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The dataset generation failed
Error code: DatasetGenerationError
Exception: ArrowInvalid
Message: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 40
Traceback: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 153, in _generate_tables
df = pd.read_json(f, dtype_backend="pyarrow")
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 815, in read_json
return json_reader.read()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1025, in read
obj = self._get_object_parser(self.data)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1051, in _get_object_parser
obj = FrameParser(json, **kwargs).parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1187, in parse
self._parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1403, in _parse
ujson_loads(json, precise_float=self.precise_float), dtype=None
ValueError: Trailing data
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1997, in _prepare_split_single
for _, table in generator:
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 156, in _generate_tables
raise e
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 130, in _generate_tables
pa_table = paj.read_json(
File "pyarrow/_json.pyx", line 308, in pyarrow._json.read_json
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 40
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1529, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1154, in convert_to_parquet
builder.download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1029, in download_and_prepare
self._download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1124, in _download_and_prepare
self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1884, in _prepare_split
for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 2040, in _prepare_split_single
raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
datasets.exceptions.DatasetGenerationError: An error occurred while generating the datasetNeed help to make the dataset viewer work? Make sure to review how to configure the dataset viewer, and open a discussion for direct support.
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Martin Luther King assassinated by US Govt: King Family civil trial verdict
RL McGee Sun, 01/18/2015 - 11:30pm
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/martin-luther-king-assassinated-us-govt-king-family-civil-trial-verdict.html
*Updated 2015 version
Coretta Scott King: “We have done what we can to reveal the truth, and we now urge you as members of the media, and we call upon elected officials, and other persons of influence to do what they can to share the revelation of this case to the widest possible audience.” – King Family Press Conference, Dec. 9, 1999.
Dr. King’s 2-minute message to you:
Dr. Martin Luther King’s family and personal friend/attorney, William F. Pepper, won a civil trial that found US government agencies guilty of assassination/wrongful death. The 1999 trial, King Family versus Jowers and Other Unknown Co-Conspirators, is the only trial ever conducted on the assassination of Dr. King. The King Center fully documents the case, with full trial transcript.
The overwhelming evidence of US government complicity found valid by the jury includes:
*US 111th Military Intelligence Group were at Dr. King’s location during the assassination.
*20th Special Forces Group had an 8-man sniper team at the assassination location on that day.
*Usual Memphis Police special body guards were advised they “weren’t needed” on the day of the assassination.
*Regular and constant police protection for Dr. King was removed from protecting Dr. King an hour before the assassination.
*Military Intelligence set-up photographers on the roof of a fire station with clear view to Dr. King’s balcony.
*Dr. King’s room was changed from a secure 1st-floor room to an exposed balcony room.
*Memphis police ordered the scene where multiple witnesses reported as the source of shooting cut down of their bushes that would have hid a sniper.
*Along with sanitizing a crime scene, police abandoned investigative procedure to interview witnesses who lived by the scene of the shooting.
*The rifle Mr. Ray delivered was not matched to the bullet that killed Dr. King, and was not sighted to accurately shoot.
Also, the FBI acted to cause Dr. King’s death by suicide. The FBI illegally spied on Dr. King, used data in attempt to split leadership, and sent Dr. King a letter promising to expose alleged sexual misconduct. This was part of the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO program.
Please read the above evidence twice to be clear on its overwhelming power.
The King family’s attempts for a criminal trial were always denied by state and federal government. Claimed suspect, James Ray, said that his government-appointed attorney told him to sign a guilty plea to prevent the death penalty and threatened arrests of his father and brother as co-conspirators for his only part in the assassination plot: delivering a rifle. Mr. Ray produced a letter from his attorney stating the promise that Mr. Ray would receive a trial. When Mr. Ray discovered that he was solely blamed for Dr. King’s assassination and would never receive a trial, Mr. Ray’s subsequent recants of his guilty plea and requests for trial were denied.
The US government also denied the King family’s requests for independent investigation of the assassination, despite the overwhelming evidence produced at the 1999 civil trial. Dr. King’s wife, Coretta, spent more than twice the number of years she was married to Martin working to get a criminal trial for her husband’s assassination.
Importantly, the US government has never presented any evidence subject to challenge that substantiates their claim that Mr. Ray assassinated Dr. King.
The King family believes the government’s motivation to murder Dr. King was to prevent his imminent camp-in/Occupy at Washington, D.C. until the Vietnam War was ended and those resources directed to end poverty and invest in US hard and soft infrastructure.
US corporate media did not cover the civil trial, interview the King family, and textbooks omit this information. This is crucial evidence of a controlled corporate media rejecting coverage of a game-changing story. Journalist and author, James Douglass:
“I can hardly believe the fact that, apart from the courtroom participants, only Memphis TV reporter Wendell Stacy and I attended from beginning to end this historic three-and-one-half week trial. Because of journalistic neglect scarcely anyone else in this land of ours even knows what went on in it. After critical testimony was given in the trial’s second week before an almost empty gallery, Barbara Reis, U.S. correspondent for the Lisbon daily Publico who was there several days, turned to me and said, ‘Everything in the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J. Simpson’s trial was the trial of the century. Clinton’s trial was the trial of the century. But this is the trial of the century, and who’s here?’ ”
For comparison, please consider the media coverage of O.J. Simpson’s trials:
“Media coverage of the Simpson trial, which began in January 1995, was unlike any other. Over two thousand reporters covered the trial, and 80 miles of cable was required to allow nineteen television stations to cover the trial live to 91 percent of the American viewing audience. When the verdict was finally read on October 3, 1995, some 142 million people listened or watched. It seemed the nation stood still, divided along racial lines as to the defendant’s guilt or innocence. During and after the trial, over eighty books were published about the event by most everyone involved in the Simpson case.”
Coretta Scott King was certain of the evidence after 30 years of consideration from the 1968 assassination to the 1999 trial:
“For a quarter of a century, Bill Pepper conducted an independent investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. He opened his files to our family, encouraged us to speak with the witnesses, and represented our family in the civil trial against the conspirators. The jury affirmed his findings, providing our family with a long-sought sense of closure and peace, which had been denied by official disinformation and cover-ups. Now the findings of his exhaustive investigation and additional revelations from the trial are presented in the pages of this important book. We recommend it highly to everyone who seeks the truth about Dr. King’s assassination.” — Coretta Scott King.
The US Department of Justice issued a report in 2000 that explained their claimed investigation into their own possible guilt in the assassination. They concluded that they found no evidence to warrant further investigation. Dr. King’s son issued the following statement rebuking the “self-study” rather than independent investigation:
“We learned only hours before the Justice Department press conference that they were releasing the report of their results of their ‘limited investigation,’ which covered only two areas of new evidence concerning the assassination of Dr. King. We had requested that we be given a copy of the report a few days in advance so that we might have had the opportunity to review it in detail. Since that courtesy was not extended to us, we are only able at this time to state the following:
1. We initially requested that a comprehensive investigation be conducted by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, independent of the government, because we do not believe that, in such a politically-sensitive matter, the government is capable of investigating itself.
2. The type of independent investigation we sought was denied by the federal government. But in our view, it was carried out, in a Memphis courtroom, during a month-long trial by a jury of 12 American citizens who had no interest other than ascertaining the truth. (Kings v. Jowers)
3. After hearing and reviewing the extensive testimony and evidence, which had never before been tested under oath in a court of law, it took the Memphis jury only one (1) hour to find that a conspiracy to kill Dr. King did exist. Most significantly, this conspiracy involved agents of the governments of the City of Memphis, the state of Tennessee and the United States of America. The overwhelming weight of the evidence also indicated that James Earl Ray was not the triggerman and, in fact, was an unknowing patsy.
4. We stand by that verdict and have no doubt that the truth about this terrible event has finally been revealed.
5. We urge all interested Americans to read the transcript of the trial on the King Center website and consider the evidence, so they can form their own unbiased conclusions.
Although we cooperated fully with this limited investigation, we never really expected that the government report would be any more objective than that which has resulted from any previous official investigation.”
Let’s summarize: Under US Civil Law, covert US government agencies were found guilty of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King was the leading figure of the Civil Rights Movement, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and widely recognized as one of the world’s greatest speakers for what it means to be human. The family’s conclusion as to motive was to prevent Dr. King from ending the Vietnam War because the government wanted to continue its ongoing illegal covert and overt military operations to control foreign governments and their resources.
It is therefore a factual statement that under US Civil Law, the US government assassinated Dr. King.
People of sufficient intellectual integrity and moral courage to apply critical thinking skills will embrace the trial evidence and testimony, jury conclusion, and King family analysis as appropriate and helpful information in seeking the facts.
People who at least temporarily reject challenging information out of fear might say something like, “The government killed Dr. King? That’s a crazy conspiracy theory!”
Let’s consider that statement.
When someone says that a body of evidence is “crazy,” or a “conspiracy theory” (meaning an irrational claim easily refuted by the evidence) that’s a claim. With a claim comes a burden of proof. In this case, the person would have to demonstrate command of the facts to explain and prove why the evidence from the civil trial is somehow “crazy” and refute the evidence.
If the person can do this, it would be tremendously helpful in understanding the facts. However, we know from our experience that such statements almost always have zero factual support, and that the person making such a claim literally doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
We also know from our experience, a person making such a statement is really voicing an emotional reaction something closer to, “The government killed Dr. King? Ok, I read and understood the paragraphs about the trial and evidence. I read Mrs. King’s and her son’s statement. I haven’t invested the time to verify how valid that information is. I’m not stupid, but because the implications of what that means is so disturbing, I’m going to deny anything about it could possibly be true as my first response. If I’m going to continue being in denial and refuse to discuss the evidence, I’ll attack the messenger.”
We also need to consider the lack of coverage by US corporate media of this compelling evidence, trial verdict, and King family testimony from over 30 years’ analysis of the facts. Recall the evidence of US corporate media reporting being infiltrated by CIA agents to propagandize Americans’ access to information. This included the Director of the CIA’s admission to Congress that they have over 400 agents working in corporate media to make the US public believe what the CIA wants them to believe.
In 2006, George Washington University used a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the US military’s “Information Operations Roadmap.” This formerly secret and approved document details present US government strategies to generate propaganda, and then attack Internet alternative media that provides dangerous facts and discussion. The military promoted the term, “Fight the net.”
Although I won’t enter the burden of proof here, you may know that there are similar and related bodies of evidence that the US government assassinated other American leaders. The 1975 Senate Church Committee disclosed that the US government initiated and helped assassination attempts on multiple foreign heads of state.
If we were discussing how the population of some other nation could employ critical thinking skills to understand current events from anytime in history, we would certainly understand the importance to anticipate disinformation from government, danger of controlled media, and assassination as a political weapon.
Failure to do so would appropriately elicit the label attributed to the first dictator of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin. Such people who believe what their government tells them when the history and present have overwhelming objective evidence to explain, document, and prove that the government is typical of so many other historical self-serving oligarchies are:
“Useful idiots.”
To the extent the United States today is any different from all other nations and all other times is up to your exercise of critical thinking skills.
And that said, objective, measurable, and independently verifiable facts easily explain, document, and prove US history of:
Unlawful Wars of Aggression based on easily-provable lies (here, here, here, here),
Bankster-looting economics (here, here, here, here, here),
Lying sacks of spin corporate media that “cover” the crimes.
An obvious question: What does the 99.99% of humanity do to end these viciously psychopathic assassinations of our best people, end lie-started Wars of Aggression, end banister looting, and genuinely have opportunity to create a bright future for all Earth’s inhabitants?
An obvious answer: We tell the truth/facts, arrest obvious criminals, and have media broadcast our true condition so we may begin. I explain here:
2015 Winning Time: 3 phases to 99.99%’s victory over .01% criminal psychopaths
RL McGee's blog
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Stanford -"The other America" 1967
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Stanford - "The other America" 1967
Calin Gilea
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech at Stanford on April 14, 1967. This speech is known as "The other America".
Joe on Mon, 01/19/2015 - 7:15pm.
A friend of mine
A friend of mine whom I've engaged on 9/11 maybe 3 or 4 times in 10 years asked me politely the last time we talked "let's just not talk about 9/11." I have read the book An Act of State by William Pepper and at a point asked this friend who he thought killed MLK. I shared with him that a court in Memphis in 1999, on behalf of the King family, brought a civil trial and won with the jury of 6 black and 6 white finding that King had been killed by a conspiracy that included government agencies. He waved it off with some non-sequitur. This is an intelligent man, but on certain issues like MLK he's willing to dismiss Pepper's decades of personal investigation and court verdict to keep from upsetting his worldview.
On this MLK day I think we should consider the profound obstacle that personal impairments presents in conveying uncomfortable truths, and how we might overcome them with the dignity and courage of Martin Luther King.
AConfederacyofDunces on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 12:33am.
"personal impairments"
I'd like to hear more. I frequently wonder how I and most of my friends have open minds and others have minds only opened to what is programmed and approved. How did I escape?
A study of this is AGNOTOLOGY:
Agnotology
Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. The neologism was coined by Robert N. Proctor,[1][2] a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology.[3] Its name derives from the Neoclassical Greek word ἄγνωσις, agnōsis, "not knowing" (confer Attic Greek ἄγνωτος "unknown"[4]), and -λογία, -logia.[5] More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before.
The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance
Edited by Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger
http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=11232
What don't we know, and why don't we know it? What keeps ignorance alive, or allows it to be used as a political instrument? Agnotology—the study of ignorance—provides a new theoretical perspective to broaden traditional questions about "how we know" to ask: Why don't we know what we don't know? The essays assembled in Agnotology show that ignorance is often more than just an absence of knowledge; it can also be the outcome of cultural and political struggles. Ignorance has a history and a political geography, but there are also things people don't want you to know ("Doubt is our product" is the tobacco industry slogan). Individual chapters treat examples from the realms of global climate change, military secrecy, female orgasm, environmental denialism, Native American paleontology, theoretical archaeology, racial ignorance, and more. The goal of this volume is to better understand how and why various forms of knowing do not come to be, or have disappeared, or have become invisible.
Robert N. Proctor is Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University and the author of The Nazi War on Cancer (1999) and Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know (1995). Londa Schiebinger is the John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science and the Barbara D. Finberg Director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. Her recent books include Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (2004) and Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering (forthcoming from Stanford).
Joe on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 1:31am.
Willful Ignorance
I've encountered the term "Willful Ignorance" in numerous places since 2002. We choose the comfort of ignorance over 'truth' because it allows us to function without interruption.
7man on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 1:38pm.
Some of the points referred to here were compellingly summed up in the following quotation from E. Martin Schotz, a psychiatrist who has written about the JFK assassination (author of the book 'History Will Not Absolve Us'):
'It is so important to understand that one of the primary means of immobilizing the American people politically today is to hold them in a state of confusion in which anything can be believed but nothing can be known, nothing of significance that is.'
(Crucially, though, he goes on to observe that, '...the American people are more than willing to be held in this state because to know the truth — as opposed to only believe the truth — is to face an awful terror and to be no longer able to evade responsibility.')
Also related is the notion of 'deep events,' as discussed by Peter Dale Scott:
'There are also deep events, or meta-events, which the mainstream information systems of the country cannot digest. I mean by a “deep event” an event in which it is clear from the outset that there are aspects which will not be dealt with in the mainstream media....All these deep events have involved what I call the deep state, that part of the state which is not publicly accountable, and pursues its goals by means which will not be approved by a public examination.'
(As quoted here: http://911blogger.com/news/2007-08-19/911truthorg-exclusive-peter-dale-scott-jfk-911-and-war )
rm on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 2:53pm.
On techniques and methods for 'waking people up'...
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/2sq0rz/on_techniques_and_methods_for_waking_people_up/
Interesting post and discussion.
Orangutan. on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 1:31am.
- William Pepper - The Execution of Martin Luther King 70 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWS1KPCmOrI
TalkingStickTV - William Pepper - The Execution of Martin Luther King
Uploaded on Aug 1, 2008
Talk by William Pepper author of "An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King" and "Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King" given February 27, 2003 in Seattle.
Joe on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 10:34am.
JFK conclusions by the HSCA
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/
Many people don't know there was a House investigation of the JFK assassination which concluded there was a likely conspiracy. Fewer people know there was a civil trial on the MLK assassination -- the only trial -- which found US govt agencies guilty. Fewer still know about the Toronto Hearings that investigated 9/11 and found the official story to be false and referred the matter to the ICC for criminal prosecution.
This trio would make a nice little outreach package.
RL McGee on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 10:43am.
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of the Past
Do you own or know of other works by artists/artisans relating to Chester and area or have information on the artist/artisan that you feel is important? If you are willing to share this information in order to help us catalogue these individuals and their work for future generations, we invite you to contact us.
Gray, Jack L.
Birth Date/Place: April 28, 1927, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Death Date/Place: September 4, 1981, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA
Biographical Links:
On Facebook more information and paintings
On Facebook more pictures and information
Painting by Jack Gray
Jack Gray at work
Sources for the biographical information include Wikipedia, "Stonehurst by the Sea" [Cameron House Publishers], and communication with Chester residents. Additional biographical notes, observations on Gray's techniques in marine painting, and images of paintings currently available for purchase, may be found on the websites of the galleries listed below.
Vallejo Gallery, Newport Beach, CA
Marine Arts Gallery, Salem, MA
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
Surovek Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
Cameron's Fine Art Gallery, Chester, NS
Born in Nova Scotia in 1927, Jack Lorimer Gray spent much of his adult life traveling away from the province and then inevitably being drawn back, especially to the South Shore where he could indulge his passion - a love of boats. As a boy Gray loved drawing and, even then, his focus was on ships at sea. As a teenager he spent two years at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and during the summer he boarded with a family on East Ironbound Island, later using those sketches of island life to create large paintings. During the summer of 1947, he and fellow artist Joseph Purcell rented the loft of a fish store at New Harbour, NS, where they made drawings and paintings. Gray traveled to Montreal in 1948 to take a course in life drawing from Arthur Lismer at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts but soon returned to his first love: boats.
After several seasons at sea with the dory-fishing schooner fleet, Gray had a portfolio of sketches, notes and photographs that he used as the basis for his first solo exhibition, in Chester, at the Hackmatack Inn, in 1948. That opportunity led to several commissions from wealthy Americans and the patronage of members of Halifax's Oland family. He also did pen-and-ink drawings to illustrate Thomas H. Raddall's novel, A Master of Arms.
During his summers in Chester, he rented space over a boathouse owned by Herman Walker, in the Back Harbour, to use as a studio, using Graves' apple juice crates for an easel. From 1948 to 1952 he would dock his boat "Kathleen RH", at the Walker's wharf. He still occasionally went to sea with the fishermen. In late summer or early fall he and his wife would leave for the city where his art dealer was. 1953-1955 he spent his winters in Dartmouth NS.
In 1956 Gray moved to New York and painted aboard boats. He was represented by several commercial galleries and some of this work was later reproduced as the New York Harbor Collection. In 1958 he was hired to do a series of sketches for the movie, "John Paul Jones". This work brought him to the attention of a wider audience and increased his recognition as an artist.
After the movie work, Gray moved to a house in Winterport Maine, and it was there, between 1959 and 1961 (according to art dealer Ian Muncaster) that Gray produced many of his best works.
Gray returned to Halifax in late 1961 where he had a property on the Northwest Arm, with a dock for his boat. When word got out that his painting Dressing Down, the Gully had been presented to newly-elected US president John F. Kennedy, Gray was sought out by many patrons and galleries
Many years later, after he had purchased a property in Blue Rocks, Carol Nauss was cleaning out her father's storage area and came across a tube containing a rolled-up water-colour that Gray had left behind in the boathouse. It is a view of the boathouse and the dock along with other buildings belonging to the Walkers. [ See the first image included here]
By the 1965, Gray had moved again, this time to Florida, although he kept a cottage at Stonehurst, NS, where he continued to paint inshore fishermen and their boats. In addition to his passion for painting boats, he also took an interest in modifying old boats for use as floating studios, and he once collaborated with a Canadian boat-yard in designing a custom yacht for a client. Gray visited Chester for the last time in September 1980, as a guest of Mary Dayton McNeely and Gerald Stevens.
Gray made his reputation primarily through his oil paintings although he was a skilled draftsman and water-colourist as well, but fewer of those pieces have survived. Gray never did use acrylic paints.
After his 1981 death in Florida, his ashes were brought back to Nova Scotia and scattered at sea near the mouth of Lunenburg Bay. The value of his art gradually increased as galleries began holding retrospective exhibitions and, in 2006, one particular painting - Man at Sea - sold at auction in NYC for $91,000.
Image 1985-9 "The Back Harbour at Chester, NS 1951" courtesy of AGNS
Image 1986-22 "Going to Church from Tancook Island 1955" courtesy of AGNS
Work Images | Click images below for a larger view
Copyright © 2016Chester Municipal Heritage Society
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Cliff Holden
Chapter 2 - The Borough Group
The Borough Group was started in 1946. The ideas of the Group arose out of conversations between myself and Bomberg during the years 1944 and 1945. I had immediately recognized that Bomberg's painting, his idea of teaching his practice and his attitude to the creative act were unique in the world and not only in England. It was proved later that Bomberg not only anticipated the American influences of Tachism, Action Painting and the New Expressionism which reached England in the middle fifties, but also that his ideas were more profound and fundamental.
When I first met Bomberg, at the City Literary Institute in 1944, he was teaching drawing to a group of ladies. Bomberg told me that he was also teaching part-time at Dagenham School of Art and that there was a revolt of the students and staff against his unorthodox teaching methods, especially concerning his attitude to drawing and lithography. (It should be noted that before being an art student Bomberg had served his apprenticeship in lithography.) Leading this revolt were two typical but intensely conservative students, Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann. Gradually they began to understand what Bomberg believed in, producing a profound change of heart so that they became fervent disciples of Bomberg. When he was forced to leave Dagenham, they followed him to London where Bomberg introduced them to me and they enrolled at the City Literary Institute. From there, in the following year, 1945, Bomberg secured a part-time teaching job (two days and two evenings a week) at the Borough Polytechnic. He suggested that we all follow him there, which was quite an extraordinary event. We didn't take part in the ordinary curriculum of the art school, but only went along to Bomberg's classes. Thus this nucleus of three people became instrumental in spreading Bomberg's ideas, by recruiting students from other art schools and from the pubs and cafes of Soho and bringing them to the Borough Polytechnic.
To establish the date at which I first became a student of Bomberg and to indicate how much confidence he had in my commitment to art, I can cite a letter of reference which he wrote for me in 1947, when I was applying to rent some accomodation in Maida Vale.
41 Queens Gate Mews,
Gloucester Road,
I have been asked by my student Clifford Holden for a reference in regard to his tenancy of an unfurnished apartment in your property - 74 Randolph Avenue, Maida Vale.
I am Holden's Art Master at the Borough Polytechnic, Borough Road, S.E.1., which he has been regularly attending part-time for day and evening sessions. I have found him a
very disciplined person both in regard to his studies and reliable in every way inside and outside the Borough Polytechnic.
I esteem Mr. Holden as a student of great promise and as an artist with some achievement already.
We have been known to one another for some two years and during that time he has shown himself well meriting my esteem and confidence in him.
When Bomberg managed to get more part-time work at the Bartlett School of Architecture he would take his students out to various locations and we joined him there as well. The architectural students plus myself, Mead and Mann worked with Bomberg on outdoor sites in the City of London and from casts at the Victoria and Albert Museum. When we worked from the casts in the Victoria and Albert museum I made many drawings of Michelangelo's David. Apart from using the models in the studio, we were also encouraged to go out and draw and paint the architecture nearby. We spent many months in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral as well as at sites along the River Thames. I myself made at least twenty paintings from the roof of the Borough Polytechnic, which now has the grand name of South Bank University. Others working on the roof at that time included Peter Richmond, Edna Mann and Dorothy Mead.
Teaching, like painting, was a total activity for Bomberg. Richard Michelmore, one of his students (and not a painter but an architect), has said that Bomberg spoke of the grandeur of the whole; of the importance of the parts only as an amplification of the complete statement. That may well be, but I think Michelmore completely misunderstood him. It may well be the case in architecture where the amplification can lead to ornamentation, but in the painted image the complete statement needs no amplification. It is complete. The point of completion is the beginning of another statement and therefore of another painting.
Bomberg often simplified the history of art into two approaches; those painters that approached the form, building the parts to the whole and those who worked from the whole to the parts. His sympathies were with the latter. Never did he think in terms of appropriate parts. The parts had a place only in so far as they were an integral ingredient in the structure of the image. Bomberg's teaching did not pursue an artistic method or embrace a complete aesthetic; it was an approach capable of endless development.
He regarded himself as a man breaking virgin soil. He threw in dung instead of artificial fertilizers and not unnaturally a lot of weeds came up together with the strong plants. The question of whether Bomberg stressed drawing from the figure is something of a red herring. Bomberg never actually stressed drawing from the figure as such. For him the human figure and the apple were perhaps the most difficult problems the draughtsman could approach. From 1912 to 1920, Bomberg had made a large number of figure compositions but, later on, he abandoned this type of composition in favour of landscapes, portraits and flower paintings. I can only think of three paintings by Bomberg of the nude figure. We, as students, worked mainly from the model because the model was available and this excited Bomberg because he regarded the human figure as being so complex. Every problem the draughtsman could encounter was contained in the human figure. But it was also contained in the apple.
Bomberg also encouraged us to make small models of clay or wire and work with light shadows so that we simulated dancing figures or figures in procession or bell-ringers or boxers fighting. He suggested that we might take any object and change it into something else in the way he once did using cushions which he changed into a row of sleeping men. He also encouraged us to change the motif; for example, to start off with a still life in a vase and change it into a chicken, change it into two chickens fighting, and then perhaps change it again into two figures embracing in a kiss. He taught us to take a painting which was of little value and turn it upside down, as the Cubists did, and carefully change the value of all the colours - that is to change the colour of each brush stroke, which was a very tedious discipline. What he meant was that by turning the painting you changed the gravitational pull. The forms regained vitality partly because of this and partly because you change the colour of the brush stroke while working towards a new identification of subject.
In working from the model Bomberg encouraged the students to engage in a few tricks which were contrary to the static attitudes of the academics. We would walk around the model and approach from different angles and perspectives. It was recognized that nature was not static and neither should the painter be static. It was in movement that the assessment of the form was possible.
Sometimes the model was spot-lighted as by the sun, sometimes by a hard overall light and sometimes it was completely in the dark. The painting was from light to dark and dark to light. In this way both the model and the landscape were viewed as nature in constant flux and change. The subject changed, the painter himself moved and the light was in constant movement - which was just the opposite from the way Monet worked before 1890. He would go to his motif and, if he became ten minutes late, he would go back in his taxi without putting a mark on the canvas because what he wanted was to establish his landscape in one moment of time. We worked in the exact opposite way. We agreed with Bomberg that the eye was not only a feeble servant of the other senses but a highly specialized servant, dangerous in this specialization and given to lying. Landscape painting was a question of finding an image, not of a camera eye view but a wide angled panorama which could be arrived at through the sense of touch and movement.
Bomberg's contribution was unique. He did not imitate the Cubists or the Fauves but was already critical in his attitude both with words and in paint, just as he became critical of his own attitude between 1914 and 1920 which led to the gradual evolution of his later contributions. These were not diametrically opposed to his earlier ideas, as most critics seemed to think; the seeds of his later period already existed in the earlier time.
Bomberg's roots were through Giotto, Cimabue, Massaccio, Michelangelo and all the way through to Rembrandt and Cezanne, with Piero de la Francesca, Goya, Velasquez and Titian on the side (but still very important). I also tread this path but I have come to the conclusion - a very exciting conclusion - that the later path started with Turner and came to France through Delacroix, Van Gogh, the late Monet and, finally, through Cezanne who was the father to Bomberg as Bomberg was the father to me. This was the path that Bomberg trod and the remnants of the Borough Group have tried to continue along the same path.
It is a sad indictment of the critics and the art historians that they have continued to lump Bomberg with the Vorticists when he continually rejected the advances of Wyndham Lewis and when he never joined their group or contributed to any of their exhibitions. Later, against his will, he was included in the Vorticist show at the Tate in 1956 where he was represented by one picture. Vorticism was a convenient label. The name of 'Vorticism' was invented and
propagated by Wyndham Lewis and it was this label which caught on with the critics because Wyndham Lewis was a much more prolific writer than he was a painter. Nobody in fact knew what Vorticism meant and as Lewis himself said: "Vorticism, in fact, was what I, personally, did, and said, at a certain period."
Superficially Bomberg's early and later periods could hardly appear to be more different. The only person, apart from myself, who seems to have recognized the similarity in approach and his continuing pre-occupation with particular ideas, is the writer Christopher Neve in his book The Unquiet Landscape (Faber & Faber, 1990, pp.149-158). Neve recognized this when he said (p.152): "From the mid-1920's, instead of imposing his will on his surroundings, he began to watch for the humane spirit in the landscape and tried to let it impose on him."
Bomberg was a great teacher and during his lifetime his influence was felt by many people who were never close to him as we were in the Borough Group. There are only two painters - Kossof and Auerbach - who made a reputation since then and who the critics have connected with the name of David Bomberg.
Auerbach remembered his master Bomberg only many years after his death when it was respectable to have known the master. At a tender age Auerbach was already wise enough not to put all his eggs in one basket and opted for the security of the establishment via St. Martins and the Royal College of Art. Later this paid off by helping him to find well paid teaching jobs which is something that Bomberg himself could never achieve.
When compared to my lengthy contact with Bomberg from 1944 to 1951 (when we met during long periods almost every day), both Kossoff and Auerbach had a very short acquaintance - two evenings a week at the Borough, in Kossoff's case only between 1950 and 1952 and in Auerbach's case between 1948 and 1952. This is corroborated by Frances Spalding when she reviewed their exhibition at the Royal College of Art. She points out that the RCA can claim only partial responsibility for the success of their former students and she agrees with Lynda Morris who astutely observes in the catalogue that Kossoff and Auerbach were more influenced by their two evenings a week under Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic than by their seven years as full time students at St. Martins and the RCA.
Bomberg regarded Auerbach as something of a joke, a boy of talent and taste following the fashions of art. I remember Auerbach at the age of 16 and 17 making imitations of Klee and Braque in a very decorative manner. Auerbach has been quoted as saying he was taught by Bomberg but not influenced by his practice. This, of course, is nonsense because it was precisely his practice that Bomberg taught and this was what marked him out from all other teachers. But the influence on Auerbach was not so much Bomberg as the Borough Group.
It was the ideas generated by the Borough Group which influenced people like Kossof and Auerbach but what Kossof and Auerbach did as a result was a misinterpretation of what the Borough Group were doing. One can not connect their work to Bomberg except indirectly through us. Auerbach lifted the idea of the thick paint and reduced it to a gimmick which he continued to follow, not realizing that paintings can be made with thick paint or thin paint. Because the thick paint obviously prevented him from working directly from the landscape, out in the open air and in the nature, he was reduced, like Sickert, to working from the small sketch and the photograph which was the opposite way of working to that of Bomberg. In fact, Auerbach is on record as being a great admirer of Sickert - which is, of course, more his idiom - not forgetting that Bomberg's teacher was Sickert and Bomberg hated him all his life.
In their thickness both Kossof and Auerbach are more related to the work of Bengt Lindstom from Paris or Karel Appel from Belgium. In his images Kossof has the same element of caricature which one finds in the paintings by the American, Wilhelm De Kooning, and both
of them, in their brush strokes, have more in common with the Dane, Asgar Jorn. All of them have been successful and they all lack any relation to the ideas expounded by Bomberg.
In those days, we all played around and waded in an abundance of paint. We painted thick. There were many side issues and romantic ideas generated during the period of the Borough Group. For example, Peter Richmond went even further than Auerbach. Peter had the notion that to be a good artist one should emulate Michelangelo and, therefore, he did not wash and he used the same old paint-covered clothes and a dirty old mac which was his habitual uniform. Both Peter Richmond and I were using thick paint and dropping it on the floor, much to the annoyance of Mr. Patrick, who was the head of the art department at the Borough Polytechnic and who nearly had us thrown out because of this. We were there very much on sufferance because we took no part in the school's curriculum and it was clear to everyone that we were only there to take advantage of the facilities and the model.
The reason why the Borough Group used dark paint was not because of any angst or depression but because we could not afford to buy the vermilions, the yellows, the reds and the wonderful blues - all of which were far too expensive. We also worked on boards and when we had no money we worked on both sides, which was thought by many people to be very strange. But years later, I saw that Raoult had worked watercolours on both sides of the paper and this, of course, once a painter is established, is acceptable. They were exhibited in museums, not hanging on the wall, but sticking out from the wall with glass on both sides of the frame so that you saw two paintings, one on each side.
There were many other painters around Bomberg at the time but they didn't join the Borough Group. People like Edvardo Paolozzi, Joe Tilson, Max and Gustav Metzger, Karl Weschke and many others. But they quickly drifted away, either because the criticism was too severe or because the ideas that they were being introduced to were contrary to the kind of direction they wished to take.
The significance of Bomberg as a teacher was first of all that he taught his practice. Most other teachers taught the practice or the ideas of others - or what they thought was the practice of others. Not having personal contact, they could only guess at the motivation. His interpretation of the history of art was totally different to most of the teachers in the art schools. We both hated that stream through the history of art which includes Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Ingres, David, Messonier and all the academic permutations which persisted in what many termed 'classical art.' Of course there were many other painters, notably in Paris, that taught their practice, for example, Andre Lhote and Fernand Leger. In the case of Leger, nearly everyone who came out of his studio merely produced imitation Legers. The difference was that Bomberg didn't try to impose his will on the students. Instead he tried to follow the direction the student was taking and he endeavoured to indicate to the student the character of the idea the student was developing and of which the immature student had no concept of. He was able to perceive an idea which was slowly maturing as the student worked and he was able to assist the student to bring it forward to fruition. He was able to do this because he recognized that a student's creative potential and youthful vitality was frustrated and distorted by his inexperience and his immature critical faculty. The student invariably destroyed his vital image in favour of an image he recognized which by definition was banal and academic.
Bomberg not only taught his practice, but was deeply committed to a collaboration with the student on equal terms. In Bomberg's case, unlike, for example, Rubens or Henry Moore, he, as the master, did not impose an idea on the student who was then required to execute it. It
was much more a fusion of ideas. It was Bomberg's maturity, his long experience and therefore his judgment, which enabled him to recognize an emerging idea produced through the student's blind, frenzied activity. Activity alone will not produce an idea. To begin the journey, you have to have a direction pointed out. You have to be urged to continue the journey and at arrival at one's destination - that is the idea - the situation has to be recognized as an idea and then, of course, the idea - the whole situation - has to be explored and amplified and brought to a fruition.
Most of Bomberg's teaching was in order to stimulate and the stimulation went hand in hand with the attempt to develop one's judgment. He thought that this was the only thing that one should teach. He hardly ever talked about his contemporaries except to disparage them, but his greatest loves of masters in art were Michelangelo and Cezanne, whom he spoke of frequently. Otherwise he would turn outside painting, drawing and sculpture with references to the Bible and Shakespeare. He was very well read and could quote extensively.
Charles Spencer interviewed Bomberg in London during 1953 and in Spain (August, 1955) and he has written, in an article called 'Memories of Bomberg' (London Magazine, 1967, pp. 30-48), that he found Bomberg was unable to express himself in words. This was a typical example of the critic's arrogance and insensitivity to the non-verbal problems of painting. Bomberg's gift for language was demonstrated later, when his war poems were published (in a limited edition of 250 called Poems and Drawings from the First World War by David Bomberg by the Gillian Jason Gallery, London, 1992). It is acknowledged in a note which is attached to 'The Bomberg Papers' (X - A Quarterly Review, Volume One, Number Three, June 1960, pp. 183-190) that "Bomberg left behind him an accumulation of manuscripts and papers of one kind and another which altogether constitute a testament of the highest importance for those interested in the work (and in the mind behind the work) of this painter."
Every painter has difficulties speaking about painting but this does not mean that they are inarticulate. Some of the best writings about art problems are made by painters, for example Michelangelo, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Delacroix and Gaugin. It should be obvious that painters know about painting whereas critics and art historians babble words so effortlessly that one suspects that they hope, by these means, to disguise their ignorance.
Bomberg rarely showed any examples of his own work to his students but, if a special problem came along which he wished to illustrate, he would take me to his studio and bring out a single painting on its own for me to contemplate. He did this deliberately because he didn't want us to imitate his work; he once said that, speaking generally, art endeavours to reveal what is true and therefore needs to be free. Furthermore, all things said regarding art are subject to contradiction and it was these contradictions in Bomberg's teaching which frustrated many students. It was very difficult to find out in which particular direction he was heading. However, once I understood that the contradictions finally revealed a truth, then it was much easier to accept the kind of path he was encouraging us to tread.
It was the critical faculty that Bomberg sought to develop. In teaching it was his main plank. He recognized that it was impossible to teach art and all that one could do was to assist the student to find a direction and, through value judgment, to find himself. He believed that he could bypass the tedious academic approach, so that a student might be able to fulfill his creative potential, without having to first spend the next twenty years trying to forget all that he had learnt.
In 1946 Edna Mann was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Art but she left after a year because of the opposition to Bomberg's ideas at the College and the consequent conflict of loyalties. Bomberg's enthusiasm was very different to any other teachers' one
encountered. His whole life was art. His was a total commitment to art. He demanded a total loyalty. He recognized that no one wanted to get experience from the experience of others, or to get experience from other people's experiments. He thought that every artist should make his own experiments. The experience defines itself during the act and process of painting. He would explain this as follows. If straight away you recognize the image which you have painted then you can be sure that you are imitating yourself or somebody else. Because you know what it is, it does not come as a surprise or a shock. Therefore it is in the development of the student's critique where the master can most crucially help the student towards the creative act. He strove to bring out the personality. He taught the importance of integrity. To quote Bomberg, he said that "there is inherent in the structure of moral values an integrity which performs but does not think. It will help sustain strength, the seat of which may be located in the mind, it cannot be seen but we know it is there, because it is operative. Truth radiates from it. It becomes fine art when it is integrated in form." He also questioned, as I do, why we tend to accept one idea in art and reject another.
I came across a note which I made in 1946 when I was trying to formulate some words about what the Borough Group was all about. I wrote: "Dissatisfied with the tradition of academic art and unable to subscribe to the purely formal preoccupation's of abstract painting, the Group consider it necessary for the artist to enter into an almost mystical union with the subject of his painting and to perceive with all his being a sense of its mass. In the words of Bomberg, the Group aims 'to make more articulate the spirit in the mass'." However, constructive use of form and colour is not to be neglected, as there can be no worthwhile painting that is not founded on design and structure.
Together our agreed purpose was to establish a closely integrated group to work out the ideas that neither Bomberg himself nor any other single artist could hope to realize in their lifetime. The Group would provide a platform for furthering these ideas and presenting them to the public while, at the same time, it would be a vehicle to establish Bomberg's students as professionals. The foundation members of the Group in 1946 were Cliff Holden, Peter Richmond, Dorothy Mead and Edna Mann. David Bomberg did not want to take an active part in the Group and refused to be a member or to take part in exhibitions, preferring the role of teacher and mentor. I put a lot of time, commitment and effort into trying to arrange exhibitions and in working out our policy and strategy. Because I was the most active in conceiving and fostering the Group, Bomberg proposed that I should be the first President and this was unanimously adopted.
The first statement of our aims was written initially by me but was then subject to changes and editing by Bomberg and the Group, before we all agreed and approved it. The first statement of our aims was printed as a foreword to the catalogue of the Borough Group's first exhibition.
'Approach to Painting'
THE APPROACHES TO PAINTING are as diverse as modes of living. Each age produces a set of habits, manners, and morals which are ever changing and transitory. There is no law except that demanded to maintain social equilibrium.
IN PAINTING there is no law except that there is no painting without form. Form is the language.
MODERN BRITISH PAINTERS, having departed from the pale shadows of the so-called academic tradition, where the smooth surface took precedence over form and was the measure of good painting: on the one hand, impressionism still leaves its mark amongst tonal painters who create a mood which has little relation to the form on which it must depend. On the other hand, there are the followers of the school of Paris whose exquisite textures are superimposed upon weak imitative forms to aid the merely decorative quality. This kind of painting culminates logically in tapestry, which had a functional value in the middle ages, but cannot by its very nature contribute anything unique in the magic language which is painting.
THIS GROUP is experimenting with an idiom which we feel is capable of capturing the deeper and more profound aspects of life. The language in which we are endeavouring to express ourselves is understood only by a very small number of people, and the purpose of this exhibition is to broaden that understanding. We know that this work is anathema in the eyes of contemporary tonal painters because it does not approximate to the refined surface quality of their own paintings. And in its naked structure we are certain our work would be rejected from any exhibition in England.
OUR APPROACH is founded on the belief that there is in nature a truth and a realism which the usual contemporary approach to painting is unable to convey. The very technique and the methods of acquiring that technique seem to be calculated as if on purpose to avoid this deeper and more elemental truth. This approach of our group aims at spanning the great gap between the real experiences of our life and the achievements of contemporary painting. The endeavour in all our work is to express ourselves clearly and sincerely and if we fail it is not because our principles and objects are wrong but that we ourselves require more and more experience.
IT IS HOPED that our work may not only serve to bring to the knowledge of people the wealth and richness of life, but also make them conscious that this depth is in themselves.
The first exhibition was finally arranged in June 1947 at the Archer Gallery, thanks to the kindness and sympathy of Dr. Morris who owned and ran the Gallery. The works shown were mostly rejects from the London Group. Owing to a misunderstanding made by Dr. Morris, Allen Stokes had one work included in this show although he was never at any time a member of the Group. Just before this showing the Group had enlarged to include Lilian Bomberg and Christine Kamienieska. It was decided to hold an annual show at other places whenever and wherever possible.
The next exhibition was held in the same year at the Everyman Cinema, Hampstead, with all the above members taking part with the exception of Kamienieska, who had left the Group after the first Archer show. The second annual exhibition in 1948 was again held at the Archer Gallery. By way of response from the press there was one short passage about us in The Manchester Guardian (Wednesday, 9th June, 1948). This follows on from a review of paintings by Graham Sutherland, which were on show at the Hanover Gallery: "Mr. Sutherland's hot, dry yellows and reds, his pale, fierce mauves, are characteristic and original. Only a real colourist could control such an unruly team. At the Archer Gallery (303, Westbourne Grove) the Borough Group are holding an exhibition. Mr. David Bomberg - the moving spirit - is also a colourist, but of another kind. His two landscapes have a monumental solidity and repose. A
young Manchester artist (Mr. Cliff Holden) exhibits a big, ambitious painting of the battered buildings of Lambeth, a version of the London scene which is rough and heavy, but powerful and interesting as well."
Shortly after this, the Group was involved in an exhibition which was held in the open air at the Victoria Embankment Gardens. The BBC invited Lilian and I to be interviewed as a part of a programme called 'In Town Tonight' which also featured the actor Frederick March and his wife, Florence Desmond. This is how the exhibition was reported by the Manchester Guardian (Saturday, 19th June, 1948).
'Plein Air School'
First, sculpture in Battersea Park. Now, easel painting in the Victoria Embankment Gardens. Artists were not slow to accept the London County Council's invitation to turn up with their work, and by midday all the avaiable space along one side of the main walk was packed. The sun shone generously; flowers of the earth waved gently, unregarded, while these blossomings of imagination came under the scrutiny of the passing crowd.
There were, in fact, styles enough for everyone's taste, from imitations of Mr. Disney to the plastic far-farings of the Borough Group, whose manifesto proclaims, "We care for the realities; they exist in the mind." A non-aesthete shouted to the world, "I must be dumb", and some of the artists, agreeable young people, drew members from the crowd into conversation. All this chit-chat removed English solemnity from the occasion (a show of easel paintings in the open air) and helped to give it a happy atmosphere. The exhibition will continue for a week, if fine weather does.
I wrote to Stephen Bone, who was then the art critic for the Manchester Guardian, to inquire if this article had been written by him. In his reply (postmarked 1st April 1949) he said that he had been ill and so had not written anything for the paper for a while but he encouraged me to write to the editor myself. He asked: "Have you heard about the open-air show that the Hampstead Artists' Council are going to run by the Whitestone Pond (weekends only) starting in June? We are trying to organize some method of booking pitches for this. We have the Borough Council's blessing and all seems to be going ahead. I think it should be an improvement on the Embankment Gardens." However, despite Stephen Bone's invitation, the Borough Group did not have anything to do with any other open air exhibitions after the fiasco at the Embankment Gardens. Nevertheless this was the first exhibition of its kind in London and it was the precursor of the displays which one finds now along the railings beside Hyde Park on the Bayswater Road.
Following criticism from inside and from outside the Group, I resigned as President and suggested that Bomberg might take over that responsibility. At this meeting in 1948, which was chaired by Bomberg, there was a disagreement about the direction the Borough Group should take. Some of us objected to Bomberg bringing in his family and people that even he thought were amateurs. I was certainly supported in my position on this issue by Dorothy Mead. I believe that Peter Richmond agreed with us but he was perhaps less inclined to take a firm stand. However Bomberg took the initiative and so, on his insistence, the Group was enlarged. The members were then as follows; David Bomberg, Lilian Bomberg, Cliff Holden, Dorothy Mead, Peter Richmond, Edna Mann, Leslie Marr, Dinora Mendelson, Len Missen and Dorothy Missen.
I would like to record that Minutes were kept of every meeting which took place during the formation and duration of the Borough Group. The Minutes were handed over to Bomberg on his election as President, and he in turn gave them to the elected Secretary. They were subsequently lost without trace and, of course, the Secretary was Dinora, who was a member of the family. So at all future meeting there was no means of referring to earlier resolutions.
The third annual exhibition in 1949 was held at the Arcade Gallery (The Royal Arcade, Bond Street) and here is the statement which we printed with the catalogue.
We have said that our search is towards the spirit in the mass.
Many people have asked us for a further definition.
Words cannot give it; the answer lies in the content of the painting.
That is our purpose.
Our interest lies more in the mass than in the parts;
More in movement than in the static;
More in the plastic than in the decorative.
Identical objects no longer yield the same experience.
Our awareness is both of sensation and direction.
This exhibition was reviewed by Wyndam Lewis in the Listener magazine (10 March, 1949, p.408) and in this review he described what he had seen at the gallery as the work of "rip roaring flaming romantics." Unfortunately Lewis had visited the gallery the day before the opening so what he saw there then was quite different from the exhibition which we presented to the public and officially to the press. His visit had not been observed because the members of the group were all having lunch at the time. On returning from lunch we were ourselves shocked by the degree of sentiment and romanticism evident in the paintings which, for the past several days, we had been struggling unsuccessfully to hang. Had we left it at that then we would have agreed with his assessment. What Lewis did not know was that, in the twenty four hours left before the opening, the members of the Group rushed back to their various studios to make a different selection of paintings to put into the exhibition. We felt that these works were closer to our philosophical intentions and so the difficulties which we had with hanging the exhibition provided us all with a valuable lesson in judgment.
Other than the review which Lewis gave us (which did not, in any case, apply to it) the exhibition in its final form barely received any comment from the art critics, possibly because they were now presented with work which they found less easy to categorize. The one review which treated us favourably was written not by an art critic but by a film critic. This review appeared in a film magazine called The Cinema Studio (2nd March, 1949).
I know there is a strong connection between the world of Art ... speaking in terms of oil paintings, drawings, etcetera ... and the film ... even on its commercial basis ... but when I was invited to go along to look at the third annual exhibition of the work of the Borough Group at the Royal Arcade Gallery in Bond Street yesterday ... I found myself wondering whether the cinema could ever afford to be as inventive and creative as are these young
artists ... I noticed that the prices of the works ... for which terms may be arranged ... were quite out of reach of the average man and woman but their effects aroused in me memories of the good old days of 'abstract' films and the old Avenue Pavilion ... now, alas, a completely uncommercial proposition ... Were it not so ... I feel that many of our budding geniuses in film might find a similar outlet for what the Borough Group describes as satisfying 'the inner need which craves for the unfathomable'. I doubt whether that aim will find understanding beyond a well versed few ... but it might be a good idea to provide the ways and means for letting off steam outside the costly business of making commercial films ... In the meantime ... I have a completely open mind on this subject of advanced painting ... but would like to find someone brave enough to take me into the depths and explain what lies beyond many of those strange designs whose message, if there be one, remains so obscure!
By now Dennis Creffield had been elected to the Group and his work was included in all the subsequent exhibitions. I had met Dennis in 1947 when I was working for one evening a week at the Goldsmiths Community Centre, teaching drawing and painting to children in their early teens. The main purpose of this work was to keep young trouble makers off the streets. However one of the older boys brought Dennis to meet me after school one day. He had told Dennis that he had met a 'real artist' and he thought that Dennis would gain more from my teaching than he could. I, in turn, introduced Dennis to Bomberg and, a year later when he was still only 17, he came to join us.
In the summer of 1949, the Group exhibited in the Junior Common Room of Brasenose College, Oxford. This was arranged for us and so it was not necessary for us to go there, although we were invited. I wrote to the Editor of the Manchester Guardian to voice my approval for this venture on the part of the undergraduates.
'Pictures For Colleges'
Sir, - I was most interested in the article by your University Correspondent on Oxford in your issue May 3, and I would like to draw your attention to another feature of Oxford which is original, healthy and encouraging to artists. During the past few years Worcester and Pembroke have bought several pictures to decorate their common-rooms, by such artists as Henry Moore, Duncan Grant, John Minton and Victor Pasmore, & c. This year Brasenose College decided upon a similar venture and consequently arrangements were made for the showing of a loan exhibition of pictures by members of "The Borough Group" for the duration of the summer term with a view to purchase. Pictures were chosen for suitability of proportions - one from each of the eleven members of the group, - and for the most part prices were adjusted to be within the reach of the college. The whole aspect has a unity and harmony rarely achieved by a mixed show.
It is hoped that other colleges and universities will emulate the example.
Yours, & c., Cliff Holden, 10, Oakhill Park, London, N.W. 3, May 7
In 1949 and 1950 the Group held a number of monthly exhibitions at The Book Worm Gallery (19 Newport Court, Charing Cross Road). The Book Worm Gallery consisted of two or
three rooms above a book shop which was owned by Leslie Marr and he very generously gave the Group use of this space rent free. These exhibitions were not reviewed by any critics from the press but they did generate some public interest. The statement which was written for the second of these exhibitions contrasts with the earlier statements in that it was not initially drafted by me but by Bomberg.
The sympathetic bond which brings this group of painters together, is the consciousness that the enduring reality lies more in the mass than in the parts.
The intense creative functioning of the mind transcends the tangible experience of one's material being. Our discipline is to acquire that skill which will succeed in the expression of ourselves as individuals.
Although Edna Mann is included in the catalogue as one of the contributors to this exhibition it was at around this time that Bomberg forced Edna Mann to resign. His reason for insisting on this was because she was pregnant and he argued that her career as a painter was not compatible with raising a family. He often tried to steer us away from sex, believing that it interfered with our commitment to art. He did not change his mind about sex and babies, even though when his step-daughter, Dinora, married Leslie Marr he said that it was a perfect match and he sang the praises of a marriage made in heaven.
As a result of the exhibitions at the Book Worm Gallery, the Group received some publicity from an article called 'Six Ways of Seeing Her' which was published in the magazine Illustrated (4th June, 1949, pp. 24-25).
To prove how complicated the problem really is, a number of painters calling themselves the "Borough Group" are challenging all orthodox notions of beauty with their "search towards the spirit in the mass." ... They regard their approach "as a means by which mind becomes fluid enough to create forms in the way the fluidity of words can express an idea" ... Here is Mr. Bomberg at hand, once again, with what passes for an explanation in his nebulous world. "We have five senses. If an artist depends only on his sense of sight, his work becomes thin and flat. Reality must be sensed with the entire body, just as we sense gravitation. In applying this to painting - say, to the present model - you must first ask yourself: 'How do I sense this girl?' ... Some feeling from the model comes over to you," Bomberg asserts. "You may be looking at her, but the fluidity of form which is in you creates the design." ... Thus Mr. Bomberg's wife sees the model as "an elegant stream of light," while Cliff Holden has a feeling of "buttresses rearing up in the sky, in the way architecture does." Dinora Mendelson thinks of her simply as "a gipsy girl." ... Says Bomberg: "Unless a man is born with a gift and a desire to create, all his ability and technical dexterity come to nothing. I am a trained artist, but I welcome artists who have not been spoilt by the artificiality of approach that is taught in most schools. Our view is that if we bring the greatest integrity to our work, and are true to ourselves, the matter ends there." In its way "the Group" is well satisfied with itself. There have been several marriages among members - "a natural unifying force of group development" says Bomberg happily. When there is a special case of financial hardship, members make sacrifices or find jobs to help out.
I have ommitted to quote those passages which give the article its gently mocking tone. The photographs which accompanied the article show six members of the Group in the act of painting and in each case these portraits are placed alongside a reproduction of the painting they were working on. In my case the caption reads: "Cliff Holden got from the model "a feeling of buttresses rearing into the sky." He went on to say, "I regard the sense of touch as being more profound and more accurate than the eye.""
At this time there were critics who called us 'dark German expressionists' and one critic in particular, Stephen Bone from the Manchester Guardian (the son of Sir Muirhead Bone), thought that we were trying to leap before we could walk. But it would have been more correct to have made these kind of remarks about those people in the middle sixties that were loosely called the 'Bomberg School'. They were using thick paint and dark paint, with very little concern for the image, the form or the structure.
Owing to the disagreements which had continued ever since Bomberg became President, we came to an general agreement that we should disband the Group. This happened over several months, between the autumn of 1950 and the spring of 1951. Not one of the original members of the Borough Group has since managed to achieve a dealer or a gallery or a patron and I attribute this to a series of unlucky happenings. Our activities during the period from 1946 to 1951 produced the most extraordinary reactions from other painters, critics and art historians. The painters were mostly outraged and the critics mostly treated us as a kind of comic act (the article in Illustrated magazine, if quoted in full, would serve as an example of this). Our achievement as a group was ignored in favour of the Kitchen Sink School and later, of course, in the 50's we were overtaken by the waves from America like the New Expressionists, the Tachists and the Action Painters.
Then with the 'Bomberg School' it was the critics themselves who we felt had double-crossed us and cut out any chance of public recognition for what was a very vital movement. This came about as a result of the influence which Dorothy Mead and Dennis Creffield had when they were studying at the Slade for the diploma which would qualify them to teach. Dorothy enrolled in 1956 and Creffield enrolled one year later in 1957. Although they were both mature artists, who had been exhibiting publicly for over ten years, they enrolled as students because this enabled them to continue their work as painters with the benefits of a grant and use of a model. Unfortunately the influence they had on the impressionable students around them at the school resulted in these students producing a pastiche and a bastardization of Bomberg's ideas. Any black charcoal drawing or any turgid thick paint, no matter what the quality or kind of image, was termed Bombergian and the critics then began to talk about the 'Bomberg School,' which was an invention by the critics and only served to further obliterate any achievement of the original Borough Group, who had by now been completely forgotten.
I still think that what we had achieved is, in a limited way, as important as the ideas created by the Cubists coming out of Cezanne. We also come from Cezanne and have made something which avoided the fallacies of Cubism.
It is also surprising to discover that the Cubists only held three exhibitions whereas the Borough Group held seven exhibitions over the five years it was in existence. The Cubists aroused the critics whereas publicly we were greeted with almost total silence. Nevertheless we generated a lot of anger and opposition from the establishment and many other artists like Keith Vaughan, Coldstream and Pasmore. I have never understood why this hostility should have come from these artists who were in positions of power and who were themselves considered to be successful. It was as if they were threatened by us in some way. I found this hard to understand considering the difficulties which we shared with Bomberg in trying to reach a
public. Despite Dorothy Mead being refused a diploma from the Slade she still considered herself to be a friend of Sir William Coldstream and she would refer to him with affection as 'Uncle Bill.' But, although he could easily have done so, he did not do anything to help in furthering her career. In fact he was instrumental in her being refused the diploma, which effectively denied her access to full-time employment as a teacher within the art school system, and she died without ever having had a one-man show in England.
The power of Bomberg's teaching is shown by the fact that the kind of images which the Borough Group produced were totally different in character to anything that Bomberg had produced, although they were somewhat similar in direction to each other. But the interesting fact is that in the last two or three years before his death he began to draw landscapes very much in the same spirit as those drawings, both of landscape and figures, which were made by the members of the Borough Group. They were totally different to any drawings that Bomberg had made previously. But no art historian or critic has observed this difference in the character and content of Bomberg's later drawings. None of them have dared to suggest that Bomberg might have been influenced by us, rather than the other way around, and yet, if they were to compare the works in question, then they would see that it is so.
Nevertheless we fulfilled Bomberg's intention that the students would given something back to their master. He intended that we should develop ideas between us. After all, philosophers and scientists work together in this way. He always said that he hoped to get back from the students part of what he had put into them. It was the two-way traffic between the idea of the master and idea of the student which provided a stimulus for Bomberg himself. It was his belief that if he gave out stimuli and ideas then, in return, using the students as nature, the students would give back ideas in the exchange. Bomberg provided the stimulus for us to produce our own ideas and this we did through the medium of our collaborative effort as the Borough Group. One might compare it to what the Cubists did in relation to Cezanne. Like the Cubists our work appeared so similar that it was difficult for some people to say who had painted one and not another. We were similar to each other in the way that Picasso, Braque and Gris were similar to each other when they were developing the ideas of Cubism. This was because they were all operating from a common base and it was the same with us. When we painted badly - I don't like to use the word 'badly,' I mean uncreatively - our paintings looked so much alike that you couldn't tell the difference between one and the other. But when one of us had really made that leap into the creative act, then you could see the difference in the idea. So by a continuing exchange and dialogue between us we were evolving an idiom in painting which was totally different to anything which Bomberg had produced up to that time.
Although the Borough Group had disbanded, Mead, Creffield, Richmond and I were all agreed that we wanted to continue to exhibit together. And so, some months later, we decided to organise an exhibition of our work at the Parsons Gallery. We invited Bomberg to join us but he refused. Gus Metzger was responsible for introducing us to the gallery and here is the letter which he sent to Peter Richmond and myself.
2 Studio, 4 Albert Street, London NW1
Dear Peter and Cliff,
Last night I called at 52 in order to sleep there and see Cliff and was told that you were in Yorkshire. I will give you a summary of the position regards available galleries.
On Tuesday I saw Mesens at the London Gallery. He explained that the minimum payment for use of the gallery per month would be £60 or £70. On top of this there would be about £10 rates. He has been trying to discuss this with three other directors, but has not yet seen any of them. Tonight or tomorrow morning he may be able to give me some information. I doubt though that we can rent the gallery as it is on the point of being sold. I have been to the Artist's House and have an appointment on next Wednesday to find out some details from the woman in charge, Mrs. Davie.
The other gallery I have contacted is in the house of Parsons who are paint manufacturers. The house is in Grosvenor Street, 50 yards from where the St. George Gallery used to be. The gallery is on the first floor, about 35 by 15 feet. It has windows on the two 15 foot ends of the room, but it is necessary to light the exhibition with eight adjustable spot-lights fixed on the high ceiling. The walls are in light oakwood and cut up by a certain amount of panels and ornament, but the impression of the place is quite reasonable.
This morning I had an interview with Sir Michael (I forget his surname), a young man who would I think be willing to let us have the gallery if he considered it would draw the public, especially the more wealthy elements. The conditions are as follows. The gallery is rent free, but each exhibition must be in aid of some charity and 25% of the sale of paintings go to this charity. The cost of advertising, invitation cards and catalogue would have to be paid by exhibitors. The last exhibition there was by N. R. Egon, in aid of Greek Children; most of the other exhibitions there were in aid of children and Sir Michael suggested that we might find some children's charity too.
He wanted above all to see our work and requested for two works by each of us. I have made an appointment to bring him the works for Thursday 1st Nov. at 2.30 pm. Will you consider this position and write to me at once what your attitude is regards this matter and, if you should be willing to negotiate with Sir Michael, would you let me know which of your works I should bring and where they are stored. The best solution would be for one or both of you to be in London by Thursday. I would certainly be more satisfied if you could be present at this interview, but if he should turn down the work, you might have wasted your journey. He suggested the show start on the 26th Nov. for 3 weeks. Whatever you decide to do, let me know by Mon or Tues. Also please let me know the address of Dennis and Dorothy. If the London Gallery should be open to us I shall send you a telegram. I am leaving London tomorrow but should return Monday or Tuesday. I am living at the Youth Hostel but address all letters to 2 Studio.
Best Greetings to you and Nora,
It is evident from this letter that Gus Metzger expected to be included in the exhibition, in spite of the fact that he had always refused to be a member of the Borough Group. I will make reference to the reasons why he was not included at a later point in this book. No doubt it was because he felt he had been rejected that, when he became a member of the newly formed Borough Bottega two years later, he told a lot of lies about me and this caused me to be even further alienated from Bomberg.
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Delinquent Without Dad
Someone sent me this article from a newsletter:
Depressed Without Mom, Delinquent Without Dad
Mothers help keep teens from falling victim to anxiety and depression; fathers help keep adolescents from turning belligerent and defiant. Of course, in an age of rampant divorce, custodial mothers may try to do their best for their children, but noncustodial fathers can do very little for their offspring's psychological development.
The markedly different ways that mothers and fathers affect their adolescent children's lives are detailed in a study recently published in the Journal of Early Adolescence by a team of researchers at Yale and Florida State Universities. But because so many fathers are now largely absent from their children's lives, the paternal side of the parental equation remains merely a theoretical abstraction for many of the teens in this new study.
Scrutinizing data collected from 116 sixth through eighth grade students (selected so as to be demographically representative for the state of Florida), the Yale and Florida State analysts look for indications of how parents affect their adolescent children's lives. The data in this study clearly indicate that "fathers are less involved in parenting their adolescent children than are mothers and that adolescents report feeling more securely at¬tached to their mothers than to their fathers." The influence of mothers on their adolescent chil¬dren further manifests itself in statistical analyses establishing that for "internalizing problems" (i.e., problems manifest by "extreme shyness, worry, anxiety, and depression), "maternal factors ... outweigh paternal factors in terms of relative influence."
However, when the Yale and Florida State scholars shift their fo¬cus to adolescent children's "externalizing problems" (evident in "hyperactivity, impulsivity, aggression, and delinquency"), the researchers see fathers' influence eclipsing that of mothers. "For externalizing behavior problems in the full sample," the researchers report, "the paternal factors (involvement and attachment) explained significant, unique variance; however, maternal factors did not." Surprisingly, fathers' effect on externalizing behaviors shows up in particular strength among adolescent daughters, "with fathers apparently exerting more influence on girls' externalizing behaviors than on the expression of similar behaviors in their sons."
What is more, when the researchers examine data for "total behavioral problems" for both boys and girls, they conclude that "only the paternal factors of involvement and attachment were found to be uniquely significant." In other words, "for externalizing and total behavioral problems, the father-child variables outweighed the mother child variables" for both genders.
Not surprisingly, adolescent children are not likely to feel attached to a father who does not live with them, nor is an absentee father likely to be very involved in their lives. The authors of this study in fact report that "nonresident fathers were found to be less actively involved, in comparison to resident fathers, in the lives of their teenage children." The researchers further remark that "the teens of nonresident fathers also reported feeling less securely attached to their fathers than did their peers whose fathers lived with them."
Since this new study identifies weak paternal involvement and attachment as statistical predictors of adolescent behavior problems, its findings can only underscore the vulnerability of the many teens now growing up without fathers.
(Source. Susan K. Williams and F. Donald Kelly, "Relationsbips Among Involvement, Attacbment, and Bebavioral Problems in Adolescence: Examining Fatber's Influence," Journal of Early Adolescence 25 [2005]. 168 196, empbasis added.)
By all available measures, fathers raise children with fewer problems than mothers.
Posted by George at 6:18 PM
Child Support Follies:
News of the Weird has reported several times about hard-luck men who, believing they are biological fathers, agree to child support, only to learn via a DNA test that they are not, but whom judges will not let rescind those agreements. An even more ironic case emerged from the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in December. A man had originally agreed to support his new wife's daughter, but then he and his wife divorced, and the court ruled he must continue to support the girl even though the wife has now married the man who is the girl's biological father. [Globe and Mail-CP, 12-8-05]
The story is also here. This is just more evidence that the child support system has gone way too far.
Posted by George at 11:30 AM
I'll soon be getting the kids for the week. Presents are ready. It will be a happy and peaceful week. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone.
PBS to redo documentary
Glenn Sacks has been protesting the anti-father PBS documentary, Breaking the Silence, and he now reports:
PBS has just notified us that they will "commission an hour-long documentary" for the purpose of further examining the "complex and important issues" raised in the film and by our campaign. PBS says that "plans call for the documentary to be produced and broadcast in Spring 2006" and that the "hour-long treatment of the subject will allow ample opportunity" for those of differing views to "have their perspectives shared, challenged and debated."
Amazing. Glenn Sacks deserves a lot of credit for getting PBS's attention on this one. I hope the new show has a fair and factual look on the subject. The earlier show was maybe the most biased show I have ever seen.
Another bad order
I just got another ridiculous order from Commissioner Joseph of the family court. This one retroactively requires an increase in my child support payments.
Apparently he searched the file, and discovered that at one point I had to pay extra because of "a deviation from guideline due to imputation of income based on the father's having no mortgage or rent payment for his house".
I had convinced Judge Kelly to drop that charge, but now Commissioner Joseph says, "However, Judge Kelly failed to perpetuate his calculated deviation for father's housing circumstance." So he ordered me to pay an extra $1062 per month, retroactive to last year.
This makes no sense. I've paid off my mortgage so I have to pretend that my ex-wife is the bank and send her my mortgage payments instead? As usual, Commissioner Joseph gives no justification, and I cannot find any statute or precedent for such payments.
How to avoid my mess
A reader asks what he can do to avoid the mess that I had to face.
Maybe you should ask someone who has had a successful marriage.
I suggest trying to maintain good relationships with your wife and your kids. Keep a record of the good things that you do, so that you can prove it later. Ignore your wife's adultery; the court doesn't care about that.
There are a bunch of books for fathers facing family court. I posted a free link to a draft of one a couple of days ago. The books have a lot of good advice.
Scientific article on custody evaluations
I previously reported on a paper that explains well why psychologist custody evaluations are invalid and should be stopped. Here is the Scientific American article and the full research article. An accompanying editorial says:
The authors take a very tough position on determination of parental unfitness.They say that a diagnosis of mental illness or substance abuse should only be considered disqualifying for child custody if theparent’s inadequacy is so great that it would justify taking a child away from parents who are not divorcing.
Many fathers lose their kids without anything near what would be required for parental unfitness.
Court ignores its own order
I just got this order in the mail:
This matter came on for hearing pursuant to notice.
Both parties are present in court, in pro se.
This matter is on calendar for several matters, all of which are decided in open court except two taken under submission. This Order After Hearing disposes of one of the remaining two issues; specifically, whether $6,500 in attorney fees is in addition to, or included in, the $20,000 attorney fee Order by Judge Kelly.
The court looks to the Minute Order of May 13, 2005 after having queried Judge Kelly. It is clear that the $20,000 is in addition to the previous order of $6,500. The total fees ordered paid by Respondent to Petitioner's attorney is $26,500.
The language of the Minute Order is clear, plain and unambiguous.
Respondent is ordered to pay the Bosso Law Firm $6,500 within ten days of this Order being served upon him.
DATED: December 16, 2005
IRWIN H. JOSEPH
So Commissioner Joseph queried Judge Kelly and looked at the May 13 Minute Order, but he didn't look at the order that Judge Kelly signed.
What actually happened was that Judge Kelly ordered me to pay $20,000 in legal fees, including the $6,500 I had already paid. My ex-wife's lawyer, Ms. Gray, tried to get Judge Kelly to sign an order saying:
A. Respondent is ordered to pay Petitioner's attorney's fees in the amount of $20,000.00. Said amount may be made in installments of $5,000.00 per month beginning June 1, 2005. Payment shall be made to Bosso Williams, APC, P. 0. Box 1822, Santa Cruz, CA
Judge Kelly signed it on July 15, 2005, but only after writing in "Respondent is credited with $6,500 in attorney's fees." He wrote it in his own handwriting, and initialed it.
Ms. Gray was very unhappy about it, and wrote:
Dear Judge Kelly:
I received the court's signed and filed FOAH for the hearing before you on May 13, 2005, in the above matter, which includes your handwritten notation concerning the issue of my client's attorney's fees. Your note indicates "Respondent is credited with $6,500 in attorney's fees." My recollection of your statements regarding attorney's fees differed from your notation. ...
In light of the transcript, your intent at the time of the hearing seems clear. We would appreciate a second review of the transcript against your hand written notation.
JJG/b Jennifer J. Gray
So I have an order from Judge Kelly that says that I am to be credited with the $6,500, and I have an order from Commissioner Joseph that I have to repay the $6,500.
I don't get this at all. If there is something wrong with Judge Kelly's order, then it seems to me that it needs to be rescinded or corrected or something. I don't see how Commissioner Joseph can just issue a contradictory order without even referencing the other order.
Canceling the counselor
I just canceled our last appointment with the co-parenting counselor, after my ex-wife suggested that I do so. I was glad that she did, because it conflicted with my only chance to let the kids pick out a Christmas tree. The afternoon was freed up, and they picked a great tree. I cut it down and carried it back to the house. They decorated it the next day.
The judge never encouraged us or ordered us to continue the counseling. At one point he asked us whether we had any more appointments, and whether I was willing to go. I said "yes", of course, just as I had been willing to comply with his other court orders.
The judge's question was before his custody order. At the time that he asked, he seemed to be considering sending us out to see shrinks again in lieu of a custody order. Once he made the custody order, he said nothing more about shrinks, so my inference was that he considered and rejected sending us to more shrinks.
I never did figure out why the court sent us to the co-parenting counselor in the first place. The judge never said. At the last court appearance, the judge made some cryptic comments about seeing the shrinks was of no benefit except to test our willingness to comply with court orders.
There are other possible explanations for sending us to see the shrinks. Maybe it was just a stall, to postpone or avoid making any decisions. Or maybe it was an attempt to lock in an illegal temporary order.
Perhaps the judge thought that it was inequitable that I had to jump thru some hoops and my ex-wife had not, so he wanted to order her to do something. He also may have recognized that most or all of the evidence of psychological disorders and uncooperative parenting was against my ex-wife, and he wanted some outside opinions on her. He may have been frustrated by my refusal to carry on a character assassination against her, as she did to me.
Maybe the judge thought that the reports would contain some useful information. Maybe the judge just wanted to educate himself about what sort of reports get written in such a case.
It is also possible that the judge had some theory about how seeing the shrinks might advance the best interest of the kids. I think that this is unlikely. He never articulated any such theory, and I do not know what basis he might have for thinking that. I've never seen him consider the best interest of the kids in my case or any other case.
The co-parenting counselor wrote this letter for the judge:
[George AngryDad and Ms. AngryMom] have attended co-parent counseling according to the following dates, 3/10, 6/2, 6/16, 10/13, 11/3, 11/10, 12/1 and 12/8.
They have shown marked progress and I would recommend they continue co-parent counseling in hopes of achieving a more cooperative co-parent relationship to benefit their children.
One thing that bugged me about his letter was his recommendation at the end. The deal with him was that he was just supposed to report attendance and progress, and not to make any recommendations. I don't know why he would recommend counseling, except that he was hoping to make more money by getting the court to order us to see him more.
I do think that my ex-wife made some progress in the last couple of meetings with the counselor, but overall the shrinks were very detrimental to me and the kids. My ex-wife used them as an excuse for not dealing with me. And the kids suffered from being in a legal limbo.
I hope my ex-wife got something out of the shrinks. I cannot think of even one sentence of advice or opinion from them that was any personal value to me whatsoever. All I learned was how crooked and evil the whole system is, and that I can only save my kids by getting them out of the system.
Draft book on divorce strategy
I just stumbled across an essay on How Fathers Can Win Child Custody:
So you have a child with a soon-to-be ex-girlfriend or ex-wife, and you are wondering what is going to happen to your children. The first thing you need to be aware of is this: The laws and family court system are not set up fairly towards fathers. The laws are set up to award custody to the parent who has had the most involvement so far raising the child, which means the parent who has worked the least - this is virtually always the mother. ...
If you believe that you are the better parent, you need to read this guide and find out everything you need to know in order to have the best chance at obtaining primary custody.
The author says that he is writing a book.
The same site has another article saying:
I’ve never heard of a Public Broadcasting Service documentary being slammed by two ombudsmen in the space of one week. But that’s exactly what happened to PBS’ ill-fated program, Breaking the Silence. ...
Turns out a rogue outfit called the Mother’s Research and Reference Center was in cahoots with PBS insiders and got advance copies of the program.
Then the MRRC organized demonstrations and private screenings of the documentary for state legislators, judges, and local activists. The idea was to convince them to pass laws to make it almost impossible for dads to get even shared custody of their kids after divorce.
So PBS was deliberately lending its credibility for this propaganda purpose.
Judge prohibits the N-word
Here is a Louisiana family court case where a man lost a custody appeal based on an assortment of minor allegations such as listening to hip-hop music and once having diapers of the wrong size. But the big issue, according to the judge, was that he violated court orders not to make racist comments by calling the kid's stepfather the N-word.
It is a stupid decision. We have a First Amendment in this country that is supposed to guarantee free speech. The judge cannot order a man to avoid making racist comments to his kid.
The father and stepfather is the case are both black. The mother is white and the kid is mixed-race. The judge is presumably some white liberal man who thinks that racial harmony can be achieved by raising a generation of kids who do not hear the N-word. It won't work because the father still has visitation privileges, and the kid will learn his opinions whether the court likes it or not. The judge is just using the kid to punish the father in order to reinforce the judge's own prejudices.
PBS acknowledges a biased program
The Mary Kay Ash Foundation gave $500k to make “Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories”, which was then shown on PBS TV and criticized here.
CPB ombudsman says:
My conclusion after viewing and reviewing the program and checking various web sites cited by critics is that there is no hint of balance in Breaking the Silence. The father's point of view is ignored as are new strategies for lessening the damage to children in custody battles. There is no mention of the collaborative law movement in which parents and lawyers come to terms without involving the court, nor of the new joint custody living arrangements.
The producers apparently do not subscribe to the idea that an argument can be made more convincing by giving the other side a fair presentation. To be sure, one comes away from viewing the program with the feeling that custody fights are a special hell, legally, emotionally, psychologically. But this broadcast is so slanted as to raise suspicions that either the family courts of America have gone crazy or there must be another side to the story.
The family courts have gone crazy, but not as described on the show.
The PBS ombudsman says:
The critics challenged the program on many counts, including a lack of balance and objectivity that they claimed violates PBS editorial standards, a lack of evidence to back up assertions on the program, the complete absence of fathers and their perspective in the documentary, failure to cite statistics that critics say contradict the thrust of the program, the promotion of negative stereotypes that work against fathers in custody disputes, and some very specific challenges about one case, in particular, that was discussed in the film.
There were also strong objections to the portrayal of what is called "Parental Alienation Syndrome" as "junk science" on the program. The original press release about the program said that: "Despite being discredited by the American Psychological Association and similar organizations, PAS continues to be used in family courts as a defense for why a child is rejecting the father." This prompted the Association to issue a statement that it "does not have an official position on parental alienation syndrome-pro or con. The Connecticut Public Television press release is incorrect."
He promises a more complete report in "early December".
These ombudsmen are understating the problems with the PBS program. The show was a propaganda show for separating fathers from their children, based on a theory of child abuse risk. But most child abuse comes from mothers, step-fathers, and boyfriends, not fathers.
I just want to say how I appreciate all the encourage and support that I've gotten from readers of this blog. It has been a long struggle.
I am mellowing out. Someone asked if I am going to rename the blog. I didn't really think that I'd stick with the name this long. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thought as I was setting up the blog.
I am not yet completely free of the family court. One of the leftover issues is that my ex-wife has a theory that I owe her ex-lawyer $6,500.
Here is what happened. Her lawyer had asked for attorney fees several times, and had collected $6,500 from me. Then last May, she said that her cumulative bills to date were about $40,000, and she wanted me to pay it. Judge Thomas Kelly ordered me to pay $20,000 of it, and let the lawyer write up the order. She wrote up the order as if I had to pay $20,000 in addition to what I already paid.
I only paid $13,500 because I had already paid $6,500.
Judge Kelly signed the order, but only after writing in, "Respondent is credited with $6,500 in attorney's fees." The lawyer tried in vain to convince the judge that he made a mistake.
Judge Joseph seemed rather annoyed at me for not paying $20,000 in new money. He said, "Why do you think that I ordered you to pay in 4 installments of $5,000 each?"
I said, "Probably because you didn't read Judge Kelly's order."
I explained to Judge Joseph that I had an order from Judge Kelly in which he says in his own handwriting that I am credited with the $6,500 that I already paid. Judge Joseph said that he would talk to Judge Kelly about it. It seems unlikely to me that Judge Kelly is going to change his mind, or that Judge Joseph will try to overrule him.
So there are a few silly issues like this leftover.
I am still going to collect signatures for the California shared parenting initiative, and to speak up for other parents who want to raise their kids without court interference.
Thanks again to everyone.
Not angry today
I actually had a good day in court. The judge ordered 50-50 custody starting Jan. 23. We will alternate weeks with the kids. Alimony was terminated. Child support was slashed. My ex-wife has to get a job.
We were in court for about 3 hours, including interruptions. My ex-wife had her usual rambling monologue about what a bad guy I am. I guess Judge Irwin Joseph was starting to get tired of us.
No more shrinks. No more custody evaluations. No more parenting classes. No more reports. No more silly court orders micro-managing our lives.
No wrongdoing on my part was ever established. I can continue to parent as I always have. I never had to agree that I ever made any mistakes, or to change any of my practices.
Alimony demands
My ex-wife just filed extensive demands for child support above and beyond state guidelines, and even for alimony above my actual earned income. She asks for alimony even tho she is living with her boyfriend, Bruce Travers, and is engaged to marry him.
Normally I wouldn't mention her boyfriend's name, but he is using the courts to cheat me out of my money, and it is necessary to name him in order to defend myself. If he wants to marry her, that's fine with me, but he shouldn't be injecting himself into our dispute.
The Calif Family Code states:
4323. (a) (1) Except as otherwise agreed to by the parties in writing, there is a rebuttable presumption, affecting the burden of proof, of decreased need for spousal support if the supported party is cohabiting with a person of the opposite sex.
My ex-wife has been dating Bruce Travers since before she filed for divorce over two years ago. She lied to the court by saying that she didn't have a boyfriend, and by attributing her reasons for leaving the marriage to other factors. In fact, she and the kids have been sleeping over at Bruce Travers' house on a regular basis, and it has been going on for a very long time.
Under California law, adultery is not a crime, and the family court ignores it. I cannot do anything about the bad example she is setting for our kids. But the court is not supposed to be making me pay alimony while she is cohabitating with him. She has apparently postponed the wedding until the alimony runs out, but the alimony should have run out when she started cohabitating with him.
Counseling not confidential
I just got out of co-parenting counseling with my ex-wife. I hadn't discussed what happened in these sessions before, because we signed a confidentiality agreement not to use any of it in any adversarial proceeding.
It is not confidential anymore. Today, my ex-wife filed a complaint with the Court about something I supposedly said in last week's session. She claimed that I rejected the following proposal:
From what the children tell me, you have bought them each 4 outfits to wear while they are at your home. This was so encouraging to hear, that I am proposing a new schedule that could begin in January. This is Dr. Johnson's recommendation for the parenting plan, option B. I've written it over below:
Once Father has satisfied the requirements herein, with Court review or stipulation otherwise, he shall be responsible for the children on Wednesdays after school until 7 PM on the second and fourth weeks and, every first, third and fifth Thursday after school (or 4 PM) through Monday return to school (or 9am), including three day school holidays that fall on his weekend through 4 PM Mondays.
There are a few stipulations though:
1. Father is to return clothing that children are wearing on Thursday, by packing them in a bag and giving them to the children to take to school on Monday. Alternatively, the children can wear the clothes to school on Monday, as long as Father has washed them ahead of time.
2. Father is responsible for transportation.
3. Father is to have the children eat breakfast before school.
4. Father is to provide a healthy lunch and snack for the children on Friday and Monday.
5. Father is to help the children complete Thursday's and any other uncompleted homework of the week. He is to check it over, and have the children correct the errors. He is to make sure that the children return the homework on Friday, along with all the required signatures.
6. Father is to make sure the children are at school by 8:25 p.m. on Friday and Monday morning.
7. Father is to make sure that the children are well groomed for school (clean clothes), and are suitably dressed (warm clothes for cold weather).
8. This agreement is subject to Father's good faith efforts in following the conditions.
I didn't really turn down the proposal. I asked for a minor change in her schedule for last week. She said that she could, but that she wouldn't because she wanted me to learn to accept schedules dictated by her. It is her way or the highway.
School starts at 8:30 am. I am sure she meant 8:25 am and not pm. I don't know why she said 8:25, except that she used to have a problem getting the kids to school on time.
Child marriage for custody dispute
Here is an extreme custody fight:
When Brandon Balch's 13-year-old daughter got married in Georgia, he wasn't there to give her away.
The Boynton Beach man didn't even know about his daughter's union to a 14-year-old boy until after they got married, a license from a Georgia judge in hand.
Georgia law allows minors to marry without parental consent if the bride-to-be is pregnant.
Now it turns out that it was all a stunt by the mother to prevent the father from seeing his daughter. The daughter was supposedly pregnant, but she isn't anymore. She is living with her mother, not her new husband. The father no longer has any visitation rights.
California shared parenting initiative
John R. sent this:
Our children need your help and we need you to get involved. The ballot initiative petitions have been circulating since October 6th, 2005 by volunteers and paid signature gatherers. We need 411K signatures to vote on the Nov 2006 election. Print, sign, and mail them back. Mail the signed petitions to your county coordinator before February 20th, 2006. Field polls show that the majority of Californians are in favor of this initiative.
The Attorney General of California has prepared the following title and summary of the chief purposes and points of the proposed measure:
"CHILD CUSTODY. EQUAL PHYSICAL CUSTODY. INITIATIVE STATUTE
Requires courts to provide parents with equal physical custody of a child unless there is clear evidence that equal custody would not be in child's best interest, and requires courts to consider the welfare of all family members in making such determinations. Defines "equal physical custody" as an "equal timeshare" that assures frequent contact with both parents, and redefines "joint legal custody" to mean that both parents share equally in decisions regarding welfare of child. Adds finding that equal and joint custody is generally in child's best interest."
This sounds great. To download petitions, see childsright.org. There is more info at
this wiki and at sharedparentingworks.org. If it gets on the ballot and passes, it could help in California.
Father or sperm donor
NY Times letter:
I am saddened that your Nov. 20 front-page article used the term "father" to refer to a sperm donor. "Fathers" are parents who raise children. They change diapers, go to soccer practice, supervise first dates. "Fathers" are members of a family, not anonymous sperm donors.
There are millions of healthy parents raising children across our country. These parents may not be a traditional "father" and "mother." They may be grandparents, single parents, gay parents, family friends, couples who adopt. How often will they be condemned for their absence of "father"?
When can we celebrate the reality of these successful, healthy, happy families without holding on to the false myth of the American family?
Alyson D. Miller
Portland, Ore., Nov. 20, 2005
If you won't call him a father, then please don't call him a "deadbeat dad" either.
Another Bret Johnson victim
I just heard from a woman who stumbled onto this blog. She is also fighting an incompetent custody evaluation from Dr. Bret K. Johnson. Apparently he does a lot of evaluations for the Santa Cruz family court, and he is completely clueless.
She saw my blog where I complained about Bret Johnson's weird preoccupation with food. He didn't like me feeding the kids oatmeal, broccoli, asparagus, and potatoes. She said that in her case, his report had a whole section favoring the parent who was feeding the kid McDonald's Happy Meals. She said that his report was stupid and incompetent from beginning to end.
She wanted to know whether Johnson could be sued for his incompetence or malpractice. No, I am afraid that he is sheltered by the court. If he could be sued for incompetence, then he would have already been driven out of the business, and bankrupted. He is a gay psychologist whose main expertise is counseling homosexual men on coming out of the closet. He does custody evaluations as a sideline, but he had no knowledge or expertise in the subject that I have been able to determine. A 5-year-old child knows more about child-rearing than he does. If he does know what he is doing, then he must be maliciously enjoy profitting from causing misery to children.
I went to the parent-teacher conferences for our 2 kids last week. My ex-wife made appointments without telling me, but the kids told me about it. She acted surprised that I planned on going, and said that I had never gone before. I reminded her that I had gone lots of times. She said, "You've never gone willingly."
Hmmm. Did somebody twist my arm? She claimed that I once argued that it wasn't efficient for us both to go. Now that sounds like something that I might have said. It is not really necessary for both of us to listen to some dopey teacher read a report card to us. So I told my ex-wife that I wouldn't need to go if only she will give me a full report. There is no chance of that anymore.
At the parent-teacher conferences, the teachers each showed us a battery of standardized tests. The 1st grade teacher told us that our kid needed work on her middle vowel sounds because on one of the tests she spelled "chirp" as CHERP. She also mispronounced some proper names on the reading test, such as saying Liza instead of Lisa.
The one thing that I did learn was that there is another girl in the class who is also so far ahead of everybody else that she is not learning anything either. At least they can talk to each other.
The 4th-grade teacher also gave us a stack of test results. Our kid aced the math tests, only missing 2 questions. One was "What is a hundred less than 8,002?". She answered 7,902. I told the teacher that I wanted to do some grade grubbing on that one. She said that a lot of students got that problem marked wrong. Then she got up and walked across the classroom. I thought that she was going to get the answer key to see if it was wrong. Instead she got a pocket calculator, and confirmed that 8002 - 100 = 7902.
This teacher was mainly proud that I had heard from my kid how mean she is. The teacher's name even rhymes with "mean". I am not belittling this; I think that she has done a good job in restoring order to the classroom. There are a lot of undisciplined goof-offs in the class, and it is difficult for the teacher to teach anything to those kids.
I found out that my ex-wife was angling to get our 4th-grader into some sort of gifted program. The teacher asked whether the child could do long division. I assured her that I had taught her long division at home. Long division was not on the tests.
Today, our 4th-grader was sick and went to bed early. Our 1st-grader used the chance to practice her own long division. After a while, I noticed the above diagram. She explained that she does Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring down, and repeats. She remembers the D-M-S-B because it also stands for Dad, Mom, Sister, Brother. That seemed clever to me; I am not sure if she figured that out herself or not. She certainly didn't learn it from the school. She needs some practice, but she has the main ideas. No, they don't have a gifted program in first grade. The school is much more concerned about what to do about the class bully. Apparently one bully has punched out a couple of other kids already, and one other kid has even dropped out of the school because of the bully.
USA wins computer games medals
John writes that they beat us in math, but we beat them at games.
PBS anti-father propaganda
Cathy Young writes in the Boston Globe:
CHILD CUSTODY battles are always wrenching, particularly when there are allegations of abuse. For years fathers' rights groups have complained that men face a pervasive bias in family courts, while many feminists have countercharged that the real bias is against women. The latest round of this debate is being waged over a documentary, "Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories," which has been airing on Public Broadcasting Service affiliates in the past month.
The film's point is simple: Children in America are routinely ripped from their mothers and given to fathers who are batterers or molesters. The women's claims of abuse are not believed by the courts and are even held against them when mothers are suspected of manufacturing false charges as a divorce strategy.
To fathers' groups, "Breaking the Silence" is blatant antidad propaganda. In a campaign led by the Boston-based Fathers and Families, PBS has been bombarded with thousands of calls and letters. It is now conducting a 30-day review of the research used in the film.
The show was indeed extremely biased and inaccurate. I previously criticized it here. Glenn Sacks also explains how bad the TV show was. He is sponsoring a protest here.
Congress supports parental rights
The US House of Reps voted 320-to-91 to criticize a recent court decision, and issue a statement in favor of parental rights. The resolution included this:
Whereas in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 401 (1923), the Supreme Court recognized that the liberty guaranteed by the 14th amendment to the Constitution encompasses "the power of parents to control the education of their [children]";
Whereas the Supreme Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35 (1925), highlighted the Meyer doctrine that parents and guardians have the liberty "to direct the upbringing and education of children under control" and emphasized that "[t]he child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations";
Whereas in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 232?33 (1972), the Supreme Court acknowledged that "[t]he history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition. ... The duty to prepare the child for 'additional obligations', referred to by the Court [in Pierce] must be read to include the inculcation of moral standards, religious beliefs, and elements of good citizenship";
Whereas a plurality of the Supreme Court has stated, "it cannot now be doubted that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children" (Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66 (2000) (plurality opinion));
The problem here is a couple of federal judges who think that parental right end at the schoolhouse door. We need to convince everyone that they do not end at the schoolhouse door, and they do not end in the family court.
Criminal cheese squeezing
Rodney Dane Higginbotham is one the most wanted fugitives in South Carolina. If you run into him, you are being asked to immediately notify the authorities so that he can be arrested for criminal domestic violence. Here is the official state notice:
ALLEGED CRIME: Police said Higginbotham argued with his wife because she had not cooked anything. When she began cooking, he started making spaghetti while eating crackers and squeeze cheese. They argued, and he squeezed cheese on the kitchen floor. She squeezed the cheese on his truck, and he squeezed the cheese in her hair before fleeing in his truck. His wife said she washed her hair before the officer arrived to take her complaint.
Too bad she washed her hair; she apparently destroyed all the incriminating evidence! Unless this man is quickly brought to justice, no woman in S. Carolina is safe from having cheese squeezed into her hair.
I don't know whether they have any kids, but if they do, then the domestic violence charge will surely prevent the kids from being able to see their dad. If he would squeeze cheese into his wife's hair, then the law would presume him to be a bad influence on the kids. He might even do something to cause his kids to have to wash their hair.
Judge Jailed Man Who Sighed
Here is a NY story about a father being bullied by a family court judge:
In November 2002, Mark Schulman was appearing before Lawrence on domestic violence charges lodged by his wife, Eva Schulman, and over an order by another judge giving the two joint custody of their two children.
During the proceeding, Schulman loudly sighed, fidgeted and on several occasions turned his back to the judge to retrieve personal belongings on a chair behind him.
The judge believed Schulman's conduct to be disrespectful, and in one instance, Lawrence ``gazed at him silently but intently,'' according to the commission's ruling. Court officers had also warned Schulman to be respectful several times.
When Schulman sighed again and shook his head, Lawrence ruled him in contempt and sentenced him to five days in jail.
Schulman objected, but Lawrence cut him off and raised the sentence to 10 days. Schulman again tried to say something, but the judge upped the jail time to 12 days. Schulman was then handcuffed and arrested.
The amazing part is that the judge actually got formally admonished for picking on the father.
Judges May Lose Immunity
AP story:
A movement is under way in South Dakota to turn the tables on members of the bench. Activists are trying to put a radical measure on next year's ballot that could make South Dakota the first state to let people who believe their rights have been violated by judges put those judges on trial. Citizens could seek damages or criminal charges.
The measure would overturn more than a century of settled law in the United States by stripping judges of their absolute immunity from lawsuits over their judicial acts.
"The current system doesn't work because there is no adequate way to hold a given judge accountable for proper behavior or to prevent them from judicial misconduct if they choose to do so," said businessman William Stegmeier, a leader of the movement. ...
The South Dakota amendment would eliminate state judges' immunity in cases involving deliberate violations of the law or someone's constitutional rights or deliberate disregard of the facts.
People could file complaints against judges after the traditional appeals process has concluded. A special grand jury would handle complaints, deciding whether a judge could be sued or face criminal charges.
If the grand jury decides on criminal charges, it could indict the judge and create a special tribunal that would act as both judge and jury, deciding guilt and any sentence. The measure would not apply to federal judges.
Things might be a little different if judges were more directly accountable for what they do. Here is the South Dakota Judicial Accountability site.
James Roger Brown rant
I ran across this rant against various child social service agencies. It is long, in pdf format, and rambling, and it seems a little crazy in places, but it has some good info in it. Here is a another similar essay.
For one thing, these essays have specific inferences that are made from answers to psychological tests, like the MMPI-2. These inferences may not be correct, as the author explains. For example, responding true to "I like to flirt" indicates Ego Strength, while false indicates Depression, Social Introversion, and Repression. Hundreds of answers like this are combined to make a personality profile.
Mom's boyfriend is risky
NY Times Science reports:
Living with an unrelated adult, especially an unrelated man, substantially increases the risk that a child will die violently, researchers reported yesterday.
According to the study, children who live with adults who are not biologically related to them are nearly 50 times as likely to die at the adults' hands as children who live with two biological parents, the researchers said.
Here is the Pediatrics article.
It continues to amaze me that anyone would make the argument that the mom should get child custody because of safety reasons. The child is nearly always safest in the home of the dad. If the mom is living with a boyfriend, then the child could have 50 times greater risk with her, according to the above study.
In my case, my ex-wife made safety and risk her main argument to the court. In fact, the kids are much safer with me. Every single safety problem has been under her watch, not mine.
She lied to the court about her boyfriend, and said that she didn't have one. I guess that if she had admitted that she was secretly living with her boyfriend and his roommate, with the kids sleeping on his couch or his floor or whatever, then she'd look pretty silly complaining about my safety.
Co-parent counseling
I just got out of a co-parent counseling session. It is confidential counseling, meaning that my ex-wife and I both agree not to make any issue in court from what is said in a session. The counselor just told me that the confidentiality agreement does not bar me from discussing what happened on this blog or anywhere else (other than court).
Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that I do not intend to discuss anything that goes on in those sessions. The idea behind confidentiality is that we should be free to express any opinions or propose any solutions without that being used elsewhere against each other. As I've previously written, I am not going to discuss anything she says in the sessions on this blog.
Rainbow art
My daughter just drew this.
Requiring equal custody
Someone sent me this link to the California legislative analyst's office:
The proposed initiative amends current law to establish the concept of “equal custody,” in which the child’s time would be equally split between the parents. The initiative further amends current law to state that equal custody is in the best interest of the child, and should be provided to the greatest degree practicable. Under the measure, in cases where one parent disagrees with equal custody, the burden of proof is on the objecting parent to show that equal custody would not be in the best interest of the child. The initiative also eliminates the provision requiring the court to state its reasons for granting a joint custody request. However, in cases that result in a denial of joint custody, it requires the court to include in the record the specific “findings of fact” it relied upon in making its custody decision. Findings of fact would not be required in cases where joint custody is granted.
I am not sure if this initiative is qualified to be on the ballot, but it sounds great. Unfortunately, it lets the judge override custody based on his opinion about the best interest of the child, but it sounds like a big improvement.
Custody evaluations are unscientific
I ran across some articles that explain how unscientific and bogus child custody evaluations are. Reputable psychologists do not do them. They would not even be admissible in court if the court followed its own rules of evidence.
Unfortunately, the articles are not readily available online. Here is what I have.
Thomas Grisso:
COMMENTARY ON "EMPIRICAL AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS WITH CUSTODY RECOMMENDATIONS:" WHAT NOW?
Replying to the paper by Tippins and Wittmann, this commentary notes that the problems they identify have been recognized for many years, yet this has resulted in little change in the practice of child custody evaluations. Three underlying reasons are offered for the stalemate that frustrates the implementation of standards for an empirically based child custody evaluation practice: (a) the economics of child custody evaluation practice; (b) inconsistencies between proposals to restrict testimony in this area and the lack of similar restrictions in most other areas of forensic practice; and (c) inadequate motivation for researchers who might contribute an empirical base for child custody evaluations. Directions for breaking the stalemate are offered for each of these problems.
Leslie Eaton:
William O'Donohue, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, is calling for a moratorium on forensic evaluations until more research is done.
"Psychologists don't have the knowledge to do what they attempt to do when they do custody evaluations," he said.
Many custody decisions, he said, involve not scientific findings, but competing values, like a father's wish that his child excel in sports versus the mother's emphasis on studying.
While mental health experts have been debating these issues for several years, the legal world has been slower to recognize them, at least in New York.
Enter Timothy M. Tippins, an Albany lawyer who increasingly specializes in cross-examining forensic experts. For almost a year, Mr. Tippins has been writing articles in The New York Law Journal questioning the role and expertise of forensic evaluators in custody cases. He has teamed up with Dr. Wittmann to write a paper titled "Empirical and Ethical Problems With Custody Recommendations: A Call for Clinical Humility and Judicial Vigilance."
Among its recommendations is a call for judges to "begin to help the psychology discipline rein in itself" by not demanding or accepting specific custody plans.
Scientific American Mind:
Custody Disputed
The guidelines judges and psychologists use to decide child custody cases have little basis in science. The system must be rebuilt on better research
By Robert E. Emery, Randy K. Otto and William O'Donohue
Courts are overwhelmed with couples who are splitting up and disputing custody of their children. If parents cannot agree on their children's fates, a judge will decide who gets custody, and increasingly, psychologists are becoming involved as expert evaluators during legal wranglings. But do any of these professionals have proof that the bases for their life-determining decisions are empirically sound? It seems not, and it is the boys and girls who suffer.
I'll try to get more complete articles and post more info. Both sides are apparently represented here.
Punished again in court
I just got out of court. The hearing was supposed to resolve a number of pending money issues. We have been operating since July 1, 2004 under temporary support orders that are retroactively modifiable. We were supposed to file financial statements last Friday, and have them decided today.
My ex-wife was unprepared, and claimed that the hearing today was just to get the judge's approval to continue seeing the co-parenting counselor!
We had a discussion of financial issues anyway, with nothing decided. My ex-wife went into a rant about how her lawyer, Ms. Jennifer J. Gray, had subpoenaed 2000 documents from me back in Nov. 2004, but had never bothered to sort them or extract useful info from them. (I think "2000" is the number of documents, and not the year of the documents. She was rambling, and the details were not too clear.) My ex-wife talked about how much money I have, how I might be hiding money, how she doesn't have to time to figure out where all my money is, and how I am not working to my full potential. The judge complained that I had not given a copy of my 2004 tax return to the court, but seemed satisfied when I said that I had given a copy to my ex-wife.
Then Judge Irwin H. Joseph turned his attention to my ex-wife's income, and asked her about getting a job. She said that she could not work because she is busy taking care of the kids and studying for the patent bar exam. She said that she flunked the exam last time, but was taking it again next month. She is already a licensed California lawyer. Passing the patent bar exam would allow her to practice patent law (along with other kinds of law that she can practice already). She also said that she could not afford day care. I volunteered to provide day care, if necessary.
Judge Joseph explained that the law required that she diligently act to become economically self-sufficient, and suggested that she broaden her job search. He said that even a starting lawyer just out of school can make $3,000 per month with a part-time job.
He scheduled us to come back on Dec. 12 to resolve the money issues. My ex-wife didn't want to do it next month because of her busy schedule and her difficulty reading my financial statements. I was a little amazed that she could come into a trial completely unprepared, have no good excuse, and still get a 6-week delay. I didn't pursue the point.
She raised the issue of paying for the co-parenting counselor, and pleaded poverty again. The judge refused to say who was liable for paying. I reminded the judge that last time this issue came up, he lectured us on how we should be equally liable for the fees, even if one party is temporarily fronting the cash, so that we would both be invested in the process. He would only say that he might well do the same again, but he wasn't going to let me pressure him into making a decision.
After that, she complained about the driving to drop off the kids. She said that one time I asked her to pick up the kids, and that this was unfair because she has to drive the kids around during the 80% of the time that she has custody of them. The problem was that my ex-wife had claimed that she had gotten an order to get me to do all the driving for drop-offs and pick-ups, and the minute order from the clerk was ambiguous. The judge remembered the issue from the last hearing, and said that his intention was not to change who does the driving, but merely to tell us to do it on time. I said that was fine. But then my ex-wife persisted in demanding that I do all the driving.
Judge Joseph was getting annoyed with us at this point, and wanted to get back to his other cases. He asked me who is supposed to do the driving under the order. I said that the court-ordered schedule does not say. He seemed surprised at that, and asked me who has been doing the driving. I said that I was doing most of it. He asked me why. I said that I didn't believe that I was obligated to do all the driving, but that I was doing it just for the sake of peace and harmony.
I then explained that Dr. Bess, the court-appointed psychologist, had said that my capitulation was not co-parenting. In order to comply with his idea of co-parenting, I needed to insist that my ex-wife cooperate in the driving. The judge seemed amused by this argument, and acted as if I were a fool for taking the guy seriously. The judge then asked me if I was going to continue to give him grief about Dr. Bess.
I was tempted to say that now it is only Dr. Bess's inkblot analysis that is keeping me from my kids, and that I would complain about it as long as my kids are being withheld from me. But on the odd chance that the judge actually understands what a kooky report Dr. Bess wrote, I let the matter drop. So I explained that I had been willing to do the extra driving, but since my ex-wife had chosen to complain about it in court, I think that she should do her share herself.
The judge rejected that argument as well, and ordered me to do all the driving. When I asked him what possible basis he could have for ordering me to do the driving, he just said, "for peace and harmony". Sigh. No good turn goes unpunished, I guess.
Then my ex-wife went into a rant about this (Angry Dad) blog. She said that I was describing the events of this case on a web site, that it was limiting her ability to get a job in town (because it was damaging her reputation among lawyers, I guess), and that it was preventing her from getting a lawyer. She said that her previous lawyer bailed out because she couldn't stand having her actions described on a web site. Furthermore, the kids have access to the web site, and might learn bad things about their mom from it.
The judge didn't seem to know what to do with this complaint. He probably doesn't realize that I complain about him by name on this blog. (He'll probably find it eventually.) He just told me that I shouldn't denigrate my ex-wife to the kids on any medium. I assured him that I never badmouth her to the kids.
Curiously, my ex-wife and I were under oath for the whole session. Normally, in routine court appearances like this, the arguments are made by lawyers who are not under oath. It is not a crime for them to lie. Lawyers are supposed to be able to give phony stories without significant consequences, I guess. We were sworn in because the judge thought that he'd be collecting financial facts from us. As it turned out, all he got was just the usual silly arguments, and we didn't need to be sworn in.
On the way out, I grumbled to the judge that I cannot win anything in his court. He said that wasn't true because he is now willing to impute income for my ex-wife if she doesn't get a real job. (Judges have been telling her to get a job for about 6 months now, but she has ignored them.) We'll find out at the next hearing, I guess.
Answering public accusations
I just got this from my ex-wife:
To AngryDad,
I am writing you with the hope that after you read this letter, you will dismantle your blog site entitled angrydad.blogspot.com. The way in which you have gone about the journaling of your version of this divorce process has become an impediment to successful co-parenting efforts.
It has come to my attention that [our kids] have access to your angry dad blog site, have read it, and have witnessed you writing on it. They know that you write bad things about me on this blog. This is not beneficial for the children's well being or our attempts at co parenting.
It would be in the best interests of our children and co-parenting to dismantle your blog site.
Sincerely, [AngryMom]
No, I think that this blog has aided our co-parenting. My ex-wife does not listen to me, but she reads this blog. At least she learns my point of view, if nothing else.
This blog would be very different if I really used it to write bad things about my ex-wife. I do not believe in badmouthing my ex-wife, either to my kids or anyone else. But I do believe in defending myself against accusations. When those accusations are made publicly, then I will publicly defend myself.
Unfortunately, my ex-wife continues to say bad things about me in court, and my kids continue to suffer the consequences. If she stops attacking me in court, then it won't be necessary to defend myself any longer.
If my ex-wife really cared about the best interests of the children, then she would stop her current court action. She is desperately afraid that our kids will someday learn the details of what she has done.
TV show intro
This is the first minute or so from PBS TV show mentioned below.
I am watching Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories on PBS TV. An "abuse intervention specialist" named Lundy Bancroft just said:
There is a societal misconception that mothers are very heavily favored in custody and visitation litigation over fathers and that will somehow will take care of the needs of mothers who need to protect their children from a battering or sexually abusive father. In fact the maternal preference went out more than 20 years ... fathers now have preference for custody.
This is really wacky. The family courts still have a heavy preference for mothers. Most child abuse is from mothers, not fathers. Child sexual abuse is nearly always the result of mothers winning custody, and fathers being unable to protect their kids.
Another opinion by Carey Roberts:
Breaking the Silence leads off with this whopper: “One-third of mothers lose custody to abusive husbands.” That outrageous statement contains two falsehoods.
First, divorced fathers win custody of their children only 15% of the time, so the one-third figure is obviously suspect.
Second, women are known to be just as abusive as men. As a recent report from the Independent Women’s Forum notes, “approximately half of all couple violence is mutual…when only one partner is abusive, it is as likely to be the woman as the man.”
Continuing its mean-spirited dissing of dads, Breaking the Silence goes on to claim that children are “most often in danger from the father.” Apparently the producers never bothered to read the recent report from the US Department of Health and Human Services which reveals that the majority of perpetrators of child abuse and neglect are female.
But the real objective of the PBS fusillade is to whitewash the problem of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Divorcing parents – usually mothers – sometimes try to turn the children against the other parent. If the mother can claim that the kids are refusing to talk to dad, she is almost certain to win child custody.
Here is another review by Mark B. Rosenthal.
This might well be the most hate-filled show that I have ever seen. It was a documentary without a single valid fact.
Another copy of picture
I had to upload another copy in order to use it in my profile.
Restarting the co-parenting counseling
I just got out of court-ordered co-parenting counseling. The counselor insists on doing confidential counseling, where nobody reports to the court. So I am not going to report on any discussions in the counseling session. The judge wants some sort of report, so it is not clear whether this procedure will satisfy him.
The counselor firmly believes that co-parenting requires giving both parties the confidence that they can speak openly and frankly and cooperatively without fear that their words will be used against them.
It is odd that we got sent to this sort of counselor in the midst of a brutal court fight. It would have made more sense for the judge to decide the legal issues, and then send us to the counselor.
I dropped my 2004 tax return in the mail this afternoon, and I gave my ex-wife a copy a few minutes later. I included a copy of my second request for an extension, but she complained that I did not have a copy of my first extension request. I cannot imagine why she would want a copy of that. The first request is automatic, and just asks for my name and SS number.
Effect on child support
A reader asks:
If you get awarded 50-50 custody, do you still have to pay child support? Is child support supposed to be shared equally between mother and father? You pay expenses while the kids are with you, she and her fiance pay expenses when the kids are with them, and then clothes, education, medical etc is shared evenly?
Sometime in the 1990s, the feds forced the states to use formulas for child support, and the amounts were increased to make alimony unnecessary. The formulas vary from state to state. In many states, a mom collecting child support under the formula can live better than the dad.
The formulas depend on the time-share and income of the parents, as well as the number of kids and a few other factors. If the custody is 50-50 and the parents have the same income, then there is no child support. If the custody is 50-50 and one parent earns more, then the parent earning more pays to the parent earning less. The formulas don't have anything to do with the actual child-related expenses, and there is no obligation to spend child support money on the kids.
Your questions allude to a really bad aspect of the formulas -- they encourage moms to fight for custody purely as a way of getting more child support money. If the formulas were made more just, a lot of custody fights would just disappear.
Paying alimony
A reader writes:
I have been reading your blog on and off for awhile now. I accidently stumbled upon it while googling family court info.....
Although I am happily engaged now to a wonderful woman, (this is in fact her email address that I am borrowing while away from my computer), I have experienced the frustration and pain of family court.
My story is too long to type to you at this time, but one thing I wanted to share with you is now that your wife is engaged, I hope that you are going for monthly spousal support payments rather than one large sum settlement just to get it over with. The reason I write to you is that I did not know that my wife was already engaged to the man that she had an affair with while we were marrried and was the ultimate reason that she left what I thought at the time was a beautiful relationship, silly me, (he was younger, very handsome, quite the charmer, and partied and played with her while I was out working my butt off for her and the kids), and she convinced me that a one time settlement would be best and easiest for all involved - Imagine my surprise when the day after she got my money, she moved in "officially" with the other guy, WITH my kids, and got married a month later - apparantly my money went to buy HIM a new truck and to pay off a large chunk of his morgage on his house - I was livid.
I later found out that if I had been paying monthly spousal support, all support would have ended once she got married! I would still have to pay child support, but less since they were living with a new "dad" and financial provider, etc. But the actual "spousal" support would have ended since she couldn't claim that without my money she would be starving and be destitute and without gas money or clothes money because she was "alone" and had no support that she had become accustomed to in our marriage - once she got married, she became the other guys wife and his responsibility!!!!
Only recently does it seem that you are mentioning more your ex-wife's attempts to get more money from you - especially since now she claims to deserve lawyer fees as her own lawyer - precious. - I am not sure what your marriage desolution alimony plan is or even if you can change it at this time - but if I can help you by sharing my experience with you, then great.
As I mentioned at the beginning, I am now engaged to a beautiful special woman - after a few years of pain and anger, I see the silver lining of the mess that my ex brought into my life. She is married to a guy that ended up being an alcoholic and has a problem sleeping around with other women....... Since she was married to me when she started her affair with him, and apparantly, he was in a relationship with someone else as well, then I say that she is getting the proverbial karma bite in the butt that she deserves! And now I have my kids full time since she and the new young pretty blue coller husband are always fighting............ I am a happy man.
Good Luck, ...
Thanks. I am told that with the increased child support formulas of the last few years, there isn't even supposed to be any need for alimony. Most cases do not award alimony. Alimony is supposed to be temporary, and ought to end soon whether she gets a job, or gets remarried, or what. Of course, I don't have much confidence in the legal system.
Glad things worked out okay for you.
Sent out for another report
I just got screwed in court again. My ex-wife showed up with no lawyer, as she had just fired Jennifer Gray. The judge still did not have a copy of Dr. Inkblot's report, so he asked for my copy, and read it during a break. He said that he had read the other paperwork in the file.
Judge Joseph said that the report says that we cannot co-parent, so he sent us out for co-parenting counseling. He will review the custody situation when he gets another report.
This is now our sixth expert referral from the family court, and it will be our sixth written report. The process is extremely frustrating. I am tempted to post all six reports so everyone can see how ridiculous this is. I remember being shocked about a year ago when I heard about a case with three written reports.
I don't know why, but nearly all of the judge's comments and questions were directed at me. I did most of the talking, and my ex-wife didn't say much.
After another break, my ex-wife wanted to bring up some other issues. She complained that this month I paid her on Oct. 2 instead of Oct. 1. She complained that sometimes I drop off the kids 10 minutes late. One time, I dropped off the kids to her babysitter about 20 minutes. She implied that this was somehow inconvenient to her babysitter, although I didn't get why.
My ex-wife threw a little tantrum in the court about refusing to co-endorse a $56 tax refund check. She claimed that she was creating a liability for herself by signing it. The judge tried to explain to her that she wasn't, but she didn't get it. Ultimately, the judge said that he didn't want to waste court time over it, told her to give the check to me, and asked me to write her a check for $56.
She also had a theory about how the existing support order made a mistake about how it apportioned the monthly support amounts into child support and spousal support. The judge asked me if I agreed, and I said that this was the first that I heard of it, and that I could not make any sense of what she said. The judge didn't understand it either.
She also complained that I had not given her all the documents that she demanded. I told the judge that I had given her everything. The judge asked her what was missing, and she said that she didn't know. He told her to figure out what she wants, if she wants something.
She also about having a hard time paying the rent, and she wanted more money. As it is, my monthly payment is about three times her rent and she doesn't even live there. She lives with her boyfriend.
The crazy thing about my support payments is that it has never been based on my actual income, and the court has kept making orders based on fault figures with the excuse that the orders are "retroactively modifiable". This has been going on for 15 months now. So the judge ordered a hearing on financial issues for Oct. 27.
Judge Joseph acted like he has an opportunity to teach us to co-parent. If we only attend some counseling sessions and learn to co-parent now, he said, then several years from now we might come to agreement on what age to let the kids start watching PG-rated movies. I was startled that a family court judge would say something so silly.
I called our previous co-parenting counselor and left a message. Last time, he said that he doesn't do reports, so I guess that we'll have to find someone else. My guess is that my ex-wife will be uncooperative, as usual.
My kids gave me a haircut.
Judge Kelly's ruling
My ex-wife tries to claim that there have already been court findings that I am a bad father, and tries to quote Judge Kelly in support of her request for sole legal custody of our kids. Actually, she made all of those arguments at trial on March 25, and here is an excerpt from Judge Kelly's concluding remarks:
THE COURT: Right, with one of these these people will help me get a sense of you more than I can get from just an hour on the stand or something. These are really skilled people. They're there to help their clients. They're not there to snitch to the Court for returning fees. These people are really good. That's why they're on the list and they will have a sense of you that they can communicate back to me that might give Mother, give me the assurance that we can go right to D and get you guys back on a fifty fifty time line here. ... If you're well, it will give me information I need to make a good call on this because I do want to go to 50 percent but I have to be assured that this is in the best interests of the kids. I think if you go to this counseling regiment it will be. You can get there. … If things are going well I'll tell you. I will go to D, okay, fifty fifty time share.
Plan "D" is 5-2-2-5, a 50-50 time-share plan. The "list" consisted of Jay Goodman, Ph.D., Jay Muccilli, Ph.D., CJ Neustadter, LMFT, Sheilah Seigel, Ph.D., Judy Zappacosta, LCSW. My ex-wife had requested that I see someone on the list.
Judge Kelly said that the switch back to 50-50 custody is supposed to benefit her as well:
THE COURT: This is written for Mother too is because she desperately, I'm sure, wants to be out in the work force and once she gets employment she is going to be real busy and parenting time is she's going to be torn a lot of directions trying to have a career and with these children. She's really going to need you to step up at the plate here, so this is a win win here. Like I say, once she has full employment then it's going to be really critical that you guys are working as a team. [March 25, 2005, p.121]
So when my ex-wife claims that the trial evidence "overwhelmingly validates and substantiates" her concerns, she is ignoring the actual findings at the trial. The judge did not find me at fault in any of the issues being tried. He merely sent me to a court-approved expert in order to get some further assurances.
Court uses queer counselor
I just ran across this article in the Setpember/October 2000 issue of the Utne Reader.
As psychotherapist Bret Johnson explains in In the Family (July 1998), gays and lesbians often go through a second coming out, from lesbian or gay to bisexual-sometimes decades after their first coming out. "Back in the 1960s and 1970s, coming out meant making a break from heterosexuality," he writes. "But in the late 1990s, we are witnessing a break from gayness and lesbianism."
But, he adds, "the new wave of coming out almost looks like going back in.... It's as if we're seeing a challenge to the old, modernist way of thinking 'This is who I am, period'and a movement toward a postmodern version, 'This is who I am right now."' ...
Perhaps this needs to be balanced with what Bret Johnson notes about the new generation of queer people he works with in therapy: "They don't want to fit into any boxes -- not gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual ones. They want to be free to come out as who they are, when they are ready to decide that, and then they want to be free to change their minds."
Besides counseling gay men on coming in and out of the closet, Bret Johnson works as a custody evaluator for the Santa Cruz County family court. He may be tolerant of the "queer people he works with in therapy", but he is not tolerant of fathers rearing children.
He wrote a report that said this of me:
Further, Father's tendency to "do things over and over" such as feed the children one vegetable for a long period, have the young children brush their own hair because they are too fussy, and that he is unorthodox in parenting approaches may not be neglect or abuse in the pure sense of the words; rather it suggests he runs things in his own way, on his own time, and may not take new input well with regards to the children's best interests.
The vegetable remark was based on interviewing my 5-year-old daughter:
at Father's they have oatmeal; and she went through the vegetable rotation, e.g., broccoli, potatoes, asparagus -- "We are still on asparagus."
In Bret Johnson's view, I guess it is okay to be unorthodox about how I use my bodily orifices, but not about my vegetable rotation or my hair brushing.
Actually, I don't think that there is anything unorthodox about my vegetable or hair-brushing policies. I have consulted with dieticians and they say that my so-called vegetable rotation is excellent. Bret Johnson is an out gay man who knows nothing about children, so perhaps any normal practices might seem unorthodox to him.
Bret Johnson is someone that most people would regard as a kook and a pervert. Because he thought that my vegetable rotation or my hair brushing was unorthodox, he recommended that the family court issue the following order against me:
10. Counseling/ Related: A. Father shall participate in a minimum of six months of thrice monthly individual counseling with a licensed therapist familiar with issues of healthy child care ... and shall continue as needed thereafter or until released.
Until recently, homosexuality was considered a psychological disorder and a felony. In much of the USA and the rest of the world, people still think so. If being unorthodox justified forced psychotherapy, then surely homosexuality would qualify. Bret Johnson would be imprisoned and forced to undergo psychotherapy until he switches to more normal sexual preferences. In another time or another place, he would face the death penalty. Instead, he is working for the Santa Cruz County family court, and trying to order me to undergo long-term forced psychotherapy because he thinks that my vegetable rotation and hair brushing are unorthodox.
My ex-wife complains that I disagree with Dr. Johnson. You bet I do. Bret Johnson is incompetent and malicious. No one should ever take child-rearing advice from him. My kids could do better custody evaluations than he does.
Her demand for sole legal custody
My ex-wife filed this demand for sole legal custody of our two kids. She attached over 100 pages of transcripts.
I. PARTIES and COUNSEL:
Petitioner, Jill AngryDad, is in propria persona
Respondent, George AngryDad, is in propria persona
II. MARRIAGE BACKGROUND:
This is a marriage of seven years, and there are two minor children of this marriage. The children are Mary, currently age 8 years, and Jenny, currently age 6 years. The date of separation is October 6, 2003.
III. REPLY TO PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION REPORT
This Status Report includes the following: A. a summary of the previous hearing held on September 28, 2005; B. a discussion of the relationship between the psychological evaluation report and Judge Kelly's findings and orders after the trial [including: 1) a description of the case history up until the psychological evaluation report; and 2) the psychological evaluation report's impact upon the parties legal and physical custody dispute]; and C., a brief reply to Mr. AngryDad's Status Memo comments.
A. SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS HEARING ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2005: On September, 28, 2005, the parties appeared before The Hon. Joseph for a review of the Dr. Bess's report concerning the psychological evaluation in which both parties were ordered to participate. Both parties received a faxed copy of the psychological evaluation report on the afternoon of September 26, 2005, but as of September 28, 2005, Judge Joseph still had not received the report. Judge Joseph gave Ms. AngryMom's then counsel, Ms. Jennifer Gray, until October 6, 2005 to file her comments regarding the report with the court. The new hearing date to review the psychological evaluation report was set for October 11, 2005.
B. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION REPORT AND JUDGE KELLY'S FINDINGS AND ORDERS AFTER TRIAL
1. CASE HISTORY UP UNTIL THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION REPORT
After both parties participated in a court ordered mediation with Dr. Berrenge, and then a court ordered evaluation with Dr. Johnson (summer of 2004), Dr. Johnson recommended to the Court that there be joint custody with Ms, AngryMom to be the primary custodian. Dr. Johnson recommended that Mr. AngryDad attend two 10-12 week parenting classes, and individual counseling (three times a month for six months), focusing on child safety and parenting issues. Depending upon Mr. AngryDad's successful or unsuccessful completion of the parenting classes and the showing of positive progress in his individual counseling, his custody percentage could and should be increased or decreased. In November of 2004, Judge Kelsay ordered Dr. Johnson's recommendations be put in place pending the outcome of the trial that Mr. AngryDad requested regarding Dr. Johnson's written report.
On February 25, 2005, Mr. AngryDad cross examined Dr. Johnson for 3 hours, eliciting the same information from Dr. Johnson that was in his report and the reasons for Dr. Johnson's recommendations Mr. AngryDad's inappropriate risk taking behavior while parenting as well as other poor parenting methods. The following are examples of Dr. Johnson's concerns with Mr. AngryDad's parenting (Attached hereto as Exhibit "A".
Reporter's Transcript, February 25, 2005, p. 17, 22 23, and 43) "Well, you might start by saying there's some issues that came up before the court where the safety has been brought up and possible supervision of the kids and there are some instances where you need to work on perhaps paying attention better and being more vigilant with the kids and understanding how your idea of perhaps "independence" may not be appropriate for the children of your age, children that you have of their age." (p. 43, 3 10) "Without going over the whole report, that's the essence of what I wanted to have happen here was for father to be willing, and as the Judge said, perhaps humble himself to be willing to participate in parenting classes and increase his level of awareness and insight into what appropriate parenting for two very young girls would be, including supervision." (p. 23, 6 13)
"But I think that there needs to be more awareness around two small girls and level of dependency versus independent and supervision." (p. 17, 20 22)
"Q. And do you feel any of those situations are trivial? A. No, I think they're important. And I address them because I feel like father needs to pay attention to them." (p. 22, 24 26; p. 23, 1 2)
On May 13, 2005, in an all day trial, Mr. AngryDad had the opportunity to cross examine witnesses to his risk taking behavior which had put the children in harm's way. He also testified on his own behalf. After viewing the evidence before him, Judge Kelly ordered the physical custody situation to remain the same, and that Mr. AngryDad participate in one 10 12 week parenting class, and receive the individual counseling that Dr. Johnson recommended two times a month. In response to Ms. AngryMom's request that both parties receive co-parenting counseling, Judge Kelly also ordered both parties to participate in co-parenting counseling. The following are some examples of Judge Kelly's comments concerning Mr. AngryDad's risk taking parenting behavior (Attached hereto as Exhibit "B". Reporter's Transcript, March 25, 2005, p. 106, 107, and 112 114.):
"...and also that you get some of this parenting class under your belt because I do see safety risk issues, you taking more risks than really is appropriate" (p. 106, 20 22)
"And I think, Father, what you need to your own behavior needs to be a little more on the caution side." (p.107, 21 23) "Let me just tell you, some of this behavior I've heard today is inappropriate. It's not all putting the kids at unacceptable risk. I would give you that, okay. Some of it is clearly, but a lot of it is just bad bad parenting, just inappropriate parenting. And it's not something like it's way off on this bell curve, okay, but it's just something where, with some input from a counselor, you might rethink some of these positions. So that's the parenting part." (p. 112, 16 24) "And I wanted you to do the parent counseling at Simply Your Best for what that will [tell] teach you. Some of this behavior that I heard today, as I say, is just not appropriate." (p. 113, 16 19)
"Some of it is safety. Some of it is just not appropriate, okay. I have the ultimate call on this but I'm just trying to let you know where I'm coming from so that we don't we can bring some closure to this and not go to the continue these hearing with more people, more court time, more expense... " (p. 113, 22 26; 114, 1)
The evidence garnered at the trial on Mr. AngryDad's risk taking behavior and inappropriate parenting overwhelmingly validates and substantiates Ms. AngryMom's concerns for the health, safety, and welfare of the children while in Mr. AngryDad's care. Attached hereto are Exhibits "C", "D", and "E", which provides further evidence that Ms. AngryMom's concerns were indeed necessary and genuine. (Exhibit "C" Reporter's Transcript containing trial testimony and Judge Kelly's comments on March 25, 2005 [p. 5 6, 10 14, 17, 22, 32, 34, 9, 42 54, 56 59, 61 69, 71 94, 97 101, 108, and 111] Exhibit "D" Reporter's Transcript containing trial testimony and Judge Kelly's comments on February 25, 2005 [6 12, 14, 16, 21, 25 26, 29, 31 33, 37, 39, 47, 53, 55 56, 60, and 65], and Exhibit "E" Reporter's Transcript containing Mr. AngryDad's deposition testimony on February 15, 2005 [100 102]; significant portions are highlighted for the convenience of the Court) Following Mr. AngryDad's failure to comply with Judge Kelly's court order regarding classes, individual counseling, and co-parenting counseling, Judge Joseph ordered both parties to undergo psychological evaluations in order to determine:
1 . Do the parents have the ability to co-parent?
2. Are there any personality disorders or other mental illness that would impair parenting? What is the recommended treatment or solutions to these issues?
3. Are there any other psychological or behavioral issues that the Court should consider in determining what arrangement is in the best interest of the children?
2. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION REPORT'S IMPACT
Pursuant to Family Code Section 3006, and based upon the court's findings and Dr. Bess's Evaluation Report, Ms. AngryMom is requesting sole legal custody of the two minor children be awarded to her, and the physical custody arrangement be slightly changed to accommodate Mr. AngryDad learning to care for the children during a school week. Dr. Bess's report states that both parties do not at this time have the capacity to co parent. His report goes on to state that co-parenting requires the capacity to discuss a parenting issue or decision, reach an agreement and then to follow through on the agreement. Dr. Bess found that both parties are not even able to agree on whether there are legitimate issues they need to agree upon. Dr. Bess reiterates Ms. AngryMom's concerns in his summary of assessment, which are that she does not feel that Mr. AngryDad provides adequate supervision for the children and she does not feel that Mr. AngryDad is willing to adjust his behavior to provide closer supervision. In his interviews with Dr. Bess, Mr. AngryDad indicated that he does not feel that Ms. AngryMom's issues are valid or that her concerns are necessary or even genuine. (Psychological Evaluation Report [Psych. Eval]) Dr. Johnson and Judge Kelly found Ms. AngryMom's concerns to be valid, necessary and genuine. Mr. AngryDad refuses to acknowledge and/or accept this finding.
Dr. Bess also wrote that he thought that it would be necessary for the parties to have clear orders from the Court that define their relative authority to make parenting decisions. (Psych. Eval.) Clear court orders do not work for Mr. AngryDad. If he will not go to simple classes and pay money when ordered to, then he will not accept orders from the Court on how to parent. He has been brought to court two times under motions to compel documents and money. He has not delivered the compelled documents, nor has he properly filled out documents that he has delivered under court order. He hasn't taken the classes, counseling, or the extent of co-parenting counseling ordered by the court. His unwillingness to comply with court orders directly impacts the children. For example, despite a court order in place since November of 2004, about 25 entreaties from Ms. AngryMom, and two co-parenting counseling sessions, Mr. AngryDad still refuses to set a specific time at which he plans to deliver the children to Ms. AngryMom. This event should be one of the simplest co-parenting decisions, but yet, it has been the subject of a discussion for a year. As Dr. Bess points out, the parties cannot even agree that there are legitimate issues that they need to agree upon.
The bottom line is that Mr. AngryDad insists upon behaving in such a way that is detrimental to his children, and that whomever disagrees with him is wrong Dr. Berrenge, Dr. Johnson, Judge Kelsay, Judge Kelly, this Court, and inevitably, Dr. Bess. Moreover, Dr. Bess's report points out that the parties each have a strong investment in their attitudes and approaches. (Psych. Eval.) Finally, Dr. Bess's report characterizes Mr. AngryDad as a man who values his autonomy and perceives Ms. AngryMom's alleged concerns suspiciously, as a tactic to gain an advantage in court and as an unnecessary effort to interfere with his autonomy. Consequently, Mr. AngryDad feels that there is no legitimate need for co-parenting and that it could actually make matters worse by supporting her manipulative tactics. (Psych Eval) Just as depicted, Mr. AngryDad's character weighs heavily and negatively in all of his interactions with Ms. AngryMom.
Therefore, in view of the court findings on health and safety issues, the psychological evaluation report, and the reality that unsuccessful co-parenting efforts are for the most part paralyzing the children's lives, Ms. AngryMom requests sole legal custody be awarded to her, pending a strong demonstration to the Court on Mr. AngryDad's part that he is willing to comply with court orders, make great strides in co-parenting issues, and modify his behavior for the children's best interests when it comes to their health, safety, and welfare.
C. BRIEFLY ADDRESSING MR. AngryDad's STATUS MEMO COMMENTS
Just about every sentence in Mr. AngryDad's Status Memo is some kind of distortion of the truth. Please read the following corrections:
1. "We had a fact finding hearing on March 25, 2005, and no significant defects in my parenting practices were found." (AngryDad's Status Memo [hereafter, S.M.] pg. 2)
See attached exhibits "A", "B", "C", "D", and "E" for 'significant defects' found.
2. "He does not give any explanation for the fact we did 50 50 co-parenting successfully for a year." (S.M. pg. 3)
The reason why the parties have been in court for the last year and a half is because they were unsuccessful at co parenting the children such as agreeing that there are legitimate issues of concern.
3. "Dr. Bess's report does not show that anything would be gained by delaying a return to 50-50 custody." (S.M. pg. 3)
Dr. Bess clearly states that we are unable to co-parent, which is a major ingredient in the recipe for a successful 50-50 custody situation.
4. "Dr. Bess's report suggests that the current schedule and court oversight might be an impediment to collaborative parenting, and sees no concrete reason why 50-50 parenting would not work." (S.M. pg. 5)
Mr. AngryDad seems to confuse his own words and reasoning to be that of Dr. Bess's.
5. Property Division: (S.M. pg. 1)
Ms. AngryMom does not acknowledge the validity of any marital settlement agreement.
6. Attorney Fees: (S.M. pg. 1)
Ms. AngryMom intends to make a request to this Court to order Mr. AngryDad to pay Ms. AngryMom for the amount of bills incurred throughout this court case.
7. Child Support: (S.M. pg. 1)
Mr. AngryDad has refused and continues to refuse to fill out documents that would allow the court to pinpoint the amount of money he is making per month. That being the case, Mr. AngryDad is under a court order to pay Ms. AngryMom a retroactive amount of child support, totaling about $2,000. This was ordered on March 25, 2005. It is now October of 2005, and Mr, AngryDad still has not paid.
Jill AngryMom
Cc: George AngryDad
She cites Family Code Section 3006, which only says:
3006. "Sole legal custody" means that one parent shall have the right and the responsibility to make the decisions relating to the health, education, and welfare of a child.
I am flabbergasted by this. I will defend myself in court and on this blog.
My custody request
I filed the following shortly before the Sept. 28 status hearing.
Status Memo
Status conference issues
Child custody: A temporary order is in effect. Judge Kelly has ordered a return to 50-50 custody, pending the parents jumping through some hoops.
Child support: A temporary order is in effect, based on inaccurate data, retroactively modifiable back to July 1, 2004.
Spousal support: Same story. I paid $4,000 for Dr. Bruce Bess, and AngryMom owes me for her half.
Attorney fees: AngryMom has requested $40,452.01 for legal work from June 2004 to May 2005. $20,000 was ordered and paid by me. The rest was denied.
Property division: Property has been divided by mutual agreement, but it has not been recorded with the court.
I have been fully scrutinized as a father
To comply with this court, I have now seen Dr. Melissa Berrenge, Dr. Bret K. Johnson, Dr. Warren Farrell, Dr. Laura Delizonna, Prof. Dr. Hans Steiner, Kari Wolman, Bruce Ross, Connie Jo Neustadter, Simply Your Best, Parents Center, and Dr. Bruce Bess. Five of them have submitted written reports. None have found anything wrong with my parenting, and all supported 50-50 parenting. (The weakest was Dr. Johnson, as he supported 50-50 shared parenting conditioned on AngryMom's consent.)
I have had forensic psychologists administer the following psychometric tests: Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI), Response Evaluation Measure (REM 71), Structured Clinical Interview for DSM 111 R (SCID), Structured Interview for DSM IV Personality (SIDP IV), Parent Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI), Parenting Stress Index (PSI), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory III (MCMI-III), and the Rorschach (inkblot) Test. I have written reports for all of these tests, and no disorders or other factors negatively influencing parenting were found.
AngryMom has spent the last 16 months in a sustained legal attack on me, in an attempt to get custody of our kids and maximize her support payments. Ms. Gray has run up over $40,000 in legal bills for this attack. AngryMom is a lawyer herself, and has devoted much of her time for the attack. The file has grown to hundreds of pages. We had a fact-finding hearing on March 25, 2005, and no significant defects in my parenting practices were found. Judge Kelly ruled in favor of 50-50 custody at that hearing, after a good report from C.J. Neustadter.
The latest report from Bruce Bess
I received the report from Bruce H. Bess, a Menlo Park licensed psychologist, on Monday, September 26, 2005.
He conducted inkblot and other tests. His results were that I was "within the normal range on all procedures", and that we "are both competent individuals with good basic coping skills and are free of any significant mental or emotional disorders."
Dr. Bess does have some doubts about our ability to co-parent. His reasoning is unclear, and his report is notable for what it does not say. He does not give any example of the interests of the children suffering because of our supposed inability to co-parent. He does not give any explanation for the fact we did 50-50 co-parenting successfully for a year. And he refuses to say who might be at fault for the alleged co-parenting difficulties.
The picture of AngryMom that Dr. Bess presents is that of a demanding, manipulative, and intransigent mother with a lot of unresolved anger. She refuses to negotiate or even discuss parenting issues because she believes that she can win in court. I attempt to cooperate as much as possible and practical. Because of her intransigence, this frequently means that I have to capitulate to her demands. Dr. Bess says that capitulation is not co-parenting, and that it would be better if we had a more collaborative relationship. If I followed Dr. Bess's advice, then I would capitulate less often, in order to force AngryMom to collaborate with me.
Dr. Bess's report does not show that anything would be gained by delaying a return to 50-50 custody. It is more of a reason to name me as primary custodian. I am not the one with psychological problems, I am not the one who is trying to cut off the kids from the other parent, I am not the one who keeps running to the court with petty gripes and accusations, and I am not the one who is being uncooperative.
Dr. Bess also suggest co-parenting counseling. I think that he means appointing someone like C.J. Neustadter to act as a nonbinding referee in parenting disputes. Ms. Neustadter was previously appointed by the court, and is familiar with the case. This might be helpful after we return to 50-50 custody and AngryMom actually has an incentive to cooperate with me.
Maintaining the current order violates statutes and precedents
There is no legal, factual, or psychological justification for the current custody arrangement. It is contrary to California Family Code Section 3010 (stating that the father and mother are equally entitled to the custody of the children), Section 3061 (requiring this court to enter an order granting temporary custody in accordance with our agreement), Section 3011 (requiring the court to state its reasons for a custody order in writing or on the record, when one parent makes abuse allegations), Section 3087 (requiring that the court state in its decision the reasons for modification or termination of a joint custody order, if I oppose the change), Section 3064 (forbidding an order granting or modifying a custody order on an ex parte basis unless there has been a showing of immediate harm to the child or immediate risk that the child will be removed from the State of California), and higher court precedents on due process in child custody changes (forbidding a judge to just rubber-stamp a custody evaluator report without a hearing, see Fewel v. Fewel (1943) 23 Cal.2d 431, and Forslund v. Forslund, 225 Cal.App.2d 476 (1964)).
50-50 custody is the only reasonable alternative
All of the law and evidence points to an immediate change to 50-50 custody. AngryMom's divorce petition asked for 50-50 custody. We did 50-50 co-parenting for an entire year, and no one has found any problems with that. The kids very much preferred the 50-50 custody arrangement. None of the experts found any problems with 50-50 custody or my fitness as a father. The only judge who looked at any facts (Judge Kelly) has ruled in favor of 50-50 custody. The last court-appointed expert to interview the kids (C. J. Neustadter) recommended an immediate shift to 50-50 custody. Dr. Bess's report suggests that the current schedule and court oversight might be an impediment to collaborative parenting, and sees no concrete reason why 50-50 parenting would not work. There is no reason to wait any longer.
George The AngryDad
Cc: Ms. J. J. Gray, Bosso et al, POB 1822, Santa Cruz CA 95060
(or by personal delivery to 133 Mission St #280)
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