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Karen Shrader has not seen her children since April 1997, when she stopped by Lindsay Park in Tyler on a cool day to watch Nicholas and Allison play in a soccer tournament.
Shrader, a tall, broad-shouldered woman with long, straight brown hair, hadn't been at the park more than an hour when a neatly dressed gentleman walked up and served her with a protective order. Signed by Judge Ruth Blake, of the 321st District Court in Smith County, the order prohibited Shrader from venturing within 100 yards of her children, who have lived in Tyler with Shrader's ex-husband, Steven Spain, since August 1995.
Shrader was no stranger to Blake's courtroom. In September 1996 the judge found her guilty of violating the final custody decree and, at Spain's request, suspended Shrader's visitation with Nicholas and Allison and limited her contact with the children to a half-hour phone conversation every other day.
The protective order demanded that Shrader again appear in court, this time to answer allegations by Spain that she had "staked out" his house and "disrupted and molested the peace" of the children at their weekend soccer games. Citing "a clear and present danger of family violence," Spain wanted Shrader jailed for "emotional abuse" of the children. On October 17, 1997, after four days of hearings, Blake sentenced Shrader to 90 days in the Smith County Jail and barred her from seeing or speaking with Nicholas and Allison until further notice from the court.
"I don't know what it will take to melt your heart about where the kids are and what it's going to take to accept the necessary steps to get you-all back together," Blake told Shrader from the bench. "That has been my goal. But under the present circumstances, you're further away than you were a year ago, and that in itself is tragic."
Karen Shrader would never find it easy to "melt" her heart and accept the sentence Blake had just imposed. Were that the case, she would have accepted what happened in February 1995 in Kaufman County, when a judge ignored the conclusions of his own experts and ordered Shrader to surrender primary custody of her children to their father.
Since then Shrader has been angry, stubborn and, at times, impossibly high-minded. The hostility she feels for her ex-husband has been difficult to contain at times and, coupled with a willingness to say exactly what's on her mind, has frustrated even her attorneys. Indeed, Shrader might have been better off checking her attitude at the courthouse door, where her lack of regard for the legal system wouldn't seem so obvious.
Refusing to accept the decisions of a court of law is a losing proposition, and in a child custody case, the losses tend to pile up. Shrader, who lives in Kemp, about an hour west of Tyler on Cedar Creek Lake, southeast of Dallas, has been found in contempt of court so many times that she has served not one but two stints in the Smith County Jail. She is currently free, pending an appeal, after receiving a third, ten-day sentence in January. Burdened with high child-support payments and enormous unpaid legal bills, most of which are owed to her ex-husband's lawyer, Shrader filed for bankruptcy in December 1998.
The comforts of self-righteousness may, in fact, be the only thing keeping Karen Shrader in the court system and sane. Many people in her position, out of control with fear and anxiety, have chosen to disappear with their children into some underground railroad for dispossessed parents; or, driven completely beyond the brink, to commit a violent crime of passion.
While Shrader clearly considers herself a victim, she's not very good at the role. She's unusually didactic when discussing the case, focusing on legal details. She doesn't talk about the emotional toll exacted by the loss of her children without prompting. Even then, she resists the invitation to become overly sentimental.
But Shrader refuses to succumb to pathos, because no matter what the three judges who have presided over her seven-year custody dispute with Steve Spain might think, she believes she has been unjustly denied the love and companionship of her children for the last three years.
"I absolutely wouldn't do anything different," she says. "I think it's unfortunate that there are people in powerful positions who don't do what's right. I'm not a fanatically religious person. But God isn't going to reward these people."
The 25 file folders that comprise the official record ofIN THE INTEREST OF ALLISON BROOKS SHRADER-SPAIN and NICHOLAS ANDERSON SHRADER-SPAIN
are stored in a ground-floor office in the Smith County Courthouse in Tyler: thousands of sheets of paper, scores of pleadings, dozens of rulings that document the consequences of one woman's failure to accept the loss of her children.
Or do they?
As Judge Carol Clark, who replaced Blake on the 321st District Court bench in January 1999, remarked a year ago, "This case is one of the most complicated, convoluted I've ever tried to sort out."
Maybe one day Nicholas and Allison Shrader-Spain, now 11 and 15 years old respectively, will want to find out for themselves why they were taken away from their mother in 1995 and why, two years later, she had all but disappeared from their lives. Because they have not seen or spoken with their mother for so long, the children might expect the facts that have accrued in their "interest" to speak clearly to the menace Karen Shrader represents to their well-being.
Then again, bright as they are, Nicholas and Allison may look at the record and see this long, nasty affair as Karen Shrader sees it: As Steve Spain's relentless effort to so completely destroy their mother that she might never be entitled to spend another minute with her children.
Since Shrader filed for divorce, in October 1993, Spain has used the legal system to ruin his ex-wife's credibility and attack her character at every turn. Described by the original divorce court judge in the case as having a "classic passive-aggressive personality," Spain has repeatedly dragged Shrader into court on allegations that her visits and phone calls were harming the children's physical and emotional health. More often than not, his accusations were largely uncorroborated.
Not that Spain needed any witnesses. To an almost disturbing degree, the courts, particularly the 321st District Court in Smith County, have accommodated Spain's calculated effort to take away Shrader's parental rights.
A Tyler family physician who remarried into a local clan of above-average standing, Spain has been allowed to testify as his own expert witness on two key issues: Shrader's earning capacity as a physician in tiny Gun Barrel City, south of Kemp, and his children's mental health. In August 1996 Spain told Ruth Blake that Shrader should be earning at least $120,000 a year. Without getting a second opinion, Blake ruled that Shrader, who was taking in about $90,000, was "intentionally underemployed" and increased her monthly $900 child support to $1,500.
Seven months later Spain came before Blake again, complaining that Shrader had failed to reimburse him for the children's medical expenses. Blake accepted an accounting assembled on a computer in Spain's lawyer's office, and, ignoring the fact that Shrader wasn't even in the courtroom to defend herself, Blake raised her monthly payments to $2,700.
Whether or not Nicholas and Allison have, as their father maintains, suffered from Shrader's alleged conduct is unknown. They have never been allowed to testify, either in court or via closed-circuit television. In seven years the presiding judge has interviewed them just once, back in September 1996. Ruth Blake forbade even Karen Shrader from reviewing the transcript of that conversation.
At his ex-wife's bankruptcy hearing in January, Spain, a family physician who earns $195,000 a year, testified that his legal assault on Shrader has cost him roughly $500,000. To the extent that his deep pockets have secured his perceived right to raise Nicholas and Allison without any undue influence from their mother, it has been money well spent.
Spain did not respond to oral and written requests for an interview. Nor did his attorney, Jerry Bain. Bain did, however, leave a voice-mail message saying that he often receives calls from reporters wanting to know more about the case. Bain said he has never failed to suggest they come to Tyler and look at the court record.
That record begins in Kaufman County in October 1993. At a temporary custody hearing where the children were allowed to remain with their mother, the judge, Glen Ashworth, proclaimed both parents "pretty good people." By February 1996, when the case was transferred to Smith County, Ashworth was disgusted by what he had witnessed and was more than happy to wash his hands of the entire affair.
"I wish there was some way I could impress upon you the tragedy of where we're going with this," the judge said at one hearing. "[T]hese will probably be the only children that you will have, and, you know, what you build with them in this conduct you're going to have to pay for later."
In Texas, like everywhere else, there is a strong presumption in the courts that children of divorce deserve the love of both parents to the extent that it's available. Restricting or even severing the rights of a parent to foster a relationship with his or her child is not unprecedented. But, because the stakes are so high, for parent and child, it's a decision that is rarely made without careful consideration.
Eighteen months ago, in Hood County, Texas, a woman named Schwana Patterson was sentenced to 23 years in prison for committing the crime of "injury to a child by omission." Patterson's ex-boyfriend had kidnapped and killed her 11-year-old daughter, Sarah, for which he received the death penalty.
Patterson was convicted largely on an account given by her son, Cody, who testified that his mother told him she'd heard Sarah screaming in terror, but had done nothing to help her. Eventually a state district court judge made two decisions about Cody's future: First he granted custody of the boy to his father. Then he authorized Cody to visit his mother six times a year at the Gatesville prison unit.
Karen Shrader has never been convicted of a crime, or even arrested. She has never been the subject of an investigation by Children's Protective Services and has not been diagnosed with a mental disorder.
In June 1998, more than a year after Shrader saw her kids for the last time at Lindsay Park, a Tyler psychologist appointed by Ruth Blake to evaluate Shrader sent the judge these observations: "She impresses me that she loves her children and wants what's best for her children," the psychologist, Tynus McNeel, wrote in a letter to Blake. "I found no evidence that Karen Shrader would likely present an unduly negative or harmful influence to her children at this time. In summary, I would recommend to the court that Karen Shrader be allowed to have visitation rights."
McNeel offered almost identical courtroom testimony in June 1999. He also suggested that the things Karen Shrader has been accused of doing by her ex-husband -- if, in fact, Spain's accusations were true -- are hardly out of the ordinary for a mother deprived of any meaningful contact with her children.
Karen Shrader is not infallible. But perhaps her biggest mistake, or at least the one that has had the harshest consequences, was made the day she agreed to marry Steve Spain.
At the time, 1979, they were both med-school students at the University of Texas in Houston. Shrader was born in Houston and raised in Pasadena. Her father, a doctor, died the summer before she entered third grade. Her mother remarried a cattle rancher from Nacogdoches 20 years ago. Shrader was a rough-and-tumble kid -- she had four brothers -- and a solid student. Though she had a sharp tongue that annoyed her mother, Shrader was never much trouble.
Spain was born in Bishop, California, and reared in Houston, where his mother, a former schoolteacher, still lives. According to a "social study" submitted to the divorce judge in 1994, Spain was a somewhat rebellious teenager who smoked pot and drank a little. But for the most part he toed a proper line. Spain's parents were married for 47 years (his father died in 1989), but he and his siblings have been much less successful in that arena. Spain's sister has been married three times; a brother in Australia is twice divorced.
Spain was, in fact, already married when he met Shrader in 1978. After his divorce, they moved in together. They were married December 22, 1979. Spain and Shrader graduated from medical school in 1982, did their one-year residencies in Waco, then moved to set up a family practice together in the Cedar Creek Lake area.
Though they had spent most of their lives in and around Houston, Spain and Shrader adapted easily to life in a rural East Texas town. They joined a church, fostered their business -- they opened a second clinic in 1985 -- and started a family: Allison was born March 29, 1985; Nicholas came along May 20, 1988.
How such seemingly solid unions begin to collapse is anyone's guess. Speculation based on courtroom testimony probably wouldn't help much. Is Spain's belief that Shrader was surly, unhappy and demanding any more reliable than Shrader's insistence that Spain was an emotionally detached mope who occasionally spoke of suicide? In divorce court parents say a lot of things about each other as they fight over assets, who gets the kids and under what circumstances those kids will be raised.
Spain set the tone that rings loudly today when he testified at the temporary custody hearing in October 1993 that, after 13 years of marriage, he had come to the conclusion his wife was a lesbian.
As evidence, Spain told a story about seeing his wife hug a woman friend. There was an argument, the woman threw a drink at Spain, and when he grabbed her arm, she tore his shirt. Depending on whom you believe, the woman either instigated the fight by taunting Spain, or Spain started it by asking her to get her "fat lesbian ass" out of his house. Spain testified that he was "nauseated" by what he saw. He left the house and went to his office, where he injected himself with a sedative and spent the night asleep in a chair.
Spain also produced a picture of Shrader sitting on the lap of a childhood chum, as well as a short stack of letters she wrote to a friend whose mother was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. Written over the course of a year, the intimate letters were filled with Shrader's frustrations with the woman's emotional distance. But there was nothing in the letters to suggest the two women had ever had a physical relationship.
Spain also didn't have much concrete evidence a year later, when, in an obvious effort to put his wife in the hot seat just weeks before the divorce trial, he filed a contempt-of-court motion against Shrader. He accused her of trying to run him down with her car, of violating the judge's orders by drinking beer in front of the children, of entering his rental house in Tyler to purloin family photographs. He also whined to the judge that Shrader had cursed him in a hallway outside his lawyer's office and made him wait an hour when he arrived to pick up Nicholas for a scheduled visit. Ashworth threw out Spain's motion.
If Spain's pretrial strategy reeked of a certain desperation, he was prepared to damn the consequences once it began. Among the exhibits he produced at the divorce trial, in February 1995, were a handful of candid photographs of Nicholas wearing a dress. Forget the fact that it's not unusual for boys of a certain age to play dress-up. (Nicholas was seven years old at the time of the trial; he appears to be about two in the photographs.) In many cases, Spain had been the one holding the camera.
In his testimony, Spain went on at considerable length about what he believed was Nicholas's "gender-identity disorder," a potentially serious condition that pretty much speaks for itself. Cross-dressing is only one of several behavioral traits that psychologists look for when making a GID diagnosis.
Nicholas, who by his parents' divorce trial hadn't slipped into his older sister's clothes for some time, may or may not have been suffering from the disorder. His therapist, Alexandria Doyle, testified that she suspected the boy had a mild form of GID, but noted that Nicholas "knows he's a boy and wants to remain a boy." Mark Otis, the court-appointed psychologist, testified that he didn't think Nicholas's behavior fit the criteria spelled out in the scientific literature.
Nonetheless, Spain's attorney, Jerry Bain, rode the issue of little Nicholas's future sexual identity for all it was worth: Won't he grow up to be gay? Or a transvestite? Or a transsexual? And the attorney's questions to Doyle were clearly designed to focus attention on Shrader and, as Spain put it, her "sexual confusion."
"If Nicholas were exposed to individuals with homosexual lifestyles and he already has a tendency toward becoming homosexual, would that be bad?
"Wouldn't it be bad, or not in the best interest for the child who is prone toward homosexuality or becoming a transvestite or transsexual, to be around people that live that alternative lifestyle?
"Historically, most of the moms of GID children have emotional or mental problems, don't they?"
Spain also appeared distressed about his son's habit of playing with dolls, which, like the GID, he blamed on his wife's poor parenting skills. But his credibility faded a bit when he admitted on cross-examination that he had purchased a doll for Nicholas as recently as September 1993, a month before Shrader filed for divorce.
Though Spain criticized her for being "in denial," Shrader maintains that Nicholas's behavior was simply a phase he had largely grown out of by the time she filed for divorce. It angers her that Spain so thoughtlessly exploited her son's early-childhood quirks for his own purposes.
"Steve wanted both of these kids to be labeled with some kind of mental disorder," Shrader says, "so he could blame it on me."
Certainly Shrader's own behavior contributed to the "increased fighting and vindictiveness" between the parents, noted Nancy Stark, a licensed professional counselor who conducted a court-ordered social study of the family. Stark testified that Shrader had "screwed up," for example, when she stubbornly turned down Spain's requests for some extra time with his children. Yet Stark disagreed with Spain's contention that Shrader had engaged in "parental alienation syndrome."
"Part of this just happens in divorce," Stark said. "I mean, I have seen worse behavior."
After a week of testimony that was often scurrilous, the 11-person jury -- one woman was booted for hugging Shrader during a break -- agreed on a joint-custody arrangement. The decision on where the kids would live was left to Ashworth. The judge's experts, Stark and Otis, as well as Doyle, the children's therapist, all reached the same conclusion: Nicholas and Allison should remain in Kemp with their mother.
"I'm not saying that their dad cannot parent them," Stark testified. "But it just doesn't make sense, when we have a mother here who these kids want to live with and have a community and friends and schools and therapists and we have a life for them, why they should be punished and moved out of that."
Why Glen Ashworth ignored the expert advice other judges routinely rely upon is difficult to determine. When testimony about Shrader's alleged sexual preferences first arose, his sensibilities didn't seem particularly offended, and in fact the judge urged Spain's attorney to focus on "the real stuff." And his stated belief that Spain was more willing to cooperate in a joint-custody arrangement was hardly supported by the testimony, or by the judge's earlier comments about both parents' petty behavior.
Whatever the reason, Ashworth made the decision to award primary custody of Nicholas and Allison to Spain. The judge then suggested the two parents meet with their children together, and let them know that moving to Tyler at the end of the summer wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Shrader left the courtroom in a state of shock. By the time she got home to Nicholas and Allison, Shrader found that Spain had already been there and gone.
"I don't know how many people can understand the feeling of having a five-year-old boy sit in your lap and say, 'Well, Mom, that means we won't get to see you that much anymore,' " Shrader recalls of that day. "I don't have the words to describe it. You just can't get there from here."
Ashworth also ignored one other very important point of view: that of Rebecca Calabria, the children's court-appointed attorney. As the attorney ad litem, Calabria was Nicholas and Allison's only voice at the trial. Like the judge's other experts, she urged Ashworth to consider the strong bond between the children and their mother and to let Nicholas and Allison remain in Kemp with Shrader. When the judge ignored that recommendation, Calabria fairly vibrated with indignation.
"My clients articulated to me, not jabbered to me, but articulated to me, thoughtfully, that they wanted to live with their mother," Calabria told Ashworth, her voice rising. "They told me that on two occasions."
Perhaps another mother might have accepted Glen Ashworth's decision and learned to live with the kind of disagreements that crop up in a joint-custody arrangement. Maybe, given some time, even someone as proud and headstrong as Karen Shrader could have, for the future's sake, forgiven her ex-husband for dragging her through the muck in their divorce trial.
But perhaps another father wouldn't have been so anxious to perpetuate the damage that had already been done.
In December 1995, barely four months after Nicholas and Allison moved to Tyler, Spain sought a temporary restraining order to restrict Shrader's visitation with her children to a supervised setting. He accused Shrader of defying the judge's custody decree, which ordered both parents to help Nicholas and Allison make a "smooth transition" to their new lives in Tyler.
Spain's evidence was less than compelling. In fact, Ashworth dismissed the case. But the hearing revealed how Spain was willing to sacrifice his children's interests to satisfy his own.
One of the major considerations in moving the children to Tyler was finding a new therapist for Nicholas. Alexandria Doyle had testified at the divorce trial that gender-identity disorder was still a relatively new diagnosis; few therapists had the experience to effectively treat it, she had said. Despite objections from Shrader's lawyers, Ashworth appointed Charles Fries, a Tyler psychologist.
Fries hadn't been treating Nicholas and Allison for long when he was called by Spain to be a witness at the December 1995 contempt hearing. Obviously uncomfortable, Fries refused to make any recommendation on whether Nicholas would be harmed by continued visits with his mother. Fries also protested Spain's demand for the clinical notes he had taken during Nicholas's sessions. Because Spain was the child's "custody parent," however, the therapist had no choice but to produce the notes and testify about their contents.
By the end of the hearing, Fries so resented the position he'd been placed in that he asked Ashworth to relieve him as Nicholas's psychologist.
He was right to do so. According to the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists' Rules of Practice, "A licensee specifically avoids accepting both appointment for evaluation and therapeutic intervention in the same case. A licensee provides services in one but not both capacities in the same case."
Forcing Charles Fries to resign his court-appointed duties may have been Spain's whole purpose of having the therapist testify. After all, Fries obviously did not support Spain's position that the children's contact with their mother should be restricted. He testified that the supervised visitation that Spain was requesting was reserved for extreme cases, such as when allegations of abuse have arisen.
The therapist also reported that Nicholas wanted to move back to Kemp to live with his mother. Finally Fries agreed with Shrader's attorney that Spain's desire to continue fighting his ex-wife in court might be hurting the children. After the turmoil of the divorce trial, Nicholas and Allison wanted their parents to cool it for a while, Fries said.
Unfortunately the children have yet to get their wish. In February 1996 the case was transferred from Kaufman to Tyler, the Smith County seat and home of the 321st District Court. The change of venue put the courthouse practically in Spain's backyard, from which the legal assault on his ex-wife could more easily be pursued.
Karen Shrader has been fighting Steve Spain in Smith County for four years now. Each time she has appeared in the 321st District Court, her right to see and speak with her children has been further eroded. Whenever she believes the situation can't get much worse, something happens to prove her wrong.
In May 1996, three months after the case was transferred, Nicholas and Allison spent the weekend with their mother in Kemp. Shrader says she and Spain had an oral agreement that because summer vacation had started, the children could spend the following week with her. But three days before she was scheduled to return Nicholas and Allison, Shrader was served with a writ of habeas corpus, signed by Blake, ordering her to produce the children. That, of course, was grounds for Spain to file another contempt-of-court charge against Shrader.
"He didn't have to do that," Shrader says. "The kids had talked to their dad, and it was okay. I had talked to their dad, and it was okay. Suddenly, it wasn't okay. It was my fault because I didn't get something in writing."
The contempt charge was heard over the course of several weeks in August and September 1996. Spain testified that Shrader had failed to return the children by the court-appointed hour on numerous occasions, dating as far back as March 1996. Spain's new wife, Jill, also testified, as did his mother, Marilyn, that Shrader's behavior upset and embarrassed the children.
Considering the lack of specifics and the decidedly subjective nature of the testimony offered by Spain and his witnesses, Blake's decision to suspend Shrader's visits with Nicholas and Allison seems unusually harsh. Blake also ordered Shrader to undergo a psychological evaluation, which the judge would consider at a review hearing set for December 12, 90 days away. Blake ordered Donna O'Shea, the children's court-appointed attorney, to find a psychologist and set up an appointment for Shrader.
Shrader left the courtroom stunned by what she maintains was the "de facto termination" of her parental rights. Still, Blake had promised her a review hearing, and Shrader was convinced that no psychologist would consider her a threat to her children.
A few days after the September hearing, Shrader's attorney, Sam George, phoned O'Shea to find out about the evaluation. It hadn't been set up yet, he was told. A few days later, George called O'Shea again, and again was told no appointment had been made. This went on for three months, until the date of the hearing rolled around and Shrader still hadn't had her much-needed evaluation.
Nonetheless, on December 12, Shrader drove the 60 miles from Kemp to Tyler for her review hearing, only to discover that no one had bothered to tell her it had been cancelled. According to the clerk's docket, the hearing was not held because Spain's attorney, Jerry Bain, was ill that day. Shrader believes it was cancelled because Donna O'Shea never bothered to set up the psychological evaluation.
"We bugged her to death," Shrader says. "We were like, 'We're ready, let's get the ball rolling.' After hearing what the psychologist had to say, the judge could have changed everything she did back in September."
Shrader had distrusted O'Shea from the moment Blake appointed her, on July 11, 1996, to represent the interests of Nicholas and Allison. The ad litem's first piece of business was not, as one might expect, to meet Nicholas and Allison. Instead, according to billing exhibits she submitted to the court, O'Shea held a 15-minute telephone conference with Spain's attorney four days after her appointment. The following day, July 17, O'Shea met with Spain himself for an hour, then spent another two hours reviewing letters and documents that Spain had given her.
On July 18 Shrader filed the first of several motions seeking to have O'Shea removed as the attorney ad litem. Blake denied that first motion, as well as the others.
According to court records, O'Shea didn't actually meet with Nicholas and Allison until nearly three weeks after her appointment. O'Shea had already made two court appearances by then, raising the question of whose interests she was serving, since she hadn't yet spoken with her clients.
The records also show that O'Shea met with Jill Spain on at least four occasions, met or spoke with Steve Spain five times and talked with Jerry Bain four times. Meanwhile, between the date she was appointed and the August and September 1996 hearings, O'Shea did not conduct a single face-to-face meeting or telephone conversation with Shrader.
Indeed, O'Shea's statements to Blake at those hearings suggested that while the ad litem knew the children wanted to be with their mother, Shrader should undergo a psychological evaluation to make sure Nicholas and Allison were in no danger. That evaluation never happened, of course. According to the billing exhibits, in the 90 days before the December 12 review hearing, O'Shea spent a grand total of two hours conducting "telephone conferences with various psychologists regarding Karen Shrader's testing."
Shrader was infuriated with O'Shea for failing to set up the evaluation that might have resulted in having her visitation reinstated. The day of the cancelled review hearing, Shrader dashed off an ill-advised letter, threatening to sue O'Shea. For obvious reasons, it's not prudent to antagonize the attorney ad litem. The parent who gets crosswise with an ad litem might find that the children's best interests are suddenly more closely aligned with the other parent.
Shrader already suspected that O'Shea was representing Spain's interests more than those of Nicholas and Allison. Indeed, O'Shea's contention that the children needed "relief" from the emotional trauma of dealing with their mother isn't supported by the available evidence.
When Blake reduced Shrader's contact with the children to a few phone calls a week, the judge ordered Spain to tape-record the conversations. Transcripts of about two dozen of those conversations, between September 1996 and January 1997, show that Shrader's children enjoyed a close, easy relationship with their mother. They spoke of missing Shrader, as well as their grandparents. Contrary to what Spain had often said in court, even passing references to the court proceedings were rare.
But if Shrader felt betrayed by her children's attorney, her letter to O'Shea backfired in a big way. O'Shea retaliated by asking Blake to order Shrader to pay all ad litem fees from that date forward. Calling Shrader "the bad actor in this case," O'Shea argued that "it is simply not fair" that Spain be punished financially for Shrader's "conduct" by continuing to pay half her fees.
The letter to O'Shea also ended up damaging Shrader's relationship with her attorney, Sam George of Tyler. On December 13, 1996, George told Shrader he was withdrawing from the case.
"Karen, you are your own worst enemy," George wrote in a brief letter to Shrader. "Not only have you failed to follow my advice, but you have more or less launched your own crusade to seek justice, which has hurt your case immeasurably."
Steve Spain didn't wait long after Sam George's withdrawal to take advantage of his ex-wife's legal vulnerability. Indeed, it's doubtful that even if Shrader had enjoyed the benefit of counsel, she could have prevented what happened in January and February 1997, when a flurry of motions, hearings and rulings were entered that ultimately led to the jail sentence imposed by Ruth Blake later that year.
Shrader had decided to fight fire with fire by filing two motions for contempt against Spain for allegedly thwarting her attempts to contact the children by phone. Blake never bothered to hear those motions. On January 23 she did, however, consider Spain's request for "emergency" termination of Shrader's telephone contact with Nicholas and Allison. Blake chose not to halt the phone calls, but reduced Shrader's conversations with the children to 20 minutes, twice a week.
Then something unusual happened. The following evening, January 24, Shrader called to talk to her children and was told by Jill Spain that another ruling had been made, cutting off her phone contact. It turns out that earlier that day Donna O'Shea had gone before a different judge to get a temporary restraining order suspending all telephone contact between Shrader and her children.
While the ad litem certainly had the authority to do whatever she deemed necessary in the children's interests, O'Shea didn't have anything more to go on than Blake had the day before. Moreover, O'Shea didn't bother to investigate Spain's allegations by interviewing Shrader or the kids, but simply repeated Spain's complaint to Blake that Shrader's conduct constituted "emotional abuse" of Nicholas and Allison.
Blake agreed to hear O'Shea's motion, as well as yet more accusations by Spain that Shrader had violated the judge's earlier orders, at 2 p.m. on February 27. Shrader, who still had no lawyer, showed up at the appointed hour to find neither Spain and his attorney nor the judge in the courtroom. She says Blake's clerk told her the hearing had been postponed until 3 p.m. Shrader says that shortly after 3 p.m. the clerk told her Blake was tied up in juvenile court. At three-thirty Shrader left the courthouse to keep an appointment with a Tyler attorney who was considering taking her case.
According to court records, Blake finally convened the hearing at three-fifty, nearly two hours late. Blake could have chosen to acknowledge the confusion caused by unexpected delay in the start of the hearing and reset the proceeding for a day when the accused was in the courtroom. Instead, Blake heard testimony from Steve Spain and Donna O'Shea, as well as a complaint by Spain that Shrader had failed to reimburse him for some of the children's medical expenses.
Because Shrader wasn't present, Spain's testimony that Shrader had failed to pay her share of the children's medical bills went unchallenged. He told the judge that on three occasions he sent Shrader invoices for the expenses, but she never responded.
Yet for some reason Spain didn't produce those letters or, for that matter, the invoices. His exhibits consisted of several charts he had generated on his home computer that allegedly showed Shrader's failure to reimburse him for $344.50 in medical expenses. He also presented a letter, dated that day, demanding an additional $1,835 from Shrader for expenses she hadn't even been told about.
Given the one-sided testimony, the paltry and undocumented amount of unreimbursed expenses, as well as the fact that Spain hadn't informed Shrader of her share of most of the medical bills, Blake might have shown some restraint in punishing Shrader. But of all the punitive measures at her disposal, the judge chose the harshest: She terminated all visitation and phone contact with the children; she issued a warrant for Shrader's arrest for failing to appear; she ordered Shrader to pay Spain $1,437 for unreimbursed expenses; and, to cover future medical expenses, as well as some unpaid ad litem fees, the judge increased Shrader's child support to $2,700 a month.
Moreover, when Shrader turned herself in on the arrest warrant, Blake threatened to jail her unless she paid a $10,000 cash bond -- bail more in line with an accused murderer than a woman who allegedly telephoned her kids too much. Shrader borrowed the money from her mother to maintain her freedom.
By this time, in the eyes of the court Karen Shrader was what's called a "repeat contemnor," someone who habitually fails to obey a judge's orders. Her ex-husband had also planted a few seeds of doubt about Shrader's mental stability. That was clearly the point Spain wanted to reinforce when he had a protective order served on his ex-wife in April 1997, claiming she had "molested and disturbed the peace" of Nicholas and Allison by showing up at their soccer games.
Shrader has not seen or spoken with her children since that day, nor has she made any attempt to do so. But the worst of her legal tribulations was yet to come.
Hearings on Spain's motion for contempt against Shrader for the alleged incidents at Lindsay Field began in June 1997. After two days, however, Ruth Blake fell ill, and the proceedings did not resume until four months later.
Once again, it was Steve Spain's word against Karen Shrader's, and Shrader hauled too much baggage into the courtroom to have much credibility with Blake. Spain told Blake that after one particular visit to the field by Shrader, Allison developed an upset stomach and Nicholas wet his bed. Because Spain is a physician, Blake hardly expected him to produce any proof -- medical bills, for instance -- that his children had been sick that evening.
Spain also testified that his ex-wife had caused a scene at the field. Presumably there were scores of other parents and spectators there that day, but Spain could not produce a single witness to corroborate his story. In fact, his testimony was challenged by the wife of the soccer coach, who had seen nothing resembling what Spain described.
Spain's last bit of evidence was a video that purported to capture Shrader's "inappropriate behavior" at the field one Saturday afternoon. But even that was inconclusive -- or at least it was when seen alongside Shrader's photographs of a smiling Nicholas and Allison hugging their mother and grandmother that same day.
When testimony ended, Blake deliberated all of about ten minutes before finding Shrader guilty of family violence and sentencing her to 90 days in the Smith County Jail.
Shrader was allowed to serve the first half of her sentence on work release, meaning she showed up at jail on Friday evening and was released Sunday night. At one point Shrader attempted to have her sentence shortened for good behavior. Blake apparently signed a document excusing her from jail for a weekend. In fact, that document is part of the court record.
However, at a hearing sought by Spain to challenge Shrader's early release, Blake acknowledged that the signature on the document was clearly hers, but said she couldn't recall excusing Shrader that particular weekend. The judge revoked Shrader's work release and ordered her to serve the remainder of her sentence 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the Smith County Jail.
While in jail, Shrader received a rare piece of good news: The 12th Court of Appeals reversed Blake's April 1997 order that increased Shrader's child support payments to $2,700 a month. The higher court ruled that child support cannot be increased for the purpose of paying attorney's fees and sent the matter back to the 321st District Court for a rehearing.
The court of appeals' ruling should have lowered Shrader's child support to $1,500 and offered her some relief from the heavy financial burden Blake had imposed upon her. She certainly needed it. By the time Shrader was released from the Smith County Jail in April 1998, she had been forced to resign her $90,000-a-year job with the Medical Arts Clinic in Gun Barrel City.
After her release, Shrader borrowed $12,000 from some friends to start up her own practice. She also filed a motion asking Blake to rehear the child support issue, per the appeals court's instructions. Blake never set a date for the rehearing. By November 1998 Shrader was still obligated to pay $2,700 a month and had fallen about $2,500 behind in child support. Spain, of course, filed a motion for contempt for nonpayment of child support.
Broke and unable to get a rehearing on her child support obligations, Shrader had little choice but to file for personal bankruptcy protection. She listed more than $700,000 in unpaid debts, including $125,000 to Spain's attorney, Jerry Bain; another $68,000 to her divorce lawyer, George Adams; $10,000 to two other attorneys involved in the case on her behalf; and $25,000 in fees to her children's therapist.
In January 1999 Blake retired without rehearing the child support issue. When Blake's replacement, Carol Clark, heard Spain's motion for nonpayment of child support in April 1999, the new judge was so confused she made an incomprehensible ruling. Clark realized that Shrader's child support needed to revert back to $1,500 per month, but she didn't take into consideration that based on the appeals court's ruling, Shrader had actually been paying $600 a month more than she was legally obligated to since April 1997.
Moreover, those many months of overpayments were reflected in the court's child support registry, which showed Shrader was all paid up. But, just as Blake had done, Clark ignored the registry and found Shrader in contempt for failing to make three $1,500 payments. The judge's convoluted logic was reflected in her final order: Though Clark's decision should have meant Shrader was $4,500 in arrears, the judge's order found her only $1,480 behind -- for which Shrader was sentenced to another 30 days in jail.
When contacted, Clark pointed out that the case was ongoing and refused to comment, saying only that she had ruled on the evidence she heard. Shrader believes Clark was totally baffled by the details of the case, and therefore relied on Steve Spain and Jerry Bain to show her the way.
"It was a completely stupid decision, and completely punitive," Shrader says. "They wanted 30 days in jail, and she found a way to give it to them."
In April 1999 Steve Spain testified twice about what his ex-wife ought to pay in child support, first at a deposition, then three days later at trial. At deposition, Spain calculated that providing for Nicholas and Allison cost him about $1,700 a month. At trial, that figure rose to $2,350.
"How could you be so wrong?" Shrader's attorney asked.
"Well, my wife wasn't there at the deposition," Spain said, adding that Jill Spain had "laughed" when he related how he told Shrader's attorney that he spent $85 a month on clothes for the children. That figure was actually more like $700 a month, Spain said at trial.
"Well," he explained, "you buy a pair of shoes, it's $125."
It's perhaps commendable that Spain would like his children to be as well-heeled as possible. But he probably wouldn't need as much child support from Shrader if he hadn't pursued her so relentlessly in court. When Jerry Bain testified about the attorney's fees his client has paid him, the lawyer suggested that Spain had been feeding him like a slot machine.
"Dr. Spain has owed me at times as much as $100,000 because he simply couldn't keep paying me as rapidly as the fees were being expended," Bain said.
Spain has also got his money's worth from the children's therapists, Gail Burress, the licensed professional counselor who sees Allison, and Steven Westmoreland, a psychologist who treats Nicholas. At the April 1999 hearings, they both testified extensively about the details of their sessions with Allison and Nicholas. Burress hesitated to make any recommendation on whether Allison should see her mother, though she suggested the girl might be better served by supervised visits with Shrader.
Westmoreland testified that Nicholas was likely to suffer a relapse of his gender-identity disorder if he spent time with his mother. Westmoreland, who acknowledged that he doesn't treat Nicholas for GID, testified that Nicholas was at an age when he would be testing his mother's authority. If Shrader "beat down" her son's effort to be more assertive, he said, the boy would likely take a job below his station in life or, maybe, become a homosexual.
"You're serious, aren't you?" Shrader's attorney asked incredulously.
He was, and based largely on the therapist's testimony, Carol Clark refused to reverse Ruth Blake's earlier decision and to let Shrader have any contact with her children.
Shrader made her latest appeal to Clark in January. Spain had once again hauled his ex-wife to court, this time in an attempt to squeeze about $14,000 in back child support from Shrader.
By January, Shrader could no longer afford her attorney, who hadn't been paid in some time. She produced an income statement for 1999 that showed she earned less than $19,000 last year, a salary that won't even cover the $1,500 a month in child support she's still required to pay. Shrader asked Carol Clark to declare her indigent and to appoint an attorney to represent her. The judge refused.
"Dr. Shrader, I don't understand why you don't follow the rules," Clark said, sounding a lot like Ruth Blake back in October 1997. "Your life would be so much easier if you would. My life would be so much easier if you would. But my job is my job, and I'm going to do my job."
When Shrader addressed Clark, she tried to impress upon the judge that she hadn't even tried to see her children since the spring of 1997, though she's sorely been tempted to try. She suggested that perhaps following the rules -- "accepting," as it were -- wasn't really what Steve Spain, or the court, wanted from her.
"People who commit heinous crimes get to see their children, and I've not contacted mine solely at [Spain's] discretion," Shrader said. "He could let me call. He could let them call my mother and stepfather or their aunts and uncles and cousins that haven't seen them in three years. But he hides behind the law saying, 'Well, the judge won't let you do that.' "
Unfazed, Clark sentenced Shrader to another ten days in the Smith County Jail.
Shrader is free, pending an appeal. She is also waiting for the 12th Court of Appeals to rule on her motion seeking a rehearing on the visitation and phone contact that was suspended in October 1996 and April 1997, respectively. If those appeals fail, she says, she'll take her case to the Texas Supreme Court. Shrader and some of her patients have also asked the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct to look into what they are calling an abuse of discretion by the judges in the 321st District Court.
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Meanwhile, Shrader's sole contact with her children consists of four letters a year to them, which are screened by Burress and Westmoreland. Recently, however, Shrader learned that Allison had yet to receive the letter Shrader mailed January 15. It seems that Allison hasn't been to her therapist in some time: She's recovering from knee surgery.
Shrader didn't know that. Then again, there are a lot of things Karen Shrader doesn't know about the children she supports financially, yet is unable to see or speak with. Allison Shrader-Spain is a young woman now, doing young woman things: dating, going to dances and proms, learning to drive. Nicholas is on the verge of becoming a teenager, and is undergoing all the radical changes that entails. Shrader knows that the past recedes quickly in the minds of the young. Nothing brings it back.
"There is a part of me," Shrader says, "that I don't think will ever be okay with this."
E-mail Brian Wallstin at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Henry Josey's Road to Recovery
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COLUMBIA - Henry Josey returned to the field for the first time in nearly two years last night.
"No one has any idea what he's gone through and all the work he's gone through. And all the determination. And what a story," Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel said.
Entering the Texas game in 2011, Josey led the Big 12 in rushing. But he suffered a triple tear of his ACL, MCL and patellar tendon, which ended his season.
"Once I got upfield, the guy pulled me back from behind and I fell back on my knee, which crushed everything else," Henry Josey said.
"I kept looking at him and saw that he was not getting up. That's when I knew that it was pretty serious," Missouri runnings back coach Brian Jones said.
"Everything didn't really hit me until I went in the locker room. Seeing that my knee cap was on the inside of my leg, it was crazy. A feeling that I couldn't explain," Josey said.
"It was the worst injury that we've ever seen," Missouri trainer Rex Sharp said.
When asked if he thought he would play again, Josey said "That was the least of my worries. I just wanted to walk again," Josey said.
"We were never going to say that you would not come back from this injury," Sharp said.
"He knew it was bad and I told him we got a lot of work to do," Missouri team physician Patrick Smith said. "Hey, I'll do all I can to put you back together and you do your part and we'll see where things play out."
"I had to learn a great deal of patience and just find the strength to get up every day and do it all over again. I would cry every day. It was just really tough on me just getting through it," Josey said.
"I find myself asking why me and I wasn't myself at all. I didn't know who I was in one moment."
"Henry everyday was what can I do, what can I do more and that's the kind of attitude you need," Sharp said.
"I just had all kind of people showing up, coming to the hospital. I had letters coming in every day. Just a lot of motivation from everyone," Josey said.
Including his two-year-old son Henry Jr.
"He was probably my biggest motivation. You look at him. He's looking at you. You just can't be down around him. He's picking me up. I mean I had to rely on his spirit to pick me up and keep me going because I'm his example in life," Josey said.
After 17 months of rehab, Josey returned to the field in April for the first time.
"I always thought I felt 100% but I had to test things out. Once I got into Spring, that's when I really got the chance to see who I was as a football player. At that moment then, that's when I started feeling better. I was like okay I'm back to what I can do now," Josey said.
"He's already succeeded in my eyes no matter what he does on the field this year but I'm expecting big things," Missouri wide receiver L'Damian Washington said. "I'm expecting like an Adrian Peterson kind of year."
Then came this past Saturday's game against Murray State - 658 days after his injury.
"That first time he carries the football in a game, that's going to be a special moment for all of us," Sharp said.
His first run was a 12-yard gain on the 3rd play of the game.
"Just running back out there with my teammates. That was probably the happiest moment ever," Josey said.
Then, in the 4th quarter, Josey scored on a 68-yard touchdown run and was embraced by teammates.
"I looked up and thanked god. I was pretty much screaming. I hope he heard me," Josey said.
"For him to come back from that kind of injury and really be how he is now and that attitude and everything, it's really cool and it's really picked a lot of the team up," Missouri quarterback James Franklin said.
"To believe in yourself, to have faith, to persevere, to work hard, I mean there's so many positive things you can take from this. That anyone can take from this. And that just sort've speaks to who he is as a person," Jones said.
After the game, Coach Pinkel awarded Josey the game ball - the first time Pinkel has given a single player the game ball in his entire coaching career.


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A Visit to the de Young Art Museum in San Francisco to see the King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Phoraohs Exhibit
October 2, 2009 in Ancient Egypt, Death & Dying, Notes on Spirit Communication, Random Notes, Uncategorized | Tags: Akhentaten, Ancient, art, artifacts, channeling, charles, Charles Peden, coffin, communication, communicator, de Young, death, Egypt, gold, grave, King Tut, King Tutankhamun, medium, mummy, museum, peden, Pharaoh, psychic, reading, San Francisco, spirit, telepathic, tomb | Leave a comment
Recently my eldest daughters charter school embarked on a field trip to the de Young Art Museum to view the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibit. Having at various points in my life had an interest in ancient Egypt, I was looking forward to viewing some of the best known artifacts from that time period. It has been thirty years since the last time the exhibit came to San Francisco and though Tutankhamun's death mask was no longer traveling outside of Egypt, this show promised to be bigger than the last time around. I missed the first one, partly because I was only five at the time and we lived in Oregon, no where near San Francisco.
The last time that I really had an interest in ancient Egypt, was when I read an article about ancient Egypt in National Geographic and in the article they mentioned Queen Hatshepsut. Later … about six weeks after reading the article I was visited by a spirit who claimed to be a mummy, a female at that. When she visited I felt like a tooth had been removed from my jaw. Later the same week that she had stopped by, I found an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the discovery of a box bearing Queen Hatshepsut's cartouche and how Queen Hatshepsut's mummy was positively identified through the locating of a tooth that was in a box bearing her cartouche. The tooth fit a hole in the jaw of a mummy that was found in one of the tombs and led researchers to believe that the mummy in question was not a "wet" nurse, but rather a queen, Queen Hatshepsut.
Now with the opportunity to view some of the artifacts found within the tombs which were over 3,000 years old, I felt much anticipation. The morning of our trip we left for San Francisco much earlier than we normally would. Traffic due to the new "S" section of the Bay Bridge being installed recently was backed up nearly twice as far as normal. Fortunately we were able to use the carpool lanes and we sped by a several mile long parking lot.
After crossing into San Francisco we drove up Fell St. and entered Golden Gate Park. We drove over to the de Young Museum and after dropping off the family at the entrance, I continued on to John F. Kennedy drive and located on street parking. As I was walking towards the de Young Museum I saw glass on the curb where several vehicles in a row had been vandalized and most likely robbed. For a second I worried about returning to our vehicle to find our windows bashed out, then realized that the threat, for the time being … was gone.
The morning was foggy and somewhat cool, yet short sleeves were in order. We met up with our field trip group and picked up our tickets at 10:00 AM. Now we had our tickets which were for the 12:00 viewing time. As we were in the city and at the de Young Museum with two hours to kill until we could cue up for the Tut Exhibit, there was only one thing to do, view the other exhibits.
Our tickets granted us entrance into the other exhibits and we began on the upper floors where we found paintings, African art, head hunter trophies, yes real human skulls, creepy but not as scary as one would think. There were several interesting exhibits and I really enjoyed some of the glass art on the first floor as well as a model cathedral made from guns and bullets.
We cued up for the Tut Exhibit and regrettably noticed that though we had been allowed to take photos though out the rest of the museum, that this exhibit was off limits to photography, in fact we could not even sketch a 90 second image of any of the artifacts if we wanted to, it was off limits. As we lined up we bumped into other groups of individuals who were either here on their own or with a tour group. It was a very jovial and friendly atmosphere in the cue and behind us on a flat screen TV on the wall was a video playing footage of King Tut's mummy. They showed several different views and discussed images found in x-rays and CAT scans of the mummy.
Up until this point I had not picked up much on a psychic level regarding our reason for being here. Once we were cued up downstairs where the video showing Tut's mummy was playing, things began to shift for me. Earlier I had told Heidi, (my wife) that I was concerned that the spirits of the dead who were interned in the tombs that these artifacts came from may not be too happy about being "disturbed". I really did not know what to expect and while waiting in line I felt several spirits hanging around but did not pursue it further as they seemed to be waiting until the right moment to connect with me.
Then it was time to enter the exhibit … well kind of, we entered a darkened room where another video was played for us. In front of us and below the flat screen TV on the wall was a set of double wooden doors. They had "mood" lighting with "black" lights on the ceiling and little "torch" lighting on the walls. As the crowd entered the room and everyone became quiet, a docent informed us to turn off our cell phones and reminded us that we could not take photos or sketch anything. The lights were dimmed and the video played. It was about Howard Carters discovery of the undisturbed tomb of King Tut.
As I stood there in the near dark … so close to all of the artifacts that had sat in a tomb for over 3,000 years it began. I felt a rush of energy and a jolt went through me. I picked up on a tremendous amount of angst in connection with the exhibition. It seemed that the spirit I was connected to was jealous with King Tut and that he was unhappy with him. The spirit felt that King Tut was not deserving of all of the attention and adoration he was receiving. He felt as though he was being shortchanged and that King Tut had not earned his present fame and that people should be honoring him and not Tut. Who could this spirit be? It was none other than King Tut's father, Amenhotep.
Amenhotep had changed the way that ancient Egyptians worshiped. He attempted to make it so that Amun, the sun god, was the most important of all gods. He moved the capitol city of Egypt to reflect the religious changes that he had made. Then he made other change, he decided that Amun was not important and that Aten was the only true god. He then changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaten to reflect the changes in religion. By moving the capitol of Egypt, he disrupted the trade routes and that caused economic chaos. Overall Akhenaten was not very well liked, in fact there are several reasons why he could be upset with his son who would become King Tut.
After the death of Akhenaten, his son who was only nine years old at the time became king. After Tutankhamun became king, he set about undoing all the work that his father had done. He re-established the old religions with the multiple gods, he restored the capitol city to it's original location and made made every effort to erase the record of his father from the land. Akhenaten was so disliked that he was not given a "proper" burial and much of the gold and goods that had been set aside for him was never buried with him.
When King Tutankhamun died at age eighteen, it was unexpected and sudden. His arrangements for the afterlife had not yet been readied properly. His passing also left a power vacuum at the helm of Egypt which was a problem unto itself. Since King Tut had no sons, there was no heir apparent to the thrown. His wife asked the ruler of a neighboring land whom they were at war with to offer her a son in marriage and that would serve to build an alliance between the two warring countries, the foreign ruler however was not interested in her offer.
There were two other individuals who had a shot at the crown, one was the leader of the armies, he was of course away … leading the armies into battle. That left one adviser back at home with a fretful Queen who was reaching out to their enemy for help. This story has all the trappings of a soap opera… So, from what I understand, King Tut was not mummified properly.
When King Tut's mummy was examined, it was discovered that it had an unusually high amount of decay for a mummy from the 18th Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Though well wrapped, the preservation of the body itself appeared to be rushed. There was also an unusually large cut to the abdomen which was not traditional. The bones of the mummy have been damaged postmortem with rough handling yet is can be noted that he had injured a leg. This is supported by the number of walking sticks he had in his collection as well as from some images showing him with a staff.
I believe that King Tut was injured while on a hunting excursion and that he had an infection set in which killed him, I kept getting a sense of gangrene with high fever and blood poisoning. This would perhaps have killed him fairly quickly and would have resulted in his body already "going bad" before embalming had started, especially if they were a distance from a location where proper embalming could take place when he died.
Regardless, the possible successor to the thrown who was at home, had a short window to bury him and to take on the role of king himself. He had to bury him before the leader of the military came back since he had a bit more of a claim to the title than himself. Whatever the reasons, it is clear upon examining many of the artifacts that were buried with King Tut, that they were never intended for him. It seems that much of the gold and artifacts were actually intended for his father, while others were obviously made for King Tut. Essentially King Tuts successor attempted to remove nearly all references to King Tut and his father … in part to close that chapter of history and to secure his own claim to the thrown.
Pharaohs who followed Tutankhamun did not even bother to record or list his fathers time on the thrown. Tuts father was so despised that it was not until some of his artifacts came to light thousands of years after his death, that historians and archeologists even became aware of his existence. So … as I was walking through the exhibit I could feel Akhenaten's anger and jealously. Even after all these years, he was still unhappy about how everything went down. And now to add insult to injury, his son who destroyed everything that he had worked for, was the one being honored, along with many of the artifacts that were originally intended for him … ouch.
Back to the exhibit, as I went through the exhibit I was struck by how little respect there was for the deceased. Granted, they no longer need the body or the artifacts, but … they were buried in good faith, and then had their graves plundered. There eviscerated bodies are unwrapped, photographed, filmed and subject to various x-rays and CAT scans with the results being displayed for all to see. (Their medical records are not private.)
During the pharaohs lifetime, their own people viewed them as vibrant flesh and blood humans with "god like" qualities. They were honored and respected, granted there were grave robbers though out the centuries, but at least they did not "pimp out" the remains as we have done. Now the pharaohs are being viewed by a whole new generation of people and when we envision them in our minds, we frequently flash on the images of their mummies and not what they looked like in flesh and blood. When we think of someone, we send them energy, and when we think of them as a dried out husk of a human body … like a mummy, they in turn see that as being who they are to us. This is not pleasant, think of all the money we spend on wrinkle cream alone in this day and age to stave off the effects of age upon our delicate skin. Now imagine everyone remembering you as a mummy … get the picture.
In my humble opinion, if we had to disturb them, the least we could have done, is not paraded around their eviscerated bodies and put them on display to the public. Imagine if after three years she passed, I went and dug up your grandmother. Then took the keepsakes you interned with her and set up a traveling display where I charged the public to view her remains … or even just photos of her remains as well as displaying all the objects you had put into her coffin with her. I am sure that I would be arrested for something and that most would be repulsed. However … add a few thousand years and, what! now it's okay? Where do you draw the line? 10 years, 25, 100, 400? you get the idea. Remember that time is a physical construct and does not apply as we know it to those who have passed. So the mummies are not happy about being disturbed.
Wondering the exhibit I came to a stop in front of a gold gilded coffin. This coffin belonged to a female who came prior to King Tut. As my youngest daughter and I gazed at it, it suddenly came to me. I began to feel and see as well as smell another time and place. I could hear workers toiling away and suddenly it dawned on me, the craftsmen who had created these wonderful works of art were proud of their work. Over three thousand years ago when the tombs were sealed, they felt sorrow that their works of art and expert craftsmanship would be forever lost to the world, yet here they were on display. I think that when it comes right down to it, they got the best end of the deal, no old soap operas brought to light and rehashed. No images of them as mummies and though they may have lived in relative obscurity and continue to do so, there is a special calm and charm to that as well. In the end, the common man has prevailed.
In my opinion, it would be best to return the mummies to their tombs, as has been done with many of them and they should be resealed with a guard presence maintained to dissuade looters and vandals. The artifacts … well "Pandoras Box" has been open, so you are not going to be able to remove them entirely from public view … but at the very least they could be kept in Egypt on display so as to increase tourism and to restore some of Egyptian peoples treasures to their rightful place, Egypt. But, since it is on tour and here in San Francisco through March 20th of 2010 at the de Young Museum, you might as well go, but don't expect to see King Tut's death mask, coffins, sarcophagus or mummy.
Click here to learn more about Charles Peden psychic medium and animal communicator.


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Greetings, Programs! Room 6A on Friday morning was treated to an in-depth and detailed look at the upcoming episodes of TRON: Uprising, one of my favorite animated shows on television right now. If you loved the look and feel of TRON: Legacy, this show definitely has you covered. However, for those that really wanted the mythology of Tron explored, this show fits that bill as well. The show picks up not long before Legacy and tells the story of Tron's first renegade alliance with a fellow program. For fans, we were treated to a sneak peek at an excellent episode that will showcase how Tron got his distinctive scar and how he eventually turned bad. Hit the jump for a full panel recap.
Moderating the panel was a sweaty but enthusiastic Josh Dickey, the film editor for Variety. He started the panel off by simply gushing on the TRON property and how he saw the original at 10 years old and it blew his mind. He loves this melding of man and machine, and how it isn't that far off. Josh then introduced the entire panel, starting with creator and showrunner Charlie Bean, producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, actor Elijah Wood (Beck), Bruce Boxleitner (Tron), Tricia Helfer (The Grid), art designer Alberto Nielgo and lead character designer Rob Valley. We were then treated to a sizzle reel bringing fans up to speed and showing some of the best moments. I really think they did this to show off the awesome visuals and music, which was rocking the whole room.
- Legacy just wasn't enough time to fully explore all they wanted, but they really feel like this is the whole shebang and they are having a blast exploring the entire Grid.
- Josh jokingly asks Elijah Wood if he has plans on completing the geek trifecta by joining Star Trek as well after Tron and Lord of the Rings. Elijah admits that he's a nerd at heart, and that this is a lot of fun. He also added that while he hadn't seen the original film because he was too young when it release, he had played the game and definitely was familiar with the franchise and the world. Then when Legacy came out he had to see it.
- Dickey asks what it was like for Bruce to be sitting on set with Bridges, smoking cigarettes and being on set. How everything has been like to see it evolve. "Cigarettes? Really? With The Dude? You think he smokes cigarettes," joked Bruce. He then revealed that it was 30 years ago last week when Tron first came out.
- "We didn't know what we were doing when we were doing it," says Boxleitner about the original film. He added, "Everyone thinks we did it on a computer and it just came out of a toaster." Instead, each frame was hand painted overseas.
- In 1982, they were actually exempt from the Oscars because. "They claimed we cheated by using a computer," said Boxleitner.
- Dickey jokes with Tricia Helfer about her work on the show; "You're the voice of a whole entire world. What's your method? What's your motivation?" She mentions how she was never a real fan of the films originally. She asks what the fans are called. "Tron-ys?" "I've heard 'Brograms'," added Dickey. "Well, trannies are a whole other thing," quipped Boxleitner.
- She then adds that their goal was this always pleasant voice. Sort of like a mix between Siri and On*Star voice.
- When asked about the combination of technologically smooth and yet elements of tactile feel in the art, Nielgo mentioned that it all came about because of the way he learned to paint professionally. He used to dabble on a surface, but he really learned his art in a 100% digital format. He didn't want it to look acrylic or like water colors, but instead digital.
- Next Rob Valley explained his process for the development of the character models. He mentions he wanted them to look otherworldly, and to be interracial. No real defining characteristics that we can relate to. He adds that it isn't really politically correct. Kitsis says that in the original works, that's exactly the aesthetic they were going for.
- Dickey prodded Kitsis about the possibility of seeing Beck in a third TRON film. Kitsis revealed that they are currently developing a sequel to TRON: Legacy.
- We were then treated to a sneak peak at a two-part episodes named "Scar" that will air in a few weeks. Charlie Bean teased that this was the first time we really see a connection to Legacy and how Tron turned into Rinzler.
- We are shown an orange and black cloaked figure that isn't recognizable. Is it Rinzler? No, too soon. He is on a mission directly from Clu. We see a huge ship head towards Tron's island base. A warning screen pops up and we see a name: DYSON. Who is that? A flashback shows that Dyson is the one that betrayed Tron. The one that actually gave him his scar and weakened him. We are shown some battles and see Tron truly angry. He is going after Dyson with all he can, and we see the scar start to expand across Tron's face. His voice and demeanor has become scary, and we see Beck try and stop Tron from going after Dyson so much. Tron defeats Beck easily, and we see him really transform. The footage looks fantastic and even better than one could hope. Looks like it is going really dark and upping the scale.
The panel ended with a lively Q&A in which they took a few questions and then raffled off signed light discs.
- Why the proportions of the characters? "There's a tendency of making a cartoon from a film to make things cute and scrunched up. But we needed to be taken seriously," says Bean. He added that this has a lot more detail than standard animation and that Rob and Alberto were his first two calls when coming up with how he wanted the show to look.
- Potential for more merchandising, asks a fan. He adds that the TRON: Legacy toys were fantastic. "We do it all for the toys," joked Kitsis.
To catch up on all of our Comic-Con 2012 coverage, click here.


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As Winds and Seasons Change
is the story of a woman who overcomes traumas and heartbreaks, but something precious is missing. It sleeps in her purse....until she is plagued with Alzheimer.
Of interest to us is general and specific genealogical information about our French-Canadian (QUÉBEC in particular) and Franco-American ancestors. I hope to post pertinent info here on a regular basis as my research progresses. Details concerning genetic anomalies and hereditary diseases found among French-Canadians and their descendants would be welcome. Your input, corrections and comments are most welcome.


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New Crocodile Conservation Project in Mexico
The work at our Coastal Conservation Project in Mexico has always been varied, combining work with several species of endangered sea turtles and wildlife studies of birds, mammals and reptiles found in the area.
However, we can now add Crocodile Conservation as another vital aspect of our Mexico Conservation Program.
Our Conservation Manager, Oliver Garcia tells us about the new work.
'Whilst all the activities are running well this year on our Conservation Program, we are particularly excited about the successful start of our Crocodile Project at the Crocodile Farm "La Colorada".
Located in a large lagoon called Lacuzahue just 20 minutes away from our head quarters at the biological station (The Turtle Camp) in Tecoman, it is run by Don Chuy who has been working there for the last 15 years and who is really happy to have us there helping him out with the daily activities. At the moment we visit the farm once a week, but as we pass in to the next stages of the biological work our volunteers will have the opportunity to work there three times a week. The work there is hard and challenging but highly exciting at the same time.
At the moment the activities are focused on the newborn crocodiles, and the Projects Abroad volunteers will be involved in the construction of a new aqua-terrarium for them. This new terrarium will provide protection to the baby crocodiles from predators such as birds and small mammals.
In the future we are looking forward to developing and assisting with a crocodile release program, which aims to improve the numbers of the endangered crocodiles in the wild.


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We found no results!
Corrosion in stabilizer systems may be due to inorganic salt formation, such as ammonium chloride salt deposition, or due to concentration of other corrosives. These corrosives either attack the process surface by under-deposit reactions, or where small amounts of water condensation may occur. Nalco Water has developed film forming corrosion inhibitors and salt dispersant additives that control corrosion and improve process reliability in high pH and potentially salting environments.
Our search returned no results.


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Title IV of the CARE Act Is Essential for Women, Children, Youth and Families
The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act was named after an adolescent that succumbed to HIV infection in 1990. That same year, Congress created the largest federal discretionary HIV/AIDS treatment program in Ryan's honor. The program has a four-title structure, each targeting different populations and service providers. Title IV of the CARE Act serves women, children, youth and families affected by HIV/AIDS. The program's total appropriation of $72.5 million is distributed among 91 grantees across the country. Each year, 53,000 women, children, and youth benefit from Title IV services, which often include medical care, case management, childcare, and transportation. Eighty-eight percent of consumers are of people of color and 30 percent are under the age of 13.
Reauthorization Recommendations
The CARE Act, as a discretionary program, requires reauthorization every five years. The current legislation will expire September 30, 2005. AIDS Alliance articulated four major positions for CARE Act reauthorization in its March 2005 position paper Renewing the Commitment:
Maintain the four-title structure
Prioritize care for women, infants, children, and youth (WICY) in Titles I and II
Enhance communication among all Titles and relevant federal agencies
Improve prevention and surveillance of mother-to-child HIV transmission (MTCT)
AIDS Alliance also proposes six specific issues for reauthorization of Title IV:
Maintain Title IV as an independent program, emphasizing family-centered care
Prioritize all HIV-positive youth in care and prevention
Increase access to HIV research for women, infants, children and youth through Title IV
Affirm the unique role of Title IV in HIV prevention
Protect administrative cost structure to assure efficient operation of services
Enhance care for HIV-positive pregnant women, for retention and prevention of MTCT
The full text of Renewing the Commitment can be found here.
Reactions to Administration's Principles
In July of 2005, the Administration announced its principles for reauthorization of the CARE Act. Some of the proposed principles have direct implications for Title IV's capacity. For example, the principles stress an increase in flexibility of CARE Act dollars. This is entirely consistent with Title IV's intent. Title IV is flexible enough to arrange for transportation, child care, and case management. Thankfully, the Administration's principles reflect the need for such specificity. The principles also advocate prioritizing the needs of people of color. With people of color representing 88 percent of clients served, Title IV has a long history responding effectively to the needs of HIV-affected families, women and youth of color.
Among the proposed principles is a prioritization of core medical services. This is a difficult assertion for Title IV, which requires a broad range of services to deliver effective care. In addition, the needs of HIV-positive individuals and families differ from community to community -- because of varied costs of living and the availability of other services and other payers. Therefore, CARE Act programs, consumers, and planning councils should define core medical services independently for their respective communities.
CARE Act funds are intended to be the payer of last resort. For virtually all Title IV consumers, medical attention is covered through other insurance mechanisms, such as Medicaid or other Titles of the CARE Act. (Eighty percent of Title IV consumers receive medical care paid by Medicaid.) Title IV dollars are used to make medical care more accessible, through child care, transportation, or other support services. Without the logistical support and care coordination provided by Title IV, medical attention is beyond the reach of many women, children, families and youth served. Other programs do not provide this flexibility, which leaves Title IV as the last, and only, payer of these services.
In a recent survey of Title IV projects, AIDS Alliance found that for projects to meet a 75 percent threshold of funding prioritization for core medical services, the definition of such services must include: primary/specialty medical care, psychosocial support, logistical support/care coordination, and outreach/case management. (89 percent of projects would meet the 75 percent threshold under this broad definition.) A definition of core medical services, if required to be defined in the CARE Act legislation, should reflect the current broad list of services crucial to the health of Title IV consumers.
Title IV Plays Unique Prevention Role
Title IV plays a critical role in HIV prevention in the United States and in the potential elimination of pediatric AIDS. Prevention of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) has always been a priority of Title IV programs. Since the early 1980s, Title IV-affiliated programs have led the nation in reducing the number of babies born positive to HIV-positive mothers from 2,000 to 200 annually. This success rate, resulting from longstanding success in the pediatric AIDS field and, later, incorporation of antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy, is renowned as the prevention tool linked with the most definitive outcomes.
During the same 2005 survey previously referenced, it was found that, on average, 38 percent of Title IV projects' clients are HIV-negative. Often times, these individuals have family members who are HIV-positive, or are living in areas with disproportionate infection rates. Title IV programs build trust with communities that strategically place them closer to those at greatest risk of transmission.
Example of a Title IV Project
An exemplary Title IV project is the Dallas Family Access Network, located in Dallas, TX. The Network is a coalition of 13 medical care and social service agencies that promotes a system of care for HIV-positive clients and those affected by HIV. Some organizations included in the network are: the UT Southwestern Medical Center (which serves as the lead organization -- coordinating the grant making for the other 12 affiliates), the AIDS Interfaith Network, the Child and Family Guidance Centers, and the Visiting Nurses Association. Collectively, these organizations strive to address all the unique needs of women, children, families and youth affected by HIV in the Dallas, TX area.
In addition, the UT Southwestern Medical Center established an innovative Title IV program in 2001 called Youth Angle. The program targets perinatally infected youth aging out of the pediatric care setting and newly identified HIV behaviorally infected youth, all aged 13-24. Youth Angle's collaborative model actively engages in case finding and provides primary medical care, OB/GYN care, social services, substance abuse counseling, support groups, life-skills training, and formal linkages for outreach with the public school system and faith-based organizations. Title IV's current structure, most importantly its flexibility and comprehensive nature, has fostered the intent of such programs to successfully and wholly address a specific community's HIV prevention and treatment needs.


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For younger women diagnosed with cancer, the treatments necessary to treat their disease can also make them infertile. But an experimental procedure is giving those women a second chance, by freezing ovarian tissue before cancer treatment begins. NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman reports.
Until very recently, young women who went through cancer treatment often discovered their fertility was a casualty of life-saving therapies. But a new option – the removal and freezing of an ovary prior to chemotherapy and radiation treatments – may be changing all that.
So far, 20 babies have been born worldwide as a result of this new procedure, which is called ovarian tissue cryopreservation, Dr. Nancy Snyderman reported on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.
This is good news for the estimated 1 in 46 women under age 40 who are diagnosed with some form of cancer, since chemotherapy and radiation -- the most common treatments -- can destroy a woman's fertility.
One of the specialists who's been working with the technique is Dr. Kutluk Oktay, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York
Medical College and director of the Institute for Fertility Preservation/Reproductive Specialists of New York.
"Ovarian cryopreservation is a procedure where, when a woman is faced with a medical condition that would affect [her] future fertility, the ovary is removed through a keyhole procedure and it's taken through a specialized process which involves treating the tissue with antifreeze substances and utilizing an automated process to preserve the ovary for future use," Oktay explained to Snyderman. "If you were a cancer patient 15 years ago, your options in terms of fertility preservation would be close to zip."
While the option of freezing eggs before treatment has been available for the past several years, that alternative won't work for those with aggressive cancers or hormone sensitive tumors, Oktay explained.
For egg harvesting and freezing, women need to go through a process in which their ovaries are stimulated with hormones that will spark the production of many eggs in one cycle, Oktay said. Those hormones can make some cancers -- like ovarian or certain forms of breast cancer -- worse.
And some women just can't hold off on cancer treatments for the three to six weeks the process takes, said Dr. Kyle Orwig, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and director of the fertility preservation program at UPMC. Orwig's institution is also looking at the viability of ovarian cryopreservation.
How does this new ovary-freezing procedure work?
Doctors remove an ovary and then, once a woman has completed cancer treatment, transplant the tissue back into the abdomen – or even under the skin. Once transplanted, the ovarian tissue will be able to turn its supply of immature eggs into viable ones, Oktay explained.
The procedure takes about 40 minutes and can be done under local anesthesia. As for cost – that all depends on whether the procedure can be done as a part of another surgery. If it can, the charge would be minimal, Oktay said. Otherwise, it could run anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000.
For Morgan Thompson, 29, it's enough to know that she might one day be able to have a baby. Thompson was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma three years ago and was referred to Oktay when she told doctors she wanted to somehow preserve her fertility.
"It is a very shocking thing to have to deal with at any age," Thompson told Snyderman. "But at 26, I was not prepared at all. I always knew I wanted to be a mom. In my mind I was going to have twin girls and a little boy. I had everything perfect in my head.
"You want to be told that you have options. You want people to think that you're going to be here in order to make the decision to even have kids. So a procedure like this is amazing."
While the new procedure offers women hope, no one knows exactly how risky the procedure is - yet.
It is still surgery, which means it comes with all the risks associated with surgery, Orwig said
The biggest concern, however, is the possibility that doctors might be putting cancer-tainted tissue back into a patient who's been cured, Orwig added.
In that respect, some cancers are more risky than others.
"A good example would be leukemia," Orwig said. "It's a cancer of the blood and blood circulates through all the tissues, including the ovaries. If we put the ovarian tissue back into the patient, there's a risk that we could be reintroducing the cancer. We don't have the answer to that yet. We need to be certain that we're transplanting cancer-free tissue."
Ultimately, women need to recognize that the procedure is still considered to be experimental, Orwig said.
"I think it's important that it works - although it's experimental there are at least 20 live babies so far," he said. "But there are risks and it's way too early to remove the experimental tag."


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Roasted duck breast with plum sauce
This easy yet impressive recipe makes a stylish main course for a special occasion
Nutrition and extra info
- kcal904
- fat64g
- saturates20g
- carbs39g
- sugars38g
- fibre2g
- protein44g
- salt1.05g
- 2 duck breasts
- 1 thyme sprig
This popular herb grows in Europe, especially the Mediterranean, and is a member of the mint…
- 1 star anise
Star anisestar an-eese
Star anise is one of the central spices in Chinese cooking. It has a strong anise flavour, with…
- 25g butter
Butter is a dairy product made from separating whole milk or cream into fat and…
For the plum sauce
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
Related to the onion (as opposed to being a younger version of it), shallots grow in clusters at…
- 1 tbsp olive oil
Olive oilol-iv oyl
Probably the most widely-used oil in cooking, olive oil is pressed from fresh olives. It's…
- 250g dark red plums, halved, stoned and cut into small wedges
The juiciest fruit in the stone fruit family, plums come in many different varieties, some sweet…
- 50g demerara sugar
- 50ml red wine
- 300ml beef stock
For the sauce, fry the shallot in the oil for 5 mins or until softened but not coloured. Add the plums and sugar, stirring for a few mins until the sugar has dissolved. Add the red wine and stock, then simmer for about 15 mins, stirring occasionally, until softened and slightly thickened. Keep warm or leave at room temperature for up to a day before reheating to serve.
Meanwhile, heat the oven to 180C/ 160C fan/gas 4. Score the skin of the duck breasts with a sharp knife and season well with salt and pepper. Heat a non-stick frying pan and place the duck breasts in, skin-side down. Fry for 6-7 mins, then turn and add the thyme, star anise and butter. Allow this to melt, basting the duck with the juices, then transfer everything to a small roasting tin and finish in the oven for 5-6 mins for pink or 10-12 mins for well done.
When the duck is ready, baste again with the juices, then rest for 5 mins while you finish everything else.
To serve, thinly slice each duck breast on a chopping board. Arrange on each plate along with a spoon of the Creamed potatoes, some of the plum sauce and the Buttered spinach.
Recipe Tip
Creamed potatoesQuarter 450g Maris Piper potatoes and boil in salted water for 20-25 mins until cooked. Drain well, return to pan and mash, gradually adding 50g butter, 50ml double cream and 50ml milk as you do. Season.
Recipe Tip
Buttered spinachWash 250g spinach leaves in a colander. Throw into a big pan with a knob of butter and some seasoning, then wilt for 1 min, stirring.


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After all the effort I expended learning about the Inland Empire 66ers, Manny Ramirez will actually be playing his first minor league pre-post-suspension game for the Albuquerque Isotopes, forcing me to work even harder to dig up obscure Simpsons references.
Joe Torre said they were leaning toward the Class A affiliate in San Bernardino last week, but I guess Joe Torre says a lot of things. Instead the Los Angeles slugger—you know, I heard there was a murder in Los Angeles once and they never found the guy who did it—will join the AAA Isotopes tonight, the only team to get its nickname from a prime-time cartoon. The 'Topes average nearly 7,000 fans per game, but a team official said yesterday that Johnny Lunchpails and Suzy Housecoats had already yoinked up 11,000 extra tickets in two days. They are also out of Bort license plates.
Translation: No one cares how much nerve tonic the guy drinks, fans love their eccentric, dreadlocked sluggers. (Although, he could stand to be Rastafied another 10%.) If you miss this, you better be dead or in an Albuquerque jail and if you're in jail, tie an onion on your belt or something.
Manny Ramirez's fission statement in Albuquerque [Los Angeles Times]


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Quentin Tarantino's next movie will be Western
- Bang Showbiz
- 27 November 2013
Quentin Tarantino has confirmed his next movie will be a Western because he enjoyed working in the genre so much making 'Django Unchained'
Quentin Tarantino has confirmed his next movie will be a Western.
The director enjoyed making his latest hit movie 'Django Unchained' - which earned him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay earlier this year - so much he has decided to make another film in the same genre, but it won't be a sequel to the Jamie Foxx-starring flick.
Appearing on 'The Tonight Show with Jay Leno' on Tuesday (26.11.13), he said: "I haven't told anyone this publicly, but I will say the genre ... it's a Western.
"I had so much fun doing 'Django', and I love Westerns so much that after I taught myself how to make one, it's like, 'OK! Let me make another one now that I know what I'm doing.' "
The filmmaker, who pens his own movies, also revealed that he spends most of his day writing scripts and then relaxes in his pool while thinking about where the story will go next.
He explained: "Around the time of 'Inglourious Basterds' [in 2009] I'd start writing at home from 10 in the morning until five, or six, or seven [o'clock].
"[Then] I sit there [in the pool] and I think about it and all of these ideas come to me ... and I kind of work it out a little bit. Then I get out of the pool and I make notes, but I don't do them. Then the next day, that's my work."


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Newt Gingrich will answer Iowa moms' questions during a CafeMom.com campaign stop at Java Joe's in Des Moines on Friday, December. 30, 2011. (David Purdy/The Des Moines Register) The event will be co-hosted by pollster Frank Luntz and CafeMom blogger Lindsay Ferrier. Newt Gingrich's wife, Callista, will also be there.
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Imagine the producer of a genealogy webinar has deep, deep pockets. Imagine genealogy corporations where webinars are a key component of tech support.
Although Mr. Myrt is very generous, I certainly don't fit either category. DearMYRTLE may have a .com address, but I am a person, not a corporation. I'm like a number of other "sole proprietor" genealogy presenters out there.
In a tight economy, travel costs and speaker fees are difficult hurdles for local genealogy societies wishing to invite well-regarded genealogy presenters for monthly meetings and annual conferences. Genealogy webinars go a long way toward sharing how to improve genealogy research skills.
But someone's got to pay the piper.
Here's about what it costs me to produce DearMYRTLE Workshop Webinars:
$1188 annually - GoToWebinar room for 100 attendees ($99 monthly, some years I get a break)
$360 annually - webinar archive space
0 - Converter software program
0 - Handbrake software program
$199 - Camtasia (usually annual upgrade from the initial $299 cost)
$1,747 annually (not counting Ol' Myrt's time, computer equipment, 2 headsets annually, ISP fees, etc.)
Since Ol' Myrt here doesn't want to be 'a slave to the computer', I've kept all of my live webinars free. That way I don't have to deal with tech support issues or refunds as people forget to show up, cannot get in the room, have connection issues, etc.
Taneya Koonce gave us four great webinar sessions on the use of WordPress last summer, and she should be compensated for her time. My cousin Russ Worthington freely shares information in his blog about the use of Family Tree Maker, and his expertise in guiding me through learning that software program in our joint webiars should be compensated.
As a responsible member of the genealogy community, I must demonstrate respect for the expertise of genealogy webinar presenters.
In the future I'd like to sponsor more presenters in my webinars, and offer them a fair return, based on the sale of archived versions of their webinars.
From this point forth, my webinars will be handled as follows:
1. GeneaWebinars Calendar lists all my webinars
2. Mondays with Myrt - always free archived versions at:
No fees here, because I consider this weekly show as a form of "blogging" if blogging is defined as getting the word out about genealogy news.
3. DearMYRTLE Workshop Webinars will be presented live and free, but the archived version will go behind the pay wall located here: https://dearmyrtle.dpdcart.com
You'll find the "Webinar Archive" link on a tab at www.DearMYRTLE.com.
Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt :)
Your friend in genealogy.
Blog: http://blog.DearMYRTLE.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DearMYRTLE
Twitter: @DearMYRTLE
G+: +Pat Richley-Erickson
Second Life: Clarise Beaumont


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Jimmie Cone
Open since 1962, serving ice cream, snowballs, and other sweet confections. Keeping with tradition, along with classic flavors they host classic cars on cruise night.
Dine with celebrity chefs, shop 'til you drop, stroll the boardwalk along the beautiful Potomac River, take your vacation to new heights on the spectacular Capital Wheel—and...More
Search our comprehensive list of hotels, motels, B&Bs and other places to stay in the Capital Region here.More
The diverse Capital Region surrounding Washington, D.C. has worlds of choice on offer.More
Just outside Washington, D.C., unforgettable adventures await. Delight your senses, satisfy your cultural and culinary cravings, and explore history throughout Frederick,...More