Messages

1

Main / The cost of a divorce

Oct 15, 2006, 05:17 AM

There is a better way than, on the one extreme, do it yourself divorce, and on the other end, hiring an attorney and racking up a $20,000 divorce bill. He only mentions it in passing, and I don't know why. It's called mediation. This person is usually certified in something or another, like counselling, or accounting, or some para-legal status. Going to a mediator was the best thing I did when going through my divorce. Of course, your spouse has to agree to it, because the mediator acts as the go-between for both of you. You may, if you like, hire your own attorney, too, but the whole idea with a mediator is to save the outrageous costs associated with attorney fees. You and your spouse agree to meet with the mediator over several sessions to settle all of your differences. And I mean everything: kids, visitation, support, insurance, household items, savings accounts, retirement accounts, etc. etc. Just like a lawyer would do. Once everything is settled out, the mediator writes it all up into a contract, which then serves as your separation agreement, and then also is used in the "divorce court" proceedings. The mediator, after all was said and done, cost us each something like $4,000, or maybe even $2,000 apiece, I can't recall right now, a far cry from the average of $20,000 for a lawyer.

Do yourself a favor. Play nice as long as you can with the soon to be ex and go to a professional mediator, someone you can both work with, of course, and save your money.

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Main / Need to find a funny video clip of stand-up woman comedian

Oct 15, 2006, 05:05 AM

Thanks, MOTS.

She is cute, isn't she?

And, what she's doing is funny because it's ironic humor. It's not male-bashing at all. In fact, it's the complete opposite. Her sarcasm is so dry that I think it even goes over the heads of many people in her audience. The young women in her audience are cheering and laughing at the very things that the comedian is warning against them becoming.

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Main / Need to find a funny video clip of stand-up woman comedian

Oct 11, 2006, 02:00 PM

Found it myself. Here it is. Her name is Tracy Smith. Very funny clip

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Main / Need to find a funny video clip of stand-up woman comedian

Oct 11, 2006, 06:15 AM

About a year or so ago there was a very very funny clip of a stand-up woman comedian posted on this board. It was no longer than 5 or 10 minutes. She did a bit about how picky younger women are with men and then how those same women turn into Chardonnay sipping drunks when they're close to 35 and now begging any man to look at them. It was a very funny and eye-opening stand-up routine. Does anyone remember that woman comedian's name and where that clip is?

Appreciate your help in locating it.

NT

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Main / She had dead spouse in the bathroom, lover in the closet

Sep 24, 2006, 06:18 AM

Ha ha ha.

Ha ha.

Ha.  :evil:

She had dead spouse in the bathroom, lover in the closet

(Court TV) -- Almost 16 hours after Martha Freeman's husband was strangled and beaten to death in the couple's upscale south Nashville home, she finally reported his death to police.

If her decision to wait was puzzling, so was the explanation she gave police.

Freeman claimed her lover, an illegal Mexican immigrant who was living in her closet, killed her husband.

She said Jeffrey Freeman had discovered him.

But prosecutors dispute Martha Freeman's version of the events that led to her husband's April 2005 slaying. They are expected to outline their theory during opening statements in the 41-year-old widow's upcoming murder trial.

Freeman and 36-year-old Rahael Rocha-Perez, her former lover, each are charged with first-degree murder in the husband's violent bludgeoning. If convicted, they face life in prison.

When police responded to the 911 call that Freeman asked a neighbor to make, they found the body of Jeffrey Freeman, 44, lying face-down in the master bathroom.

His head, which had sustained multiple blunt-force trauma injuries, was wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag and the rest of his body in a sleeping bag. A medical examiner's preliminary examination also detected possible ligature marks around his neck.

The rest of the home appeared to be undisturbed, police said. One notable exception: Several black garbage bags were found containing wet bath mats, towels, a pillow case with apparent bloodstains and wads of torn telephone cord.

Closet hideaway found
Metro Nashville Police Department detectives also found the closet that Martha Freeman claimed her lover lived in for about a month before her husband's death.

The 2-by-8-foot storage space contained a foam pad, pillows, blankets, three loaves of bread, a Nintendo GameBoy, a radio, and several adult magazines.

Investigators also found an "overnight bag," which contained lingerie and pictures of Martha Freeman in various stages of undress.

Martha Freeman was seemingly forthcoming with authorities about her relationship with Perez, whom she referred to as "Christian," and his alleged role in her husband's death sometime after 9 p.m. that evening.

Initially, only Perez was charged with Jeffrey Freeman's murder.

Martha Freeman was a witness at his preliminary hearing, providing detailed information about their relationship and the night her husband was killed.

Freeman said she met Perez at a July 4 celebration in 2004 during a rocky period in her marriage. The two went to a hotel in downtown Nashville with two of his friends, and she admitted to having "intimate" relations with the three men.

From there, the lovers conducted an on-and-off relationship with the aid of an English-Spanish translator. Perez moved into a closet in the Freeman home in March 2005.

Husband discovers couple
On the night of April 10, 2005, Freeman testified, both she and Perez were asleep in the room she maintained separately from her husband. Jeffrey Freeman discovered Perez and told him to leave.

According to Martha Freeman, her husband of 10 years then went to walk the dogs. When he returned, Perez grabbed him by the shirt collar and forced him into the bathroom at gunpoint while Martha Freeman waited outside.

"I heard water running, I heard a lot of thumping, a lot of noise," she testified at the hearing in 2005. "I was absolutely terrified of what was going on and also, if he could have done this to my husband, I'm not sure what he was going to do to me."

When asked why she didn't immediately call police, Freeman admitted she didn't "have an answer," and attributed it to the medication she was taking for bipolar disorder.

During the 16 hours before the 911 call, Freeman said she went to Walgreens to pick up a prescription for antidepressants and walked her dog twice.

She said she also called her in-laws and told them their son would not be able to talk to them, as was his common practice, because he was not feeling well.

Finally, around 4 p.m. the next day, she went to a neighbor's home and told her what had happened. The neighbor called police.

Judge disbelieves her testimony
Freeman's testimony in the preliminary hearing came to an abrupt halt, however, when the judge said he didn't believe her.

"I've got a problem with allowing this to go any further without allowing her some representation because I can see her being charged in this case," Judge Casey Moreland told lawyers. "This is so bizarre, it is hard to believe."

Four months later, in August 2005, a grand jury indicted her on one count of first-degree murder. She has been out on $75,000 bail since August 2005. Her former lover remains in custody.

Since her indictment, prosecutors have been tight-lipped about their theory about the crime. But in 2006, an investigator told the The Tennessean, Nashville's daily newspaper, that he believed much of the crime scene had been staged, including the supposed scenario of the closet lover.

Attorneys for the defendants did not return calls, but in 2006, a lawyer for Perez insisted he was innocent and suggested that Martha Freeman's involvement in the slaying was greater than she let on.

"He has always maintained his innocence, and no disrespect to Mrs. Freeman, but her credibility, her reliability, her mental stability will seriously be in question at a trial of this case," attorney Peter Strianse told the Tennessean.

Perez did not make any statements to police following his arrest.

Jury selection begins Monday afternoon in Davidson County Circuit Court.

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Main / Marriage and peoples' attitudes

Sep 01, 2006, 02:23 PM

Mr. Bad.... Sounds good but I just have to ask, Do you give HER a "honey-do-list" as well?

:-)

TMOTS

Yeah, but as I said, I don't give her anything to do that I'm not ready and willing to do myself.  I've found that if it really needs to get done, then I'm better off doing it rather than waiting for her to decide that it's time to get at the job.

Have you ever seen the film "As Good As It Gets" (starring Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholosn - or was it Mickey Rourke?)?   It's about a woman who settles for a man because she figures she can't do any better, and IMO it's an exact reversal on reality vis-a-vis the sex of the protagonist and antagonist.  IMO that's what men in the West are doing, settling.  That's what I did.  I realize that the vast majority of First World women are at the very least damaged goods, and in general not worth the time of day, so I 'settled.'  Not a very pretty proposition, but for me it was better than life alone.

If had the chance to live life over again would I get married?  I'm not sure - probably not.

That's pretty sad. You need to get a divorce.  :?

Hmm, I don't think so - I believe that at this point my life is probably better than if I were single.  Relationships have their ups and downs, so however I may feel yesterday, today or tomorrow will probably not be how I feel in 10 years time.  Plus, marriage is not something that I believe one should enter into lightly, nor take lightly or for granted once there, so for me to just "get a divorce" would be going against my marriage vows, be completely against my moral code and lowering me to the level of every woman (and man) who bails out simply because they believe they could do better.  Sorry, I hold people who take their marriage vows lightly and bail on their slightest whim to be contemptable scum, so I won't do it.

Could I do better?  Maybe.  Probably.  But is the chance that I would find the person that I would do better with reasonable?  No way.  Given the dearth of quality, marriage-worthy women out there, the odds of me doing better are less than miniscule.

I used to think just like you.

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Main / Marriage and peoples' attitudes

Sep 01, 2006, 02:21 PM

Mr. Bad.... Sounds good but I just have to ask, Do you give HER a "honey-do-list" as well?

:-)

TMOTS

Yeah, but as I said, I don't give her anything to do that I'm not ready and willing to do myself.  I've found that if it really needs to get done, then I'm better off doing it rather than waiting for her to decide that it's time to get at the job.

Have you ever seen the film "As Good As It Gets" (starring Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholosn - or was it Mickey Rourke?)?   It's about a woman who settles for a man because she figures she can't do any better, and IMO it's an exact reversal on reality vis-a-vis the sex of the protagonist and antagonist.  IMO that's what men in the West are doing, settling.  That's what I did.  I realize that the vast majority of First World women are at the very least damaged goods, and in general not worth the time of day, so I 'settled.'  Not a very pretty proposition, but for me it was better than life alone.

If had the chance to live life over again would I get married?  I'm not sure - probably not.

That's pretty sad. You need to get a divorce.  :?

Hmm, I don't think so - I believe that at this point my life is probably better than if I were single.  Relationships have their ups and downs, so however I may feel yesterday, today or tomorrow will probably not be how I feel in 10 years time.  Plus, marriage is not something that I believe one should enter into lightly, nor take lightly or for granted once there, so for me to just "get a divorce" would be going against my marriage vows, be completely against my moral code and lowering me to the level of every woman (and man) who bails out simply because they believe they could do better.  Sorry, I hold people who take their marriage vows lightly and bail on their slightest whim to be contemptable scum, so I won't do it.

Could I do better?  Maybe.  Probably.  But is the chance that I would find the person that I would do better with reasonable?  No way.  Given the dearth of quality, marriage-worthy women out there, the odds of me doing better are less than miniscule.

I used to think just like you.

8

Main / Marriage and peoples' attitudes

Sep 01, 2006, 11:57 AM

Mr. Bad.... Sounds good but I just have to ask, Do you give HER a "honey-do-list" as well?

:-)

TMOTS

Yeah, but as I said, I don't give her anything to do that I'm not ready and willing to do myself.  I've found that if it really needs to get done, then I'm better off doing it rather than waiting for her to decide that it's time to get at the job.

Have you ever seen the film "As Good As It Gets" (starring Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholosn - or was it Mickey Rourke?)?   It's about a woman who settles for a man because she figures she can't do any better, and IMO it's an exact reversal on reality vis-a-vis the sex of the protagonist and antagonist.  IMO that's what men in the West are doing, settling.  That's what I did.  I realize that the vast majority of First World women are at the very least damaged goods, and in general not worth the time of day, so I 'settled.'  Not a very pretty proposition, but for me it was better than life alone.

If had the chance to live life over again would I get married?  I'm not sure - probably not.

That's pretty sad. You need to get a divorce.  :?

Learn to follow these simple rules:
1. Do not get married.
2. If you do need to get married, see rule #1.
3. Do not date western (American) women.
4. If you do need to date an American woman, see rule #1.

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Main / Bag Lady Syndrome...so very, very stupid

Sep 01, 2006, 09:19 AM

I think this just goes to show women aren't really independant. They merely switched leash owners from husbands to the state. This is the biggest fear I have that females, out of total insecurity, will vote for oppressive socialism to replace husbands.

Ditto. It's so painfully evident, too, but nobody wants to call it what it is. Even my 14-year-old daughter is grasping in a real big way, really fast, the significant differences between boys and girls.

"Security", I think, is what a woman would be calling this. That is what is important to a woman.

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Main / Why so few men join men's movement?

Sep 01, 2006, 08:16 AM

More men's spaces where men can bond without women being around to fuck things up.  Which is one of the things feminism has been very deliberate in killing.

Which men can create anyway, anywhere, anytime. Nobody is saying here, I think, that these "spaces" have to be official and/or ruled over by referees and/or confined to some space or time. As a matter of fact, I think men (real men) have been pretty damn excellent about creating their own time-space, when they need it, where they need it, and with whomever they choose. Be prepared, though, as a man, to defend your chosen space-time from any woman, no matter how well-intentioned she is. Your woman, if she is truly a woman, will have some sense of jealousy over your very own "man time", and she will feel somewhat threatened by it. If she claims she is not, she is lying; for your sake, of course. But she's still lying. It's woman's way.

Create your time-space with your compadres.

Guard it with your life.

11

Main / Don't marry carreer women

Sep 01, 2006, 07:55 AM

...

I am a woman in a highly paid profession that is becoming female dominated (I'm a pharmacist) and our divorce rate seems to be LOWER than the national average.

....

Watch and wait. The national average salary will begin to nosedive when females start creeping up to be the majority of this profession. It has happened before and likely will happen again. Women act as niggers in the workforce. Whatever "profession" women flock to, and "take over", that profession suffers a nosedive economically (falling wages) and professionally (falling esteem), and men flee in droves. It's the same as white flight from the big cities.

Nobody wants to talk about it because it's politically incorrect, but the facts remain.

12

Main / Why so few men join men's movement?

Aug 29, 2006, 05:05 AM

Male bonding is suspiciously gay to a lot of people(including many, many men). And, even if it wasn't, the idea of men *needing* eachother is antithetical to our culture's notion of manhood as isolated, independant strength. (And also somewhat gay.) ... I'm not trying to be disparaging or insulting or depressing, I am stating an observation in the hopes that it will somehow help the effort.

I have to disagree with that last bit. My friends and I are very close. We are pratically like brothers. That bond formed in high school and it has been challenged many times only to survive. It has survived eight girlfriends, several fights and tons of posturing. I do not think we are unique either. I know a lot of guys who have very close friends who they turn to for support.

I do agree that male bonding is often viewed as gay though. I think our society, through feminism, has demoned any sort of relationships males have with each other while banking on homophobic tensions. Anybody remember the response among males to the scenes with Frodo and Sam or Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings? Part this probably stems of out the fear that if males can fulfill their intimacy needs (not sexual needs) with other males then women are essentially useless. The other is the fear that when left by ourselves males will create random havok.

I tend to agree with Typhon on this. I think, too, that at some level all women fear male friendships, because women do realize that men need other men on a very deep level to bond with. And a man cannot get this from a woman. She knows it. He knows it. And she is not happy at all about it; that is, about NOT being everything to him. Because that is what she's been brainwashed with lo these many years: to be some man's "soul mate". To be "his everything." It just doesn't work that way. So, yeah, I tend to agree that it's an uphill battle for most men to find these close-knit relationships with other men. On the upside, I see my sone has a similar relationship with many of his buddies. They are so very close as a group. Through thick and thin, it's a wonderful thing to see, really. The guys stick together with or without girlfriends, etc. etc. And that, in the end, is what women don't like about male bonding, I think. I think this is partly so because women are fearful of those close relationships. She thinks he should be happy with only her, why does he need to go out "with the boys"? It is something beyond her comprehension, though.

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Main / Why so few men join men's movement?

Aug 28, 2006, 12:51 PM

I still think feminism is controlled by pharmacuitical companies.  And it looks like they are on the verge of going shitzo.

Dan,

I marvel at the way in which you connect dots.

"...feminism is controlled by pharmaceutical companies."

Please explain? Can there be any explanation? And, finally, is that avatar your real picture?

The avatar is a picture of me when I was 16.  It was the best time of my life.

Cool. How do we post our own avatar on this board???

The reason I state that pharmacutical companies control feminism is because they "politicized" the movement into action.

The two biggest interests in the first two world wars were petroleum based companies and drug based companies.  

The short script is Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan investment groups.  They butter the feminism movement for their financial benifits.

Everyone else just sort of follow suit in regards to the economy.  But try this for a thought.  If feminism is "socialism" or a form of it, and what happens is men are forced to give over money to women.  I believe the large reason for this is because women spend more.  Men actually act as market inhibitors.  Meaning men stop women from buying a bunch of shit they don't need.  So how does the market place react?  Encourage divorce and create laws that force men to give wealth over to women, who in turn hand it over to corporations.

One of my theories is that divorce is really supported by both "government" and "business" interests because divorce helps the economy. Think about it: If you have two separate households, you are quite simply doubling the need for every type of raw material, goods, and services out there. What a cheap and easy way to boost your economy!! Just create two households out of one!! Viola!! Instant boost to your economy, because now you've generated the need for twice the amount of household goods, supplies, etc etc.

I don't think you could point to any policies or overt strategies by any entity, but I do think there's an understanding that divorce does create a demand that simply was not there before. It's simple math.

14

Main / Why so few men join men's movement?

Aug 28, 2006, 12:44 PM

Male bonding is, rather perversely, considered antithetical to manhood in our society.

Thus male solidarity is impossible.

Of course, our society is the *exception* not the rule. Hard to tell that when you're in the midst of it, but it is.

I could not disagree with you more on this. Male bonding is considered antithetical to manhood in our society? Really??? And male solidarity is "impossible"?

So, all those men storming Normandy beach, together, were not a true band of brothers?

I submit to you that women will never know -- indeed, CANNOT ever know -- this type of solidarity, in purpose, in cause, in soul, in spirit, as those men did.

15

Main / Domestic violence goes both ways, study finds

Aug 27, 2006, 06:21 PM

and a follow-up editorial by whatshername....

'Take Back the Night' for Men as Well

Every year, campuses and cities across North America hold "Take Back the Night" -- marches and rallies to protest violence against women. But surprising data suggests that men may need to reclaim 'the night' as urgently as women.

On Aug. 10, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the results of its first national Personal Safety Survey (PSS, 2005). It is the only national survey by a 'Western' country that analyzes a wide range of violence on the basis of a respondent's sex.

Thus, the PSS offers the best snapshot available of the comparative violence experienced by men and women in a society with laws and a culture similar to North America.

The results are remarkable. If valid, they have far-reaching implications for how issues of gender and violence should be addressed.

The current approach basically views women as victims and men as aggressors. The survey's bottom line: Australian men are twice as likely as women to become victims of physical violence or of threats thereof (11 percent of men; 5.8 percent of women). For the population between eighteen and twenty-four years of age, men were almost three times as likely (31 percent of men; 12 percent of women). But men were also three times more likely than women to be the perpetrators of violence.

Violence against men most often took the form of a brute physical attack rather than a sexual assault/threat. When perpetrated by another man, the assault occurred "at licensed premises (34 percent) or in the open (35 percent), however if the perpetrator was female then 77 percent of the physical assaults occurred in the home."

In some categories of violence, such as domestic violence and sexual assault, the PSS shows women as more vulnerable than men. For example, 1.6 percent of women as opposed to 0.6 percent of men experienced either sexual violence or threats in the year preceding the survey.

Overall, however, the PSS offers good news to women. One of its goals was to "expand on the 1996 Women's Safety Survey" and compare violence against women then to now. With one notable exception, violence declined; the perception of being in danger also declined.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported, "A decade ago, more than 21 percent of women felt unsafe compared to just over 13 percent in 2005."

Perhaps predictably, the public reaction of Julie Bishop -- a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives who advises the Prime Minister on women's issues -- focused on the negative news for women: violence against older women has increased since 1996. To the extent Bishop acknowledged encouraging data such as the increased reporting of crime, she credited the Women's Safety Agenda, which is tax-funded at approximately $57.5 million U.S. Bishop promised to consider the PSS's findings at an upcoming conference of Women's Ministers' from Australia and New Zealand.

Bishop may be forced to confront changing attitudes toward gender and violence. Shortly after the PSS's release, the New Zealand Herald reported on a new study. "Where only one partner in a relationship is violent, it is more likely to be the woman, University of Otago researchers have found. Researcher Kirsten Robertson, of the university's psychology department, said the finding indicated a change of thinking was required on domestic violence."

Part of that change will come from grappling with the still widely disparate views offered by studies and surveys on how many men versus women experience domestic violence. Many of the differences may be ascribed to nothing more than the methodology employed by various researchers. Despite those differences, however, both the estimates of men as victims and women as perpetrators of domestic violence seem to be rising across the board.

A new approach to gender and violence is likely to hit a brick wall of sexual politics. Much of gender policy in Australia and North America -- e.g. affirmative action, domestic violence and sexual harassment -- is rooted in ideology, in the idea that women as a class are oppressed by men as a class. But if men are twice as likely to be threatened or attacked, then the theory of women's class oppression becomes more difficult to sustain.

Even if men are more likely to be attacked by a fellow-male than a female, that does not change the fact that they are also victims of violence.

And the task of collecting quality data becomes more important because only facts stand a chance of cutting through ideology.

There is some reason to question the quality of data in the PSS.

For example, its summary states "an attempt or threat to inflict physical harm is included only if a person believes it is likely to be carried out."

This asks the 'victim' to ascribe intent to an aggressor and invites subjectivity.

Various figures are identified with "a relative standard error of 25 percent to 50 percent" or "greater than 50 percent"; this makes them unreliable. Moreover, the math in some tables does not add up; that is, when the subcategory totals are added together, the sum total is greater than the parts. (See page 5.)

Without the raw data or more methodological detail, it is not possible to tell why this occurs.

There is no reason to believe, however, that the aforementioned problems skew the data more for one sex than the other.

Other aspects of the survey, however, provide reason to suspect that violence against men could be understated or glimpsed less clearly.

Although the PSS surveyed 16,300 adults, it included 11,800 women and only 4,500 men; this means the data on women should be more reliable. Moreover, the PSS used only female interviewers; this may have encouraged women to open up but it could have inhibited men.

In short, the PSS is neither ideal nor definitive but it is probably the best current picture of gender and violence in Western society. Under that picture, the caption should read "violence is a human problem, not a gender one."

Politically correct feminists sought to define violence, within certain contexts, as a gender problem, because the perception of women as victims of men promoted their ideology that pitted men against women. This view of violence as a gender problem has been sustained because government supported the ideology and its conclusions with money and favorable law. As a result, a false view of the nature of violence and of the relationship between the sexes has been created.

Focusing on women victims is valuable for specific purposes, like counseling female rape victims, but anyone who campaigns to prevent violence against women should vigorously applaud similar efforts directed toward men.

'Take Back The Night' is for everyone.