Messages

16

Main / Re: Darwin Wrong; Social Selection, Not Sexual Selection

May 11, 2007, 07:52 AM

An interesting piece; it provides a great example of what passes for academic work these days.  I am now virtually certain that my kids will not be going to college as it is defined today.

Social selection believes that no necessary and universal sex roles exist ; what each sex does is subject to negotiation in local circumstances.

In other words, women are entitled to ZERO presumption in family court proceedings.  So far so good.

But if, generation after generation, female choice weeds out males with bad genes, then eventually no bad genes should remain, which presents an internal contradiction in the logic of sexual selection... These additional schemes have never been tested much less verified.

A semester of engineering would have helped her out here.  Every morning I take a shower and use the same towel to dry off.  After my shower, I am at my cleanest, therefore my towel gets cleaner each time I use it and there is no need to wash it.  The fly in the proverbial ointment is the second law of thermodynamics which certainly has been tested and verified, my towel stinks to high heaven.

Accordingly, a peacock's tail, a rooster's comb, etc., facilitate male-male interactions, and females are indifferent to them.

(etc=a man's bank balance)Let's see, what is a suitably academic reply...ROTFLMFAOUILBCASM (rolling on the floor laughing my f-ing ass off until I lose bowel control and soil myself.)

In some species, homosexuality is mostly between males ; in others, mostly between females; and in still others, both.

Okay, that's it, I am going to see if my grammar school English teacher is still alive and if she still has that ruler she used to hit me with.  Sometimes mostly A, sometimes mostly B and sometimes mostly both, got it.

Getting a smaller study published and then citing it as a source in a larger work is a perfectly acceptable practice.  But the final third of this piece is a piss and moan about the reactions to his/her work.  S/he complains about being "outed" as though s/he really expected that such a thing as being transgendered would and should never come to light or be considered relevant.

17

Main / Re: Sperm Donor Must Pay Child Support

May 10, 2007, 09:43 AM

Big Log says:

Well, when you have a wife who's being represented by an attorney who is a british harpie, PRO BONO.... they can easily drain you financially. The longer they drag out the divorce, they kill two birds with one stone.. they buy time to bolster credibility for her while slaying you with lawyers fees to counter every stupid little motion they file for. Believe me, it is skewed.

I went and broke one of my own rules to live by: never start a sentence with "you know what people should do..." or any variation.

The family courts are a machine of death and misery for men and clever tactics aren't going to change that, point taken.  I do think it MIGHT catch SOME women and SOME harpie attorneys off guard for a man to put the woman on the defensive for a change.  It would take the right circumstances to set the precedent.  Namely, an unimpeachably responsible man and an iresponsible woman.  As it is now, a man with an overdue parking ticket is going to lose out to a woman who is a known drug dealer.

But I still think too many men buy into the notion that children are a woman's perogative and a woman's privillege.  They go into court hoping they won't lose too much money.  There have to be some women out there that would be happy to take a one time payoff and walk away forever after they give birth.

18

Main / Re: Sperm Donor Must Pay Child Support

May 10, 2007, 08:07 AM

Easy for me to say but I would like to see more men demanding sole physical and legal custody in cases like this.  Simply walk into court and say "your honor, I am looking forward to my role as parent to this child.  The mother and her...friend are relieved of all responsibilities."

Few men would be able to overcome the prejudice in favor of women as custodial parents but the idea of treating men as wallets would encounter some resistance.

It would benefit men, honest women and especially children if the family courts began addressing custody determinations on actual merit rather than on illegal notions of chivalry, misguided attempts to redress imaginary past inequities and the following of political fashions. 

A man should walk into a custody hearing with his clean credit report, his bank statements, his clean police record, his employment history etc. and ask for a comparison with the mother's.  The fact that he is able to earn a living and be a responsible citizen should not require him to start writing monthly checks to someone who is not but to begin enjoying the miracle of fatherhood.

Single fathers should be nearly as common as single mothers but the phenomenon is so rare as to be baffling to some people when they do encounter it (restaurant hostess looks around..."is your wife parking the car?".  I think it is time to openly steal a feminist slogan and rework it for our own needs:

A single father must work twice as hard as a single mother to be considered half as good. Fortunately, this is not difficult.

19

Main / Re: Healthy Masculinity

May 09, 2007, 09:20 AM

Kate:

It IS my experience, and considered opinion at this time, that differences in gender roles are largely due to socialisation, not biology.

Gender roles, as with any kind of roles, are 100% due to socialization.  But gender itself is not a social construct.  That's the distinction some people stumble over.

To take an example: stands2p, on this thread, names 'courage' as one of the masculine virtues. I'm not disagreeing with you that it has played out historically as a 'masculine trait' - but I really wonder how this can be proved, scientifically, to be innate to men. (I'm not assuming that you think that, stands2p, BTW - I can't tell from your post.)

In the interest of clarity, courage is a virtue without regard to gender.  Anyone, male, female or indeterminate who is able to take the proper action in the face of fear and danger is showing courage.  It is the expectation that someone will show courage that is gendered (and needs to change.)  A woman will be forgiven for running from danger and leaving others behind; a man will certainly not.  A woman might be scoffed at for showing courage ("I guess she wasn't pretty enough to get a man to do that for her.")

I think legislation which sees no difference in gender, therefore, can elide the voices and experiences of those who do. But I also think legislation which recognises differences can be inherently problematic when it comes to deciding how that difference is applied to groups.

Here is a point which may be more political than truly gender related but I think the idea of an over-arching  and perfect law to meet all circumstances is a feminine notion.  I have great respect for The Law as a human construct but it is ever fallible.  The Law should certainly treat all people fairly and equitably just as bridges should never collapse and airplanes should never crash.  People should work things out for themselves a much as possible.  When people turn to government for solutions, all they get is more government.  (So it's great that you are here.)

20

Main / Amy Alkon knocks another one out of the park

May 09, 2007, 07:18 AM

http://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2007/05/diddle_he_or_di.html

Every Wednesday I grow more smitten with this sly temptress.  I say we sweep the beer cans off the couch and invite her over for cocktails.


Diddle He Or Didn't He?
Because I value trusting one's instincts, I'm prompted to write about your advice to "Uneasy," the woman whose boyfriend would go into another room to talk on the phone to his stepdaughters from a previous relationship. I feel the woman was expressing suspicion that he still had some interest in their mom out of an unwillingness to believe that he may be behaving inappropriately toward his stepdaughters. One in four women reports having been raped or molested in childhood, and stepfathers play a prominent role in those statistics. He may not be a "molester," but maybe he's asking the girls about their bodies in ways that make them uncomfortable. You should have encouraged "Uneasy" to call a truce with her boyfriend: He takes calls openly, and she drops the nagging if there isn't anything unseemly going on.

--Uneasier
Oh, the dark world of people who prefer to take their phone calls in private. Yes, this guy could be a molester, and could be asking these girls inappropriate questions about their bodies. And when I walk away from my boyfriend to take a call, I could be planning the violent overthrow of our government, and arranging to trade my neighbors' twins for a suitcase nuke -- or maybe I simply see no need for corroborating witnesses when I try to reschedule my cleaning lady.

The woman in question admitted that she had no reason to believe her boyfriend had any interest in an ex-wife he'd divorced over five years earlier, or was anything but a stand-up guy trying to remain a father figure to his very young stepdaughters. Yet, according to you, merely because he preferred to talk to the girls without his jealous girlfriend standing over him, I should have encouraged her to say something along the lines of "Hey, honey, I'll calm down if only you let me listen to your calls so I can be sure you aren't raping babies."

Warped thinking like yours makes me realize how lucky I am to be a woman and white as typing paper. Although I recently got stopped by a cop for going the wrong way on a one-way street (he rolled his eyes and let me go when he realized I wasn't drunk, just ditzy), I'm generally safe from automatic presumptions of criminality like Driving While Black or Living And Breathing While Male.

Here you are, parroting this outrageous man-bashing propaganda -- "one in four women reports having been raped or molested during childhood" -- maybe because you heard it repeated so often you assumed it was fact. This figure is a common misquote of a survey by radical feminist sociology professor Diana Russell. Although Russell presents herself as a truth-seeking social scientist, her work reflects a substantial bias against men, as evidenced by her claim, based on one of her studies, that "a considerable amount of marital sex is probably closer to the rape end of the continuum."

The actual figure from Russell's survey was an unbelievable one in 2.6 women sexually abused before the age of 18 -- a figure she arrived at with substandard sampling techniques and what UC Berkeley professor Neil Gilbert, in his book Welfare Justice, calls "research that lumps together relatively harmless behavior such as attempted petting with the traumatic experience of child rape." For example, one of Russell's questions asked, "Did anyone ever try or succeed in touching your breasts or genitals against your wishes before you turned 14?" Well, if you put it that way, even I was a victim of child sexual abuse: It was sixth grade, we were playing spin the bottle in somebody's basement, and the boy who kissed me tried to feel me up.

Should we really count a quick boob grab I got from some sixth-grader the same as the experience of some other 12-year-old girl who was repeatedly forced to have sex with her uncle? We should if we're looking to criminalize being male -- and never mind if that poisons relations between women and men, dilutes funding and attention to real victims, and leads to prejudicial policies like British Airways' that no unaccompanied minor can sit next to a man. (Which -- horrors! -- means some unaccompanied brat is more likely to be seated next to me!)

Women best protect themselves by appraising men as individuals, based on evidence, not by leaping to the assumption that "stepdad" equals sex predator. In other words, my advice to "Uneasy" stands. My advice to you? Pick up Christina Hoff Sommers' Who Stole Feminism? to get a better idea of the damage done by radical feminist activism tarted up as serious science. Contrary to what the likes of Diana Russell would have you believe, you should come to the conclusion that the answer to "Hey, Dad, how'd you meet Mom?" probably isn't "While raping her at knifepoint."

Posted by aalkon at May 9, 2007 10:10 AM

21

Main / Re: Chicago lawyer's billboard: "Life's Short. Get a Divorce"

May 08, 2007, 06:21 PM

It was vaguely gratifying to see a woman weigh in against the ad:

Karen Enright, president-elect of the Women's Bar of Illinois, shared similar feelings. "It's actually a disappointment to the profession and to the institution of marriage, which is something our community holds as sacred,'' she said. "Our profession, and lawyers in general, have been under attack for advertisements similar to this and I think,'' she said, pausing. "I think that it's not in good taste.''

Here's a tip for all young single guys: take a screen shot of the ad, print it up and get it laminated for your wallet.  When your lady friends start making wedding noises and wanting to know why you haven't made with the ring, pull out the ad and let them know life is too short to stick your head in a noose.

22

Main / Re: Healthy Masculinity

May 08, 2007, 10:54 AM

Part II
The feminist objection to the terms "masculine" and "feminine" are rooted in conspiracy and subterfuge.  A woman who got an education, earned her own honest living and took an active role as citizen in her own right was once considered "unfeminine."  To lose the virtue of one's gender is a great stigma.  Hence, women rarely did those things.  Women now have more opportunities for socio-economic participation and advancement than at any time in history, due in large part to political advances driven my men.  But socio-economic participation by men has always been predicated on the demonstration of such virtues as honesty, integrity, responsibility, generosity, courage, loyalty etc.  Feminists demand that women be allowed to participate with all the rights men have historically enjoyed but without having to display the "masculine" virtues.  Women must be allowed to lie to protect themselves from embarrassment, women are allowed to operate on different rules depending on circumstances, women must be forgiven errors of judgment and otherwise allowed to "slide" where a man would not be.
It is by disallowing the words "masculine" and "feminine" that feminists hope to create their utopia.

23

Main / Re: Healthy Masculinity

May 08, 2007, 10:33 AM

I think a lot of people get hung up on discussions of masculinity and femininity for no good reason other than vocabulary.  Masculinity and femininity are virtues. 
A virtue is not just some random good thing, it is a defining characteristic of something.  The virtue of a knife is that it is sharp.  A knife can be elegantly styled, carefully polished or jewel encrusted but unless it can cut something, it's not a good knife.  I can take a knife and hammer it until it makes a reasonably good screwdriver and then there is some question as to what it is and what its virtues are. 
If it can still cut a piece of string, it is a knife and if it can drive a screw, it is a screwdriver.  But a reasonable person can be forgiven for not being able to tell why I have this object in my toolbox (because I am a cheapskate and a packrat.)

A man who watches soap operas and cries at movies and likes to gossip on the phone is still a man and a brother and a friend and all the fine things that a person can be.  But to say that he is masculine is an attempt to control thinking by perverting language. He is welcome to call himself masculine just as he is welcome to call himself the Empress of Siam but the rest of us are welcome to disagree.

For those unfortunate people who were born with indeterminate genitalia, it is unrealistic to expect the rest of humanity to abandone the notion of gender to avoid hurting their feelings.  A child born without arms or legs must learn to function in a world of people with healthy limbs.  Also, those blessed with a whole and healthy body are bound to show compassion and understanding to those less fortunate.
Words are tools to express meaning.  If each of us has our own private language, we will never accomplish anything.

24

Main / Re: Tracking Device - How about using GPS monitoring to stop batterers?

May 08, 2007, 09:01 AM

Tracking Device
How about using GPS monitoring to stop batterers?
By Maura Kelly
Updated Friday, May 4, 2007, at 12:38 PM ET

GPS devices may help protect victims of domestic violence
Last month, 26-year-old Rebecca Griego was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend, Jonathan Rowan, as she sat in her administrative office at the University of Washington. Rowan had previously threatened to harm Griego, her sister, and their dogs, and she had gotten a restraining order. She'd also passed out pictures of him to her co-workers so they could serve Rowan the order if he showed up at the campus. And she'd moved to a new apartment and started working from home for two weeks before her death. None of this, of course, helped her.

This is a story about a failure of the family court system. When a man complains that the family court system is broken because a woman won a grossly unfair settlement, feminists are quick to say that she is an aberration and that the man is at fault for falling for her in the first place.  Surely Griego bears some responsibility for ever associating with Rowan in the first place but that perspective must be silenced early and decisively in order to advance the feminist point of view.  This paragraph uses subtle cues to establish that Becky was a nice girl and Jon was a brute. 

What might have? In fact, Washington had a good tool in place: a state law that allows judges to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of a restraining order. When judges so order, the police can keep tabs on abusers with a technology best known to people who are bad with directions: the global positioning system.

Just as GPS can find a lost driver, it can also alert cops and targets whenever a domestic-violence offender enters a restricted zone, like the area surrounding a woman's...

And here we go.  Suddenly the term offender is replaced with man and victim with woman.  We aren't talking about justice or even law anymore.  The whole point of using touchy-feely, politically correct, inclusive language is that you stay professional and don't preclude support from anyone who agrees with you in principle.  This is no longer an article about a proposed legal policy to protect victims from offenders but a gendered political measure to grant a new class of rights to women at the expense of men.

...home or office. Police put an electronic bracelet on the batterer that sends a signal to computer servers at headquarters if he goes anywhere he shouldn't. Then, if he violates a restraining order, they can call the woman to let her know that he is on his uninvited...

Be sure to specify the uninvited part.  Once in a while, when Becky is feeling frisky, like during ovulation, she likes for "The Jon-meister" to stop by for some rough play.  That's her business isn't it?

...way. The idea is to buy women crucial time, even if it's only minutes, so they can get away. The notification loop also kicks in if the offender tries to remove or deactivate the bracelet.

Riiiight, so they can get away...Every alarm system gives the occasional false positive.  The first time that phone rings in the middle of the night with news of big scary Jon, Becky is going to jump out the window in her nightie and flee into the night.  A few false alarms later, Becky is going to either wind up shooting a pizza guy with the wrong address or unplugging the phone (or getting aroused, depends on her lunar phase.)  The system turns Becky into a security system monitor which is not the same as feeling safe and protected.

In addition to their value in emergencies, GPS monitoring also may deter offenders from violating restraining orders in the first place. The Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center in Amesbury, Mass., which has been tracking the local success of GPS monitoring, has found that none of the batterers it is studying have committed any serious infractions (beyond "administrative" no-nos, like letting the batteries on their bracelets run low). Knowing the law is on to them may make batterers less likely to break it.

You could say that about any crime; why not implant everyone, or just men anyway, with tracking chips?  Show of hands: How many guys out there have ever pissed off another guy to the point where you were seriously concerned that he might show up armed and looking for revenge?  I know I have.  I am reminded of a Lynard Skynard lyric from "Mr. Breeze": I ain't hidin' from nobody, nobody's hidin' from me.  There is a thing called Karma; you reap what you sow.  Men are, hopefully, taught young that when you piss people off, they get mad so don't let your mouth write checks your butt can't cash.  When you do manage to make an enemy you are genuinely scared of, you have a problem and big-mommy government won't be able to fix it for you.

When you think about it from a battered woman's point of view, GPS surveillance seems like "a no-brainer,"...

If you think about something and then it seems like a no-brainer, you are using  the wrong definition for either "no-brainer" or "thinking."

... in the words of former Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who helped to push through a monitoring law in her state. Along with Massachusetts and Washington, six other states--Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Utah--have laws that explicitly establish parameters for the electronic surveillance of batterers. Judges in other states may be able to use GPS monitoring too, under the theory that doing so would help to enforce the kind of protection that a restraining order is supposed to (but often doesn't) provide.

To be sure, GPS monitoring for batterers isn't a cure-all. It raises civil liberties concerns (though I didn't find anyone who was eager to press that argument)....

And this lack of eagerness is the only mention of civil liberties this article contains, however...

... It's also possible that the occasional abuser might be so enraged by the cops keeping an electronic eyeball on him that he'd be more rather than less likely to get violent again. This issue comes up with restraining orders, too. The best solution, domestic-violence experts say, is for police to talk to victims, who can predict fairly accurately how batterers will respond to different punitive measures...

The BEST solution.  When a person's rights have been tossed aside, that person no longer has any incentive to act as a member of society.  The vast majority of people will submit to an unjust situation but some will not.  The Ditzy Twits song "Earl" is about a pair of women who murder a man because the family court system failed.  It is a "you go girl" favorite for women everywhere.  Adding more injustice to a screwed up system will just beget more violence.  The true BEST solution is to address the gross inequities of the family court system.

In addition, victim advocates point out that GPS monitoring can't protect women from the damage abusers can do long-distance--like leaving threatening voice messages or ruining their credit rating. But the evidence from the Geiger Center argues otherwise, because none of the guys in that study have tried to harass their victims in any way. The research is small-scale and preliminary but matches the thinking of advocates, who believe GPS monitoring will deter a range of transgressions by sending a stronger message than a restraining order that the justice system takes battering seriously. ...

The study merely shows that a larger percentage of people can be cowed into submission when they are faced with intrusive surveillance and police intimidation.  This is not news.

The real barrier to GPS monitoring is paying for it....

Well then, identifying the real barrier to anything is the first step to implementing it.  Surely women have some ideas for raising the money in our robust free market to pay for something they want...

Though electronic surveillance has gotten cheaper in recent years, it still costs $10 a day--$300 a month per offender. (In addition to the bracelets themselves, the cost includes the GPS servers and software and the salaries for the people operating the computers.) Some states, like Massachusetts, plan to make offenders pay for the monitoring themselves. ...

You didn't think I meant a bake sale did you?

That approach could backfire, however, in the case of a guy who's also required to pay child support. While he goes to jail if he refuses to pay for GPS monitoring, all that happens if he doesn't write his child-support check is that his wages may be garnisheed. So, an abuser low on funds might logically skip child support instead of the GPS payments. And if he does go to jail, he can't earn the money to pay the child support.

Another show of hands: At what point would you pull out your checkbook and ask somebody that was making your life miserable what it would take to never see or hear from them again?  You'd think even a C.S. enforcement officer would see that, from a cost/benefit analysis, some case files would be better off with a "father unknown" stamp at the top.  If a person's life is thought to be in danger, does anyone really care about the few dollars they might be able to get from the person providing the danger?

Victim advocates would prefer that the government cover the cost of monitoring.

Caution, fuzzy math ahead.

They hope it will pay for itself with savings in other areas, like a reduced need for family shelters--where one-quarter of occupants are typically fleeing abuse--and fewer pricey murder trials. One potential source of funding is the federal Violence Against Women Act of 2005. VAWA is supposed to fund states to improve the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of violent crimes against women. The question is how much money Congress will put behind it. If fully funded, VAWA could mean $1 billion for the states, some of which could go toward GPS monitoring.

Fuzzy math section ends, laws of reality resume in 5,4,3, 2, ...

Still, even if well-funded, cool new technology has its limits. Before he murdered Rebecca Griego, Jonathan Rowan went into hiding. The police never found him, so they couldn't slap him with the restraining order Griego got, and they wouldn't haven't been able to track him using GPS, either. For monitoring to work, the police must first get the bracelet on the offender.

So who is this Rowan guy?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003650491_uwshooting04m.html

Rowan had at least three aliases and two passports

His closest friends say they knew he was conning them.

I knew he would screw me over if he had the chance, but there was always something likeable about him

Rowan would often get away with his shortcomings because he had a certain charm.

we always kind of watched over our backs a little bit because we knew there was something shady about him.

Rowan threatened him, saying he "didn't know who he was messing with.

notified the FBI of his suspicions that Rowan was in the country illegally and might be dangerous

And the capper, from Becky, after all these warning signs and right before she was murdered:

I would have never expected this from him

all the magic bracelets in the world won't protect someone who doesn't have the sense to come in out of the rain.

25

Main / Re: Manliness by Harvey Mansfield

May 06, 2007, 12:26 PM

This is an outstanding book.  Mansfield uses a wide range of classical sources to look at the virtue of manliness.

The objections to this book come overwhelmingly from people who come right out and say they haven't read it.

The title is a hurdle for gender feminists but the term "manliness" is as opposed to childishness, not womanliness. 

I highly recommend it.

26

Main / Re: Firm dads lead way for kids in fat fight

May 05, 2007, 09:49 PM

This Baumrind scale is fascinating in its own right.
I will be doing some research into this.

Authoritative: High expectations, child centered
(stern but loving parent)
Authoritarian: High expectations, parent centered
(control freak)
Permissive: Low expectations, child centered
(new age, hippy parents)
Neglectful: Low expectations, parent centered
(Al & Peg Bundy from "Married, with Children" tv show)

Hold your nose and take a peek at wikipedia
The neutrality of the article is in dispute and that's
always a good sign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenting_styles

27

Main / Re: Men, Women, Emotion and the 80/20 Rule

May 05, 2007, 07:54 AM

Therapy is just one form of counseling.  Most people will not get through life without needing some sort of skilled advice.  BQ's experience with two different therapists highlights the two kinds of counseling I mean: functional, learned advice vs. an endlessly sympathetic ear.

When I was in college, I had two different academic advisors.  The first asked me lots of questions about how I was adjusting emotionally to the University environment and how I felt about my classes and professors etc.  Being a freshman, I let her guide the conversation even though I was more interested in what courses to take etc.

The advisor I had closer to graduation always began by laying my transcript and my graduation requirements side by side and talking about getting from where I was to where I wanted to be.  Towards the end of the session, he might ask: "everything going okay?" and I might say something like: "the stress is a bitch." and he'd say: "give me a call if you need anything."

I work in technology support so I see lots of people having technical problems.  Some people describe the problem and want to know how quickly it will be fixed.  Some people get hung up on trying to describe how much of a disruption the problem is and how important it is that it be fixed quickly.  I've had people try to call meetings, pulling my techs off task to discuss the urgency of fixing the problem.  I try to impress on the kids that work the incoming support calls that they are not grief counselors, their job is to get the relevant technical details but if I am too critical, they start to cry.

Auto mechanics are one of the signposts marking the great gender divide.  I think this might have something to do with certain people wanting to bring their "personal transportation needs" to a discussion about a defective transmission solenoid.  There is an advert for a car rental agency in which a woman comes in with a sleeping child on her hip and a story about a minor accident.  The rental clerks scurry around to get her a rental car and have her car towed to a repair shop, all without waking the child.  That level of service sounds excessive to me, and expensive.  Maybe women get charged more by mechanics because they ask for more.

28

Main / Re: Wife dissapears mysterously? Arrest the husband for murder!

May 04, 2007, 12:36 PM

A former lover of the missing wife of Linux programmer and accused spouse killer Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case, prosecutors informed the defense last week.

Sean Sturgeon, a one-time friend of Reiser's, had already been a focus of the defense team's efforts to shift suspicion off Reiser in the disappearance of his estranged wife, Nina Reiser. Sturgeon's alleged confession to a series of unrelated murders will likely complicate the trial, which is set to begin Monday.

(emphasis added)

Riiiight, let's not muddy the water with lots of irrelevant details.  Wife dead, husband guilty, next case.

29

Main / Re: Relative risks

May 04, 2007, 12:20 PM

Zarby, I always freaked out more walking out onto the loft of the parachute shake out shed at Bragg (flimsy metal grid, 60 feet off the floor) than I did hopping out of a C-130.

I hope you get a good video of your young man looking between his toes at that teeny, tiny river 1,000 empty feet away.

Sounds like a serious bonding op to me.

30

Main / Re: Men, Women, Emotion and the 80/20 Rule

May 04, 2007, 12:05 PM

JBPH

Counselors side with women because most women can't shut the fuck up. Counselors don't side with men because men are staring at the clock and want to see results for their dollar.

Dead on.

A smart guy will never have need of emotional counseling.  The CS rolls tell me not every guy has been successful in this.  Some guys are sitting there, watching that clock, listening to Sally prattle on and wondering if the divorce might be the better deal after all.

If there is any saving grace, it is that some women will want to impress their counselor/therapist with their progress.  Some women tend to compete with each other to see who is the most skilled in matters of emotion.  If they come in week after week with more tales of woe, they are afraid their shrink will think they are emotionally incompetent.  If you ever are dragged into the dreaded marriage counselor's office , the light at the end of the tunnel comes when "Sally" begins to open each session with an example of how things are getting better.

As JBPH says, counseling can be a way to improve your position regarding potential divorce.  It helps to know what to expect.