The Political Thing
by Denise Sawicki on August 14, 2006

The political thing I hinted at in my first blog entry is over for now. The signatures have been safely delivered to Bismarck. Anyway, here it is, the North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative, at http://ndspi.org. I'm intentionally not putting a direct link. I have to confess I was worried. After all this talk of car bombs and shootings and government roadblocks as possible measures that could be taken to keep this thing from getting on the ballot, I was truly scared that something would happen. My husband and his brother were along for the ride to deliver the signatures, and no, a helicopter did not descend from the sky to block their progress. (Though a helicopter *did* in fact land on the road in front of me on my way to Darrell's family's 4th of July party, for reasons I do not know). I couldn't go on the trip to Bismarck, as I have a regular job. Anyway there are two things I can't really understand about this thing: 1. Why it is considered so controversial, and 2. Why so much of the responsibility for getting it on the ballot has fallen on Darrell and Darrin (and me, if only in a monetary sense). We don't have any children. There are so many men with children who want custody who could have helped more. Oh well. Now we just have to wait and see if it does in fact get on the ballot. There are 17,000 signatures and we only need 13,000, so it should, but you never know.
Men's rights is a pretty touchy subject to a lot of people. Perhaps I'm seen as a traitor to womankind because I don't see the problem with almost anything that people like Warren Farrell are saying. I've never felt oppressed. If anything I'm somewhat embarrassed by the fact that my university felt the need to offer me special summer jobs because I was a "woman or minority" in a scientific field. I could go on, but I've already said more political and controversial things than I really am comfortable with. Sorry to be so scatterbrained.
Two Replies to The Political Thing
Denise Sawicki | August 17, 2006
No, it would default to joint custody only if 1. Both parents want custody and 2. Both parents are deemed fit
Prayer for the Paranoid
Denise Sawicki posts whatever she feels able to post without serious consequences Read more »

Nostalgia from TV shows
We're watching some high school shows lately, notably Freaks and Geeks, which I love, also My So-Called Life which I hesitate to admit I find hard to get into... Anyway Freaks and Geeks sure makes me jealous of the friendships those characters had in high school. Nobody would ever make a show about my high school experience. Go »
D&D update
The guys made it to 4th level and then we added 2 new characters. We had a dragonborn warlord and an elf ranger, at 4th level we added an eladrin wizard and a dwarf fighter. Darrell is playing the fighter and warlord, Darrin has the ranger (though he's not exactly into the game so we're lucky if we're able to call him to the table to actually make his dice rolls) and I got the wizard even though I'm DM :-P. Go »
American Gothic
Well, for quite a while I have had nothing to say to anyone about anything and it is getting a bit claustrophobic. So I figured I should start saying some things into the void, dumb and trivial as they might be. A while back there was a video store closing sale so we picked up a number of TV series on DVD at 75% off. Go »
Vacation
Well I requested some time off work until January 3rd... For the price of 4 vacation days I get 11 days off. We're going to go visit my husband's older brother in Wisconsin around New Years... Go »
Lost Things
Darrin's sheet and pillowcase disappeared some time back, and I just discovered my nice black pants are missing. I almost always wear jeans so I have no idea how long they have been gone. We searched thoroughly for these items and the only theory we can come up with is that Darrin's ex-girlfriend took them. Go »
Jackie Mason | August 17, 2006
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