I just got back from Concord, NH, where the Executive Council voted on the nominations for the NH Commission on the Status of Men (see the room it was held in here). There is lots of good news: the nominations of Scott Hampton and Thomas Kaufhold were soundly rejected by the Executive Council. Stephen Gorin's nomination passed with only a 3-2 vote. The other nominees were pretty much voted in unanimously. I was very concerned when the meeting started, since the Council was approving tons of nominations without any debate. They were really rushing through them. When it came time for the NHCSM nominations, there was no discussion or debate on any of the candidates, it just came down to a quick vote for each nominee. There was no roll call on the votes, so I don't have any permanent record of which councilor voted which way, and I wasn't quick enough to keep track of it myself (sorry). A letter of gratitude to each of the councilors for hearing our concerns is definitely appropriate now. Further, they will have three other nominees to vote on in the future, so we need to keep them listening to us. A thousand thank-yous to everyone who took part in this activism, and supported us. The outcome of this meeting was very much in our favor. We are thwarting the attempted sabotage of the commission! Addendum: Paul Clements had a stinging letter printed in Foster's Daily Democrat criticizing Shaheen for her attempt to sabotage the commission.

shawn writes "The case of Chuck Finley and Tawny Kitaen is discussed once again in
this report from ABC News and the Associated Press. Although the article focuses on Kitaen's 12 million dollar alimony lawsuit against Finley, the article mentions something that is both bizarre and a sign of our times. To recap, Kitaen (a woman) was found guilty of spousal assault against Finley (a man). Her punishment, you ask? In part, she was ordered to pay $500 dollars to a battered-women's shelter - presumably a shelter that excludes men. A woman commits domestic violence against her husband and the people who benefit are women who deny that battered men exist."

Steve writes "I will host this week's MANN chat, Wednesday night (9/25), starting at 9:30 PM Eastern Time, at the usual location.
The topic for this chat will be "'Child Support': What's Wrong and How Can We Fix It?" The tax-free transfer of wealth from one parent to another is fraught with legal, economic, political, social, and moral problems. In fact, a frightening number of distraught fathers have committed suicide as a result of draconian "child support" policies. How can we fix this mess? Should we fix it, or scrap it? What are the viable alternatives to so-called "child support"? At this week's MANN chat we will share ideas with fellow activists, and plan strategies for reform. Please join us and tell others about it!"

Dan Scott writes, "I managed to obtain the NCHS data base for Marriage and Divorce, 1989-1995 by Sally C. Clarke and do a statistical analysis for the state of Maryland. I completed the analysis of the NCHS data by going past the gender data to the race data. Given the recent legal decision in Georgia, based primarily on the evidence
supplied by Ms. Clarke's study, I can understand why the states complained under the euphemism that it was too costly to continue the statistical reporting. We now have the evidence that Maryland discriminated in making custody decisions. African American men are even worse off than men as a group. Any way you look at it, Maryland discriminates based on both race and gender. The "Best Interests of
Children" as practiced in Maryland is nothing more than a euphemism for discrimination. We now need a test case to go before the Federal District Court, the Maryland Appeals Court has already ruled in Griffin v. Crane that determination of custody by gender is not permissible, however, the local judges are very clever in getting around an issue for their own personal beliefs and political agenda.
We need a call to all men having recently lost a custody battle to file an appeal based on sex or race discrimination and have the State of Maryland Family Law system labeled as having committed discriminatory conduct requiring monitoring.

Richard Cann from Brookline, MA is willing to make matching donations
with anyone who makes a donation to Mensactivism.org between now and
October 10, up to a total of $200. So making a donation during this time
period is effectively doubling your contribution, and helping out
Mensactivism.org even more. Please consider participating in this,
however small your donation may be. For more info on how to donate, see our donations page. And many, many thanks to Richard for this offer!

Dan Lynch writes "I have an opportunity to do a speaking engagement discussing men's issues. This is the type of activism I would really like to get involved in. It will give me the chance to bring items up to people who are literally "virgins" to the men's movement. The group wants me to speak for about an hour and what I would really like is some advice on what to talk about and how to organize the speach etc.. The group may be small maybe even as many as 20 people I don't know, but I want to get the message to them clear and concisely. Any advice and thought input will be very welcome." Please offer Dan some suggestions in the comment section of this story.

The Independent Women's Forum has a list of 10 Reasons Why CEDAW Should Be Rejected on their web site. They include reasons that many MANN readers are familiar with, including the dangers of an international "Gender Police," the damage to U.S. Sovereignty, and the socialist nature of the treaty's premises. They call it "The Worst Treaty …with The Best Name."

SJones writes "In the late 1990s the feminists and all their castrated male counterparts in Congress and the media rallied around a woman
claiming to be a princess from Ghana who faced genital mutilation if she was not given asylum in the United States. In
response to her claims, it is now illegal to mutilate the genitals of a female in all Western nations, even as male genital mutilation
is heralded as a great source of fetal tissue for science. But the whole story was a lie. The woman is not a princess, there is
no female circumcision going on, and the woman is now being brought up on charges. None of this is mentioned in the
feminist media, but Michelle Malkin has written an excellent article about it which can be found here."

CPM submitted Police Searching for Woman Seen Beating Child from FoxNews and writes "Here we go again... Absent are the words "domestic violence".
The search for the woman continues and I presume also the search for the "nearest man" to blame it on. I hope that they can find her and the little girl soon if for no other reason but to be assured that the child is either OK or gets medical attention. I have not seen the video, but from the descriptions of it, it is quite possible that this little girl could be seriously injured." As an update to the story, the woman has turned herself in, was freed on bail, and is currently talking with the media taking some responsibility but trying to gain sympathy. Since we're getting so many submissions on this topic, please use the comment board for this story to post more articles and URLs for this story.

Foster's Daily Democrat printed an article outlining some of the problems men's advocates have with NH Governor Shaheen's nominations to the Commission on the Status of Men. In particular, the nomination of "Men don't have a status problem" Scott Hampton is at the center of the controversy. You can read the story here, but be warned - the article seems to crash Mozilla browsers on the Linux platform, at least.

Mark Rosenthal writes, "Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women's Forum,
and Margot Hill, a member of the IWF's advisory board, were
recently appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Violence
Against Women by John Ashcroft. The IWF has consistently
questioned the "one-size-fits-all, men-beat-up-women" portrayal
of domestic violence promulgated by VAWA and the organizations it
funds. Not surprisingly, NOW is launching an all out letter-writing
campaign to torpedo these appointments. It is essential that we
counter this by contacting the same officials to express our
belief that the appointments of Ms. Pfotenhauer and Ms. Hill will
help to counter the system's built-in biases which allows
VAWA-funded agencies to get away with denying services to the
834,732 men who are victims of domestic violence each year (as
reported by the U.S. Department of Justice)." Check the Read More section below for the rest of Mark's submission and contact info for the officials who will be approving these appointments.

This Sunday's chat in the iFemininsts chat room will also be about the sabotage of the NH Commission on the Status of Men. It will begin at 9 PM EST on Sunday, Sept. 22. If you missed the MANN chat or haven't had enough of this topic yet, please stop by and say hello.

Raymond Cuttill writes "The September programme is out. Domestic violence against men gets less media airtime than Haley's Comet (next due a splurge of publicity in 2061). News of a DV against men conference in Portland, Maine in October may have passed CNN by, but not the Men's Hour. The Blackshirts actions are called harassment and intimidation. John Abbott, leader of the Blackshirts, speaks. Steve Jones claims men are parasites. How far do men need to go before men are heard? Listen at
www.menshour.com"

This is a reminder that the Battered Men's Helpline second annual conference on Male Victims of Domestic Violence is one month away. The event will be held on October 19 in Portland, Maine. I'll be there and expect to do some digital recording of the audio which will be made available after the conference in Ogg Vorbis format, which is similar to MP3. But don't think that excuses you from attending this conference - we need people there to show their support of this cause, so make your travel plans today!

Napnip writes, "I'm writing this hoping to get a bit of advice. In about a week, my place of work will be having a United Way fundraising program. There will be speakers from various agencies to speak with the employees. During my shift, our speaker is supposed to be someone from a local battered women's shelter. No doubt she will be presenting such "facts" as a woman is battered every 15 seconds, etc, while ignoring the other side of the data which states that a man is also battered every 15 seconds. I've already printed out a lot of information and will be carrying this to the meeting with me. Question: Should I confront her about the data? Obviously, I don't plan to be obnoxious about it (as I value my job!), but I would really love to ask her why she ignores the other half of the data (which I'm sure she will)." This is an excellent question to pose to MANN readers. What would you do? Note that I'm not asking what should someone do, but what would you do, especially if you value your job?