Story here. Excerpt:

'LISBON, N.Y. (AP) A 33-year-old high school English teacher charged with rape told police she was suffering from depression when she had sex with a 15-year-old student.

Accompanied by her husband, Christel Gravlin cried Monday as she was arraigned on felony counts of third-degree rape and third-degree criminal sexual act and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child.

The affair became public when the highly intoxicated teacher announced it to students and others nearby during a school basketball game on Nov. 30. Deputies accused Gravlin, who has taught at Lisbon Central School since 2003, of having both oral sex and intercourse with the boy on Nov. 25 during a brief relationship that began a week or two earlier.'

Story here. Excerpt:

What does Mary Winkler tell her children when they ask "where's daddy". I would love to be a fly on the wall during that discussion.

'(CNN) -- The parents of slain Tennessee minister Matthew Winkler on Tuesday asked the state's Supreme Court to overturn a lower court's order giving his widow -- who was also his killer -- visitation rights with the couple's children.

At the least, they want the visits to go on only under a counselor's* supervision.
...
Winkler initially received a three-year sentence, but a judge required her to serve only 210 days and gave her credit for the five months she had already served behind bars.'

*A "counselor"? I have an idea to save these children. Prevent the woman who killed their father from having any contact with them.

Article here.

A nice little read from the NYT. Take note of the gender of the author and how the piece basically dismisses the idea that women should be treated as equally bad when she has sex with a minor. Excerpt:

'The researchers questioned the practice, common in many studies, of lumping all sexual abuse together. They contended that treating all types equally presented problems that, they wrote, "are perhaps most apparent when contrasting cases such as the repeated rape of a 5-year-old girl by her father and the willing sexual involvement of a mature 15-year-old adolescent boy with an unrelated adult."

In the first case, serious harm may result, the article said, but the second case "may represent only a violation of social norms with no implication for personal harm."

They suggested substituting the term "adult adolescent sex" for child abuse in some cases where the sex was consensual.'

List here. Just one goes like this:

"Men Aren't Chivalrous. The lines here are not always clear. We want you to treat us like equals, but we also want you to treat us like women. It's nice when a man picks up the tab or makes sure his date gets home safely. It may be old-fashioned, but a number of women report that dating a gentleman matters."

Reader comments follow the list.

Article here. Excerpt:

'WHEN IT COMES to domestic-violence legislation, the road to hell is paved with good intentions - and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., owns an asphalt company.

Biden's latest foray into the issue is the National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act, which amends his Violence Against Women Act to create an extensive network of volunteer lawyers to help abused women. They would provide free legal help in crafting divorce or separation agreements and winning child custody.

According to Biden, S. 1515, soon to be heard by the Judiciary Committee and is co-sponsored by Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, will enlist 100,000 volunteer attorneys. The bill is supported by the American Bar Association, the Family Violence Prevention Fund and the National Organization for Women, which is running a campaign in support of the bill.'

Via email:

I wanted to make you aware of an independent film from William Fain Productions (WFP). The movie, "A Father's Choice", is based on a true story about a father's struggle with the legal system of the United States in how his daughter, who was born out of wedlock, was treated differently than other children; as well as fighting for his rights to have a say in said daughter's life. If you go to http://www.myspace.com/afatherschoice, there are several clips of the movie you can watch. There is also a soundtrack that is for sale through 3 Jack Entertainment. Songs can be heard at http://www.myspace.com/3jacksentertainment.

Via Marc A.:

I know this is a month old but it's still worth noting. The woman's boyfriend was also raped and received the same sentence that she received. But he gets nowhere near the same media attention. Almost everyone who talks about the injustice only mentions the woman. Marc

Excerpt: "The woman's offence was meeting a former boyfriend, who she had asked to return pictures he had of her because she was about to marry another man. The couple were sitting in a car when a group of seven men kidnapped them and raped them both, lawyers in the case told the Arab News. The woman and the former boyfriend were originally sentenced to 90 lashes each for being together in private. The attackers received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison, and 80 to 1000 lashes each."

College males are realising how easy it is to make a false rape accusation, and how difficult it is to defend against one. Story here. Excerpt:

'Just before 4 a.m. this morning, men's lacrosse player Reade Seligmann '09 planned to lace up his running shoes, throw on a bright-yellow traffic jacket and run laps around the Main Green.

Seligmann, the former Duke lacrosse suspect who was vindicated earlier this year, will be jogging for the Brown team's fall charity project: a 36-hour run-a-thon to raise funds for the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exonerating innocent prisoners through DNA testing.

Seligmann pitched the idea of a lacrosse team charity event for the Innocence Project even before he committed to transferring to Brown this spring. Head Coach Lars Tiffany '90 liked the idea and organized the event this fall after team members approved, much to the delight of the New York City-based organization.'

The Concerned Women for America are expressing moral outrage that rich women are flocking to Kenya to get their grooves on, by paying young African men for sex. CWFA’s Dr. Janice Crouse calls it "the ugliest kind of feminism ... a throwback to colonialism and the days of slavery." Since these "relationships" happen between consenting adults, the Kenyan government says there’s nothing illegal going on. Audio can be listened to or downloaded from here.

(Note – “Cougar”: Noun. "An older woman in her sexual prime who prefers to hunt rather than be hunted. Man is cougar's number one prey.")

This weekend, the National Post ran a series of articles on divorce and family law, featured on the front-page.

The full index to all articles covers off most of what was written in the print edition.

As usual, and in fantastic form, Barbara Kay's article takes on the plight of divorced dads and misandry in general.

Canadian media is buzzing. Even the Toronto Star has been talking about the plight of victims of divorce, and while most of it has their familiar Toronto Star twist...

- Divorce damages environment, study finds
- Family court in crisis

...one article in the Star stands out: Down in the divorce trenches.

---

LiveScience.com, a mainstream popular science news site, has published an online report entitled Men: Hidden Victims of Domestic Violence. This indicates increasing acceptance of scientific findings on domestic violence which run counter to domestic violence stereotypes. Such stereotypes portray men as the exclusive unprovoked perpetrators of domestic violence, and portray women as victims or else justify female violence against men as self defense in every case where it occurs.

From the article:

Studies have shown that women assault men about as often as men assault women. While men tend to cause more damage because on average they are stronger, not all men are bigger than their partners, and women can even the odds with weapons such as knives, high heels, and sharp nails.

Men may also fear that if they fight back in self-defense, they themselves will be accused of abuse because of society's assumption that men are always the aggressor.

Story here. It appears that, if you have enough money and time, and access to good attorneys, you actually can win a false rape case! Looks as if this woman is a serial litigator, maybe this will slow her down a bit. Excerpt:

'"Lord of the Dance" star Michael Flatley has been awarded an $11 million settlement against Tyna Robertson, the Joliet woman who accused Flatley of rape in 2002, according to published reports.

The settlement was reached Friday after the California Supreme Court ruled that accusations of rape made by Robertson, who has a son with Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher, were not credible, and part of an extortion scheme, the BBC and London's Daily Mail reported Saturday. '

Here is a video from this summer in Iowa, where Presidential candidates are interviewed regarding equal parenting. The interview is taped by William Wagner and is posted on his website, onsecondthoughttv.tv

Should any of these Presidential candidates move up in the "Presidential process," this bit of videotape could be huge in educating the public to the issue of equal parenting, and where the candidates stand on that and other issues.

Near the end of the video, one of the candidates can be heard saying he would do away with the Federal law known as VAWA, although it appears he may not have understood all the horrors against men that VAWA has created. Clearly more education of the public is needed, regarding the misandrist Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and how it discriminates against Fathers and men.

Now then, where do the other candidates stand on the equal parenting issue and other Fathers' and men's issues?

1. Did she grow up in a violent family? People who grow up in violent families where they have been abused as children grow up learning that violence is normal behavior.

2. Does she tend to use force or violence to solve her problems? Does she have a quick temper or overreact to little problems and frustrations, such as not finding a parking space or having a bad seat at the movie? Is she destructive when angry, throws things?

3. Does she abuse alcohol or other drugs? There is a strong link between violence and problems with drugs and alcohol. Be alert to her possible drinking/drug problem, particularly if she refuses to admit that there is a problem or refuses to get help.

4. Does she think poorly of herself? Does she prove her feminist independence by trying to act tough and independent? She may think that she is "acting like a liberated woman" but in fact she may be acting like a batterer.

5. Does she have rigid ideas about what a man should be and what a woman should be? Does she think that a man's only role is to take care of his wife, anticipate her wishes, and follow her orders?

Article here. As Google co-founder and Chief Executive Larry Page (net worth $20 billion) prepares to walk down the aisle today, attorneys familiar with billionaire marriages urge their clients to proceed with care and caution. Excerpt:

'"A billionaire has to treat an upcoming marriage as a merger. But it's a merger with a potential enemy," says New York divorce lawyer Raoul Felder. Prenuptial agreements are important, but they're no guarantee of a satisfactory split if things go south. Consider the divorce of Steven Spielberg and his first wife Amy Irving. She claimed their prenup was invalid because it had been written on a napkin and she hadn't had legal representation. A judge tossed it out; Irving got $100 million.'