Now THAT is Tacky!

Well…today’s blog is going to be a little strange. It seems that someone, an attorney—whose name I know, but whose name I shall not mention here—has been making copies of some of my writing and trying to use it AGAINST Elsa Newman.
Now THAT is tacky. I mean really tacky.

Some things in life are tacky and funny. Like the seventh-grade students who used to play games with my last name—“O’Brocken” and call me things like “Ms. Old and Broken.” That was tacky; but when my students used it as a means of connecting with me, I considered it quality tackiness, and I told them so. I accepted their various versions of my name and gave them feedback in the same vein.

On the other hand, taking my writing on behalf of Elsa Newmanand trying to use it against Ms. Newman is definitely NOT quality tackiness. In short, it stinks.

So I wrote and sent the following letter to David Molansky, Elsa’s attorney, and my publishing it here makes it an open letter. I thus hope to clear the air a bit, and I hope to be sure that both Elsa’s attorney and my readers know that I am the one writing all those things. [Yes, Virginia, there really is an obnoxious little, old lady in Amboy, Washington who writes this stuff. And yes, her name really is Aine O’Brocken.]

As an American citizen, I have both the right and the privilege to express my ideas, attitudes, thoughts and supporting facts in my blogs, on my websites or in citizen journalist reports. And I do.

I find it horrifying to realize that some unscrupulous legal lame-brain would copy my material and try to turn it against the very person I am trying to support. This mother, Elsa Newman, has been blamed and blamed again for things she did not do, for things she did not even know about. She has been blamed enough.

I write because I am concerned about a mother who has been unjustly imprisoned while her sons suffer the tortures of the damned at the hands of father who not only molests them sexually, but abuses them in every other way imaginable. I write because I desperately hope that someone in authority will one day see the truth and act on it and Ms. Newman will be vindicated, as she so surely deserves.

Following is my letter to Ms. Newman’s attorney:

Mr. Molansky:
It has come to my attention that some things which I have blogged about Elsa Newman and her case have been copied and transmitted by people who have apparently tried to use those blogs against Ms. Newman or have tried to say that she was somehow responsible for the content of the blogs.
I find myself greatly dismayed by this misuse of my materials.
I have been researching Ms. Newman’s case for nearly a year now. When I write on one of the blogs and mention her name, that does not mean I am citing her as a source. It means simply that I am mentioning her name because I am writing about her case.
In a similar fashion, I often use the expression that I “write on her behalf.” Writing on her behalf, as I am sure you know, does not remotely imply that I am writing something she has told me to write. That would be ridiculous. A blog is intended to be an expression of the ideas, opinions and attitudes of the writer. To “write in her behalf” thus means that I write because I am interested in her case…because I believe she is being met by gross injustice at every turn. In short, I believe she is innocent and unjustly imprisoned. I believe—because of my research, which shows that her sons have, themselves disclosed the nature of their father’s abuses—that her children have been terribly mistreated by their father, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, using the boys in the creation of child pornography and virtually any other kind of abuse the man can think of.
In fact, the more I research this case, the more appalled I become at the existence of gender bias in United States courts today, not just in the case of Elsa Newman, but in literally thousands of other cases. For a mother to state, during the course of an acrimonious child custody proceeding that a child has been abused in some fashion by the father, is for said mother to sign a virtual death warrant for her hopes of retaining any share of custody. I understand that in at least 54% of such cases, custody is awarded to the abuser, a fact which is a disgrace to this country and our supposed “justice system.”
I have actually created a list of some sixty reasons for believing Ms. Newman. I have tried repeatedly to find someone who will take a look at those sixty reasons and help me to do something about the dreadful and completely unjust plight in which she finds herself. To date, no one has seemed interested, although I know there must be person or persons in authority somewhere who could deal with the faults in the case that was presented against her
Back to the question of someone’s citing my material. The particular blog that I have in mind when I say that someone else is using my material is an open letter which I addressed to Dr. Jill Scharff. That letter was posted to several of my blogs, and I, in fact, copied the letter to her, as a courtesy. My research tells me that Dr. Scharff has in hand materials—records from her treatment of Ms. Newman’s sons—which would verify Ms. Newman’s contention that her children were being sexually molested by her then-estranged husband and the father of the two boys. In fact, unless I am terribly mistaken, Dr. Scharff had at one time actually reported such abuse, thus leaving herself open to requests to reveal whatever information about abuse might be found in the remainder of her records. It is not necessary for me—pardon me for employing an overworked phrase—to be a rocket scientist in order to find such information on the net or from sources close to the Newman case.
It is in such a manner that I write of the case of Elsa Newman.
Should it come to your attention just who it is that is attempting to credit my materials somehow to Ms. Newman or to use said materials against Ms. Newman, please be aware that I am not writing as a mouthpiece—for Ms. Newman or for anyone else. The ideas, emotions and opinions in my blogs and in my writings as a citizen journalist are completely my own, and it is, as far as I know, well within my right and privilege to express these as I choose.
This letter and its contents are about to be posted to a variety of sites on the net, according to my usual practice, since I hope to reach not only you, but anyone else who might entertain the thought that I am writing with the voice of Elsa Newman, rather than writing on her behalf and expressing my own thoughts about her case.
God help you to find a way to help Ms. Newman. And God help us all, if someone, somewhere, cannot find a way to right the incredible wrongs that have been done to this mother and her sons.
Sincerely,
Aine O’Brocken
P.O. Box 303
Amboy, Washington 98601
Phone: 360-247-5241
Email: pugbubbe@earthlink.net