The false allegations of rape that damaged the lives of 46 members of the Duke Lacrosse Team, nearly sent three to prison for thirty years each, and cost families many millions of dollars in legal fees was not a one-of-a-kind aberration of justice. Other infamous cases involving well-known individuals such as Kobe Bryant, John Fund*, and CNN’s Tucker Carlson provide additional public evidence that false rape allegations are a major public problem - one where the perpetrator is rarely punished.

*4-26-07 Update: MANN admins received a note from Mr. Fund letting us now that he was never accused of rape, only assault, and that these charges were dropped after investigation. He maintains a site discussing this issue here.

While researchers and prosecutors do not agree on the percentage of false allegations, the consensus is that approximately 40% to 50% of charges are clearly false. This number does not include unresolved allegations held “in limbo” where evidence s too weak to try the case even under shield laws, relaxed rules, and comparatively weak evidentiary standards applied to rape cases:

Granted it's only for four months, but that's more than many people get. Story here. Excerpt:

"A TEENAGE girl who lied about being raped by a taxi driver was sentenced to a four-month detention and training order today.

The 17-year-old, from Shipley, West Yorkshire, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice at a hearing last month.

District Judge David Thomas, sentencing at Bradford Magistrates' Court today, told the girl she would serve two months of her sentence in custody.
...
The court heard that Mr Ahmed, who has 11-year-old twin daughters, no longer works at night for fear of further allegations.

His financial position is now such that he has had to put his house on the market.

His wife is now taking tablets for depression, the court heard."

I came across this article on CNN and discovered a hidden gem. The article spouts the usual numbers of 80%, 69%, etc, but then hides in an otherwise unexplained line that only a quarter of the paygap is specifically related to gender, and the rest is behavior based. Now despite women outperforming men in education, I can still take 20 and divide by 4, meaning here in a CNN article they admit the actual number is closer to 95 cents on the dollar than the 76 they like to claim. And if they were that wrong for so long, it won't be hard to suggest that even the last few % could be from behaviors the study didn't consider.

Essay here.

This sexist economic agenda, if acted upon, would severely disadvantage men in the workforce because employers would hire more women than men simply for the fact that women would be cheaper to hire. Such an act, therefore, would lead to mass discrimination against men by employers and would greatly reduce men's presence at jobs.

Young men would be less inclined to seek higher education (a problem already affecting boys) as a result of knowing that their chances of getting jobs would be far lower than women's chances; consequently, the educational crisis affecting boys and men could dramatically get worse sending society into utter economic chaos. This article should be sent to every men's group on the planet! This must be stopped at once!

Paper here.

Story here. Excerpt:

"A jury convicted a nurse Monday of killing her husband and placing his body parts in three suitcases she tossed into Chesapeake Bay. Melanie McGuire, who sobbed as she heard the verdict, was convicted of murder, desecration of a corpse, perjury and a weapons offense."

Story here. Excerpt:

'CHICAGO (AP) - A man who spent 25 years in prison for rape was exonerated Monday as a judge threw out his convictions because DNA evidence showed he couldn't have committed the attack.

Jerry Miller smiled and the courtroom erupted into cheers after Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane G. Cannon read the ruling that cleared him of all charges.

Miller, 48, had been found guilty of rape, robbery, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery even though he testified he was at home watching television at the time of the 1981 attack. He was paroled in March 2006 and now works two jobs and lives with a family member in a Chicago suburb.

The exoneration is the nation's 200th based on DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project, a New York group that works to free wrongly convicted inmates.'

Article here. Excerpt:

"[The bill]...would also address the issue of violence against women at its roots. (Those of you vigorously objecting here are being disingenuous. No, men do not need similar protection because, Lorena Bobbitt notwithstanding, there is really no widespread gender-specific phenomenon of violence against them."

A thoroughly sickening article. Pass it along to everyone you know in the Men's Movement. Maybe someone can come up with a learned response to this sicko. I have been banging my head against the wall trying to come up with one. Sadly my skills are lacking in that area.

An article regarding the shocking status of boys in India
here. Excerpt:

"Recently in Mumbai, a teacher paraded three six-year-old boys in their underwear to punish them for not doing well in school, but no action was taken, says Swarup Sarkar of the Save India Family Foundation, a self-financed forum for men. In April last year, a student of a prestigious school in Lucknow complained of sexual abuse by his class teacher. The matter is with the police, the child has sought refuge in his grandparents’ house, and the issue is hanging."

Story here.

This is out right discrimination. What about the male patron that has a low income? Is he still required to pay more money for a meal? What about the female that makes $100,000 a year? Feminists look at genders as a collective unit, ultimately ignoring individuality. The wage gap myth needs intensive research, or this disturbing issue could become a disturbing trend. Excerpt:

"At least five restaurants here say they will drop prices for women patrons by 23 percent Tuesday to reflect a conclusion that American women, on average, earn that much less than men.

The event sponsor, the American Association of American Women, says 23 percent of the year will have passed, and that that's how many extra days women would have to work this year to make what similarly trained and educated men would make. The association has a Baker County chapter."

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NOTE: AAUW Executive's e-mail address is executive-at-aauw.org.

This is an excerpt from the American Daily Press Release: for the entire piece, please click here.

"If your son was falsely accused of rape, and when he was proven innocent, still was not able to legally hold his accuser accountable, had suffered loss of reputation, not to mention the emotional toll on him and the changes in his personality…and yet had no recourse, how would you feel as the parent of this young man?

If you are a man and you are falsely accused of domestic violence or sexual assault under the laws we currently have, you will find yourself exactly where these young men from Duke University are.

Even though they have no case against them, they will carry the stigma of the accusations with them forever. The same goes for those with false allegations of domestic violence and with false restraining orders placed against them.

Story here. Excerpt:

"A mother who forced her two toddlers to attack each other with weapons and filmed the fight was spared jail.

Zara Care, with her sisters Serenza and Danielle Olver and her mother Carole Olver forced the two toddlers to punch each other in the face.

The four women also goaded the two-year-old boy and three-year-old girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, to hit each other with a magazine and a hairbrush and when one did not fight they called him a "wimp" and a "faggot".

The fight was filmed on a home video recorder and was found by chance by the children's father who is in the Army and had returned from a tour of duty in Iraq."

Check out the left-wing Guardian's coverage. "The incident was filmed on a video camera and discovered by chance by *a person*, who reported it to social services."

Story here.

Men united for a just cause....another vital move in the right direction. The more we speak, the more people will listen. The MRA movement is gaining momentum. Let's be positive! Excerpt:

"CHARLESTON - Properly identifying and providing services to male victims of domestic violence and sexual assault will be the focus of a day-long conference next week in Charleston.

In observance of National Crime Victims Right's Week, a coalition of survivor support and political action groups, in conjunction with the U. S. Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime, are sponsoring "Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault: Not Just Problems for Women."

Article here.

Unexpected but needed saying; author advocates for allowing boys to play rough and tumble, cops and robbers, etc., and why it is better that they play at such things rather than live them out. Excerpt:

"Children, and particularly boys, are acutely sensitive to the violence around them. They play out violent themes to help relieve themselves of the natural fear and confusion they feel."
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Please note I have also added this story to the beta site. Please take this opportunity to look at it, register, vote for it (or not), and consider submitting stories yourself. Personally I really like the way the software does so much of the headlining and linking work for you.

Story here. Excerpt:

"BELLEVILLE, Ill. - A baby sitter already accused of killing a pregnant friend was charged Friday with drowning the woman's three children in a bath tub and then hiding the bodies in the family's washing machine and dryer.

Grand jurors indicted Tiffany Hall, 24, on three counts of first-degree murder in the East St. Louis deaths last September of DeMond Tunstall, 7, Ivan Tunstall-Collins, 2, and Jinela Tunstall, 1.

A county coroner's jury ruled the deaths of the children, their mother, Jimella Tunstall, and her fetus to be homicides."

All,

Today we announce that MANN is trying a user-centric approach to news article review and endorsement. Scott, thanks for setting this up and getting it going. You de man.

It's no secret some regulars feel that the editing of news stories is too exclusive. Well, being that their comments are directed largely at myself, I will refrain here from commenting on their comments. Nonetheless it is fair to say that a more democratic form of news story parsing and rating is in keeping with the spirit of the Internet generally. So MANN now has a beta news site using the Pligg software system of content review and rating-- entirely user-driven. So please, click on the Beta News Site tab at the top, register, and submit and review stories. If it turns out to be a popular means of posting stories here on MANN, we'll switch over to it entirely.

While it's true then that I'll be out of a job, it is also true that I'll have more time to do other MRA-related stuff. So all for the best no matter what.