Article here. Excerpt:

'As the United States battles several threats including an economic crisis and a possible public health pandemic, it’s important to remember that we are experiencing a “silent epidemic” that poses the greatest threat to our long-term economic strength and even our national security.

Today only about half (53%) of the young people in our nation’s 50 largest cities graduate from high school, and in the time it takes to read this, another U.S. teenager will have dropped out. In fact, 1.2 million students drop out annually. That’s 7,000 each school day, one every 26 seconds. The statistics are even more startling for students of color—less than half graduate on time.

We see the real depth of this disparity when we compare urban schools with their suburban counterparts. On average, suburban schools report graduation rates that are 18 percentage points higher.'

I posted the following comment; we'll see if it gets published:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Harriet Harman wants to use controversial new equality laws to pack the boards of nationalised banks with women.Labour's deputy leader is determined to boost the proportion of female workers in the financial sector and end what she calls 'pay discrimination' in the City.
...
She said last night that legal powers championed by her to discriminate in favour of minorities could help achieve her ambition. Some women MPs have claimed that the 'testosterone-fuelled' financial meltdown could have been avoided if there had been more women in decision-making positions.
...
'Sometimes we have to take scary methods in order to achieve worthwhile results,' she told a mainly female audience.

'It is about saying, "because you are a woman I'm going to put you in this promotion".'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In 1991, Congress created the Office on Women’s Health within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But don’t men face health issues, too? Yes they do, and U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA, 18th), has introduced a bill that would address men’s health by establishing the HHS Office of Men’s Health.

According to Rep. Murphy, his “Men and Families Health Care Act of 2009” (H.R. 2115), would raise the public’s awareness of health problems affecting men, and ways to detect and prevent them. ...“For too long the health needs of men have gone unaddressed. This bill will help men’s health take its rightful place in our federal government’s healthcare priorities.”'

From Jeremy S., an oldie but a goodie entitled "Missing feminists". First I have ever seen it so it's new to me. :) I think you'll enjoy it. Essay here. Excerpt:

'A few years ago a guy had to be on guard when randomly chatting with a woman in this town. Conversations frequently erupted into gender-political disputes without warning. You'd be treated to a whole report on the ways in which you were to blame for oppressing women, through pornography and lipstick and breast implants and stuff.

It seems to happen less often now. Some say the world has dumbed down, but if we've traded shrill ideology for dumbness, I'll take that deal.
...
Once, at a party, a bunch of girls on a sofa 20 feet away were giggling at a friend and me. We hadn't met. They were laughing because one proposed our castration. The girl now works at the CBC.

I rang up Jeffrey Asher to ask whatever happened to the golden era of the gender war...

I have to give credit to Dear Abby for featuring a man being abused by his wife and encouraging him to seek help. Column here. Excerpt:

'DEAR ABBY: My wife thinks it's funny when she hits me. The other day I was splitting some wood and decided to take a break. I began driving golf balls into the field. She came out, grabbed the club out of my hands and whacked me in the leg with it. When I asked her why, she said, "Get back to work!" and started laughing. I was left with a large welt and a big bruise.
...
DEAR FRUSTRATED: Why are you afraid to speak your mind? Are you afraid she'll hit you again? Your wife has a sadistic sense of humor and enjoys seeing you in pain. Unless you draw the line, she will cause you serious injury.

Article here. Excerpt:

"Over the years we've had lots of men abused by mothers, sisters, aunties and baby sitters," says Mr Bevan.

"It's hard enough for adult men to admit abuse but to admit to abuse by a woman is even harder because it challenges their masculinity, it challenges their sexuality."

Women can commit a wide range of sexual offences, he says, including rape. And their victims commonly experience sexual confusion and a fear of intimacy. Anger can manifest itself as violence towards a wife or girlfriend in later life."
...
"Experts agree that women commit only a fraction of child sexual abuse but so much is hidden that it's difficult to be accurate. An influential study in the US in the 1980s suggested 20% of all offences against boys and 5% against girls were by women."

Famous misandrist Marilyn French is dead. Here is an amusing attempt to defend her in the Times of London. Excerpt:

'Yet she was human, and not unloving: her anger against patriarchy was mingled with a real pity for the “dumb, grey, mute” men equally trapped by stereotype and expectation. And so they are - or were, although the softening of the modern male ideal in Western society should please her: the gentle fathers, woman-friendly employers, emotionally open gay men. From interviews I have read I am not sure that, as her life drew to its end, she saw or accepted the rate of change in such men, even as a minority. But she was an intellectual and academic historian, and knew that centuries of culture do not evaporate overnight.

Her vision, skewed and rhetorically extreme though it is, still has its uses. The Women's Room is not a book I'd pick up again, but Beyond Power still has things to say to a generation about to plunge into a nasty recession in which the weakest (often the ones with the wombs) will be shoved to the wall.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'DURHAM (WTVD) -- A Creekside Elementary teacher's assistant charged with having sex with a student made her first court appearance Thursday morning.

The Durham Police Department says Gina Marie Watring, 40, had intercourse with the child on at least two occasions in April - the first, three weeks ago and a second last Tuesday. It would not comment about where the incidents happened.

A source told Eyewitness News the victim is a 10-year-old boy.'

Story here. You'll hear feminists complaining about how in the Middle East women get stoned to death for adultery. What many won't mention, or may not know, is that men do, too. Excerpt:

'TEHRAN (Reuters) - A man was stoned to death in Iran for adultery but the woman involved in the case repented, the judiciary said on Tuesday, suggesting her life was spared.

The Islamic Republic has been heavily criticized by the European Union, rights groups and the United Nations for stoning convicted criminals and there are official Iranian recommendations the practice should not occur.

Asked whether he could confirm that a man charged with adultery was stoned to death in the northern city of Rasht during the Iranian month that ended on March 20, judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told a news conference:

"What you said about stoning is correct. But the woman repented ... Among the instances in which the sentence is not performed is when there is a repentance by the individual involved."

Article here. Excerpt:

'The cycle of emotional and physical damage caused by this type of abuse will last a young boy's lifetime if not worked through in therapy. As a society, we have in the past chalked this behavior up to "young boys just getting lucky" and "I wish I had a teacher that wanted to have sex with me," but these are simply ill-informed statements with total disregard for the true fall-out for these boys.

First, you must know that the women who fall into the "Teacher/Lover" category of female sexual offenders are highly manipulative and groom their victims in a similar way to male sexual predators. They pick vulnerable kids who are looking for attention and approval that may seem lacking within their own home environment.

These women believe they have a "special bond" with the child and usually don't believe they have done anything wrong at all because it was "love." Her motives for the sexual offenses are to teach them sexually and obtain love and attention from the child.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'The case in favor of a teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student emerged after a court appearance today.

"The charges in this case now don't fit the facts," said Rich Gallegos, defense attorney for Evelyne Bowers

Bowers, a math teacher at Bountiful Jr. High, appeared in district court in Farmington on charges of rape and forcible sodomy.

"There was no force. There wasn't even any deception as far as I'm concerned," attorney Gallegos said.

Bowers and another Bountiful Jr. High teacher, Linda Neff, are both accused of having sex with the same boy. But neither knew of the other's affair.

"In my opinion he's an advanced 14-year-old," Gallegos said.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'VIERA -- In Brevard County Tuesday, a former teacher who had sex with a student reached a plea deal with prosecutors that gives her prison time.

Under the deal, Janet Hughes, a former teacher at Jackson Middle School in Titusville, was sentenced to between one and six years in prison, and she will have to register as sex offender when she gets out.

Hughes was arrested two years ago after police said they caught her and a 16-year-old boy in a van outside a Titusville church.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'NORTON — Police arrested a 32-year-old woman they said made up a horrifying story of abduction and rape.

Jessica Smith of Doylestown in Wayne County told Norton police that a man abducted her at gunpoint from a gas station on April 9, took her to Akron and raped her for four days before releasing her. But police said after spending many hours investigating the story, they determined it never happened.

Smith was arraigned Wednesday before Barberton Municipal Judge Greg Macko on one count of making false alarms. If convicted, she faces up to one year in prison.

Police spent about 100 hours investigating her claims before concluding the story was made up. They were called to the emergency room at Akron City Hospital on April 12. '

Article here. Excerpt:

'April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Unfortunately, much of the “awareness” raised about a crime that victimizes all too many women is unnecessarily politicized and factually incorrect. For reasons that have nothing to do with aiding rape victims and everything to do with advancing a larger political agenda, too many of the persons who dominate the public discourse about sexual assault feel it is necessary to insist that false rape claims are a myth.

We write for one of the few websites in America devoted exclusively to giving voice to the persons wrongly accused of sexual assault, The False Rape Society.

False rape claims are America’s taboo epidemic, and we chronicle news of false rape claims on a daily basis. We receive heart-wrenching emails, especially from mothers of young men who have been falsely accused. One young man recently told us our website stopped him from committing suicide. That is an awful burden to put on one little website, but these people have nowhere else to turn.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" actress and her two co-stars in life -- Have you seen the new trailer? It's all about her breasts -- are the subject of much attention for both Elle's June cover and Esquire magazine's Day in the Life pictorial.

For the female readers of Elle, Fox shares that, "I've lived the life of a 35-year-old since I was 18. I'm so suspicious of boys-slash-men. I just don't like them or trust them."'