Duke University is asking the courts to shut down a web site that lacrosse players and their families have created to publish news about the ongoing lawsuit, alleging that the information posted on the site might prejudice a jury. That is an amazing testimony to the hypocrisy of the Duke administration given their former lack of concern about widespread media condemnation of innocent young men. Duke has offered large monetary settlements to shut down the upcoming lengthy trial, but their bribes have been declined by all litigants.

Story here. Notable about this story is that the report includes discussion of females' use of force to coerce sex.

The fact that Dr. Straus was even allowed to deliver these findings at an APA summit is quite remarkable. Bit by bit, the reality of men as DV victims is getting more and more recognition. Excerpt:

'Men who had experienced corporal punishment were four times more likely to physically coerce a partner into having sex, than those who had not experienced a lot of corporal punishment.

Physical coercion includes holding someone down or hitting them. Women who had experienced corporal punishment were also more likely to coerce sex from a partner than those who had not been spanked.
...
Both men and women who had experienced corporal punishment as children were less than 10 percent more likely than those who had not been spanked to verbally coerce sex from a partner.'

From the stranger-than-fiction dept: video report here. After irrevocably alienating male voters does anyone think The Hildebeast can possibly woo undecided male voters (of any ethnicity) at this point to vote for her?

Maybe men who have been living out in the woods without TV, radio, Internet, or newspapers, but other than them...

I think it's clear who is going to be the Democrat candidate for 2008. And obviously we know who is going to take the GOP nod. I think it's a good time to start thinking about which of these two candidates will be best for the interests of men in general. Does McCain have a history at all of voting male-friendly? I know we don't have quite the record on Obama, but has he said anything that seems it will address in any way the concerns of men, especially men-as-fathers? Thoughts?

Story here. Excerpt:

"A Catholic school teacher on Friday was facing charges after allegedly e-mailing topless pictures of herself to a 15-year-old male student, MyFoxStl.com reported.

English teacher Melissa Moss, 27, was fired from her job at the Barat Academy in November after school officials said the teen’s parents, Robert and Kelly Pfeiffer, found the controversial pictures while monitoring his Internet use."

Good news here. Please review and cast a vote.

She just can't help herself, can she? A trail of male bodies lies behind her and she's still on about how hard it is out there for a woman in politics! Report here. This is getting so old. Excerpt:

'In an interview with ABC News' Cynthia McFadden to air on this evening's "Nightline," Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., says it's tougher for her to run as a woman than it is for her male opponent.
...
"Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field," she said, "but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there."
...
I also wonder if former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. -- and all the other men vanquished by Clinton (and Obama) so handily -- think that they had an easy go of it.'

Story here.

'The Italian supreme court has outlawed men from touching their genitals in public.

Crotch-grabbing is an ancient superstitious habit in Italy that is believed to ward off the evil eye - it is traditional for men to do it if passed by a hearse or when discussing serious illness or disasters. The phrase "Io mi tocco" ("I touch my") is as common as crossing fingers for good luck.

However, the supreme court ruled that an unnamed 42-year-old man from Como had broken the law by "ostentatiously touching his genitals through his clothing".
...
The judges pointed out that if men needed to grab their crotches, they should wait until they were in the privacy of their own home.'

(This will surely be the end of Italian hip-hop culture...)

Essay here. Excerpt:

'We know a lot about how to create life in laboratories, but very little about the feelings that go with having kids. In our bid for complete equality, women have denied that it's a transforming experience: rather, we've sidelined that, along with other "feminine" feelings, as being beneath intelligent people.
...
I'd once have been embarrassed at acknowledging motherhood as pivotal in life, but life changes you. Even clever people struggle with having it all, and after 40 years the world of action is still geared toward men and single women, despite the rhetoric: the odds are still stacked against mothers.

Article here. Excerpt:

"At a symposium in October 2007 on "Politicising Masculinities", organised by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), it was noted that this issue of false equivalence surfaces frequently in discussions of men's own experience of violence. It is not uncommon to hear the statement that "men are also victims of violence at the hands of women". Such comments can be profoundly unhelpful, not least because this violence is nothing like on the same scale as the many forms of violence experienced by women from men."

Story here. Excerpt:

'NEW YORK - For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.
...
The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.

"For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine."'

In an article published today, it appears that "White Men" have been a crucial block that has shifted from Hillary Clinton To Barack Obama in the Democratic Primary. They are also anticipated to be a crucial swing vote in the presidential election. Apparently, after years of being presented as an unthinking collective of racist lemmings, it now is apparent that white men have taken Martin Luther Kings I have a dream plea to heart and have decided that Barack Obama exhibits the kind of character men hope will inhabit the White House.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Story here. Excerpt:

'A callous wife who poisoned her husband with anti-freeze on their seventh wedding anniversary was today jailed for 30 years.

Kate Knight, 28, spent weeks scouring the internet for the best way to kill Lee before lacing his curry and red wine with the highly toxic substance.

The 37-year-old JCB worker lost six pints of blood, spent 16 weeks in a coma and was left blind, deaf and brain-damaged.

Astonishingly, his supposedly devoted wife even tried to finish him off with spiked drinks as he lay fighting for life in an intensive care unit.'

Should this not be a pivotal agenda for MRAs? Governments seem to be unwilling to tackle or even acknowledge this problem. Article here. Excerpt:

"And, whether or not this is the cause, male sperm counts have been dropping precipitously both here and across the world.

Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that average amounts have fallen by well over half in the past 50 years, from an average of more than 150 million per millilitre to 66 million.

The result is that men are now less than half as fertile as hamsters.

The counts are continuing to plunge by two per cent a year, and no end to the decline is in sight. At this rate, the average man will be unable to father children within decades.

Increasingly the sperm crisis is being blamed on a whole host of chemicals, not just synthetic oestrogen, but a wide variety of substances that have become ubiquitous in daily life.

The BBC has surpassed itself this week on male issues.

Firstly on male domestic violence victims (Radio 5 Sunday on 24th Feb) available here. [Ed. note: This is a 3-hour show and the host covers other topics in it.]

Secondly, on a feature about men falsely accused of rape. Excerpt:

'At the age of 19, Ben Guerin had his life ripped apart by one allegation.

Three years after he'd had a sexual encounter with a girl from school he was arrested for assault, rape and paedophilia.
...
But witnesses who had been with the couple came forward on Ben's behalf and inaccuracies were found in the girl's story. The charges were dropped and instead the girl was eventually sentenced to a year for perverting the course of justice.'

Story here. Excerpt:

"A teacher's aide quit her job on Monday after police discovered teenage students in her hotel room with alcohol and drugs.
...
Police found condom wrappers, crack-cocaine, empty beer cans and alcohol in Swogger's hotel room last week. Swogger did not show up to work on Thursday or Friday."