Live Breaking News & Updates on Legal guardianship

Stay informed with the latest breaking news from Legal guardianship on our comprehensive webpage. Get up-to-the-minute updates on local events, politics, business, entertainment, and more. Our dedicated team of journalists delivers timely and reliable news, ensuring you're always in the know. Discover firsthand accounts, expert analysis, and exclusive interviews, all in one convenient destination. Don't miss a beat — visit our webpage for real-time breaking news in Legal guardianship and stay connected to the pulse of your community

Salvation Army making appointments for Angel Tree registration

The Salvation Army of Bell County McLane Center of Hope is now making appointments to register for its 2023 Angel Tree program.

Texas , United-states , Bell-county , Salvation-army-mclane-center , Salvation-army-of-bell , Salvation-army , Salvation-army-of-bell-county-mclane-center , Angel-tree , Bell-county-mclane-center , Legal-guardianship , Bell-county-corps

Texas News | Salvation Army opening Angel Tree applications

The Salvation Army of Bell County will begin scheduling appointments for registration in the Angel Tree program on Sept. 13.

Bell-county , Texas , United-states , Salvation-army-of-bell , Salvation-army , Angel-tree , Legal-guardianship ,

Life as a slave in wealthy Switzerland

Lina Zingg was an all-purpose maid, cleaner, cook and nanny – for 50 years and against her will. This is a story of slavery in the midst of middle class society. “On January 26, 2011, Lina Zingg was freed from bondage. For 53 years, she had served one sole mistress. As a maid in a private household. With no days off, no holidays, no wages. She was abused and mistreated. Her martyrdom for all those years was officially sanctioned as a legal guardianship.” These are the opening sentences of the book “Under Legal Guardianship: the Stolen Life of Lina Zingg” written by the journalist Lisbeth Herger. It is a demanding, harrowing book because the story of Zingg isn’t fictional, it’s real. And because this all took place right in our midst – first in the Rhine Valley and then in Zurich – and no one intervened. Because no one noticed or wanted to notice. Because the mistress of the household was so forceful, so eloquent, so persuasive. In contrast, Zingg (not her real name) was weak. Yes, even simple-minded. At least that is what people would have her believe. Zingg’s story is an extreme one. It could have – and should have - turned out differently. But it also illustrates fundamental patterns in the history of Swiss psychiatry and guardianship. The decisive factor in Zingg’s life was a diagnosis of schizophrenia. It changed everything. Her doctor had already assumed she suffered from the illness when he referred her as an 18-year-old to the care institute in Wil, canton St Gallen, in 1958. He based his assumption on “symptoms such as delusions and imaginary voices”, according to the book. Zingg denied these symptoms “categorically” in her induction interview and from that time on they were “never again observed”. In the “madhouse” or “asylum” as the residents called the psychiatric clinic, hallucinations were even “explicitly registered as a missing symptom; their absence somewhat regretted as it countered the otherwise unambiguous diagnosis”. Zingg's offence: A drunken night in bed with an underage boy. The farmer’s daughter was caught, found herself at the police station, and then at the doctor’s. “In the peasant Catholic world of the 1950s, this made sense,” writes Lisbeth Herger. “There was more at stake than just the well-being of a young woman – it was about female good conduct and a potential pregnancy.” Exhausted, burned out, confused No one was interested in what really ailed Zingg: She was exhausted and burned out. After her mother died, she had spent years looking after her rage-prone father, her siblings and the household while working in a factory to bring money home. She suffered from insomnia, no longer wanted to eat or drink, was permanently tired and increasingly agitated and confused. These days, the author Herger assumes, we would talk of burn-out and depression, but also of a post-traumatic psychosis suffered by a teenager who could not come to terms with the early death of her mother and two sisters, and who was overworked and emotionally deprived. The Wil psychiatrists diagnosed Zingg as schizophrenic “absolutely in keeping with the obsession of the time for schizophrenia diagnoses”, writes Herger. The patient, who was physically healthy, received a second diagnosis from the psychiatrists: Mild debility – in short, simple-mindedness. They prescribed a “shock therapy” with insulin and tranquillisers. After just under eight months in the clinic, the young woman was placed in a home in the Rhine Valley; the authorities had adroitly withdrawn her father’s parental custody. According to the historian Marietta Meier, who wrote a professorial dissertation on psychosurgery after World War II, psychiatrists were “very quick” to diagnose simple-mindedness. She views schizophrenia differently from Herger: “It is not about making excuses for anyone. But in the thinking of that time, Lina Zingg definitely had symptoms that pointed towards schizophrenia. We can’t really talk about a diagnosis obsession.” The typical symptoms were, for example, the “talking in non sequiturs” described in the book, or the “blackouts” she experienced, for instance while ironing. “People with symptoms of this kind often received such diagnoses in those days,” Meier says. The researcher says it was also typical that psychiatrists would try to “place the patient somewhere where they thought she would be better cared for instead of returning her home after a stay in a clinic”. In the case of Zingg, this was a family of musicians, the Gaucks, who were soon to have seven children. Initial fascination Zingg became an all-in-one maid, cook, cleaner and nanny. At first she was fascinated by her new life; everything was different from her home – larger, nicer and cleaner. The fact that she had no room of her own was no big deal, used as she was to cramped conditions. “She was in any case the first one up in the morning and the last to go to bed at night, so the sofa in the sitting-room was enough,” the book recounts. Zingg was exactly what employers wish for: efficient, hard-working and amenable. That last quality was exploited by the master of the house, who soon began to sexually abuse the young woman – with his wife’s approval. He continued to do so until the Gauck couple divorced some 15 years later. Zingg only learned after her release in the year 2011 – when she was 71 years old – that her experience is one “shared by so many other housemaids who have suffered abuse at the hands of their employers or their employers’ sons since time immemorial, a so-called patriarchal right”, Herger writes. The mistress of the house cooperated, however aggrieved she might have been. From the very beginning this woman, who became more malicious as each year passed, was focussed on detaching the maid completely from her own family. She wanted to make absolutely sure that she would not lose her good, cheap home help. And she was definitely cheap: Maria Gauck (also a pseudonym) paid almost no wages to Zingg for decades and granted her no days off or vacations. Not even after her move from the Rhine Valley to Zurich, where the mistress of the house married again. In the new home Zingg still had no room of her own; she slept in a disused lift shaft. She was subject to ever closer scrutiny by her mistress, blackmailed, threatened, and when she didn’t obey, she was beaten. Zingg usually obeyed. Her will was slowly but surely broken. On one occasion she wrote to her family: “Mrs Gauck owns a secretary called Simon as well as me.” Simon was Maria Gauck’s new husband. Lina’s family was alarmed at how unquestioningly the young woman saw herself as her mistress’s possession – but over all those years, they could do nothing. Lina’s brother Werner Zingg and his wife Emma in particular tried time and again to make contact with Lina or her employer and to mobilise the guardianship authorities. Nothing worked – as a self-declared psychologist, the mistress of the house could argue too persuasively. She characterised her maid as mentally unfit, saying she was extremely difficult to handle and very unstable, even manically depressive. The authorities and psychiatrists believed her. Years later, the employer persuaded a doctor friend to pin another diagnosis on Zingg – diabetes. This allowed her to systematically deprive her employee of food. Sometimes Zingg had only bread and water to sustain her. After her release she learned what the diagnosis was based on: Nothing. The doctors told her it was also impossible that she had ever had the disease. Once diabetes takes hold, it doesn’t simply vanish again from the body. The 71-year-old immediately ate a piece of carrot cake “with a mountain of whipped cream”. “What Mrs Gauck did with Lina Zingg is monstrous from a researcher’s point of view too,” says the historian Marietta Meier. “This employer made use of a whole range of other people and manipulated and deceived them.” Among those who were manipulated were the guardianship authorities in the Rhine Valley and Zurich. First Mrs Gauck, whose surn

Zurich , Züsz , Switzerland , Swiss , Maria-gauck , Lisbeth-herger , Marietta-meier , Werner-zingg , Lina-zingg , Adult-protection-authority , Legal-guardianship , Stolen-life

Briefcase: Applause, promotions, hires and more

Sherri Burr
Sherri Burr is the recipient of New Mexico Press Women’s 2021 Communicator of Achievement Award. The award recognizes members who have distinguished themselves within and beyond their profession. Recipients are living members in good standing for at least two years in New Mexico Press Women and the National Federation of Press Women. Burr was elected president of NMPW in 2018. She has been a law professor for more than 30 years, worked as a columnist for The Albuquerque Tribune and is the author of multiple books.
*
“Shook: An Earthquake, a Legendary Mountain Guide, and Everest’s Deadliest Day,” by New Mexico author Jennifer Hull.

New-mexico-state-university , New-mexico , United-states , Mexico , Las-cruces , Jalisco , New-mexico-highlands-university , Las-cruces-high-school , Taos , Albuquerque , Algodones , Memorial-medical-center

Framing Britney Spears shows star power is shifting

Framing Britney Spears shows star power is shifting to the audience
TueTuesday 2
updated
TueTuesday 2
Britney Spears sought to remove her father from controlling her life and finances.
(
Print text only
Cancel
A new sense of connection and responsibility to famed individuals is emerging: where once we gawked at the public struggles of Britney, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, now there is a more concerned response. Audiences have become vocal supporters of the vulnerable, exploring cultural issues in new ways.
The documentary promises a "re-examination" of the singer's portrayal, her infamous scandals and mental health. But it isn't built on an investigation entirely by the filmmakers. It is driven by a large cohort of fans who are trying to support Britney's efforts to regain control of her life and finances from her father-conservator — challenging how we remember her past in the process.

New-york , United-states , Australia , Oprah-winfrey , Justin-timberlake , Lindsay-lohan , David-letterman , Chrissy-teigen , Paris-hilton , Janet-jackson , Megan-fox , Britney-spears

Framing Britney Spears documentary spotlights Free Britney movement, legal issues and media's bad behaviour

Framing Britney Spears documentary spotlights Free Britney movement, legal issues and media's bad behaviour
Posted
FriFriday 12
updated
MonMonday 15
FebFebruary 2021 at 12:39am
Spears has released nine studio albums since her 1998 hit Baby One More Time, but her career has been at times mired in controversy.
(
Print text only
Once dismissed as a mere conspiracy theory, the
Free Britney movement has gained momentum in recent years — and is spurred further by the release of a new Britney Spears documentary by The New York Times.
The 75-minute film looks at Spears' quick ascent to pop stardom, the deterioration of her mental health, and the legal arrangement that has catalysed a movement among fans to "free Britney".

New-york , United-states , Australia , Bedford , Australian , Brodie-lancaster , Lindsay-lohan , Justin-timberlake , Las-vegas , Beverley-wang , Felicia-culotta , Demi-lovato

#FreeBritney: Britney Spears erhält Unterstützung von anderen Stars - Panorama

#FreeBritney: Britney Spears erhält Unterstützung von anderen Stars - Panorama
rheinpfalz.de - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from rheinpfalz.de Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.

New-york , United-states , Sarah-jessica-parker , Miley-cyrus , Britney-spears , Sam-asghari , Networks-once , New-york-times , Stars-such-as-miley-cyrus , Midler-have , Framing-britney , Issue-of-guardianship

Brother raises sister's four children after domestic violence-related death

Brother raises sister's four children after domestic violence-related death
ThuThursday 21
updated
FriFriday 22
JanJanuary 2021 at 4:46am
Sam, supported by partner Maddie, says deciding to care for his sister's children was easy.
(
Print text only
Cancel
Sam Burns said his heart seemed to stop beating the moment his mother called to tell him the news.
Key points:
Sam Burns and his partner Maddie are raising his sister's four children after her death in April 2020
The family has received plenty of community support and an online fundraiser has also been set up to help
Mr Burns says it is challenging, but taking the kids on was the easiest decision he's ever made

Ballarat , Victoria , Australia , Australian , Jason-dooley , Sam-burns , Netball-club , South-australian , Hepburn-burrus-football-netball-club , South-australia , Corrina-burns