no child support will be paid; the real "culprit" can be pursued instead. Morgan Wise, for instance, has unsuccessfully tried to argue that his former wife's lover or lovers who fathered the three boys he once believed to be his should be the person or persons paying child support.

Moreover, paternity fraud often ends up robbing its victims' real children. Bert Riddick, a California father of three, has spent the last 11 years paying child support for a girl he has never met, a girl whom DNA tests have shown to be someone else's daughter. As a result, he and his family have had to move in with his brother-in-law, in whose house the three children are crammed into one room. His wife has had to go on welfare.

Critics of paternity fraud legislation also emphasize the social, emotional, and psychological damage children are likely to suffer when Daddy suddenly discards them. And there is no doubt that children get badly hurt. Morgan Wise may have been shafted by the system, but it's difficult to view him with unalloyed sympathy when one learns that, after losing his claim for relief from child support payments, he took his battle public -- with the inevitable result that the rumors reached the boys' school, and he ended up telling them he wasn't their real father.

"Regardless of the circumstances of conception, for the child this is the only father he or she has known," Los Angeles attorney Jenny Skoble, director of the Child Support Project at the Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law, wrote recently in Insight magazine. "If this man disappears from the child's life, the child not only loses his financial support, but suffers the well-known emotional effects of being abandoned by a parent."

That's often true, and it's unfortunate (though it is worth noting that the women's advocates typically making these arguments rarely show much concern about divorced fathers' complaints that their ex-wives intentionally disrupt visitation). Yet the reality is that no court can force a parent to be emotionally involved with his children and to participate actively in raising them. A court can only force him to pay up. It's true that courts sometimes bar the alleged father not only from using DNA test results in a paternity challenge but from having the children tested, so as to avoid potentially traumatizing them. Even so, a father who is unsure of his paternity may well withdraw from the children.

It is sad, of course, when a man who has been a de facto father to a child for years suddenly and abruptly abandons him or her. (Conversely, there is something self-serving and opportunistic about the position of some fathers' advocates that a man who has learned that his child is not biologically his should be able to continue contact and visitation but shouldn't pay child support.) But surely a good portion of the blame for such tragic situations rests with mothers who cheat and lie. The men who fight back don't necessarily believe, as some critics claim, that biology alone makes you a father; often, they are reacting to being deceived and used.

"What you're saying is that all a man is, in terms of a father to a child, is a sperm donor," Paula Roberts of the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C., told the Los Angeles Times. "We think that's really bad social policy." Agreed. But our current social policy all too often reduces a man to a cash machine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8h4SOwWXdc

Men: Hidden Victims of Domestic Violence

Marx — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:00:00 -0500

When most people think of domestic violence, they think of men abusing women. While that stereotype is often true, many women are also guilty of violence against their partners.

It happened just last week when Mary Delgado, a former NFL cheerleader and contestant on the reality TV show "The Bachelor," was arrested in Seminole, Florida, for attacking her fiance Byron Velvick. The couple got into an argument, and Delgado became violent, striking Velvick in the chest and face, splitting his lip. Though Velvick reportedly did not want to press charges, police arrived and arrested Delgado.

In January 2006, the wife of Indianapolis Colts cornerback Nick Harper stabbed her husband with a knife during an argument. According to police, Daniell Harper got a knife from a kitchen drawer and began waving it over her husband as he lay in bed at their Indianapolis home.

In April 2002, actress Tawny Kitaen, wife of Cleveland Indians pitcher Chuck Finley, was charged with domestic violence for beating her husband. Finley did not call the police, but a third party did after seeing the blood and bruises on Finley from his wife's attack.

Of course, this is just a small sample of cases; most women who attack and abuse their boyfriends and husbands are not famous, and neither are their victims. Domestic violence by women is very underreported. Many men are reluctant to admit that they were abused by a woman, and unless the injuries are serious or a third party intervenes, the man may simply put up with it.

Studies have shown that women assault men about as often as men assault women. While men tend to cause more damage because on average they are stronger, not all men are bigger than their partners, and women can even the odds with weapons such as knives, high heels, and sharp nails.

Men may also fear that if they fight back in self-defense, they themselves will be accused of abuse because of society's assumption that men are always the aggressor.

There are hundreds or thousands of battered women's shelters across the country, but few if any shelters for battered men who may need a safe place to stay.

In recent years, police officers have become more aware of male domestic violence victims, and many men are more willing to come forward. Stereotypes can be misleading, and domestic violence is a serious crime that should not be tolerated whether the victim is male or female.

Article Link

Alimony to the murderous mom and child support to the female rapist: Franz Kafka, real life has outdone ya

Denise Noe — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 19:00:00 -0500

As many readers are probably already aware, a New Jersey appeals court recently ruled that an ex-wife who brutally killed the son she had with her ex-husband does not automatically lose the right to collect alimony from him.

Linda Calbi is currently in prison, serving a 3-year term for beating her 14-year-old son Matt to death. She will be eligible for parole in November 2008.

Chris Calbi and Linda Calbi were divorced in 2001. They had been married for 15 years and had two children. Apparently he had been paying $3,183 in alimony. I don�t know what the child support was.

A short while after Matt was killed, Chris cut off the alimony. As he stated in papers filed asking for termination of the payments, �She took the life of her oldest son, scarred her younger son for the rest of his life, and tore the fabric of my soul from me. To reward this evil and violent woman by allowing her . . . to derive a financial benefit from the family she destroyed . . . can only be described as a perversion of our justice system.�

According to Legal tussle: Should killer get alimony by Kibret Markos, �A judge ordered him to continue making payments, then later interrupted alimony for the period that Linda Calbi is incarcerated. But Chris Calbi�s arrears had risen to more than $40,000 by then, and the judge ordered him to pay $400 a month to his ex-wife�s account.�

Thus, Chris Calbi is legally obligated to make a check each month to the woman who killed their son. When she gets out of prison, he faces the prospect of having that amount return to the original, much heftier sum. He also faces the prospect of her attempting to get visitation or even custody of the son still alive.

Some people might think I�m hypocritical for finding this grotesque since I live primarily (although not entirely) on alimony. However, I didn�t kill my ex-husband�s kid!

This case reminds me a lot of one I previously read about in which a woman had sexual intercourse with a man while he was drunk and unconscious, then bragged to some friends of hers that she had saved herself a trip to the sperm bank. When a man has sex with a drunk and unconscious woman, few people have trouble calling it what it is: rape.

The woman who had sex with an unconscious man in lieu of going to the sperm bank got pregnant, as she intended, and then sued the man for child support. The court ordered him to pay it.

A man making payments each month to the killer of his child while another man makes payments each month to his rapist -- Franz Kafka could not have come up with scenarios more thoroughly Kafkaesque!

How can the case of Chris and Linda Calbi be resolved? As a menace to children, she should never be allowed to see her surviving son. However, as the non-custodial parent, she may be held responsible for child support. The court could set her child support obligation at the same amount as the alimony, thus wiping out the alimony obligation. Or it could go one better and terminate the alimony while requiring that she pay child support. Regarding the second case, that the woman raped the man should mean that she is assumed to be an unfit mother and the child should have been automatically removed from her custody. The biological father should have been given an opportunity for custody and, if he did not want it, the baby should have been put up for adoption.

Franz Kafka created brilliantly absurd situations. The American court system should not be going him one better.

Fireman who donated sperm to lesbian couple fights demand for child maintenance

Marx — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:00:00 -0500

Link to antimisandry article

Link to Daily Mail article

A London man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple is being made to pay child support, it was revealed today.

Andy Bathie, 37, a firefighter from Enfield, agreed to help Sharon and Terri Arnold after they assured him he would have no involvement in the children's upbringing and no financial commitment.

But he is now having his pay docked to pay thousands of pounds in child maintenance even though he has no legal rights over the boy and girl the couple had.

He says the payments mean he and his wife cannot afford to have children of their own.

Mr Bathie, from Enfield, said: �These women wanted to be parents and take on all the responsibilities that brings.

I would never have agreed to this unless they had been living as a committed family. And now I can't afford to have children with my own wife � it's crippling me financially.�

He is now bringing an unprecedented legal challenge so that he is not recognised as a legal parent to the children.

Mr Bathie was approached by the couple five years ago after they were �married� in a ceremony. They had unsuccessfully asked other male friends.

He said: �I did look into the legal side and understood that as a couple they would be the parents, not me. I was never Daddy.�

He was stunned when the Child Support Agency contacted him last November to demand payments because the women had split up.

Officials made him take a �400 paternity test and began docking his pay.

Mr Bathie added: �The only reason these children are here is because they wanted children as a couple which means they should take responsibility.

The CSA admit that mine is an unusual case � this is double standards and I'm having money stolen by the Government.�

At the time of the donation, Mr Bathie was in a relationship with a woman who had been sterilised and was not planning to have children. He has since married someone else.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is now warning �DIY� donors they are liable financially unless they donate through a licensed clinic.

The HFEA said: �We would warn men providing genetic material that the only time they are not the father is when they donate through a licensed fertility clinic. This does not apply to unlicensed websites or home insemination.�

Lawyers say an increasing number of men are seeking legal advice after being approached by lesbian couples desperate to conceive but who cannot afford clinic costs.

Ministers have drawn up fertility reforms giving equal parenting rights to same-sex couples who �marry� in a civil partnership. This means they will now be recognised as the legal parents of children they conceive through sperm donation.

This change comes too late for Mr Bathie, who has only met the children, now aged two and four, a couple of times.

He is now pushing for an amendment to make the laws retrospective. Sharon and Terri Arnold were not available for comment.

The legal pitfall for donors

Andy Bathie has fallen victim to the legal pitfalls of being a DIY sperm donor.

Had he and the lesbian couple involved gone through the proper authorities then, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, he would have been accorded the full protection of current fertility laws.

Men who give sperm through HFEA-licensed clinics have no legal obligation to a child created through the donation process.

They do not have the right to determine how the child is brought up nor the right to be named on the birth certificate.

They also have no financial obligation to pay child support.

Donors were guaranteed the right to remain anonymous throughout the child's lifetime but in 2005 the law changed, allowing children once they turned 18 to write to the HFEA and be told the identity of their real father.

The donor still has no legal financial obligation even after his identity becomes known. Ministers are now drawing up reforms to the law which will give both women in a lesbian relationship parental rights � not just the mother � should they marry in a civil partnership.