Story here. Excerpt:

'Social workers who deal with troubled families and vulnerable children should be paid more, a report said yesterday.

The proposal means that 'front line' social workers should be able to push their pay above the ceiling of around £35,000 and match the £50,000 available to the best classroom teachers and the best nurses.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls ordered the report in the aftermath of the Old Bailey trial of the killers of 17-month-old Baby P.

The higher pay should go to those who turn down desk-bound management jobs and build their experience in helping those at risk, the report said.

The proposals will also lead to the prospect of salary rises for social workers considered to be underpaid in some parts of the country.'

Just in from Marc A.: I'll appear tonight (12/1) with David Woods, the lead plaintiff in Woods v. Horton, on the national TV show "The Secret Lives on Women" on the WE channel on 12/1/09 and again on 12/22 and 12/29. The episode is called Husband Beaters.
...
Upcoming Air Dates:
Tuesday, December 1 at 10pm (Eastern US Time)
Tuesday, December 22 at 3am (Eastern US Time)
Tuesday, December 29 at 3am (Eastern US Time)

Story here. Excerpt:

'ORLANDO, Fla. – Tiger Woods will be cited for careless driving in a car crash outside his Orlando-area mansion, but will not face criminal charges, the Florida Highway Patrol said Tuesday.

Woods faces a $164 fine and four points against his driver's license, not close to enough to have it suspended. The citation closes the investigation of last week's crash.

The patrol "is not pursuing criminal charges in this matter nor is there any testimony or other evidence to support any additional charges of any kind other than the charge of careless driving," Sgt. Kim Montes said.'

Golf clubs through rear windows notwithstanding.

Story here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON — The United States on Tuesday unveiled a five-year strategy for fighting AIDS worldwide, shifting the focus from emergency response to sustainable programs in countries worldwide.

Marking World AIDS day, the administration of President Barack Obama outlined the next phase of the widely-hailed President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was launched in 2003 under then president George W. Bush.

"We're going to begin transitioning from an emergency response to a sustainable one through greater engagement with and capacity-building of governments," said Ambassador Eric Goosby, the US global AIDS coordinator.
...
"We're going to scale up highly effective prevention interventions like male circumcision, prevention of mother-to-child transmission," Goosby said. "We're going to work with countries to determine not just how many people are infected in their communities in their countries, but where the new infections are occurring," he added.'

Article here. Should I be surprised there's no amendment covering men's health? Excerpt:

'Sen. Mikulski, who's played a lead role in bringing women's health care to the forefront in the Senate, has introduced an amendment ensuring that all health plans cover women's preventative care - at no additional cost to women.

Thanks to anthony for the heads-up on this.

It seems someone has decided take up the issue of the decline of masculinity not so much in society but in men themselves. He discusses the drop in testosterone, among other things. The trailer is at http://www.anemasculatingtruth.com/.

I am looking forward to seeing the while thing. I don't know anything else about this film other than what is on the site.

Article here. Excerpt:

'No matter how we think boys ought to behave, society gives men, particularly white college men, license to do just about whatever they want. In the context of sexual assault and rape, 'he just got carried away' or 'he was drunk and wasn't thinking straight' are common refrains for perpetrators and those who defend them.

Applying that to say, an aggravated battery, may well be true, but no one would care. So what if you were drunk, you still beat someone, and in this country that is illegal. Imagine a defense for three guys who beat the hell out of somebody saying that assault charges were 'a gross exaggeration of alcohol-fueled hijinks.'

Rape myth number 2: Women lie

This thinly veiled statement is suggesting that the victim is lying, that something just doesn't add up. This is meant to play on the fact that despite progress in sex equality over the past several generations, our society still takes a man's word over a woman's.

Story here. Excerpt:

'CANFIELD — A month long rape investigation has ended after the victim recanted her accusation.
...
The accuser told the teacher she was attacked by a 16-year-old male juvenile in mid-August on the bike path in Canfield.

The case was closed Friday after the accuser admitted to police that she was not raped. She told detectives she and the teen boy were on the bike path together where they briefly engaged in consensual sexual intercourse.

The girl said she made up the rape allegation because she was angry with him for not wanting to be in a relationship with her, according to a police report.

No criminal charges will be filed, and the case has been turned over to the Canfield Juvenile Division for assessment of the filing of a false police report by the accuser.'

Story here.

'Police have found a young girl's claim she was sexually assaulted in a Christchurch cemetery was false.

She told them two men attacked her as she was walking through the grounds of Kendal School towards Waimairi Cemetery late last Monday night.

But police say they have found the incident did not happen the way they were told, and they are no longer looking for anyone in connection with it.

The girl will be referred to youth aid.'

Story here This dates back to November 17th but still very much relevant. Excerpt:

'LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The woman accused of trying to extort money from Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino was charged Wednesday with retaliating against the coach by falsely claiming he raped her.

A federal grand jury in Louisville brought four new criminal charges against Karen Cunagin Sypher, including retaliation against a witness.
The FBI, Louisville police and prosecutors have said there was no basis for her rape allegations. She said the coach raped her in a criminal complaint filed after she was indicted in May on charges of trying to extort money from Pitino.
...
The grand jury also added two intent to extort charges and a second charge of lying to the FBI.'

Original post on MANN re this story is here.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In the light of controversy about domestic violence education, a survey of schoolchildren in London has revealed their views on the subject.

Arts education organisation Tender, part of charity Until the Violence Stops, gives a voice to young people in the debate around domestic violence education.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The molestation began as gentle fondling when Gregg Milligan was just 4, but it soon escalated to aggressive touching and eventually beatings that would render him unconscious.

For seven years until Michigan child welfare workers intervened when he was 11, Milligan was too ashamed to reveal that his tormentor was his own mother.
...
One of the unspeakable secrets in the world of child sexual abuse is that mothers can be molesters. Often, they prey on daughters, but more frequently their sons -- who report increased feelings of isolation and sexual confusion along with thoughts of suicide.
...
Previous studies of day care workers published in 2000 in the Journal of Sex Research, found that women -- without male accomplices -- accounted for only about 6 percent of the abuse of females and 14 percent of males.

Good letter here on the role fathers play in preventing gang activity. Excerpt:

'The Rev. Leon Kelly makes a very revealing statement when he says, “Moms are grieving because they feel like they’ve lost their kids to this [gang] behavior.”

It was noteworthy that Rev. Kelly referred only to moms, not parents, nor mothers and fathers.

Study after study has shown that single-motherhood and the lack of a strong father figure in the home are at the root of gang recruitment, poor performance in school, and minority community poverty in general.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A group of 50 mental health experts from 10 countries are part of an effort to add Parental Alienation to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V), the American Psychiatric Association’s “bible” of diagnoses. According to psychiatrist William Bernet, adding PA “would spur insurance coverage, stimulate more systematic research, lend credence to a charge of parental alienation in court, and raise the odds that children would get timely treatment.”

Few family law cases are as heartbreaking as those involving Parental Alienation. In PA cases, one parent has turned his or her children against the other parent, destroying the loving bonds the children and the target parent once enjoyed.

Article here. Excerpt:

Kathryn Joyce at Slate asks the question. She write of the men's movement group, RADAR, Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting:

RADAR's rhetoric may seem overblown, but lately the group and its many partners have been racking up very real accomplishments. In 2008, the organization claimed to have blocked passage of four federal domestic-violence bills, among them an expansion of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to international scope and a grant to support lawyers in pro bono domestic-violence work. Members of this coalition have gotten themselves onto drafting committees for VAWA's 2011 reauthorization. Local groups in West Virginia and California have also had important successes, criminalizing false claims of domestic violence in custody cases, and winning rulings that women-only shelters are discriminatory.