A recent human-rights ruling in Canada found that barring two twin girls from trying out for a boy's hockey team is discriminatory. Since the ruling the girls have tried out and didn't make the cut.

According to this article as a result of the ruling there have been cases of boys attempting to try out for the girl's teams.

The final paragraph of the article quotes the executive director of the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association as saying:

"Everything that our organization has done … is based gender-equal. And if we all of a sudden get an influx of males participating, it could affect female participation and that would be a travesty."

Wendy McElroy exposes aspects of male suicide that receives virtually no national attention. She also mentions child custody hearings and the tragic effect it has on men: "As far as the [divorced] man is concerned, he has lost his marriage and lost his children and that can lead to depression and suicide," Kposow advises."

"If a similar rise in female suicides was occurring, a public crusade would demand a remedy. Yet the extraordinarily high rate of male suicide is rarely discussed."

This article makes several good points regarding schools being more "girl friendly".

"But a new study finds that the problem cuts across socioeconomic lines and pins part of the blame on schools, whose techniques cater to the strengths of girls and leave boys utterly disinterested."

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This article suggests boys are better off with home schooling. It makes perfect sense considering boys are the "second" sex in the public school environment.

Diane J Hulse:

"Research shows that American elementary school classrooms have a female orientation and a feminine inclination."

"In a boys’ school, boys seem to have more options available to them as they define their own masculinity."

If nothing else, one should keep in mind when reading this: never judge a book by its cover. Excerpt:

“What is in dispute at a trial this week in Seminole County Circuit Court is the role the victim's own daughter played in the brutal slaying. Authorities allege that 16-year-old Courtney Schulhoff was the cold, calculating mastermind of the murder, giving her older lover the bat, pointing him toward the bedroom where her father slept and opening a celebratory beer afterward.

While she is not accused of physically participating in the assault that left her father, Steve, 48, dead, she faces the same charge as Morin: first-degree murder. A conviction means a mandatory life sentence. Morin will be tried separately next month.”

Dear Friends of RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting):

As you may be aware, RADAR has been circulating reports, press releases, and flyers in an effort to tell the complete story about domestic violence, with a special emphasis on the effectiveness of the Violence Against Women Act, and the entire set of facts re domestic violence (DV).

We hope to make the public aware that, in the name of DV prevention, gender-based discrimination and governmental violations of the Bill of Rights have become commonplace, and that DV law and policy must be modified to prevent these abuses.

These reports have attracted widespread media attention. Reporters have called for interviews, and one state legislator has already contacted RADAR asking for recommended language to revise his state’s DV law.

While we have made fair progress with limited resources, we wish to spread the word to a wider universe with a little more energy. But this will be expensive, and we need to request your financial help.

He offered her a settlement of more money then most people make in a lifetime, but she wants it all and it looks like she's going to get it. Check out the details of the 'temporary' agreement that has been reached here.

The really sad part is that he might end up being taken to the cleaners again if the rumours are true that he is currently in a relationship with turncoat (former conservative, now liberal) MP Belinda Stronach. She has had plenty of her share of controversy. A quick Google of her name reveals plenty for those interested.

Full story here.

"It's a crime so monstrous as to surpass comprehension. Yet its passion takes root in some of the most tender ground of human experience: pregnancy and motherhood.

What drives a handful of women to slice open the bellies of others to steal their newborns?

Researchers have uncovered hints. "You can describe it as sort of the maternal instinct run amok," said psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick, who had written about this kind of crime"

This article on the BBC News site explains a new campaign to highlight how lung cancer affects women.

Apparently we are all guilty of thinking that this is a smoking men's disease, when actually this isn't the case. So, a new campaign is pushing for funding and exploration of how this disease affects women. My favourite quote: "women are often the gatekeepers of family health and need to be aware of this disease".

The article admits that women are smoking more often, but otherwise fails to quote any figures - chief amongst which is that many more men die of lung cancer than women, despite what the article proposes (see this).

I know from my own experience in the UK that many more women are into smoking now than men, they just don't care - yet the article is at pains to avoid this fact and any blame. So, I guess more of the same; women can choose to smoke, but can't ever be blamed if they get ill, and should receive priority health care if they do.

Story here. Excerpt:

"Mitch Sanderson is waging a heroic stand there against the slings and arrows of the Mitchell Sanderson, A Hero Who Needs Our Helpdivorce industry. Arrayed against Mitch is virtually the entire North Dakota government, as well as the bar associations, social workers, feminists, and all the others who have discovered how lucrative it is to take control of other people’s children. All these groups are receiving help from outside the state who realize the earth-shaking importance of what Mitch has done."

Here is an outstanding piece in Vality Fair on the decline of civilizations. The author mentions the mortality of men as a factor, referring to his own country as follows:

'Take Scotland, the land of my birth. Male life expectancy in some parts of Glasgow is now as low as 54. There has been a 350 percent rise in alcohol-related deaths in the last two decades. About 13,000 people die from smoking-related diseases every year. More than a third of Scotland's 12-year-olds are overweight or clinically obese.'

Sadly he doesn't mention this as the tragedy in and of itself that it is. But the points he makes are well-taken. The well-being of a civilization's men is intimately intertwined with its chances of survival. I don't mean to sound too much the pessimist, but as the health and status of men in the west continues to decline, so will whatever is left of western civilization, unless something changes rather dramatically and quickly.

For those casual visitors to MANN who may be under the impression that “family courts” don’t consider such things as people’s sex when divvying up child custody, property, etc., just read this. Excerpt:

‘Same-sex couples who break up are finding themselves in a legal morass. State divorce laws conflict with federal tax laws; differences among states' laws can jeopardize child-custody agreements if one or both partners move; and some attorneys are shying away from same-sex divorces for fear of their own liability.

Attorneys "are worried that they don't know the answers to a lot of questions, and people are making decisions on what their lawyer tells them to do. There can be liability on the lawyers' side if they make their best intelligent guess that happens to be wrong," said Deborah Wald, a San Francisco family law attorney who works with same-sex couples.’

Thanks, Marc A., for sending in this piece. Excerpt:

'A STUDY of patients attending family doctors has found that 52 per cent of men and 43 per cent of women have experienced domestic violence.

The research, carried out by Trinity College Dublin and published in the European Journal of General Practice, reflects the findings of all other two-sex studies carried out in Ireland.'

"A 21-year-old Napier woman has been charged with making a false rape complaint against champion jockey Michael Walker.

The woman was arrested on Saturday by Detective Daryl Moore, of Napier CIB, after an investigation which started with the woman's complaint on Friday morning.

The woman alleged she had been raped by the 22-year-old Walker in a Hastings motel, after the two had met in Havelock North the previous night."

Story here.

A mother who cannot be named for legal reasons has denied pouring boiling water over her five-year-old son 11 years ago.

The prosecution claimed she had scalded her son to stop him constantly asking questions about his father, and afterwards had told him: "You say I did this and I will kill myself."

The boy said in evidence: "I was crying on the sofa because of what she'd said about my dad.

"She was in the kitchen and she flipped the kettle on three or four times.

"She then called me into the kitchen and said 'Sorry kid, but I've got to do this.'

"She then tipped the contents of the kettle over me."

The incident only came to light when the boy told his father nine years later he had not pulled the kettle on himself, the jury was told.

The jury has now been discharged, so is she going to walk? Probably...

All three stories are about men wrongfully imprsioned for rape....all spent many years in prison for a crime they did not commit. DNA evidence exonerated them:

One.

Two.

Three.

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Ed. note: Of note as the driving force behind these acts of justice is The Innocence Project.