Another Bizarre Father Screwing

According to the article Not guilty, but not off the hook (2/6/06):

"A man who spent 13 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murder faces a debt of more than $38,000 in child-support payments that started accumulating while he was locked up...

"Larry Souter...was convicted in 1992 in the death of Kristi Ringler, who was found shortly before 3 a.m. on Aug. 25, 1979, lying in the center of state Route 37 near White Cloud in Newaygo County. She died later that day in a Grand Rapids hospital.

"Through the years, medical experts disagreed about the nature of Ringler's fatal injury. One said she likely received the wound after being struck by an automobile; another said the injury matched the shape of a whiskey bottle found alongside the highway.

"In 1991, after one expert reiterated his belief in the likelihood of the whiskey bottle theory, Souter was charged with murder.

"Prosecutors accused Souter, who had just met Ringler in a bar on the night of her death, of killing her. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 to 60 years in prison.

"Defense attorneys fought the conviction and found that evidence that could have helped Souter at trial was lost or missing, including police reports suggesting Ringler was hit by a motor home's mirror.

"A federal judge released Souter last April 1.

"In 1987, before his conviction, [Larry] Souter was ordered to pay $100 a week in his divorce with Christine Souter. He stopped paying when he went to prison in 1992 but didn't ask to have payments suspended until 1995.

"Court documents show that in 1997, he owed $23,000 in back support. As of last month, interest and penalties had pushed it to $38,082.25.

"Federal law prohibits judges from retroactively wiping out such debts...

"David Sarnacki, an attorney for Souter's ex-wife, wrote in a court filing that his client 'has endured the substantial burden of raising her two children without defendant's contribution of child support.'"

I love the quote from his ex-wife's attorney. Yes, he didn't pay child support because he was in prison framed on a murder charge. I guess we should be grateful the lawyer didn't refer to Souter as a "deadbeat dad." That'll probably be next. One would also think that after seeing her ex-husband rot in jail for 13 years for a crime he didn't commit, she would feel so damn sorry for the poor guy that she would back off. I guess not.

In the article Wrongly convicted man tries to move on after prison (Flint Journal,  1/7/06), Souter had discussed putting his life back together and his plans. Now he may be headed back on the road to jail.

I wrote about California legislation designed to deal with the problem of ex-offenders and child support in my co-authored column Schwarzenegger Should Sign Bill to Reduce Prisoner Recidivism (Riverside Press-Enterprise, 9/21/05). The Bradley Amendment, under which child support arrearages cannot be retroactively forgiven, is the cause of countless bizarre injustices, and often hurts deployed military personnel. In my co-authored column Laws must protect the rights of military dads (Army Times, Marine Corps Times, 3/28/05) family law attorney Jeff Leving and I wrote:

"[Child] support orders are based on civilian pay, which is generally higher than active duty pay. When reservists are called up to active duty they sometimes pay an impossibly high percentage of their income in child support.

"For example, a California naval reservist who has three children and who takes home $4,000 a month in his civilian job would have a child support obligation of about $1,600 a month. If this father is a petty officer second class (E5) who has been in the reserves for six or seven years--a middle-ranked reservist--his active-duty pay would only be $2,205 before taxes, in addition to a housing allowance. Under current California child support guidelines, the reservist's child support obligation should be $550 a month, not $1,600.

"A reasonable reader unfamiliar with the wonders of the child support system would probably think 'OK, but the courts would just straighten it out when the reservist gets back--certainly they wouldn't punish him for something that happened because he was serving.' However, the federal Bradley Amendment prohibits judges from retroactively modifying child support beyond the date which an obligor has applied for a modification. Reservists can be mobilized with as little as one day's notice. If a reservist didn't have time or didn't know he had to file for a downward modification, the arrearages stay, along with the interest and penalties charged on them.

"When the arrearage reaches $5,000--a common occurrence during long deployments--the father can become a felon who can be incarcerated or subject to a barrage of harsh civil penalties, including seizure of driver's licenses, business licenses and passports."

To learn more, see below:

• Ron Henry's Child Support at a Crossroads: When the Real World Intrudes Upon Academics and Advocates (Family Law Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1999)

• Child-support-law amendment comes to attention of Hill; Provision revision could end to horror stories  (Washington Times, 4/27/99)

• Read the Bradley Amendment here

• His Side: Showdown in Motown: Michigan Dads vs. Leader of ACES (4/18/04)

• His Side: Child Support Civil Rights Violations (7/18/04)

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

From the editorial Abduction and fathers' rights (The Daily Dispatch, 2/4/06):

"When children are abducted, the authorities scramble to recover them safe and sound.

"Most of the time.

"When children are kidnapped from a custodial parent, and that custodial parent is a man, sometimes it seems that bringing the abducting mother to justice and returning sons and daughters to their father's home is less a priority.

"A Friday incident in North Carolina reminds us of another case that hits even closer to home.

"The Associated Press reports that two girls abducted from their father by their mother in Ahoskie more than six years ago were recovered just this week after they were found in a car during a routine traffic stop - in Lillington, less than 175 miles away...

"...we have to believe that if it was the father who took the children from their mother, a dragnet would've caught him long ago. The courts wouldn't simply have issued almost meaningless orders that are all but ignored by law enforcement and the courts themselves until a cop stumbles across kidnapped children - again, six years later in the same state - quite by happenstance.

"Simply put, the law often fails fathers in custody disputes.

"Witness the case of toddler Andy Hakes, who was taken from his father Jacob - son of Henderson's Molly Hakes - by the boy's mother. Andy's mother bounced between relatives' homes in Colorado and Arizona for six months, ignoring Virginia court orders to return her son to his custodial father. Though the Hakes family often had leads on where the boy was being kept, they said the authorities in those communities would flat-out tell them that they didn't want to get involved.

"If Andy Hakes or the Steyne girls had been abducted by their fathers, it's far more likely that those men would've been hunted down and arrested in shorter order. When mothers steal their children from fathers, it seems at times like nobody's in any hurry to see that Daddy gets them back.

"It's wrong to assume children are better off - or even safe - with their mothers, especially when those mothers are committing a criminal act in keeping them."

To write a letter to editor Glenn Craven, click here.

I've written a few columns about parental abductions, including The Betrayal of the Military Father (Los Angeles Daily News, 5/4/03) and  Shared Custody Could Help Prevent Abductions (Colorado Springs Gazette, 9/22/02).

Glenn Named The Conservative Woman's 'Honorary Male Writer'

According to the beautiful Marie Jon of The Conservative Woman:

"We have ten female columnists. However, we have made you 'honorary male writer' because of the wonderful courageous work that you do for divorced men, who sure need you on their side. It is totally shameful what liberalism has done to men, and men with their children. I hope you'll enjoy being fussed over by ten babes for conservatism."

"Being fussed over by ten babes"--I'd like that...

Column: The Rise in 'Gray Divorce': It's Always Hubby's Fault

My recent co-authored column, The Rise in 'Gray Divorce': It's Always Hubby's Fault (Cincinnati Post, Kentucky Post, 1/30/06, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, 2/5/06), discusses the way men are unfairly made to shoulder almost all blame for marital breakups, regardless of the circumstances. Family law attorney Jeff Leving and I wrote:

"In both the United States and Japan, divorce among older couples is on the rise. The American Association of Retired Persons detailed the phenomenon among American seniors in a study last year, and Japan's wave of gray divorce is expected to swell into a deluge, since Japanese women will soon be legally able to claim half of their husbands' retirement pensions. 

"There are various explanations for the trend but media commentators agree on one thing--when the husband divorces his wife, it's hubby's fault. When the wife divorces her husband, well, it's hubby's fault too."

I've discussed these types of anti-male double standards and the way we ignore men's many valuable contributions to their families. For more, see:

• Glenn's co-authored column Indiana Woman's 'Housework Strike': Maybe It's Husbands Who Should Strike (Gary Post-Tribune, 11/8/02)

• Glenn's column Hate My Father?  No Ma'am! (World Net Daily, 4/8/02)

• Glenn's column The Price of Fatherhood--a Father's Reply to Ann Crittenden's 'Mothers' Manifesto' (Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, 1/10/02)

• Glenn's column Dowd on Women and the 'Baby Bust': It's All Men's Fault
  (Cybercast News Service, 4/18/02)

Also, listen to the His Side shows:

• Newsweek: When Wives Cheat, It's OK (7/11/04)

• Keeping Your Marriage Together (5/8/05) 

• Is Today's Dad a Wimp and a Slacker? (7/25/04)

• First Wives vs. Second Wives (11/21/04)

• Men, Marriage, and 'Finding your Nuts' (Nonnegotiable, Unalterable Terms)' (12/21/03)

Major Network Drops Domestic Violence Show

Some good news from Ned Holstein of Fathers & Families, one of the leaders of the campaign against PBS's Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories:

"Some pessimists believe that our battle against PBS' airing of Breaking the Silence, an unbalanced piece of anti-father propaganda, was at best a tie. After all, the film was aired hundreds of times around the country. There have been private screenings for judges and legislators. And despite the findings of its own ombudsman, PBS has stonewalled, still claiming that the film is sound.

"The pessimists miss the larger picture: that you can only judge victory or defeat by what comes next. For the first time we stopped a respected media outlet in its tracks, forced it to reassess its production, and caused it to commission a new film this spring.

"Now comes this news: a major network has dropped plans to produce a similar domestic violence segment on a major 60 Minutes-type show it airs, even though it has a sensational and tragic 911 audiotape of a terrified woman hiding in a closet as her ex-husband breaks into the house, searches for her and shoots her. (Something this awful deserves to be aired, but not in a format that tars all divorced men or misrepresents what the police and courts are actually doing.)

"This had all the earmarks of another hack job. The producer had asked Lundy Bancroft, one of the domestic violence extremists who is featured in Breaking the Silence, for stories of police who were unwilling to enforce a restraining order, and of judges who were dismissive of a woman's complaints. A woman who is sympathetic to fathers' organizations approached the producer with a true domestic violence horror story, who was very interested until he found out the victim was a man, at which point he dropped the matter. It didn't look good.

"Mark Rosenthal and I called the producer two months ago to discuss his plans for the segment, and to try to educate him about the complexities of the subject beyond a simplistic 'man bad, woman victim' formulation. To the producer's credit, he was willing to engage in a conversation, but it was hard to believe we had changed his mind or that he could resist airing the dramatic 911 tape.

"Now we hear that no such segment is in preparation. Is this guaranteed true? Will it be produced later? Did our offensive against PBS cause this? We don't know, but it is hard to believe that the well-publicized uproar about Breaking the Silence that you created with your letters and emails had nothing to do with it.

"I call that a victory."

Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Fathers & Families
nedholstein@fathersandfamilies.org 

Some Vindication for Boy Advocates

My longtime readers know that I (and others) have been screaming about the boy crisis in education for years. I'm a former teacher and I've written numerous columns on the issue. My biggest gripe is the way our school system absolutely refuses to meet boys where they are. The result is what I call "Boys' Fall from Eden"--they go from preschool, where their boyish energy is (usually) accommodated, into kindergarten where they are "bad" if they can't sit still for long periods of time the way the girls can. In my column Start of School Very Different for Parents of Boys, Parents of Girls (Albuquerque Journal, 9/10/04) I wrote:

"The educational establishment has reacted to the boy crisis in education in a way reminiscent of Bertolt Brecht's famous poem about calls to reform or dissolve the unpopular government of East Germany: the government found it difficult to reform itself, so would instead choose to 'dissolve the people and elect another.'

"Similarly, rather than reform a system woefully out of touch with boys' real world natures and needs, our schools find it easier to demand that boys be something other than boys."

The boy crisis was the biggest reason we launched our Campaign Against 'Boys are Stupid' Products in 2003--to learn more, see my column Why I Launched the Campaign Against 'Boys are Stupid' Products (Los Angeles Daily News, 2/4/04).

During this period boy advocates have often been opposed by feminists who insist that boys are doing just fine because most CEOs are male. Even researchers on the subject were afraid to accurately report their own findings for fear of being labeled anti-female. I debated a couple researchers on this in the Los Angeles Times last year--see my column New Study of Youth Shows It's Boys Who Are in Crisis (3/20/05).

Now, however, the boy crisis has no finally gone mainstream with Newsweek's new front page article The Trouble With Boys and the surrounding public dialogue.

Glenn Discusses Boy Crisis in Education on Air America's Charles Goyette Show (Audio Available)

I discussed the boy crisis in education on the Charles Goyette Show on Air America KXXT AM 1010 in Phoenix, Arizona on January 25, 2006.

To listen to the interview, click here--the interview with me starts at 20:27.

Outrage Funded by Your Tax Dollars

We've discussed before the way domestic violence laws are slanted sharply against men. As I noted in my co-authored column Domestic Violence Lawsuit Will Help Secure Services for All Abuse Victims (Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, 12/28/05), "While police intervention often works for abused women, abused men understandably fear that once the police are involved, their wives will accuse them of being the abuser and it is they who will be believed. Draconian arrest policies often direct police to make an arrest, and police are often pressured to arrest the man."

Despite this, a substantial percentage of those arrested for domestic violence are women. Feminists mulishly insist that only men abuse, so when women are arrested they claim it's only because--get this--violent men are manipulating the domestic violence system and making false accusations. Because women never abuse and can never do wrong, women who are arrested for DV are called "victim-defendants."

A particularly outrageous example of this is a recent statement from Jeff Rapkin, the staff attorney for the Center for Abuse and Rape Emergencies of Charlotte County. Rapkin is one of the many anti-male domestic violence "experts" being funded by your tax dollars. In the article More male victims of domestic violence are speaking up (Charlotte Sun-Herald) he is quoted as saying:

"Ninety-nine percent of men who have their wives arrested for slapping or hitting them are using the criminal justice system and the threat of arrest to make sure his wife prepares the meatloaf exactly the way he wants it...Fifty percent of the women I have talked to in jail, who were arrested for domestic abuse, did not want me to argue for a bond. They didn't want to go home. They told me they were at least free from the abuse while in jail....The only good thing about police arresting the women at domestic calls is that it takes the women out of the abusive home for at least a night."

To write a Letter to the Editor about Rapkin's comments, click here.

And I Thought I Got Nasty Mail...

Take a look at some of the hate mail Fox News commentator/columnist Michelle Malkin receives here. (Warning: foul language). One example:

"You're just a Manila whore shaking your ass and waiting for the Republican fleet to come in, aren't you? You've even got the lip gloss about right. Maybe if you love sailor long time, he bring you home to big American house? I don't think so. Just like in Manila, Honey, they'll pass you around..."

And another:

"Surely you are a big put-on. Did some minor Republican operative purchase a mail-order bride and train her to do this?"

And those are the less repulsive letters. Most of them were written by men--what gentlemen...

Good News for Italian Children

According to Joint custody to be Italian norm:

"The Italian Senate gave the definitive green light Wednesday to a new law that strengthens the access and custody rights of divorced fathers.

"The legislation makes joint custody of children the norm when parents split up. This means single-parent custody - which usually goes to the mother - will now only be granted in a minority of cases .

"'Finally, both parents will have equal rights and responsibilities with respect to their children when there is a separation,' said Justice Undersecretary Jole Santelli. 'And the children will have the inalienable right to maintain solid relations with both the mum and the dad.'"

Apparently Italian feminists haven't yet had a chance to explain to Italian politicians that most fathers are wife-beaters, child molesters, and deadbeats whose relationships with their children merit neither recognition nor protection. The ironic part about feminist misleadership is that for the vast majority of women, shared parenting is a good deal. If and when mom gets over her terminal vindictiveness, shared arrangements mean more freedom and less work. Best of all, her sons have a much better chance of not ending up on drugs or in jail...

An Interesting View of Female Criminals from a Corrections Officer

A corrections officer saw my old column Female Murderers Seen in a Different Light: Society Prefers to View Violent Women as Victims (Pasadena Star-News & Affiliated Papers, 7/5/01) and wrote me an interesting letter:

"In regards to your article on this topic I feel I must put in my two cents worth. Being a former Corrections Officer and having worked as a counselor with abused children I have to agree with you as to how the media perceives this issue and also how the noted psychologists that study these women see it...

"[Today] all of these so-called experts have come up with a new name for every condition that men and women experience and to make it sound like a large portion of the world population is a victim in one way or another. We no longer need to accept blame nor feel guilt for any wrongdoing--we just have to say we are a victim and walk away. I have heard that term used so many times in the prison system that it made me sick of the term and immune to it. Everyone was a victim it was not their fault. They blamed their family, society, the boss at work, a  co-worker, their wife or husband, and in some case their children or siblings. Not once did I ever hear anyone say 'Yeah I screwed up it was  my fault and I deserve to be here.'

"I have read numerous studies on female criminals and they all lead us  down the same path, they were abused, they suffered from severe PMS or PPD, they did not have the skills to deal with a child or a relationship. I have had female inmates say it was not their fault, their husband/boyfriend made them do it because he always picked on them for the way they did or did not do things, therefore they were psychologically abused to the point of wanting to kill...

"I have seen female inmates that when you look into their eyes there is no life in them nor any warmth of any kind, they are cold and dark and at times even I feared what they could do if given the chance. These women had no heart or soul and they cared for no one not even themselves. So spare me, the courts, and the taxpayers the time and money on theories and excuses and let the punishment fit the crime."

Does Glenn Need Some 'Testicular Fortitude'?

Apparently not everybody enjoyed my recent comments here that "Over the past three decades women and feminists have locked men into endless double-binds, where whatever men do, they're wrong. However, on a much smaller scale, men's activists have begun to lock women into double binds, too." One activist wrote:

"Let's analyze the mutually self serving arrangement. Feminists like to be bi-sexual. They can satisfy their hunger for sex with a man or woman. They conspire with the Machiavellian corporate elite types to take over America, enslave as many men for profit as possible, "capitalize" upon created social policies that facilitate "the creation of the man criminal" as they load us all up on the train to Auschwitz. Never fear--reproduction is just a suave corporate metro sexual away, and to make it fun and exciting, she'll have 2 or 3 of her girlfriends join her. Then they can be gold diggers together.

"AGENDA 21 and the Feminist call to exterminate mass numbers of men reducing the overall world population of males down to 10%.

"Hey the remaining guys won't mind, that's 9 babes to a guy, and all will be kings with harems.

"Come on Glenn, quit acting like a faux men's commentator, let the ladies know a good man gets the door for them, and show some TESTICULAR FORTITUDE. For Hitlery Clinton's sake!"

Best Wishes,
Glenn Sacks
GlennSacks.com
HisSide.com

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