Lovesick - how do men decide to get married

Dr. Helen interviews Alex WELLEN about his book "Lovesick" where he explores how men make the decision to marry. This segment is called "July 31, 2009 - Marriage Myths Dispelled and Does Size (of The Ring) Really Matter?".

• He wrote it because felt there was a misconception about how men feel about marriage - do they have fear of commitment, feel boxed in, or feel lack of assets/employment disqualifies them?.
  
• This is actually a novel - despite doing research that led him to interview many men about their experiences and decisions.
• Questions about doubts about future risks of marriage - worry about divorce, kids, assets etc.
• Seem to get alot of advice from parents, not peers. As well as feedback about their "selection".
• What advice did you find useful? How do men "assess" the right women - points, others opinions, rational/analytical processes?
• What do men get from this? To read a book! (Catcher in the Rye?) that they can identify with.

Alex is an occasional writer with the NYTimes and was a senior producer for CNN "The Situation Room with Wolf BLITZER" - here was one of his pieces I found interesting.

Barbara KAY address the insipid banality of the press

I can't help but admire everything Barbara KAY writes - and I try not to gush believe me - but despite this restraint and her most recent article not being a of critical import to men, she has a very good point!

I wouldn't normally dignify such lifestyle bumf with a column, but it struck me that the hoopla around this silly book falls into a cultural pattern, according to which the media eagerly aggrandize purveyors of utter banality, as long as they are advocating for the abandonment of demonstrably valuable social norms.

and,

[the modern syllogism presented]: Non-reproductive sexuality-pride, infidelity-pride (see Chatelaine's July feature, "An affair to remember"), divorce-pride, anti-children pride: In this topsy-turvy politically correct world, the media have glommed onto the mantra that poor is rich, even if it's only the exhibitionistic, the immature, the egotistical and the narcissistic who keep repeating it.

How true.

Another DV Myth - for the police

Another DV Myth "debunked" by Glenn SACKS.

"Domestic violence situations are, by far, the number one reason that police officers are wounded on duty."

From Milwaukee WI "Domestic Violence Calls No. 1 Cause Of Police Injuries, Experts Say" but who are these "experts"? Employee's from a Women's Shelter would be the last I would call "expert" and surely a journalist would realize they are merely promoting their own interests by inciting fear over DV (Doesn't anyone ever fact/gut check anymore?)

So ok, True or False? Actually it is hard to say from the FBI Stats. Factually "Disturbances" DO PRODUCE THE LARGEST NUMBER of assaults upon police, but there are a few caveats.

1) The "Disturbance" category is NOT ALL "Domestics" - it includes "Regular" disturbance (bar fight, person with firearm, etc.) as well. Hence we can not attribute ALL THE Assaults' to "Domestic Disturbances". We do not have this breakdown.

2) Likewise, Injury's are not broken-down within the total so we have no idea of the number of injuries from ANY Distrubance - Regular or Domestic - as it is not disclosed. Overall for 2007 there were Total Assaults of 59, 201 which led to 15,749 injury's (26.6% of Assaults). (Out of 57 Fatalities in 2007 only 5 were from Disturbances - see data here).

3) To claim DV calls are the MOST DANGEROUS (or even MOST LETHAL) requires the "rate of incidence" or Assaults/Injuries per Service Call - which is not provided by the FBI data.

So despite Glenn's contention it is hard to tell. Glenn's post claims that the FBI Stats on Police Assaults and Deaths show this not to be true, but I am afraid these tables lack the correct data to corroborate that claim. In fact they parallel the Women's Shelter story BUT ONLY because "Disturbances" (including Domestic Disturbances) account for 31.7% of all Assaults upon Police while on duty. As such it is true that "Disturbances" cause the largest number of police assaults incidents among the 10 circumstances recorded - including Robbery, Traffic Incidents, Ambush and others.

However as it turns out Glenn's comments WERE TRUE in referring to a study carried out by a few enterprising criminologists to establish this useful measure in 1994;

The contribution of domestic violence calls to the danger of police work has been a matter of major concern to police, policy makers, and researchers for decades. Building on prior research, the authors examine three years of data on police calls for service, assault, and injury to determine the danger of domestic violence in relation to other types of calls. Of the 10 categories of police activity examined, domestic disturbance ranked fourth in the ratio of assaults to calls for service and fifth in the ratio of injuries to calls for service. No significant differences were observed in the background characteristics of victims and offenders in domestic disturbance and other incidents. Consequently it was recommended that policies to enhance officers' safety be directed mainly at handling incidents in general rather than being geared specifically to responding to domestic disturbances.

[From "The relative contribution of domestic violence to assault and injury of police officers" by J. David Hirschel; Charles W. Dean; and Richard C. Lumb of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte - Published in the journal Justice Quarterly, Volume 11, Issue 1 March 1994 , pages 99 - 117]

Boy's reading ability worse than girls in Ontario

In the Winnipeg Free Press last week, this article entitled Closing the Gender Gap on Reading describes a study to uncover how to improve boy's reading ability - which continues to lag girls and has in fact gotten worse.

"The gap actually tends to grow as kids get older," Klinger said. Nobody seems to know exactly why.

The education equality office "would like to reduce the gender gap, but we've said to them that you can't even begin to address that until you understand it," he said.

"So that's what we're working on. Don't expect the answers yet because we're only now starting to look at this. This has not been on the radar really until the last five years. It's a really complex problem."

When I asked Klinger why Ontario was able to close the gender gap in math but not the one in reading, he replied, "Because we focused for years on the needs of girls."

Interesting if not candid admission.

Some more truths about IPV

Harry CROUCH of the Men's Legal Defense Group in California presents a brief essay about the real truths about IPV. It has a number of useful links and is brief and to the point. In particular it is worth remembering that California was the battleground where Women's Shelters have been forced to open services to men or have their funding retracted. They are appealing the ruling.

In addition was this article by Gerhard Amendt that (fairly accurately) describes Women's Shelters in Germany to Misandry Training Centers. Of course the same could be said about Canada. He suggests changing this mandate to become Family Conselling Centers open to men, women and families. His [translated] website is here.

Another strange US/Canada domestic homicide

Ryan Alexander Jenkins , formerly of Calgary AB has had an arrest warrant issued in the US for the suspicious murder of his swim-suit model wife, Jasmine Fiore in LA. Her body was found gruesomely mutilated supposedly to hinder identification but which was foiled by the serial numbers on her breast implants.

Jenkins is the son of a well-known and affluent architect in Calgary. Ryan has not been apprehended and it is claimed he is "armed and on the run". This can not end well as currently scripted but I hope we shall learn more.
It presents another sad cross-boarder intrigue.

Excessive Child Support Awards lead to violence

This movie - Support? System Down - was ready for release last year (Sept 2008) and starts with footage shot by a TV crew inside the Tyler TX courthouse when David Hernandez Arroyo Sr. began his shooting rampage on Feb 24, 2005 that eventually left his ex-wife, a bystander who attempted to intervene and himself - dead.

It highlights the problems faced by many men (and some women). Recently in Atlanta GA, Frank HATLEY was released from jail after 13 mths imprisonment for non-payment when it was proven by DNA tests the child he had been paying for for 23 years was not actually his.

We have similar situations here in Alberta.

[thanks to Paul RAEBURN's blog "About Fathers" for these stories]

Nancy COOPER Murder - 1 year later

Newspapers in Raleigh NC continue to publicize all of the summonses the Raleigh/Durham Police make in gathering evidence against the prime suspect - her former husband, Brad. The latest refer to subpoena's for computer hard-drives.

On the anniversary of her death - July 15 - Nancy COOPERS parents, Gary & Donna RENTZ of Edmonton AB were in Raleigh NC to witness the inaugural fun-run to raise money for women affected by IPV.

Brad denies involvement in his former wife's death but according to police - he has not been "cooperative" (which could mean not answering questions without a lawyer present). Because of the couple's Canadian roots there is a lot of interest in this case. Nancy father Gary was a fairly high up manager within Alberta Family Services for a number of years.

Here is some comments about the case from a Canadian advocate for stronger parole conditions by Carolyn Gardner who's sister was murdered by a violent serial killer in Toronto in 1989. She has no connection apart from being a vociferous supporter of prosecutions for IPV. (Hard to argue with so long as it is not gender biased.)

Another news item was this:

A woman who helped in the rape, torture and murder of an Alberta man has requested full parole, according to Parole Board documents. Yvonne Johnson, who has been helping care for two grandchildren on day parole, has been treated for depression. She was convicted of first-degree murder for her part in the death of Leonard (Chuck) Skwarok in a basement in Wetaskiwin, Alta., in 1989.

There was a fair bit of disagreement about Yvonne JOHNSON take on Chuck from his family at http://hisnameischuck.org

So You Think You Can Divorce!

A lighter moment. A sequel to their "Wedding" - which was pretty inspired!

JK Divorce Entrance Dance @ Yahoo! Video

Indigo Productions, a successful New York-based production company, has created a divorce court parody of the video that mimics the wedding party dancing down a church aisle to Chris Brown's hit "Forever." [nice touch!]

(I like the paralegals and court clerks best.)

Perfect example of feminist spin

I suppose I am as guilty as anyone of being taken in by hyperbole and sometimes may have confused bluster for bombast and conviction. But given the sad development last week in Smith AB where a grandfather Ian PAGET, allegedly murdered his wife, daughter, and grand-daughter and then committed suicide - it seems premature, not to mention unseemly for this feminist blogger from the United States [apparently] to be making PRONOUNCEMENTS LIKE THIS within days of the discovery:

"Would this have happened if Terry Eliuk had just let his ex-wife and children leave? (Notice that this story is only a slight variation on usual the family annihilator theme of blaming the female victims. In this case the media reports their ostensible spendthrift habits, and hints at the maternal grandmother's wanting to leave, but says absolutely nothing about the genderized killings, while the men try to "understand" each other's stressors.)"

This is beyond distasteful and heaps a different kind of "abuse" on an indignity to suggest that Terry ELIUK was to blame. In fact is not a stretch to say he saved his son from his sister Misty's fate. But, sad to say I am not surprised as many of these feminist bloggers do little more than shill for their radical sisters inserting spin where none exists. There has been an awful crime committed, but we will never learn the real reasons why and certainly not from those most affected by it.

Also, please note that there are NO excoriating comments on the aforementioned blog about football star Steve McNair's murderous girlfriend who shot him 4 times while asleep before turning the gun on herself. Or former wife of Artuo GATTI, one of the most exciting young lightweight boxers ever from Montreal who was found dead - apparently at his own hand after failing to quell his wife's marital dissatisfaction and the wealthy life he gave her. Or Quebec women, Louise DESNOYERS who drowned her eight-year-old son in August 2006 and was sentenced last month, but was unable to follow through with her own planned suicide. Or Adele SORELLA of Laval QC, who murdered her two daughters on April 2, 2009 and then carelessly crashed her Lexus into a wall. Or Michelle CAMIRE of Winnipeg MB who admitting battering one of her 3 newborns on Oct 22, 2004 and called 911 to admit as much. Or ..... I could go on but why depress oneself.

[archive of articles in scribd]

Dads on the Air - Canadian Show

I recently learned about a top rated radio program for fathers in Australia called Dad's on the Air (www.dadsontheair.net) because tonight they were supposed to be streaming a live radio show over the internet with a number of high profile Canadian Guests. (Unfortunately, I could not get the feed. I am sure I can listen to the podcast in a few days and will link whe available. The program airs on www.893fm.com.au.)

Anyways, the show runs weekly and podcasts each program. A few weeks ago (July 7, 2009) they featured Canadian MP, Maurice VELLACOTT - who of course is the sponsor of C422 - The Equal Parenting amendment. He was ok.

Much more interesting in my opinion were the 2 other guests - Michael Green and Sue Price.

Sue PRICE is a director of The Men's Rights Agency, and she gace an interesting rundown of the Australian Ombudsman's Office recent negative review of the Child Support Agency (CSA) which found poor and inconsistently followed protocols. It was Deja Vue all over again and felt just like home!

Michael GREEN has co-written a book on Shared Parenting, just published in the USA. He spoke at length about the benefits of Shared Parenting.

This is a group worth hearing.

NDVH makes surprising admission

Glenn SACKS had this post today from the San Luis Obispo Tribune:

Men are often silent victims of domestic violence

It mentions the U.S National Domestic Violence Hotline (www.NDVH.org) but notice that it's a helpline for "domestic violence," but if you want to know whether you're a victim, "violence" all of a sudden becomes "abuse." And there are 15 sets of things that can constitute "abuse," but only one of them is physical violence.

That's absolutely standard procedure on sites like the NDVH's. There's a seamless and (the organization hopes) unnoticed transition from violence to abuse which miraculously consists almost not at all of actual violence. Thus is the definition of "violence" expanded beyond all recognition. Thus is the number of victims increased accordingly. Thus is the funding for "domestic violence" programs, shelters, etc. also increased.

However, the Top 3 Reasons Men stay with their abusers?

1. Protecting their children.

Fearing the courts will automatically give custody to the mother, the father worries that his children will be abused if they leave the family home.

2. Assuming blame.

In this situation, men buy into the woman's reasons for delivering abuse rather than recognizing the abuse is unreasonable. This trait is common among both women and men.

3. Dependency.

The man is dependent on the woman for financial, social, or emotional support and fears the loss of such if he leaves the relationship. This trait, too, is shared between women and men suffering abuse.

I didn't expect to see that.