Divorce: A better way

Shefali O'Hara below makes a good case for the best way through a divorce. She points to the undeirability of involving lawyers in the process. I agree with her. I have had 4 marriages and 4 divorces and none of the divorces involved lawyers.

So what is the secret of that? How can one avoid lawyering up? I think the key is not to be angry. I am almost incapable of anger so I found that easy -- but others may not. In my case I had an understanding of the woman's motivations and did not attack or abuse her over them. And because of that anger absence I was able to have civil discussions with the lady concerned and was ready to be geneous with her. And that was reciprocated. Because I was prepared to be generous and accepting the lady was too. There were no unresolved issues between us.

But being angry would be very destructive to acceptance and generosity. Being able to bypass anger is the key to a good divorce

We can read plenty of stories about messy celebrity divorces, such as that between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. While their divorce was finalized back in 2017, the drama between them still makes headlines.

Celebrity divorces aren't the only ones that can destroy lives.

I have heard some horror stories from friends about divorce. Either their own, or that of one of their children.

An expensive mess of a divorce

One friend of mine told me about her daughter's experience. The daughter's husband repeatedly cheated on her. She tried counseling with him to try to salvage the marriage, but after several years of him continuing to cheat, she finally filed for divorce.

He became vindictive and vengeful.

The couple had two children. Instead of considering what impact the divorce was having on them, he hired an expensive lawyer and quit his job to avoid paying child support. She hired an expensive lawyer to counteract his tactics.

Between the two of them, they spent so much on the divorce that they both walked away deeply in debt. They spent over $60,000 apiece. That ate up all the equity they'd had in their house and then some.

My friend helped her daughter out so at least she is not in debt, but she and her children were left with nothing. The former son-in-law works jobs on the side for cash to avoid paying child support.

Yet divorces don't have to be so messy.

Another friend tried mediation
A friend of mine who was an Air Force pilot is an example.

He and his wife had three children. When the wife filed for divorce, at first he was very angry and was thinking of going down the toxic route. But his mother talked him out of it.

"Think of your children," she said.

The wife had already lawyered up, so he needed to get a lawyer as well, but he asked if they could first try mediation. They ended up using their lawyers to hammer out the final deal, but because most of their issues were resolved during mediation, the total cost of the divorce was only about $10,000.

My friend told me that he'd had to give up on a few things. He felt that overall, the settlement favored his wife, but… it also allowed him regular access to his children and ensured a good working relationship with his ex.

"I gave up part of my retirement account, which was fair, since we both agreed she would stay home with the kids. However, she also got to keep the house, which meant she ended up with about 60% of our assets, and she also gets a good amount of child support due to my salary," he groused.

Yet he also admits that she bends over backwards to make sure his children are available to him, and he gets to spend a lot of time with them because of that. She also does not criticize him in front of their children. By showing generosity towards her, he's received it in return.

Of course, this only worked out because she is not a vindictive person. Aside from trying to assure a secure environment for herself and her children, she has tried to make sure he gets what is important to him.

The two don't fight and the children spend time with both parents. My friend has traveled with his children, had them for birthday parties and at least half the holidays and in general has maintained close bonds with his kids.

My own divorce

With my own divorce, we were lucky that neither of us prioritized revenge. We both tried to treat each other fairly.

We ended up not even hiring any lawyers. We wrote up our own divorce decree, had a lawyer friend look it over, and then filed it in court.

Total cost? Less than $200.

My lawyer friend told me that if we'd gone to court, I might have gotten a larger settlement. But the cost of paying a lawyer would have eaten up any money I might have gained and then some.

By negotiating in an amicable fashion, we both came out ahead.

https://shefaliohara.medium.com/scorched-earth-divorce-65898292a6e7

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Is a pushback against trangenderism beginning?

As if Judy Murray wasn't already a national treasure. When the tennis coach, mother of Jamie and Sir Andy, heard about a biological male poised to be awarded tour status by the Ladies' Professional Golf Association, she tweeted:

No. Not fair at all. Protect women's sport. Listen to the facts, the scientists and the medics. This is wrong.

The replies are what you might imagine but, refreshingly, Murray has not backed down or issued an apology. It's important to have people as popular and high-profile as Murray speak out on the undermining of women's sport. If we left it up to professional bodies and sports journalism, we'd get nothing but an endless stream of platitudes and craven championing of men taking women's spots. It got me to thinking about who speaks out and why.

In his landmark 2018 essay, Andrew Sullivan warned that ‘We All Live on Campus Now', that the melange of absurdities taught and practised at US colleges intersectionality and critical race theory, micro-aggressions and safe spaces were seeping into the mainstream of American society. With them they were bringing an aversion to the free exchange of ideas that proliferates in higher education settings, whether in the form of groupthink, self-censorship, ideological monoculture or the impulse to punish and silence dissenting views. This was, Sullivan wrote:

why our discourse is now so freighted with fear, why so many choose silence as the path of least resistance, or why the core concepts of a liberal society the individual's uniqueness, the primacy of reason, the protection of due process, an objective truth are so besieged.

Sullivan has proved to be the Cassandra of our times on this subject. If anything, he underestimated the speed and scope with which the pathologies of the campus would sweep the western world, from governments and corporations to military bureaucracies and scientific and clinical institutions. The successor ideology, which some call wokeism and I call coercive progressivism, has made such advances thanks to four conditions common to liberal societies.

First, the prevalence of elites who resent the institutions they run and the people they serve, who lack the moral or intellectual brawn the will to resist ideological capture. These elites are particularly prone to nicethink words and concepts like ‘anti-racism' and ‘social justice' and too feeble to challenge progressivism's authoritarian theories on race and speech.

Second, the immediacy and reach of social media and its role in disseminating and enforcing the new orthodoxies. If academic theory and culture are the malignancy, social media is the lymphatic system through which its cells spread.

Third, a sincere but superficial desire to be tolerant and a concomitant dread of being on the wrong side of history.

Fourth, the wish for a quiet life.

The last one is perhaps the most powerful. Committed ideologues can capture institutions because they, unlike the rest of us, are committed. Where others seek contentment in family, faith, community and leisure, the project is all the ideologue needs. It gives him his purpose and his rewards. It sustains him.

There is something that has been overlooked in all this. It doesn't detract from Sullivan's thesis and nor is it grounds for sudden optimism among liberals. It is simply a counter-impulse worth noting. Yes, quietlife-ism is the preponderant ideology among the masses but only up to a point. There is only so far you can push even the most determined quietlife-ist and when you stray over that boundary you can drive a bystander in the culture wars to enlist on the side of your enemy.

Political, social, corporate and cultural elites may live on campus but most of the population does not and has no wish to. They shake their heads at the latest fad or inanity then shrug it off because, honestly, who needs the hassle? They do not think in the stilted, paradigmatic fashion of academics but instinctually, relying on their gut to tell them when something is tolerable and when someone is taking the piss. They know when they are being pushed around and, in some, a bloody-minded antagonism towards bullies overcomes the impulse to keep their head down. They come to realise there is no alternative but to push back.

We are in the pushback phase of what is called the ‘trans rights debate' but is properly understood as the elite project to impose gender identity ideology, and especially self-identification, with as little debate or scrutiny as possible. Had this been a debate about arranging accommodations in public services, sport, prisons, facilities, and other areas of life for people suffering gender dysphoria, it would have been over long ago and resolved with sensitivity and compassion. It is because the object is not advancing the interests of dysphoria sufferers or accommodating their needs but the raw exercise of elite power.

Of course, there is a determination to make material reality bend to theory but there is also a certain sadism to be savoured. What could be more delicious than writing women out of womanhood and claiming the mantle of feminism as you do it? Who could forgo a wry smile at the thought of women being told both that their sex-based rights are not affected by gender ideology and that they're bigots for even bringing those rights up? How must it feel to be able to force people to recite mantras (‘trans women are women') that both you and they know to be untrue?

It is the sadism the sadism and the bullying and the gleeful harming of women that have brought about this pushback. It is why so many women who could have settled for a quite life spoke up instead. It is why JK Rowling has gone from beloved author and philanthropist to being listed by BuzzFeed as a ‘major villain' alongside Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain and Jim Jones, the cult leader who orchestrated a mass-suicide that killed 900 people. Martina Navratilova could have rested on her laurels and her nine Wimbledon singles titles but, as she puts it, it was the promotion of 'the cotton ceiling' the notion that women's refusal to have sex with trans women is a form of discrimination that ‘put me over the edge'.

Judy Murray could have concentrated on coaching and using her charity foundation to give more young people the opportunity to take up tennis. But the thought of a biological male being offered a place in golfing set aside for women was evidently too much for her. The campus can come to the mainstream, it can foist its catechisms on us, it can demand submission and punish heresy but there are always going to be people like Judy Murray who are only prepared to be pushed so far.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/you-cant-sit-out-the-culture-wars/

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New York Times Fires RACIST Reporter

Leftists display their racism publicly. Sadly, most people don't know how to spot Leftist racism despite it being so obvious. But I don't miss it.

Like the most abhorrent racism that Leftists continually display against blacks. The idea that blacks are too stupid to get an ID, for example. Or the racism of low expectation that allows mostly white Leftist enablers to treat blacks like children, thus excusing bad behaviors.

But Leftists don't just disguise their hatred of blacks in their policies. Leftists hate all minority groups. Openly.

Look at the blatant anti-Semitism of Leftists.

Colleges and universities foment anti-Semitism. They host events that spew hatred of Jews. This hatred is taught at university, then spread to the public by media minions.

One example is Fady Hanona.

Fanona is an Arab freelancer laced with anti-Semite controversy. Fanona condoned killing Jews in a post on social media. Far worse, Fanona endorsed "burning them like Hitler did."

Hanona allegedly wrote, "Jews are sons of the dogs … I am in favor of killing them and burning them like Hitler did. I will be so happy."

In another comment the watchdog group captured, Hanona allegedly wrote:

"I don't accept a Jew, Israeli or Zionist, or anyone else who speaks Hebrew. I'm with killing them wherever they are: children, elderly people, and soldiers."

I can see why The New York Times fired him.

Most outlets tout Hanona as a "fixer in the Gaza Strip". Fixers are typically on-the-ground freelancers hired to help foreign journalists coordinate logistics and translate. However, Hanona has been described as a reporter as well. Regardless, the Times fired Hanona after a pro-Israel watchdog group exposed his violent posts.

"The New York Times had worked with this freelance reporter only in recent weeks. We are no longer doing so," a spokesperson said.

Frankly, I love seeing the New York Times being forced to confront their racism. And their confrontation required them to fire one of their racists, namely Hanona.

Like most racist cowards, Hanona has since deleted his social media accounts. And per the Leftist playbook, he hasn't given any comments to media that we could find.

Clearly, Hanona is not willing to stand by his racism. And I know why. Anti-Semitism should not be tolerated, and he knows it.

How long had the New York Times employed this racist?
According to reports, he had contributed to reporting on the the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians as recently as last week. One can be sure that Hanona reported his one-sided anti-Semitic views.

How many articles did Hanona write for the Times? The Times has so far refused to respond to inquiries about whether Hanona was vetted and how many articles he contributed to. They need to buy a little time to erase as much proof as possible.

https://theblacksphere.net/2022/08/new-york-times-fires-racist-reporter/

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Australia: Fighting back against bureaucratic oppression of men and boys

Bettina Arndt

Every day, men are mown down by petty bureaucrats revelling in their feminist-bestowed power to crush ordinary blokes. With my correspondence bearing witness to the ongoing massacre, it’s a thrill to occasionally see someone take them on and win.

This week I have two stories, both of people facing injustice, who reached out to me recently for help.

One is a senior medico, working in the health bureaucracy in Queensland, who suddenly found our draconian Child Support Agency (CSA) had overnight taken half his wages to pay for a child who didn’t exist. Child support officials simply refused to believe it was a mistake, and piled on the torture, rendering him technically insolvent, potentially wrecking his credit rating and his marriage. When he first wrote to me, he was sleeping in the spare bedroom – his wife found it hard to believe that he’d never fathered this mythical son.

The other case involved a 15-year-old boy who’d been suspended from his school after a girl in his class made a bizarre allegation that, three years earlier, in the middle of a crowded classroom, he’d suddenly reached under the desk and thrust his fingers in and out of her vagina. She also claimed he repeated the process two days later.

Four months after the suspension his distressed mother wrote to me, describing the family’s fear that the school’s investigation was going nowhere, critical evidence was being ignored and their son seemed set up as the sacrificial lamb to be summarily tossed out of school to appease the alleged ‘victim’ and her followers.

After long conversations with both these troubled people, my advice was similar. Take them on. Go in all guns blazing, right to the top of the food chain, armed with substantial threats about guaranteed severe consequences if they failed to address the issue properly.

It worked. Both issues have been resolved. It took three days for the medico to have his income restored, his confiscated money paid back, and the garnishee notice removed. He even received a groveling email from a very senior bureaucrat who wrote: ‘I would like to unreservedly apologise for the Agency’s errors and the frustration you experienced in having the errors corrected.’ That’s worth framing, isn’t it? The perfect badge of honour to hang on a toilet door.

Amazingly, the teenage boy has been welcomed back to school. His accuser is now being home-schooled, claiming she doesn’t feel safe back in class. We suspect she’s simply embarrassed that her allegations failed to stack up. The boy’s parents are relieved but still contemplating whether they will take further action.

So, the lesson is to fight back – hard. So many institutions be they government departments, bureaucracies, or schools – appear to be run by petty, anti-male bullies who can’t be bothered to ensure proper rules are being fairly applied. They prefer to target men and boys, winning brownie points from their feminist colleagues in the process. Usually, they get away with it – because we let them.

Let me tell you more about the doctor’s story – I’ll call him ‘Alan’. It came as a huge shock when this mild-mannered man checked his bank account and discovered half his salary had been held back. He quickly learned the culprit was the CSA which has the power to garnish wages.

Alan then suffered through a two-hour phone call with someone we will call Owen, a smug child support officer who assured him that it simply wasn’t true that they had the wrong man. ‘No, no, we have the right person,’ Owen assured him, giving ‘Robert’ as the name of his alleged son, explaining they proposed to garnish Alan’s wages until he’d paid off the money they claimed he owed, and adding cheerfully that they were imposing an order prohibiting international travel.

‘I can understand why men commit suicide under such circumstances,’ wrote Alan, appalled and humiliated by his treatment from this despot who simply refused to believe that he had no such child.

I consulted various knowledgeable people and was told by a child support expert that he should send a legal letter to the big boss, the Secretary of Services Australia, threatening action under CDDA (a body that compensates people for defective administration by Commonwealth agencies). She also suggested Alan should follow up with complaints to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Privacy Commissioner over the alleged lack of procedural fairness and breach of privacy.

The letter to the Secretary was sent and within two days he learned he officially no longer had a child called ‘Robert’, nor a child support debt, his legal expenses would be reimbursed, and a full investigation was being made into CSA’s handling of the matter. Owen’s career advancement is not looking too healthy.

Yes, we realise this all happened because Alan was enough of a big shot to look as if he could cause real trouble, and he still could hock himself to the hilt to pay the bills for his lawyer to handle the whole thing. I have many hundreds of letters from ordinary blokes who shouted from the rooftops over the way they were treated by the CSA and similar bodies, all to no avail. Men who spent their last dollar and then some on lawyers and got nowhere. Many are now totally destitute. I talked recently to a disabled man living in a rotting boat on the Queensland coastline, who has just such a dreadful story.

But the fact remains that many people don’t seize the reins when they find themselves being terrorised by these bureaucrats. And if they do employ a lawyer, they often end up with pen-pushers who are lazy, inept, or afraid of rocking the boat.

When the mother of the suspended 15-year-old boy first contacted me, the family had employed a lawyer who was supposed to find a way of stopping their son from being thrown under the bus. But the school was stalling and the boy’s prospects didn’t look good.

The school claimed to be conducting an investigation into the girl’s allegations but hadn’t interviewed the two teachers present in the classroom when the girl was apparently being fingered. There was a critical sexy Snapchat conversation allegedly written by the boy which featured perfect grammar and spelling – unlikely from this kid who had known learning difficulties. The accuser had another Snapchat account where she attempted to solicit dick pics from boys, including their son, in order to blackmail them but that never seems to have been investigated by the school. So much potential evidence is being ignored. It did, however, provide good reason for the parents to fear their son was being framed.

It wasn’t hard to find a way of forcing a resolution. Luckily the boy was in a private school, with a school board full of fat cats who wouldn’t be at all keen on their fancy school attracting adverse publicity over a sordid lawsuit about an alleged sexual assault in one of their classrooms.

We arranged for the parents to instruct their lawyer to approach the school board, informing them they were planning legal action over the case. When members of the board learned where this was all heading, suddenly the parents were summoned to the school and told their son was welcome to return. They were informed there was insufficient evidence to determine the truth of the allegations. ‘We are angry, damaged, and exhausted,’ wrote the mother, explaining to me how relieved she was to have her son back in the classroom, a clear signal that the girl’s presumed lies had gone nowhere.

And perhaps also a message to the school that they can’t always assume they can just ride roughshod over the rights of boys, responding to dubious claims from girls who may not be nearly as innocent as they make out.

That’s what we need. More people refusing to sit back and take it. Parents to start yelling loudly about the presumption that girls don’t lie and boys are expendable.

More committed, activist lawyers are willing to go that extra mile to ensure fair treatment for male clients.

It would be great to have more support networks to guide people through these battles, planning strategies, finding the right contacts, helping them pick the right lawyers, and ensure they do their jobs. Please get in touch if you have the time and skills to be an occasional cheer squad for men and boys who are being kicked to the kerb.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/fighting-back-4/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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