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.

Tom Jacobs has a nice article about confronting sexist language. Please feel free to link - Janice

Excerpt:

'A woman who bristles when a male friend or colleague uses sexist language has to make a quick decision: Call him on it, or not? Although she might be personally offended, she may be reluctant to speak up, anticipating his response will be dismissive or defensive.

Research just published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology suggests such fears may be overblown. It describes a carefully structured study in which college-age males are confronted over the use of sexist language — and respond with heightened sensitivity regarding gender issues.'

It's all just a big joke to yahoo7. Link to article here. Excerpt:

'An Adelaide woman who killed her husband after trying to set his penis on fire has been found not guilty of his murder, but guilty of manslaughter.

A Supreme Court jury, after deliberating for nine hours over two days, ruled Rajini Narayan guilty of her husband's manslaughter after clearing her of murder in a majority verdict, Adelaide Now reports.

Nayaran, who threw petrol and a lit candle on the back of on Satish Narayan, said she was only trying to burn the tip of his penis, and she had no intention of killing him.

Satish died 20 days after his wife confronted him about a suspected affair in their Unley home in December 2008.

The prosecution argued the affair, and two decades of beatings, were the motivating factor in the crime - a claim Narayan denied.'

There's always someone else to blame...

Link here. Excerpt:

'A mother has given evidence that she choked and hit her five, small starving children if they tried to get food because she was scared of another woman who hated them.

The mother has admitted she watched her five kids, aged four to seven, beg for dog food because they were so hungry.

The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was giving evidence in a Supreme Court trial in Adelaide of three men who are accused of mistreating the five children from late February 2008 to June 2008.'

Link here (.pdf document).

The Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital continues to host the following pamphlet of after-care instructions for the infant-only plastibell circumcision device, despite a ban on cosmetic circumcision of infants in South Australian public hospitals, in effect since 2007.

Excerpt:

'Plastibell
Is commonly used in infants 6 months and younger. A plastic ring is tied around the foreskin and the excess skin is trimmed. The ring separates and falls off after approximately 10 days.
...
PLASTIBELL CIRCUMCISION: No special dressing is required. A dark brown or black ring around the plastic ring is normal, which will disappear when the ring falls off. The plastic ring usually falls off after 2-8 days. If the plastic ring has not fallen off within 10 days take your son to your local doctor. Some bruising and swelling is to be expected.'