Article here. What jumped out at me about this is that most of her examples were of young men. Does that mean that young women do not have similar problems of low self-esteem or a feeling of "feckless hopelessness"? I doubt it, and she mentions two cases of it in her article. But I have to wonder, is it just easier for her to find examples of such despair among young men? Based on other reports I have read, that answer seems to me to be "yes". Excerpt:

'With my producer, Charlotte Simpson, I went to the north-east of England, an area of very high deprivation with the highest rate of youth unemployment in England.

What I found was in many respects somewhat chastening. I met people living near Blyth, Northumberland, who were struggling to get a job in places where there was precious little work to be found.

Blog article here. Excerpt:

'Commonsensical Canadians are losing patience with the angry, blame-all-males school of feminism. It’s no accident that the feminist Toronto Women’s Bookstore, for years a bustling cynosure of the cultural zeitgeist, is in danger of closing down. Or that once overflowing women’s studies classes are emptying out, or morphing into “gender studies” to attract more students (a trap, really: Gender studies are also gynocentric, offering a more subtle version of heterosexual male-bashing than women’s studies).

Rob Kenedy, an assistant professor in the sociology department of York University with a specialty in the men’s rights movement, was unique amongst sociologues in teaching a course in the 1990s about men and their particular tribulations and needs. In a telephone interview he recalled his surprise when more young women signed up than men: “Women are far more interested in learning about men and masculinity than men are.”

Video here. It ends with the suggestion that "Shady Lady" is looking to see if it can "put a price on a man". They were beat to that punch a long time ago by governments conscripting men into military service, companies planning for the number of deaths and injuries working men would suffer, and of course, by divorce courts treating men as wallets to be plundered.

Are there any discussion of brothels staffed by women for men that get such joyful treatment? Haven't seen one yet.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A woman at the center of a complex dispute with her former lesbian partner defied a court order to give up custody of her 7-year-old daughter Friday, opening the door to possible criminal charges.

A Vermont judge had ordered Lisa Miller to turn over daughter Isabella to Janet Jenkins at 1 p.m. Friday at the Falls Church, Va., home of Jenkins' parents. Miller did not show up with the girl, according to Fairfax County, Va., police and Jenkins' Vermont-based attorney.
...
Her attorney, Mathew D. Staver, the law school dean at Liberty University, did not respond to a request through an assistant for comment.

Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who has followed the case, said it was likely the Vermont judge would issue another contempt order in the wake of Friday's developments.'

Welcome to the jungle, ladies!

Story here. Excerpt:

'Jan. 1--A teenage Tulsa mother was charged Thursday with killing her infant son.

Tulsa Country prosecutors charged Dominique Lagail Lee, 18, with the first-degree murder of Kai'den Terry.

He was 48 days old when he was fatally injured on Sept. 27, the charge states.

Lee is accused of inflicting a blunt trauma injury to her son's head at their apartment in the 6900 block of South Trenton Avenue.

A police investigator's affidavit asserts that Lee grabbed the child's legs, pulled him off a bed, and threw him to the floor head first.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) -- A 25-year-old former medical assistant has pleaded guilty to poisoning her 2-month-old daughter with morphine in a bid to attract the attention of the child's father. She was on probation for a similar crime in California.

Sara Rose Dillard appeared in Washington County Circuit Court on Wednesday and admitted giving her daughter Elise a high dose of the opiate in June. Judge Mark Gardner sentenced Dillard to seven years in prison after she pleaded guilty to first-degree assault.

Authorities said Dillard, of Beaverton, was on probation from California for feeding her son, who was 10 months old at the time, two opiate pills.
...
"She knew the baby would go into respiratory distress and bring a lot of attention to her and her baby because she'd put herself through respiratory distress before," prosecutor Megan Johnson said Wednesday.

When Rhianna hit Chris Brown in the head with her stiletto heels while he was behind the wheel trying not to lose control of the car and Brown overreacted¹, what did mainstream media report? They showed us Rhianna's injuries, but were totally silent about what part Rhianna's temper played in the altercation.

When Tiger Woods' wife attacked him with a golf club², the mainstream media ignored his wife's violence. Hardly any of the mainstream media reported that the Florida Highway Patrol described Woods' injuries as "serious".³ Instead they waited for more stories about Woods' affairs to come out so they could spin it as a tale of Woods' infidelities rather than about female-perpetrated domestic violence.

Now we have the case of Mary J. Blige, a woman who purports to be concerned about domestic violence, so much so that she has provided part of the funding for a domestic violence shelter named in her honor⁴. But her comment, "Women from all walks of life, not just women from poverty-stricken areas," makes it clear that only female victims will be helped by her shelter. And her actions make it clear that she believes that as a female she enjoys the privilege of using violence whenever any male displeases her. On Christmas Eve, the New York Post reported that she punched her husband in the face, drawing blood, because she thought he was flirting with a waitress.⁵ How has the rest of the mainstream media covered her hypocrisy? The silence has been deafening!

Article here. Excerpt:

'Brook Mueller may want a chance to work things out with husband Charlie Sheen in the wake of her claims that he threatened her with a switchblade, but experts say the seriousness of her accusations may get prosecutors involved even without her cooperation.

Lawyers for the Hollywood couple have asked a judge to throw out a restraining order imposed shortly after Sheen was arrested on domestic violence charges Christmas Day, so that they can work on their relationship.

The restraining order, common in Colorado domestic violence cases, prevented Sheen from having contact with Mueller, possessing weapons or using drugs and alcohol.

But even if Mueller is willing to reconcile with Sheen, prosecutors may choose to proceed with a court case without Mueller's testimony, noted criminal defense attorney Roy Black told "Good Morning America."

"There's no question they can proceed without her cooperation ...because they can use her statements, her 911 call," Black said.'

Interesting article on shared parenting in Alaska, driven by the Palin case. Excerpt:

I'm a big supporter of the military. I worked in a Marine corps library for three years, and my husband still works teaching Marines how to fix their cars. So I was particularly outraged when I saw this effort to go after military personnel *specifically* for domestic violence, and by a civilian authority, no less.

What's worse, the news story was accompanied by a poster which says, "Battering is always a choice." When you visit the website for the producers of the poster, you find that self-defense is considered by them to be an "excuse for battering."

If you're as mad about this as I am, contact info for all parties as well as the poster and an excerpt from the news story (which BTW does neither KXXV nor Bell County any favors with its semi-literate prose) is on my site.

Happy New Year guys, wish the current news was better!

T____

Story here. Excerpt:

'MILTON, PA -- Bill Connington’s two young sons have been missing for 11 years after their mother abducted them and disappeared. Tuesday night authorities in Pennsylvania called Connington to confirm they had been found safe and sound in Milton, where their mother had been living under an alias.

Jill Diane Haugen, 48, was arrested Tuesday at her home in Milton, Pennsylvania where she was going by the name Ann Thompson. Haugen is Connington's ex-wife and the mother of Connington's 17-year-old and 15-year-old sons.

Milton Police Officer Todd Ulrich called Connington by phone Tuesday to tell him the news. Ulrich says Connington was "absolutely surprised" and had thought he'd never see his sons again.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'After seeing what one New Jersey man did to get his son back from Brazil, a Texas father is looking to do the same.

Marty Pate says his ex-wife defied a custody agreement and returned to her native country of Brazil with the couple's 8-year-old daughter, Nicole, MyFoxHouston.com reports.

"Here we are three and a half years later, and still no daughter," Pate told MyFoxHouston.com, but in his renewed efforts, Pate is hopeful he'll have his daughter back in Texas by summer.
...
One congressman is hoping to help parents like Goldman and Pate.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, is co-sponsoring a bill that would make it harder for parents in custody disputes to flee the country with their kids. Brazil, in particular, has been of little help.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'You are somewhere between 35 and 45 years old, give or take, and you can’t shake the feeling that things just aren’t adding up for you, your family, your generation.

The bosses and politicians in charge — many of whom are older than you — don’t talk about you much, even as your job bites the dust or you gripe about money in the cubicle next door.
...
If you are a man born between 1964 and 1974, you were earning 12 percent less in 2004 than your father was when he was your age three decades earlier, according to a study by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Let’s attach a dollar figure to that — so that we truly register the generational grand larceny here.

I can't say I completely agree with this story over at the Economist, which contends that first-generation feminists were "tougher" than the current generation of feminists, *and* also "tougher" than men. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Western nations are looking at the shambles their countries have become. A great increase in family breakdown (divorce and separation) resulting in increased substance abuse, alienated youth dropping out of school with no skills, and an ever increasing number of children raised in single parent homes, are just a few of the problems facing nations today. This has led to government policy makers, churches and charities trying to make sense of both the causes and consequences of family break-up. Consequently, the future of the family has now been placed at the top of the political list of priorities.

For example, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown talked about family values at the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton, September 27-October 1, 2009. The UK opposition leader David Cameron told his party members that the family lay at the heart of his beliefs. Other government leaders in Russia, France, Poland, Latvia and Romania are expressing similar concerns.
...