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[toll-free number]

Here's another store selling these awful, violence-promoting shirts. Whaddya say we call 'em and let 'em know that this kind of crap is totally unacceptable in this day and age.

A message from Glenn Sacks follows my comment here, and the toll-free number and email address for Tillys Clothing is listed below. We helped win "Round One" by getting the Bon to remove these disgusting shirts, and I bet Tillys Clothing will respond and do the right thing if you contact them and let your feelings be known.

The His Side campaign against the widely sold "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" T-shirts scored a victory recently. Bon Macy's, a major department store in Washington state, was flooded with angry letters and calls after our December 14 broadcast, and, to their credit, has decided to pull the shirts.

Having won round 1 of the battle, it is now time to move on to round 2. Tilly's is a clothing store which has 32 locations in Southern California, most of them within the sound of my voice on KMPC Sunday evenings. They sell "Boys Are Stupid--Throw Rocks at Them" T-Shirts as well as pajamas, stickers, postcards and journals.

I want all of you to write and call Tillys and LIGHT THEM UP. Be polite, but let them know EXACTLY how you feel. Our victory in Washington state shows that this is a battle we can win. Feel free to copy me on all letters: [email protected]

Also, I'd like to welcome SPARC --the Separated Parenting Access &Resource Center. SPARC also helped spearhead our campaign against Bon Macy's in Seattle over the "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" T-shirts. SPARC encourages recent arrivals to begin by leaving a message on the SPARC Forums and the users and moderators will be glad to assist.

Best Wishes,
Glenn Sacks
Listen to His Side with Glenn Sacks in LA &  Seattle
GlennSacks.com

Contact info for Tillys Clothing:


Tilly's Clothing, Shoes & Accessories

[font size=+1]Toll-Free: 877-384-5597[/font]

Or call Tilly's merchandise buyer Rosie Padilla or Barbie Harris at (949) 609-5599 ext. 5167

Email: [email protected]

http://www.tillys.com

Why shouldn't women be drafted too? Give me one good reason why women (and ONLY women) are exempt from the draft.

It's as clear a case of Federally mandated (and enforced) gender discrimination as I've ever seen. Here's how it works:

1) If you have a vagina, you're exempt. You get to stay home, all nice and warm and safe.

2) If you have a penis, off you go to the battlefield to be blown to bits.

Now, I've never heard an actual feminist response to this question. Any takers? Why shouldn't women be drafted too?

Shame and scandal: Mummy's little secret
James Hickey

Up to 2 in 5, politicians and Family Court judges may not be genetically related to some of their children.

"Ignorance is bliss for happy husbands" wrote reporter Adele Horin. The recommendations of the committee into DNA testing aims to keep the status quo, by making it illegal for alleged fathers having their assumed children's DNA tested without the consent of the mother or a court order.

[img src=http://www.kittennews.com/kn_mag/06_jun03mag/dna_3.jpg" align="right]

In 1965 well before the advent of DNA technology the song Shame and Scandal was released.

"Found a young girl, who suited him nice
Went to his papa to ask his advice
His papa said son, I have to say no
That girl is your sister but your mama don't know
Wohohoho, it's real, shame and scandal in the family..."

"Went to his mama, and thought what he said
And told his mama, what his papa had said
His mama she laughed she says, go man go
Your daddy ain't your daddy, but your daddy don't know..."

( traditional, lead vocals - Peter Tosh, 1965 produced by - Coxone Dodd)

A 500 year-old English law declared that any children born into a marriage are the progeny of the husband. It has not been until recent times that tests have become available to prove or disprove paternity.

Researchers conducting a study into inheritance of blood groups in America in the mid 1900's discovered that 1 in 10 babies blood types could not be explained by hereditary factors alone. The results of this research were kept secret for many years.

"In the early 1970s, a schoolteacher in southern England assigned a class science project in which his students were to find out the blood types of their parents. The students were then to use this information to deduce their own blood types (because a gene from each parent determines your blood type, in most instances only a certain number of combinations are possible). Instead, 30 per cent of the students discovered their dads were not their biologically fathers.

"The classroom was, of course, not the ideal place to find out this information," said Prof. Dickens, who is often consulted on ethical issues by geneticists at the Hospital for Sick Children"
(Mommy's little secret by Carolyn Abraham, The Globe and Mail. December 14, 2002)

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1995, "Blood Grouping Tests in Undisputed Paternity Proceedings", using the A-B-O blood typing system, it was found that 18% of the men who had voluntarily admitted paternity, were not the actual fathers of the children.

The use of blood groups for testing for paternity is not very accurate, as O and A blood groups are the most common.

In Australian maternity wards, it is standard procedure to only test the blood groups of the mother and the newborn infant. When the infant's blood type is different to the birth mother's it is assumed that this is the blood type of the alleged father. The father's blood is never tested.

If the alleged father of the child asks about the child's blood group just out of interest or curiosity. He will not be given that information. The obvious reason as to why the father's blood group is not tested is to prevent the accidental discovery of non-paternity in unsuspecting assumed fathers.

The discovery of DNA and its use in the treatment of hereditary diseases and genetic counseling created an ethical dilemma for doctors. The medical journal The Lancet in 1993 published an article called "Non-paternity rate and screening in genetic disease analysis".

"Geneticists have stumbled upon this phenomenon in the course of conducting large population studies and hunting for genes that cause diseases such as cystic fibrosis. They find full siblings to be half-siblings, fathers who are genetic strangers to more than one of their children and uncles who are much closer to their nieces and nephews than anyone might guess. Lumped under the heading of 'pedigree errors,' these so-called mis-paternities, false paternities and non-paternities are all science jargon for the unwitting number of us who are chips off someone else's block"

"In the research world, when scientists come across a father in a mismatched family, they toss the sample. If pedigree errors are not caught," Dr. Scherer said, "they can wreak statistical havoc with a study: People have made careers designing software to catch these kinds of things."

"Sample mix-ups can skew results, as can an extremely rare condition discovered in 1989 in which a child inherits two copies of the same chromosome from one parent, obscuring the contribution of the other. But as the number of gene hunts and diagnostic tests has grown and grown, the leading cause of these anomalies has proved to be mistaken fatherhood" (Mommy's little secret by Carolyn Abraham, The Globe and Mail. December 14, 2002)

A widely publicized story on the accidental discovery of non-paternity through screening for genetic disease is that of Morgan Wise.

"Wise's fateful discovery, several years after his divorce, was prompted by the desire to help treat his 6-year-old son for cystic fibrosis: When he took a blood test to find out which cystic fibrosis gene he carried, it turned out that he didn't have the gene at all. Both parents have to be carriers for a child to inherit the gene."

Subsequent genetic tests showed that of the four children born to Wise's former wife during their 13-year marriage, only the eldest was his. "I never experienced a heart attack, and I can tell you, I had one that day," Wise told Dateline. "I mean...a part of me died.'" (NBC Dateline)

For a child to inherit the genetic disorder of cystic fibrosis. Both parents must carry the recessive gene for cystic fibrosis. Genetic DNA testing for the recessive cystic fibrosis gene showed that Morgan Wise did not carry the recessive gene for the inherited disorder of cystic fibrosis as this unsuspecting man did not carry the recessive gene, there was no possible way he could have been the biological father of 3 of the 4 children.

"Keeping secrets can backfire. In one case, a father who tested negative for a gene that his sick child had inherited wrongly believes himself to be both a carrier of a genetic disorder and the child's natural father."

"Ms. Shuman said counsellors have never told him otherwise, even after his marriage broke up. But recently, he contacted the hospital again to say he has a new partner and wants to come in for further testing. He assumes that any child produced in his new relationship also may be at risk."

"Telling him there is no risk would reveal the truth about his first child. Going ahead with the test denies him the truth about his own DNA." (Mommy's little secret by Carolyn Abraham, The Globe and Mail. December 14, 2002)

Data from the American Blood Banks Association shows assumed fathers requesting the use of DNA that 30% are found not to be the child's biological father and this is just from males who have a doubts about whether they are a child's father or not.

A research paper Prenatal paternity testing with deoxyribonucleic acid techniques published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1996 found in postnatal testing 37% of alleged fathers were excluded from being the father of that child. Prenatal testing excluded 53% of alleged fathers. 753 postnatal paternity tests were performed and in the study each mother admitted that the paternity of her baby was ambiguous.

The accidental discovery of non-paternity can happen through genetic testing or in some cases fathers, after years of believing that the child was theirs and contributing to child support payments are told by the child's mother that they are not the child's natural father.

"The child, he said, "was not just a part of my life but was my life . . . someone I felt I would die for," said Demby, now 33. When contact with her stopped, "I was forced to view it as pretty much a death in the family," he said." (DNA tests mean more in deciding who's dad, some say, by Pam Louwagie Star Tribune. December 30, 2002)

One of the arguments for making DNA testing by father's illegal is that fathering is more than donating some chromosomes. Fathers who choose this option do so by making an informed decision by adopting children or in the case of infertility, parenting children by donor insemination from a fertility clinic. For some alleged fathers the choice is not an informed decision. In fact they may be blissfully unaware of the fact that some of the children born may not be genetically related to them at all.

Another argument for not DNA testing the children of a marriage is because it may cause harm to the child as the child had already bonded to the assumed father.

Fathers can loose contact with their children for a number of reasons -

1. Death or suicide, separated and divorced men have the highest suicide rate in Australia and overseas.

2. The Court orders the father not to have contact with the child.

3. The Mother decides that the father can not have contact with the children. The Mother can do this in a number of ways, by hiding the whereabouts of the children. By moving away so that contact becomes difficult and expensive. An article by Bettina Arndt, "many mothers put a barrier of distance between their children and their father by relocating on average by 141 kilometres in Australia."

4. Failure to enforce contact orders issued by the Family Court

5. Some men give up the battle to have contact with their children and try to walk away.

DNA testing of siblings can create further complications when one or more are shown not to be the genetic offspring of the assumed father. Some alleged fathers will be prepared to raise these children as their own regardless of the paternity of the child. Other Fathers will not be able to consider children they didn't father to be their responsibility. In both these cases the alleged father will be able to make informed decisions on the choices he makes.

Central to the debate on DNA testing and child support, is responsibility. Firstly there is the financial responsibility. Built into the child support formula is what is known as hidden alimony. The ideology behind this is that the children should not experience a fall in the standard of living after divorce or separation. In order for this to happen then the mother herself must not experience a fall in her standard of living. So whilst women can divorce their husbands, men can never divorce their wives whilst they continue to be the provider (pay packet). In the United States one of the justifications given for not relieving alleged fathers from paying child support is "what if the child's biological father cannot be found or if he's on welfare? Who will support the child?"

A dilemma caused by the DNA paternity debate is should alleged fathers support financially non-biological children? In England, husbands were once held responsible for the debts incurred by their wives and they were jailed in what was called the debtor's prison if they could not pay the debts of their wife. In the 1950's-60's the father's role was little more than that of the sperm donor and pay packet. Today the separated father is still regarded as a sperm donor and pay packet.

"If mum lied about who dad is? What else has she lied about", wrote one young boy who discovered his dad wasn't who he thought he was. Not only is it unsuspecting men but children as well, who are hurt by the choices and decision made by women who choose to conceive children to different men. Research also shows that a significant number of children would not have been born with inherited genetic disorders if the man they think is dad, was really their dad.

Fathers who request DNA testing and the results confirm that the child is actually theirs express a sigh of relief and joy as the doubt over paternity is removed.

The fathers who discover they are not the biological parent of their children are confronted with feelings of loss and grief.

"A part of me died!" said, Morgan Wise when it was confirmed that 3 of the 4 children born during his marriage weren't his.

"I was forced to view it as pretty much a death in the family," said Eric Demby Jr when it was confirmed the child he thought was his daughter, wasn't.

Men who are confronted with not being a child's biological parent also have to grieve as well for a relationship, which they erroneously believed, existed. That their relationship with the child's mother was a sham and that they had been lied too and deliberately deceived and exploited sometimes for many years.

The issue of non-paternity will not go away despite the efforts being made by governments to make DNA testing without the mother's consent a criminal offence, it confronts all of us with a number of moral dilemmas. For many years researchers have shown that women are biologically programmed for monogamy and it utterly shakes the assumption that women are biologically driven to single-mate bliss. Justifications for the high percentage of non-paternity include things like, revenge over an affair, seeking better quality DNA. Feminist advocates often promote women as victims of male desire. The reality of non-paternity confronts our perceptions and beliefs.

In a society which increasingly points the finger at the behaviour of men and seeks to criminalize and punish male behaviour whilst denying men reproductive choices and then to make DNA testing by alleged fathers illegal without permission, making fathers again dependent on the goodwill and decisions of others, creates serious doubt about social equity and justice for men.

Unsuspecting fathers are secretly being exploited by unknowingly supporting non-biologically related children they erroneously believe they have fathered. Recently a woman was convicted of fraud in obtaining child support payments for a child that didn't exist.

Is paying child support for non-biological children another form of sexually transmitted debt?

References:

DNA tests mean more in deciding who's dad, some say, Pam Louwagie, Star Tribune, December 30, 2002

Mommy's little secret, Carolyn Abraham, The Globe and Mail, December 14, 2002

Non-paternity rate and screening in genetic disease analysis, MG Le Roux, O Pascal, A David, and JP Moisan, Lancet, January 2, 1993; 341(8836): 57

Prenatal paternity testing with deoxyribonucleic acid techniques, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1996

Sex, lies and DNA, Sarah Henderson, Herald Sun

Blood-Grouping Tests in Undisputed Paternity Proceedings, Sussman and Schatkin, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 164, No. 3, page 249.

Dad Blood, If DNA tests prove that you're not your children's father, do you still owe child support? Cathy Young, November 6, 2002


http://www.kittennews.com/kn_mag/06_jun03mag/jamesh_02.htm

[There's no need to study the status of men, Edmonton Sun, December 9, 2003]

The world for women? - In Canada, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta yawned and let die Bill 219, which would have created the Alberta Commission on the Status of Men Act (http://www.assembly.ab.ca/pro/bills/ba-bill.asp?SelectBill=219). The purposes of the Commission were to have been:
[ul]
[li]study health problems unique to men or which predominantly affect men and make recommendations on appropriate Government initiatives;

[li]examine and advise on issues of cultural bias and stereotyping affecting men;

[li]review, analyze and advise on challenges confronting men including

[li]educational prospects for boys and young men,

[li]mortality and suicide rates,

[li]family relations, and

[li]the role of fathers;

[li]review and recommend initiatives and programs to enable men to develop career skills including continuing education. [/ul]

          On the surface, you might think this would have been a laudable effort, but no, the truth, according to Canadian feminist columnist Mindelle Jacobs, is that men don't need help. For example, there is no need, she says, for battered men shelters:

"Worldwide, the victims of serious domestic violence are overwhelmingly female. There is no pressing need to set up government-funded sanctuaries for abused men." - Mindelle Jacobs, There's no need to study the status of men, Edmonton Sun, December 9, 2003

          You know, she has a point, worldwide most victims of domestic violence are women. In many Muslim nations, it's got to be pretty horrible to be a woman, and women get short shrift in Africa. It is truly terrible how women are treated throughout the undeveloped parts of the world.

          Funny thing, though, Bill 219 isn't about helping men in places like Syria or Sudan, but Canada, where, as in America, there are thousands of shelters for women, but only one or two for men, and thousands of governmental and institutional organizations to help women, but only a few hundred, if that, for men.

          Yes but, worldwide...No, "worldwide" doesn't matter, oppression of women in Africa does not justify the oppression of men in Alberta.

Abusing the Global Context for a National Agenda

          How women and men in other nations relate is important, but irrelevant to domestic policies affecting how women and men relate right here, wherever "here" happens to be for you. But, beginning in the mid-1980s, feminists discovered that they could promote their national agendas, and counter local attempts to establish equal justice for both women and men, with references to international oppression of women. In short, they use the international oppression of women to justify the national oppression of men.

          Certainly, it's laudable to promote fair and equitable treatment of women throughout the world, but to use this as a ploy to diminish and dismiss inequitable treatment of men back home exposes their hypocrisy, and their hatred of men.

http://backlash.com/content/gender/

The Price of Fatherhood--a Father's Reply to
Ann Crittenden's 'Mothers Manifesto'
 
By Glenn Sacks

Ann Crittenden's popular The Price of Motherhood: Why Motherhood is the Most Important--And Least Valued--Job in America, released in paperback this week, has become the first feminist classic of the new millennium. Crittenden's "mothers' manifesto" is an expose of the so-called "mommy tax," which can include reduced job opportunities and salary for mothers, as well as a lack of appreciation, often from working women themselves.

However, if there is a woman paying the "mommy tax" by sacrificing her earning power to be at home full-time or part-time, there has to be a man in the household supporting the family and, by so doing, paying the "daddy tax." Crittenden, by defining "privilege" and "sacrifice" only in terms of pay and career status, sees disadvantages only for mothers and not for fathers. But what about the price of fatherhood?

The average American father works 51 hours a week. While nearly half of American mothers with children under the age of six do not work full time, even those who do average only a 41 hour work week. American men work the longest hours of any workers (male or female) in the industrialized world. Men work 90% of the overtime hours in the US, and are more likely to work nights and weekends, to travel for work, and to have long commutes. All of these deprive fathers of valuable time with their children.

In addition, men do our society's most hazardous and demanding jobs, in large part because the higher pay allows them to better provide for their families. Nearly 100,000 American workers died from job-related injuries over the past decade and a half, 95% of them men. There were over 100 million workplace injuries in the US between 1976 and 1999, again the overwhelming majority of them suffered by men.

Men dominate in all stress-related diseases, including a two to one lead in heart disease. In fact, Gloria Steinem once cited this in advising men to support women's careers, saying, "Men--support feminism! You have nothing to lose but your coronaries!"

Less time with their children, long work days and work weeks, job hazards and job stress--all of these are the daddy tax. I know, because I've paid it. As the main provider for my family, I worked 60 hour, six day weeks far from home, sometimes at hazardous construction jobs. I missed my young son so badly that many times, arriving home from work late at night, I would carry him around the house on my shoulder, even though he was asleep. My fatherhood was the hollow, joyless fatherhood many men endure--all the burdens of supporting children drained of the pleasure of actually being with them. At times it seemed the only interaction I had with my son was disciplining him, the one parenting job which has not so generously always been reserved for fathers.

One day I was so disheartened over the situation that I walked off my job, pulled my son out of his kindergarten class, took him to the toy store, bought him a race car set, and spent the rest of the day playing with him. Fortunately, it didn't cost me my job.

Even more fortunate is that, unlike many men and fathers, I haven't been financially trapped in a hazardous job--what men's advocate Warren Farrell calls the "glass cellar of male disposability." A construction job I worked at when I was young illustrates well the untold cost of fatherhood which many men pay.

I worked at a nuclear power plant in the South. Every morning we strapped on our tool belts and hard hats, and made the long climb up the rebar skeletal frame of the building. Once we were 50 feet up, we hooked our hook belts around the rebar and then leaned back to work, with most of our weight on that hook belt. Leaving aside the blistering heat, the difficult reaches, and the danger of someone else's tools falling on you, the reality was that your life--minute by minute, hour after hour, day after day--was dependent upon that hook belt.

One day a journeyman electrician called to me to climb down and help him. He had a rope in one hand and his tool box in the other. We walked over to a large room filled with immense electrical panels. He told me to stand 10 feet behind him and hold the rope. I had no idea why, but I did as I was told. He then made the other part of the rope into a harness, put it on, and said "I'm gonna work on these wires, and some of them are live. If I hit the wrong one and start to fry, you pull me out."

I thought he was joking.

He wasn't.

He began to work and every once in a while he would take a tool he was done with and throw it at my feet, saying "hey--you awake? I got three kids to feed and they ain't gonna go barefoot 'cause you aren't payin' attention."

"No, no, I'm here," I protested. "Why don't they turn off the power so you can do this without being in danger?"

"Company won't do it. Too expensive."

"More expensive than your life?"

"To them."

"How come you don't just tell them 'no?' "

"Can't. Got kids to feed."

"You could do something else. Go to college."

"No money for it--got kids, a wife, a mortgage. Wait 'till you get married and have kids--you'll see."

Lunch time was often the time for "scare the new guy" on workplace injuries and safety. Every man had a horror story to tell, either about what happened to him or what happened to his buddy. The guy who shot his nailgun into a knot in wood and the nail glanced off and nailed his hand to the wall--just before his ladder came out from under him. The guy who sliced his fingers off with a saw and stepped on one as he tried to pick them up one by one. The guy who repaired power lines and hit a live wire while working 20 feet up and is only alive today because his buddy kicked him off the pole.

Fortunately for me, with the exception of bangs and bruises and falling off of a ladder a couple times, the closest I've come to a serious injury was when I shot myself in the hand with a nailgun--fortunately for me, a thin finishing nail. Later I did carpentry jobs as a side business, but luckily I no longer have to hang off the side of buildings or do other hazardous jobs. Most of my carpentry skills now are applied toward building my kids a bunk bed or a lemonade stand. But whenever I hear middle-class feminists like Crittenden tell us of her woes as a woman (and Crittenden, who uses herself as an example of motherly victimhood, tells us plenty of her personal woes), I think of those men and of the sacrifices they make to provide for their families and to give them safety and security--safety and security that they themselves will probably never have.

My life changed dramatically when my second child was born--I switched from the traditional father role to the traditional mother role. Now my wife enthusiastically pursues her new career and I've cut my work schedule back to care for our daughter during the day. I do all the cooking (and we never eat out or take in), the dishes, the shopping, the chauffeuring, the laundry, and the errands. Exactly as Crittenden did, I pursue my freelance writing career at home, in between my household duties. Crittenden is deeply bitter about this "sacrifice," but I consider myself to be quite lucky.

Which is better, paying the mommy tax or paying the daddy tax? There are advantages and disadvantages to both. It depends upon the jobs and personalities of those involved. For me, being at home with my young daughter has been the greatest, most fulfilling experience of my life, and I'll always be grateful to my wife for allowing me the opportunity. All of the "firsts" that I missed with my son--the first words, the first steps--I've been able to enjoy with my daughter, as well as countless other magical, irreplaceable moments. And there's nothing better in the world than when my little daughter walks up to me, puts her hand on my shoulder and says "every night I go sleepies right here." I have no desire to return to a demanding work schedule and be away from my kids. Given a choice, I'd rather pay the mommy tax.

Crittenden has several worthwhile suggestions on how to reduce the mommy tax, including universal preschool, a year's paid leave after the birth of each child, and full benefits for part-time work. I'm not sure how practical these ideas are, but I'm certainly interested, since they could help mothers as well as fathers and children. But how dare she, and other feminists, claim that the burden of children falls only on mothers? Yes, Ms. Crittenden, there is a mommy tax, but the daddy tax is just as large.

 

This column first appeared in the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal (1/10/02).

'Crocodile Hunter' takes baby to feed crocs
Friday, January 2, 2004 Posted: 1748 GMT ( 1:48 AM HKT)
 
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- Crocodile hunter Steve Irwin took his month-old son to his first croc feeding on Friday, offering the reptile a chicken with one hand and holding the baby in the other.

With a capacity crowd looking on, Irwin dangled a dead chicken before the 13-foot crocodile named Murray, which snapped up the offering. Irwin's tiny son Bob looked on from his other arm.

[img src=http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/01/02/crocodile.baby.ap/story.1.feed.jpg]

"He's one-month-old, so it's about time Bob got out there and did his first croc demo," the Australian celebrity told the crowd at his Australian Zoo.

Irwin's wife Terri, who gave birth to her second child on December 1, also attended the show, billed as Bob's "croc feeding debut."

Irwin's show, "The Crocodile Hunter," served as the basis for the movie "The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course," which came out in 2002.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/01/02/crocodile.baby.ap/index.html

[[email protected]]

NIH: Where Political Correctness is Sickening
December 30, 2003
by Carey Roberts


This past Christmas, President Bush felt compelled to issue three separate holiday cards. Christians, Blacks, and Jews received cards with greetings appropriate to their holiday celebrations. That way, no one would feel offended.

But Political Correctness has gone far beyond dictating the content of Christmas cards. Now, PC thinking has seduced the hearts and minds of government officials.

Case in point -- the National Institutes of Health, charged with advancing America's medical research agenda, recently unveiled a draft plan to reduce health disparities. The plan is saddled with the bureaucratic title, "Strategic Research Plan to Reduce and Ultimately Eliminate Health Disparities." The document can be seen at //www.ncmhd.nih.gov/our_programs/strategic/volumes.asp.

Of course, men lag on practically every measure of health care. Men are less likely to have health insurance or to see their doctor when they get sick. Men indulge in riskier lifestyles. As a result, men die an average of 5-1/2 years before women.

So any discussion of health disparities would logically focus on men.

Please understand, PCism is very hard to cure. Its symptoms include a stubborn compulsion to suppress the natural impulse of logic, fairness, and compassion. To overcome that humane instinct, the crafters of the NIH plan had to rigidly obey these 4 rules:

1. Ignore the parts of the law that you don't happen to agree with -- The NIH disparity plan was developed to comply with the recent Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Act. The Act defines a health disparity group as "a population where there is a significant disparity in the overall rate of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity, [or] mortality." That definition fits the male half of the US population to a T. But the NIH decided to simply ignore that part of the law.

2. Never make direct comparisons between men and women -- Because revealing that men's health has chronically lagged in comparison to women would sabotage the entire NIH feminist health agenda.

3. Cover up the fact that your agency is actually making the disparity worse -- Over the years, the National Cancer Institute has spent more than three times more money on breast cancer research than on prostate cancer. But don't expect the NCI disparity reduction plan to draw attention to that fact.

4. Give only token attention to the greatest disparity -- The lifespan of Black men is 7 years less than for Black females. Black men are the neediest of the needy. Although the NIH plan does recommend programs for African-American men, the plan illogically proposes that more attention be given to Black women.

Despite its ballooning $28 billion annual budget, it is unlikely that the cure for the affliction of Political Correctness ever will be found at the NIH.

The remedy will have to come from the American citizens who are sick and tired of the epidemic of PC.

We need to tell the NIH that the lives of half the nation's population should not count for less because they happen to be male. The PC-crats at NIH need to hear that message, loud and clear. Here's the e-mail address to send your comments:

[email protected]

Brief or lengthy, your message will make a difference.

But do it now -- the deadline is January 5.


http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2003/1230roberts.html

UN-BELIEVABLE!!!

You know those a-holes at "David & Goliath", the jerks who make those horrible anti-boy T-shirts? Well, I didn't see this until just now, but this is the *intro* to their web site. You will not, repeat NOT believe this garbage:

http://www.davidandgoliathtees.com/new/

Wendy Macelroy describes it this way: "The entrance to the D&G site displays a short animation that opens with a small boy in a "Stupid Factory" -- that's where boys are produced. When the factory crumbles around him, he is revealed to be on a toilet, bare-bottomed. A little girl pelts him on the skull with a large rock and he tumbles, landing with his head planted fully in the earth, his wriggling buttocks exposed. A display at the bottom of the page points people toward sources for T-shirts, including a store at the presumably child-friendly Universal Studios."

Can you IMAGINE what would happen if the 'roles' for the little girl and boy in this sick crap were reversed?? I can....

What a bunch of a-holes.

[Not tonight, I have a protest]

Geeeeeeeee, I would hate to think this might reinforce the terribly unfair stereotype that women withhold sex as a form of control over men, or that they use sex to barter with. Yeah, I sure would hate for anyone to think that it might be true.....becuase women are SO above that, right? Right?

Not tonight, I have a protest
 

By MICHAEL POSNER
Saturday, March 1, 2003 - Page R1

On Monday, in protest against the looming conflict in Iraq, actors in (at last count) 49 countries are staging readings of the Greek playwright's ribald, 2,400-year-old antiwar comedy Lysistrata.

In the United States, as many as 1,000 separate productions are planned -- in all 50 American states -- 33 in Massachusetts and 18 in Chicago alone.

In Canada, the durable chronicle of a group of angry Greek women who decide to withhold sex from their husbands in order to end the 28-year Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens will be recited in seven provinces, at more than two dozen venues and, of course, in two languages.

On the same day, there will be readings in London, Paris, Berlin, Athens, Beirut -- indeed, almost every major world capital. Two readings are planned in Reykjavik, one in Damascus and nine in Aristophanes's homeland, Greece.

There's even one in China, though neither the names of the participants nor the location are being revealed to avoid problems with political authorities.

"Some of them will have to hold their readings in the privacy of their living rooms to avoid danger," says project organizer Kathryn Blume. "But they tell us it's worth the risk to be a part of this movement of hope."

In New York City, theatrical luminaries Mercedes Ruehl, F. Murray Abraham, Kevin Bacon, Peter Boyle, Kathleen Chalfant, Delphi Harrington and Kyra Sedgwick are lending their names and voices to the chorus of protest. In Los Angeles, the lineup of stars includes Julie Christie, Alfre Woodard, Christine Lahti, Mary McDonnell, Barbara Williams, Eric Stoltz, Ed Begley Jr. and Jose Zuniga.

Money raised by the event will be donated to peace and humanitarian-aid charities in the Middle East, though the principal objective is to rally opposition to the war.

Like the recent wave of worldwide parades, naked sit-ins and demonstrations against the prospective war, the Lysistrata Project can thank the Internet for its exponential growth.

"It's a totally viral situation," concedes Blume, a New York actor who conceived the idea last month. "It just took off."

Last month, Blume was trying to adapt Lysistrata for the screen when she stumbled upon Theatre Artists Against War, which had already planned a March 2 protest against military adventure in Iraq. Blume mentioned it to another New York actress, Sharron Bower, e-mailed a few friends and, within days, they were launched, powered by the Web-site engine (http://www.lysistrataproject.com). In addition to the cost of the Net domain name ($30 U.S.), Blume says she's "maxxed out my credit card and invested about $2,000."

Both men and women have been involved in organizing the event and Blume insists there is no campaign to actually get women to withhold sex. "That's not what the project is about, although if the wives of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld want to do that, we won't object. It's about letting the rest of the world know George Bush doesn't speak for all Americans."

Of course, it might also be about letting the world know that Saddam Hussein doesn't speak for all Iraqis, but so far there are no scheduled readings in Baghdad.

The power of the Worldwide Web to mobilize public opinion on behalf of political causes seems to be growing. It certainly enabled organizers to enlist support for the antiglobalization demonstrations in Seattle, Genoa and elsewhere, as well as the Feb. 16 protests against the expected war against Iraq.

The Lysistrata Project is a much smaller offshoot, but may represent the first time the Net has been harnessed by a global community of artists with such speed.

Lara Goldenberg, a freelance stage manager and Montreal organizer of one of eight scheduled Lysistrata readings in Quebec -- at the Monument National -- says she stepped into the breach because everyone else was too busy. Alerted by an e-mail from a New York friend, Goldenberg persuaded local artistic directors (including Gordon McCall and Rachael Van Fossen) to perform as actors. "Everything has been donated, even though this is the week of deadlines for grant preparation. No one has said no to anything. But it's absolutely not about getting women to withhold sex. It's merely a comical way to denote that war is not the only answer."

(As Dr. Evil would say, "Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight......"  -Brent)



Proceeds from the Montreal reading will go to Médecins sans Frontières, which provides medical aid to populations in danger in more than 80 countries.

Scholars are not sure exactly when Aristophanes (circa 447-circa 385 BC) wrote the play, but the updated translation (by Carolyn Feleppa Balducci) is certainly rich in provocative double-entendres.

For example, when Lysistrata leads her friends in a closed-fist oath-swearing ceremony against sex, they resolve not to open their doors to lovers or husbands, though "he flaunts his battering ram . . . I will refuse to put on anything except something he would like to take off . . . I'll not raise my Persian slippers to the ceiling, nor play pouncing pussy. Both the front door and the back door will be locked."

The Balducci text also contains contemporary references to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Axis of Evil. In the play, the women occupy the national treasury building, cutting off funding for the war. At first stunned and then angry, the men spar verbally and physically with the women but, starved for conjugal relations, eventually agree to suspend war and seek a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
 

[The whole thing that feeds such delusional fantasies is that many men these days are choosing to live the Masculine Life, an enlightened state in which a man doesn't waste a moment seeking the admiration or approval of women. He doesn't require the validation of them for his masculinity. He defines it for himself. He sets his own ground rules, and if it means he doesn't get any action tonight, it's no loss to him. "My way or the Highway" is his motto, and refuses to play games, let alone "The" game.This infuriates lip-service anti-feminists, or stealth feminists as I like to call them. They're not feminists. They just act like them. It's true – just ask them These are the women who prattle on and on mindlessly about equality and fair treatment, but the minute it costs them one of their whims, they turn into shrieking harpies. All of a sudden, you're hateful, and evil, and anti-woman, anti-family, anti-child, and all the rest of the usual litany of slanders. Such a woman feels a sense of entitlement to both their rights and privileges. They have the right to a career, the right to a family, the right to a husband, the right to a child. And damn it, if you were any kind of a man at all you would shut up, accept your lot in life, and give it to them! What? Exercise some give with my take? Why you misogynistic MENINIST! You're hateful, and evil, and anti-woman, anti-family, anti-child...]

LOL!!!!!!!


[font size=+1]Confessions of a Masculist Thug[/font]

December 24, 2003
by Pete Jensen


So I said to myself this morning, "Self! What can you do today to further oppress women?"  (Apologies to Emeril.  But it is way too good a line.)  We are told to ask that of ourself at the Male Oppression Conspiracy and Sperm Cartel meetings, don't you know.  And I never miss a meeting.

Thus, this is a question I ask myself each and every morning, prior even to my daily ingestion of  four cups of testosterone.  I should note, not being a girly man, I drink it straight, without sugar and cream or such foo-foo flavorings as "Hazelnet" or "Irish Crème."  Dammit, be a Man!  Back in the old days we used to mainline it with a rusty needle.  What is the world coming to?

What to do?  Deny them the right to vote?  Naw, too trendy.  Make them wear full body coverings?  Naw ... it's been done to death.  Woe is me, but it's so hard to be a Western Patriarchal Oppressor these days.  Another long day at the overseer's lash again, I sighed, as I pulled on my wife-beater shirt.

After fueling myself with sufficient distilled and naked aggression, I contemplated taking the day off to go and murder some poor defenseless woodland creature in a frenzy of masculine bloodlust, and to end it with a wild and pagan bacchanalian rite and an orgy.  Trouble is, you do that too often, and it gets old.  Or maybe it's just me getting old.  I only managed to defile eight innocent virgins at the last one.  It's not like the old days when you could go and just burn a town because you got a bad haircut and it was simpler than hunting the barber down.  And training another set of rookies to pillage first and burn second is a wearying prospect.

I pulled on my jackboots and before I left I checked to see if I had everything.  Concealed weapon?  Check.  Brass knuckles?  Check.  My porno magazines?  Check.  All in order, I strode out the door, my step lightening as I heard the sharp report of fist against flesh, and my next door neighbor screaming at his wife, "I already done told you TWICE!!!"

Maybe it would be a beautiful day after all.

Now, you would think, listening to the way some women talk, that such is my daily life.  Judging from the character assassination that goes on against "Men's Rights Activists" or "Masculists" or "Meninists" (Depending on which shrill harpy is doing the shrieking at the time) it's a wonder that we aren't having women hunted down and killed in the streets.  Now while I've often contemplated that such women were only gifted their physical attributes by the good Lord to keep a bounty from being placed upon them, I've got to say that paranoia is far to mild a word to use.

I've yet to hear a blessed one of them even come up with a cogent set of doctrines we such folks adhere to and live our life by.  You can't even get two of them to agree on a term for us.  I kind of like one I heard hurled at me the other day.  Masculist Thug.  That has flavor.  It rolls trippingly off the tongue.   It's colorful, and has character; it's something I'd like to put in stark white lowercase Courier font on a black t-shirt.  (2XL-XT, btw.  Just in case. )

To describe some type of hypothetical "Male Illuminati" as being a monolithic organization, conspiring like the Gnomes of Zurich to take over the world is laughable on its face.  I'm imagining hordes of men gathering in secret spots, dressed in robes, and chanting prayers to some dark and unspeakable male deity.  Secret handshakes.  Code words.  It is to laugh.

The whole thing that feeds such delusional fantasies is that many men these days are choosing to live the Masculine Life, an enlightened state in which a man doesn't waste a moment seeking the admiration or approval of women.  He doesn't require the validation of them for his masculinity.  He defines it for himself.  He sets his own ground rules, and if it means he doesn't get any action tonight, it's no loss to him.  "My way or the Highway" is his motto, and refuses to play games, let alone "The" game.

This infuriates lip-service anti-feminists, or stealth feminists as I like to call them.  They're not feminists.  They just act like them.  It's true – just ask them  These are the women who prattle on and on mindlessly about equality and fair treatment, but the minute it costs them one of their whims, they turn into shrieking harpies.  All of a sudden, you're hateful, and evil, and anti-woman, anti-family, anti-child, and all the rest of the usual litany of slanders.  Such a woman feels a sense of entitlement to both their rights and privileges.  They have the right to a career, the right to a family, the right to a husband, the right to a child.  And damn it, if you were any kind of a man at all you would shut up, accept your lot in life, and give it to them!  What?  Exercise some give with my take?  Why you misogynistic MENINIST!  You're hateful, and evil, and anti-woman, anti-family, anti-child...

Hey, lady?  How about a double shot of "Put a sock in it?"

Of course, it honks off admitted feminists too, but most of them see the sun rising in the morning as a symbol of phallic male oppression, and are often annoyed when the wind blows.  The fact that I, as a male, breathe there air is enough to give them fits, so I generally don't sweat it.

As I said, living a Masculine Life is where a man doesn't occupy his every waking thought with pleasing women.  He doesn't require their permission to be male. The female "Seal of Approval" on his manhood isn't sought, or if given, even worn with any special pride.  This doesn't mean hating, or even being indifferent to women – just to their sanction to live his life as a man in the manner of his own choosing.

It is from this point that, upon hearing the pious intoning of the formulaic "Pete, what women want is.." that I say "Why do I give a rat's ass what women want?"  It is here that I become a Masculist Thug.  The credo is a simple one – being female is fine and dandy.  That and a buck gets you coffee at the 7-11.  The mere fact of possessing female plumbing is insufficient to garner either privilege or treatment.  You want chivalry, romance, and all that?  Two words: Earn it.

We've got the third generation of feminists out now, and most of these are near college age women who have never known a life where they were not treated as an aristocratic class of society.  They have had drummed into them all their life that Prince Charming will someday ride up on his white horse, whisk her away, ravage her like a barbarian, and the next day she'll be able to put on her Power Suit and share in the running of his kingdom.  They can have it all:  All the age old authority as mistress of the household, a male cabana boy to slave away in the salt mines all day, take up the mantle of drudge in the evening to help with his "half" of the housework, and to make savage love to her all night long. So far as they are concerned, this is their birthright, ordained by God(dess) on High, and the idea that any man might dispute her Divine Right of Femininity only proves that they are in league with the Devil.

To her eternal frustration and rage, nobody got the men of her generation to agree with this.  Such men have learned that no matter what the reason a woman's life fails to work for her, if he is anywhere near ground zero when the nuclear bomb of reality goes off, he will be blamed for it.  He has grown up with sparse and scarce contact with his father, and seen him get raped in family court.  They have watched this happen to brothers, uncles, and their friend's fathers.  At an early age he was playing with his trucks in the next room when mommy had her friends over, and learned what women really think of men when the ex-husband-bash-fest began.  He has heard for himself that child support and alimony are more a lever to "get the bastard" than about the kids.  The list continues.  In short, he has read the script already, and doesn't want the part.

Which, of course, makes him an immature, irresponsible, misogynistic commitment-phobe.  He's a man, so it's his fault.  Alas for her, he's heard that one so often that it doesn't even register on his insult radar.

This is the Masculist Thug.  He does things on his terms, and if that doesn't please the American Woman, or fit with her plans, she needs to get over herself.  This is what makes me a Masculist Thug.  I wasn't put here to please women, nor make their lives work for them.  When I opine that either pleasing or displeasing a woman doesn't even enter my mind on most days – (Pissing off feminazis is another matter; that is one of my joys in life) and that whether I do or not is purely incidental, I'm met with shock.  When I assert that it is a fundamental right of a man to withdraw entirely from the marriage trap altogether, and seek a vasectomy if it pleases him, I'm lambasted.  When I tell the hordes of sour young girls that in fifteen or twenty years the value of what they have to offer will drop dramatically, while mine can only rise, I get hissed at.  Get your crucifixes out.  Evil Pete is on the scene.

It's tough, baby, and it's biology.  The typical young feminist has grown up in a world of feminine entitlement and privilege, so they have deemed it unnecessary to develop a civil tongue, manners, the ability to converse on any subjects of substance, nor the patience to be a good companion.  The have been spoon fed pap from the feminist stock of current wisdom that men are dumb pigs, easily manipulated with sex.  And as far as sex goes, they think all they have to do is show up and lay there, and aren't all that good at it.

Twenty years from now, the ovaries will dry up, and sex is all they'll have left to offer.  The men of their age will still be virile and "prime catches."  They'll be ready to be fathers, and have their families then.  The women?  Well, they still won't be all that good at sex.

Might as well develop that hobby right now, sugar-lips.  Thirty years can be an awfully long time.  And I know, you don't have to tell me.  I'm a Masculist Thug to say so.  Now all I have to do is find someone to print the damn t-shirts.

Pete Jensen


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pete Jensen is a Computer Engineer and Curmudgeon who lives in the wilds of Southern Indiana. He enjoys satirizing political correctness, and mocking its advocates. If you'd care to write him and talk reasonably he welcomes it. If you'd care to write him and froth at the mouth ideologically, he welcomes that too. You'll be grist for the mill, and know in advance he doesn't regard any such diatribes as privileged communication. That's right, you too can wind up lampooned by his searing wit and insightful barbs in front of millions on the internet."

[either]

Boys Will Be Boys

December 24, 2003
by Linda Haley

Boys Will Be Boys. Always this conjured up images of muddy shoes, torn knees on jeans, and bringing home pollywogs. Later it meant perhaps panty raids, sneaking out of the dorm to TP the dean, or playing cards instead of studying for a test. In other words, basically harmless scrapes that the male sex tended to get into before the weight of the world was transferred to their shoulders.

It still meant this to me, so it didn't make sense when I started hearing the phrase in modern times. It was something you'd expect to hear from Donna Reed or maybe even Shirley Partridge. Only you'd know even then that Shirley was being kind of retro. I started hearing it again, and I was set to be amused by it, but something wasn't right. Something had changed drastically.

For the first time I was hearing people sarcastically saying "Oh, boys will be boys, right?" when referring to things like sodomizing other boys with pinecones in football camp. I was hearing it used when a woman was raped. I was hearing it used when a young man committed murder, or shot up the school. My initial horrified thought was, "But who said that? Who on earth used that phrase to excuse a horrific crime? Was it the boy's parents? The defense lawyers? The press?" The answers weren't immediately coming. I had to kind of figure this one out on my own.

In the meantime I continued reading, and I was fortunate enough to discover The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers. It certainly validated my homeschooling stance, and even gave me helpful advice about not trying to delve into my son's personal psyche all the time. If he's reticent and a bit stoic, leave him the hell alone, like he wants. Stop prying at him. Thanks, Ms. Sommers! Fortunately I already knew about the physical activity, the drugging, and academic failure. In researching a series of articles I was writing based on the book, I discovered the NOW website. For the first time I began hearing the phrase in earnest.

I came to realize after many months that in fact no one had been pulling this old folk saying out when tragic crimes were committed. No one was actually trying to excuse these crimes, least of all using a phrase that would be so very dumb in that context. It was more like a bit of apocryphal knowledge you were supposed to possess, like a secret handshake among androphobes. Whenever anyone publically tried to figure out possible contributing causes as to why crimes like this were occurring - such as the systematic crushing of boys' spirits by the educational establishment - someone would say bitterly, "Sure, boys will be boys, right?" and go off on a tirade about rape and murder. Whoah. That's a lot different than skinned knees.

It has only recently become clear how insidious this plot is. At first I just assumed they were mistaken about people's motives in trying to pinpoint some of the contributing factors to criminal activity. I thought they genuinely believed that people were trying to excuse these crimes by invoking some new version of "boys will be boys," updated for the new century. Now I don't think it was so accidental.

At the risk of seeming off-topic, let me explain a bit. I once read a poem that was meant to show "male privilege" to those who "don't know they have it." This poem was extremely well-written, if melodramatic. I don't mean I liked it, because in fact it made me physically ill. What I mean is that it accomplished its goal in spades. By interspersing harmless nothings (which, I might add, could apply to either sex equally) such as "taking up too much room on the couch" and "hogging the remote control" with things like "writing [women's] name in blood" and "raping a woman to death," it embroidered an ugly picture. Mixing the banal with the obscene like that is a good way to stir up hatred, albeit not a good way to be honest. This resurrection of the "boys will be boys" phrase is meant to do precisely the same thing. It is meant to taint the wholesome images with the stain of the evil ones, and thereby make the harmless the same as the harmful. It is meant to conflate the innocent and the felonious, all the while implying, falsely, that it is the other side who is actually doing so. That is really sneaky. It's positively diabolical.

I don't have easy solutions to a problem which is a cultural stigma dishonestly propagating bigotry. You can't pass laws against attitudes. Well, you can try, but it would be a mistake, just like any other anti-thought-crime legislation. I can only do my part the best way I know how.

I don't allow this kind of hatred in my home, and when I see it I call it every time. When I catch my son doing something like holding open a door for an elderly person, or going out of his way for someone, I may say "Boys will be boys."*

Let people start using it appropriately again. When I see or hear people around me pathologizing normal boyish behavior I do my best to educate them on why there is nothing abnormal about what they are talking about, and when they mention truly naughty behavior I try to give them constructive ways to help their sons channel their natural rambunctiousness. I tell them about the strong need for physical activity. I try to raise awareness in any venue I can. I don't send my son to soul-destroying institutions or drug him, and I discourage others from doing so. I'm sure you can think of a thousand ways to combat this attitude in your daily life. While doing so try to ensure your son doesn't internalize this societal contempt of his very being.

I don't think there will be any easy way to do away with this particular problem. It wasn't easy for the lie to take root, and it won't be easy rooting out the lie. It has to be done, though. Exposing it is the first step. For now, raising a son has proven a tremendous education in itself. I have come to love boyhood and all its foibles and differences from girlhood. I love the way healthy, encouraged boys aren't always trapped in a quagmire of conflicting emotions the way I was as a girl. I enjoy their unique mix of openness and stoicism. I love their daring. I love the way they will attempt something they've never done before without wondering first if they "can." I love their wish to protect the people they care about. In short, for now I would like to heartily and publically say, "Boys will be boys...thank goodness!"

*Disclaimer: I also love girls and could sing their praises as well. No one, however, is going around sniping "Girls will be girls," to show how evil they are.

Linda Haley

[For the first time since tracking began 20 years ago, U.S. women outnumber men in higher paying, white collar managerial and professional occupations.]

Hmmm...now that "women outnumber men in higher paying, white collar" jobs, can they still be oppressed, underpaid victims in the workplace?

Also, I guess now it won't be called the "oppressive patriarchal business world", but the "oppressive matriarchal business world".

Oh the irony.

More U.S. women crack glass ceiling

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20031222-091120-7505r.htm

CHICAGO, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- For the first time since tracking began 20 years ago, U.S. women outnumber men in higher paying, white collar managerial and professional occupations.

The gap will continue because of a self-perpetuating cycle of workplace gains for women, according to international outplacment firm Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

"As a growing number move into upper management roles, those further down the ladder will reap the benefits by increasingly being targeted for advancement," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that, as of Nov. 30, women represent 50.6 percent of the 48 million employees in management, professional and related occupations.

In 1983, the first year the government began recording gender data for its occupational statistics, women accounted for 40.9 percent of managers and professionals.

"At the computer, women are just as productive as men," said Challenger. "This fact alone has opened up a world of opportunity for women and is bringing an end to outdated concepts like the glass ceiling."

Study: Men Don't Cause Yeast Infections in Women

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/502534/

Women may blame their husbands or boyfriends for headaches, tears and stress. But they can't be blamed for those nasty recurrent yeast infections, contrary to popular belief.

A new study by University of Michigan Health System researchers finds that the presence of yeast in male sex partners does not make women more prone to recurrent yeast infections. Certain sexual activities, however, were linked to increased risk of recurrent yeast infections in women, according to the study.

"Many physicians, and many women, believe that women get recurrent yeast infections because their partner passes the yeast back to them during intercourse. This study refutes that belief," says study author Barbara Reed, M.D., M.S.P.H., professor of Family Medicine at the U-M Medical School. "This study suggests the risk for recurrent infections is related to something else – perhaps the woman's immune response to the yeast."

Candida vulvovaginitis, or yeast infection, is one of the most common diagnoses in American women. About three-quarters of women will have at least one yeast infection in their lives, and 40 percent have recurrent infections. The Candida yeast are often found in both women and men in the genital area, rectum and mouth.

In the study, published in the December Journal of Women's Health, researchers looked at 148 women with confirmed Candida vulvovaginitis and 78 of their male sexual partners. Each woman was examined by a doctor, who collected samples from the vagina, cervix, vulva, tongue and rectum. The men were asked to collect at home urine, fecal and semen samples and a tongue swabbing. The samples were analyzed by culture to determine whether Candida species were present at each site.

The women received treatment for their initial infection and were asked to return for follow-up visits after two weeks, four weeks, six months and a year. At each visit, they were asked about symptoms, sexual activity and changes in risk factors. Doctors repeated the pelvic exam and specimen collections.

The women were also told to return for testing any time they had symptoms of vaginal discharge, itching or odor. Doctors performed an exam and collected specimens at these visits as well. After the symptomatic visits, the men were also asked for new specimen collections. Thirty-three of the women developed at least one recurrent yeast infection within the year.

At the two-week and one-month visits, none of the women had symptoms of a yeast infection. But 20 percent had a positive culture for Candida in the vaginal area at the two-week visit and 29 percent tested positive for Candida after one month. The researchers found these women were no more likely to develop recurrent infections by the end of the one-year study period.

Among the men, nearly half tested positive for Candida species on the tongue and in the feces, while few showed Candida in their urine or semen. Researchers found no link between Candida in the men's specimens and Candida at the women's vulva, rectum or tongue. They also found no link between recurrent yeast infections and signs of Candida at any site in either the men or women.

When sexual activities were looked at, however, the researchers found women who had recurrences were more likely to have participated in cunnilingus (or oral sex given to the woman) or masturbation of the woman with saliva in the past month. Only 14.5 percent of women reported masturbation with saliva, however, while 69 percent reported cunnilingus, suggesting oral sex is the more common risk.

Oral sex and masturbation with saliva proved to be risk factors whether men showed signs of yeast in their mouth or not. The risk was also not affected by the presence of Candida in the women's genital area.

"We're not saying that oral sex is a problem for everyone, but if a women is experiencing recurrent yeast infections, those activities put her at an increased risk," Reed says.

The woman's age at first intercourse, lifetime number of partners, frequency of intercourse or anal intercourse in the previous month were all not associated with recurrences.

The researchers suggest that Candida exists in some women in balance with the other organisms and immune components in the vaginal area, and that washing that area with saliva may disrupt the balance, leading to symptoms of yeast infection.

The study received funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In addition to Reed, study authors include Philip Zazove, M.D., and Daniel W. Gorenflo, Ph.D., from the U-M Department of Family Medicine; Carl L. Pierson, Ph.D., from the U-M Department of Pathology; and Julie Horrocks, Ph.D., from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

Crash kills advocate for men in divorce disputes
 
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TACOMA -- An activist for men's rights in divorce cases, including that of convicted Washington, D.C.-area sniper John Allen Muhammad, has died in an auto wreck.

Mario Young, 39, of Puyallup, died about 2 a.m. Wednesday when his Ford F-150 ran off the road and hit a utility pole, Pierce County sheriff's Detective Ed Troyer said.

Young was the only person in the truck, there were no witnesses and the cause of the crash had not been determined as of late Wednesday, Troyer said.

Young became a fathers' rights activist after losing custody of his children in a bitter divorce, said John Mills, a lawyer and ally.

After his divorce, Young obtained a paralegal degree and went to work for Mills while trying to help other men in custody disputes.

"He wanted to understand his own case better and maybe make life better for others," Mills said.

He and Young spent several weeks in the fall of 2001 in an unsuccessful effort to help Muhammad regain custody of his three children -- a battle that figured in Muhammad's recent trial and death sentence for the sniper killings that occurred in 2002.

In the death penalty phase of his trial, witnesses testified that Muhammad's mental state took a turn for the worse after he lost custody of his three children in a divorce battle in 2000.

At the time of his death, Young was making progress toward his longtime goal of regaining full visitation rights with his children, Mills said.

Inside the HQ of the 'militant dads'
IoS Investigation: The 'IoS' looks on as a secret, military-style operation is planned, complete with decoy suspect

By Jonathan Thompson
21 December 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=475144

More than 50 fathers are planning campaigns of civil disobedience to bring mass disruption to Britain's roads and courts in the coming weeks, The Independent on Sunday can reveal, as 21-year-old drama student Darryl Westell spends his third day on a crane above the offices of the children's minister, Margaret Hodge.

The IoS has gained unprecedented access to the secretive world of Fathers 4 Justice, which first came to public attention in October when two men dressed as Batman and Robin scaled the roof of the Royal Courts of Justice and unfurled a banner proclaiming: "Caped Crusaders for Justice, Stop Family Law Injustice Today."

The group maintains that many fathers are being wrongly or even illegally denied access to their children. The organisation has achieved huge publicity and a growing number of radicalised recruits - as many as 10,000 members by next May, reckon its leaders. But the controversial group has been criticised for its hardline stance, the disruption caused by its stunts, and the cost to the taxpayer of policing them.

Its campaign gained huge publicity in November when an activist dressed as Spiderman brought London traffic to a standstill and closed roads by occupying a crane above Tower Bridge for six days.

But that, it seems, was only the start. In a luxury, two-bedroom flat in the City of London, the group met on Thursday to plot its latest stunt. Bankrolled by, among others, a wealthy stockbroker who lives in the flat, seven men - an inner circle of Fathers 4 Justice activists - briefed their new volunteer, promising an escalation in the group's activities.

Fathers 4 Justice told the IoS that the group now has more than 50 fathers ready to volunteer to climb a crane, scale buildings, invade courtrooms or block major roads.

By Thursday night Mr Westell was receiving his military-style briefing. Like a Hollywood movie bank job, every detail was picked over, each piece of equipment double-checked. Digital photographs of the target building site in Great Peter Street in central London were analysed for weaknesses and possible points of entry. One member of the group had brought a crowbar to break any locks.

This was the group's third protest in a week. Five men stood on top of a pedestrian walkway in Liverpool on Thursday, forcing police to close the road below. On the A40 in London on Wednesday morning another disgruntled dad performed a similar stunt whose main repercussion was general traffic chaos, which prevented Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi, reaching the BBC's Today studio in time for his "Thought for the Day".

"We are moving towards a campaign of civil disruption," promised Matt O'Connor, the founder of Fathers 4 Justice, "We are going to step it up a gear in 2004. By the summer we will have an army of 10,000 people to enforce the changes we want. They are literally queuing up to break the law. But we are committed to peaceful, non-violent protest."

Mr O'Connor was speaking on Friday, the day after the Thursday night stunt was planned. He wasn't at the Barbican flat because he is convinced he is being followed by police, and instead was acting as a decoy to allow the meeting to go ahead uninterrupted. But on Friday he was dressed as Father Christmas with about 300 other Santa lookalikes who marched through central London, picketing a family law firm on the way to its final rendezvous outside Mrs Hodge's offices. High above them, standing on the arm of a crane 140ft up, was Mr Westell, also dressed as Santa. His banner read: "Save Father Christmas".

The 21-year-old drama student from Nottingham, father of an 18-month-old boy, volunteered a few weeks ago. He claims he has been allowed to see his son only seven times since his birth. On Thursday night it wasn't entirely clear he knew what he was letting himself in for. "I don't want to sound dramatic, but I'm not going to be thrown in jail am I?" asked a nervous-looking Mr Westell.

"Of course you're not," replied one of the organisers, adding, "but whatever you do, don't let the police negotiators get inside your head."

The group's reconnaissance expert - he would only give his name as Mike - took Mr Westell through the lay-out of the site, flipping through the digital photographs he had taken there earlier while posing as a courier.

"Don't worry about the security guards," said Mike. "It's going to be cold tonight and they're lazy."

After a few hours the group departed the flat, immobilising phones to avoid being traced. A black Audi waited outside, its engine running and lights dimmed.

"I don't want to do this," said Mr Westell, as he pulled on a thermal T-shirt. "I'd rather be anywhere else than risking my life climbing a crane when it's -1C, but what else can I do? I've talked and talked and it hasn't worked. Now it's time for action."

Dog robs gas station

A hungry bull terrier with a sweet tooth left his home to make a night raid on a gas station. The Statoil outlet's security cameras recorded the dog's stealthy hunt for his favorite type of chocolate, and a security guard busted the pooch without incident, newspaper Adressavisen reports.

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=555143

[table align=right" class="artLinkBoks" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" width="220][tr][td align=center]
[img src=http://www.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00122/null_122414a.jpg" alt="" border="1" vspace="3" HSPACE="0][/td][/tr][tr][td class=artBildetekst]Conan arrives around dawn, looking for something to satisfy his habit.
[DIV style=text-align: right;][span class=artBildeByline]PHOTO: Adresseavisen[/span][/DIV][/td][/tr][tr][td align=center]

[img src=http://www.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00122/null_122415a.jpg" alt="" border="1" vspace="3" HSPACE="0][/td][/tr][tr][td class=artBildetekst]Conan makes a thorough search - he won't settle for just anything.
[DIV style=text-align: right;][span class=artBildeByline]PHOTO: Adresseavisen[/span][/DIV][/td][/tr][tr][td align=center]

[img src=http://www.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00122/null_122416a.jpg" alt="" border="1" vspace="3" HSPACE="0][/td][/tr][tr][td]Is that the chocolate covered rice crisp?
[DIV style=text-align: right;][span class=artBildeByline]PHOTO: Adresseavisen[/span][/DIV][/td][/tr]
[/table]

         
Terrier Conan, aged 7, ended up behind bars and according to his owner the dog is a repeat offender.

[P]"He is incredibly fond of food in general and sweets in particular. He has run off a few times before, and he always heads for food stores," owner Liss-Hege Jeremiassen told Adresseavisen.

[P]Conan sneaked out the door Wednesday night and headed straight for only place open, a nearby Statoil station. The cameras picked him up sniffing around the candy shelves, poking his nose into the containers of sweets sold by loose weight, and snubbing all of these treats in search of his personal favorite, chocolate covered rice crisp. Here he stopped and devoured the contents of the container.

[P]"When he was finished he let out this enormous burp," said Elisabeth Roel, who had the night shift at the station.


[P]She tried to chase Conan out but the dog growled at this attempt to interrupt his chocolate raid. Roel then called the police, who turned the job over to Falken security.

[P]"He's really a nice dog, but he doesn't have looks on his side. He spent the night next to a pit bull, but that went well. He's calm and friendly," said security guard Otto Olsen, who apprehended the hound.

[P]Roel said she wouldn't have been worried if she had recognized Conan, but since he had escaped without his collar, she wasn't sure and wasn't about to take chances.

A fatherless Christmas
 
By MARTIN PHILLIPS

MORE than one million children in Britain will not see their fathers this Christmas.

As divorce rates soar, thousands of dads are realising they have NO right in English law to see their kids after a family breakdown.

Even when courts grant orders for so-called "non-resident" parents — usually dads — to have "access" to their children, they are often defied by the "resident" parents.

[img src=http://images.thesun.co.uk/picture/0,,2003581192,00.jpg]
Betrayed by courts ... one million kids
will not see their dad this Christmas

Today The Sun calls for dads to be given equal rights to be with their children after a family break-up.

We are backing father-of-four Sir Bob Geldof who has championed the cause of estranged dads.

He brands this country's Family Law system as "grotesque" for its failure to maintain links between children and their parents.

Sir Bob said: "Family Law as it currently stands does not work. It is rarely of benefit to the child and promotes injustice, conflict and unhappiness on a massive scale."

Nearly three million of Britain's 11.7 million kids now live in single-parent families.

Though mother and father are equally responsible for the children, love them equally and are loved equally, courts give 93 per cent of children from broken families to their mothers to be looked after.

Up to four in ten dads lose contact with their children within two years of separation from their partners, according to recent figures.

[table border=1" width="300][tr][td]

[img src=http://images.thesun.co.uk/picture/0,,2003581243,00.jpg]
Sir Bob Geldof

"THIS Christmas Eve there will be many fathers, forbidden by the savagery of our laws to be with their children, standing broken, as I have, outside their old homes, the keys still in their pockets, weeping and whispering goodnight as they watch each child's bedroom light switch off before turning away, maddened with grief, to the pointlessness of a lonely Christmas Day."
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Faced with the hostility of an ex-partner, the cost and bureaucracy of the courts and the inability of English law to protect children's relationships with both parents, they are left with little choice.

The Sun has been swamped by pleas from hundreds of desperate dads struggling against bitter ex-partners and the shambolic Family Law system to see their little ones.

Children who grow up without their fathers have been shown to be much more likely to suffer abuse, do badly at school, get into trouble and end up in broken relationships, starting the cycle all over again.

As well as the emotional toll of break-ups on kids and their fathers, the direct costs to the nation in benefits, housing, lost earnings and court and legal fees have been estimated at £15billion a year.

Shadow Attorney General Dominic Grieve has called for a change in the law so that dads have the RIGHT to contact with their children.

There is no presumption in English law that a father has a right to see his kids and many dads have to go to court to win a contact order to see them.

Even then, if a mother defies the order the court can fine or jail her but it rarely happens because it is not in the best interests of the children.

Another option is to switch custody of the children to the father, but courts rarely do that because many judges still believe that mothers make better carers.

A consultation paper proposing a "ladder" of sanctions against defiant parents is being considered by Children's Minister Margaret Hodge.

But opponents say that will merely lengthen already tortuous court proceedings.

In Scotland, a father's rights to have his child live with him after divorce, or to have regular contact, is included in the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (section 2).

In England, the Children Act 1989 was supposed to press home the idea that children are best looked after by both parents, but it has failed to deliver.

Thousands more contact orders have to be made by courts every year because parents granted "resident" status – usually the mother – will not let the non-resident parent see their children.

Matt O'Connor, founder of pressure group Fathers 4 Justice, said: "Mum can bring home Peter Sutcliffe or Ian Brady and install him as the kids' new daddy with no questions asked, while the real dad has to spend thousands of pounds going to court to prove it is in his children's best interests for him to be their dad.

"Even then, Mum can still ignore the courts because, at the end of the day, Dad doesn't have the right to be a dad."

[One thing divorce teaches a man is that women have real legal power, power backed up by the power of the state itself. A divorced woman's problems are the state's problems; a divorced man's problems are his problems. The state made sure I paid support; the state offered no remedy if she did not let me see the kids. It was hard to live this reality while being told women always got the short end of the stick.]

On Men's Rights and Issues

December 20, 2003
by Paul C. Robbins, Ph.D.
http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/robbins/03/robbins122003.htm

Like many men, I came reluctantly to men's rights and issues. I originally felt some sympathy for feminists, believing they meant what they said about "equality." They didn't, of course, and I soon had my doubts about some of their other claims.

I distinctly remember a campus protest about wage discrimination against women; my girlfriend expressed support, but I knew exactly how much she made-the same as I did as a graduate assistant. Sure, I made more money overall than she did--because I had a second job, though nothing prevented her from taking a second job except her choice.

Still, like many men, I observed feminism with some bemusement, not being too worried about its effects on my life.

Until I got divorced.

One thing divorce teaches a man is that women have real legal power, power backed up by the power of the state itself. A divorced woman's problems are the state's problems; a divorced man's problems are his problems. The state made sure I paid support; the state offered no remedy if she did not let me see the kids. It was hard to live this reality while being told women always got the short end of the stick. They don't, but by pretending they do, they can exercise victim power, and some nice legislator or judge will come rescue them. It's what the feminists count on.

Feminism had another effect: it encouraged women to carry a chip of their shoulders. Men are to blame for all the problems women faced, including the need to care for children, so contemptuous treatment of men is always justified. This attitude has become so common that it's unnoticed by many men until they discover its absence in women from certain parts of the world.

Many American women today are what I call FAPs-Feminist American Princesses. FAPs believe the world owes them everything-compassion, rights, money, freedom, respect. Or rather, that men owe them everything. The truth is that American women enjoy more freedom and more prosperity than about any other class of people in history-and still they complain. Because, of course, complaining gets them more.

Feminism has also been accompanied by incessant male-bashing. Anything male--especially anything traditionally male, such as the military--is treated with derision. Men go to war out of bloodlust; women go to war to prove their courage and equality. Men work long hours out of greed; women work long hours out of necessity. Men are bumbling fathers; women handle parenting with ease. Worse, many men internalize these anti-male attitudes, accepting them as unquestionable truths.

Men are portrayed on TV and in the movies as bumbling incompetents, as ultra-macho action figures, or as sweet and sensible gays. Only rarely are real men facing real problems portrayed positively. I recently caught the annual airing of It's a Wonderful Life-sure, it's a fable with a sappy ending, but the problems George Bailey faces reflect the real problems real men face. Like many men, George set out to lasso the moon, only to discover he'd sacrificed his dreams to the needs of others. Men do that, but you have to go back to a black-and-white movie to find it portrayed.

As a result of all this, manly virtues-honesty, integrity, duty, sacrifice, physical strength, heroism-are held in contempt, though for a brief moment, 9/11 restored the former glory of those virtues.

Feminism's changes to the law have made it necessary for men to speak up for themselves, however awkward most of us men find it, and to identify those issues that must be addressed. Men are beginning to rebel against the system in obvious and not so obvious ways. If their issues are not addressed, the system will eventually fail for the simple reason that men's contributions to society are so great. To revive an old metaphor, we all live by a social contract; if that social contract is always unfair to men, men will no longer honor it. And they shouldn't.

So here are a list of men's issues.

Father's Rights. Most men learn about the rights of fathers in divorce court. And mostly they learn fathers have few rights. Most divorces are filed by the wife, who receives custody of the children, child support, alimony, and the marital home. Dad is expected to take up residence elsewhere, pay his support, and see his kids when the court or his ex allow him to. If he fails to pay, he goes to jail. And this doesn't just happen to bad dads-any father can lose his right to his kids through divorce. Even very loving, responsible fathers. And men are blamed for all this-if men were just better husbands, why, women wouldn't be leaving them in droves. In the end, dad's rights are taken away without legal cause by a government that then hounds him with messages to "Be their dad" but does not hound women with messages to "Be their mom." Perhaps the latter would cause too much guilt in working mothers.

Visitation Rights. The same government that so willingly takes away the rights of dad to be with their children also fails to enforce their right to visit their children. Enforcing their right to visit their children would mean doing something to mom to force her to let dad see the kids. And that would include preventing her from moving thousands of miles away from where dad lives.

Child Support Enforcement. I don't have trouble with the notion that children need the financial support of the absent parent if a divorce occurs. I do have trouble with the notion that the federal or state government can jail a man for failing to pay, usually without benefit of a trial or an attorney. Jailing a man for failing to pay a debt assumes the man is guilty unless he can prove his innocence. As Sanford Braver points out, most divorced fathers pay their child support; if there's a problem with support payment, it's among unmarried fathers, most of whom are poor. Rounding up and jailing poor fathers is an unconscionable abuse of state power, especially when the state gives welfare money to the mothers-and then uses the threat of a jail to extract that money from dad to repay itself under the guise of collecting "child support." That's both dishonest and an unfair tax burden on poor fathers.

Reproductive Rights. At one time, women could be forced into parenthood but men couldn't. Today, that situation is reversed. A woman has a legal right to terminate a pregnancy for any reason, whether the pregnancy resulted from rape or consensual sex. The man has no choice but to abide by her decision. If he wants the child and she doesn't, he cannot prevent her from terminating the pregnancy. If she wants the child and he doesn't, then he is forced to assume all the legal obligations of fatherhood. And it doesn't matter if she retrieved his semen from a discarded condom or used the proceeds from oral sex to impregnate herself. Or if he was underage and couldn't legally consent to sex. Or if she lied to him about being "on the pill." If the man doesn't meet those legal obligations, he will be jailed. And if the state is going to jail men for failing to meet those obligations, the least it can do is offer men the same post-conception reproductive rights it offers women. That would include the right to refuse the legal responsibilities and rights of fatherhood in certain circumstances. Currently, post-conception reproductive rights are the only Constitutional rights reserved exclusively for women.

Paternity Fraud. The idea that a man should be legally obligated to support another man's child makes one man responsible for what another man does. That's more that unfair-that's similar to punishing one man for a crime known to be committed by another. Many men misidentified as fathers are forced to pay even if DNA tests prove they're not dad. And many divorced fathers who discover their kids were fathered by another man must also pay. The old "presumption of paternity" principle-under which the husband is legal father to any child borne by his wife-was never an absolute principle that forced a man to support a child everyone knew was not his. It simply put some barriers in his way if he claimed the child was illegitimate. It's time to end the right of a woman to lie about who fathered her child and to end the power of the government to back up that right to lie with force.

Domestic Violence. Every study ever done on domestic violence that includes both men and women shows that men and women either batter each other equally or that women batter slightly more than men. Yet the government portrays domestic violence almost solely as something men do to women. Men are more likely to be arrested for domestic violence, and once arrested may be required to undergo counseling that requires them to admit their guilt-in violation of the Constitutional prohibition against self-incrimination. Restraining orders against men are handed out like candy so judges won't be perceived as soft on domestic violence, but these orders often strip men of rights to their children and property. And virtually all domestic violence shelters accept women only. It's time to treat domestic violence as a human problem, not a "gender" problem.

Health. American men live about 7 fewer years than American women. Until about the 1920's, men and women had the same average life span. And men and women in less advanced countries have similar life spans. But the more a country progresses, the more the life span difference between men and women increases-in favor of the women. In the US, we spend about twice as much government money on women's health issues as we do on men's health issues, and about ten times as much on breast cancer as on prostate cancer. Men are far more likely to die on the job, in war, in auto accidents, and as a result of murder. They're also more likely to be executed for committing murder. They are four times as likely as women to commit suicide, ten times more likely if divorced. The powers that be then tell us the real problem is that men don't go to the doctor as often as women. Yeah, right.

Military Duty. Women can vote, but only men are expected to register for the draft. And far more likely than a woman to be assigned combat duty. And, even though women rarely see combat duty, this is not held against them in promotions, so women who've never faced combat themselves can order men into combat. Women are not proven warriors; their presence may hinder combat operations as much as help them, endangering mostly the lives of men. Further, the presence of women creates a new problem for the military to solve-rape and sexual assault. As the recent problems at the Air Force Academy indicate, the result is a favoring of women for leadership (because women are supposedly more sensitive to rape victims) and a treatment of men as the "problem." This turns men in the military into second-class citizens while requiring them to carry out the primary burdens of military operations. A pretty blond woman whose truck crashes and who is captured by the enemy becomes a hero, though she did nothing heroic, while her rescuers have remained largely anonymous.

Legal Punishment. Men receive longer prison sentences for the same crime as women. A man who kills his wife gets about 16 years; a woman who kills her husband gets about 8. A woman who kills her husband can claim the "battered woman" defense, a defense unavailable to men. If a man and a woman commit a crime together, he usually receives more jail time because she is considered merely an accomplice. And virtually every criminal executed in this country has been a man, with a handful of exceptions.

Rape. In California, a man received jail time for failing to withdraw immediately when asked to do so by the woman. Expanding definitions of rape intended to offer more protection to women subject men to greater likelihood of prosecution. If convicted, they must register as sex offenders. And rape shield laws hide the name of the accuser (the woman), but not of the accused (the man). Marital rape laws require a husband to obtain the consent of his wife each time he wants sex, but do not require a wife to obtain her husband's consent. And laws that define rape as "lack of consent" do not define what constitutes consent-for either the man or the woman. His consent his legally assumed. It's commonly argued that "no means no," but let's face it-virtually all women say "no" to sex initially while few ever state an explicit "yes." And women are almost never prosecuted for making false accusations of rape, though women have claimed rape for reasons as trivial as being late for curfew and DNA studies indicate about 25% of rape accusations are false.

So those are some issues, and I'll end with two comments:

I don't mind women enjoying greater freedoms than they did in the past.

I do mind when those greater freedoms come at the price of putting men in jail.

Paul C. Robbins, Ph.D.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Robbins lives in Colorado, where he likes to fish for trout, hunt for elk, ski the Rockies, and, mostly, spend a lot of time with his daughters, Sarah and Carey. A divorced dad, he has witnessed first hand the injustice of family court. He also has a dream--to open a spiritual retreat in his beloved mountains. You can contact him at [email protected].

Fathers dress like Santa for parenting protest

JOHN INNES


HUNDREDS of protesters for fathers' rights dressed in Father Christmas outfits went on the march yesterday to raise awareness about parenting.

The Fathers 4 Justice campaigners marched through central London calling on the government to amend legislation so that fathers can obtain equal rights to see their children.

[img src=http://mensnewsdaily.com/images/images/getplucked.jpg]


The protest group, which was formed a year ago, said yesterday that the government and Margaret Hodge, the children's minister, had failed to reform a flawed family law system.

The group's founder, Matthew O'Connor, 36, said yesterday's protest had begun as their Christmas party but had evolved into a mission to spread the word about fathers' rights.

He said one in four children would not see their fathers this Christmas because of court orders disadvantaging male parents.

He said: "What we are saying to the government and the minister is that they must change the law in this country. We need to support all the ordinary fathers out there. We are not going to let this issue be ignored."

The protesters, some of whom brought along their children, chanted "Two parents are better than one" and "Children need two parents" as they marched through the streets.  

http://www.news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1393822003

The Sons of Murphy Brown - Wimps and Barbarians
by Terrence O. Moore
December 19, 2003


More than a decade ago the nation was in a stir over the birth of a fictional boy. The boy was Avery, son of Murphy Brown. Television's Murphy Brown, played by Candice Bergen, was a successful news commentator who, after an unsuccessful relationship with a man that left her alone and pregnant, bore a son out of wedlock. The event, popular enough in its own right, became the center of political controversy when then Vice President Dan Quayle in a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California lamented that the show was "mocking the importance of a father."

Suddenly the nation polarized over this question of "family values." But the controversy over Murphy Brown's childbearing soon died down. The characters on the show became more interested in Murphy's hairstyle than her baby, as did perhaps Murphy, who eventually found a suitable nanny in her painter so she could pursue her career without abatement.

The show was off the air before Murphy's son would have been seven. Vice President Quayle was not reelected. Eleven years later, it is worth pondering what might have happened to Avery had this story not been just a television show. More to the point, what is happening today to our boys and young men who come from "families" not unlike Murphy's and who find the nation as divided now as it was then over the "values" by which we ought to raise them?

For more than a decade I have been in a position to see young men in the making. As a Marine, college professor, and now principal of a K-12 charter school, I have deliberately tried to figure out whether the nation through its most important institutions of moral instruction—its families and schools—is turning boys into responsible young men. Young women, always the natural judges of the male character, say emphatically "No." In my experience, many young women are upset, but not about an elusive Prince Charming or even the shortage of "cute guys" around. Rather, they have very specific complaints against how they have been treated in shopping malls or on college campuses by immature and uncouth males, and even more pointed complaints against their boyfriends or other male acquaintances who fail to protect them. At times, they appear desperately hopeless.

They say matter-of-factly that the males around them do not know how to act like either men or gentlemen. It appears to them that, except for a few lucky members of their sex, most women today must choose between males who are whiny, incapable of making decisions, and in general of "acting like men," or those who treat women roughly and are unreliable, unmannerly, and usually stupid.

The young men, for their part, are not a little embarrassed when they hear these charges but can't wholly deny them. Indeed, when asked the simple question, "When have you ever been taught what it means to be a man?" they are typically speechless and somewhat ashamed.

The question for teachers, professors, and others in positions of moral influence is what to do about young women's growing dissatisfaction and young men's increasing confusion and embarrassment. Teachers cannot become their students' parents, but they can give direction to those who have ears to hear. Two lessons are essential. First, a clear challenge must be issued to young males urging them to become the men their grandfathers and great-grandfathers were.

This challenge must be clear, uncompromising, engaging, somewhat humorous, and inspiring. It cannot seem like a tired, fusty, chicken-little lament on the part of the old and boring, but must be seen as the truly revolutionary and cutting-edge effort to recover authentic manliness. Second, a new generation of scholars must tell the tale of how men used to become men and act manfully, and how we as a nation have lost our sense of true manliness. The spirit of this inquiry cannot be that of an autopsy but rather that of the Renaissance humanists, who sought to recover and to borrow the wisdom of the past in order to ennoble their own lives.

Historians and political theorists and professors of literature must realize that the topic of gender is not the monopoly of those who would try to eradicate gender but the natural possession of the great thinkers and actors and even the common folk of the Western tradition. Aristotle had a great deal to say about gender and manhood, as did Washington and Burke and Jane Austen. These two enterprises, the one rhetorical and the other philosophical, are and must be related. One comes from and appeals to the heart. The other comes from and appeals to the mind. Young men today have both hearts and minds that are in chronic need of cultivation. Specifically, they need to realize what true manhood is, what it is not, and why it has become so difficult in the modern world to achieve the status and stature of the true man.

Character Counts

Manhood is not simply a matter of being male and reaching a certain age. These are acts of nature; manhood is a sustained act of character. It is no easier to become a man than it is to become virtuous. In fact, the two are the same. The root of our old-fashioned word "virtue" is the Latin word virtus, a derivative of vir, or man. To be virtuous is to be "manly." As Aristotle understood it, virtue is a "golden mean" between the extremes of excess and deficiency. Too often among today's young males, the extremes seem to predominate. One extreme suffers from an excess of manliness, or from misdirected and unrefined manly energies. The other suffers from a lack of manliness, a total want of manly spirit. Call them barbarians and wimps. So prevalent are these two errant types that the prescription for what ails our young males might be reduced to two simple injunctions: Don't be a barbarian. Don't be a wimp. What is left, ceteris paribus, will be a man.

Today's barbarians are not hard to find. Like the barbarians of old, the new ones wander about in great packs. You can recognize them by their dress, their speech, their amusements, their manners, and their treatment of women. You will know them right away by their distinctive headgear. They wear baseball caps everywhere they go and in every situation: in class, at the table, indoors, outdoors, while taking a test, while watching a movie, while on a date. They wear these caps frontward, backward, and sideways. They will wear them in church and with suits, if ever a barbarian puts on a suit. Part security blanket, part good-luck charm, these distinctive head coverings unite each barbarian with the rest of the vast barbaric horde.

Recognizing other barbarians by their ball caps, one barbarian can enter into a verbal exchange with another anywhere: in a men's room, at an airport, in a movie theater. This exchange, which never quite reaches the level of conversation, might begin with, "Hey, what up?" A traditional response: "Dude!" The enlightening colloquy can go on for hours at increasingly high volumes. "You know, you know!" "What I'm sayin'!" "No way, man!" "What the f---!" "You da man!" "Cool!" "Phat!" "Awesome!" And so on. Barbarians do not use words to express thoughts, convey information, paint pictures in the imagination, or come to a rational understanding. Such speech as they employ serves mainly to elicit in others audible reactions to a few sensual events: football, sex, hard rock, the latest barbarian movie, sex, football. In the barbarian universe, Buckleyesque vocabularies are not required.

Among the most popular barbarian activities are playing sports and lifting weights. There is, of course, nothing wrong with sports or physical training. Playing sports can encourage young males to cultivate several important manly virtues: courage, competitiveness, camaraderie, stamina, a sense of fairness. For this reason, superior cultures have invariably used sports as a proving ground for manly endeavor. As the Duke of Wellington said, "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." The problem is that many young males of today receive no manly education apart from sports. When the British boys who later defeated Napoleon were not competing in the sporting contests conducted in elite public schools, they were learning how to become gentlemen. They spoke the King's English, carried themselves with an air of dignity, treated women with respect, and studied assiduously.

Today's barbarians act as though they never leave the playing field or the gym. They wear the same clothes, speak the same language (just as loudly), spit and scratch themselves just as much, whether on the field or off. More properly, nothing off the field matters to them, except perhaps sex, which they also treat as a game, and alcohol. As a result, they live almost a divided life. On the field, they can be serious, competitive, eager, and disciplined. Off the field, they are lazy, careless, disorganized, and disaffected. Such a divided life is the hallmark of barbarism. In his classic account of the ancient Germanic tribes, the Roman historian Tacitus contrasted the energy and purpose of the German men on the field of battle with their listlessness in the camp.


(continue to part 2, next post)

[(They say 'parents', but it should read 'fathers'. I didn't see ANY mention of any mothers being threatened with lockup. ...Brent)]

Judge Extorts Thousands of Dollars in Child Support "Debt" on Threat of Christmas Imprisonment


Court jails 14, collects thousands in child support
By Jessica Brown

HAMILTON — Scores of parents behind on their child support were forced to make a tough decision Wednesday — pay up or get locked up.

(They say 'parents', but it should read 'fathers'. I didn't see ANY mention of any mothers being threatened with lockup.  ...Brent)



It was a holiday ultimatum that resulted in the Butler County Juvenile Court collecting more than $21,000 in child support and sentencing 19 people to jail for failing to pay.

Judge David Niehaus calls it his "Christmas child support docket." He holds collection hearings just before the holidays to make the threat of jail more intimidating.

"We realized when they come in right before Christmas it's an extra incentive to pay," Niehaus said. "It's effective because we give them that choice," — pay what is owed or spend the holidays in jail.

Wednesday, 38 defendants were scheduled in court. Thirteen paid what they owed prior to their hearing or at the last minute. One father arrived with $1,500. Another man came with $1,000 to avoid jail.

Another seven parents never showed up, causing warrants to be issued for their arrest.

Nineteen others did not have enough money at their hearings and were sentenced. However, five ended up coming up with the money — almost $7,500 combined — before being booked in so their sentences were lifted.

One of them was a father, who is a convicted drug felon. He didn't have the money and "said he wasn't going to sell drugs to get it," Niehaus said. The man was sentenced to jail, but his girlfriend arrived during the lunch break to pay off his debt.

"It's effective," Niehaus said of the Christmas docket. "Our job is to collect the money. The bottom line is they produced children and aren't paying for it. (Now) these families are getting their money."

There are some sad stories though, forcing the Niehaus to take a no-nonsense approach.

One father who owed nearly $2,000 in child support said he had been helping his ailing mother with her struggling business while awaiting a workers' compensation settlement. The business was not profiting and the most he could get by Wednesday was about $500 — the rent money.

Niehaus sent him to jail anyway. He said the father should have taken a different job so he could pay his debt.

In another case, a father more than $11,000 in arrears brought receipts showing about half of his paycheck was being docked each month for child support.

"I've given you everything I have," he said.

But he was still more than $1,000 short and sentenced to jail.

"We're not playing games. You owe a lot of money. You knew what you had to do when you came in here," Niehaus said.

Niehaus said he takes a strong stance because the parents already have had several chances to pay. Jail is often the last resort.

"We keep these people coming back every few months, these are the ones we're struggling with," he said.

"There's a lot of sad stories here," he said. "You can understand it, but you can't excuse it. You have to hold people accountable. It's tough."

Last year $70,000 was collected and seven parents were sent to jail during Niehaus' Christmas docket.

[a href=http://www.journal-news.com/news/newsfd/auto/feed/news/2003/12/17/1071710277.20005.4089.4471.html;COXnetJSessionID=1i14yqw672QVIdFSwXkH6esXSS9Za5gpQZkfQ5w441T9KuV00QG3!1454903668?urac=n&urvf=10718084405360.8205562428125104]Article Here[/a]

$350,000 alimony award must be changed

JOE KAFKA- Associated Press
Posted on Thu, Dec. 18, 2003  

PIERRE, S.D. - A judge confused child support with alimony when deciding that a Rapid City heart doctor should pay his ex-wife $2,400 in monthly alimony, the state Supreme Court has decided.

Thursday's ruling came on an appeal filed by Alexander Schabauer, who was divorced last year from Terri Holts Schabauer after being married 13 years and having two children.

Circuit Judge John Delaney determined that the doctor makes more than $250,000 a year and should pay monthly child support of $1,473.

Marital assets of $444,660 were evenly split. As part of the property settlement, the couple's home was to be sold and the first $134,335 in profits went to Terri. The remaining proceeds from the home sale were to be evenly split.

Alimony payments were to continue for 12 years or until Schabauer's former wife remarried or died.

Contesting the $352,800 alimony award, Alexander Schabauer said the judge mistakenly considered the comfortable lifestyle that the former couple's children enjoyed before the divorce.

The doctor said child support should not be awarded under the guise of alimony, adding that his annual income had declined by $60,000 and it would likely be trimmed even more by new Medicare regulations.

The circuit judge had decided that the children's lifestyle could not be maintained without a significant alimony award or substantial deviation from state child-support guidelines. In ordering hefty alimony payments, Delaney noted that the doctor could deduct them from his taxes but could not do the same with child-support payments.

Even without consideration for the tax advantages, the alimony payments would allow the doctor's former wife to maintain both her standard of living and that of the children, the circuit judge said.

Overruling the alimony award, the Supreme Court said Delaney improperly mixed alimony and child-support considerations.

"The amount of Terri's alimony should not have been governed by the presence of children in her household or their needs and standard of living," Justice Judith Meierhenry wrote.

The children's needs and lifestyle, however, are proper considerations when setting the level of child support, the justices said, instructing Delaney to also refigure the doctor's child-support obligation.

"Alimony and child support must be considered separately, and Alex's parental responsibility to provide for the maintenance of his children on the basis of factors applicable to setting child support should not have been interwoven with his marital obligation to provide a suitable allowance for Terri's support," Meierhenry continued.

Sending the case back to Delaney, the justices said he must refigure both alimony and child support.

Once alimony is determined, child support must be calculated with consideration for the incomes of both parties, the high court said. The alimony payments must be considered as a deduction from the doctor's income and an addition to his former wife's income when setting the amount of child support, the justices said.

Justice Richard Sabers, who cast the lone no vote, said the alimony award should stand. It defies logic to ignore economic realities in divorce cases, including comparison of the tax consequences of alimony and child support, he said.

"Trial courts should not be prevented from undertaking legitimate analysis of the financial ramifications for each party in their alimony awards," Sabers said.

"This (decision) returns the calculation of alimony by trial courts to the middle ages," he continued. "It rejects any consideration of a practical, intelligent analysis of the real economic situation of the parties."
 
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/7522474.htm

We need a law for dads
 
 By Sir BOB GELDOF

NOW again it's Christmas. We're all busy spending on our loved ones, our families and, most especially, our children.

In particular this is the children's festival. The time when a kind old man will slip down a chimney or slide down a roof and bring joy to your child — FATHER Christmas.

It is the special child's time because 2,000 years ago, the story tells us, a woman and a man had a baby together and though the man knew perfectly well he was not the child's father he nonetheless loved him and his wife and raised him to be strong, independent, brave and loving.

Lucky kid, to have Joseph for a dad. Indeed, were Jesus alive today, to have any dad at all to raise him to be a good man.

For those divorced men with children, Christmas is a travesty, a repulsive contradiction of a family holiday, of a loving celebration, of a special children's time.

These are the men who will be forced to be alone without their babies, who will commit suicide most frequently at this time of year in an age when male suicides are already 300 per cent greater than women's.

These are men who, in the eyes of what is sickeningly called Family Law, committed the greatest crime — of being divorced.

Men who are guilty of the worst sin — of being fathers — because dads, to the great dismay of the secret elite who sit in secret judgment in these secret courts are, shockingly, ALL men!

And men, as everyone knows, are monsters, feckless, abusive, aggressive, thuggish, incapable of such a hugely complex task of giving love and patience, cooking baked beans or giving a bath, doing homework or combing hair and reading stories.

 
It's a miracle any of us got here at all, us all having had dads and everything.

This Christmas Eve we will say goodnight in our homes to our over-excited children, tell them to go to sleep quickly or HE won't come, prepare for the morning and have a quiet drink of pleasure before bed.

Yet there will be many fathers forbidden by the savagery of our laws to be with their children, standing broken, as I have, outside their old homes, the keys still in their pockets, weeping and whispering goodnight as they watch each child's bedroom light switch off before turning away, maddened with grief, to the pointlessness of a lonely Christmas Day.

What have we become? In whose name is this brutality done? Who are they who do this and why do they not account to us, the people?What unthinking fools perpetrated these unlawful laws?

How is it in a child's interest to remove him from his dad and why?Two people fall from love and one, though having done no wrong, is semi-criminalised and punished by having his children removed from him for ever (for childhood is never recoverable).

The extremity of Family Law is bewildering, for having your children taken away from you is only one slight degree better than them taking away your freedom.

And yet you are not a criminal, nor have you done any wrong.

These same people assume that women make better parents — that a mother's love is better, more important than a father's. That somehow it's bearable for a man to be parted from his children but not a woman.

Why? These assumptions and prejudices are not simply outdated but plain wrong, dangerous and damaging.

You only have to listen to the language that the law uses when it gets involved in our private lives. It's meant to be neutral but it is cold, deadening and hopeless. In fact it becomes heartbreaking, hurtful, rage-inducing. I cannot even say the words.

A huge emptiness would well in my stomach, a deep loathing for those who would deign to tell me they would ALLOW me ACCESS to my children — those I loved above all, those I created, those who gave meaning to everything I did, those who were the very best of us two and the absolute physical manifestation of our once blinding love.

Who the hell are they that they should use the language of the prison visit to ALLOW anything between me and that which is mine?

REASONABLE CONTACT when the situation under this law is, by definition, UNreasonable!!!

CONTACT? Is this what we had before in our home or am I now some visiting alien?

An ABSENT parent — labelled by those who have forced me to be absent.

A RESIDENT/NON-RESIDENT parent — words that reduce the meaning of that which was once Mum, Dad and home to the sterile language of the state institution.

I cannot begin to describe the pain of being handed a note, sanctioned by your (still) wife with whom you had made these little things, with whom you had been present at their birth and previously had felt grow and kick and tumble and turn and watched the scans and felt intense manly pride.

Wrestled and played with them, walked them to school, picked them up, made tea with, bathed and dressed, put them to bed, cuddled and lay with in your arms and sang to sleep.

Felt them and smelt them around you at all times, alert even in sleep to the slightest shift in their breathing ... a note that will ALLOW you ACCESS to these things who are the best of you.

ARE you a father denied the chance of seeing your children?

If so, we want to hear your story. Here is how to contact us.


WRITE
Dads' Rights
The Sun
1 Virginia Street
London
E98 1SN


E-MAIL
[email protected]


FAX
020 7782 4063

 
What have you done? Why are you being punished (for that is what it seems)?

How can she be allowed to dictate what I can or can't do with regard to MY children?

What we must have is a new law. Not one remnant of this, quite literally, hopeless Children Act should remain.

It is barbaric and will be looked upon with dismay and laughter by lawyers of future generations as we do now on old, outdated, medieval laws.

We need a human law. A law that fits the way we live now. A way that reflects the differing versions of family that we have but that still generates love and kindness and compassion.

A law that does not take away the happiness of the remaining years of our grandparents' lives and allows them to continue to contribute to our society by helping to raise our children.

A law that lets mums be mothers and dads be fathers. Both nurturing, both loving their children, perhaps outwardly differently but inside with the same intensity and passion.

Different but the same — an equality of difference. This new law must reflect exactly that.

I am asking that this new law will say at sentence one, paragraph one: "In the interests of children, upon separation they WILL be with both parents an equal amount of the time.

"They will be with their father 50 per cent of the time and their mother 50 per cent of the time."

This is already being implemented in some countries and states and there doesn't seem to be any extraordinary or unusual problems with it.

Of course, this arrangement will not suit some people but it does mean that the already overheated emotions of divorce are cooled slightly and, through discussion, a mutually acceptable arrangement can be arrived at without anger, bitterness or hatred.

It may also help to stem our uniquely epidemic divorce rates.

If both parents going into divorce know that they will only see their children half the time, that financial and housing arrangements are now less cut and dried, then maybe it will give them pause for thought.

That such a powerful newspaper as The Sun, motivated by its millions of readers and their letters of outrage (which I have seen) is now supporting this call for a new law for their readers' children and grandparents means that the country, its mothers, fathers, grandparents and most importantly its children, are ready.

Before more men are driven to suicide or desperate brave acts to draw attention to their plight, before more children are taken from their dads, before another empty Christmas passes, let the Government stop their endless tinkering and discussions and begin its reform.

On this, the most perfect of family holidays, let us hold in our hearts those small boys and girls who have wished and wished to Santa for only one thing this Christmas ... their dad.

****************************************

THE SUN has published few more emotive articles than the one by Bob Geldof on this page.

His description of standing outside his old home weeping and whispering goodnight to his children on Christmas Eve will bring a tear to the eye of many readers.

Especially the hundreds of thousands of dads who won't see their children this Christmas because of what Geldof rightly brands our "grotesque" Family Law.

The courts award custody of 93 per cent of children from broken homes to their mothers.

That does not always benefit the children but, as Geldof can testify, promotes injustice, conflict and unhappiness on a massive scale.

There is no presumption in English law that fathers have rights.

And there is little the courts can do if a bitter mother refuses to let her former partner see their children.

Today The Sun launches a campaign to have our laws changed so that fathers have an automatic right to 50-50 access.

Men who leave home are not criminals who deserve to be punished.

And children need a dad. Even one who doesn't live with Mum is still a very special and important person in their lives.

 
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,5-2003582314,,00.html

[Special courts to try special crimes, that can only be committed by some people, are long familiar as a device to circumvent established standards of justice and implement ideological justice: revolutionary justice or socialist justice or gender justice.]

Dismantling Justice

December 18, 2003
by Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D.


A judge in Illinois wants to create special courts specifically for fathers. Judge Robert Spence claims these courts can somehow collect more child support from fathers whose children it has taken away.

In Staten Island this week, a new "integrated domestic violence" court will debut. The purpose of these courts, says Chief Judge Judith Kaye, is not to dispense justice but to "make batterers and abusers take responsibility for their actions." In other words, to find fathers guilty.

Special courts to try special crimes, that can only be committed by some people, are long familiar as a device to circumvent established standards of justice and implement ideological justice: revolutionary justice or socialist justice or gender justice. Special courts created during the French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror and were consciously imitated in the Soviet Union.

Hitler created the dreaded Volksgerichte or "people's courts" described by Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski in their classic study of totalitarianism, as tribunals "in which only expediency in terms of National Socialist standards served as a basis for judgment."

Canada is already creating special domestic violence courts that can seize the property, including the homes, of men accused of domestic violence, even though the men are not convicted or even formally charged. Moreover, they may do so without the men being present to defend themselves. "This bill is classic police-state legislation and violates just about every constitutional principle," writes Robert Martin, of Western Ontario University.

Walter Fox, a Toronto lawyer, describes these courts as "pre-fascist."

As Dave Brown writes in the Ottawa Citizen, "Domestic violence courts . . . are designed to get around the protections of the Criminal Code. The burden of proof is reduced or removed, and there's no presumption of innocence."

Proposals have been mooted in the Justice Department to create similar tribunals in the United States.

But most astounding of all, new legislation in Britain will allow to the government to consider men guilty of domestic violence, even after they have been acquitted in court. I'm not making this up: Men found "not guilty" are to be issued with restraining orders and treated as if they are guilty. As Melanie Phillips writes in the Daily Mail, "This measure will destroy the very concept of innocence itself."

Countries that have upheld the Common Law traditions of freedom and justice are now rapidly dismantling them. How much authority do we have to create the institutions of freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan when we are destroying them at home?


Stephen Baskerville

[federal appeals court ruled a law passed by Congress to help the mother was unconstitutional.]

Court rules against mom who hid daughter

By GINA HOLLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- A strange custody battle between husband-and-wife surgeons that saw the woman go to jail rather than divulge her daughter's whereabouts took a twist Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled a law passed by Congress to help the mother was unconstitutional.

Dr. Elizabeth Morgan spent two years in jail in the late 1980s for defying a court order to allow her ex-husband to visit the girl. She claimed the girl's father sexually abused the child, although the allegations never were proven.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a victory for Dr. Eric Foretich, an oral surgeon in McLean, Va. He has maintained that he never hurt his daughter and that Congress wrongly took sides in the case.

The court said that there was no proof that Foretich abused the daughter he fathered with Morgan, to whom he was married briefly. He and his parents had challenged a 1996 law that kept him from seeing the girl.

In its decision Tuesday, the court did not award damages and said it could not force his now 21-year-old daughter to visit him.

Foretich could not be reached for comment but his parents said they were pleased with the decision.

"We're happy that this wrong has been righted," said Doris Foretich, the girl's 84-year-old grandmother. "This ruling is a blessing."

Morgan, a plastic surgeon in Chevy Chase, Md., was in surgery Tuesday and not available for comment, an assistant said.

Morgan went to jail rather than allow Foretich the visits ordered by a judge in Washington, prompting books and a television movie. A special act of Congress freed her in 1989. The next year she joined her daughter, who was living with Morgan's parents in New Zealand.

(And for that, Congress can kiss my ass. They were unainmous on the vote for Elizabeth Morgan, when they didn't even vote unanimously to go to war against Japan in WWII, they didn't vote unanimously to go to war in Iraq against Saddam Hussein....but they bent over backwards unanimously to let this woman destroy the child's relationship with the father. Stinking scumbags.)

A New Zealand court gave her sole custody but the visitation requirement by the U.S. court remained in effect, meaning that if Morgan returned to America she would have to allow her ex-husband to see their daughter.

Congress intervened again in 1996, passing the Elizabeth Morgan Act, which allowed the girl to decide whether to see her father. Foretich and his parents sued the government in 1997.

The appeals court declared the law unconstitutional because it applied only to Foretich.

(But, but, but....she was a mommy!!! Doesn't she deserve special rights awarded ONLY TO HER BY CONGRESS?   *&#^%!)

The Constitution prohibits legislative acts that single out an individual or group for punishment without a trial, but over the years few laws have been struck down on those grounds.

Judge Harry T. Edwards, who wrote the decision, said it was clear that the goal of Congress "was to assume the role of judicial tribunal and impose its own determination of who was or was not a fit parent."

Edwards said the law imposed burdens on the father, "deprivation of parental rights and the opprobrium of being branded a criminal child abuser."

The appeals court's decision could be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Morgan's primary congressional supporter, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., did not respond to requests for comment. Her attorney also had no comment.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who represented the Foretich family, said the government will have to pay for legal fees in the case - about $1 million.

"I would hope this would be the final chapter, but such hopes have been dashed many times in the case," he said.

The daughter Hilary, now known as Ellen Morgan, has said she is glad her mother hid her in New Zealand.

(I find it VERY interesting that even the daughter doesn't claim any molestation by her father. Don't you think that's just a little peculiar??)

Doris Foretich, who lives in Newport News, Va., said she and her husband have had no contact with her.

"I've always missed her. I can hope, but I don't know," said Vincent Foretich, 89.


A fat lot of good this does Dr. Eric Foretich. His daughter is alienated, thanks to his ex-wife and Congress, and his life is a shambles. Oh Thank You, Great Benevolent Government!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!

Saddam Claus!!

[img src=http://www.lawair.com/bmw/saddam_claus.jpg]

["This indicates some, if not a total, lack of concern for the ideals of shared parenting by (Dylan's) Mother," he wrote.]

Custody case ends; dad wins
Boy, 5, had been living in N. Ireland with mom

Published December 12. 2003 8:30AM

RICK CUNDIFF
Staff Writer


OCALA - Dylan Gunn, the 5-year-old at the center of an international custody battle between his divorced parents, will remain in Dunnellon with his father as his mother flies back to Northern Ireland next week.

Circuit Judge Carven D. Angel ruled Thursday that Robert A. Gunn should have primary residential custody of Dylan, the child he and Cara Gunn had together.

"I can't even describe my reaction. I just burst into tears," Robert Gunn said Thursday evening. "There's no word that can describe the emotion that I felt."

Cara Gunn could not be reached for comment Thursday. Her lawyer, Robert Appleget, did not return a telephone call to his office seeking comment.

The Gunns divorced last year, after Cara Gunn took Dylan and her daughter from a previous relationship and left the United States to return to her native country. Angel awarded residential custody of Dylan at the time of the divorce to 30-year-old Robert Gunn.

Dylan, born in 1998 in Northern Ireland, is legally a citizen of both the United States and Northern Ireland. His father is Protestant, his mother Catholic.

Citing a treaty known as the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a Belfast court ruled in August that Cara Gunn, 29, had to return to Florida with Dylan for a custody hearing.

"It's been devastating," Robert Gunn said of the bitter fight for his son. "When it first happened, I thought I'd never see my son again."

The case has drawn international attention ranging from Northern Ireland newspapers to the British Broadcasting Corp., which sent a film crew to Ocala.

Lawyers for both parents spent a significant amount of time in court arguing whether Dylan would be in a safer environment in Dunnellon or in the Northern Ireland city known to Catholics as Derry and to Protestants as Londonderry. Angel's ruling never mentioned the differences between the two cities.

The four-page ruling does chastise both parents.

"The parents have prevented the court from acting in the best interest of the child," Angel wrote. "The parents' decision to divorce leaves the court with nothing better than the second best interest of the child . . . If you asked any child after a divorce, 'Who won?' the only answer he could give would be: 'I don't know, it wasn't me.' "

Angel's ruling criticizes Cara Gunn on several points, including the fact that her daughter had little or no contact with that child's biological father before the Gunns' marriage broke up and Cara Gunn moved back to Northern Ireland. The father provided no financial or emotional support, Angel noted.

"This indicates some, if not a total, lack of concern for the ideals of shared parenting by (Dylan's) Mother," he wrote.

(Geee, ya think??  ...Brent)

The ruling also notes that Cara Gunn complained that Robert Gunn, an information technology officer, worked excessive hours and was never home.

"With only a high school diploma and seven years experience in the Navy, the Father obtained what would have to be described as an excellent job, making over $70,000 a year and home every night. Yet the Mother complained that he worked long hours and too late," Angel wrote. "This does not indicate an attitude focused on establishing a family, but an attitude more self-centered than family-centered. What should have been an asset to the family was an irritation to the Mother."

Cara Gunn testified in November that she had no way to get a job, and often had to stay at home because her husband drove the family's only vehicle. She also said Robert Gunn controlled the family's money.

"It was not shown that these were items of necessity for this family, or that the Mother, or child, were denied any necessities. This indicates a Mother more concerned about matters of self than matters of family," Angel responded in Thursday's ruling.

Angel also regarded Cara Gunn's decision in August 2002 to leave the United States without telling her husband as an example of her "lack of commitment to shared parenting."

The judge found both Cara and Robert Gunn to be competent parents, and that both have a "loving and caring relationship with their son."

For Robert Gunn, that relationship has been strengthened through visits with Dylan over the last three months.

"It's been steadily growing," he said. "For anybody that really knows me, Dylan's my world. He's a mini-me. We have this unbelievably fascinating relationship."

Cara Gunn had temporary custody of Dylan through the hearings, and while awaiting Angel's ruling.

Cara Gunn has 10 days to request a rehearing, and 30 days to appeal Angel's ruling to the 5th District Court of Appeal.

Because Cara Gunn lived for a time in the United States without a proper visa when the couple were married, she had to get special permission to return to Florida for the hearing held in November. She must leave the country by Dec. 19, and is forbidden from returning for 10 years.

Robert Gunn's lawyer, Ron Cole, said he believed Cara Gunn might challenge those restrictions in court in order to live near her son.

"I predict that Cara will find a way to stay here, to come back here," Cole said. "That's the best solution — for all of them to be here in Ocala."

Rick Cundiff covers the courts. He can be reached at [email protected], or at 867-4130.

It would have been nice to get a mention of SPARC in there somewhere. I do believe the SPARC users were instrumental in pushing this issue to a conclusion. :(

http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswire/nw03/mnd/newswire121603.htm

[There're not the brightest of the sexes, so let you feeling be know by wearing this seriously smart "Boys Are Stupid" T-Shirt from David & Goliath.]

I called the people at 'David and Goliath' back to see what they thought of losing business with the Bon.

Gee, you know, they weren't NEARLY the smart-asses that they were this morning, lol, and they didn't tell me to piss off this time, either. This time they listened very, very carefully to everything I said.

Losing business with a major buyer can do that, I guess. :)

After I was done, I gave them my sincere condolences for their reduced profits and loss of business due to their incredible insensitivity and poor judgement. :)

Thanks again to all of you who contacted the Bon. And kudos to the Bon for doing the right thing!

By the way, I found a picture of the shirt, and check out the text that they used to advertise it.
[img src=http://www.asos.com/images/prods/4FCTS0044/image3xl.JPG]
Accompanying text:

"There're not the brightest of the sexes, so let you feeling be know by wearing this seriously smart "Boys Are Stupid" T-Shirt from David & Goliath."

Yeah? Well, F*CK YOU, David & Goliath.

A message that was sent to Kitty after her complaint:

In response to recent customer concerns about the David & Goliath "Boys Are Stupid/Throw Rocks at Them", "Boys are Smelly" and "Boys Have Cooties" merchandise, I would like to share with you that Bon-Macy's has decided to pull these shirts from our stores.


You guys are awesome! Maybe in the future other stores will refuse to carry merchandise like this. We can only hope, but my guess is that they'll be more sensitive to these kinds of issues in the future (as they should be).

This wouldn't have happened without all of you- your direct involvement. It goes to show that there is power in numbers, and that if you don't speak up, nothing will happen. When we do speak up, these issues gain visibility and something gets done.

Again, thanks to everyone who called the Bon (and those jerks at David and Goliath).