Paternity No News ... and News.

Sex makes monkeys out of men. No news.

Ah, but monkey sex making monkeys out of scientists? News. And so WD passes along the report from Geneva of the 9-year-old daddy. DNA testing at the Swiss Zoo reveals that Viatu, not Kisoro, 17, is the father of baby gorilla Chelewa.

Also, a dad never really rests. No news. ...But we'll never let a dad rest in peace. News, again.

So, let's dig up the former (and deceased) Australian premier Charles Cameron Kingston to check his DNA and see who he might have fathered and who are among their spawn. And bring us the body of Eddy Arnold (famous for crooning "Make the World Go Away," among other country hits so we can see whether the mommy of Christopher Edward Tanner, 47, was telling the truth when she told him the late singer was his daddy.

In fact, let's not even leave daddies in peace when he AND scientific testing says he didn't happen to father the particular b*****d in question. So salute Meadville's (Penna.) Lisa Miceli, who doesn't care that former basketball superstar Michael Jordan denies fathering her 4-year-old; isn't bothered by his having "passed" two paternity tests; and doesn't feel court orders limit her right to free speech either. Most recently, for not shutting up about the man she believes is her baby daddy, she got thrown out of court — and not in a good way.

Remembering the Warrior with Secrets

The secrets of his war are inculcated into the veteran who served. The question for his child is whether it is better to let his or her father serve as a strainer for those secrets or to learn them to get closer to him.

Chicagoan Settimio Damiani's daughter Lee has had her father's war diary translated from the Italian as a way to get closer to her late father and the harrowing life he led under fire.

Gadsden's (Ala.) Bess Estis unpacked her late father's war souvenirs and came closer to understanding his wondrous sense of life and love: “Really, I think it came from the killing and knowing you could be gone at any second.”

While the good news in both those cases is that children grew closer to their late fathers, learning secrets of dad through war does not always lead to such fairy tale endings. For every secret gained through battle that children go looking for about their warrior dads, there are probably an equal number that come looking for them. Recently, a forensic psychologist discovered by poking at the bones of a WW II vet that it was a stepfather, not a father, who a son had worshiped.

And there is the promise/threat of more to come as the army now has the ability to use DNA testing on the remains of its fallen soldiers and there are estimates that from one to three percent of fathers are misidentified. In the (May 26, 2008) Boston Globe story, Deputy director of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Johnie E. Webb Jr., is qutoed as saying, "You could really do a lot of damage to a family...We haven't totally come to grips with how we're going to handle it."

** Take heed and handle all of a father's secrets with care. **

DNA (Do Not Ask) Concerns

Suppose we made him sing — or swivel, insisting that DNA was just a theory? Could we still determine the paternity?

Him, James Brown II (actually, II as in "too" since there are so many little JBs), is the formerly presumed and now DNA-verified son of papa soulster James Brown and backup (so to speak) singer and wife/not wife Tomi Rae Hynie. [Earlier: It's a Man's Man's Man's World]

Once upon a time a child's whose father was in question would be passed around the jury box. Twelve good men (it was a while ago) would consider if kid and dad looked alike. Now, there is DNA, but while we assume it is always accurate, there are questions. For example, one "expert" is worried that in the case of the 416 kids from the El Paso cult there might be some mix-ups. And fathers and children could be denied their link. So, let's find out what the dads can do and see if the kids do it.

Let the kid get down like James Brown and see if that clears up any questions.

Kids will follow dads. Just ask Justin Townes Earle who had to move through a period of drug addiction like his dad before he began to follow in father Steve Earle's chord progressions. Speaking for all kids, he admits, "I thought for years that I was nothing like my father, and it turns out I am exactly like him."

So let's use that for a paternity test.

** Maybe the cult actually had a good idea, only go further and make all dads claim all kids? **

Justice Served Cold

In almost every circumstance it is expected that father does know best, but there are times ...

Was it right or wrong for the child that Mark Spaid confirmed his "son" was not his? And would it be better or worse for a 19-week-old girl if a British court had decided otherwise than that a reluctant mom didn't have to tell the unidentified father about the product of a relationship that numbered merely minutes?

** Daddy knowledge is power to be used judiciously. **

DNA (do not accept?) Fatherhood

It is written — in the manner of unsubstantiated netlore on the importance of DNA testing — that studies show, "10 percent of children are actually the offspring of biological fathers other than the men they believe to be their fathers."

What does it mean to being a father if that is true? Actually, what does the DNA link mean to determining who is a father?

In Ireland, the biological father was granted the right by a court to keep the two lesbian parents of the child product of his sperm from vacationing in one of the couple's Australian homeland. On the other hand, an Los Angeles court commissioner took a (non) dad off the hook for $168,000 he owed in child support but wouldn't give him back the money he actually paid when a DNA test proved he wasn't the father he thought he was.

So there is unsettled legal ground for the fatherer. But what about the fatheree? What can of worms gets opened when a child selects who's his or her daddy?

** Evidence is in and fathering is not just a "show me the money" kind of gig. **