An Italian fathers' rights activist says he tried unsuccessfully to self-immolate on live television to call attention to dads unable to see their kids. The ANSA news service reported Saturday that Nicola De Martino, who was recently re-united with his son after a 12-year separation, tried to set himself on fire Thursday night while appearing as a guest on the current affairs show, "Dieci Minute," or "Ten Minutes" on state television station RAI. ANSA said that the show's host, along with the distraught man's 18-year-old son "looked on in horror" as De Martino doused himself with gasoline and then threatened to light a match. Host Maurizio Martinelli and the studio crew frantically managed to wrest the lit match from De Martino's hands. He was then led away from the stage.

Video clip here.

Story here. Excerpt:

Two women, in unrelated cases, were arrested Friday morning and charged with filing false rape reports:

"In the first case, Stephanie Ebbert, 20, called the sheriff’s office saying a cab driver took her to a field and then forced her to have sex with him."

"Around 9 a.m. Carey Studybaker, 27, called deputies saying she went to a home in Pine Manor to buy some pills. When she went inside she says a man forced her to smoke crack and then raped her."

Story here. Excerpt:

'LYNCHBURG, Virginia (AP) -- Randolph-Macon Woman's College will change its name to Randolph College when it admits men next year, officials said.

Trustees of the 115-year-old private college voted in September to make the school coeducational, and received more than 1,000 suggestions on a new name.
...
The school is going co-ed in an effort to achieve more financial stability, although nine students have filed a lawsuit seeking to delay male enrollment until at least after current freshmen have graduated.

About 100 people rallied Saturday to protest the name change and the college's transition to coeducation.'

Article also mentions that the number of women's colleges in the US is down to 60. It doesn't mention that the number of men's colleges is down to five. But hey, we all know men's colleges are bastions of sexism and male privilege, so that's different, right?

I believe this story requires no elaborate commentary from me except to say should anyone doubt that schools are boy-hostile, send them the link. Excerpt:

'BELLMEAD- A four-year-old hugged his teachers aide and was put into in-school suspension, according to the father. But La Vega school administrators have a different story.

Damarcus Blackwell's four-year-old son was lining-up to get on the bus after school last month, when he was accused of rubbing his face in the chest of a female employee.

The prinicipal of La Vega Primary School sent a letter to the Blackwells that said the pre-kindergartener demonstrated "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment."'

Story here.

An interesting fact:

"Girls are three times more likely to keep studying after school than to get a job, according to new figures which show boys lag far behind their female peers in extending their education."

Story here. Excerpt:

"A group of women and children rights organisations are planning to sue the Government over a clause in the Sexual Offences Act which makes a false rape allegation a criminal offence. The contentious clause was inserted at the last minute as one of the compromises hammered out to ensure passage of the Bill in July."

Article here.

I do not need to explain the shortcoming of the above approach to the readers of this site.

But isn't it funny how people there complain about the involvement of doctors and the contradiction that lies in the act of religious people messing with God's creation, while the exact same applies to mutilation of boys if one is not blinded by excuses provided by culture and tradition, occasionally transformed into medical "studies"? One must ask oneself how much more ignorant and illogical it can get. Do some people want boys harmed for whatever reason?

Some time ago, organizer Ruediger Nehberg appeared in German media when the conference was announced, and claimed Islam saved his life. My personal assessment is: he refuses to believe something his beloved religion supports in communities around the world is harmful. An insulting reply to my attempt to inform him has affirmed this.

Essay here. Excerpt:

"Child custody disputes are some of the bloodiest battlefields in the gender wars—battlefields upon which allegations of spousal and child abuse are widely regarded as a nuclear weapon. But there are two opposite views of this problem. Fathers’ advocates claim abuse allegations are routinely used to deny divorced fathers contact with their children and to poison children’s minds against their fathers, in what the activists and some psychologists call “parental alienation syndrome.” Feminists argue that well-founded accusations of abuse are often dismissed and even turned against the accusing mothers."

Article here. Excerpt:

"My father's generation defined their wives: nowadays, the role has completely reversed and men are defined by women. As a result, their definition of themselves has faltered and society has been cruel towards their attempts to redefine themselves."

"Women, meanwhile, are groomed relentlessly to succeed. How did we get into such a predicament? No feminist I ever knew wanted to see a world in which men were beaten by women: a world in which one dominant group was just replaced by another."

Story here. Excerpt:

OTTAWA (CP) - Diplomatic immunity is no excuse for domestic violence, says a consortium of police and government agencies that has launched a new website aimed at helping women and children who find themselves in such situations.
The multilingual site maintained by Ottawa police in partnership with the RCMP, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Immigrant Women Services Ottawa outlines the rights of all Canadians regardless of nationality."

Story here. Excerpt:

"A woman suspected of killing her month-old daughter by putting her in a microwave oven was indicted on a charge of aggravated murder Thursday, and the prosecutor said he would seek the death penalty."

In the old site software I would have posted this article under "Men and Religion". Anyway, this is an interesting development. Sort of like a "ManKind Project meets Promise Keepers" phenomenon. As an interesting observation, the authors of this piece are women. Excerpt:

'It's an apt anthem for a contrarian movement gaining momentum on the fringes of Christianity. In daybreak fraternity meetings and weekend paintball wars, in wilderness retreats and X-rated chats about lust, thousands of Christian men are reaching for more forceful, more rugged expressions of their faith.

Stine's daylong revival meeting, which he calls "GodMen," is cruder than most. But it's built around the same theory as the other experimental forums: Traditional church worship is emasculating.

...

This little story from the Globe and Mail should serve as a reminder to all that feminism is sending the wrong messages to the young women of the world - in this case about the unequal distribution of household chores - and that women are violent and capable of awful acts of humiliation and degradation against those they feel has wronged them.

Excerpt: 'Four people, including the victim's ex-girlfriend, are in custody charged with kidnapping and forcible confinement after a Kingston man was grabbed at his home, confined and beaten.

There he was assaulted again overnight and forced to clean the apartment with the threat he'd be beaten with a baseball bat.'

Wonder what the coverage would be like if a man and a few of his buddies decided to abduct, beat, and force to clean house one of his ex-girlfriends?

Excerpt: "Andrea Johnson had just finished university, escaped the confines of a women's shelter and got her own apartment in April.

Though there were signs she was depressed, no one seemed to realize the pain the 30-year-old was living with — pain that would cause her to throw herself and her 2-year-old child from an overpass on to Highway 401."

This has been national headlines and front page news for days now in Canada. All coverage takes a similar tone - tragic that this poor woman has died and gushing with praise about what a wonderful person she was.

I just find it strange that when a father does this the articles are never quite as favorable.

Read the Toronto Star's latest on this story here.

Carrie Lukas at the Independent Women’s Forum writes – "More than 40 years after Betty Friedan urged women to exchange their aprons for business suits, by many measures, women’s progress in the workforce has stalled.

Certainly today more women work and hold more prestigious jobs than ever before: as of 2002, women accounted for 46.5 percent of the workforce and held more than half of managerial and professional specialty jobs. Yet few women make it to the very top of the business world...

Why is this? Liberal feminist groups, like the National Organization for Women (NOW), tend to insist that sexism and discrimination are the primary cause. Yet many individual women recognize that their choices — particularly the choices they make once they have children — make the difference."

(Rather balanced article; nice to know that women actually have/make choices; though it omits any mention of our unquestioned cultural expectations that men must become lifelong wage-slaves with fewer choices than women.)