Monorail Dying; Mayor Salivating

The Seattle Monorail Project board voted last night to pull the contract proposal.

Mayor Nickels said the board, "did the right thing." That's quite a change of tune from when he congratulated SMP for it's ridiculous contract just a few weeks ago. Somebody has GOT to run against this lunatic before he signs the Kyoto treaty on his own and bans automobiles in the city or something similarly idiotic. But, don't let his coyness fool you - he is after the money as sure as Gregoire was after magically appearing ballots during the fraudulent recounts. He wants to have a certain tunnel named after him.

Unfortunately, this allows the SMP organization to carry on for a while longer, wasting taxpayer money as it tries to come up with lower bids from contractors or more money to finance the project.

No word yet on Horn. After lying to us, and using our money to do it through advertisements, it is hard to imagine that he could be allowed to stick around. In fact, it would be hard to imagine that he could even be allowed to remain in Seattle. Perhaps he will ride out on the same train as the Seattle PI.

Look for Mayor Nickels to find a way to pull the plug without looking like HE pulled the plug, then take the money for his Tunnel of Love.

Hopefully Seattle learned a thing or two from all of this about keeping its feet on the ground. Councilman Conlin was the only politician in the city during the entire mess that looked like an adult and might be able to get some traction out of his performance. He has been a straight talker throughout this debacle, telling Seattleites that the monorail was a bad idea that crowded out other more important and necessary projects.

I hate to urge anyone in Seattle to vote for any of the incumbent mini-mayors on the Silly Council, but Conlin has earned it!

There's more! Click to read

Big Fat Mayor and His Big Fat Tunnel

Why do you suppose Mayor Nickels is being so quiet about the demise of the monorail? Well, it is likely that he could add the numbers up and knew the monorail was going to crash and burn, just like we were saying months ago. Or, maybe he just read Silly Seattle.

He has been salivating over the cash from the MVET tax all along. (And, when the Big Boy salivates, it's not a pretty sight).

Once the monorail is just a bad memory (which will take weeks, not months), he will likely find a way to keep the MVET tax going, without a vote, and channel the money to his beloved Tunnel of Love. But, to do that, he needs to make sure people do not believe he personally killed the monorail in a money grab.

So, he is being quiet for now.

(Why doesn't our media figure this stuff out? Oh, sorry, that's because they are lame)

There's more! Click to read

Monorail: One Way Trip to Oblivion?

Things are unwinding so fast for the Seattle Monorail Project, that it is hard to keep up.

Sound Politics reports that State Senator Ken Jaconsen is calling for a special session of the legislature to put a stop to the project before it attempts to issue $350 million in new debt. Sound Politics also reports that Horn is out tonight.

Seattle Silly Council members are actually returning e-mails to people that are complaining.

The Mayor? We have not heard a word.

There's more! Click to read

Conlin Only Council Member Living in Reality

We sent e-mails to all of the members of the Seattle Silly Council telling them our views on the monorail debacle.

Richard Conlin was the only member of this group of mini-mayors that sent a response based in reality. Here it is:

Thank you for your message about the Seattle Monorail Project. I believe it is time for an exit strategy.

When the dream becomes a nightmare, it's time to wake up.

For seven years, people in Seattle have dreamed of a cost-effective, sleek, modern train crisscrossing the City. People were frustrated by how slow this area has been to develop mass transit. As a committed transit supporter, I shared that frustration.

As the Seattle Monorail Project slowly chipped away at that dream, however, I became increasingly alarmed at rising costs and declining performance. Over the last three years my questions have remained unanswered and my fears have increased.

Astonishingly, the current proposal is worse than any I had feared. I cannot, in good conscience, vote to approve a financial plan that will saddle Seattle taxpayers with an $11 billion burden, that will jeopardize the City's financial health, and that the State Treasurer and Auditor believe could harm the whole region's ability to finance many other projects.

I had imagined that the SMP would come up with a poorly-designed, clunky system that would be within budget but would lead to neighborhood blight and never realize its promise of a system that would serve the whole city. Or, I thought, the SMP would come up with a better-designed system, but one that was just not affordable.

I never dreamed that they would propose a system that combined the worst features of both scenarios: incredibly high costs and financial risks along with poor design.

A system that will take until 2050 to be paid off - even in the optimistic SMP scenario - will never have the financial wherewithal for extension and expansion, killing the dream that began this quest.

With our region facing urgent priorities in replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the 520 Bridge, and with Sound Transit's light rail under construction with a realistic budget, but lacking the funds to complete the first phase to Northgate, we cannot afford to spend these kinds of sums on the project that SMP is now proposing.

Richard Conlin ought to be running for Mayor! He is not, of course, but the measure of the backbone of Seattle is whether or not he is congratuled for his straightforward views on the monorail debacle, or criticized for not feeding us a spoonful of sugar.

There's more! Click to read

Let's Rethink Transit

Here are two interesting proposals about the monorail that the Seattle Silly Council ought to be considering.

The first is from the one of the two original bidders on the monorail project. Team Monorail says they will deliver everything originally promised by the Seattle Monorail Project, but for $200 million to $300 million less than Cascadia. The devil is usually in the details, so one must view their PR with some skepticism, but with a promise like what they put in the Seattle Times, it would be hard to justify not putting the project out for bidding again. (What’s the hurry Horn?)

The other is from Seattle attorney Chi-Dooh Li. She proposes that the monorail be put under the aegis of Sound Transit. Her argument is that Sound Transit has more experience in these types of projects. But, she is still proposing that both light rail and the monorail should be built. She has it half right.

Just putting the monorail under Sound Transit and expecting them to build a more economical project is silly. Sound Transit does not do anything on a budget. A better proposal would be for Sound Transit to scrap light rail and use its funding mix of regional, state, and federal money to build the monorail. The first phase of the monorail could be where the current planned light rail is going up.

This way, we would have a superior and faster technical solution, just one management for transit instead of two, and we would have greater economies of scale in purchasing for one regional monorail instead of a small one plus limited light rail. The current car tabs tax in Seattle could be stored in a trust and later used to build the Green Line.

In fact, both of these proposals combined, and somewhat modified, should be considered. Put the monorail under Sound Transit, re-open it for bids, and eliminate light rail. That would be a rational and exciting option that people could get behind.

(And, while we are at it, let's get Joel Horn out of there. We don't need liers in the mix.)

There's more! Click to read

Speaking of Horn's Lies

Here is a funny quote from Joel Horn of the Seattle Monorail Project in an effort to defend himself and the out-of-control monorail debacle:

Horn said, "We need mass transit in Seattle that doesn't get stuck in traffic, and we can't allow others to use misleading figures to scare people away from the Monorail in the eleventh hour."

But, apparently Horn feels that he is allowed to use all the misleading figures he wants. In fact, he posted a full page newspaper advertisement full of not just misleading figures, but outright lies.

Now, isn't that amazing. Horn uses our tax dollars to run ads that tell us lies.

KING 5 news called him on it.

There's more! Click to read

Resorting to Lies

What does Joel Horn do when people criticize SMP's insane financing plan? He starts lying. He says that the ratio of interest to be paid to the project cost of SMP is similar to other public works projects. Northwest Cable News disagrees.

If you do not want to see Seattle put itself into multi-generational debt and hurt the credit rating of King County and the State of Washington, go here to register your views.

There's more! Click to read

Slow Motion Train Wreck

UPDATE: Kate Riley, one of the two columnists left in Seattle that could fit in with the city back in the days when it was a responsible and moderate place (the other is Bill Virgin of the PI), has come out against the monorail. I doubt she was ever a supporter of this life-is-stranger-than-fiction project. Now, she makes a good argument for dumping it: it will ruin the credit rating of not only Seattle, but King County, other locales in the state, as well as the entire state. If you think the budget is tight now, wait until the interest rate the state must pay for its debt jumps by more than a few basis points.

Both the Seattle PI and the Seattle Times report that the Seattle Silly Council is "troubled" by the cost of the monorail.

That's a step up from Nickels' pathetic statement that he is "concerned" by the financing costs presented by Horn and company.

These statements are typically politically correct ways for a Seattle politician to say, "This project is insane."

It's time to close up shop on the monorail. There is no reason to waste more time, money, and energy on this unrealistic project. The faster it dies, the better.

If this thing is not killed, though, I am going to check into signing over the income of my children and grand children so that I can build that house I've always wanted.

There's more! Click to read

Monorail Update

Holy shit! Joel Connelly finally wrote a column I agree with!

He has also jumped off the monorail train, even though he is not the sort of guy that generally has trouble with big time public projects.

And, he is right. If the Seattle Silly Council rams this project through, there will be many people in sedate Seattle telling them to F-off:

I expect at the appointed hour, the "leadership group" will say in effect, "Eat your broccoli" and wag their index fingers at us.

If voters have witnessed a railroading of the monorail -- which I don't put past the mayor and some on the council -- they're likely to extend another finger in return.

If this spruce goose of a transit project goes through, let's hope Connelly is right. Even more important, let's hope tax payers give the finger soon enough for some real leadership to be elected who will de-rail this silly money pit.

There's more! Click to read

WA State Fights Father's Right to Know About His Child

This story, about a father trying to get police records about the sexual abuse of his child by the boyfriend of his ex-wife, provides a good example of how the State of Washington disrespects fathers specifically and non-custodial parents in general.

The father ended up having to file a public records request and even that was denied.

A father is considered just another member of the public when it comes to his own child?

There's more! Click to read

Another One Hops Off the Train

UPDATE: James Vesely of the Seattle Times just jumped off the train. In fact, he provides a good "test" for the Seattle Silly Council.

Well, looks like the Seattle Times is now on board with killing the monorail idiocy. Or … err … is advocating that none of us get on board. Get off board? Not having much luck with the pun, but you get my point.

Why? Because the monorail will cost a gazillion dollars in interest payments. Same reason Westneat and Jamieson gave. In fact, Bill Virgin is warning about the risk involved when buying a home with the same sort of creative debt structure planned by the silly-rail.

This financial glitch was plainly obvious from the beginning. Is the Seattle media just really, really stupid, or were they afraid to just come out and say this before?

We have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on this silly rail thingy. Let’s cut our losses, eliminate the special tax on car registration fees, give back whatever money is left, and put this debacle behind us.

Let’s just hope Seattle learned a little something about the value of having political leadership that is not constantly feeding us spoonfuls of sugar. The best Nickels can do is say the massive financing costs are a "concern." Yeah, it is. Sort of like the concern you have (or should have) when your credit card balance is five times your annual income and the mortgage bank is sending people out to take your house.

There's more! Click to read

Blue City Example for Seattle

If you have not already read Matt Rosenberg’s excellent column in the Seattle Weekly, you should do so soon. Rosenberg provides a very compelling picture of not only the quietly Republican residents of Seattle, but even more interesting, the unfortunate fact that many Seattleites are hostile towards anyone that does not parrot the liberal Democrat line.

Nothing in Seattle exemplifies the group think of the city quite like the Seattle Silly Council of mini-mayors. As Rosenberg says, politics in Seattle is a liberal “clusterfuck.” Any disagreement within this group is superficial at best and usually involves one accusing another of not being far enough to the left.

Well, here is another city that is known for being about as liberal as they come, Charlottesville, Va. It’s not as big as Seattle, but it too holds a state university within its borders, the University of Virginia. Charlottesville is also in the process of making its first steps towards a mass transit system. And, by the way, Frommer's routinely ranks Charlottesville, Va. the number one place to live in America. Seattle has not seen that for a long, long time, so perhaps Charlottesville is a city for Seattle to look up to.

But, as far as the city council goes, that is where the similarities stop. Charlottesville’s city council seems to have actual debate, which provides for better decisions. And, if you don’t believe that political debate is a good thing and you prefer the borg-like atmosphere of Seattle’s City Hall, you might at least like to see some exciting name calling!

Check it out.

There's more! Click to read

Merry Meretricious

The results are in and they are profound. 94% of our readers believe that Washington State should eliminate the state Supreme Court’s invention called “meretricious relationship.”

For those of you not familiar with this concept, it means marriage-like relationship. Washington State does not have common law marriage (which would need to be a law passed by the legislature). The Washington State Supreme Court, in a fit of judicial activism, created a substitute – meretricious relationship. Meretricious relationships apply to couples that cohabitate and can result in the state’s community property laws being applied after the couple splits up. Even worse – and this is where many people run a risk of being unpleasantly surprised – it is often used by one party in a divorce to have assets that were acquired prior to marriage included as community property in a divorce.

Because the concept of meretricious relationship was created by the Supreme Court of the state, it is especially insidious. It is not clearly defined and often just the threat of making a meretricious claim is enough to cause a party to a divorce to tremble in fear. Worse, while most people go into marriage understanding that community property laws will apply if they get divorced, few have heard of the judicial construct of meretricious relationships and absolutely nobody knows - not even a judge - exactly what it means.

Of course, this is what it was designed by the Supreme Court of the state to do with the idea that women could extract more out of a divorce. It gives judge’s in family court an excuse for dividing up all assets evenly, regardless of when they were acquired. And, have no doubt, a judge in family court can do pretty much whatever he or she wants to do. With such a spongy definition, meretricious can be found in pretty much anything. But, with women now often out-earning their husbands, even women have something to fear.

The meretricious milieu was also created for the benefit of family law attorneys. Community property laws and no-fault divorce promised to make divorces more straightforward, less expensive, and cleaner for everyone involved. That also meant lower attorney fees for those practicing in this miserable area. So, the Supreme Court of the state rose to the occasion in defense of their brothers and sisters by muddying up the waters yet again. Now, things are worse than ever.

If the legislature were listening, it would outlaw this concept. It’s not, so don’t hold your breath waiting. You need to address this problem yourself. First, never, ever, ever live with someone.

And, if you must get married despite this climate that is so hostile to the institution, make sure you have your attorney put together an agreement that defines exactly who owns each asset owned by the parties at the date of marriage. Forget about a pre-nuptial agreement designed to protect you moving forward from the marriage. No family court judge likes the idea of any sort of contract between people treading on his or her “territory.” Once you get married, you are at the mercy of family courts (which is a good reason not to do it).

The important thing is to make sure that you create a bright line between before marriage and after marriage. The courts will not do that for you. But, unlike the questionable relevance of a prenuptial contract during a divorce proceeding, documentation of who owns which assets just prior to marriage is much harder for a family law court to ignore. It makes the "bright line" between pre- and post-marriage a little easier for the state's activist judges to see.

We have more on meretricious relationships in a previous post here.

(Postings on Silly Seattle are not intended to substitute for sound legal advice. If you face legal issues related to any issue discussed on Silly Seattle, you should seek the counsel of an attorney licensed to practice law in the state in which you live.)

There's more! Click to read

Update: Monorail

Danny Westneat, the idealistic Seattle Times columnist, is now agreeing with Silly Seattle about the monorail. It simply does not fly financially.

UPDATE: Now Robert Jamieson agrees with Silly Seattle.

We have been saying this for months, here, here, here and here.

We have even said, as Westneat says, if you are going to build mass transit, a monorail system would be superior to Sims' light rail system. It would go above the traffic, not have to stop at stoplights, be a more comfortable ride, and move people faster. Even more important, with the right sort of agency building it, a monorail can go up faster, cheaper and with fewer headaches.

The problem with the monorail from the very beginning has been the way it developed. It was created in typical Seattle fashion - unrealistically and thumbing its nose at the rest of the world.

In the meantime, Sims has pushed through an inferior system he has been emotionally attached to for reasons I cannot fathom. It is either an ego thing, a control thing, or simply because he has a little too cozy relationship with those that are building it. Perhaps all three. But, he had the funding plan right, even though large portions of that money are being wasted in Sound Transit bureaucracy.

Evenly splitting the costs between modest auto registration fees over a larger region, some state and federal money, and taking some out of Sound Transit itself was always the way to go. Adopt the monorail technology (although improved with more money) and Sims' sensible plan for building it (and his more sensible initial route), and you would truly have a mass transit system for the ages.

Instead, Seattle went for solipsistic mediocrity combined with silly fantasy, as it usually seems to.

There's more! Click to read

Is This The Best Our Generation Can Do?

Oh, give me a break!

The House of Representatives wants to amend the Constitution in order to ban flag burning?!

I think this just about tops any of the silliness we have seen here in Seattle lately.

Does anyone really trust contemporary politicians to mess with the Constitution? The document was created by the Founders of this country. These men had more wisdon in the very tip of their little finger than current members of our Congress.

That document should only be amended for the most important issues of a century, not for something as silly as banning flag burning. What, for God's sake, is that going to accomplish? It is a piece of clothe, full of symbolism of course, but still a piece of clothe.

As George Bush said, you may not agree with him, but at least you know where he stands. The same goes for flag burners. You may not agree with them, but at least you know where they stand when they burn the flag. Would you rather they hide their dissatisfaction, let it fester, until they do something more drastic?

No, this is absurd and we have to hope the Senate is not as ridiculous. And, we should keep in mind what some of the conservatives in Congress are after. They want to amend the Constitution over something silly, like banning flag burning, in the hope of getting people comfortable with the idea of changing that sacred document. They are thinking that once people see that the world isn’t falling apart because of a Constitutional amendment, these same Conservatives will start to attempt more changes, such as banning abortion.

The problem is that the Constitution is made for the ages, not for today’s crop of overzealous politicians. If it becomes a fungible document today, tomorrow the other extreme will want to make its own changes. In the end, the average American will be constrained by the causes of previous generations and live a life of much less liberty.

Yes, we seem to have made an art out of ignoring the Constitution and twisting its meaning. Let’s not make it completely irrelevant.

There's more! Click to read

Murphy: "Lets Not Look Like a Horse's Ass"

Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) is a perfect example of one of those big public works projects that, from any rational perspective, is simply not workable but nobody with any level of responsibility wants the blame for killing it to fall on them. So, in this age when principle and responsibility are thrown aside for short-term political gain, the future residents of Seattle have a monster chasing them down.

As it currently stands, the monorail will cost $2.1 billion, compared to the $1.5 billion dollar price tag Seattle voters approved. Moreover, it is dramatically changed from the original plan and beautiful artist’s renditions presented to voters.

Stations are fewer, smaller, and open air instead of enclosed in luxury. The support pillars will be massively wide with tracks on each side on top in a T-shape, virtually creating an ugly roof over the roads it will travel down. A substantial portion of the route will have a single rail, instead of two, increasing the risk of a head-on collision and dramatically slowing the average trip time. These are all in addition to the primary transit weakness of the monorail – it goes from nowhere to nowhere (in transit terms) and so does nothing to solve transportation problems.

Even Danny Westneat, an idealistic columnist at the Seattle Times and monorail supporter, says that this growing monster should not be passed in its current form.

But, the ugliness, increased price tag, and reduced deliverables are not even the biggest flaw of the out-of-control monorail. As we have been saying here for months, the financing plan is the epitome of irresponsibility.

Even at a high tax rate applied to inflated auto values, the monorail is 30% short of the auto registration fees it had counted on. So, the only way to pay the price tag is to stretch out bond repayment into the adult lifetimes of our grandchildren. Thus, the ultimate cost will be – according to SMP, which is known for its optimistic projections - $11.4 billion. (And this does not include inevitable cost overruns, minimally at 50% on projects like this).

Now, even the state’s treasurer, Mike Murphy, says:

I'm hoping good sense will prevail at the monorail board and they will stop dead in their tracks.

The average guy can't afford a Ferrari, because he can't afford it. There should be somebody at the monorail saying we can't afford this thing. The numbers keep getting bigger and bigger. To finance something at 5-½ times the construction value is totally ludicrous.

That sounds like just plain common sense. But the only check the hapless taxpayers of Seattle have on this spruce goose of a project is Mayor Nickels and the Seattle Silly Council. The mayor is the same dude that wants to build his Tunnel of Love to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, but is short $2 billion on the under-estimated $4 billion price tag. The Silly Council, of course, is the same group that debates things like allowing nuclear submarines into port and whether or not circus animals should be allowed within city limits.

So, it seems futile to hope that these bozos will reject the plan. As Mayor Nickels emphasized in an interview recently, “The voters of Seattle have voted four times for the monorail.” Never mind that the idealistic and unrealistic voters of Seattle would vote overwhelmingly for an initiative to build a love and peace colony on Mars.

Is there anyone or anybody that we can count on to say “no.” Well, let’s not forget that the bonds need to be sold into the open market. Investors are dispassionate about these things. They don’t care whether Seattle gets a circus ride or not, but whether they will get paid or not. Horn is sticking to his fantasy that auto registration fees will grow at 6% per year. But, the debt markets will know that with the cost of autos raised so much by registration fees, fewer and cheaper cars will be owned by Seattleites.

So far, the pathological silliness of Seattle has not infected global debt markets. Not many investors will want to own the debt of Seattle’s grandchildren. Surely, Mike Murphy is mostly just concerned about SMP making the state look like a horse’s ass when the debt issue falls flat on its face.

There's more! Click to read

Halfway Thinking on Marriage

Stephanie Coontz of Evergreen State College in Olympia has a new book, "Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage," and she wants you to know about it. The Seattle Times helped her out, giving her a lengthy space in the Op-Ed section recently to market her book and its ideology based beliefs about the declining importance of marriage in our society.

Coontz’s hypothesis is that the institution of marriage is of declining relevance in our society and that, instead of promoting marriage, we should get over it. This is a popular topic within the gender feminism orthodoxy because they see marriage as a patriarchal institution designed to oppress women. Their strategy is to destroy the foundations of marriage in our culture, in particular through a frontal attack on the male side of the equation, then come out with proposals to “move beyond” marriage.

Any critical reader should see that Coontz’s treatise falls on its face from the very beginning. She approaches the topic from the solipsistic perspective of the gender feminist, assuming that the only relevant factor to consider about marriage is the role played by women. Men apparently have no say in the matter and are just patriarchal brutes waiting to ensnare a woman.

Here are some examples. Starting from her hypothesis that once the idea of “love” entered the equation of marriage in the late 18th century, it was forever destabilized:

The truth is that for centuries, marriage was stable precisely because it was not expected to provide such benefits [love]. As soon as love became the driving force behind marriage, people began to demand the right to remain single if they had not found love or to divorce if they fell out of love.

Such demands were raised as early as the 1790s, which prompted conservatives to predict that love would be the death of marriage. For the next 150 years, the inherently destabilizing effects of the love revolution were checked by women's economic dependence on men, unreliable birth control, harsh legal treatment of illicit children and their mothers' social ostracism.

So, once love entered the equation, it was only women who practiced the belief that love should be the basis of marriage. But, alas, they were still dependent on men and so the “love revolution” could not yet fully blossom. This changed, however.

These restraints collapsed between 1960 and 1980. Divorce rates had long been rising in Western Europe and the United States, and although they leveled off following World War II, they climbed at an unprecedented rate in the 1970s. This led some to believe the introduction of no-fault divorce laws, which meant married couples could divorce if they simply fell out of love, had caused the erosion of marriage.

So, no fault divorce was just one factor in rising divorce rates, according to Coontz. The other, as you might expect, only relates to women.

The so-called divorce revolution, however, is just one aspect of the worldwide transformation of marriage. In places where divorce and unwed motherhood are severely stigmatized, the retreat from marriage simply takes another form. In Japan and Italy, for example, women are far more likely to remain single than women in the United States. In Thailand, unmarried women now compete for the title of "Miss Spinster Thailand." Singapore's strait-laced government has resorted to sponsoring singles nights in an attempt to raise marriage rates and reverse the birth strike by women.

The norms that traditionally penalized unwed mothers and their children have weakened or been overturned, ending centuries of injustice but further reducing marriage's role in determining the course of people's lives.

And, as if on queue, Coontz falls back on the idea that women hold all the marriage cards, and opt out of marriage simply because they can support themselves.

By the 1970s, women in America and most of Europe could support themselves if they needed to. The 1980s saw an international increase in unmarried mothers (paving the way for Murphy Brown), as more people gained the ability to say no to shotgun marriages, and humanitarian reforms lowered the penalties for out-of-wedlock births.

Almost everywhere, women's greater participation in education has raised the marriage age and the incidence of non-marriage. Even in places where women's lives are still largely organized through marriage, fertility rates have been cut in half and more wives and mothers work outside the home.

After having drawn broad conclusions by looking at only half the equation - women, Coontz does get it right about one thing: ridiculous government policies to promote marriage are doomed to failure. They are more likely to discourage it than promote it.

It's hard to believe we could revive the primacy of marriage by promoting traditional values. People may revere marriage in the abstract, but most have adjusted to a different reality. The late Pope John Paul II was enormously respected for his teaching about sex and marriage. Yet during his tenure, premarital sex, contraception use and divorce rose in almost all countries. The Bible Belt has the United States' highest divorce rate. And although many American teens pledged abstinence during the 1990s, 88 percent broke that pledge, according to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Youth released in March.

What Coontz and legions of other commentators on the contemporary state of marriage and heterosexual relationships seem to miss entirely, perhaps willfully, is the role that men play in the equation. They also are loath to admit that government has stepped in to attack the institution of marriage – entirely through an attack on men and fathers.

It is amazing how pundits of all types can see a declining marriage rate and automatically assume that it is entirely due to more choices available to women. The point they make with a tone that suggests, “of course, we are just stating the obvious,” is that women opt out of marriage in order to pursue a career instead. They see this despite the fact that the statistics on marriage do not support this assumption.

Take the marriage statistics in King County, for example. As of the 2000 census, 46% of men in their 30’s in King County had never been married. But, only 33% of women in the same age group in the county had never been married. Does that sound to you like women are deciding not to marry? It looks more to me like men are opting out, while more women are willing to give it a go.

It would appear that the vast majority of women are chasing a smaller and smaller percentage of men who are willing to enter into a contract in which they sign away their personal and economic liberty (and, some would say, some of their Constitutional rights). Some of the decline in marriage rates is attributable to the factors sited by Coontz, but the lack of balance in the equation is at least an equally important factor, and one that nobody wants to discuss.

Indeed, Coontz is right that our society needs to take a fresh look at marriage and families. While she makes some valid points, she fails to provide useful insight because she falls back on her feminist ideology and, naturally, ignores the choices made by men. Certainly, men are at least half of the equation, something that either just never occurred to Coontz or she chooses to ignore.

If we want to draw valid conclusions, we need to consider the role of men and the choices men make. In particular, we need an honest look at how insidious legislation such as the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has raised the risks of marriage to such a high level that, in fact, it is men that are opting out.

Among the drama queen gender feminists that populate the VAWA bureaucracy, the opting out of men is a goal. But, is it for society at large and for the majority of the women who seek a partnership with a man?

If so, someone forgot to tell the millions of women in their 40’s who are flocking to on-line dating services like eHarmony and Match.com and desperately hoping to find that rare man who still believes that marriage is worth the risk of losing his economic and physical liberty. Perhaps, in addition to the fact that there are indeed fair-minded women out there, this explains the growing popularity of groups suchs as the Independent Women's Forum.

One thing is certain, though rarely mentioned: The rate of marriages in the US is not at its natural level – with or without love as the basis – because of the external influence of hostility towards half of those in the equation.

There's more! Click to read

Oedipus Feminus

As another Father’s Day winds down, after the fathers who still have access to their children are putting them to bed, and the fathers that do not are hoping their children remembered them, we can reflect on how inglorious a role it has become.

The preface to Joseph Ellis’ book, His Excellency, provides a unique insight to the complicated relationship academia has developed towards George Washington in the past few decades. It reminds me of the complicated relationship our society has with fatherhood.

For reasons best explained by Shakespeare and Freud, all children have considerable difficulty approaching their fathers with an open mind. Washington poses what we might call the Patriarchal Problem in its more virulent form: On Mount Rushmore, the Mall, the dollar bill and the quarter, but always an icon – distant, cold, intimidating. As Richard Brookhiser has so nicely put it, he is in our wallets but not in our hearts. And speaking of our hearts, a volatile psychological chemistry bubbles away inside all children in simmering pools of dependency and rebellion, love and fear, intimacy and distance. As every parent can testify, initially our children believe we can do no wrong; later on they believe we can do no right- indeed, in Oedipal terms they actually want to kill us. For most of American history our response to Washington in particular and the Founding Fathers in general has been trapped within the emotional pattern dictated by these primal urges, oscillating in a swoonish swing between idolization and evisceration. In Washington’s case the arc moves from Parson Weems’s fabrications about a saintly lad who could not tell a lie to dismissive verdicts about the deadest, whitest male in American history.

This hero/villain image is, in fact, the same portrait, which has a front and back side that we rotate regularly. It is really a cartoon, which tells us less about Washington than about ourselves. The currently hegemonic narrative within the groves of academe cuts in the Oedipal direction, making Washington complicitous in creating a nation that was imperialistic, racist, elitist, and patriarchal.

Ellis could just as easily have been describing the gender feminist view of all men. Or, perhaps just the phantom “patriarchy.” To aspire to something more than cult status and historical footnote to some other more important history, orthodox feminism needs to recognize this about itself.

Men collectively have not just tolerated, but encouraged, change that has opened up all forms of opportunity to women that are willing to pay the same price we do for success. Even more than that, really, since every major institution in the country – business, governmental, educational, and the courts - provides substantially less friction for the acceptance and advancement of women now than they do for men.

With that sort of phenomenal cultural change, on such a rapid timescale, orthodox feminism should return the favor. Personal change is almost automatic once a personal issue has been recognized and fully accepted as such. Gender feminism, which today has the responsibility of an adult, but is mired in adolescent rebellion and evisceration, can do more and greater things than slamming those that buttered their bread.

It has become the F-word precisely because it is a young adult still behaving like a child. Parents and other mature adults can tolerate the strange psychological swings of a child, because we know it is all just part of the learning process. But, young adults, while allowed to make mistakes, are strongly encouraged to let go of their adolescence.

The odd thing is that Washington, while vilified by academe as Ellis so eloquently put it, was as necessary to the development of this country as the vast continent that it sits on. He was far from perfect, but played a required role that few or perhaps no other could have performed.

Fathers today are in the same unenviable position. They have done their duty and, if allowed, almost always will. They are hated by a culture that is so busy with the now and self fulfillment that it looses sight of history and what is needed for the future.

But, fathers also quietly take satisfaction in the fact that they are needed. Just as academe has rejected Washington because they found he was human, our culture has forgotten, even rejected, what fathers innately know. They are needed, even though society seems to think otherwise.

We can measure the future by whether we are able to remember. And, gender feminism can measure its future by whether it is able to make the difficult transition from an adolescent stuck in Oedipal victim mode or able move beyond it. In the meantime, fathers will always be there, waiting.

There's more! Click to read

Scissor Lady Has Advice For Guys

Nicole Brodeur, the Seattle Times amateur journalist extraordinaire (who the Times used to say, “wonders about the same things you do”), made a desperate attempt to show that she has concern for fathers on the day before Father’s Day. Her advice? Go to the doctor.

And, why would your average man go to the doctor? For Viagra, of course. Gender Studies taught her then men think only with their penises. Well, think with it in between conspiring with the rest of the patriarchy. Of course, in her ideology, there is something wrong with men and fathers, so going to the doctor is the least we can do.

Stick to your petty causes, Nicole. We don't wonder about the things you do. We don’t need your advice. Instead, we turn to people like Trudy Schuett, who had this to say this week about one of the most destructive federal programs in history.

Keep running with scissors.

There's more! Click to read

Read Up Seattle

If you are still thinking that the Men and Father's movement is just about angry men that don't want to pay child support, you should read this column by Teri Stoddard.

As she points out, this movement is also a children's movement, because it wants to give the best opportunities for a successful and fulfilling life to children. This is not about beer swigging men wanting out of child support, as the stereotype goes. (Isn't it odd that some of the very people that are most politically correct about "diversity" and such are also those most likely to use a stereotype when it is convenient?)

By bringing the adversarial format of our court system into families, without modification, we have taken difficult family circumstances to the lowest common denominator. One side accuses the other of the worst things possible in order to gain advantage. Throw into the mix the fact that "advocates" with either a bone to pick with men generally, or who have been simply misinformed by gender feminists, work hard to scrutinize fathers with the indoctrination that they are guilty simply for being men. Is it any wonder that there are so many frustrated and desperate fathers out there?

Teri, who calls herself a liberal, only discovered the horror of institutionalized hostility toward males after she had to encounter it face to face in the family court system while helping her son fight for the right to parent his child. Gender feminists and the politicians that do their bidding are very good at wrapping their misandrist ideology in catchy PR sound bites, so you can't blame Teri for being ignorant until getting caught by the horrible system. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is the other side of the same coin.

Unlike the family courts, where grandmothers and step mothers encounter the over-stepping authority of the state firsthand, the discrimination and brutality of VAWA is generally only encountered by men. It is easy to call men that have encountered this attack on liberty and their Constitutional rights "angry." They are! How could they not be? But, there are women who have experienced the injustice of VAWA through their sons or brothers who are also active in fighting it's reauthorization this year. There are also women, like Wendy McElroy of iFeminists, who are simply horrified by the run around the Constitution made by VAWA advocates.

Teri mentions the labeling of fathers fighting for joint custody as "angry fathers" or "angry men." Gender feminists and their lackey politicians like to label men that know first hand the ugly nature of VAWA as "angry men." This is a Catch 22 that men are put into. They are so grossly and unjustly treated that they would have to be in a vegetative state to not be angry. Then, that anger is used as a reason to persecute them. "See? This man is angry only because his patriarchal privilege has been dented."

No, men and fathers are angry because their basic rights have been stolen. Those basic rights – which were not assigned based on sex in our Constitution – were put in place by our Founders to ensure that nobody in America would suffer what men and fathers have suffered for the past decade or more. On the deepest level, the movement, whether you want to call it men, fathers, families, or angry men, is about returning fundamental and “self evident” rights to the picture. It is also about removing hateful ideology – that of gender feminists – from the picture. They can practice their beliefs all they want in America, but should not be able to force them on the rest of us with the complicity and full force of state and federal governments.

Blocking the reauthorization of VAWA in September, or forcing major modifications so it is treated as a sex neutral effort to reduce family violence, is where the anger needs to be directed now. Force a major change in VAWA and, like dominos, the other aspects of unfairness and injustice in family courts and elsewhere will begin to fall.

There's more! Click to read

Who Said Lies Don't Run Marathons?

Here is a wonderful article by Carey Roberts that was on Mensnewsdaily.com back in April. I missed this one; otherwise I would have mentioned it by now.

Carey points out something that we all need to remember: The gender feminist victim cult will stop at nothing in their war on their mythical bogeyman called the “patriarchy.”

They started with the lie about Super Bowl Sunday being one big domestic violence party day for men. They leveraged this hoax, along with the horror of the OJ trial, to get one of their pet projects through Congress - the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Anyone who has watched an entire Super Bowl knows that it is more likely to put a viewer to sleep than to inspire violence. But, never mind that, because this lie has run one hell of a marathon and is still repeated by gender feminists even though it was soundly debunked.

Once they realized how much mileage they could get from a lie, they made up an entire encyclopedia of them. All of those Women Studies departments in universities around the country, most of which are supported by taxpayer dollars, are not sitting idle after all. If you are not familiar with the smorgasbord of myths the gender feminists use to have their way with spineless federal and state legislatures, please check out the many columns of Glenn Sacks.

As VAWA's reathorization deadline of September 30, 2005 approaches, Carey gave us all a warning in her article:

As the clock ticks down to September 30, the rad-fems are beginning to panic. Armageddon-Day strategy memos are circulating on the Internet. Decisive action soon will be needed to galvanize public support.

Get ready for a reprise of the Super Bowl Hoax.

No doubt, Carey is right. I don't know about you, but I'm expecting a whopper any day now.

There's more! Click to read

HA HA HA HA HO HO HO HO

HE HE HE HE HE ....

This is what The Seattle Times passes off for a columnist.


We wish she'd fall on them.

There's more! Click to read

Coaching Boys to Hate Themselves

The Family Violence Prevention Fund/Advertising Council/Waitt Family Foundation provides an example of one of the most insidious forces at work in our society.

Have you seen one of these commercials? They are highly offensive. They are part of the social constructionist’s mission. These social theorists believe that there is nothing innate in human behavior and thus nothing that cannot be changed. Everything we are is a cultural and social construct. This, unfortunately, includes the natural energy and rough-and-tumble exuberance of boys.

The message in these commercials is straight out of the male loathing department of your local state funded university: males are part of a “patriarchy” that teaches them to be violent. So, we need to start the patriarchy decoding while they are young.

If you see one of these commercials, complain to the network that aired it. Or, better yet, complain now before your boy sees these commercials. It might help prevent another suicide.

In the meantime, we have a better message you might consider teaching your boys:

There is nothing wrong with being a boy. If anyone makes you feel bad about yourself for being a boy, come tell us (your parents) about it so we can go talk to them. They are misinformed.

We also suggest that you teach your boys that the rights all US citizens have taken for granted are being eroded, especially for men. Teach them that they should be active as adults, working with other men, to regain these fundamental rights.

There's more! Click to read

Wow!

This list speaks for itself!

Mary Kay Letourneau, you're not alone.

There's more! Click to read

Unfortunately, a New Vagina Warrior

Unfortunately, we have a new Vagina Warrior for Eve Ensler to celebrate.

A child was beheaded by her mother in King County this past weekend. The full details of what Samara L. Spann did to her little daughter are too ugly to repeat here, so I will leave it to the Seattle PI to fill you in.

In addition to the fact that children are abused more often by their mothers than there fathers, there are two important points to take from this story. First, it was the child’s grandfather who reported her missing. The bond between a grandfather and his granddaughter are often strong and play an important role in her development. If it were not for this particular grandfather missing his grandchild, we may still not know that this horrendous murder occurred in our vicinity.

The most important point to take from this, however, is that King County’s overzealous belief in gender feminist hysteria probably contributed to removing the only possibility that this child could have been saved. You see, King County gave Samara Spann a protection order against the father of some of her children.

King County is notorious for removing fathers from the lives of their children even though fathers are often the only thing that stands between a homicidal mother and an innocent and helpless child.

Silly Seattle will track the fate of Spann with the rest of the Vagina Warriors in our regular series, the Vagina Warrior Chronicles.

There's more! Click to read

Women Still Perpetrating Family Violence

Is it just pure incompetence, ignorance, or willful neglect?

The Department of Justice released a report on family violence, showing that it has declined on par with all types of crime. This report showed that men actually suffer more from family violence than women.

The Seattle Times ran a story on this from the Associated Press, who of course, found an “expert” to quote named Beverly Balos. Balos, a law professor from the University of Minnesota, said, "We should be celebrating the overall decline in domestic violence in terms of thinking about services that have been possible over the last 10 years in individual states. It's made a difference in keeping women and children safe."

I'm not sure whether to criticize the lousy reporter, Siobhan McDonough, for getting this story entirely wrong, or the "expert," who clearly is talking from the perspective of gender feminism instead of knowledge or concern for children.

Actually, lumping women and children together and thinking in terms of safety is not recommended by experts who practice scholarship as opposed to ideology. As the horrible story of a child beheaded by her mother in King County just in the past few days reminds us all, children have more to fear from the women in their lives than from their fathers or brothers.

Keeping women and children safe, in the vast majority of cases, involves having a husband or father around. Somehow, the statistics of how often a man deters predators or outright defends his family against them never seems to make the reported statistics. Having a man around can also prevent a homicidal woman from murdering her children, as Rusty Yates was able to do until wis wife finally fooled him into going to work without having someone watch her. Sadly, with the wholesale hostility of federal and state governments directed towards men and fathers, fewer and fewer of them are willing to make the sacrifice.

Meanwhile, social constructionists writing from a gender feminist ideological stance want to convince us that having a father around is not "natural." Unfortunately, Samara Spann's daughter is no longer here to tell us what she thinks of that point of view.

In the meantime, life is going to get a little less stressful for the men who choose to protect their physical and economic liberty.

There's more! Click to read

Thanks Gregoire!

Washington does in fact lead in something other than election corruption.

It also leads the country as the worst state for small business. All indicators are in freefall and what does Gregoire do? She runs off to Europe on the taxpayer's nickel to hobnob with others who share her anti-business and socialist views.

Washington might be a nice place to keep a summer home, but not a place where people decide to start a business.

I suppose that actually serves the purposes of someone like Gregoire just fine, because she realizes that she is not likely to ever get the vote or money of a small business owner. It's best for her if they leave the state and take their vote with them.

Instead, she likes the idea of Boeing and large government bureaucracies, with unionized labor forces, who will vote for whether she steals elections are not.

There's more! Click to read

Remember the OJ Aftermath

With the Michael Jackson verdict in, the extremes that thought he was clearly innocent or guilty will have plenty of time to celebrate their victory or wallow in their disgust. The rest of us can reflect on the many ugly sides of our culture that were exhibited during the trial.

I have no idea whether Michael Jackson is a genuine pedophile or not. I am sure that he is one supremely strange man. I am also sure that a forty year old man should not be inviting an unrelated adolescent boy into his bed unless there are some pretty extreme circumstances, such as a state of poverty leaving no other place to sleep.

And, finally, I am sure that if these were little girls Jackson had invited to his bed, he would have already been tarred and feathered and hung from the nearest tree. As well he should have been. In fact, the rape shield law would likely have been applied, keeping the damning history of the accuser from being presented at trial.

But, these are not the things that concern me the most. One needs to go back to the aftermath of the OJ Simpson trial to imagine what is likely on the horizon.

State legislatures never fail to lasso a hot topic and use it for an opportunity to grandstand. In the wake of the OJ Simpson trial, federal and state legislatures, prodded along by the gender feminist lobby which finally saw an opportunity for renewed relevance, passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and other laws that left men and fathers shuddering in their wake.

Don’t be surprised to see the same thing happen in the aftermath of the Michael Jackson trial. Attention seeking politicians will see an opportunity. They will likely hop up onto the soapbox and then impose new laws regarding child abuse.

Stricter punishment and longer incarceration for pedophiles would be a welcome change. They have shown themselves to be impossible to rehabilitate. And, this should be, at a minimum, a gender neutral topic. Numerous studies have shown that women are more likely than men to abuse children. For example, just in the past few days, Samara Spann, of King County, drowned her own daughter and then cut her head off.

But, if the same pattern that followed the OJ Simpson trial emerges, our local and federal governments will not just “get tough” on genuine pedophiles, but open up loopholes in the Constitution that make any father accused of such a horrible atrocity guilty from the moment an accusation is made.

So, after the celebrations of bought and paid for justice are over at Neverland Ranch, here is the picture a few years from now that I fear:

A lonely man with the whole world turned against him, sitting in a divorce court, suffering the false accusations of child abuse by a bitter former wife willing to use any tactic to get what she wants, knowing that he has no way of proving his innocence when the presumption is that he is guilty.

I hope that lonely man is not you.

There's more! Click to read

Patriarchy Fighting Superheroes

Here is a list of Senators supporting the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. These patriarchy fighting superheros are there to save the day for gender feminists, extending their employment options through federal funding, and allowing them to continue their war on men, fathers, and traditional family.

Sponsors:

Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Arlen Specter (R-PA)

Co-sponsors:

Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Mike DeWine (R-OH)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Charles Grassley (R-IA)
Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Charles Schumer (D-NY)

You can see here what their talking points are going to be, written up by the gender feminist victim cult residing at the National Coalition of Domestic Violence, and complete with a "sample letter."

As you might have noticed, Hillary Rodham is nowhere to be seen on this list. But, make no mistake about it - this was her legislation from the very beginning. You should think of her as the Wizard of Oz behind thick curtains, pulling the levers of this on-going attack on the most basic Constitutional rights of men and fathers.

With both Republicans and Democrats on this list of sponsors, it is obvious that men and fathers do not have friends in either of the major parties. If Republicans were not so interested in near term political benefits and were thinking more towards 2008, they would draw Hillary of Oz out from behind that curtain and make her defend this nasty legislation.

There's more! Click to read

We Want You! (Except when it comes to the Constitution)

It is interesting how people tend to get stuck in a mode of thinking and unable to consider other possibilities glaring in their face. Of course, living in Seattle, where group think is paramount, we are used to it.

The latest example of limited thinking regards military recruitment falling well short of targets. It is not hard to come up with the obvious – the death toll in Iraq, as relatively small as it is compared to other wars, nevertheless makes the risks of military service real.

But, perhaps there are some other factors to consider when determining why young men are reluctant to join the military. Recruitment by the Army in Seattle, which had a goal of 266 new recruits during the first half of this year, has only reached 94. Some fresh thinking about the reasons for this is clearly in order.

You will never read this discussed in the mainstream media, but one obvious possibility is that young men have figured out that their society does not value them.

Young men are told when they join the military, and when they go off to war, that they are doing it to protect the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. However, our Constitution no longer applies to men. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is in clear violation of the Constitution, as it leaves men at the whim of accusations by girlfriends, wives, or even acquaintances. Once that accusation has been levied, due process is thrown out the window and a guy is guilty until proving his innocence.

Some commentators call VAWA a feminist boondoggle. But, while wasteful, boondoggles are generally harmless. VAWA is anything but harmless. It has created a well-funded army of gender feminists who have as their sole objective attacking men and fathers at every opportunity. The guys who face this army are usually defenseless.

Meanwhile, family courts in our country have shown that the power of government supersedes the most basic rights we once took for granted. It takes nothing more than an accusation, buttressed by an “advocate” straight out of your local Women Studies department, to strip a father of access to his children. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Sure-To-Be-A-Deadbeat, you are now in a state of indentured servitude and if you don't pay that child support you are going straight to jail.

This horrible state of affairs facing young men is courtesy of both major political parties. And, it doesn’t stop with VAWA and the criminalization of fatherhood. As a final slap in the face, women are not only not encouraged to carry their fair share of the burden of risking life and limb in military combat, but are banned from doing so by a Republican controlled Congress. Young men see this after suffering through feminized public schools that have institutionalized disdain for masculinity, and watching all of the special classes, hiring and college recruiting programs for young women only.

Are these values that young men should look at and decide, “Gee, I want to fight and risk my life for my country!” I dare say, few informed people would make such a decision, and men and fathers are becoming more informed every day about how they have been demonized as a matter of government policy.

In fact, Silly Seattle has generally supported the war in Iraq. The world can be an ugly place and action sometimes is needed. Throughout our history, the men of America have been there to do that. (Yeah, I know – the gender feminists are reading this and saying, “It’s the patriarchy!”). Bush has dealt with 9-11 through great vision for transforming the Middle East.

But, it takes young men to do it and they have been betrayed by their country. With the reauthorization of VAWA coming up, Silly Seattle might have to join the naïve Seattle anti-war protestors in calling for our troops to come home.

Not because war is never necessary, but choosing for whom you fight your wars is.

There's more! Click to read

Monorail in the Light of Day

Finally, at least someone from the state government is responsible enough to take a good hard look at Seattle Monorail Project’s (SMP) shenanigans. Joel Horn must be in distress after State Auditor Brian Sonntag’s announcement that he plans to audit SMP.

As with most large public projects, SMP is morphing into something far different from what the voters of Seattle approved. For example, voters approved $1.5 billion in spending, but the current price tag is over $2 billion. That number continues to grow, of course, just like the “Big Dig” of Boston ended up costing several times the original estimate. Joel Horn’s excuse? Inflation.

The growing price tag (and believe me, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet) and the secrecy with which SMP works is troubling enough, but the financing plans are even scarier and have dire consequences for both Seattle and the entire state.

SMP plans on doing something that every person deep in credit card debt is advised not to do. They are going to shuffle short term debt with long term debt, essentially taking out loans to pay their requirement minimum payment on other loans.

Joel Horn wants to do this because SMP is far below revenue targets from the motor vehicle taxes. Of course, Horn toots away about the bogeyman registering his car outside the city. But, as of yet, unlike the old Soviet Union, the city cannot force people to reside there, although we can all bet they would like to try.

Another bit of wishful thinking by Horn is that car registration fees will increase by at least 6.1% per year. Talking about inflation! Horn must be expecting Seattle residents to build larger garages to hold that extra car, buy more expensive cars, or both.

Somehow SMP misses the reality of good old economics. Make something more expensive, which the motor vehicle tax in Seattle does in a big way, and people will buy less. They will also choose less expensive options. So, in a city that is as anti-automobile as they come, Horn is expecting the residents to step up and buy that new BMW. Sort of an odd expectation from the management of a project being built with the expressed purpose of getting people out of their cars.

But, Sonntag says it best: “That's kind of funny logic.”

Will it be the 1980s $2.25 billion bond default on nuclear-plant construction by the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) all over again? Or, will Sonntag step up to save the day.

Really, Tunnel of Love Nickels, if he had an ounce of responsibility (or is that knowledge of basic economics?), would have stepped up by now to declare that SMP – as much as the voters of the city apparently want it – just is not possible. We won’t hold our breath though.

There's more! Click to read

Poor Jane Fonda

Here is an interesting opinion column. The Seattle PI has a piece by Terence Blacker criticizing the victim obsession in Jane Fonda’s new autobiography.

In Blacker’s words:

The theme of Fonda's promotional interviews, and presumably the autobiography itself, has been simple and consistent: nothing is ever Jane's fault.

Apparently, every man in Fonda's life had it out for her.

Family life was unhappy because poor old Henry Fonda was so uptight that he made her feel bad about herself. Although she was good-looking, her boyfriends had somehow made her feel inadequate. Even when she was an international star and married to Roger Vadim, his behavior played havoc with her self-esteem.

Well, with all that money and such low self-esteem, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we ought to all be playing the patriarchy violin for Fonda. But, not according to Blacker:

It is about this time, that even her most devoted fan -- me, for example -- is likely to experience a sharp twinge of irritation. Is she not responsible for anything? There are various ways of reminiscing about bad behavior in one's youth, ranging from the sheepish to the boastful, but there is something particularly pathetic about a woman deciding to include raunchy stuff in her memoirs but describing it in dreary, self-pitying terms of victimhood.

No argument there, Mr. Blacker. But, you must be living on another planet if you believe the following:

Blaming men for this and that does not sound like feminism to me; it sounds more like bleating. Even that great call to arms, in which she urges girls and women to avoid defining themselves by men, has a whiff of defeatism and dependence to it.

In fact, contemporary gender feminism is all about blaming men. And, Fonda’s new book sounds like a shining example of what is taught in Women Studies departments on a daily basis. Worse, it is incorporated in a federal law called the Violence Against Women Act, that patriarchy fighting superhero Senator Joseph Biden has introduced for reauthorization.

Contemporary gender feminism is a cult of victimhood that blames the monolith called "man" for every problem a woman encounters: The glass ceiling in corporations; Pay disparity between men and women; Domestic violence as a manifestation of the “patriarchy;” deadbeat dads. These are all myths that have been debunked not only on this blog, but by numerous scholars that use scientific evidence instead of ideology. But, the victim chorus continues.

After recognizing the flaw in Fonda’s character, Blacker fails to recognize the same flaw in contemporary gender feminism.

Perhaps it is unfair to judge Fonda by the way she has promoted her book … But playing the victim card, as most of the Women's Institute audience will have known, can send out the wrong messages.

Well, no Mr. Blacker. None of the gender feminist’s organizations recognize that playing the victim card is causing them to loose credibility. In fact, so far, the louder they scream, the more federal pork they have received. They see themselves as victims of the “patriarchy” and so have pushed gullible politicians to implement policy after policy that attack American men and fathers, treating their liberty as less important than the delusional feelings of disenchanted women who do not know how to go about putting together productive lives for themselves.

Fonda’s book fits the bill and will likely be widely read and praised within the gender feminist victim cult.

There's more! Click to read

Seattle Elite Censure Rossi

It is mind boggling to see the Seattle elite hyperventilate about Rossi's comment that the state's Supreme Court is ideologically left of center. They just cannot fathom how he could have made such a statement. Meanwhile, they are not missing the opportunity to take pot shots at him because they know he has become a political force in the state, contrary to their own interests.

People like Phil Talmadge, a former Supreme Court Justice as well as a Democrat, and all variety of Seattle based political commentators are incensed that Rossi would say such at a thing. Joni Balter, the chief public relations officer for ice cold Maria Cantwell, had this to say:

Rossi remained dignified throughout [the court challenge to Gregoire's election], with the notable exception of his graceless swipe at the state Supreme Court. Rossi said he would not take the election contest to the state's highest court because the political makeup of the Supreme Court would have made it almost impossible to get the decision overturned. That is 10 tons of hooey.

These views show just how out of touch with reality and pitifully idealistic Seattle and its media really are. The primary source of hooey in the area comes out of the city's two newspapers.

Of course the State Supreme Court would not give Rossi a fair hearing! But, as with most things in Seattle, you are either part of the group think and stay within the politically correct boundaries or the hoards of status quo protectors reflexively take jabs at you. They do not like for their carefully constructed house of anti-intellectual cards to be disturbed and certainly have no tolerance for diversity of viewpoints.

As with all things in this state, the Supreme Court is dominated by Seattle and King County. Gregoire is one of their own and the last person they would turn against when the chips are down. These people do not call each other liberal just like priests do not call each other religious.

The reality is that the Washington Supreme Court is one of the most activist courts in the nation. It has literally created law, defining such things as "meretricious relationship," which puts every couple that chooses to live together under the threat of having to go to divorce court and divvy up assets based on outdated community property laws. This is the same court that declared that a lesbian couple had a meretricious relationship, causing a same sex relationship to fall under the laws designed for legally licensed marriages. That is gay marriage in all but name.

The Court routinely fiddles with or outright rejects citizen initiatives designed to reign in out-of-control spending by the state's legislature. Meanwhile, it rarely tells the legislature or the executive branch of the state that they have overstepped their bounds.

After watching the lies, obfuscation, excuses, and falsification of essential election reports in King County without any ramifications whatsoever does anyone really believe that the Supreme Court would step up to save the day for Rossi? They are all part of the same machine that stole the election.

Hell no! Washington's State Supreme Court is the supreme protector of the state's corrupted political machinery. Rossi would have a better chance of finding support for fighting corruption from the Mafia than he would in anything that is part of this state's government.

The Seattle elite have become so wrapped up in their own self-censured speech that they are suspicious when someone just states a plain fact. They are not used to someone calling it like it is.

There's more! Click to read

VAWA Con Dios, Biden

The first step towards reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was taken yesterday, with a press release from the office of patriarchy fighting superhero, Senator Joseph Biden. The press release outlines several areas in which Biden, and his lackey Republican lap dogs, Senators Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter, want to “strengthen” VAWA.

The press release may as well have been written by the most fervent gender feminist of the University of Washington Women Studies madrassa. It paints women as victims and men as perpetrators in a fantasy world of violence. Not surprisingly, most of the myths fabricated by gender feminists are repeated in the press release.

It failed, however, to mention what this bill is really about. In its fervor to attack men and fathers, it is really about attacking a mythical concept called the “patriarchy.” According to gender feminists, all women are victims of the patriarchy. Every ill suffered by women in society is a result of the “power and control” exerted over them by a conspiracy of men.

Of course, no mention is made of the research done by the vast majority of serious scholars of this topic, all of whom conduct their studies based on scientific evidence, as opposed to the angry and misandrist ideology of the contemporary feminist victim cult. This research, by such leading scholars as Dr. Don Dutton and Christina Hoff Sommers, demonstrate clearly that in fact women instigate domestic violence more often than men. Presumably, this information is withheld from the public’s view by politicians and the media because it disproves the very theory and ideology that is used as an excuse for VAWA. And, all parties involved know that VAWA sells.

The bottom line of the new version of VAWA is that it will gratuitously provide more money to the industry that has built up around shattering the lives of men and fathers. More money for “advocates” who work hard to convince any woman that comes into their web that they are a victim of domestic violence. More money for GALs in family courts who operate with the sole purpose of stripping fathers of access to their children, which amazingly they do even when the mother does not want to go that far. More money for domestic violence “experts” who troll police departments to ensure that officers only arrest men no matter what the circumstances they find after a 911 call.

Indeed, more money all the way around so that graduates of women studies programs can earn a salary practicing the hateful ideology they learned from activists and generally socialist professors.

In reality, VAWA is a blatant pander to the most extreme gender feminists in our country. It is surprising that Hatch and Specter would support it, but one can only assume that their political calculation shows they can wrap it in the myths and spin it to their benefit.

Republicans such as Hatch seem to have fallen into a trap set by Biden to alienate their party from men and fathers. The involvement of Republicans reaffirms that men and fathers do not have a friend in either of the major parties. Blacks are often criticized for giving their votes so freely to Democrats, who would not know what to do if blacks in our country actually started exercising their voice, which is often conservatively Christian. But, men should be equally criticized for giving their votes in such large proportions to Republicans. For all their bluster about traditional family values, your average Republican is no friend of men or fathers.

You cannot count on the few local Republicans in the Seattle area either. Using the political calculation that he can benefit from his alignment with fighting the patriarchy in liberal King County, Representative Dave Reichert is a major proponent of VAWA. You can be sure he will vote for the reauthorization of this horrible legislation and then come home to boast about it.

The public needs to know that the topic of domestic violence was hijacked by radical feminists in the mid-1990s when they were running out of causes and loosing relevance in a society that long ago opened opportunities to women. Men need to know that the Republicans they too often vote for are complicit, even some of the chief promoters, of painting them as violent mongrels in need of social reeducation.

The public also needs to know that gender feminists, who clearly run the VAWA show, do not care about helping those, not even women, that are trapped in violent relationships. They do not care about the fact that their domestic violence perpetrator “treatment” gulags, which are based on the Duluth model of patriarchal control over women, do nothing to prevent domestic violence. They do not care that false claims of domestic violence are as frequent as tears on an Oprah Winfry show and are the number one tactic in divorce proceedings. Their only objective is to force as many men as possible into anti-patriarchy reeducation. Ultimately, they want to force men and fathers into a position of insecurity and, ideally, to abandon the idea of marriage altogether.

Men in their thirties in King County apparently are responding to this attack. As of 2000, 46% of men in the county in their thirties had never been married. Only 33% of women in their thirties had never been married, demonstrating that they are still hungry for love and commitment. But, with the burgeoning membership of dating services by women in their 40s, and fewer and fewer men willing to risk their physical and economic liberty with marriage, these women are increasingly left to lead their lives alone.

This obviously makes the members of the gender feminist victim cult very happy. But, with women forming groups such as iFeminists and the Independent Women’s Forum, there are clearly many that would like to express a different view from those that would try to force them to speak with a monolithic voice of victimhood.

In any case, one of the major parties had best start listening to them. Otherwise, one or both parties run the risk of being replaced by a party that does. In which case, it will be VAWA con Dios.

There's more! Click to read

Pretending to Live in a Democracy

Thank God Seattle has amateur journalist extraordinaire Nicole Brodeur to share her wisdom.

I must admit, I have been sullen since Bridges’ decision on Monday. The thought of three and a half more years of Christine Gregoire with her favorite lesbian and man-hating attorney Jeny Durkan in Olympia leaves me feeling hopeless.

But, Brodeur set me and all of the rest who are not able to understand that ballots exceeding voters credited in some precincts and voters credited exceeding ballots in other precincts should follow a random pattern everywhere except King County. We are conspiracy theorists and should proceed to flog ourselves for our transgressions. Knowledge of statistics is no excuse.

And, while we are doing that, according to Brodeur, we can count on Gregoire to "fix" the state’s elections system. Yes, this is even though the State of Washington has an election system that provides a "model for the world" according to Gregoire.

Or, perhaps people from around the country will register to vote using an address of the King County Administrative Building. It’s fair and King County and Gregoire assure us that every vote will be “counted.”

Does she really smell bad, or is she just pretending?

There's more! Click to read

Silly Rail Catch 22

What a sad example of how out of touch with reality Seattle really is.

So, the Seattle Silly-rail Project supposedly has an agreement with Cascadia to build the monorail. That’s sort of like Silly Seattle claiming that it has an agreement to buy the New York Times. There would be one small problem with such a claim: we don’t have the money.

Whenever anyone rational questions SMP, they respond that voters have passed the initiative "no less than four times." But, wait a minute. These are Seattle voters we are talking about. They can vote for SMP until the cows come home, and likely would, but that does not mean they have the money to pay for the project.

Forget about the fact that the project is four stations short of what was promised. Forget as well that the price tag was supposed to be $1.5 billion, while the current contract plus utility relocation is $1.8 billion. Oh, and forget that no massive municipal project in history has been built within budget.

[Update: SMP recently admitted that the current price tag is over $2 billion.]

None of those facts are required to be pessimistic about the Silly-rail. The MVET tax imposed on Seattle car owners by SMP generates far less revenue than is required to support the $2 billion plius price tag. Either Seattle residents need to go on a new car buying binge, or the city needs to gain more cars to tax by expanding its boundaries. Neither is likely to happen.

The cost of owning a car in Seattle is astronomical now. The net economic effect is that people will own fewer cars, no car, or less expensive cars. This simple supply and demand equation never seems to be mentioned by SMP. Their only plan for increasing revenues is to "crack down" on residents registering their cars outside the City.

SMP needs more cars and more expensive cars in the City, while the tax imposed on cars discourages Seattle residents from owning them. Moreover, the City itself has a policy of discouraging car ownership and use of cars. It is an intractable Catch 22.

Bond markets are not as naïve or as idealistic as Seattle voters. They will not agree to purchase bonds for an under-funded project. If the bonds do manage to be issued at all, investors will require a much higher interest rate than SMP projects, raising the cost of the project even more.

If there ever were a time for the mayor of a city to step in and show leadership, this is it. Yet, Mayor Nickels, who must know virtually nothing about finance, is applauding this exercise in the absurd.

There is another "project" Nickels would do well to consider before encouraging this debacle any further. The Experience Music Project, once lauded for its vision, will soon close its doors to public, leaving a psychodelic eyesore for someone to tear down.

Maybe, though, the City can hang plants from the unfinished elevated rails of SMP after its inevitable financial collapse.

There's more! Click to read