Story here. Excerpt:

'Three years ago, Jennifer Mee became a national sensation as the poor "Hiccup Girl," cursed with a three-week case of hiccups.

She appeared on national morning shows and thousands of suggestions from well-wishers poured in with remedies.

Now, Jennifer Mee, 19, has a much worse situation on her hands: The St. Petersburg, Fla., resident has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

According to the St. Petersburg police, Mee "lured" a man to an address, where two other men shot and killed him. All three suspects have admitted their involvement, police said. A conviction can lead to the death penalty.'

Story here.

'A 17-year-old girl has been given a 60 hour suspended community service sentence for falsely claiming she had been drugged, raped and made pregnant by an ex boyfriend last year.

The boy spent four days in custody after the girl made the accusations. It was not until April 2010 that the girl finally admitted she had made up the story.

The public prosecution department had called for a one month suspended jail term.'

So much for all girl's schools responding to public demand. Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A BAILOUT from the Uniting Church will not save prestigious girls' school Annesley College from potential redundancies and lesson-sharing with other schools next year.

Yesterday, the Uniting Church revealed a last-minute reprieve for the financially-unstable school, vowing to underwrite the servicing of any loans required by Annesley to fund its normal operations for two years.

This has secured the future of the 108-year-old college until 2013, but its future beyond that date remains uncertain.

At present, the college will be operating on 307 enrolments for next year - short of the church's original offer to give the school $1 million to keep it operating providing it could guarantee at least 350 students.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'It's been a rough month for Jennifer Petkov. The 33-year-old Trenton woman accused of bullying 7-year-old Kathleen Edward lost custody of two of her children this week, according to Fox 2.

The television station reports a Wayne County Probate Court judge has ruled Petkov's eight-year-old daughter and five-year-old son should live with their father until further notice.

The father, who had a relationship with Petkov prior to her current marriage, filed for an emergency hearing shortly after Petkov made national headlines by admitting on camera that she posted disturbing images on Facebook of Kathleen, who is in the final stages of Huntington's Disease, and her mother, who died of the degenerative brain condition.

From the Oct. issue of Harper's, an article by Susan Faludi. Only part of it is available to non-subscribers but you'll get the idea. Some things never change, and inter-generational "issues" always seem to be in every enclave of human endeavor. (Seems NOW was very close to having a 20-something for a president at their last election! Who'da thunk it?) One day I hope the MRA/FRA cause will be far enough along to have its own version of this! Excerpt:

Story here. In case anyone has any doubts about just how nuts certain women have become living with the effects of feminism/post-feminism/neo-post-feminism/etc. As always, I welcome insightful commentary. :) Excerpt:

'(NewsCore) - A Taiwanese woman left uninspired by the standard of men on offer in her city will finally tie the knot -- with herself, Shanghai Daily reported early Saturday.

Chen Wei-yih has bought a flowing white bridal grown, planned a lavish reception and even hired a wedding photographer to mark her unusual matrimony, which takes place next month

Lonely Chen, 30, told local media she was urged to wed by friends and loved ones but could not find a decent husband in Taipei, Taiwan's largest city.'

From an IA newsletter:

'Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics said it would come out with recommendations on infant circumcision "soon"—and yet they remain silent. With the recent news that the U.S. circumcision rate is down to just 33%, America’s pediatricians have been put on notice: circumcision is an antiquated, violent, and unnecessary procedure that has NO health benefits. Write to the AAP today and remind pediatricians they took an oath to do no harm—which means they MUST start listening to America’s parents, and stop cutting baby boys. Email the AAP.

Story here. A man was spit upon and his life threatened by a female at a restaurant when her brat almost ran into a door he was exiting. He defended himself but was sentenced to 6 months in prison for hitting her after she first assaulted him. Excerpt:

'CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. -- The defense took the stand Friday in the trial against a man accused of beating a woman at a Morrow Cracker Barrel restaurant.

Army reservist Tasha Hill said Troy Dale West hit, kicked and screamed racial slurs at her after she asked him to be careful and not let the door hit her daughter. West originally faced numerous charges including, aggravated assault and false imprisonment, but a judge sentenced him to serve six months after listening to testimony.

West told the jury he never wanted to harm Hill and never hit her with a closed fist. He testified he only hit Hill with his open hand after she spat on him and kept kicking him.
...

He said Hill threatened him and then spit on him.

“She says, ‘I'm a U.S. Military soldier. I'll kill you,’” West said.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Concord — Why are men enrolling in and graduating from colleges at lower rates than females? Why are boys falling behind in school? Richard Whitmire, a former editorial writer and a veteran education reporter, has done extensive research on these questions, concluding that the world has become more verbal, but boys haven’t. Author of a new book, “Why Boys Fail,” Whitmire will speak at the Fenn School on Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 7 p.m.

The biggest culprit in boys falling behind, Whitmire says, isn’t video games, pop culture, or female-dominated schools. Rather, it is that boys are usually thrust into a bewildering new school environment that demands high-level reading and writing skills before boys are capable of handling them.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Boys will perform just as you expect them to, it seems. If you tell them they aren't as intelligent as girls and are less likely to do well in tests, that is exactly what will happen. So says the latest salvo in the battle of the sexes that has preoccupied educationalists for decades.

A study published at the British Educational Research Association conference tested two classes of youngsters. One (mixed) class was told that boys generally performed worse in tests than girls; lo and behold, those boys did exactly that.

In the other class of 10-year-olds no such information was imparted, and the performance of the two sexes in a reading test showed greater parity. This is in line with the Pygmalion theory of education, as highlighted in the 1968 US study Pygmalion in the Classroom, which showed that if you split pupils randomly into two groups labelled "improving" and "not improving", the "improving" group will improve and the other one will not.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Maryville, Mo. — Peg Tyre — who had made something of a career out of studying how schools deal with, and sometimes fail, their boy students — spoke to a full house Wednesday evening at the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts as part of Northwest's Ploghoft Lecture Series.
...
Tyre said as she began wondering about a perceived failure of many boys to do well in school, she decided to go to the data. She noted that boys are expelled from school five times more often than girls, and that, as a group, exhibit a far higher number of behavioral problems.

"From the data, I found that 70 percent of special education students are boys," she said.

"Girls typically make As and Bs while boys make Cs and Ds. Boys do less homework. Boys are more apt to be involved in violent activities. The difference we see between boys and girls now will affect how kids live their lives now and in the future."

Story here. Excerpt:

'DUNCAN, OK -- A former school band instructor is accused of having a sexual relationship with a student. The female instructor was arrested Thursday night in Marshall County and was brought back to Stephens County the next day. Court records allege the relationship started in 2008 and lasted about a year and a half. The band instructor resigned her position last May.

Friday afternoon, Stephens County deputies picked up Christyn Raincrow, a former band instructor at Empire Public Schools.

She was charged with second-degree rape by instrumentation and forcible sodomy of a 17-year-old female student.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A woman accused of filing a false rape claim is expected to appear in an Orange County courtroom today.

Emily Marie Riker, 21, of Orlando, told a security guard at a convenience store in June that someone had pulled her into a vehicle and raped her, but deputies said her story was inconsistent and did not match the physical evidence.

She faces charges of filing a false claim to a law-enforcement officer.

Riker later said she lied because she was angry with the man she had been with, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'LAST week the Perth District Court imposed a Muslim cultural practice on a group of non-Muslim men.

Judge Shauna Deane told the men - all journalists - to leave her court so a Muslim woman could feel free to give evidence in a fraud trial without wearing her niqab.

Deane had earlier ruled that Tasneem, whose last name has been suppressed, had to remove her face-covering veil so the jury could read her face as well as hear her words.

But the male journalists were ejected, despite applications from the Seven, Nine and Ten networks to let them stay.

No doubt Deane thought this a fair compromise. Tasneem's Muslim beliefs - in this case, that a woman not show her face to men outside her family - were infringed upon only to the extent required for justice to operate fairly.

Male jurors could see her, but male journalists not.

But what of traditional Australian values? What of a man's right to see justice being done? To report it? To be free of sexual discrimination at work?'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The American male has lately been undergoing an identity crisis: there’s the clearly self-conscious Men’s Rights movement, a shifting economy in which women are tops, and the optimal male has been brought down to size. And that’s okay. This gender-bending upheaval should be an opportunity to expand the definition of not only a good “man,” but what it means to be a good person.

Apology, responsibility, honesty, these attributes and more are part of what make an exemplary human, that perhaps Utopian character we — I hope — all hope to emulate. Surely playing on a man’s male vanity can work in some situations, like telling a man to take care of his child, but such tactics should be used sparingly, because accountability isn’t about masculinity. It’s about being an adult.