Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A woman who was handcuffed to a bed, drugged and forced to give up her newborn baby for adoption says an official apology has helped her regain her "selfhood".

The West Australian government on Tuesday issued a public apology to women who had their babies taken from them by authorities from the 1940s to the 1980s because they were unwed.

WA is the first state or territory to issue such an apology.
...

Dr Hames said the apology was not about compensation for the mothers or a criticism of parents who adopted the children.

"What they (the mothers) say to me is not that they want compensation. It is that they want to have somebody recognise that what happened to them was wrong and, hopefully, will never ever happen again," he said.

Premier Colin Barnett was to move a motion in parliament on Tuesday acknowledging that previous government policies were unsupportive of pregnant, unmarried women and failed to help them.'

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'Victorian Children's Minister Lisa Neville admits not knowing how many times her department has checked on three children - one of whom accidentally took an ecstasy tablet - since they were reunited with their mother.

The children's grandmother, who cannot be identified, told ABC Television on Monday her three grand-daughters, all aged under eight, have been exposed to violence, criminal activity, drug use and sexual abuse in their mother's care.

The woman says her daughter is not capable of looking after the children, who were placed in care of the Department of Human Services (DHS) - when the youngest child accidentally took ecstasy - but were returned to their mother in March.

She said the girls at times went for days without food.

The woman said that in April, a Victorian DHS officer told her that the department had "forgotten" to apply to court for a new protection order allowing its workers access to the children.'

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A mother-of-two has been jailed for prostituting her teenage daughter in a case a judge says involved "an extreme breach of trust".

The girl says she was subjected to physical and mental abuse and forced to take illicit drugs when known by the name 'Layla' and working at Sydney's Liaisons escort agency between November 2008 and December 2009.

She was aged 16 and 17 at the time. The girl's mother has admitted changing a birth certificate so the child could work for the agency as an 18-year-old.

At Wollongong District Court on Tuesday, the 43-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to serve at least 18 months' jail after pleading guilty to charges of obtaining a benefit from child prostitution and causing a child to participate in prostitution.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'NEW YORK: The Foundation for Male Studies will focus on the research and programs needed to reverse the downward spiral now effecting virtually all aspects of the lives of men and boys, at the Second Annual International Conference on Male Studies - Looking Forward to Solutions, April 6, 2011.

Edward M. Stephens, MD, FMS’ Founder and Chair says that in addition to the conference's solution-geared presentations by leading authorities, the Foundation is calling for papers from academics on how to best deal with increasing levels of male unemployment, depression, suicides, high school and college dropout rates and related problems.

Article here. How's this for a father-son project? A great dad and his young son worked together on a project to send an iPhone into outer space, carried there by a weather balloon. The entire journey was filmed by the iPhone, including the descent following the explosion of the balloon in space. They used the iPhone's GPS capability to retrieve it, and uploaded the entire video of both the ascent and descent here:

http://vimeo.com/15091562

Now THAT'S a great dad!

I am astounded that even in space, the proximity to the earth's atmosphere was still close enough to carry sounds. You can actually hear the sounds of the iPhone jostling around, you can hear the wind on the ascent and descent, and you can even hear the sound of the weather balloon when it pops, initiating the descent.

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A Melbourne woman who allegedly drove drunk and crashed her car with seven children aboard — including three in the boot — has begged the public to forgive her.

"I know I've done the most stupidest thing you could ever imagine," she told Nine News this morning.

"Please forgive me. Please, it's all I can say. There's nothing else I can say."

The 35-year-old woman had a 10-year-old boy in the front passenger seat, two 14-year-old girls and a boy, 15, in the back seat and three boys — two aged 14 and a 15-year-old in the boot of her 1992 Mitsubishi Magna.'

From July 2010, but it seems to have been missed on these pages. Link to article here.

ABSTRACT:

'Introduction Male circumcision for religious reasons is not available in the NHS. In this report, we present the results of an investigation conducted by the Thames Valley Health Protection Unit (TVHPU) at an unregulated circumcision ‘camp’ in Oxford in 2006.

Methods A detailed investigation was initiated following notification by a general practitioner of two children with circumcision-related complications at a ‘camp’. Telephone interviews were conducted with the ‘camp’ organizers, the operating surgeon, GPs and paediatric surgeons. A field visit was carried out by TVHPU staff to assess implementation of infection control practices.

Ahh, women and politics: vis-a-vis one another.

It's been a staple of western politics that it is hard for men to run against women in political races (when indeed they do run) since there is a "code of conduct" toward women that men are expected to adhere to even as women are not expected to adhere to any such thing. For example, muck-racking and character assassination can be pursued by female candidates (even this season we have seen a certain female politician tell her opponent to "man up", while such a thing isn't even possible for him to say to her), while if a man engages in anything close to that, he will be accused of being any number of things, from sexist to abusive-- anything but doing what electoral politics is, unfortunately, largely about: whatever you can do to win the seat short of finding yourself locked up for it.

Story here. Excerpt:

'AMIS today publishes statistics from the 8 Scottish police forces that show an increase of around 9.4% in the number of incidents that they recorded as domestic abuse or violence with a man as the victim in 2009-10 compared to 2008-9. The statistics also reveal a reduction of 6.1% in the number of incidents recorded with a woman as victim compared to 2008-9.

Within the acknowledged limitations of police statistics* one in six of recorded victims was male yet the reality remains that after 10 years of the Scottish Parliament there are virtually no support services in Scotland designed to help men and their children affected by domestic abuse or violence.'

Web site: http://www.abusedmeninscotland.org/. From the Why AMIS link:

'Men In Scotland (MIS) was initially set up as a blog and forum to accompany our ePetition to the Scottish Parliament on male victims of domestic abuse. We are setting up this new website, Abused Men In Scotland (AMIS) to provide information and support for men in Scotland who experience domestic abuse or violence and anyone willing to help. We added the word 'abused' to the name to clarify the purpose of the charity.

In order for support services for men to be properly established we felt there was a need first to raise an awareness and understanding of the problem - particularly for our policy makers and service providers. The current focus of government and other agencies on domestic abuse/violence as ‘violence against women’ has had the unintended consequence of leaving men on the receiving end of domestic abuse/violence and their children unacknowledged and unsupported.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A psychiatrist has been accused of using sex, drugs and hypnosis to persuade a patient to kill her husband.

Mary Hein is facing up to 20 years in jail after using her skills to manipulate a patient into committing murder.

The 45-year-old is alleged to have told the patient they would share her husband's $500,000 life insurance policy if he carried out the killing.
...
The patient told police Hein said they would be a couple after her husband was dead and they could live comfortably off the husband's half a million dollar life insurance policy.

Hein was arrested after the man went to police and the therapist was secretly recorded plotting her husband's murder.

The respected psychiatrist has been charged with sexual exploitation by a therapist, one count of solicitation of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of obstructing an officer.'

Action Alert here. Excerpt:

'Short Version: Ohio SB 292 will raise child support levels in the face of the worst economy since the Great Depression. Fathers and Families of Ohio is working to defeat SB 292 this legislative session but we need your help—please fill out our form here and we will send your letter to all appropriate legislators.

Background Information: Senator Shirley Smith (D-Cleveland) and Senator Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) have introduced Ohio SB 292 into the current Ohio legislative session. While the bill does have some significant positives, it has some very ugly negatives. These are all detailed here.'

Alas, some are more equal than others. Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A married Sydney couple have been jailed for "disturbing" sex crimes against their nine-year-old son.
...
At Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Friday, Judge Anthony Garling sentenced the man to serve a minimum nine years' jail.
...
"It is hard to imagine a greater breach of trust than what the male offender has committed," Judge Garling said.
...
The woman was sentenced to serve at least three years and nine months in jail after pleading guilty to sexual intercourse with her son and two counts of committing an act of indecency.
...
"She blames her husband and I am satisfied that he did have some domination over her. However, she seems to believe it is acceptable to carry out sexual acts with her nine-year-old son.'

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A woman will face court over allegations she sexually assaulted an elderly man in a retirement home in inner Sydney.

The 53-year-old Lidcombe woman, who is an employee at the facility in Albion Street at Surry Hills, sexually assaulted an elderly man at the centre on Friday, October 1, police say.'

This story provides partial transcripts regarding Ken Buck's decision not to prosecute an alleged rape. Similar stories have also appeared in the Huffington Post and Salon (though I don't have links to those stories.)

Ken Buck is the Republican candidate for the Colorado senate seat. His opponent is Democrat Michael Bennet. Apparently, someone from ProgressNow tracked down the alleged victim in this case and obtained a recording she made of her interview with Buck.

Given the totality of the evidence, Buck decided not to prosecute. He also consulted with members of the Boulder DA's office, who concurred with his decision. He told the alleged victim the jury would likely view this as a case of "buyer's remorse." That last comment has stirred a lot of controversy and Buck's being accused of being "insensitive" to women.

The story raises issues that are of likely interest to readers of this forum.