Professor Charged in Alabama Campus Shooting Reportedly Killed Brother in 1986

Someone should tell the Editor of the Edmonton Sun, The Ontario Government, The BC Government, the Federal Department of Justice the Police Chief in London Ontario, and oh - yes Status of Women Canada,  that it does no good to cover up or hide from women's violence. There are, of course, lots more but they are those I have written to or about in the past month. It appears the Prof who just fatally shot 3 colleagues and wounded 3 others also killed her brother 24 years back.

The now retired Police Chief (see below) denies a cover up as she was not charged but all the paper work is missing. The corruption when it comes to Women's violence appears to run deep and is widespread.MJM

Saturday , February 13, 2010

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An Alabama university professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues at a faculty meeting this week shot her younger brother dead at their home in the Boston suburbs more than 20 years ago, but records of it are missing, police said Saturday.

Amy Bishop shot her brother in the chest in 1986, Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier said at a news conference. She fired at least three shots, hitting her brother once and hitting her bedroom wall, before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.

Before Bishop could be booked, however, the police chief back then called officers and told them to release her to her mother, Frazier said. The shooting of the brother, Seth Bishop, was logged as an accident, but detailed records of the shooting have disappeared, he said.

"The report's gone, removed from the files," he said.

The Harvard-educated neurobiologist who became an assistant professor at the Alabama school in 2003 has been charged with capital murder, and other charges are pending.

Police said a 9 mm gun was found in a restroom in the science building on the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus, where the shootings occurred Friday afternoon.

She was taken Friday night in handcuffs to the county jail, and said as she got into a police car: "It didn't happen. There's no way. ... They are still alive."

District Attorney Ron Broussard said he did not think Bishop has a lawyer. Her husband, James Anderson, was detained and questioned Friday, though he has not been charged.

Ray Garner, a spokesman at the Huntsville campus, said Bishop had been denied tenure — a type of job protection afforded academics — months ago, and this was to be her last semester.
Some have said the professor, who students said was bright but had difficulty explaining difficult concepts, opened fire because of a dispute over the issue.

Students' assessments of Bishop varied. Some recalled an attentive, friendly teacher, while others said she was an odd woman who couldn't simplify difficult subjects for students. Sammie Lee Davis, the husband of a tenured researcher who was killed, said his wife had described Bishop as "not being able to deal with reality" and "not as good as she thought she was."

Davis said his wife was a tenured researcher at the university. In a brief phone interview, Davis said he was told his wife was at a meeting to discuss the tenure status of another faculty member who got angry and started shooting.

Davis' wife, Maria Ragland Davis, was among those killed, along with Gopi K. Podila, chairman of the biological sciences department, and another faculty member, Adriel Johnson.

Bishop had created a portable cell incubator, known as InQ, that was less expensive than its larger counterparts. She and her husband had won $25,000 in 2007 to market the device.

Andrea Bennett, a sophomore majoring in nursing and an athlete at UAH, said a coach told her team that Bishop had been denied tenure, which the coach said may have led to the shooting.

Bennett described Bishop as being "very weird" and "a really big nerd."

"She's well-known on campus, but I wouldn't say she's a good teacher. I've heard a lot of complaints," Bennett said. "She's a genius, but she really just can't explain things."

It was not clear if anyone at the campus of Bishop's bother's shooting.

Frazier said people who worked for the police department then remember the shooting of Bishop's brother and he planned to meet with the district attorney over the possibility of launching a criminal investigation into the report's disappearance.

The former police chief, John Polio, said Saturday in an interview at his home that he was astonished at any allegation of a coverup. He said he didn't call officers to tell them to release Bishop.

"There's no coverup, no missing records," he proclaimed.

Attempts by The Associated Press to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. The current police chief said he believed her family had moved away.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585781,00.html

The Irish Times - Monday, February 15, 2010

Woman charged with three shootings had killed in 1986

Amy Bishop is detained by police on Friday, following the killing of three colleagues at the University of Alabama.
Photograph: Bob Gathany

ANDREW CLARK in New York

A US biology professor charged over shooting dead three colleagues at a faculty meeting had killed her 18-year-old brother two decades earlier in a gun incident dismissed as an accident at the time, it emerged yesterday.

Amy Bishop (45) was arrested on Friday after allegedly opening fire on a campus room full of teaching staff at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, killing three lecturers and wounding three others.

Colleagues suggested the Harvard-educated geneticist was upset over the prospect of losing her job after being denied permanent tenure by the university.

Described as a research “star”, Dr Bishop had developed a new approach to treating the degenerative condition amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

William Setzer, chairman of the chemistry department at UAH, said Dr Bishop was appealing the decision not to grant her tenure which was made last year. “Politics and personalities” always play a role in the tenure process, he said.

“In a close department, it’s more so. If you have any lone wolves or bizarre personalities, it’s a problem and I’m thinking that certainly came into play here.”

But investigators have discovered Dr Bishop has a troubled past. At 19, she shot her younger brother, Seth, in the chest with a pump-action shotgun in the kitchen of their family home in Massachusetts.

His death in 1986 was ruled an accident by the authorities, who accepted her explanation that she had accidentally opened fire while trying to learn how to unload bullets from the gun’s chamber.

But a local senior police officer has cast doubt on this account, saying Dr Bishop was only released after a high-level intervention. “The release of Ms Bishop did not sit well with the police officers, and I can assure you that this would not happen in this day and age,” said Paul Frazier, chief of police in Braintree, near Boston.

Mr Frazier pledged a full review after it was revealed that an official report into the 1986 killing had gone missing. At a press conference, he said Dr Bishop’s mother was a town official and the teenager had been released on the direct orders of the then police chief.

© 2010 Guardian Service

Letter to British Columbia Ministers regarding their inaccurate views on Domestic Violence

From: Mike Murphy

Date: 11 February 2010 11:26

Subject: Domestic Violence

To: SG.Minister@gov.bc.ca, HSD.Minister@gov.bc.ca, MCF.Minister@gov.bc.ca

Cc: >

Dear Ministers:

I had the opportunity to review your response to S.M. with respect to the various services offered to your citizens with respect to Intimate Partner Violence and most importantly the rationale.

You proffer the usual feminist answer that is in every DV shelter operating manual and comes out of the pseudo psychological premise from the Duluth Power and Control Wheel with no basis in real science and I quote, " The Ministry does fund specific Violence Against Women programs in recognition of the gendered nature of domestic violence, which acknowledges that domestic violence is a power-based crime in which, most often, the male in an intimate relationship exercises power and control over the female."

I am very disappointed to see in the 21st century a government actually using this false premise as an excuse for not providing similar services to men. Given the research in place which clearly shows quite the opposite of what you describe, and outlined below, it is time to stop the sexist discrimination and provide equivalent services where warranted.  Men and women react differently to DV and men, despite taking a financial, physical and psychological battering, are guilty before all, as you show above and do not report the abuse to anyone in most cases. If they call the Police they are likely going to be the one arrested for the very reason you described. They largely internalize it unless a volunteer support group exists to provide assistance.

You also quote police reported statistics which do not give the real picture of actual occurrences of IPV.  In fact if DV is gendered how to you account for the upwards of 50% violence between Lesbian couples which is much higher than heterosexual couples?  You may wish to consult with Professor Don Dutton at UBC on matters relating to IPV between heterosexual  and Lesbian couples. He is on your doorstep and a well respected leader in the discipline who can bring some sense to your sexist policies.

You have also, as most feminists do, cherry picked your information from one source while leaving out anything that gives rise to DV being mutual, being initiated more by females than males, and showing it impacts 7% of women and 6% of men. Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile, 2005. An estimated 7% of women and 6% of men representing 653,000 women and 546,000 men in a current or previous spousal relationship encountered spousal violence during the five years up to and including 2004, according to a comprehensive Statistics Canada report on family violence.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/Daily/English/050714/d050714a.htm

Males are the largest victims of violence in Canada according to the most recent Homicide Stats. Canadian Homicide Stats 2008

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/091028/dq091028a-eng.htm

Total 611, 465 men 146 female
Rate of homicides with firearms has increased 24% since 2002. Handgun use on increase (gangs don't register their weapons)
Women victims 24% - lowest proportion ever Men Victims 76%
Both the rate of females killed (0.87 per 100,000 population), as well as the proportion. (24%), were the lowest since 1961
62 spousal homicides - no change from 2007. Lowest rate in 40 years, 45 women 17 (27.4%)men

Many DV homicides of men are not classified as such and this number is higher than 27.4%. Some police Departments actually suppress calling a homicide as DV even when it is patently obvious. See this article in the National Post on the London Police Chief Faulkner who falsified his 2007 reports by omission.  Its clear he has an agenda and uses the same mantra as does your government. See this column in the National Post http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/28/barbara-kay-london-ontario-police-statistics-on-domestic-violence-show-classic-signs-of-abuse.aspx and this one in the London Free Press. http://www.lfpress.com/comment/columnists/herman_goodden/2010/02/05/12762196.html

There are hundreds of studies showing the mutuality of IPV and I direct you to a small sample as follows:

Male victims of domestic violence have been seriously neglected in public policy, outreach and services. But they are not rare. They’re less likely to report it, which makes oft-cited crime data (DoJ, etc.) unreliable especially for men.

Prevalence and Injuries

Virtually all empirical survey data shows women initiate domestic violence at least as often as men in heterosexual relationships and that men suffer one-third of physical injuries from domestic violence. Over 200 of these studies (and growing), using various methodologies, are summarized by Professor Martin Fiebert at

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

Harvard Medical School and the American Psychiatric Association both recently announced a major national study in the U.S. that found half of heterosexual domestic violence is reciprocal and that: "Regarding perpetration of violence, more women than men (25 percent versus 11 percent) were responsible. In fact, 71 percent of the instigators in nonreciprocal partner violence were women."

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a

http://www.patienteducationcenter.org/aspx/HealthELibrary/HealthETopic.aspx?cid=M0907d

The study also found: "As for physical injury due to intimate partner violence, it was more likely to occur when the violence was reciprocal than nonreciprocal. And while injury was more likely when violence was perpetrated by men, in relationships with reciprocal violence it was the men who were injured more often (25 percent of the time) than were women (20 percent of the time)."

A recent 32-nation study by the University of New Hampshire found women are as violent and as controlling as men in dating relationships worldwide.

http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2006/may/em_060519male.cfm?type=n

To make my point clearer that Domestic Violence is not gendered I supply some information from Australia and the USA on child killing and abuse where you will find the female, particularly the single mom, takes the lead role.  This information may provide some ideological dissonance and perhaps hurt your sensibilities but it is time for the feminine benign artifice  bubble to be burst. It is hurting men and boys, children and indeed women who are viewed by many as an underclass of victims needing government intervention at all levels of their development leaving the impression they are unable to function equally to men without such assistance..

You may wish to view the child abuse information with a view toward public policy for child protection. There is a move afoot to align the Violence Against Women (VAW)  sector with the child protection services and this clearly is not good public policy given the woman is the most likely to harm or kill the children. There is a definite conflict of a child's best interests involved.

There are no valid peer reviewed studies or government surveys of recent date showing the rates of abuse by dads are equal to mothers. In fact a recent Australian study shows mothers themselves and mothers in concert with a non-biological boyfriend/partner are far and away the highest cause of death of their children. Mothers killed 11 alone, with a partner not the biological father 5, dads 5.  That’s a 16-5 ratio toward mothers.

Kids are safer with Dads

The Australian Institute of Criminology has reviewed the most recent child homicide statistics from its National Homicide Monitoring Program. The new data shows that during 2006-07, eleven child homicides were perpetrated by a mother, while five perpetrators were fathers, and another five were de-facto partners of the mother who lived with the child. Importantly, no child victims were killed by a complete stranger during this period.

You can go here for the USA stats showing by far Mothers are the greatest killers and abusers of their children. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/index.htm

2006,  is outlined below:

Some data on child abuse from Child Maltreatment 2006, a report by the Federal Administration for Children & Families...

Figure 4-2 Perpetrator Relationships of Child Fatalities, 2006

Child Maltreatment 2006

Perpetrator Relationships of Child Fatalities, 2006

This pie chart indicates that 27.4 percent of child fatalities were perpetrated by the mother acting alone. Such non-parental perpetrators as daycare providers, foster parents, or residential facility staff were responsible for 14.6 percent of fatalities.


Leaving aside killings by non-parents or by mothers and fathers acting together, mothers committed a significantly greater number of the parental murders of children.



 

Figure 3-5 Victims by Perpetrator Relationship, 2006

Victims by Perpetrator Relationship, 2006
 
This pie chart shows that 39.9 percent of child victims were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 17.6 percent were maltreated by their fathers acting alone; 17.8 percent were abused by both their mother and father. Victims abused by a nonparental perpetrator accounted for 10.0 percent.


Until DV is treated as a family problem rather than a female victim/male perpetrator we cannot expect much to change. It has been going on for a very long time with no end in site. Resources need to be spent on trying to salvage a family caught in the trauma of disputes holistically rather than all women are victims. I often wonder if that had been available to my family whether things would have worked out differently. How about a court process requiring all family members into counseling and if the alleged perpetrator does not respond in a timely manner then the criminal process kicks in? Australia's Family Centres are a good example. 

We know the downstream impacts of the current process with destroyed families, criminal records, loss of jobs, poverty, and increased social problems of children in single family homes. In fact children learn from their parents and the cycle becomes multi-generational. If such a system existed early warnings, as part of an education process, would allow the victimized spouse or child to seek counsel and have the family brought into a healthy counselling process before things got out of hand. It would be far more proactive and preventative. Before it becomes a police action we should look for other alternatives which will decrease the current stresses on police services to deal with the problems. Note I say family not a single gender. A process involving the family that is non-threatening may reduce the fear factor of a non-working spouse, male or female (recall I was the stay-at-home dad in my case) and have them make the move earlier with a chance to salvage the relationship and family.

As long as you stick to this Duluth Wheel psycho-babble of male power and coercion taxpayers money is not being spent in a wise fashion.

Mike Murphy
682 Old Garden River Road
Sault Ste. Marie ON  P6A 6J8

> February 10, 2010

Mr. S. M.

E-mail:

Dear Mr. M:

I am responding to your January 7, 2010 e-mail regarding your thoughts on the government’s funding of domestic violence programs.  I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the services available for both men and women in British Columbia who are the victims of domestic violence.

The majority of Ministry programs and services for victims of crime in British Columbia serve all victims of violence, including both men and women.  In fact, all but seven of the Ministry’s Victim Service Programs are mandated to serve both men and women.  Three victim service programs serve only men and four serve only women.  Similarly, the Ministry’s Crime Victim Assistance Program provides medical and dental expenses, counselling services, protective measures, income support and other benefits to assist all eligible victims of crime and their families to recover from the impacts of crime.  In the same manner, the Victim Safety Unit provides notification services to victims of crime regarding the custody status of an accused or offender including releases from custody and information about conditions that must be followed when in the community.  This service is available to both men and women who register with the unit.

The Ministry also funds VictimLINK, a toll-free, province-wide 24/7 multilingual help and information line that provides emergency crisis support for all victims of family and sexual violence.  Our Victim Court Support Program provides enhanced support to victims in the criminal court process including emotional support, court updates, information, orientation, accompaniment, and referrals to victims/witnesses and their families.  Additionally, the Ministry funded Children Who Witness Abuse Programs which provide counselling for children aged 3 to 18 who have witnessed abuse, threats, or violence in the home to help these children and their adult caregivers heal from the trauma and learn about healthy relationships.  This program serves boys, girls, and caregivers of either sex.

The Ministry does fund specific Violence Against Women programs in recognition of the gendered nature of domestic violence, which acknowledges that domestic violence is a power-based crime in which, most often, the male in an intimate relationship exercises power and control over the female.  For this reason, our Stopping the Violence Counselling Programs and Outreach and Multicultural Outreach Services exclusively serve women.

The reality is that the majority of victims of police-reported spousal violence are females, accounting for 83 per cent of victims in 2007 (Statistics Canada. Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile 2009, p. 5).  Women are also more likely than men to be victims of spousal homicide.  In 2007, almost 4 times as many women were killed by a current or former spouse as men (Statistics Canada. Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile 2009, p. 6).  In domestic violence situations, women are twice as likely as men to be injured, three times more likely to fear for their lives, twice as likely to suffer serious injury and six times as likely to seek medical attention (Statistics Canada. Measuring Violence Against Women: Statistical Trends 2006, p. 19).  For all of these reasons, we do fund specific services for women but for the Ministry as a whole, the majority of our programs and services for victims of violence are for both men and women.

I would like to personally thank you for writing to get clarity on the types of programs and services available for victims of domestic violence and for the important work you do in the area of law enforcement.  Working together we can ensure safer homes and communities for all British Columbians impacted by violence. 

Thank you once again for writing.

Yours truly,

Kash Heed

Solicitor General

pc:     The Honourable Rich Coleman

        The Honourable Mary Polak

Police Chief Faulkner in London Ontario is eating his words again

I find it interesting, nay astounding, to learn the myopic Police Chief Faulkner, who would falsify his own statistics, could be viewed as a sterling citizen. He appears to have been very involved in his community but if he would commit fraud because of ideology in one major area of his service to the citizens how many others are there? Ideologues, as we have seen within Victim Feminism, will lie, cheat, commit fraud and teach our children it is a truth in many aspects of gender relationships and noncommittal behaviour.

Maybe later more of his handiwork will arise when he is gone.MJM

 

 

Politics unlikely fit for Faulkner

By Herman Goodden, Special to QMI Agency

Last Updated: 5th February 2010, 5:01pm

With the retirement of 57-year- old London police Chief Murray Faulkner set to take effect this summer, glowing tributes to his character and record are pouring forth from many quarters.

A grad of Sir Wilfrid Laurier secondary school and Fanshawe College, Faulkner is well liked by his colleagues in the London Police Service where he was first appointed as a constable in 1975, rising to the post of deputy chief in 2000 and filling the top spot four years later.

Fellow officers always like it when one of their own heads up the service and this was doubly true when Faulkner was appointed as he followed in the wake of the dispiriting Al Gramolini debacle when an 'imported' chief was caught fiddling his expense reports and was forced to step down.

Faulkner has been a tireless ambassador to the larger community, serving on many charitable and philanthropic boards and councils and chairing the 2007 United Way campaign for London and Middlesex County. So extensive are his community commitments that it is estimated he presides at a mind-boggling 300 functions a year. This makes it more than understandable that his only stated plans for his retirement are to decompress and spend more time with his family and friends.

Faulkner is still young enough and his community standing is prominent enough that it is felt he would be a shoo-in for some sort of political office should he wish to stand as a candidate. He has not yet indicated any particular interest that way but overtures are being made to him, and he hasn't rejected the prospect out of hand.

While it might seem a natural enough progression for him to move into the political arena, such a repositioning would call on a markedly different skill set than that which he currently employs. In many ways, it would represent an inversion of the London police motto which he has sought to fulfil for the last 35 years. He would shift from a life of "Deeds not words" to one of "Words not deeds". Words are a politician's currency and tools and as a politician, Faulkner would have to exercise a level of nuance and care with his every utterance unlike anything he's ever had to concern himself with as a cop.

An example of the kind of thing I mean can be found in his address to the crowd attending the October 2006 launch of a special police task force aimed at "combatting woman abuse." At that event, Faulkner flatly identified domestic violence solely as a "gender problem," saying, "Men, and what it is to be a man in our society, (are) the problem."

This was strongly, even recklessly worded, and eight months later Faulkner's simplistic, one-sided reading of such a complicated, and fully human (i.e., pertaining to both men and women) problem, blew up in his face when London police service Insp. Kelly Johnson shot and killed retired London police superintendent David Lucio (then killed herself) the day after Lucio called off their three-year love affair to return to his wife and family.

As Ontario's Domestic Violence Death Review Committee defines domestic violence as a homicide by a partner or ex-partner, Johnson's despicable act clearly fits the bill. However unusual or flukish that situation may have been, the rage of Kelly Johnson showed that the roots of domestic violence are not solely grounded in the issue of "men, and what it is to be a man in our society."
Did Faulkner learn from this tragic act perpetrated by one of his officers, and take that opportunity to expand his understanding of domestic violence? He did not. The investigators' report on the murder-suicide which Faulkner called for, while brief, listed all kinds of extenuating circumstances that aggravated Johnson's hold on reality.

"Emotional disturbances," were cited, as well as, "historical stressors," the 2005 deaths of her mother as well as "her pet of 15 years." Such stuff would never have been considered if it had been a man who'd been pulling the trigger. More incredible still, in the release of 2007's police statistics on domestic violence (DV) perpetrated that year, only one homicide of a woman by a man was listed for the entire year. The Johnson/Lucio murder-suicide didn't make the cut.

Herman Goodden is a London freelance writer. E-mail herman.goodden@sympatico.ca

Dr. Richard Warshak ~ Tough love from Texas

This visit by Dr. Warshak indicates progress is being made within the judiciary. In one report it was stated about 130 Judges attended his seminar. The comments by The Honorable Justice John Gomery of Canada in 1991 present a vivid reminder on the passage of time before cases of Parental Alienation of a child can be identified and dealt with in an expeditious manner    “Hatred is not an emotion that comes naturally to a child. It has to be taught. A parent who would teach a child to hate the other parent represents a grave and persistent danger to the mental and emotional health of that child.”

He was a wise member of the Bench to have not overlooked the emotional abuse of the children in this Quebec case. Hopefully the judiciary will start taking the matter with the seriousness it deserves and keep the same judge involved through court proceedings and also divest themselves of the argument only recalcitrant parents take matters to litigation.

When PA is involved it is often because the alienator themselves have personality disorders and use the children as pawns.MJM

TARA WALTON/TORONTO STAR

Psychologist Richard Warshak offers intensive and controversial programs to help children who have suffered parental alienation during divorce. “Love your kids more than you hate your ex-spouse,” he says.

February 09, 2010

Susan Pigg

Living Reporter

When Richard Warshak whisked into Toronto last week from his native Texas, he brought along some tough-love advice for both divorcing parents and family court judges.

"Love your kids more than you hate your ex-spouse," the renowned expert on parental alienation said.

Be firm and fast at pushing toxic custody cases through the clogged courts, he advised judges attending a day-long seminar at the Four Seasons Hotel.

The psychologist runs the controversial Family Bridges, a Texas-based "educational workshop" aimed at undoing the damage of parental alienation – orchestrated campaigns of hate and hurt in which one parent turns their children against the other in bitter divorce battles.

Critics have decried his work as "deprogramming" but for the past year, Warshak has been working with two Ontario psychologists and says a third is due to join him soon. He's teaching them how to run similar programs here to tackle what Toronto psychiatrist Sol Goldstein describes as the "scourge of parental alienation in Canada."

Warshak's aim is to make the intensive therapy more affordable – with airfare to Texas it can hit $20,000 (U.S.) – and ease the optics of Canadian kids being whisked away from nasty parents and flown off to the United States for what skeptics label as brainwashing.

"Every day I get letters from parents with very, very tragic stories in which they've lost all contact with their children – in some cases for years," Warshak says. "It's heartbreaking to see so much pain, but it's enormously gratifying when you've been able to restore a child's identity and help them recover a lost relationship."
The key, stresses Warshak, is for parents to know that badmouthing their ex-spouse, fixating on their flaws and blaming them for the divorce in front of the kids, can doom children to a life of anger, depression and a divorce of their own later in life.

Since these bitter marrige breakdowns often end up in court, judges need to get tough before things spiral so out of control that the only solution is expensive and intensive therapy, says Warshak.

"Judges can help these families by making very clear and unambiguous (custody and visitation) orders, by having very clear expectations about what will happen if the orders are violated and by moving on these cases very early rather than allowing the problems to reach the point where expensive and intensive (therapy) is necessary."

He's determined to make parental alienation as socially unacceptable as sexual or physical abuse of children.
His 2001 book on the topic, Divorce Poison, has been updated and was re-released last month. This spring he's coming out with a new, self-help DVD (Welcome Back Pluto, which he hopes to sell on his website www.warshak.com for $19.95 U.S.) for parents struggling to reconnect with kids who've been poisoned against them.

During an hour-long interview with the Star, Warshak talked about Family Bridges. While acknowledging that it's financially out of reach of most families, he says it's treated 103 children in the past 18 years.
Of the 23 kids he's personally helped reconnect with an alienated parent since 2005, 18 still maintain a relationship with both parents. Eight of those 23 children came from Canada.

"Some parents don't really realize what they are doing – they are so preoccupied with their own anger and disappointment over the failed marriage that they fail to understand how harmful their behaviour is to their children," says Warshak.

"Others deliberately turn their children against the other parent as a way to express their anger. (The alienation) can happen literally overnight and turn into what we call `tribal warfare.' I've talked to relatives who say that as soon as the divorce was announced, their nephews and nieces stopped talking to them."
Family Bridges isn't for everyone and it's critical for family law lawyers and judges to be sure the alienation isn't because of "realistic estrangement" – a parent who is abusive or neglectful or has a new partner, for instance, whom the child doesn't like.

It's aimed mainly at children who have been so alienated that a judge thinks there should be a change in custody to give the rejected parent time to reconnect.

"We teach children how easy it is to develop a distorted view of someone, a hatred that has no sense, and we teach them how to overcome that, to think for themselves, have a compassionate view of both parents and help them understand that all parents make mistakes and that in most cases children are better off having both parents involved in their life," Warshak says.

Family Bridges is meant to be a getaway, in every sense. The child and rejected parent are sent to a hotel or a resort (in rare cases the treatment takes place at home) for four days of intensive therapy – 64 hours of treatment that's the equivalent to about a year of regular therapy, although there's lots of time to just hang out and swim. Two mental health professionals work with the parent and child.

"We find that most children under the age of 8 don't really need this kind of program to make the transition.

"Even though they've been taught to hate or fear a parent, all it really takes in most cases is to be around that parent long enough to see that they are not what they've been led to believe."

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/newsfeatures/article/762379--tough-love-from-texas

Gender imbalances, Female education dominance,The New Math on Campus

You have just got to read this NY Times Article on the gender imbalance at the university of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  A Victim oriented Feminist Prof can even make victims out of these women who out number men 57-43%. She posits "Women on gender-imbalanced campuses are paying a social price for success and, to a degree, are being victimized by men precisely because they have outperformed them, Professor Campbell said."

It never ceases to amaze me at the mentality of these people and how they ever got this far in life without help.

This has got to go into the annals as  one of the most absurd statements and bending of the rules of logic in 2010.

Therapist goes from foe to friend

I find it interesting that Jaffe still commands enough credence to get a call on his opinion of certain elements in social science. He is an ideologue perched in a secure position within academia who believes all men are abusers and women benign. This is the bald face of victim feminism. Yet, he is quoted for his so-called research, which only involves allegedly abused women, often in shelters, and he never delves into the Intimate Partner Violence perpetrated by the woman on the man in his published material. Is this not just propaganda supporting his belief system? For this, he gets kudos, awards, citations, and is apparently called to testify in court cases.


Pity any man who is involved in the case.

Mr. Makin proffers of Jaffe…"a professor at University of Western Ontario who specializes in child offenders and family violence."

This is overly generous. Jaffe, as stated above, is a women's advocate only not family and any violence that exists in his mind is that perpetrated by a man. He ignores the USA, Australian and some Canadian studies, which show the single mom to be the most likely perpetrator of harm and death to children.
"It is a hot debate in the field - and that is not changing," he said. "I think there is a concern about this doing more harm than good." 

Jaffe "thinks" but does not know. If he actually had any real knowledge, he would know the emotional harm to children if they are not removed from this form of Parental abuse and remedial action given.


Jaffe has opined, "…It's a step in the right direction, but I don't think anyone in their right mind would send a child to treatment based on that article." 

Jaffe does one-sided studies as a matter of course that do not stand up to scrutiny of his peers when questioned on the type of subjects and the kind on interview process he supervises. Ask how he avoids female perpetrated IPV, female killing of children and female physical and emotional abuse of children. The only relevant information he wishes is that to support his preordained beliefs. 

When asked to comment previously about Dr. Warshak's program he described it as "quackery." What is that saying about the pot calling the kettle black? In this case, the pot may not be knowledgeable enough to proffer an informed opinion let alone anything remotely approaching professional relevance.
Could it be Jaffe sees his lucrative contracts helping to train judges, through the National Judicial Institute are in jeopardy? 

Thank goodness, for professionals like Dr. Warshak who takes a non-gendered approach to his work. He wants to give children the tools to deal with a very broken and malicious parent.


The Honourable Justice John Gomery of Canada stated in 1991, "Hatred is not an emotion that comes naturally to a child. It has to be taught. A parent who would teach a child to hate the other parent represents a grave and persistent danger to the mental and emotional health of that child."
What is Jaffe doing for the children by hiding from the truth?MJM

Controversial technique for treating alienated children seems to be gaining acceptance

KIRK MAKIN 

From Monday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 12:00AM EST Last updated on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 3:30AM EST 

JUSTICE REPORTER 

As a pioneer of a controversial method of rewiring children whose emotions have been inflamed by an alienating parent, Richard Warshak grew used to being disparaged as a flakey deprogrammer. 

He was nonetheless stung last year when there was widespread dismay in the wake of several Canadian judges ordering that alienated children - whose emotions toward one parent have been poisoned by the other - be forcibly taken to the United States to be treated by him. 

However, the Texas psychologist now believes that much of the concern has melted away, giving him impetus to bring his Family Bridges therapy to Canada.
Last week, Dr. Warshak helped train three Ontario psychologists in his techniques and held a closed-door educational session in Toronto with 130 judges who preside over family-law cases.

Both developments signal an end to the bad rap he has taken, said Dr. Warshak, author of a book on parental alienation - Divorce Poison.
"I think there is demand," he said. "I sure get a lot of e-mails from parents in Canada asking about whether they can get their children into the program. I also get a lot of inquiries from psychologists asking to be trained in the techniques. 

Dr. Warshak said that his talk to judges was warmly received. "I'm pleased that the judges are taking the time to learn about this," he said. "It was clear that these judges have seen these cases. Nearly every family court judge says they believe it is a real phenomenon." 

The four-day sessions - which cost from $8,000 to $22,000 - involve videotaped presentations of family situations, discussions about alienation techniques parents use, and lots of down time to enable children to reacquaint themselves with an estranged parent. 

Dr. Warshak said that what critics fail to see is that dramatic action is often essential to prevent an alienating parent from winning the exclusive affection of a child.


"The children we deal with are ones who have felt tremendous pressure to feel certain things, to see the world in a certain way," he said. "What we do is help them liberate themselves from that." 

Dr. Warshak conceded that many children resist coming to his sessions, and have to be transported by police or private security officers.


"But once the child gets to us, they have a choice whether to stay or not," he said. "What they find is that it is an enjoyable experience. They feel tremendously relieved that they have now been able to get out of this box they are in." 

He said that only one child refused to participate in the 23 sessions he has personally helped conduct. Eighteen children made tangible progress, Dr. Warshak said, while the remaining four "relapsed" after later coming under the influence of the alienating parent. 

However, concern about the therapy has not gone away, said Peter Jaffe, a professor at University of Western Ontario who specializes in child offenders and family violence. 

"It is a hot debate in the field - and that is not changing," he said. "I think there is a concern about this doing more harm than good." 

Dr. Jaffe acknowledged a recent journal article in which Dr. Warshak chronicled the positive results he has achieved, but said it was flawed. 

"The problem is, there is no comparison group," Dr. Jaffe said. "He is doing research on cases he has assessed himself. I think there is a major conflict of interest. It's a step in the right direction, but I don't think anyone in their right mind would send a child to treatment based on that article." 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/therapist-goes-from-foe-to-friend/article1459607/