I've been known to enjoy a good cigar from time to time--it's a pleasant way to kill time waiting for the foursome ahead of you to get off the green--but I usually have to buy my own. I guess I should have listened to my mother and become a lawyer...or at least a judge.

The connection, in case you're wondering, is in this CNN/AP Wire story, 'Cigar-loving judge convicted of fixing divorce cases'. It seems a retired New York State Supreme Court judge, Gerald Garson, has just been found guilty of accepting bribes--in the form of expensive Dominican cigars and some cash, to boot--in exchange for giving hot-shot divorce lawyer Paul Siminovsky 'lucrative guardianships in child custody cases' and advice on how to win his cases.

Siminovsky, honourable member of the bar that he is, readily agreed to turn state's evidence when, in 2002, 'a woman reported that a courthouse crony told her that her husband, a client of Siminovsky, had arranged to bribe Garson, who was overseeing the couple's divorce.' Based on that, the cops arrested Siminovsky and sent him to have matzoh ball soup with the Brooklyn judge--no, I'm not kidding--while wearing a wire. In between slurps, the Judge Garson was overheard 'sharing strategy' with Siminovsky. On another tape, jurors heard Garson asking Siminovsky why he had slipped a box of cigars into his desk. 'You gave me little pointers,' was the reply.

I guess the jury didn't think those 'pointers' had anything to do with his golf swing....

--- JXS (21-04-07)

Another 'trashy celebrity divorce' story? Well, yes...but this one's got some serious elements to it, believe it or not.

Alec Baldwin made big headlines this week with one of the stupidest moves I've seen in years: leaving a voice-mail for his 11-year-old daughter, blasting the pants off her. Naturally the custodial parent, ex-Mrs Baldwin (better known as Kim Basinger), jumped on this like a shark on a bleeding swimmer, and now, if you want to, you too can hear it: Apparently it's all over the web. If my Editor in Chief allowed the word 'Duh!' in these august pages, I'd use it here. Jeeezus, Alec. What were you thinking...?

Aside from everyone agreeing that Baldwin just shot himself in both feet and the head, as far as his six-year custody battle is concerned, it's pretty apparent that he just wasn't thinking: He was just pushed over the edge, and that's the subject of Behind Baldwin's Tirade, a lengthy and serious feature news item currently running on the ABC News site.

It's something a lot of us can understand quite well. '[Baldwin] said he was "sorry for losing my temper with my child",' reads the story, 'but claims that he has "been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now".'

From there, reporter Andrew E. Fies goes on to examine PA quite seriously, not something one usually finds in the Hollywood-divorce beat. This one's worth a read for more than prurient interest.

---JXS (20-04-07)

One of the big problems facing fathers who've done the lion's share of the child-care and household work before their wives grabbed the kids and split is that nobody believes them. Especially the typical family court judge, who (according to my ex-lawyer) figures any man who voluntarily chooses to do that kind of 'drudgery' has a few screws loose and shouldn't be trusted with the kids unless his wife is there to make sure he does it right....

Not to mention the razzing he gets from 'the guys'. This is the opposite face of the coin on which the so-called 'stay-at-home-mom' lives: For her, it's taken for granted she's naturally equipped to do that stuff, but for the last thirty years the feminist manifesto has refused her permission to be proud of it. Only recently has the stay-at-home-mother begun to be validated in popular culture once again...or has she?

Andrea Gordon, the Toronto Star's family issues reporter, takes issue this week with that premise in her column, Enough of the Mommy Wars Debate. It's a particularly well-written critique of the guilt-trip the feminist movement has tried to lay on stay-at-home mothering. According to Gordon, house-mommies are 'routinely vilified in the popular press and the mom lit for such crimes as: letting down the sisterhood, taking over the PTA, micromanaging their children's lives, hanging out in Starbucks, and most recently in Leslie Bennetts' new book The Feminine Mistake, blithely forfeiting their financial futures.'

Apparently, Bennetts was exasperated by the 'public glorification of stay-at-home-motherhood'...but Gordon has trouble with that. She says, 'I must have missed something. The financial risks are a valid and important point, and she illustrates them well. But, the Martha Stewartization of society notwithstanding, when exactly were stay-at-home moms publicly glorified? And don't tell me it was in Desperate Housewives.'

What's perhaps most gratifying for fathers is her conclusion that the Mommy Wars really ought to get a new label. 'The good news,' says Gordon, 'is this is gradually moving beyond being strictly a women's issue. Not that you'll see that in the mom lit, where dads are generally portrayed as useless, uninvolved or worse, written out of the whole equation. The newest wave of dads is more hands-on and increasingly willing to adapt their work arrangements around child care needs or their spouse's work.'

Ah, yes. It's always nice to be recognised....

---JXS (16-04-07)

Diane Camper, writing in the Baltimore Sun on Redifining Fatherhood, tells of a photographic exhibit called "Dads," which will be on display at Baltimore's Eubie Blake Cultural Center until April 28. While it is not a major exhibition (it contains only about a dozen black-and-white pictures), the work of New York-based photographer Stephen Shames conveys 'the affection and joy of low-income fathers ... as they participated in various activities, from changing diapers to playing the violin, with their children.' Mr Shames, writes Ms Camper, wanted to 'break the stereotype of low-income men as "deadbeat" or abusive dads.' That's a laudable aim with which we can have no quarrel.

It should be noted that Mr Shames' exhibit contains only photographs of fathers who were involved in a 'responsible-fatherhood' program of some sort. Whether that's intended as a political statement by the photographer isn't completely clear, but Mr Shames was quoted as saying, 'Rarely do we see "marginalized" men in a positive role, nor do we witness supports for struggling low-income dads.' We agree there, too.

Ms Camper quite rightly points out how government assistance policies focus 'disproportionately on mothers,' while generally reserving for men only the tender mercies of the child support enforcement and criminal justice systems. She also mentions as an exception to this general rule the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, a Baltimore program which aids about 200 men each year.

Finally, she reports the signing of a new Maryland law which--for fathers who stay current with child support payments for a year--will forgive 50% of the arrears charged to them for repayment of mothers' welfare benefits. The law would also forgive 100% of such arrears to those fathers who manage to keep up with child support obligations for a full two years. Here is where we wish she'd gone further.

Sadly, while applauding this generous-sounding initiative (which doesn't, by the way, appear to affect current or ongoing welfare-repayment obligations), what Ms Camper doesn't address is the underlying fallacy of welfare-repayment laws themselves. That's unfortunate, as she obviously has her heart in the right place.

It's as if the inequity at the root of the proposition has been glossed-over by so many for so long that it has become a non-issue, unworthy of criticism. We hear no one demanding the state justify charging back the mother's welfare benefits to the father in the first place. Instead, there is just an assumption that it's his fault she's on welfare...which of course begs several quite serious questions no one is answering.

Until that's cleared up, any forgiveness of welfare arrears on the part of the state, while welcomed for the practical relief it will grant fathers affected, still must be likened to a slave-owner patting himself on the back for promising to whip his slaves less in future if they'll only behave better....

---JTS (14-04-07)

The view of men as disposable parents isn't, thank goodness, universal, even amongst such theoretically pro-feminist people as the Women's Editors of major newspapers. This week, Kira Cochrane of The Guardian, writes pointedly in The New Statesman ('Hostages to Family Fortune') of how unfair--and counterproductive--it is to automatically equate motherhood with parenting. Says Cochrane, 'Those who argue that traditional mothers are the be-all and end-all are making fathers seem expendable.'

What piqued her ire in particular was the way in which the British press commented on the fifteen Royal Navy sailors recently emprisoned by Iran in what was arguably a power-play for political visibility. '[S]ince they were captured,' writes Cochrane, 'we've learned little about them, beyond the fact that [Leading Seaman Faye] Turney is a mother. From the moment the hostage story broke, Turney's parental status was placed front and centre....'

But the parental status of the other fourteen sailors is never mentioned. Worse, the general drift of the pundits was to criticise Turney (or the Government) for risking her life sailing in those troubled waters. After all, she is a mother....

Comments Cochrane: 'Reading much of this commentary, I was struck at first by how critical it was of Turney - an impression which persists. As I read on though, what quickly became even more startling was just how contemptuous these arguments were of fathers. The fact that the parental status of male captives is so rarely mentioned in these situations,' she continues, '...creates the implicit suggestion that fathers matter less than mothers.'

According to her, more than a few commentators spelled this out in black and white. She lists as two examples Jill Parkin of The Daily Mail and Carole Malone of The Sunday Mirror, who both wrote that while it might be 'unpalatable or un-PC,' the loss of a mother is a much worse for a child than the loss of a father.

Cochrane disagrees. 'Reading the arguments that arose last week..., it seems obvious that the opposite is true. The progressive women I know who are keen to have kids are also keen to share the parenting equally with their partners (male or female). A major part of male identity is - and always should be - their potential role as a father, and the people who are actually undermining this most seriously are those who cling to an old-fashioned notion of the family and society.'

---JTS (05-04-07)

Back to celebrity divorce stories we go this week--sorry, I just can't help myself--but this time there's a nice twist to report. Its seems that Heather Mills, Sir Paul McCartney's soon-to-be-ex, is complaining about the way she's being whacked by the press since she and gazillionaire Paul split last July. 'People label me a gold digger and, if I was, I would've been a very wealthy woman when I met Paul, and that wasn't the case at all,' she says in an AP report running on CNN's Buzz News currently. While I'm not entirely sure I follow that reasoning, I'm more than willing to let it go in light of what else she had to say.

Mills, who has an artifical leg (she lost the real one in a motorcycle accident in 1993), is one of the celebrity dancers on the television program, 'Dancing with the Stars,' produced in Los Angeles. She said, 'Starting in a few weeks, I will start flying back and forth to England every week to be with my daughter as she goes back to school. My husband and I share 50/50 custody because I've always felt the father is just as important as the mother.'

Now that's good to hear from someone as highly visible as Mills. Thank you, ma'am. This reporter, at least, will reserve his celebrity-bashing for Anna-Nicole from here on in.

---JXS (04-04-07)

With all the nasty 'deadbeat dad' stories flooding the press this week--a lot of them 'bandwagon' pieces in response to the furor over the 'pizza-box' story (see below)--it is good to see a positive article on this very difficult subject. Peggy O'Farrell, a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer, writes in Young dads to get job training, counseling of an initiative in Ohio's Hamilton County that is aimed at helping young fathers who are $2,000 or more behind on their child-support payments. 'The REAL (Responsible, Effective, Accountable, Loving) Dads program, a joint effort by Lighthouse Youth Services and Hamilton County Job and Family Services, offers parenting classes, education and job training to men 17 to 24,' she reports.

There is no direct financial aid involved, but program director Calvin L. Williams says that at least one construction company has offered to hire 'graduates' of the training program, which is funded by a five-year, $2.5-million federal grant. He also pointed out how hard it is for some men to rise above the stereotypes.

"One of our challenges is trying to push down the myth that these are people who don't want to pay their child support," he said.

Shawn Stark, a young father who owes about $10,000 and wants to pay it, said the child support system is weighted against noncustodial fathers. "The mom can get all kinds of help. She has assistance from the day the kids are born. The dads, they just give us a bill and say we have to work to pay it while she gets to better her life. We don't get that chance," he said.

---JTS (31-03-07)

In Florida, a sex-change operation does not end one's alimony obligation. At least for the moment.

The Associated Press has reported a decision from the Florida State Circuit Court which addresses a newly emerging problem in domestic relations law. The case has received widespread general press attention because it involves a 'transgendered' person whose former husband petitioned to stop alimony payments because she had undergone a sex-change operation.

Circuit Court Judge Jack R. St. Arnold rejected plaintiff's arguments in a ruling today. According to press reports, attorneys for Lawrence Roach, 48, had argued his 55-year-old ex-wife's decision to switch genders and change her name from Julia to Julio Roberto Silverwolf voided their 2004 divorce agreement which called for him to pay her $1250 alimony per month until she died or remarried.

"It's illegal for a man to marry a man and it should likewise be illegal for a man to pay alimony to a man," argued John McGuire, one of Roach's attorneys.

Judge St. Arnold, however, ruled that in the eyes of the law, nothing changed significantly enough to free Roach from his obligation. The judge said since Florida courts have ruled sex-change surgery cannot legally change a person's birth gender, Roach technically is not paying alimony to a man.

The judge was also quoted as saying, 'There's not a lot out there to help us in this case.' Attorneys for both sides were only able to find one other similar case, a 2004 Ohio Appeals Court decision, which stated that a sex-change operation wasn't reason enough to violate the parties' alimony agreement.

In a rare display of judicial deference, the judge appealed to the legislature to settle the question. "Gender definitions are a question that raises issues of public policy that should be addressed by the Legislature, not the Florida courts," St. Arnold wrote.

---JTS (31-03-07)

The first thought that came to me while reading this Washington Post story was the Æsop's fable title, 'Dog in the Manger.' It seems that NOW, the US's best-funded and most powerful uberfrau feminist group, has filed a complaint against the government for funding programs designed to help fathers become better fathers.

According to Post reporter Christopher Lee, 'NOW and Legal Momentum, another advocacy group, filed complaints yesterday with the Department of Health and Human Services alleging sex discrimination in the initiative that is funding about 100 programs this year.' The amount of funding comes to some $50 million nationwide, most of it going to local fatherhood initiatives administered by municipal governments in cities around the country. NOW is targeting 34 local programs, including a five-year, $2 million-a-year award to the D.C. Department of Human Services which expects to help as many as 2,500 low-income fathers with parenting skills, substance-abuse prevention and treatment, job training and educational development.

You'd think that's a pretty good way to spend tax dollars, but NOW wants the programs to be open to women, too, claiming that Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in all federally-funded programs. Put that way, it's difficult to disagree: We can't holler about our sex being discriminated against while standing by and letting the other ones suffer the same fate. So we agree with NOW: Let the women into those programs. Fair is fair.

I have no problem with women learning to be better fathers.

---JXS (29-03-07)

Kathleen Parker, the straight-talking social critic from the Washington Post Writers Group, has a way of cutting through the silliness and shouting to pinpoint the underlying issue better than most. This week, appearing in the San Antonio Express News, she tackles the anti-new-age phenomenon of the Christian Fundamentalist 'Purity Ball' in Extreme Fathers of the Virgin Bride.

What's that you say? You don't know what a 'purity ball' is? According to Parker, it's nothing more than the modern--although exaggerated--equivalent of the old-fashioned Debutante Ball, a hangover from pre-Liberation days which is still popular in certain parts of the United States. The operative difference, she points out, is that after the Debutant Ball, the debs 'go get sloshed and crash with their dates.' Apparently this doesn't happen with purity balls, because the dates are the girls' fathers. All to the good, one would think....

But not everyone sees these purity balls so benignly. Says Parker, 'Critics of the purity balls marshal the usual feminist arguments. The fathers, they say, are trying to keep women in their subordinate place, reiterating the oppressive patriarchal structure of Christian homes and the broader society they seek to control.'

Oh, dear. Sounds like another case of the radical-Left calling the radical-Right 'extreme.' Thanks to Ms. Parker for sticking the pin into both of them....

---JTS (26-03-07)

'Karen's Pizzeria, can I take your order please.'

'How much is a large anchovy & peppers?'

'Well, buster, if your face is on the box, it's gonna cost you $21,200.00...plus delivery and tip.'

Hoo-boy, what's next? According to this Associated Press story on CNN Karen's Pizzeria & Catering in Hamilton, Ohio, is one of three pizzerias in Butler County north of Cincinnati which are gluing 'Wanted' posters on their boxes. But there's a twist: the desperadoes pictured in these posters are--you guessed it--wanted for child support.

Butler County Child Enforcement Agency Executive Director Cynthia Brown told the AP that she had an idea one night when she was ordering pizza. 'It suddenly dawned on me,' she is quoted as saying, 'that most people running from the law don't eat out, they order pizza.'

Director Brown, whose county is north of Cincinnati, seems to have missed the obvious inference that by extending her own logic, she too could be supposed to be running from the law. But she nevertheless managed to persuade three pizza parlours (out of the 59 listed in the Hamilton, Ohio, Yellow Pages) to stick posters with mug shots of her '10 Most Wanted' list on their boxes. This has resulted in one arrest since August, when the program began, according to the AP.

Not everybody thinks this is such a wonderful idea, however. The AP quotes Maury Beaulier, a Minnesota attorney who focuses on fathers' rights cases, as calling the tactic 'horrible.'

'It's just a way of shaming people,' said Beaulier. 'Many circumstances can cause people to get behind in support payments, but that doesn't make them deadbeats.'

Widespread public shaming also can devastate the children, said Michael McCormick, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. "Think how children feel to see a parent on a wanted poster and know their friends might see it," he said.

But such sentiments haven't stopped Ms. Brown, or Karen Willis, owner of Karen's Pizzeria, who claims she hasn't had any complaints since she started putting these posters on her Pepperoni Specials. You want fries with that? Give her a call: (513) 737-8111.

---JXS (25-03-07)

The Father's News Browser is updated as interesting stories come in. For older News Browser editions, please see the Archives Page.