Kind thoughts for Meghan Markle

In an interview with US Fox News this past week, Thomas said that he would be petitioning the Californian Courts for rights to see his grandchildren in the very near future. So do you think that Thomas should petition the Court for some access with his grandkids? And if he does, is he likely to be successful?

According to an article in US Weekly in the opinion of celebrity divorce attorney Mark Gross, Thomas would be unlikely to win his petition for visitation with Archie and Lili under Californian Law. Mr. Gross told US weekly that whether or not the Californian Courts will grant Thomas visitation would depend of the closeness between the grandparent and their grandchild. Mr. Gross argues, that without this established relationship between Thomas and his grandchildren his petition could be unsuccessful.

Here in Ontario in Canada, the best interest of the child is the overarching test when it comes to decisions affecting children. In terms of grandparent access the lower courts have developed two competing views:

1 A pro-contact approach

2 A parental autonomy approach (this view has support from the Ontario Court of Appeal)

The parental autonomy approach can be challenged. A grandparent can still ask a Court to make an order for access in Ontario, even though the child’s parents are saying no. However, similar to the law in California, a grandparent would have to show the court that they have a positive and pre-existing relationship with the grandchild; and the parent’s decision to deny access to the grandparent imperils this positive relationship; and the parent has acted arbitrarily in denying access.

Under Ontario law Thomas’s own actions could be his downfall. Thomas's continued airing of his grievances about Meghan and Harry and his denigration of their parenting skills before the world press, would be unlikely to reassure an Ontario Court that Thomas is considering the children’s best interests ahead of his own. Also, a Court might not want to grant access to a grandparent when when doing so could subject the child to conflict. Thomas has in the past thrown insults at both Harry and Meghan. Even in his Fox Interview this past week Thomas call Meghan and Harry ‘bad’ parents claiming that they had made mistakes in raising Archie and Lili.

US Attorney Mark Gross told US Weekly that these issues are also problematic under Californian Law.

One can image a Court worrying that if they did grant access visits to Thomas would he then parade them on the TV or take photos and sell them to the world’s media?

These cases are never easy and I am sure the judges hate having to decide them, especially those judges who are grandparents themselves. Many a judge has tried to persuade the parties in such cases into mediation or some sort of therapeutic counselling knowing that a Court case is really going to make an unfortunate situation much worse.

Let me know what you think - Should Thomas be given Court ordered access to his grandkids?

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.
Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

At a time when we are constantly bombarded with hateful and polarized media and social media commentary and when it is becoming increasingly difficulty to sort out the real news from the fake, Meghan and Harry have issued a couple of new charitable grants, re-committing themselves "to convening, bridging, and accelerating leaders, ideas, and solutions for an online community rooted in equity, safety, participation, and belonging."

In the statement released on their Archewell website Meghan and Harry admit that technology has changed how we all experience everyday life: connecting us and at times making our lives more productive.

Meghan and Harry also point out the down side of increased use of social media and other technologies, including our "lack of trust in the information we read and view, the safety and health of our kids being placed at risk, civil rights and human rights being threatened, and marginalized communities being targeted by a barrage of hate and vitriol."

Meghan and Harry write that they feel that many of the underlying societal issues created by technology remain unaddressed. Hence their existing work with various organizations and academics working in the field such as the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2), Color Of Change and URL Media and now the new grants that Meghan and Harry announced this week to Cortico’s Local Voices Network https://cortico.ai/ and the Institute for Rebooting Social Media at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society https://cyber.harvard.edu/programs/institute-rebooting-social-media

Cortico Community Local Voices Network is an initiative that is working in cooperation with the MIT Center for Constructive Communication. What they do is record small-group conversations in various communities when the participants discuss their lives and experiences. Think of what they do as a lot of separate interviews and discussions, say with local government or community groups and non-profits, similar to what you might have heard in the past on a local radio or TV show. Cortico collect and store these conversations on a searchable library using artificial intelligence (AI) tools that allow search by topic or key words or even by speaker.

The second new grant announced by Meghan and Harry is to the Institute for Rebooting Social Media at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Meghan and Harry are helping to fund a new three-year initiative, in work that is addressing urgent concerns surrounding social media, including hate speech and harassment, misinformation and privacy.

Meghan and Harry are also supporting what is called the Rebooting Social Media Assembly Fellowship during the 2022-2023 academic year. The fellowship will bring together renowned experts and new innovators from diverse backgrounds to address the challenges and opportunities of social media.

Meghan and Harry have said before and they reiterate in this week’s statement, that they believe new innovations in technology and media "should strengthen our communities, empower families, restore trust in information, and ensure that all of us can experience a better and safer world online."

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. Reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ and on twitter

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.
Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

I watched the town hall follow-up to Harry's and Oprah's Apple+ TV Series, The Me You Can't See - A Path Forward. This free to watch episode features members from the advisory board behind the series, as well some of the people who stories feature in the actual series, and Harry and Oprah talk about what comes next.
These are 6 of the many things that I learned from the town hall episode:
1. The Me We Can’t See series was two years in the making. Harry and Oprah said that their advisory board reviewed each episode for accuracy, appropriate language and to ensure that best practices were used. Harry and Oprah wanted to get it right. Harry also felt it was important to have a global perspective.

2. Oprah and Harry expressed their hopes from the series as including.

• Empowering people to talk about their mental health and their emotional well being.
• A recognition that physical health and mental health should be seen as equally important – as part of our general Health.
• To try and create a more supportive culture where people are more understanding and compassionate to one another.
• To let people with mental heath issues know they are not alone. That mental health is not a 'they' problem but a 'we' issue.
• To try and remove stigma around mental health.

3. Stigma and its effects, was discussed at various points during this episode.
4. A good deal of time was spent discussing how best to service people with mental health conditions and the services or lack of services available.
5. There was a lengthy discussion on suicide and suicidal ideation, the prevalence of which has increased during the pandemic.

6. We were told that being diagnosed with a mental health illness should not be seen as the end of the world.

There was a general sense of hope.
Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry and Archie and if would like, you can email me at [email protected]

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.
Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

Harry and Meghan have brought in some strong production talent to take charge of their content in Netflix and Spotify. Award winning producer Ben Browning, will be head of content for Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Productions and Archewell Audio.

So, who is Ben Browning? Well I can’t really tell you as there is no Wikipedia page for him and many of the other on-line sources have not much by way of personal information about Ben. Maybe he prefers to keep his personal life private and let his work to do the talking. And given the awards he has been nominated for, his work seems to be going just fine.

So, moving on to the bad mouthing happening against Meghan regarding comments she made to Oprah, in the chicken coop at her Montecito home, about the fact she and Harry were secretly married by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with just he and Meghan and Harry there, ahead of the official marriage that we all watched on the TV.

Meghan and Harry critics immediately jumped all over this. For Christian marriages in Britain, the law require two witnesses and an officiant to be present in order for a marriage to be legal, and the wedding has to take place in a location that has a special licence to hold weddings.

In a bid to find the official status of Meghan and Harry’s pre-wedding exchange of vows, UK Newspapers contacted the Official Registrar and were informed that a wedding licence had been issued allowing Meghan and Harry to be married at Windsor on May 19th 2018, the one we all saw on the TV. A clerk at the Registry mused that what Harry and Meghan likely did was to exchange some vows they had written themselves, which is fashionable, in front of the Archbishop, as a sort of spiritual wedding, or as a simple rehearsal.

So no harm no foul you would think? But just when you thought you might have heard the last from the Meghan and Harry villain Piers Morgan, up he pops to accuse Meghan of being a liar.

So how popular are pre-wedding exchanges of vows? In an article published in July 2020 on the US Martha Stewart website called “Why You Should Consider Exchanging Personalized Vows Before Your Wedding Ceremony”, the author of the article, Blythe Copeland, wrote that sharing your promises privately can help reduce nerves and make the experience more meaningful.

Ms. Copeland interviewed Reverend Laura C. Cannon, a professional officiant who's overseen more than 1,000 weddings in the last 15 years. Reverend Cannon is often in favor of a couple exchanging their vows with each other before, or instead of, reciting them in front of their guests. Reverend Cannon said that she encourages her couples to do this for a number of reasons.

1. It gives couples the chance to keep their own personal, custom-written vows just between the two of them instead of making them public.
2. If a couple is sharing a religious ceremony with their guests, this adds a private, personal touch by incorporating custom vows without breaking tradition.
3. Both parties need to understand what they're agreeing to. She says "your marriage vows are the entire reason you're getting married, they are the promises you make to one another that create the commitment of your marriage. "

It seems that Harry and Meghan have put the matter to bed in just announcing that they were not married three days before their official ceremony, saying that they exchanged personal vows a few days before their official/legal wedding on May 19 2018.

Thank you for rating my show. Please keep listening out for future podcasts on all things Megha

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.
Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

The final three episodes of Meghan and Harry’s Netflix docuseries were just as gripping as the first three – As before, I watched the episodes through twice, let it all sit with me for a while, and then observed the UK reactions (including the vile attack by the UK TV host Jeremy Clarkson printed Rupert Murdoch's The Sun UK newspaper. )

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.
Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/