Des Moines Iowa Lawyer Works as Prostitute; Urges Decriminalization

The obvious joke is that lawyers screw you over one way or another. At least with this attorney you'll hopefully leave the experience with a smile on your face.

DES MOINES, Iowa —
A Des Moines attorney is unveiling her life as a part-time prostitute.The mom, wife, attorney and prostitute, Katherine Sears, hopes that by shining a light on her lifestyle, she can help decriminalize prostitution. “I like sex,” Sears said. “Sex is fun and I can get paid for it.”

She began working as a prostitute three years ago, at the age of 27. Sears travels to Nevada, where prostitution is legal, and works in a brothel.

“You can make a job out of this? That’s fantastic,” Sears said. “Why would I not do this?” By speaking about her experience, Sears hopes to educate people on a taboo topic.

“I think a lot of people are upset about prostitution without understanding what it is they are being upset about,” she said. “Which is really frustrating because it’s hard to talk somebody out of something when they are just entrenched in, ‘No, this is what’s right.’”

Judge says FGM is not a Federal Crime

This story touched a lot of different controversial topics: conservative judicial attempts to limit federal legislative authority, immigrant and religious refusal to hew to American standards, women's rights and feminism, double standards around FGM and male circumcision, and even American civil rights history where the federal government turned a blind eye to racist malfeasance in various states, claiming that it was the state's responsibility to bring charges, not the federal government's. 

Detroit — Federal prosecutors will not appeal a judge's order dismissing female genital mutilation charges in the first criminal case of its kind nationwide, concluding the law is weak and needs to be rewritten. The decision delivers a setback to international human-rights groups opposed to female genital mutilation that have closely followed a case that has raised awareness in the U.S. of a controversial procedure and prompted Michigan to enact new state laws criminalizing the procedure. 

"Although the department has determined not to appeal the district court's decision, it recognizes the severity of the charged conduct, its lifelong impact on victims, and the importance of a federal prohibition on FGM committed on minors," Solicitor General Noel Francisco wrote in a letter to Congress on Wednesday.

Waitress Body Slams Groping Customer

Don't hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself!
-The Georgia Satellites

One Mr. Ryan Cherwinski was evidently so infatuated with the backside of one Miss Emelia Holden, a waitress at a restaurant that he was patronizing that he decided to reach out and touch it. Well that turned out to be a very bad idea, not only morally but consequentially. Holden reached out, grabbed Cherwinski and body slammed him before giving him a piece of her mind. Cherwinski was later arrested and charged with sexual battery. Now, not only will Cherwisnki get his fifteen minutes of fame as a man who's unable to keep his hands to himself, but he will also be known as a man who got his butt kicked by a woman. 

Emelia Holden, 21, didn’t hesitate to take matters into her own hands when a man groped her during her shift at Vinnie Van Go-Go’s in Savannah, Georgia on June 30.
In surveillance footage of the incident, 31-year-old Ryan Cherwinski is shown grabbing Holden’s backside as he walks behind her. Holden immediately turns around and grabs him by his collar and slams him into a counter.

Red Wedding Pakistan Style

You tried so hard to kill me, woman it just was not my time.
You put poison in my coffee, instead of milk or cream.
You put poison in my coffee, instead of milk or cream.
You bout the evilest woman, that I ever seen.
You mixed my drink with a can of Red Devil lye.
You mixed my drink with a can of Red Devil lye.
Then you sat down, watching me, hopin that I might die

Howling Wolf "Commit A Crime"

I don't believe in arranged weddings though I work with some people who do. I don't believe in marrying your relatives either although again I have worked with people who surely must have been the result of such couplings. If I were unfortunate enough to be raised in a culture where both of those things were normal I guess I would have to run away to the big city or stand my ground and refuse to marry my cousin/aunt/half-sister. What I probably wouldn't do is agree to the marriage long enough to calm the suspicions of my family/in-laws so that I could plot a massacre that would make Walder Frey quail at my ruthlessness. Pakistani citizen Aasia Bibi does not share my qualms. The 21 year old woman already had a man, one Shahid Lasari. Apparently they were happily doing their thing together (though given the importance placed on female virginity at marriage in some circles it's unclear as what exactly the unmarried couple was doing) What is clear is that Bibi's family had marriage plans for her and wasn't going to take no for an answer any longer. And those plans definitely didn't include Lasari. Well Bibi wasn't going to sit still for that kind of stuff, thank you very much. She took matters into her own hands.

A 21-year-old Pakistani woman, unhappy in her new arranged marriage, is charged with murder after poisoning her husband's milk that some two dozen members of his extended family later drank, resulting in 17 deaths, according to police. The alleged incident took place in a rural village near the city of Multan in the eastern Punjab Province. 

Michigan Doctors Charged with FGM

Every culture and religion has slight to extreme different ideas about right and wrong. In most cases these differences of opinion are minor. People avoid discussing them. Or if the subject can't be dismissed people often take a live and let live attitude. In other instances though these different concepts simply can't exist in the same polity. One side must win. One side must lose. An example of this sort of dispute is the ugly practice of Female Genital Mutilation, which may involve a number of different cuttings to young girls' genitalia, whether it be snipping of the labia, cutting or total removal of the clitoris or narrowing/tying of the vaginal opening. It differs from culture to culture. But in Western culture, specifically American culture, this practice is looked upon with horror and outlawed. But as greater numbers of people arrive in America from areas where this custom is normal there will be more conflicts between those who are convinced they are living up to their religious and cultural requirements by having their young girls cut and those who seek to stamp out something they see as a horrific infringement on a girl's body. Two Southeast Michigan doctors were arrested for performing a banned procedure on two seven year old girls from Minnesota. The doctors, at least one of whom is an American citizen, are apparently both South Asian descent Shiite Muslims from a sect known as Dawoodi Bohra. If the case goes to trial it will be the first ever federal trial for FGM in the United States.

(CNN)A 7-year-old girl who underwent a painful genital mutilation procedure told federal investigators that after a doctor completed the process, she was rewarded with a piece of cake for "doing good."
Court documents obtained by CNN contain that account, along with other details in the cases of three medical professionals now facing charges in the first federal female genital mutilation case in the United States. The father of the girl -- one of two 7-year-olds who underwent the procedure on the same day -- told investigators, "that if they knew what would come of it, this would never have happened," according to the documents.

TSA Body Searches Angela Rye

People say that President-Elect Donald Trump will usher in a new era of fascism and lack of respect for rights. And perhaps he will. A man who has said that he will order torture of terrorism suspects, asks why we can't kill the family of terrorism suspects, refuses to admit that the Central Park Five were innocent and speaks approvingly of national stop-n-frisk, no doubt limited to majority Black areas, is not a man who has any great love for individual rights. I don't dispute that. My only issue with those who are suddenly discovering a fervent post-November 8th love for civil liberties is that right now, today, we are living in a country where there is less and less institutional and popular respect for or understanding of civil liberties. And this is happening under a Democratic Presidential administration headed by a former constitutional law professor. People worry about "normalizing" Trump. We have already normalized prison procedures for the entire dammed population that intends to travel by airplane. Like everyone else I have loved ones who I hope live to be as old as Methuselah. I don't want them harmed or killed by some religious nut who thinks God told him to blow up an airplane. But I also don't want them cavity searched by some bully with a badge who literally gets off on humiliating and searching people. I don't want people with "incorrect" political views harassed under color of law. As I wrote about a similar incident around airplane safety I definitely want some level of confidence that the people sitting next to me or mine on a plane have gone through the same boarding procedure as everyone else. But I would question if that procedure needs to include the touching of anyone's reproductive/excretory organs. There has to be a better way of doing this. But if I have to choose between liberty and safety I'm going to choose liberty. 

Ailes Out at Fox News

Once a year everyone in my company has to complete online training on how to prevent or not engage in sexual harassment. It's painfully obvious stuff. You don't have to believe in or accept 100% of the most radical feminist worldviews to understand that putting hands on someone without their permission, commenting on their body parts without invitation or God forbid making their promotion, continued employment, assignments or pleasant work environment contingent upon them having sex with you is illegal and something which could cost you your job and your employer a lot of money. Some of the examples which are used in my company's yearly training are so over the top that I couldn't believe that even the densest rockhead out there wouldn't already know that this stuff is out of bounds. But there's always someone out there who thinks that the rules don't apply to him. The latest example of this was former Fox News Boss Roger Ailes, who was accused by former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson of long running virtual textbook sexual harassment over several years of her employment at Fox News. You can read some of her complaint here. Among other things Ailes allegedly asked Carlson to turn around so he could look at her bottom and told her that she should have had sex with him a long time ago in order to help her career. Ailes' alleged statements to and activities around Carlson are exactly the sorts of things which I thought were so obviously sexual harassment as to not be worth mentioning in a corporate CYA training video. Now to be fair there are a fair number of married people who meet each other in a work environment. And I don't think that one pass is grounds for harassment. But Ailes was Carlson's boss. That alone should have made Ailes keep everything above board. Apparently Ailes' bosses, Rupert Murdoch and his sons, decided that Fox News could get along without Ailes. Ailes "resigned" with a reported $40 million payout. If someone "suggests" that you resign or be fired, resigning is probably the smart move, right? According to some reports the Murdoch sons and Ailes were never overly fond of each other. Ailes chafed at having to report to the younger Murdochs. Some other women, most of them anonymous, claimed to have been harassed by Ailes over the years. But what may have flipped the switch was alleged confirmation by Fox News' top star Megyn "Jesus is White" Kelly, that Ailes sexually harassed her some years ago. Kelly is the future of the network. Presumably the Murdochs want to keep her happy and around. It puts more money in their pockets.  

So Ailes will have to face Carlson's lawsuit on his own. Fox News is of course, depending on your POV, famous or infamous, for transparent desks, thigh level camera POV, and women who show off expanses of cleavage and legs. So all in all I'm not surprised that the man who created a sexually charged work environment allegedly sought to benefit from same. For most people it's usually a bad idea to get your honey where you get your money. And it's always a bad idea to tell someone to give it up or get out. Allegedly....

Religious Freedom, Discrimination and Airplanes

I am not religious though I have respect for people's religious beliefs. I avoid needlessly poking fun at them. There are limits to this respect but in general I don't see the point in deliberately pointing out fallacies and flaws in someone's faith unless they try to push it onto me. Lately religious freedom has come to be used primarily by people on the political right to avoid otherwise generally applicable laws. There's no reason that religious freedom should be a partisan issue. There are just as many historical and current controversies where people on the political left have cited religious freedom to avoid participating in things the right supports (saluting the flag, pledging allegiance, being drafted, etc..). So it should go both ways. I see religious objections as just a smaller and fiercer subset of conscience objections. And I often admire people who are truly motivated by individual conscience. There is one small caveat though. I may respect people who are standing up to the state or business or other members of society who are trying to make them do something. I don't have any use for people claiming religious freedom who are trying to burden OTHER people. I have the religious freedom to abstain from eating pork or shellfish. It's not religious freedom however for me to try to make you live by my dietary restrictions. It's a small but crucial distinction. Recently some male members of the growing and politically active ultra-Orthodox Jewish community have made some news by refusing to sit next to unrelated women while using transportation. Presumably this problem would also extend to unrelated men sitting next to traveling ultra-Orthodox Jewish women. 



Francesca Hogi, 40, had settled into her aisle seat for the flight from New York to London when the man assigned to the adjoining window seat arrived and refused to sit down. He said his religion prevented him from sitting beside a woman who was not his wife. Irritated but eager to get underway, she eventually agreed to move. Laura Heywood, 42, had a similar experience while traveling from San Diego to London via New York. She was in a middle seat — her husband had the aisle — when the man with the window seat in the same row asked if the couple would switch positions. Ms. Heywood, offended by the notion that her sex made her an unacceptable seatmate, refused. “I wasn’t rude, but I found the reason to be sexist, so I was direct,” she said.  

A growing number of airline passengers, particularly on trips between the United States and Israel, are now sharing stories of conflicts between ultra-Orthodox Jewish men trying to follow their faith and women just hoping to sit down.
Representatives of the ultra-Orthodox insist that the behavior is anomalous and rare. “I think that the phenomenon is nowhere near as prevalent as some media reports have made it seem,” said Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs at Agudath Israel of America, which represents ultra-Orthodox Jews. “The haredi men I know,” Rabbi Shafran said, using the Hebrew word for the ultra-Orthodox, “have no objection to sitting next to a woman on any flight.”

The ultra-Orthodox have increasingly seen gender separation as a kind of litmus test of Orthodoxy — it wasn’t always that way, but it has become that way,” said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College. “There is an ongoing culture war between these people and the rest of the modern world, and because the modern world has increasingly sought to become gender neutral, that has added to the desire to say, ‘We’re not like that.’”
LINK

I don't really care how you behave in the privacy of your own home. And as mentioned I modestly sympathize with some people who feel that they are being bullied by an ever expanding government determined to enforce, pardon the pun, orthodoxy, around questions of gender, child raising practices, sexuality and what have you. But that sympathy stops here. If you are older than say five years old and still believe that women have cooties, if you think that you will be tempted, seduced or made impure by every single non-related women you run across in life, if you think that you have the right to demand that society adapt to you rather than the other way around, maybe this country isn't really the right place for you. You're a dummy. There is no other way to put it. Being descended from people who did indeed have to give up seats, switch seats or otherwise adjust their lives to the fears and anger of bigots, I have absolutely no truck with any man or woman, regardless of their religion, who seeks to impose any sort of segregation in public accommodations. If you want to do that in your synagogue, mosque or church, knock yourself out. But don't try it in the public square. And certainly don't try it around me. Because you're opening up yourself and your religion up for public mockery. Nobody should ever switch seats because someone refuses to sit next to them due to gender. Nobody. And if some idiot is preventing the departure of a bus or plane because of this, throw them off the vehicle, and do not refund their money. If this happens often enough, word will get around. I believe that similar to how the Mormons had a revelation that black men could actually be priests, the Orthodox Jews pitching a fit over the possibility of sitting next to an unrelated woman, will suddenly discover a new interpretation allowing them to do just that. Ridiculous.

What do you think?

If you are a woman would you move?

If you are a man would you switch seats with a woman to remedy this situation?

Dean Baquet Replaces Jill Abramson At New York Times

You may have heard that the New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. recently fired Executive Editor Jill Abramson and replaced her with Managing Editor Dean Baquet. Baquet becomes the first Black person to serve as Executive Editor. Abramson's dismissal was met with wails and shrieks from many prominent women in the media who were immediately either convinced or worried that Abramson's termination was based in sexism. I waited to write on this because (1) I wanted to see if any other information about this termination arose (it did), (2) I was very busy at my own job and lacked the time to write and (3) I wasn't convinced that it was something about which I had enough interest to write. But I got a little amused and even annoyed by some of the hysterical hyperventilating happening around this incident. So now that the crisis has hopefully dissipated in my own workplace and my job is safe, I have a little time to share some thoughts about what I now think of as a much hyped non-event.

When your former co-workers give a standing ovation to the person who replaced you it could indicate that you weren't super well liked. I've had both men and women bosses. If you're younger than 60 and have worked any serious amount of time in corporate America you probably have also had bosses of both genders. I wouldn't dare speak for you but I've had women bosses that I admired, respected, and emulated and those that I despised and hated with the white hot intensity of one thousand supernova. And the same is true of male bosses to whom I've reported. Some were decent. Some were middling. Some were superstars. Some were incompetent. Some were downright malevolent and/or bigoted.

In a former workplace I once worked with a black contractor who was a few years older than me. Our company was flexible on start time, especially for direct hires, but expected everyone to put at least 8-9 hrs each day. Most us started between 6 AM and 8 AM. 8:30~9 AM start times were considered late and would cause some raised eyebrows or snide comments. On a good day this fellow would not arrive until 9:30 AM. 10 AM wasn't uncommon. He never stayed late. His tardiness caused problems with management and resentment with peers. One morning he wasn't around when a business group manager needed him for something important. And when he did arrive he ignored her requests. Well that was a mistake. She took a personal interest in documenting his late arrivals and bad mouthing him to her fellow managers and supervisors. Shortly afterwards the man was fired. There is a stereotype of black men being incompetent or tardy. I've dealt with it. But if you really are consistently tardy and get fired you or your friends can't whine about stereotypes. That stuff is on you. Similarly if (and I say if because nobody outside of a few people at the NYT really knows what happened) Abramson really was an abrasive and/or ineffective leader then terminating her was just and fair. If not then I expect a lawsuit will result and we'll be able to read about it in the papers. It's important to remember though that men get fired for among other reasons, being abrasive, including one of Abramson's predecessors at the NYT. Just because someone gets fired for what some people might deem stereotypical reasons, doesn't automatically mean that the firing was unjustified. There actually are a few harsh unpleasant women in this world. According to the NYT, contrary to what some of Abramson's media partisans claimed about her unequal pay, Abramson's compensation was comparable to or exceeded that of her male predecessor.

On Saturday, Mr. Sulzberger said, as he did in an earlier public statement, that Ms. Abramson’s pay package in her last year in the job was 10 percent higher than Mr. Keller’s. “Equal pay for women is an important issue in our country — one that The New York Times often covers,” Mr. Sulzberger wrote. “But it doesn’t help to advance the goal of pay equality to cite the case of a female executive whose compensation was not in fact unequal.”

Until Saturday, Mr. Sulzberger had said only that her removal was due to “an issue with management in the newsroom.” His new statement cited a pattern of behavior that included “arbitrary decision-making, a failure to consult and bring colleagues with her, inadequate communication and the public mistreatment of colleagues.” Mr. Sulzberger said that he had wanted Ms. Abramson to succeed and had discussed these problems with her. But he ultimately concluded that “she had lost the support of her masthead colleagues and could not win it back.” The decision to replace her, he said, was “for reasons having nothing to do with pay or gender.”

LINK
Of course what else will a boss say about someone whom he just fired, right? So I wouldn't necessarily take everything Sulzberger says as gospel. Still it is a reminder that there are usually at least two sides to each story. It's not as cut and dry that male bosses get away with acting unpleasantly and female ones don't. If you are a boss at any level your job includes overseeing and evaluating people's work. You must let them know where they're doing great work, where they could improve and occasionally even unilaterally give them opportunities to succeed elsewhere. But it's also just as important if not more so to get people who want to work for you and with you. Because sometimes if your perceived management style failings are greater than the benefit the company obtains from keeping you on, your actions and attitude could be helping you to dig your own grave, figuratively speaking of course.

I am just dismayed at the rush of judgment by so many people to assume that Abramson's firing was a case of sexism. From what I can tell Abramson tried to dilute Baquet's power and role by bringing in another woman to take away some of his workplace responsibilities. Not working at the NYT I couldn't say if this was justified or not. But I do know, particularly in hyper competitive workplaces, taking work from someone is often seen and meant as a precursor to a less than excellent performance review or worse as cover for pushing them out. There's a HUGE difference between you going to your boss and requesting that s/he hire someone because you're doing the work of five people and your boss deciding on his/her own that the work you're doing isn't quite up to par and you need help. Given that Baquet was a previous finalist for Abramson's job he apparently saw her move as a preemptive strike and responded accordingly. Sulzberger had other issues with Abramson and that was that. Now it's true that Abramson has every right to hire as she sees fit. But let's reverse the genders/management roles. Say Baquet is Executive Editor. If he had tried to hire another Black man to help Abramson do her job the same people complaining about Abramson's firing would be pointing to Baquet's aborted hiring attempt as proof of sexism and the old boy's network. They would be cheering Baquet's firing as a blow against sexism and for transparency.

Heads I win. Tails you lose.

There is racism, sexism and every other ism in the world. That's obvious.
But before we lead a lynch mob on behalf of Abramson, who apparently was not underpaid, let's find out what's going on first. It sounds to me like she made a power play and lost. It happens. It happens to men all the time. Now that more women are in high paid, high stress positions, it will happen to them as well. That's my take anyway, with the evidence I see.

What are your thoughts?
Do you think that abrasive women are still treated differently than abrasive men?
If you work for other people what qualities do you look for in a boss?

Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: The Jason Patric Situation

We've discussed some of the issues around child custody and parental rights before. If you are a man and you impregnate a woman, whether you are married to her or not, there is the strong possibility that the state will force you to, if not act as an actual on site father to your child, to at least pay some of your income to the mother for child support. The amount you pay can depend on a number of factors including how good your lawyers are, what the child has become accustomed to, how rich you are, how much of your income or wealth is legal and easily estimated and identified by child support auditors, how easy you are to locate, which judge you get, how aggressively the mother of your child wishes to pursue child support and how aggressively you wish to pursue joint or sole custody. And if you're married and your wife is playing house with other men, well generally you're also responsible for financially supporting any resulting children even if you don't find out about it until years after the fact. Deal with it. We hear a lot about how too many men refuse to support their kids, to "man up" and marry the mothers of their children or prefer to run around impregnating various women who apparently had the bad luck to slip and fall on the man's you know what. Some people even argue that the rise in single motherhood and/or out of wedlock births is mostly men's fault.

Well maybe. But if there's one thing I know for sure it's that it takes two to tango. The recent story below the fold about the actor Jason Patric and his struggle with one time girlfriend/friend with benefits/paramour/booty call Danielle Schreiber to be included in their son's life was fascinating to me. It reminded me of some of our previous discussions as well as the unacknowledged dangers inherent in alternate family units and new reproductive technologies.

LOS ANGELES — He is a movie star who shot to fame on a motorcycle in “The Lost Boys.” She is a California massage therapist from a prominent East Coast family. Four years ago, with his sperm, her eggs and the wonder of in vitro fertilization, they produced a child. From there, the tale gets very, very messy. For the last two years, Jason Patric and Danielle Schreiber have been waging what has become one of the highest-profile custody fights in the country — one that scrambles a gender stereotype, raises the question of who should be considered a legal parent and challenges state laws that try to bring order to the Wild West of nonanonymous sperm donations. 

Ms. Schreiber, an American civilization graduate of Brown University who runs a Rolfing massage practice in Los Angeles, met Mr. Patric in 2002 when he went to her as a massage client and the two became a couple, dating off and on for a decade.  She had long wanted to be a mother, according to a family member. But pregnancy attempts with Mr. Patric did not go well. “I even had a surgery to increase our chances,” he said in an interview last week. They decided in 2009 (at a time when they were not romantically involved but still friendly) to pursue artificial insemination. Along came Gus, named after Ms. Schreiber’s paternal grandfather.  

The baby eventually helped rekindle a romance between Ms. Schreiber and Mr. Patric, although they never formally moved in together. For the next two years, Mr. Patric said that he played a parental role (“I took him to get circumcised when he was 8 days old”) and that Gus, now 4, referred to him as “Dada” in videos and messages. “Thank you for teaching me to pee in the toilet, watch airplanes, learn Beatles songs. I love you Dada, Gus,” read a card that was written by Ms. Schreiber, given to Mr. Patric and later presented as evidence in court.  Then, in June 2012, the couple broke up for good. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Patric filed a paternity suit for shared custody. According to both sides, there was legal mediation, during which time Gus continued to see Mr. Patric. But then, according to court filings, Ms. Schreiber abruptly started to withhold visits....

LINK 

Now I know of some men who are pretty crappy fathers. I also know of some women who are horrible mothers. It's just part of life. I have friends of both genders who occasionally vent about how much they hate their ex. I can sympathize. However absent some clear proof of threat, violence or unfitness, I don't think either parent should be able to unilaterally exclude the other parent from their child's life. I don't think that the child's relationship with their parent should be hostage to how the other parent feels. Again, obviously this idea of mine doesn't apply to child molesters, drunks, substance abusers, rapists, abusers, other criminals, etc. I can count the women I truly hate in this world on the fingers of one hand and still have most fingers left. Fortunately I do not have children with them. But if I did I would have to find a way, even if only for the child's sake to be (temporarily) civil, and allow the child to have a relationship with his or her mother. It's not my right to interfere with that. In my view it's almost sinful. That goes for either gender. I am suspicious of Schreiber's restraining order, coming as it did in a custody dispute.

So I think it's a little unfair and hypocritical for society to castigate men for shirking fatherly responsibilities and then turn around and try to prevent a man from doing just that. But maybe Patric should never have agreed to donate his sperm. Maybe he should have insisted on marrying this woman and/or doing things the old way. So maybe he's just out of luck. I certainly don't think that we should use this case to tear down anonymity for egg/sperm donors or allow such anonymous donors to show up out of the blue years later and start demanding parental rights. But to focus on the in vitro aspect of this case as Schreiber's partisans would like to do misses the point that this child, however he was conceived, was the product of two people who had an ongoing relationship with one another.

If we say that Patric has no parental rights because he was unmarried and/or used the wrong sort of technology to become a biological father then it seems we'd have to make other changes. Should we also say that no unmarried man has the right to demand fatherly rights AND that no unmarried woman has the right to demand child support? Somehow I think that second part would get more people's attention. Not married to the father? Sorry lady, no child support for your child. Better luck next time. Most people, and certainly not just unmarried mothers, would see that rule as horribly unfair to the child. Well isn't it horribly unfair to a child to prevent him or her from having a relationship with the father?

Thoughts?

Ms. Annie Roberston - Rape and Race

We've long heard the startling statistics regarding rape in the United States. According to Crisis Connection the statistics are even more startling when you focus on college campus' in the United States. Here are a few of those statistics:

• Every 21 hours there is a rape on an American college campus
• 1 in 4 women in college today has been the victim of rape, and nearly 90% of them
  knew their rapist  
• Of the college woman who are raped, only 25% describe it as rape
• Of the college women who are raped, only 10% report the rape
• 34% of completed rapes and 45% of attempted rapes take place on campus
• Almost 60% of the completed campus rapes that take place on campus occur in the victim's residence
• 31% occur in another residence
• 10% occur in a fraternity

It gets worse when you take a closer look at the recent high profile cases, (Steubenville/Genarlow Wilson) which involved victims below the collegiate level.

I am a young woman, so I don't need these stats to tell me that there is a problem. I can also understand the indescribable pain that victims of rape feel, as well as the devastation that occurs for victims who speak out against their perpetrators, only to feel silenced. I get it! So the controversy at Sarah Lawrence College involving Annie Robertson and Garvey-Malik Ashhurst-Watson are of no surprise to me.

Annie in her own words:

To make matter worse for Ms. Robertson, Mr. Ashhurst-Watson was initially charged with two counts of sexual misconduct and those charges were later dismissed. The Westchester County District Attorney’s Office launched an investigation and concluded that there were inconsistencies in the accounts of the events between the two parties and not enough evidence to prosecute Mr. Ashhurst-Watson.



"How can you tell a woman she is safe when her body no longer belongs to her? When you are finally able to burn me at the stake, frame my ashes for your school’s distinction. Until then, I will be tying nooses with the strong cords of my voice. I will be hanging your boys up and invoking my no until the spirit takes them and their legs stop twitching." - Annie Robertson

It's unfortunate that Ms. Robertson decided to unnecessarily invoke race with well known and documented elements of slavery. For this I can't take her seriously. I can't see how, through what I imagine to be the most devastating and hurtful of circumstances, Ms. Robertson can only see the race of her "perpetrator". Ms. Robertson was a victim of a crime, a victim of violence. So why would she choose to focus on the fact that her "perpetrator" was black?

This poem is indicative of Ms. Robertson's mindset and her character. Words are powerful. Ms. Robertson knows this. So to now pretend that the racial elements were unintentional is just not cool.

If Ms. Robertson really wanted to make sure that her "attack" didn't happen in vain, she would have set out to truly make a difference. Look at the statistics (especially the ones above) and make the decision to begin a meaningful national conversation on rape and sexual violence on college campus'. Ms. Robertson could have started a movement in her back yard, by galvanizing everyone at Sarah Lawrence with a mission to make campus rape a thing of the past. No, instead she made a decision to put a "poem" on her Facebook page about lynching black men.  This poor decision not only weakens her argument, but it weakens a movement that already exists to help young women recognize when they are victims of violence, and take action against their perpetrators. Coming forward and accusing someone of rape it already a very difficult act. Victims fear persecution, so many remain quiet. Ms. Robertson has made it even worse, especially for anyone who may be a victim of rape or any other form of violence, at Sarah Lawrence.

I really wish Annie Roberston hadn't taken the direction of this conversation to such a disgusting level.

Sound off...

1 - When you read Annie Robertson's "poem" what did you think?
2 - Has Ms. Robertson weakened her argument?
3 - When the charges were dismissed against Mr. Ashhurst-Watson, what should Ms. Robertson have done? What should any victim in Ms. Robertson's position do?
4 - Is this situation a lesson for young men on college campus' across the US?

You Deserve Rape: Free Speech or Harassment?

How far do you think the First Amendment protections on free speech should stretch? In a famous Supreme Court case which then restricted the ability of anti-war citizens to distribute anti-war literature, the Court said that a person could not falsely yell fire in a crowded theater. I think the example was a good one although the actual case opinion was in my view horribly incorrect.

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." LINK

This standard was fortunately later modified in the 1969 Brandenburg decision which allowed that free speech could not be restricted unless, among other reasons, it incited or was likely to incite imminent lawless action. I'm guessing this would for example include such things as standing up in a courtroom where your loved one was about to be sentenced and yelling out to your numerous friends and family "Let's burn this muyerfuyer down and kill that judge!!". That's probably going to get you removed from the courtroom and arrested. There are some other instances in which free speech protections do not apply: threats, lies, copyright infringement, parental rights over children, and a few other circumstances which don't much interest me for purposes of this post. Of course my blog partners Old Guru and The Janitor can easily give chapter and verse on exactly where free speech is and is not limited legally. It's what they do. But I'm not only interested on where the legal line currently is but rather where do you think it should be?

In Arizona there may be another test case, not necessarily legally, but culturally and politically of where we think free speech ends and harassment begins. At the University of Arizona a student protested Take Back the Night rallies and designation of April as sexual assault awareness month by holding a sign that read "You deserve rape".

A student holding a sign that read “You deserve rape” ignited outrage across campus Tuesday, on the same day of a sexual assault awareness event, but administrators declined requests to remove him or his sign. 

Dean Saxton — also known as Brother Dean Samuel — regularly preaches on the UA Mall in front of Heritage Hill and the Administration building. On Tuesday, his sermon drew the attention of onlookers, several of whom either personally confronted him or complained to the Dean of Students Office. 

The Dean of Students Office received stacks of written complaints, emails and multiple phone calls regarding Saxton’s sermon about women, said Kendal Washington White, interim dean of students. Saxton has never directly threatened anyone in particular, and his language has been general enough that he isn’t targeting a particular person, White said. However, a university attorney was contacted to discuss the situation. “We find it to be vulgar and vile,” White said. “However, it is protected speech. He has yet to, at this point, violate the student code of conduct.”

Saxton, a junior studying classics and religious studies, said his sermon was meant to convey that “if you dress like a whore, act like a whore, you’re probably going to get raped.”  “I think that girls that dress and act like it,” Saxton said, “they should realize that they do have partial responsibility, because I believe that they’re pretty much asking for it.”

LINK

I think this is a classic case of "I disapprove or what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."  I tend to think that the best remedy for bad speech is good speech...in the public sphere. That last is important. I don't hold that there is any free speech right to come to a blog and insult people, visit someone's home and curse out the owner or even for the government to insist that a private organization accept an individual member who has previously stated his or her fervent opposition to the group's goals. And often once a parent tells a child that "this conversation is over", well that's the end of that. Usually in my household that particular phrase was a warning signal that this was my final chance to sit down and be quiet before more convincing methods were used. Obviously in a private workplace, someone carrying that same sign Saxton is carrying likely would be fired immediately, forcibly escorted from the premises and possibly sued. So those are all exceptions to "free speech" with which I'm fine.

But in the public sphere where the government is able, willing and eager to use coercive methods that are simply not available to blog moderators, company managers or strict parents, I think we need to be very careful about suggesting that some ideas can't be expressed or worse yet, must be punished after the fact if anyone dares to express them.

The country is full of people who have repugnant ideas. Whether we like it or not, they have the right to express them. Although I might well enjoy forcing certain people to shut up  , whatever political coalition gives me the power to take that action and play censor may be fleeting. So in the not too distant future I might be forced to give up my free speech rights by "bad guys" who find my ideas repugnant. That's not acceptable. Even folks who are in the same general political spectrum as I am can often have surprisingly and to my way of thinking, ridiculously different ideas about topics. They may think that banning this or that idea is a small price to pay for harmony. So it goes.

Saxton's speech may well be hateful and may make people uncomfortable. But that's exactly the sort of speech the First Amendment was designed to protect. Unless Saxton makes a particularized threat to someone or otherwise disrupts class I don't see where the university has or should have the power to prevent him from expressing his opinion. One man's free speech is another woman's hostile environment. In the public sphere I think protecting the right to free speech is more valuable than supposed completing claims like freedom from hate speech or hostile environments. Anything stating someone deserves sexual assault is wrong, obviously. But saying "You deserve rape" in a general sense is different from saying you're going to rape a particular person. One is free speech, albeit ugly, while the other is an actionable threat which should see someone locked up. Of course Saxton's message is not directed at my gender. So maybe I can afford to be rather blase about it. Though in truth I'd feel the same way if he started carrying around a sign endorsing theories of racial inferiority. What if the message is directed at you? What if you are a woman who is wearing a skirt that is too short, heels that are too high or a top that's too tight or too revealing for Saxton's preference. Does your opinion change? Does Saxton deserve a punch in the mouth?

Questions

1) Is this free speech?

2) Should the student code of conduct change to make things like this actionable?

3) Should public schools or universities have exemptions from First Amendment protections in order to provide safe environments?

4) Should hate speech lack First Amendment protection?

5) Should Saxton be expelled?

Kansas: Who's Your Daddy???

What does it mean to be a father?
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/father

A male person whose sperm unites with an egg, resulting in the conception of a child.
A man who adopts a child.
A man who raises a child.

Ideally I think the first and third definitions of that word should be found in the same man. But for better or worse times have changed. Most children born to women under thirty are being raised in single parent (primarily mother only) homes. Women who are lesbian or bisexual are marrying each other and bearing children or, in states where such marriages are not recognized, living together cobbling together piecemeal, such legal recognition as they can get.

I generally don't care about such changes though I'm not completely convinced they're good for the children involved or for society as a whole. I'm somewhat conservative socially. But it's not my life and the kids involved aren't mine so whatever the adults want to do in pursuit of their own happiness is more or less just dandy with me, provided they and their kids keep their hands out of my wallet and do not try to tell me what to think.

Of course, biology being what it is, it isn't possible for anyone in a gay male couple to bear children or for anyone in a lesbian couple to sire children. Those actions must be taken with the help of others, i.e. often surrogate mothers or sperm donors. Presumably, unless you happen to be a polygamist looking to deepen his bench, two's company and three's a crowd. The surrogate/donor is usually not asked to be a part of the gay/lesbian couple's life or the child's life. The surrogate/donor might be asked to sign a document giving away rights. Everyone's different of course but many state laws do not recognize more than one mother and one father nor do they accept "gender neutral" roles for father and mother.

So far so good, right? Well not so fast. In Kansas, this brave new world hit a speed bump when the happy lesbian couple depicted above broke up. The woman who wasn't the biological mother of a three year old girl came down with an undisclosed illness that prevented her from working and thus providing support to this girl (they have others). So the couple did what thousands of people do and applied for assistance from the State of Kansas. And the State of Kansas did what many states do and looked for the nearest man to shake down for support. In this case that turned out to be one William Marotta, the man who was the sperm donor.

A lesbian couple who found a sperm donor on Craigslist three years ago never meant the man to be any more than just that, and they are supporting his fight against the state’s request he pay child support.

“We’re kind of at a loss,” Topekan Angela Bauer, 40, said Saturday, speaking on behalf of her and her former partner, Jennifer Schreiner. “We are going to support him in whatever action he wants to go forward with.”The Kansas Department for Children and Families has filed a child support claim against Topekan William Marotta, who provided sperm used to artificially inseminate Schreiner. Bauer and Schreiner, 34, placed an ad for a sperm donor on Craigslist in March 2009.

Marotta responded, agreeing to relinquish all parental rights, including financial responsibility to the child.After the couple filed for assistance earlier this year, the state welfare agency demanded they provide the donor’s name so it could collect child support. The state has that authority, court documents state, because the insemination wasn’t performed by a licensed physician, thus making the contract void.

Without the donor’s name, the department told the women, it wouldn’t provide health benefits to their now 3-year-old girl — something Bauer no longer can provide because a diagnosis has left her incapable of working and in and out of rehabilitation since March.“This was a wonderful opportunity with a guy with an admirable, giving character who wanted nothing more than to help us have a child,” she said. “I feel like the state of Kansas has made a mess out of the situation.”

LINK

Marotta, needless to say, wasn't overly ecstatic about the state trying to take money from him for child support. He may have tried to do the right thing but he didn't dot the i's and cross the t's. As far as Kansas is concerned, the music has stopped and he has no chair. The law is the law. Inspector Javert or Stannis Baratheon would understand but Marotta does not.

In the long run, I think this will be a good thing, but I'm the one getting squashed," Marotta said. "I can't even believe it's gone this far at this point, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."#Though his attorneys, Benoit Swinnen and Hannah Schroller, are charging him reduced rates, Marotta said he expects the legal fees to eventually be more than he can afford. He is predominantly a mechanic but said he is currently working in a different field. He and his wife, Kimberly, have no biological children but care for foster children.#"I've already paid more than 10 percent of my yearly salary, and I don't know many folks who are willing to give up more than 10 percent of their yearly income," he said.#

The state contends the agreement between Marotta and the women is not valid because Kansas law requires a licensed physician to perform artificial insemination.#

"Speaking generally, all individuals who apply for taxpayer-funded benefits through DCF are asked to cooperate with child support enforcement efforts," Angela de Rocha, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Children and Families, said in a statement. "If a sperm donor makes his contribution through a licensed physician and a child is conceived, the donor is held harmless under state statue. In cases where the parties do not go through a physician or a clinic, there remains the question of who actually is the father of a child or children.

LINK

This is a mess. Marotta never intended to be a father to the child and from what I can tell has not been. I don't think the law is designed for this unique situation. But I also know that once this is adjudicated, the state and/or Marotta's employer won't care about anything other than making sure an exact amount of money is extracted from Marotta's paycheck at least once or twice a month for the next fifteen years or so. I think that Bauer, the woman who can't work because of her medical issue, is the person the state should be going after. I don't think too many women who needed child support from a man would be overly sympathetic were that man to claim some sort of disability and resulting inability to work. More importantly I know the state wouldn't be too understanding. In fact the state might even do something as unfriendly as garnishing wages or other income or even put the man in jail until he remembered other funds he had. So why should this case be any different? This raises other questions.

Kansas does not recognize gay marriages. In its zeal to take money from someone it sees as a "deadbeat dad", could it be on the verge of unintentionally recognizing gay/polygamous marriages? Kansas is saying that someone who is not legally married to the women and isn't acting as a father, nevertheless has responsibilities that would normally accrue to a father or ex-husband. Interesting. As two people of the same gender can't create life, are pro-gay marriage partisans willing to help update child support laws so that it would be crystal clear that sperm donors only agree to use of their sperm and freely divest themselves from any fatherly financial responsibilities?  But wait there's more!

Why wouldn't such new laws also be available to heterosexual men and women? This brings up the "choice for men" debate. Should a heterosexual man be able to stipulate to a heterosexual woman that he is only interested in sex? If a woman decides to carry any pregnancy to term, the donor would have no legal or financial responsibility. If a man can say that to a lesbian couple he's assisting, why couldn't he say that to a heterosexual woman he's seeing? Should we rework the entire child support system to make marriage (gay or straight) the only structure in which child support will be ordered and enforced?

Perhaps this Kansas situation is an excellent argument FOR gay marriage. If the women were legally married there would be less chance of an outsider being held responsible for child support. If Kansas prevails here, I imagine that there will soon be fewer or lower quality sperm donors to be found. But if you're trolling for baby daddies on Craigslist, quality is probably not your highest goal. Anyway go ahead, play Solomon.

Thoughts?

What's the right thing to do here?

Should sperm donation always be anonymous?

Should the man pay child support?

Should a man be able to donate sperm and forever avoid fatherly responsibilities?

Should the non-biological mother pay child support?

Gender Quotas for US Elected Offices?

There will be 20 women in the US Senate in 2013. This is a record. But if you're anxious to smash the patriarchy and make everything "equal" this isn't anywhere near good enough. Thus some people wonder if the time hasn't come to dust off Title IX. Instead of applying it to college or high school sports or ridiculously threatening to expand its jurisdiction to the scientific classroom, some think the US should have political gender quotas for elected seats. Some people would want women to be guaranteed at least 30% representation in elected bodies while others demand 50% representation in the US Senate.  Each state would have to have one man and one woman as its Senator. 

It is a source of constant amusement to me that Harrison Bergeron, a dystopic satire by a left-leaning writer, has instead become a virtual guidebook for some earnest current left-wingers (and a bete noire for right-wingers) who really are obsessed with trying to enforce equality of results no matter what. 

You don't have to be a fervent racist or chauvinist to understand that people aren't the same and have different interests. Looking at the state of the world today I wouldn't argue that men are better at leadership but they definitely seem to be more interested in leadership. Should we pretend that the gender that is literally awash in testosterone and aggression and gets certain (ahem) benefits from the other gender for seeking, holding and expressing status and power would not then on average show greater interest in obtaining formal leadership positions? Every single American man who's been elected to office in the past ninety two years has had to appeal to women voters. What we see is what the electorate, men and women, want. Maybe the electorate is wrong, bigoted, behind the times, etc. Maybe. But ultimately power resides in the people.

It may well be a feminist truism that men and women are roughly identical and interchangeable and thus any societal differences are solely an example of invidious discrimination. But just believing something doesn't make it so. We still have a legal and constitutional system that would, I hope, make it difficult for gender quotas to be used. I don't think that such quotas could be reconciled with equal protection concerns or the right to freedom of association. How can we tell voters that their choice will be limited by gender? 

And enforcement would be unpleasant if not impossible. Let's say that a insurgent political movement led by a honest, hardworking charismatic man arises and defeats the moribund ineffective Democratic (woman) Senator. But as the state's Republican Senator, who's not up for re-election this year is a man, that would mean that the state would then be sending two men to the Senate. No good. All those votes for the new guy were thus meaningless. Are we going to tell the rising star that sorry, he can't serve in the US Senate because he has an outie instead of an innie? Does that sound remotely American?

Bad policy arises from bad ideas. There are two bad ideas here. The first is that you can only or best be politically represented by someone who shares your immutable physical traits. If everyone felt that way then we'd not have the President we have nor would a decent politician like Steve Cohen ever have served. What matters is not so much what you look like but what you do. 

The second bad idea is that men and women are interchangeable and ought to be doing the exact same things in the same proportion. That's never been and never will be the case in human society. Men and women are of equal value but they are rather obviously not identical. And women can be just as mean, greedy, short-sighted, ignorant and bigoted as men. There is certainly no guarantee that having more women making or executing law will produce better results. Would you enjoy a President Palin? Michele Bachmann as head of HHS? Is it better for South Carolina pro-choice women that right wing pro-life Nikki Haley is governor instead of a right wing pro-life man? There is no law preventing interested women from running for office.
There is no law preventing political parties and interest groups from encouraging women candidates, donating to women candidates or even leaning on male potential candidates to sit an election out because the party wants more women to run. 
There is no law preventing current women (or men) elected officials from identifying and mentoring potential women candidates. 

Right now, if you've got the guts, intelligence and the heart to do it you can run for political office. There should not be a federal law preventing you from doing so because of your gender. Period. Gender quotas are the political equivalent of giving everyone in a sports event a trophy. It's a silly idea and debases the challenge. This idea also shows a nasty hostility to the voter's choice.

I believe in equality of opportunity. I don't believe in legally requiring equality of results. I think our system can occasionally get away with a small thumb on the scale where there is historical or ongoing discrimination. But quotas go way beyond that. There is a tension between freedom and equality just as there is between freedom and safety. The US body politic has mostly tended towards freedom. Our constitution is set up that way. However there are some powerful currents that tend toward equality and safety at the expense of freedom. 

The voters must be able to choose the best woman or man for a particular job without being prevented from doing so by a particular interest group that decides it doesn't like current gender (or any other kind of) political demographics. Black people are roughly 13% of the population and have no Senate seats. Jewish people are about 3% of the population and have eleven Senate seats. Hispanic people are about 15% of the population and have three Senate seats. Left-handed redheaded bisexual agnostics are 2% of the population and on and on and on. If you go down the path of political quotas, pack a lunch because it's gonna be a long haul.

Questions

1) Do you think there will ever be proportional gender representation in Congress and the Senate?

2) Do quotas have any place in American politics? Do you think they're legal?

3) Have you ever read Harrison Bergeron?