EHarmony.com Attacked Again By Competitor

A dating website is trying to get traction by bashing EHarmony.com again. EHarmony.com is highly visible, has many more millions of subscribers, and often gets results, so it is understandable that this other service tries to make a name for itself using EHarmony.com’s name.

This new round of marketing will attempt to portray EHarmony.com as out-of-touch with American values. Why? Well, EHarmony.com won’t match people up who have serious depression or other serious relationship-damaging emotional/mental problems that its extensive personality profile detects. It won’t match up people who have demonstrated a repeated inability to stay married. It also won’t match up someone who is currently married, or people who are too young for serious, committed relationships.

Shocking, I know. Who doesn’t want to be matched with an unstable, depressed person who is legally married to someone else and has three divorces already?

The real topper is that EHarmony.com is based on years of intending-to-marry and marital counseling, so it is based on the dynamics between men and women, and thus does not have the experience to offer same-sex matching. Ooh, this one gets some people all worked up. They insist there is no difference. Which makes me wonder – if there is no difference, then why don’t these people try being matched with someone of the opposite sex? Answer: because there is a difference. Otherwise, everyone would be neutrally bisexual.

But this complaint about EHarmony.com is already tired, so the new one to is bash EHarmony.com by attacking founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren’s determinations that note the correlation between fornication, shacking up, and higher divorce rates. Yes, you see – Eharmony.com is “out touch with American values” because Dr. Warren has noticed that being a slut or a cad makes it less likely you will stay married. Never mind that EHarmony.com doesn’t keep a record of your sex life, or drop your account if you fornicate.

If you read what Dr. Warren wrote around the time of EHarmony.com’s launch, he makes it clear that he intended to use the service to lower the divorce rate by matching and guiding to open communication/first date only those people who are fundamentally compatible with each other and likely to get married and stay happily married. So it is “out of touch” with the “value” of the high divorce rate. Maybe that’s a good thing. It is “out of touch” with the American value where people in a relationship act like squabbling siblings competing for an edge over each other, trying to make it work with someone who is simply not compatible with them or able to have a healthy relationship. And yes, Dr. Warren is “out of touch” with Hollywood’s “value” of shameless casual fornication and shacking up.

But EHarmony.com does not bar fornicators. So who is really intolerant? Perhaps it is the service that makes fun of those who value purity and saving sex for marriage? What are their values anyway? The more fornication the better? Broken-hearts are good; out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and STDs are a-okay? Inflicting an untreated depressed person on someone looking for love? Spending time, money, emotions, and energy on someone with whom you are incompatible is fine, as long as they get you hot?

If you want to go with the rejects… be their guest! Go to that other site owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp. Go find people who are still married, people who have been divorced too many times, people who can’t answer a series of questions without appearing depressed or unstable...and good luck to you.

If you are just looking for a hookup, then there are easier places to go.

But if you want serious matchmaking with marriage in mind, I’d recommend a subscriber service that figures out who you are and puts you through a guided communication process; a service with a large number of subscribers – one like EHarmony.com. It’s not perfect, but it can be very useful.

When Tom Leykis Has Guests

It’s been a couple of months. Time to write about Tom Leykis again.

It must be difficult to spend 20 hours a week doing monologues (even with long… pointless… pauses), taking phone calls, and plugging away at live commercials. It takes a lot of concentration and talent to keep high ratings in the desired demographics doing that week in and week out, year-round.

So I can understand how tempting it is for Tom Leykis to have in-studio guests (made easier, I would think, since his move to the Paramount lot in Hollywood, where some CBS and Viacom stuff is put together). Did I mention that he is on the Paramount lot? Yes, he’s on the Paramount lot. But someone in the powers-that-be don’t want him mentioning that. So I did. I'm the one who is mentioning here that Tom Leykis' show is now based on the Paramount Pictures lot. But I digress.

Anyway, I can understand how tempting it is for Tom to have in-studio guests or to gab away with someone on the crew in order to fill time with less effort. In the case of the guests – they are there plugging something. Just about any talk show appearance – radio or television – is to plug something, after all. So I understand why they want to be there. But why does Tom want them there?

The problem is, I almost never find these guest appearances (or chat with the crew member) interesting - they are extremely boring, usually - and it is such a break from the usual format of the show. I’d wager I’m not the only person who immediately turns away for the hour when I realize that the hour is going to be about plugging a comedy club appearance by a comedian, usually one nobody outside of comedy circles knows. There’s a lot of interesting talk radio during that time, so it makes it easier for me – one less station to switch to in the rotation of switching back and forth so as to not be subjected to ten minute breaks.

Perhaps Tom is returning favors when he has these guests on, or maybe it really is just Tom being lazy for that hour. Whatever the case, it is booooooooring. Being boring in talk radio is, of course, much worse than being disagreeable.

So please, Tom. Cut back on the guests and crew chit-chat. Heck, take even more vacation time if you need it. Repeats of your normal format is almost always more entertaining than an obscure comedian plugging his appearance in a place I'll never go.

If Phil Spector Is Found Not Guilty

Then will all of the beautiful B movie actresses riot?

Marilyn Manson and Tim Burton and Their Women

Ben Wener of the Orange County Register catches up with music personality Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner), and something in the article sticks out to me.

During that time, Manson…settled deeply into a relationship with burlesque queen Dita Von Teese, who, arriving after Manson's time with actress Rose McGowan, appeared to be his twisted soulmate.

After six years together, they married – and almost immediately, Manson says, Von Teese expected him to change. His vampiric hours, his drug use and absinthe consumption, perhaps most vitally his philosophy of self-preservation through fiercely independent thinking and creative transformation – she'd have preferred he put all that away and be a more normal husband.

And for a brief time Manson slowly felt himself conforming. "I started to feel bad about being me," he told me in his gravelly but gentle voice during a phone chat a few weeks ago. "I started to feel like I had to turn me off somehow, to prove that I fit into this convention I know now didn't suit me properly."

I’m not going to defend Manson’s lifestyle or personal actions. That’s not why I picked this story. But the first clue that all was not right was how long they were together before getting married. When people get married after several or more years of being a couple (especially if that includes living together as well as sex), I give the marriage a slim chance of lasting. Unless - one or both members of the couple were still full-time students and they waited to be finished with that phase of life before getting married.

Getting married is often, in these cases, someone’s desperate attempt to save the relationship by “taking it to the next level”. Women think it validates the relationship as “successful”. Men think it will get the woman to stop nagging (and she will stop nagging to get married, but she won’t stop nagging). But they’ve already been pretending to be at that level. There was probably nothing “positive” that he got from being married that he wasn’t getting from her before. And so he marries her, and she rewards him by nagging him. Who wants to live like that?

“I don't necessarily think I couldn't be married again. I think that I assumed - and it was me projecting my idea of romance onto Dita - that she believed in things the same way I did. I think we got to a point where she was feeling like, 'Well, I assumed you would eventually grow out of this.' And I'm saying, 'But this is me.' My marriage started to transform into something that was too concerned with the rest of the world, with how it would get portrayed in Vogue magazine - and that sort of thing was exactly what I had fought hard to stand against. But I got lost between love and belief in myself. I didn't know who I was supposed to be anymore."

"I'm absolutely not looking for someone who agrees with me about everything," Manson quickly adds, "or someone who wants to please me by believing what I believe.”

Women: I can't stress this enough. When you marry a man, you are accepting him AS-IS. You are accepting that he has his own likes and dislikes, his faults, his job, his hobbies, his habits, his philosophy, his bank account, his family, his friends, his history, his possessions, and everything else that has made him who he is. DO NOT EXPECT HIM TO CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. Expect him to get older - that will definitely happen - but not necessarily more mature.

You can’t make him change. Asking him to change, demanding that he change, threats, nagging, whining, bitching, holding out – that will only drive whatever it is you don’t like about him underground. For example – if you want him to stop smoking weed, he may appear to stop. But he will still do it – just not around you, and he will lie to cover it up. Don't marry him if you don't like him or if you can’t live with everything about him for the rest of your life. Do not rely on assumptions, hopes, wishes, projections, etc. Deal with the reality of who he is NOW.

If you have agreed to be faithful to each other in marriage, only then should you expect that from him - but if he has a history of not showing self-control in that area, you’re probably going to be disappointed. Oh, and his biology doesn’t change by signing a marriage certificate. He will still find other women attractive and want to look at them. He will still want sex from you.

Finally - Just as getting marriage will not change him, do not expect that having his baby will change him. If you get pregnant to try to make him a better man or get him to do what you want, you’ll be a fool.

“But I need the same dark romantic yearning. I had been watching all these movies, like 'True Romance' and 'Harold and Maude' and 'The Hunger' and 'Bonnie and Clyde,' and I started wondering where that sort of feeling had gone. I thought that was where I was at in my life, and I couldn't understand why I didn't feel that same fearlessness."

He regained it, however, via two life-altering vehicles: Evan Rachel Wood, the pretty, preternatural actress from "Thirteen" and the coming "Across the Universe," who at 19 is half Manson's age; and the rejuvenating new album "Eat Me, Drink Me," very likely the most crucial work of Manson's career.

Uh, yeah, well getting some strange, especially young strange, will do that. But those feelings are likely to fade all over again as that strange becomes familiar and older.

Look, I'm no fan of Manson. He strikes me as a geek who realized that the only way he was going to make something out of himself was by being “contrarian” and going for shock value, like those kids who go all punk or goth or whatever because they couldn't come close to making the cheerleading squad or being in the popular crowd, or whatever. There's always another generation of kids around the corner looking to piss off their parents, and he’s smart enough to figure out how to make money off of that. He is not original - he's derivative of folks like Alice Cooper, only Alice Cooper was pioneering and has been an enduring original talent.

Maybe he got picked on by churchgoing kids. Who knows? Churches are full of jerks because people are jerks, especially as teens. But it isn’t like Manson has it all together. I heard him once talking about how mustaches were a sign that a man is gay. This from a guy who also talked about performing manual sex on one of his male bandmates.

While we’re on the subject of relationships, let’s check in on Tim Burton’s situation.

Tim Burton's ex-girlfriend was ordered Wednesday to revise her lawsuit against the movie director after a judge ruled it didn't sufficiently support claims that Burton had backed out of a promise to financially support her.

Why would a “promise” be legally binding in this kind of case and this case only? People promise each other all kinds of things all of the time, and yet a broken promise almost never results in a court case, except when it comes to women who’ve been dumped. So much for independence and equality.

Notice the article refers to this woman as “Tim Burton’s ex-gilfriend”, not Tim Burton as “the former beau of…”. These women insist on having a man more rich and/or famous than themselves, and when it doesn’t last, they try to take some of his wealth with them.

Lisa Marie, an actress who appeared in several of Burton's films, sued last December, alleging Burton used fraud to cheat her out of assets he promised to share with her during their nearly 10-year, live-in relationship.

You weren’t married. Get over it. Marriage is how you get guaranteed support from a man, not shacking up.

Burton said he and Marie would "combine their efforts and earnings and would share equally any and all" accumulated property, her lawsuit claimed.

If he really did that, then he is a fool.

Court papers filed by Burton's attorneys countered that the director gave Marie $5 million to sign the contract, which released him from any further claims to his assets. He contended that if she wanted to rescind the deal she was obligated to return the money.

Five million dollars for what? He could have hired prostitutes and other professionals (chefs, interior decorators) to do whatever it was she did for him for a lot less.

What have we learned?

1. Don’t shack up.

2. Don’t expect a man to change simply because he got married.

Dr. Laura Blames Technology When Users at Fault

I like Dr. Laura. I understand why she does her show the way she does. I find it entertaining radio. I listen. Also, I agree with almost everything she says. I particularly like to hear calls from people who clearly have no idea who they are calling, and they get shocked that she doesn’t give them some touchy-feely New Age answer-du-jour, but rather a cold dose of reality.

I know, I know. Some people hate her because she doesn’t spend half an hour coddling the feelings of each caller.

Or they hate her because she thinks of marriage as holy matrimony and thinks that sex is best saved for marriage. Or they hate her because she thinks they ought not to slaughter their own babies. Or they hate her because she encourages parents to raise their own children. Or they hate her because she encourages husbands and wives to tend to each others’ needs. Or they hate her because she thinks we should kill terrorists before they kill us. Radical positions, I know. I don’t have a problem with any of these.

Every once in a while, though, I think she is completely wrong about something.

Today, I heard Dr. Laura bash/summarily dismiss MySpace.com as being “juvenile”.

Now, I understand that she’s had at least one really bad experience with MySpace. Her deployed paratrooper son’s MySpace page (or at least a page that claimed to be his) gained negative attention when it displayed offensive material. I don’t know what the ultimate conclusion was – whether or not he put the material there or someone else did. Let’s assume for the sake of this argument that someone else put it there against his will.

So what?

We’ve had harmful impersonators, frauds, and identity thieves around for a lot longer than MySpace.

MySpace isn’t the problem. MySpace is nothing more than a convenient collection of online features - many of which previously existed and were typical - in one place. MySpace is a web space host, an e-mail host, a photo album host, a search engine, etc. combined. Dr. Laura has her own website that takes e-mail. It isn’t at MySpace, but most people can’t hire a professional to design and run their own website. MySpace does it for them. Hence, the popularity.

I see “the Internet” get blamed for a lot of problems when it is really nothing more than a street corner, a post office, a library, a TV, and a store. Freaks, criminals, immature people, and liars hang out in those places, too. Saying that they "met on the Internet" is like saying "they met on the street corner". Do you stop using the streets?

Predators existed before chat rooms. While online communications have given them the ability to communicate with the children of strangers and show them inappropriate material from the comfort of their own homes, things like MySpace are hardly the problem. The problem is the evil predator.

There are ways to avoid having your child preyed upon online. Keep communication devices, such as networked computers, in common areas of the home. Don’t let them be home alone. Make sure they have enough sense not to go somewhere without an adult to meet someone they’ve never met. In the event they are home alone, make sure they have enough sense not to allow someone to come over. Don’t let them hang out unsupervised in the homes of kids who don’t have enough sense in these areas. You can protect yourself from those who prey on adults by using some common sense. Always meet someone new in a safe public place until you know enough about them to be in private with them.

Sure, people can put up a false front online, but they can do that in person, too. You think meeting someone (even regularly) in a bar, a club, a restaurant, a class, or even a church really reveals the totality of who they are as a person? No way. You learn who they are by spending time with them in different situations, communicating, meeting their friends and family, etc.
It’s okay for adults to meet each other online. What’s not okay is letting yourself believe that chatting, e-mailing, sharing pictures/audio/video is the equivalent of a face-to-face relationship. It’s not. Meet online, and if there appears to be potential, move along to actually spending time together. Otherwise, you are pen pals and nothing more.

Then there are the reports that try to shock us by telling us how many “sex offenders” are on MySpace (or in a given neighborhood). There are many who have cell phones and postage stamps, too. Run for the hills!

Seriously, though, yes, it is good thing to know who the rapists, flashers, and child molesters are so we can avoid them, and to keep them from contacting children. But the term “sex offender” includes much, much more than that. Homosexuals were legally sex offenders not long ago. It’s illegal in some places to have sex toys. I’m not really concerned that streetwalkers or their customers will be contacting my children via MySpace. Having (consensual) sex with a 17-year-old, no matter what your age, can get you labeled as a sex offender in some places, even though the public schools will hand them a condom and teach them how to use it. I’m not condoning fornicating with underage persons or with anyone, for that matter. Just making the point that there is a difference between someone who rapes seven-year-olds and an 18-year-old guy who fornicates with the 17-year-old.

Getting back to Dr Laura – the call that prompted her comments was from a young woman who was upset about comments her boyfriend made before he was her boyfriend on another woman’s online picture, calling her beautiful. Dr. Laura said that her boyfriend was being juvenile. Really? Having told other women in the past that they look beautiful or that they look good in a picture is juvenile? I don’t think Dr. Laura was thinking clearly at that point - I think her emotions were clouding her thinking.

She did say something during the call that was more to the heart of the matter – the youth (and not-so-youth) culture these days that promotes immodesty and promiscuous “hooking up” and glorifies partying and posting evidence of your partying online. That’s a cultural problem, not a problem with MySpace.

Dr. Laura’s line of reasoning could be used to scrap the Internet entirely, phones, and even cars. After all, while the pill was an accelerant of the sexual revolution, the automobile was the real start of the fornication culture we’re now in.

Don’t blame the technology. Don’t shoot the messenger. It’s the people. And although it is true that online communications have now allowed freaky perverts to network around the world, it also allows those who seek to protect and nurture children and uplift culture to network as well.

Like I wrote at the start of this post - I like Dr. Laura. That's why I hate to see her lessen her credibility with a growing number of people who now use sites like MySpace the way people were using ISP-provided websites ten years ago. She needs to promote the cautious and positive use of technology, not the broadbrush dismissal of it.

Mo'Nique Takes F'At Women to Fr'Ance

Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn of the Associated Press brings a story given this headline:

Mo'Nique takes `F.A.T.' women to France

Uhm, this is America. You’re not allowed to put apostrophes in your name if you want to be taken seriously. If you are Irish or Italian or whatever, your surname may have retained one from the old country. But enough with these made-up names with numbers and punctuation and lower case letters where capitals should be.

Looking like a plus-sized black Barbie in a green polka-dot sundress, her hair in a playful flip, the 39-year-old actress-comedian is quickly engulfed by her "fat girls." She embraces them, trying not to muss her makeup with her own tears.

"I always think I'm going to do fine when I get to this point, but I know your tears," she tells them, each a finalist in the third year of her big-girl beauty competition, "Mo'Nique's F.A.T. Chance" — as in "Fabulous And Thick."

There’s a reason why they have a separate competition.

Of them, five were chosen to strut their stuff in glamorous gowns on a runway at the Le Grand Hotel in Paris in a weeklong adventure airing 8 p.m. Saturday.

Women who move more and eat less attract men who can afford to take them to Paris.

"We wanted to go beyond the beauty pageant," Mo'Nique says, kicking off her high-heeled sandals during a taping break. "We also wanted to create runway fashion shows, to give fat girls the option of saying, `Yeah, we've got this, too!' It's about taking the show to the next level."

You’ve got it, alright. Most straight men don’t want to see it.

He adds that the show encourages women to exercise and eat healthy. "It's a very positive message, and I think the reason it's gotten a big audience is that it does speak to all of us."

It’s gotten a big audience, alright.

And on television, there's a "huge distinction between Mo'Nique's show, which is celebrating fat beauty, and other shows on television which promote weight loss and reinforce prejudice," says "FAT!SO?" author Marilyn Wann, San Francisco-based board member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.

Great. You can hold mixers for your female members with groups of men who are poor and unmotivated to change that, and demand that people simply accept that they are poor.

I have yet to meet anyone who has lost weight, aside from those who lose too much weight because of a disease, who has said “I wish I was still fat!” I felt better when I was thinner. I do not say my extra weight is okay. I want to be thing again. I do not hate myself, but I recognize that I need to develop and keep better eating habits. I recognize that my problem is compulsively eating more food than I need.

The fact is, it is more acceptable for a man to be fat than a woman. It isn’t any healthier, but women are more willing to tolerate it because women are attracted more to other qualities in men than physical beauty. Yes, most women like a hardbody, too, but things like security (money) trump that. Men, however, are visual creatures and if they aren’t turned on by their woman, then there is going to be dysfunction in the relationship. A man can’t simply reach for a tube of lubricant to help things along.

The women in this article would rather not go through the effort of losing weight and staying thin. So, they want to get as many other women falling into their way of living and thinking as possible, because that will take away that advantage in the competition for men, jobs, etc.

Are fat women treated differently? They sure area. Poor men are treated differently from other men, too. That’s life. Can a fat woman be attractive? Yes, just like a poor man can be attractive. All other things being equal, though, most men prefer the lady who isn't obese, just like all other things being equal, most women prefer the man who earns more.

A Bad Hour of Leykis

I listen to a lot of talk radio. One of the hosts I listen to often is Tom Leykis. As he tells you at the start of each hour, he’s not a right-winger. I gather from listening to him that he leans mostly towards libertarianism. But I digress, because his show isn’t about party politics. I listen enough that I can probably be categorized as a “fan”, though I’m certainly not a “student” (fans will know what this means). If there are any fans reading this, I think Tom usually does an outstanding job as a radio talk show host and is very entertaining. He makes a lot of good points. His lines of reasoning are usually very logical. I do, however, disagree with him on some important things, because we have some very different starting points in our outlook on life.

Tom is apparently on yet another vacation this week. It seems that some radio hosts get a lot of vacation. Yesterday, I heard a repeated hour on his show in which Tom solicited calls from married persons who had homosexual feelings that their spouse didn’t know about.

One exchange with a caller stood out in my mind. Tom must not have had many callers on the topic, because he kept this woman in the air for a long time, haranguing her for her decisions, in between his characteristic long...


pointless...


pauses...


that someone turning the dial could easily mistake for dead air. Later that same hour, Tom got punked by a Phil Hendrie listener who called in as Doug Danger. Tom kept him on the air for a long time, too. So, my guess is that there weren’t a lot of people calling in to say they were closeted even to their spouse.

But back to the exchange with this woman. She called in claiming to be a 25-year-old Mormon who was married (of course) with two kids. She said her husband was a great husband and father. She claimed that she finds some women hot in a lustful way.

Since Tom is an individualist narcissist atheist, and nothing is more important in life than his orgasms, he insisted that she "must" be "honest" with herself and to truly be intimate with her husband, she had to tell him and, by implication, break up the family and leave it. Yes, every once in a while on the Leykis show you get marriage and relationship advice from a man who has been divorced four times and swears off marriage and encourages people to live alone and only do what they really want to do. Yeah, he knows how to get along with others on a deep level.

His advice to men who are looking for cheap, casual sex? Practical and effective. His advice here? Not so much.

This woman chose to get married. She made vows her and her husband and their families consider sacred. She chose to make two children with her husband. She has certain obligations to keep. Yet Leykis encouraged her to break her vows, break up her family, go against her religious beliefs and church, and hurt her husband and children, because she has lustful thoughts about women.

The assertion that she HAS to act on her feelings is absurd.

First of all, sexual encounters involve another consenting adult, and who is to say the women she is attracted to would reciprocate and act on it with her? People deal with their feelings without acting on them all of the time. There are married people who, at one time or another, feel like leaving their spouses. Later on, they are glad that they didn’t. There are recovering alcoholics who do not act on their feelings of wanting a drink. There are plenty of straight men who want to make passes at every somewhat attractive woman they see, but they don’t because they save sex for marriage or don’t want to get fired from their jobs. Some people are attracted to slightly underage teens… do they have to act on those feelings? There are people who feel like sleeping in all day every day instead of going to work, or punching out talk show hosts, or robbing a bank, or spending money they don’t have, or always eating more food than they need. There are people who decide to go kosher who still feel like eating bacon.

It sounded like she was doing a good job of dealing with her feelings, but Tom insisted that having the thoughts in the first place meant she HAD to act.

I disagree.

She was restricting herself to sex with her husband when she felt more like interacting with women. There are people who want sex to don’t have sex at all, or for long stretches of time. I have yet to see a headline that says “Woman Dies From Lack of Sex.”

As far as urging her to tell her husband – why? How would that help anything? All it would do is bring trouble. There are things you should not tell your spouse. Most of them are completely irrelevant to you relationship. I mean, do you describe every bowel movement you have to your spouse? Do you describe every sexual encounter you ever had with someone else before you met your spouse? Why not, if you really want to be open and honest with them?

The woman kept citing her deeply held Mormon faith as the basis for her decisions. Tom’s response? “You don’t have to be a Mormon.” While true, it is an answer from Tom’s dismissive attitude towards religion in general. It was said by Tom as if she woke up one day and said, "Hmmm, I could go to McDonald's today - or - I could join the LDS church." Some people have carefully and thoughtfully explored and pondered their choices in religion, and have committed to an organized one. I know that is hard for some people - like Leykis - to fathom. Not all religious people are mindless zombies who stick with a religion because they were born to parents who practiced it. She would lose a lot of she left the LDS church - probably including family and friends.

Don’t think I support the LDS church. The church is pseudo-Christian, false, and a cult from both a theological and sociological perspective. But because it is a very large cult, leaving it is very, very difficult. And I know that marriage is everything in the LDS church.

While this woman should have never have gotten married if she was primarily attracted to women and cared more about that than having children, what’s done is done. She apparently functions well with her husband, and she is giving her children both a mother and a father. She made decisions and vows, and should stick to them, and not let some radio entertainer who esteems casual sex over relationships and marriage sway her to do something she and many other people will regret.

Baca Has a Good Idea, But Wackos Want to Pamper Criminals

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca wants to deal with jail overcrowding by having some of less risky prisoners placed on home detention.

But get this - some activists are worried that the prisoners on home detention won't have tax-funded health care and housing!

From Patrick McGreevy's Los Angeles Times piece:

Some opponents of the legislation winding its way through the Legislature are not fighting it on the law-and-order grounds raised in the Hilton case.

Instead, they say the county has already made it difficult for inmates to get medical care and psychiatric services in the jails, and the new program will make it even harder.

"This bill may allow jails to place individuals who need critical medical or psychiatric care in home detention without identified services or funding to pay for these services," said Margaret Jakobson-Johnson of Protection and Advocacy Inc., a nonprofit group providing legal help and advocacy for the disabled.
[snip]
However, poor inmates may be left on their own entirely if put on home detention, Jakobson-Johnson said.

You mean like us law-abiding folks?

In addition, she is concerned that some of those on home detention will lack stable housing. "Release on home detention without housing, or a clear plan to find housing quickly, may do more harm to an individual," she said.

The proposed legislation would allow those assigned to home detention to receive vocational and housing assistance and to leave home for psychological and medical care, said state Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster), a coauthor of the bill. He said the county does not give up its obligation to provide inmates with healthcare just because they are assigned to home detention.

He disputed Jakobson-Johnson's criticism that home detainees would be less likely to get the care they need than those behind bars.

"That argument doesn't make sense," Runner said. "What's happening now is these people are being released after a few days and sent home, or are not serving any time in jail. In those circumstances, they are not getting any care anyway."

Convicted inmates serving sentences should be performing work - preferably on behalf of their victims.

Los Angeles County is under a court order to end overcrowding, so some inmates are released after serving only 25% of their time, a practice that will probably be modified if Baca wins the new powers.

Hmmmmm, now why would Los Angeles County have jail overcrowding? Oh. That's right. How many illegal aliens are in there?

The bill would save counties money. It costs L.A. County an average of $10 a day for a prisoner on home detention, compared with $70 daily to keep the inmate in jail, Bilowit said.

The main drawback I could see to this is that for some people, home confinement is hardly punishment. Some people who aren't criminals voluntarily confine themselves to their homes. In the spirit of those concerned about the health care and housing for inmates placed on home confinement, we should make sure the home has all of the modern appliances, conveniences, and utilities, too. Why shouldn't my taxes to go make sure some criminal can watch HD cable television at home?

Seriously, we need a truly rehabilitative system for people who can be reformed, and restorative justice wherever possible. Quite often, a criminal's crimes are against specific people, not faceless "society". They should have to work for their victims to pay off their debt to them as much as possible.

Not Every Couple Should Stay Together and Get Married

Yet another example of people not right for each other making stupid mistakes:

A Scottish bride attacked her new husband with her stiletto shoe, striking the groom in the head in an upstairs hotel room while their wedding reception went on below, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Teresa Brown, 33, told police she and her husband had "been accusing each other of different things," prosecutor Alan Townsend said. Brown said she hit him on the head after their April wedding because he grabbed her, Townsend added.

Sounds romantic.

The distraught groom, Mark Allerton, 40, staggered to the front desk, clutching a bloody towel to his head, Townsend said.

"He indicated that his wife had struck him over the head with a stiletto heel," the prosecutor said.

Police found Brown sitting on the hotel room bed, surrounded by broken glass. She spent the rest of her wedding weekend in a cell.

Can you say annulment?

Brown's lawyer Stuart Beveridge said the newlyweds began throwing things at each other after an argument in their room turned physical. He said Brown was on antidepressants at the time and had been drinking.

RED FLAG.

"She and her husband are still together although this incident has not helped," he said, adding she is receiving counseling.

Sheriff James Tierney dropped the assault charge against Brown by issuing a warning and fining her $505 for damaging the hotel room. He also ordered her to pay the hotel $1,150 in compensation.

Let’s Use Graffiti Vandals For Target Practice

Enough is enough. We as a society have tried and tried to control the graffiti problem. In the greater Los Angeles area, it is an ongoing and seemingly increasing problem. The illegal alien problem and the illegitimacy problem are no doubt helping to make it worse.

So many steps have been taken – locking up paint and markers, graffiti hotlines, painting over graffiti within and few business days. Still, it is there. Vandals defacing and destroying property just to mark their territories like dogs. Only, dogs are more admirable.

Graffiti lowers property values, creates a hostile environment, is ecologically harmful, destroys property, costs a lot of fight, clean up, and prosecute, and assists with gang activity.

The time has come to fight graffiti by allowing the police and the average citizen to shoot graffiti vandals if they witness them doing the deed. How quickly would it cut down on graffiti if a homeowner group could hire someone to drive around in a Humvee overnight, armed and ready to shoot any graffiti vandals? Or if the cops could slow down just enough to point a rifle out the cruiser window and shoot up some punk and radio for an ambulance as they keep driving down the street? Sure, some graffiti vandals would arm themselves to fight back, but I think most would quickly realize that putting their unreadable scribble on a brick wall isn’t worth the likelihood (not low probability… likelihood) of getting shot.

Sure, there would be the risk of people dumping their murder victims by a wall and planting a spray can in their hand as a way to cover up their crime, but I think the investigations into those attempted cover-ups would be worth it.

Stop Whining About EHarmony.com

A clinical psychologist spends decades counseling both-sex couples and learning why relationships fail and why they last, and what makes happy marriages happy. He figures out how to determine if a man and woman are compatible with each other in ways that will likely result in a happy, lasting relationship. He wants to increase marital happiness, reduce the divorce rate, and thereby help individuals, their children, their extended families, and thereby society as a whole.

He sees a business opportunity, and he takes what he has learned and modern day technology and launches EHarmony.com. Good for him, right?

It is a voluntary service that people have to log on to and pay to use. Nobody is obligated to use it, and there are many alternative online and offline services.

Yet this hasn’t stopped people from complaining and suing. The complaints and lawsuits are usually about what eHarmony.com isn’t, which is funny because it doesn’t claim to be those things in the first place.

It is a site dedicated to matching people based on their likelihood of entering into and maintaining happy, lasting marriages. It isn’t a “dating” site.

To determine if people are ready for such a relationship and with whom they’d be compatible, eHarmony has people fill answer an extensive list of questions to form and deliver a personality profile. The length and depth of the questioning is set up to smoke out people aren’t really serious or patient enough, may not know themselves well enough, may be misrepresenting themselves (intentionally or not), aren’t mature enough, or have some other emotional condition or character trait that renders them unlikely to be a good marriage partner. EHarmony does not take money from those people, because the people running the service do not think they will be able to successfully help those people find a lasting relationship. Such applicants are told that the site would be unlikely to find them partner. EHarmony also “rejects” people who are currently married, are “too young”, or have been divorced enough times to make another divorce likely.

There are people who are paranoid enough to believe that eHarmony “rejected” them because of their beliefs about religion or their weight, but there are at least thousands of eHarmony.com customers who can demonstrate that not to be true.

I find it curious when people balk at the results of the personality profile, get angry when eHarmony won’t take their money, or complain that they are consistently matched with losers. All of these things are a result of what someone has indicated about themselves. They only have themselves to blame.

Perhaps the most bitter attack against eHarmony.com is that it currently will only match people with someone from the other sex. A lawsuit was filed in California by a woman who was seeking to be matched with a woman. It is true that there are many, many services that already do this. However, none of them are based on the research and experience of Dr. Neil Clark Warren. Apparently, activists such as the one who filed this lawsuit really admire Dr. Warren’s matching abilities, which is interesting considering they usually are quick to bash his convictions as an evangelical Christian and his earlier ties to Focus on the Family. It seems these activists want it both ways – they want to benefit from Warren’s research while condemning the principles behind it.

Thanks to the Federal civil rights laws, businesses do not have the freedom to refuse to exchange goods/services/money with another party simply based on factors like race. You could have started the business with your own personal savings, built it from the ground up, etc., but you don’t have the freedom to choose to only serve certain races and exclude others. (And yes, this supposedly means that if you are “white” and a “black” business refuses to serve you because you are white, you can sue them.) In California, “sexual orientation” is one of those categories where it is illegal to discriminate. You can’t refuse to serve someone because he or she is a homosexual.

That is the law. I’d argue that everyone should have the freedom to hire, fire, and do business or not with whomever they want for whatever reason. If a woman only wants to work with women, she should be allowed to hire only women. If she only wants women as customers, she should be allowed to make that restriction. If she doesn’t want my money because I’m male, then she loses out when I take my money elsewhere. But, we must deal with the laws as they are, not as we want them to be.

I’d argue that eHarmony is not refusing service to anyone based on their sexual orientation. Any woman, regardless of sexual orientation, can take the personality profile and be matched with men – provided she isn’t excluded for the things I mentioned above, like being divorced too many times. If you’re a woman and you don’t want to be matched with a man, then eHarmony is not for you. I wouldn’t go to the Olive Garden and demand that they serve me Mexican food, or sell me footballs. You may not want to be matched with a man, but why is that eHarmony.com's responsibility? It is a voluntary subscription for a non-essential service.

Dr. Warren has pointed out that his decades of research has been with both-sex couples, and so he doesn’t have the experience to match up men with men and women with women. The critics have balked at this, howling and shrieking at his assertion that there could be any difference in the dynamic within the sexes and the dynamic between the sexes. I find this puzzling, because almost none of these critics are bisexual, so clearly they know there is a difference. Men and women are different, and that makes the dynamic between them different than it is between two men and two women. If this wasn’t true, then gay people could easily choose to be straight.

The lesbian can’t have it both ways. Either men and women are different and she is attracted to women and not to men, or there is no difference and therefore she should be attracted to both, and thereby eHarmony matching her with a man should not be a problem for her. But there is a difference, and eHarmony.com’s matching criteria is based on the dynamic between a man and a woman, and thus wouldn’t work it matching a man with a man or a woman with a woman.

Some people assert that the only difference is in body parts, but this doesn’t past muster, either. Is a lesbian really a lesbian only because she prefers vaginas to penises? Such an assertion is ridiculously simplistic, especially considering the use of phallic toys by some lesbians.

Rather than cursing the darkness, why not light a candle? Counselors and psychologists who specialize in counseling same-sex couples should build up, collect, and analyze research about such couples who have happily lasted, and figure out what has made their relationship work. Then, they can take that research, and start their own service. Maybe eHarmony.com would be willing to license its technologies to such a business or launch the service itself. Or is the lawsuit really just about trying to tear down a business because they’re selling chicken when you’re in the mood for tuna?

EHarmony.com has been successful enough that other matchmaking and dating sites compare and contrast themselves to eHarmony. Match.com’s Chemistry.com has gone so far as to appeal to the “rejects” from eHarmony. Great. Go to Chemistry.com if want someone who is already married, or has been divorced a few times already, or is too young or immature to get married, or has some other challenge to having a happy marriage with you. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

Finally, there are the people who simply don’t like the eHarmony.com ads with their happy couples and Dr. Warren. I don’t know - maybe they are lonely and bitter, or maybe they’d rather see a teen pitchman with a bunch of piercings, tats, and a rap sheet. People are entitled to their own tastes. The problem comes when they assert that everyone else has to cater to them and think like them and have the same exact experiences as them.

EHarmony.com is for people who want to find someone to marry - and in almost all of the world, that means someone of the opposite sex. There’s no guarantee you are ready for marriage, or that there’s someone out there who meets your needs/standards. Get over it. EHarmony.com has worked for a lot of people. If it doesn’t work for you, move on and stop wasting your time and energy with whining and consipiracy theories.

Oh, and if that lawsuit against eHarmony.com is succesful, they I'll sue any OB/GYN who refuses to examine my testicles.

Rod Stewart Marries a Third Time

Either not learning enough from his previous mistakes, or having figured out why he was unable to stay married the first two times, Rod Stewart has married a third time.

British rock star Rod Stewart married Penny Lancaster on Saturday in a
low-key ceremony on Italy's Ligurian coast.

Stewart, 62, and Lancaster, 36, have been together since the break-up of Stewart's second marriage in 1998 and tied the knot in a civil ceremony in a villa with only Lancaster's parents as witnesses.

So he's been with this woman for nine years? Why get married now? You mean to tell me he did play the field at all after his last marriage? Or does he play the field, married or not? I don't know, because I don't read the tabloids.

After the wedding the couple walked from the villa to a nearby restaurant to
see their 19-month-old son, Alastair.

Uh-oh. They did things out of order? But wait a minute... the bride wore white. I'm confused.

From there they strolled on to the harbor where they posed for photographs in a small boat before sailing to Stewart's luxury yacht "The Lady Ann Magee."

The 50-metre (164-foot) yacht is listed on the internet for rent at 170,000 euros ($226,000) a week.

Yeah, uhm, Rod - about that yacht, and other stuff like that. You were smart enough to get a pre-nup, right? I mean, you don't have a very good track record when it comes to marriage, meaning you have either picked the wrong women, have not treated them right, or both. It wouldn't be any of my business, but marriage is a public thing, and something I value, and I hate to see it devalued. And I hate to see guys lose stuff for which they've worked hard because of divorce.

I don't hold out much hope for third marriages, unless the person who has been twice divorced has gone through a lot of personal growth/therapy that makes them better choosers and spouses than they were the previous two times.

"Salary" For Stay-At-Home Mothers?

You may have seen this recent news: “Stay-at-home mother's work worth $138,095 a year”.

If the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year, according to research released on Wednesday.
[snip]
The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother's work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist, it said.

The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime.

As much as I encourage stay-at-home motherhood, this study is a crock.

Why don't we see similar studies for men? Let's say a married father has an office job that he commutes to by driving. In addition to his paid career, he should be compensated for the following jobs:

Driver - He drives himself to work.
Delivery Service - He picks things up and brings them home.
Chauffer - He drives the wife and/or the kids places.
Babysitter - Whenever he watches the kids.
Coach - Whenever he plays sports with the kids, or advises them on playing.
Doorman - He opens doors for the wife and kids.
Valet - Opening the car doors for the wife and kids, parking/getting the car.
Gas Station Attendant - He fuels up the car.
Bellhop - Carrying luggage.
Counselor - Listening to the problems and feelings of his wife and kids.
Personal Bodyguard - Protecting the wife and kids.
Private Investigator - Checking things out at the request of the wife, checking up on the kids.
Pet Handler/Vet - Walking the dog, etc.
Exterminator - Killing and/or removing vermin, spiders, and various insects.
Furniture Mover - You wanted to move the sofa again?
Sanitation Engineer - Takes out the trash.
Dishwashing Machine Operator - If he ever washes the dishes.
Childcare Provider - If he ever feeds, clothes, or changes the diapers of the kids.
Plumber - If he ever fixes or replaces any of the plumbing fixtures in the house.
Laborer - Doing things that do not fall under the other categories.
Gardener - Mowing the lawn, trimming plants, weeding.
Personal Assistant - For the rest of the stuff that doesn't fall under laborer.
Professional Shopper - When he has to go buy stuff for the wife and/or kids.
Escort - You think he really wants to go see that play with you?
Chef/Cook - If he ever cooks.
Bartender - If he ever pours you, your family, or your friends a drink.
Priest - If he ever takes confession from you, is asked to grant absolution or forgiveness, or pray.
Mechanic - Any work he does on the car.
Handyman - Those little repair jobs around the place.
Comedy Writer - When he has to cheer you up and make you laugh because you're depressed yet again.
Accountant - Straightening out the finances.
Financial Advisor - Making investments, and telling you "That's too expensive."
Personal Trainer - "Looks like you need to start working out again, honey."
Wardrobe Consultant - "Yes, that does make you look fat. Why do you ask?"
Computer Operator
Masseuse
Actor - "Yes, I'd love for your mother to stay with us for two weeks."
Lender - "You want how much?"
Dietician - "Honey, don't you think you've eaten enough of those?"
Dancer - Do you really think he wants to dance?

I mean, come on. Stay-at-home mothers have all of these services and things paid for by their husband:

Housing
Utilities/Garbage Disposal/Cable/Phone
Nails/Hair/Beauty Salons, Spa visits
Wardrobe
Gifts
Eating Out, Starbucks
Vehicle
Vehicle Maintenance
Gasoline
Insurance
Furniture
Health Care/Benefits
Appliances
Groceries

And since women have longer life expectancies and tend to marry an older man, she's likely going to be living off of his earnings after he is dead.

Another problem with the study is that although stay-at-home mothers do have a very full and busy lives, they are not doing all of those activities for all of those hours.

Still, in the real world of compensation, you are only worth what you demand. Most stay-at-home-mothers have gladly agreed to provide these services in exchange for being able to stay home and live the lifestyles they do.

Finally, in a community property state, she’s getting at least that much if she is married to a guy who is earning $276,190 per year. So, is this study implying that a man who earns more than that is getting overcharged by his stay-at-home wife? How well with this study do in court if a man who earned, say, $500,000 per year tried to convince a judge that the wife he is divorcing should only be compensated for no more than $138,095 per year?

We should not minimize the importance of stay-at-home-mothers, but nor should we ignore the contributions of sole-provider husbands.

Don't forget - Mothers Day is almost here!

Dear Abby Assumes Almost All Women are Sluts

Let’s check in on Dear Abby, shall we?

Couple’s Views on Sex Don’t Bode Well For Their Future
<

DEAR ABBY: I am a 28-year-old woman and have been dating a 26-year-old man I'll call "Chris" for four months. We have become good friends. On our last date, the topic of sex came up, and Chris told me that he was a virgin and
that it was very important for him to find a girl who had "never been with anyone"
either.

Well, Abby, that bridge was burned when I was a teenager.

That’s when you say “Goodbye.” But noooooo… you had to hope he would change his mind.

I was honest with Chris about it, which was not easy because I now regret some of the poor choices I made at that time of my life. I am a completely different person now due to a religious conversion and am waiting until I am married to have sex again.

I told Chris this, and asked if he wanted to continue the relationship.

He had already given you an answer. You just didn’t want to hear it.

His answer was he'd "have to think about it." We are still friends. He says he likes me and still wants us to date.

Do you really want a man who “changes” his convictions so easily? I can guarantee you this will be an issue down the road.

However, although I care deeply for him, I now feel devalued.

So you are upset because your ego was brought down to reality?

I'm afraid this issue is going to cause problems in the future.

It will. It will. It will. Go find someone who is compatible with you.

I believe that purity is an issue more of the heart than the body. If I had known that virginity was so important to Chris, I would never have dated him in the first place.

Well you know now. Time to move on. Really, are you so repulsive that you can’t find anyone else?

I can't change the past, and I have strong opinions about men who sing "Amazing Grace" in church while insisting on marrying virgins.

That, along with your statement about “more of the heart than the body” is ridiculous. What if a man had a past filled with substance abuse? What if a man had a history of molesting children? What if he had a history of cheating on his girlfriends? What if he had a history of beating his girlfriends? What if he had a bunch of kids running around out there with psycho ex-girlfriends…but his “heart” was “pure”? Would you still marry him? Give me a break. He said he wants to marry a virgin. There’s nothing hypocritical in a Christian believing in grace and still wanting to marry a virgin.

Marriage is a choice, not a necessity, not an obligation. He doesn’t have to marry you. He can hold out for a woman with a certain hair color, a certain weight, a certain body type, a certain height, and a certain sexual history. Same goes for you!

Okay, well let’s see how “Abby” handled this one.

DEAR "DEE": Cross Chris off your list as husband material.

Right! That’s all you need to say.

Your friend may be self-conscious about his lack of experience or his old-fashioned values. It's the old double standard, and even some men who have sown acres of wild oats feel this way.

While most men today have more sophisticated thinking about sex, the one you are dating has his heart set on a "sweet old-fashioned girl."

“Sophisticated”? Is that the euphemism for it now?

If that's what he wants, it's his privilege -- provided he can find one.

He can find one if he tries. Some women save sex for marriage. The trick is finding a woman who was able to do it despite her libido and attractiveness.

Tyra Banks and "So What?"

Ah, the newest nonsense response, right up there with "whatever!" and "Sez who?!?"

It isn't really an answer, just a way to duck an observation, question, or fact.

Tyra and her followers have started this campaign in response to the pressure on women to stay in shape. For example... "I've put on a few pounds. So what???"

Well, that's all fine if you have millions of dollars and can take care of yourself, but many women out there are relying on a "Prince Charming" to come along and rescue them, to pay off their debts and then pay their bills, allowing them to work if they want to or not.

Guess what? Generally, men are attracted to young women who are in shape (usually that means thin) and beautiful. What do men consider beautiful? Look to the mens magazines that appeal to the widest spectrum of male attraction. That's what most men are attracted to - that's why those women are on the covers and in the pictorals.

The better off a man is (in wealth/income level, which people equate with security), the more women want him.

"So what?" Well, this is what... a man who has more women who are willing to date him is more likcly to choose the most attractive women to date. And a man can't fall in love with and marry a woman he doesn't ever date. So, girls, by deciding you don't need to look after yourself, you are going to alienate yourself from the very men who could afford to pay off your debts and pay your bills.

Tyra doesn't need a man to pay her bills, but most of her viewers are hoping for just that sort of man to come into their lives.

So, to those girls that say "So What?" - I say, "So, get ready to work for the rest of your lives to pay your bills." That's what.

What if men took that attitude? What if men said "I don't need a good job or a decent car. I don't need to pay for her dinner. I'm comfortable with myself!!!"

Think about it.

You have to catch a man's eye first before he'll be able to look into your heart.

Feminists Not All That Happy With the World They Created

I came across something that caught my eye.

Radio For Men With a Daddy Complex
Published by Auguste February 14th, 2007

I’m always surprised when I find out that my feminist friends haven’t heard of Tom Leykis. He’s a syndicated talk radio host whose show puts the “lowest common denominator” into “men’s rights activism.”

She says this like that is a bad thing. Oops. Wait a minute. This person is allegedly a guy. Wow.

His show, The Tom Leykis Show, is probably best captured by the description on his web site about a segment called “Leykis 101″:

An unapologetic primer to help men get laid with minimum effort, its “rules” - a retort to the women’s self-help guide - include Never spend a lot of money impressing her on the first date, Stop seeing her if you don’t get laid by the third date, and Never date single mothers…

[SNIP]

On paper, Leykis’ schtick is bad enough - if you look up “patriarchal sense of entitlement” and “othering of women” in the dictionary, you might find the above paragraph.

I don’t think a sense of entitlement has anything to do with it, and certainly not patriarchy, since Leykis is not a father and has made it clear he doesn’t want to be. The truth is, there are women who are willing to have sex with men without any sort of commitment. It is not entitlement - it is what is available, and Leykis is advising men how to find and interact with such women. If you’re not one of those women, then you have nothing to worry about.

As for “othering” - anyone who is not me is someone other than me. Also, men and women are different. Leykis wants something from women he can’t get from himself or other men. They are “other”. He advises men about how not to get used by women who "other" men and want to use them for their money. Again, if you aren't such a woman, you have nothing to worry about.

Now here’s where I’m going to get into difficult-to-prove territory: Leykis doesn’t believe what he says.

It’s an interesting accusation, but it doesn’t address the truth or falsity of what he says. This is an appeal to sincerity, another example of how what matters to Leftists is intention and sympathy, not facts or results.

As time went on, though, he began to develop some of his more patriarchal impulses into bigger segments of the show until it pretty much became four hours of misogyny daily.

He developed a money-making program. As he freely admits, he’s there to make money. What kind of ratings do the Leftist political radio programs get? Very low ratings. Leykis is going for ratings, which are converted into dollars.

And here the Leykis devotees are going to start getting really annoyed with me. “Misogyny?” they’ll be saying. “It’s not misogyny, it’s just telling it like it is. It’s just standing up for men, who are getting the shaft, and all because of feminists!”

No, there are a lot of men who contributed to this situation, too. Men let this happen to them.

All straight out of the MRA handbook, and all essentially quoted from Leykis.

I’m not sure what that MRA is. I’ve tried to find out. Perhaps a reference to the Australian organization? Men’s Rights Activism? If that is the case, why shouldn’t men be able to protect their rights? Has this guy ever peed standing up? If you define “misogyny” as “hatred of women”, one need not hate women to agree with Leykis, if you’re using a secular standard of hate. If you define it as “distrust of women”, well, I get the impression Leykis doesn’t trust anybody, and Leykis is advising men who are having casual sexual encounters not to trust their sex partners - and why should they trust them? The women shouldn’t trust the men, either. This is what happens when people fornicate so casually.

I don’t have much evidence for that other than the way the program metamorphosed as segments became more popular with his listeners, and events like the time a woman called into the show complaining that her boyfriend was becoming more and more violent; Leykis convinced her to leave immediately, essentially speaking the truth about how abusers never stop and only escalate. His siding with men only goes so far.

I’ve never heard him advocate violence. He tells woman AND men not to tolerate abuse. This is not inconsistent with the rest of his philosophy.

The same, however, is generally untrue for his listeners.

Oh come now. You’ve surveyed enough of his millions of listeners?

They do idolize Leykis - they even call him “Dad” - but they wouldn’t need him to be angry at women.

So then you are not placing the blame on him?

At a Portland live broadcast - I wasn’t there, but I tuned in for the local interest and to “watch” the trainwreck - a woman called in with the message that men should start taking responsibility for birth control, that if they don’t want to be “saddled” with kids they should wear a condom - some guy in the crowd could clearly be heard yelling, “Well try keeping your legs closed, then!” (That he wasn’t immediately torn apart by the crowd like hyenas on a gazelle is just another sign that MRA-types aren’t really interested in consensual sex, or they’d spend a lot less time trying to browbeat women into being ashamed of having it.)

Um, first of all, Leykis advocates that men always wear condoms when they fornicate. Secondly, these men do want consensual sex because it is the path of least resistance and the fewest negative consequences. Maybe your experience has been different - and that wouldn't surprise me, but there are some very easy women out there. Finally, they maintain that since it is women who get pregnant and condoms are only so effective, women should use one of the many forms of effective birth control if they are having sex with a man who does not want kids - or they should abstain/move on to another man.

He’s creating an army. Like the right-wing noise machine, he’s presenting easy talking points for the MRAs to utilize when, say, trolling a feminist web site - or elsewhere: There’s a promo running on our local Leykis affiliate which quotes Leykis saying something like “If it was a Men’s Night, with half-priced drinks for men, Gloria Allred would go ballistic.” Sound familiar?

I’m trying hard to find what’s “wrong” about this. Freedom of speech. right? Shouldn’t men avoid getting into relationships they don’t really want to be in? Shouldn’t men stick up for their rights? Shouldn’t men make wise use of their time and money? Shouldn’t men avoid getting women they aren’t married to pregnant? Shouldn’t men fight double standards that hurt them?

Here’s the bottom line.

Tom Leykis is the result you get with the following factors (facts, convictions, and personal preferences):

There is no G-d.

Hedonism - men should do what they want to do (have sex).
-They should not do what they don't want to do.
-Either way, they should use as little of their resources (time, energy, money) as possible to get what they want..
-There is no need for a man to bond with women, and attempting to do so in the workplace can lead to charges of sexual harassment.
-Sexual pleasure is worth the remaining risk of STDs and pregnancy that exists with condom use.
-People should comply with the law - that is almost the extent of morality. This includes abortion being okay because it is legal.
-Leykis 101 is an efficient way for men to get sex without commitment using as few resources as possible.

Men and women are different.
-A woman decides if she's going to have sex with you before money is spent.
-A woman who keeps seeing a man who is a jerk to her has low self-esteem and is therefore likely to have sex with him without commitment. Some women will have readily have sex with jerks but will pretend to be more chaste with a “nice guy” in the hopes that he will commit to her, because he can be better provider than an unreliable jerk.
-Women are more likely to have sex if they have been drinking.

Marriage Offers No Benefit to a Man While Subjecting and Exposing Him to Negatives
-Having a Wife (for girlfriend, or children) places certain demands and restrictions on a man's autonomy, lifestyle, and resources.
-Laws/court rulings, and social customs (women marrying up, not working, high divorce rate) make marriage a contract in which a man agrees to pay a woman if she leaves him, and to pay child support to her children, even if they are not biologically his.
-Men can get the benefits of marriage (sex, companionship, home cooking, a kept home, even children) for “free” or by paying less to a professional without being married.
-Men are attracted to physical beauty, which almost always diminishes with time. Women are attracted to money, power, and fame (which translates to security and confidence), which almost always increases for a man over time.
-Even if true, marriage giving a man longer life and more income isn't worth the other negatives, risks, and loss of personal autonomy.
-Husbands are expected to go without sex whenever their wife is not agreeable to it, while an unmarried man will find it easier and more socially acceptable to seek sex elsewhere.
-Men are almost always the ones arrested in a domestic dispute, and women have attacked and killed men and children and successfully used hormonal defenses in court.

Tom Leykis Doesn't Want Kids

Men should live within their means, including saving for the future. This includes not spending more money than necessary on a date/woman.

Given the needs of children, a woman should not give birth to a child unless she is in a stable marriage to the child's biological father, they both want and have agreed to raise children at that time, they are both suitable parents, and they can afford to raise children and give them the attention they need.

Which one of those do you disagree with? If you want kids, that's fine - does everyone else have to want kids, too? Does everyone else have to want to get married?

If you don't like what Leykis is promoting...
You can listen to something else or nothing at all.
You can (tell women you love to) avoid men like this. Simply “hold out” more than three dates. That should be enough to avoid avid students of Leykis.
You can encourage women to “reward” nice guys and stop rewarding jerks.
You can change the core beliefs of men, such as encouraging a belief in G-d that supersedes their libidos.
There are a lot of things you can do, but whining about Leykis is silly. He is logically consistent given the "facts" I cite above. If you agree with all of those facts, then you can hardly fault Leykis.

Here’s where/why I disagree with Leykis:
I’m convinced there is a G-d.
I want kids, and I want my kids and all kids raised in the best possible environment (marriage).
I believe marriage was created by G-d.
I believe marriage can be good for a man.
I believe fornication is an affront to the holiness of G-d and is damaging to the soul and spirit of man.
I’m convinced that it is wrong to kill human beings even if they haven’t been born yet.

But just because other men disagree with me and will not lead the same lifestyle I think is best doesn’t mean I think they should be getting into relationships they don’t want or for which they aren’t prepared, should be doing things they don’t want to do, should be spending their time and money on high-maintenance women when all the guys really want is sex, or should be conceiving children they don’t want.

Either a woman should be put on a pedestal or she shouldn’t. Women demanding postfeminist rights, freedoms, entitlements, protections, privileges, independence, and lack of traditional obligations and moral restrictions for themselves while demanding financial support, chivalrous manners, and fidelity from men is what has prompted the rise of people like Leykis.

Traditional women can still find a traditional man who will treat them "right", no matter how popular Leykis gets.

Christian Research Institute - My Response to Their Latest Fundraising Letter

Let me preface my comments by saying that the Christian Research Institute - in the past - helped educate me, helped me to clear a lot of bad thinking from my head, and helped me to avoid some serious pitfalls. I was introduced to some great authors and ministries through CRI.

It has been a while now since I have let my monthly support for CRI’s “The Bible Answer Man” radio program lapse, as my credit card expired and I didn’t give CRI the information for the new one. However, I still get mailers from the Christian Research Institute. These kinds of mailers are standard for charitable, religious, and political organizations... you send them money once and they will spend more than your donation sending you pleas for more money for years to come.

This mailing contains a basic survey, probably to gage what topics are important to the people who will donate the most money – if the surveys will be examined at all.

I’m guessing I will be more likely to get my opinion to someone in a prominent place in the organization if I write it here than if I send back the mailer - at least that has been my experience with other organizations. That’s why I’m writing this.

Now, you can’t be an organization like CRI, or have a program like “The Bible Answer Man”, or a host like CRI President Hank Hanegraaff without all kinds of controversy. First of all, they ask for donations, and there are always people who are leery of that and people who hate anything Christian. Hanegraaff was also accused of misleading donors about a postal mix-up in order to get them to donate more. And then there are people who identify as Christian who condemn anyone who doesn’t adhere to their exact form of Christianity in every minute detail and likewise condemn anyone who doesn’t, and thus they hate CRI. There are the cults, organizations, and personalities that CRI exposes as teaching things counter to the essentials of the Christian faith, or having harmful practices - you can be certain they yell about CRI. There are Roman Catholics who think the Protestant ministry is too anti-Catholic, and Protestants who think that it isn’t anti-Catholic enough. There are people who disagree with how CRI is run, or the tactics and practices of Hanegraaff.

Organizations that are built from the ground-up around a dynamic founder, especially innovative ones, always are the subject of controversy once that founder is gone. It never fails, whether they are churches, businesses, nonprofits… whatever. Someone will always say they are drifting from their original mission, values, and methods, and others will always point out that change must come with changing times and needs, and there are a whole bunch of people somewhere in the middle of it all. CRI was founded by Walter Martin, who certainly was a dynamic personality, and has been headed by Hanegraaff since Martin’s death. Walter Martin’s familial heirs have since expressed their concerns about Hanegraaff, but other than influencing supporter opinion, they don’t have the ability to remove Hanegraaff.

I’ve read criticisms of “The Bible Answer Man” radio program that have focused on what the show isn’t. Those critics want the show to be a more detailed, extensive Bible study. That’s like criticizing paramedics because they don’t treat cancer. There is a place for programs that give some basic answers to questions people have about the Bible, and what the Bible does and does not teach.

For the most part, I’m not writing this to focus on those controversies and criticisms (despite all of the space I have used up writing about them). For most of them, I have no way of even knowing if they are true. Rather, I want to let CRI know what would motivate me to start supporting them again.

I first caught on to “The Bible Answer Man” (and thus, CRI) in 1990 or 1991 when I caught the show on KKLA, running in the 3 p.m. hour. (I had found KKLA through the late Wally George, of all people, who once had a political talk show on the station.) Friday shows were tapes of the late Walter Martin, who had passed away in 1989, lecturing on topics like The Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses), Mormonism, Christian Scientists, the New Age movement, the Occult, Atheism, Mary, and more. I had never heard anything like it. Here was this guy exposing the methods and mistakes of the leaders of pseudo-Christian cults, contrasting false teachings with what the Bible actually teaches, and defining and defending the essential doctrines of the Christian faith in a logical, linear, researched way.

The shows Monday through Thursday consisted mainly of people like Ron Rhodes, Paul Carden, Ken Samples, and Elliot Miller taking calls. I liked the explanations regarding Christian doctrine and practice and what was orthodox and what wasn’t, and the exposing of heresy and fluff masquerading as Christianity on too many TV shows and in too many books. I liked the warnings about cults and the tips for witnessing to people in cults – they were helpful. I liked the defense of the Bible from attacks by atheists and the like.

It was still good when Hanegraaff took over hosting duties most of the time, especially when he’d play audio clips of these bizarre-but-popular televangelists making their outrageous statements, as it was good to hear with my own ears where these people were making serious errors. Christianity in Crisis, Counterfeit Revival, and the countering of “millennial madness” and the Jesus Seminar were all very helpful for me.

Now, I don’t listen much. Why? Los Angeles radio, on the stations that are still broadcasting in English, has a lot competing for my attention at 3 p.m., and if I can listen to the radio, I prefer to listen to something that is teaching me something and keeping me informed. Over the last few years, it seems like whenever I check in on “The Bible Answer Man”, it is Hanegraaff talking with someone selling a book, DVD, album, or software in what amounts to an infomercial without much useful, practical information other than “buy this resource.” If it is a program where Hank is taking calls, there seems to be little practical information given out – usually it is “I wrote a book that addresses this – I’ll send it to you.” Everyone else can call the toll-free number or go on to the website to order it.

To be sure- the last time I checked out their magazine – the Christian Research Journal - it was chock full of great information and in-depth analysis. But I can listen to the radio at times I can’t read… like, oh, when I’m driving, and I stopped getting the Journal when I let my monthly payments to CRI lapse. I wasn’t motivated to go resubscribe to the Journal because I wasn’t lacking in reading material or mail to go through.

Also, I’m not criticizing Hanegraaff for putting out books where he sees a need. For example, even though there seemed like an endless number of other books exposing the “factual” elements of The Da Vinci Code as fictional or erroneous; it was good for Hanegraaff to offer another because he does have a way of making things clear and memorable for the average person. In fact, he was accused of wrongly using CRI resources to promote his memory-building business and himself - he is good enough at making things memorable to have had a business around it. While I do not know if such accusations were true, I do know my own perceptions. Over the years, many of the prominent authors and experts that used to be on staff at CRI either left or were pushed out. Does CRI even distribute any books written by staffers other than Hanegraaff anymore? Ron Rhodes, for example, has authored many great books over the years, but he’s long been gone from CRI. My perception is that CRI has become mainly a bookstore that also publishes a great magazine, and a radio infomercial for promoting the books that bookstore sells, especially the books of Hank Hanegraaff. Again, I have bought many of Hanegraaff’s books, and I have found them extremely helpful, but where are the days of having the kind of people on staff who could also write books?

CRI’s store used to be one of the only places I could find a good collection of books that weren’t sandwiched between nonsense from Benny Hinn and Bob Larson, but since then, online book buying has brought an unlimited selection to my fingertips at low prices, and since CRI moved across the country, I can’t physically go to their store anyway. If I'm going to order a book online, I might as well do it elsewhere, unless CRI has a special deal.

Maybe the lack of authors on staff and a (perceived) diminishing of primary research is the inevitable result of an innovative organization “growing up.” When CRI first took off, there was nothing else like it out there. However, as people leave the organization to start their own and as others are inspired to form similar ministries, it became inefficient for CRI to keep that in-house. Perhaps CRI is more efficient as a conduit for the movement it spawned? Still, I’d think there would be something to be said for having a large, integrated organization doing primary research with various specialists on staff, instead of only having a loosely-connected group of smaller ministries contributing material. The website has some good information (especially the articles from the Journal), but there are many websites out there I find more helpful and timely when I’m looking for answers and research.

I’m an outsider – so maybe I just don’t have a clue.

But I was a donor, and I’m willing to be one again if I like what I see – which gets me back to the reason I’m writing this in the first place. There are probably other people like me, too.

The mailer CRI sent said “Please indicate how interested you are in learning more about each of the following topics.” So, here goes…

The creation/evolution debate
I’m extremely interested. However, other organizations specialize in this, so CRI’s role should be examining/explaining the work of those different organizations, such as the Discovery Institute, Reasons to Believe, and the “young earth” folks like Answers in Genesis.

The Intelligent Design movement
See above.

Mormonism
I’m extremely interested. With a major Presidential candidate being a Mormon, this is very timely.

Jehovah’s Witnesses
Extremely interested.

Scientology
Quite interested, due to the front groups and celebrities it uses.

The cults in general
Quite interested. I don’t have the impression that they are as big of a problem as they used to be – maybe because I’m not being informed.

Islam
Extremely interested. What is more relevant right now?

The Prosperity Gospel and other false Christian teachings
Quite interested. These people make Christians look bad and draw many astray.

Spiritual warfare against satanic/demonic forces at work in this world
Mildly interested. Let’s face it – if we focus on Him, we need not focus on the enemy.

“Scholarly” attacks on the Bible or Jesus by secular “experts,” such as The Gospel of Judas
Quite interested. We need to continue to show that Christianity embraces good scholarship and can be defended from such attacks.

Popular attacks on our faith in books and movies, such as The Da Vinci Code
Extremely interested. Our society is obsessed with pop culture.

Attacks on biblical Christianity in the mainstream media
Extremely interested. See above.

Human cloning and embryonic stem-cell research
Mildly interested. Other organizations are doing a great job on this one.

Abortion
Mildly interested. Other organizations are doing a great job on this one.

Homosexuality and same-sex “marriage”
Mildly interested. Other organizations are doing a great job on this one.

How to raise children who will stand firm in their faith
Mildly interested. Other organizations are doing a great job on this one.

How to read the Bible for all it’s worth
Not interested, if it means more infomercials.

End times biblical prophecy
Mildly interested. Explain the difference between the various constructs while keeping alarmists and newspaper prophets in check. Do not focus on only Hank's conclusions on the matter, though they are good to hear.

How to share your faith
Quite interested, but you can cover this by having Greg Koukl on the program frequently.

Personal spiritual growth
Mildly interested. Other organizations are doing a great job on this one.

Other
Mildly interested in discussion about “paranormal” and occult topics that are so popular today – expose the bogus and potentially demonic.

Quite interested in countering “liberal” church stances (universalism, extreme pacifism, acceptance of fornication) that go against clear Biblical teaching.


What I’d really like to see is CRI get back to extensively researching churches, cults, and religious movements; helping callers and thus listeners by explaining the very real differences between other belief systems and Christianity, and defending the Bible, debunking false teachings and perceptions, and investigating claimed phenomenon.

Maybe Hank will get bored talking in depth about the same topics over and over, but there are new listeners all of the time who need this kind of help, and Hank can avoid boredom by having other authors on-staff who can host the program.

Get a blog going on your website that covers the topics raised in the radio program, and news of what is going on in media, churches, religious movements, and cults. Bring on an established blogger if need be.

End the desperate pleas for money. Really. Fundraising is needed, of course, but there is a tone to take here. I had a pastor who mocked appeals that hinted a ministry was on the brink of shutting down with “Good – maybe it’s not serving a purpose anymore.” CRI isn’t nearly that bad in their appeals, but they do tend to make it look like getting money in by June 30 and December 31 each and every year is going to save the ministry from drastic cutbacks. You know, if I don’t eat, I’ll starve! Technically, it is true. But guess what? It’s going to take a long time of not eating for me to starve to death. I could stand to skip a few meals.

I’ll be more likely to resume supporting CRI if I see it being more than a bookstore with its own magazine. As I wrote at the start of this post - CRI has helped me a lot over the years. Hank has done some great work. People who expect Hank to be perfect are asking too much. They have a great magazine. I want to support CRI. Please restore my motivation.

PLEASE SEE MY UPDATE POSTED ON 12/29/2011