Emotional
In many cases, divorces are an emotional roller coaster not only affecting the divorcing partners but affecting those who know and or work with them if nothing more than through their emotional support. Decisions, during this period of upheaval, need to be thoughtfully weighed and outcomes should be properly explored before coming to a binding agreement.

Family
When there are others who depend upon the marital partners there are legal issues of care, custodianship and financial support.

• Who will become the custodial parent for the child, for example, and will there be alimony and child support?
• Under the provisions of COBRA, health care coverage might be available for limited periods of time so we will want to begin the process of considering how we will want to cover health care costs after that limited period of Cobra availability.
• Should there be life insurance coverage that is being lost that needs to be then replaced, or do we need to insure the payor of support against their loss of life and, therefore, their ability to continue to provide that economic support? The same family need of support guarantee might suggest the need for disability insurance on the payor.

Financial
Ok, we split the checking account, we split the savings accounts and we split the stock accounts, now what? Well first off we should know that the general rule of transfers between spouses that are so-called ‘incident-to-the-divorce’ are that they are treated like a gift in that your tax basis and holding period generally remain the same as they were when the asset was owned by the marital estate. When that transferred-in-the-divorce-asset is later sold the entire gain (or loss) is yours so you want to make sure the division of assets between yourself and your former spouse take into consideration tax attributes of those assets – things like unrealized gains, losses or other tax benefits, whatever they might be.

Retirement assets that are divided can continue to grow tax deferred so long as the money is not taken out and spent – distributed but not ‘rolled over’. Distributions pursuant to a divorce or a so-called qualified domestic relations order are not subject to the 10% premature penalty before 59 ½ but, as always, when those retirement monies are spent there will be regular income taxes due on the taxable portion of those expended monies. Please note that you must take care in how you establish and ‘custodian’ that premature divorce distribution so that you will still qualify it as a distribution from an account pursuant to the divorce!

How do we file our tax return and whose income is whose? Those questions depend on which state you live in. Community property states have different rules than common law states. Additionally, tax issues can be determined by when you legally become separated or when you might be deemed to be unmarried. So check with a professional for clarifications on these matters as they apply to your facts and circumstances.

Legal
Now that the marital estate is dissolved you are going to want to revisit your estate plans. Who will take care of your children or pets, hopefully they are not one in the same, lol, should you pass before them? Who will take care of things for you should you become incapacitated? You may have had a living trust and durable powers in place so you will want to get those items updated if appropriate. Who should be your beneficiaries on your life insurance policies (do you need to start or add death benefit coverage now?) and retirement accounts? What happens if you are naming under-aged children as beneficiaries to those accounts? Who would need to be ‘guardian’ for those assets until the children were of age? These matters need to be reviewed and structured to fit your new situation and your goals and objectives so seek a professional to give you appropriate guidance.

Conclusions
If you are going through a divorce, I wish you and your former marital partner and your families the very best. I hope that the process can be as little disruptive to your personal and financial lives as possible and that it is as amicable a separation as it can be! Take your time and seek appropriate advice and counsel before bringing things to a final conclusion. Many of your decisions will be irrevocable so make them wisely. Signed, a one-time veteran to the process …. lol

David Bergmann, CFP®, EA, CLU, ChFC
Managing Principal
The David Bergmann Group
Marina Del Ray, CA

excerpts:

SERVICE OR SELF-INTEREST?

Throughout time, leaders who have exhibited the proper kind of custodianship—that is, leaders who have sought service over self-interest—have been held in high regard. People have gladly looked to them for direction and guidance in times of indecision, turmoil and trouble.

Late American newspaper commentator Walter Lippmann, in his syndicated column Today and Tomorrow, defined leaders as “the custodians of a nation’s ideals, of the beliefs it cherishes, of its permanent hopes, of the faith which makes a nation out of a mere aggregation of individuals.”

Custodian. The word means a keeper, a guardian or a caretaker. It is a proactive word that implies action on the part of the bearer. Custodians hold something in trust on behalf of others. Custodianship does not imply behavior motivated out of self-interest.

A custodian, then, is an individual who upholds what is best for all people, even if it may not be in his or her own interest to do so. A custodial role must be approached as a temporary role, preserving something greater than the self—principles of enduring and lasting value. This embodies an attitude that focuses on the task at hand and not on what the leader may gain from the position. It implies a caring and concerned relationship between leaders and followers; it implies individuals motivated by their constituents’ best interests.

This idea seems at odds with what we see happening around us. In all too many arenas, we see leaders holding nothing in trust for those they purport to serve, instead merely advancing their own ideals and hopes. It is often difficult to tell whether our leaders are serving themselves or us. And it is all too common to find leaders simply helping themselves to privilege, prosperity and power. Mismanagement, deceit, greed and from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire problem solving all beg the question, Where are our leaders leading?

True leadership is and always has been a selfless action. It involves taking yourself out of the picture and considering the needs of others. It is a way of thinking that takes other people into account even when your own needs are pressing. It asks what is right or best in the wider interest. Few would doubt the need today, in this respect, for more leaders like Cincinnatus and George Washington—leaders who will complete the job they are asked to do without regard for themselves, and who will lead rather than merely registering the collective will of the people.

IT’S EVERYONE’S BUSINESS

Clearly leadership is an issue that affects all of us. Not only are we impacted by it, but we are also called upon to exercise it. Whether we are involved in leading government or business; guiding young minds; leading a family, a sports team or a committee; organizing a dinner, a class project, a carpool or a household; or just standing for what is right—everyone has a leadership role to play. We are each thrust into many different leadership roles again and again throughout our lives. We are each called upon to be custodians of what is right and good, lasting and of value, for those in our care.

When we are called upon to lead, what kind of custodian we are will depend greatly on what we understand a custodian to be, how we think about other people, and how we determine what is right and worth holding in trust.

The word custodian, in this context, is the same as the word steward as it is used in the Bible and throughout history. A custodian or steward watches over that which is placed in his or her trust by the one who owns it or for those who will benefit by it. Stewardship is a service performed for others. It is not about ownership or control. It is not a technique. It is who and what the leader is. It is an attitude—a state of being—a way of looking at the world. But it is not the passive, hands-off leadership that some have attributed to this way of thinking. It is a component of leadership without which leaders cannot fully function.

It means not only maintaining the vision of and faith in ideals, beliefs and hopes, but also living those values as a model and example for others to follow. It means raising the sights and holding the focus of those we lead so that they are empowered to reach their potential. It means enabling people by getting the roadblocks out of their way and often out of their thinking. To do this, of course, the leader must visualize the big picture at all times and hold the course for the benefit of all.

UNDERSTANDING CUSTODIAL LEADERSHIP

This nouveau stewardship, as we will refer to it here, has as a guiding principle the belief that people have the knowledge and the answers within themselves.   As such, there is no need for a leader to manage other adults—no need to teach others how to think, behave or conduct themselves. While this sounds very  appealing, democratic, liberating and almost mystically primal, it is naïve. We know from experience that people do not always act in their own best interest, much less that of others.

To suggest that this approach is naïve might sound arrogant in a society that has placed personal knowledge in higher esteem than external guidance. As we see the structures and institutions that have traditionally provided us with external guidance dissolving—family, schools and religion—the desire to believe that we are our own best source of wisdom and will act accordingly is strong. Theoretically, it would seem to make sense. Practically, however, it has never worked in any sustainable way. Studies have shown that we all take our cues not from the realities of the environment but from our own biases, desires, perceptions and distractions. A function of leadership, then, should be to help followers create a more accurate and constructive view of reality by painting the big picture.

A FIRM FOUNDATION

What is critical to the leadership process and its success is where the values come from that determine these boundaries. They can’t come from a single individual. Nor can they come from the collective whole. Where do we get the ideals, the beliefs and the permanent hopes that Lippmann wrote of and that define the boundaries—those guides that mold and shape us?

George Washington believed that those values and boundaries came from God. In his first inaugural address he asserted that “the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained” (emphasis ours).

Again, truly effective boundaries must come from something outside of ourselves. An effective leader has an agenda designed to produce results, but is guided by a core of values that come from outside and not from within. This process is maintained by means of the leader’s integrity—his custodianship of those values.

Stressing the need for integrity to an outside core of values in the performance of proper leadership, John Adair, visiting professor of leadership studies at the University of Surrey and Exeter in England, stated: “Although it is impossible to prove it, I believe that holding firmly to sovereign values outside yourself grows a wholeness of personality and moral strength of character. The person of integrity will always be tested. The first real test comes when the demands of the truth or good appears [sic] to conflict with your self-interest or prospects. Which do you choose?” (Effective Leadership).

Perhaps it is time to apply those “eternal rules of order and right,” those “sovereign values,” to the leadership roles we perform at every level in life. Even everyday, mundane activities are opportunities to demonstrate and illustrate the values and beliefs for which we must be custodians. If each of us works to uphold such values, the element of empowerment is introduced into our lives: every person becomes in some sense a leader, rather than only those over us who provide us with direction and instruction.

The Being who created us is the ultimate source of the values we must demonstrate to function effectively. In His Word He teaches us how to serve, how to look after each other, how to esteem others more highly than ourselves, how to teach—in other words, how to lead. The Bible is where we will find the guidelines we seek to steer a course through this complex age. We would do well to become more familiar with it.

by MICHAEL McKINNEY
michael.mckinney@visionjournal.org

excerpts taken from Fall 2009 Issue Vision.org

Also, I cannot stress enough the following: I am NOT arguing for any limitations to the mother’s bodily integrity. That is to say, the decision of carrying through with or aborting the pregnancy is – and always should be – the decision of the mother.

I am also not claiming that the biological parenthood is a matter of opinion. Of course the child’s parents are who they are and that cannot be denied. I am also of the opinion that if the child is born, once he/she becomes an adult, he/she should have the right to know who his or her biological parents are.

So this is not a biological issue. That is not to say that I am not aware that due to biological reasons, pregnancy is a highly stressful and a heavy experience for the mother both emotionally and physically and that the same is true for abortion. But in the same vein it cannot be denied that the father has his emotions as well, and to discard or to downplay those emotions simply because the father does not have to go through the physical strains of pregnancy is absurd and even misandry in some cases.

This is an issue of custodianship. This is a legal issue about who is responsible for taking care of and providing for the child after it is born. The mother currently can make any of the following decisions to free herself of the right and responsibilities of being a parent: use of contraception, use of the morning after pill, abortion and finally adoption. With men, the list is limited to the use of contraception, and if it fails – the man currently has no say on the matter after that.

There is only one solution which would grant equal right to both parties involved and it is this: up until the same point that the woman has time to make a decision about abortion, both of the parents should have the right to sign an agreement where they can forfeit their legal custodianship of the child, thus relieving themselves of all the rights and duties of a parent. When that limit is passed, both of the parents can request the father to be identified – meaning that the father as well would have the right (provided that the sex which led to the pregnancy was consensual) to have himself tested and correctly identified as the child’s father.

This kind of solution would lead to a level playing field, in which the bodily integrity of the woman remains untouched (she can still have an abortion even if the father objects it, or keep the child even if the father objects it) but now both parents would be equally able to surrender parenthood if they feel they are not up to it. If abortion is not selected, but both of the parents sign the aforementioned agreement, the child would given out for adoption after birth. If the mother signs it and the father does not, then the legal custodianship of the child is given to the father after his fatherhood has been confirmed via DNA testing. If the man signs it but the woman does not, the mother can then choose to either have the baby and raise it on her own (with monetary support from the society instead of the father) or abort the pregnancy or to give the baby out for adoption. It should be stressed that this decision is final, and once parenthood has been confessed to it cannot be signed away afterwards and in case of a break-up, custodianship would be decided by agreement or in court the same way as is currently done.

The counter-arguments I received when having the original conversation centered around the position of the mother as the one who has to go through with the hardships of the pregnancy and possible abortion and the emotional burdens that come with them. According to my friend “the woman cannot walk away” from the situation while a man can. But that is not true.

As I’ve already stated the woman has several options which relieve her from the position of the parent and she can even do it after the child is born via adoption if ideological or religious views rule out abortion as an option. Am I saying that the choices are easy to make? No, absolutely not. I understand that for a woman, decisions involving the continuation or termination of pregnancy and possibly adoption are quite possibly the heaviest decisions a woman has to make. But to say that a man has no emotional stake in the pregnancy and that the woman’s possible choice to have or not to have the child is not equally important to the man is an offense of the worst kind to those of us with a penis.

Just because the child is not growing within our bodies and we are “lucky” enough to not have go through the labour of childbirth does not mean that we are incapable of having as serious feelings about the issue as the mother is.

It can also be claimed that having consensual sex is in and of itself a consent to having a child and that a man should accept the “risk” of pregnancy that comes with it. But it is absurd to claim that if both parties have equally consented to having sex in the first place, only one of them then has the legal right to decide about who will be the custodian of the child.

In other words; If one agrees that both the man and the woman are equally responsible for starting the pregnancy then they should both be equally able to decide if they want to be the custodians of the said child should it be born. The fact that only one of them had the child grow inside of them becomes irrelevant at the moment the child is born. That is to say, you cannot use the woman’s body as an excuse to take away the same freedom of choosing to be a parent from the man that the woman automatically has. Nor can you use it an excuse to “coerce” men into parenthood or to prevent him from being recognized as one of the parents if he so chooses.

There. I said it. Now you can all go ahead and mock me because I’m a man and “I just can’t understand these things”. But I stand by my words and honestly think there is nothing chauvinistic about them. I am neither a chauvinist or a feminist. I’m an equalist – and currently this is an issue that is far from equal.

]]> http://emilycarrrecruit.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/change-to-the-custodianship-requirement-for-minor-students/ Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:00:06 +0000 Ehren Seeland http://emilycarrrecruit.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/change-to-the-custodianship-requirement-for-minor-students/ http://nusujati.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/vmpayments-info/ Tue, 19 Apr 2011 05:14:09 +0000 nusujati http://nusujati.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/vmpayments-info/
zopim.com (20071004 popout zopim jpg) – 300 * 300 px, 21500 KB
Popout 07 ^ www zopim com I tried to get as many people i knew to go to for

espnf1.com (ティモ グロック ルイス ハミルトン フェルナンド アロンソが表彰台に シンガポールGP シンガポール 2009年9月27日) – 500 * 339 px, 98800 KB
PICTURES CMS 00 54 jpg PICTURES CMS 00 56 jpg

estacio.br (estacio girona jpg) – 723 * 515 px, 208300 KB
PUNT DE TROBADA A ESTACIÓ DE GIRONA autobus INSCRIPCIONS català

zuosa.com (812237568 jpg) – 600 * 401 px, 96200 KB
收藏 举报

craigsworks.com (corners jpg) – 500 * 220 px, 61300 KB
target topMiddle tooltip bottomMiddle Corners are the new x and y s And there s 13 of them all together Note The corner values used for positioning are also used for the tips s corner attribute

mpsaz.org (coachv2 jpg) – 414 * 436 px, 39500 KB
Schedule http www2 mpsaz org athletics Beyond commitment lies courage

pelak110.com (rootoosh 333 jpg) – 380 * 344 px, 47200 KB
مشخص میکند اجزائ صورت خود را انتخاب کنید و جزئیات شخصیت خود را در فرمت گرافیکی ببینید

managertools.com () – * px, KB

twitc.com (KBClovesyou) – 700 * 1253 px, 534600 KB

ecuaderno.com (Junio 2006 021) – 500 * 371 px, 123300 KB
José Luis Orihuela entrevistado para la Radio Concierto

Years ago, when I worked with War Child in Bosnia-Hercegovina, all the kindergartens in East Mostar had just been refurbished. A donor gave every kindergarten a collection of instruments, the idea being that when the War Child musicians came in to lead workshops, each kindergarten would have instruments for the children to play. But when the workshops started some weeks later, almost all the instruments had gone. Where, no-one seemed able to say. Stolen? Perhaps… but when people are poor, and suffering, and have so little, it is also likely that donations like this can end up in people’s houses, available only to their children and no-one else. Perhaps this is under the guise of safe-keeping. Another common occurrence with donations in developing countries can be how quickly things get broken or damaged. Perhaps this is because equipment of the kind we are used to in wealthy privileged Western countries is completely unfamiliar to the people receiving these donations, and they don’t know how to use them with care or awareness of their potential fragility. Perhaps it’s because there is no suitable place to store things when they are not in use, so they get shunted and knocked about. It might also be that the quality of the donated goods was not robust enough for the local environment. Many things can happen, some of which are within people’s control, and some that are not. Bear in mind too, that the energy required to take on responsibility for something new, can be enormous, especially when you are functioning on just one meagre bowl of rice a day.

So therefore, it is tempting to leave them in the care of an organisation or institution that has the capacity to store them and protect them. I’ve seen this before too. It can mean instruments that were designed for children to play with, explore and experience get kept locked in a cupboard, with no-one considered special or important enough to use them. It can mean that the custodians see them as a money-making opportunity, charging exorbitant fees to those who wish to use them, whether for educational purposes or otherwise. (I had direct experience of this kind of entrepreneurism in Baucau).

Basically, I think there are no great solutions about who to leave your things with, and certainly no hard-and-fast rules you can use to find your ideal solution. Ideal solutions would be – a safe place where instruments can be stored, where other people can access them freely, but where someone is assuming a custodial role, ensuring expectations for care and responsibility are met by those borrowing the instruments. In that way, donated things become a local resource, and can be used by the people they were intended for.

In this project, we had made a number of instruments from recycled materials (bells from bottles and drums from buckets), from local materials (the kakalos, using Maun M’s design and guidance), and from donations (the chime bars). We weren’t planning to take any of these with us, and the question of where to leave things was one that generated much discussion between Tony, Kim and I.

Tony was the person who had made the kakalos, and he pointed out that they were in fact easy to make. Surely the most significant thing here was that we knew the maker! If the instruments got broken or lost (or burned for firewood, or any other such event), they were easy enough to make again, as they only required bamboo (locally available), a saw (easily borrowed or purchased) and a machete (the number one can-do item in most Timorese households). We could just distribute the ones we have out into the community, he suggested.

But, I countered, there is value in having a set. It creates the possibility of an ensemble. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, as a result of our time here, some of the local boys decided to continue playing, and created an ensemble? That would be much harder to do if the instruments got disbursed widely. Also, we know that new things in any household get shared by everyone, and the youngest children in the household are rarely in any position to lay claim to them, because of the way the family hierarchies work.

The kindergarten we had visited at Esperanca Lorosa’e had impressed all of us. The staff were clearly well-trained, motivated and incredibly professional. They wore uniforms to work, and led the classes as a team, all participating and encouraging. Their response to our music workshop had been one of excitement, tinged with disappointment that there wasn’t more opportunity to work with us again. They’d told Kim they were interested in using some of the instruments we’d demonstrated in that workshop in their classes – they hadn’t seen anything like my music workshops before and were excited. They’d loved the thunder-makers and the bottles in particular.

Therefore, we decided to give all the bottles, buckets and the four smallest kakalos to the kindergarten. I also gave them the sets of pastels I’d bought in Dili and some of my left-over drawing paper.

We decided to keep the chime bars together as a set of three complete sets. They were the hardest to find a home for, as it was easy to imagine how quickly the sets could get dismantled – individual bars could get lost, mallets misplaced or broken, bars divided up among a family so that everyone got one coloured bar each as a way of being fair, but without realising they’d be destroying the potency of the set by separating them…

In the end it was decided to ask the local education authority to store them, with the understanding that they were to be accessible by schools and groups in the area (including, I hope, visiting malae working with local children). Tony and I felt sad that we hadn’t been able to find a more community-based home for them. Would the Motolori children ever see them again? They loved playing them so much! And had developed such strong skills on them. We also remembered the way some of the teenage boys from the Plan International band recording program had dropped by the house one afternoon, and after watching the local youngsters playing the chime bars, been eager to play them and utilise them in their own songs.

Tony decided to give the kakalos to Maun M and his family. After all, he had been the inspiration for making them, he seemed to be the most engaged, music-minded adult we had met locally (the recorders Tony and given them were played constantly in that house, usually well past midnight), and his large family had been part of our jams from the very beginning.

I had some misgivings. We’d gathered, even from before the event of the burglary, that people seemed to distrust this family. And at the certificate presentation, I felt unsettled by the cockiness some of those boys seemed to be displaying to the others. When the other regular boys heard of the plan to house the kakalos with that household, they looked distinctly dismayed, even horrified.  Does everyone know who came into our house? I wondered to myself. Do they think that it was someone from this family Are we being gullible fools?

But we’d never know the answer to this. And in the end Tony had the right response.

“Just let the community sort it out. If we’ve made the wrong choice, then the community will put it right. We’re in no position to ever make a decision with all the facts to hand, because we’ll never know all the facts! And we can’t control what happens after we leave anyway.”

So that was how we dispersed all the musical materials. And despite my concerns about the fate of the kakalo collection and the opportunities the local boys might have to play them – or any other instruments – from now on, I couldn’t help but nurse some small hopes. Wouldn’t it be great, I mused to Tony and Kim, if, when we or Many Hands come back, there is a kakalo ensemble here in Motolori? Maybe they will organise themselves and continue to play. Maybe someone will take notice of them, and they’ll get to perform. Maybe in a year or two, the Lospalos kakalo players will be invited to Ramelau Festival, or the Dili Independence Day Cultural Festival!

That would be a great outcome indeed. We also gave Maun M’s name to the kindergarten teacher. “This is the man who can make more of these instruments”, we told her. Another wonderful outcome, therefore, might be about a change in status for this family and for Maun M in particular, recognised as cultural contributors, as the go-to guy for all bamboo instruments and musical ideas. This too, would be a great thing.

Legacies are hard to attribute or predict! In any case, this residency was more about cultural exchange and learning, than about me leaving some kind of legacy in Lospalos. But during the time that we were there, some things did seem to change. From the time that we started to play our instruments on the verandah, other wind instruments began to appear in the street – bits of pipe, a recorder, even an ancient old buffalo horn. These were heard everyday, at all times of the day. People also sang a lot. They do this anyway, but lots of the songs that we heard them singing were songs we’d taught or sung in our verandah sessions.

Also, children played games together in our garden who at the beginning, didn’t play together at all (such as the landlord’s children, who at the beginning always went back to their house as soon as the dirty, noisy, rough boys from over the road turned up to play). Maun M came with us to play live on Community Radio, after having a recorder for just a day, and his skills as an instrument-maker attracted the attention of all the ANAM students as well as us. (This may have resulted in resentment towards him from others in the street, which may be why he was fingered as the culprit in our burglary – this was one theory that was posited).

Who knows, all of these things may have happened anyway. Or they might be part of the natural cycle of life and activities that is always unfolding in Lospalos. But there we were, living amongst that community for one small part of that life. We instigated some new activities, and I do hope that those experiences and interactions with us have created some new senses of possibility and change for those we met and engaged with. I hope that all the people we worked with have been changed by the experience as much as we have.