In an encouraging show of support, people from the Seacoast area of NH and beyond bombarded Foster's Daily Democrat with letters supporting the proposed Men's Commission and taking the editor writer to task for slamming the commission. Their efforts can be seen here. Kudos to everyone who had their letter printed, and to anyone else who wrote in but wasn't recognized.

This article on Fox News is--once again--proof that there are different standards for men and women in the justice system. Gov. Gray Davis has granted parole to Cheryl Sellers based on the parole board's findings that she "suffered from battered woman syndrome," the convenient illness which routinely absolves women of murder. Davis said a threat the man had made against Seller's daughter sparked the violence. His decision means Sellers will be released in September 2003, the date set by the board. One wonders if men would be given the same consideration.

The Ottawa Citizen's Dave Brown examines the "sorry state of divorce" in Canada in his latest column. At issue in divorce law are the words "custody" and "access," which critics say should be replaced by "shared parenting." What makes that difficult was probably best shown by Senator Anne Cools when she read a judgment from a worried judge who had just given custody to a woman who was leaving Canada with two children to live with a new love. He said he wasn't comfortable but felt he had no choice but to give custody "to a woman who is shackled by her own discontent." Father's child-support payments were set and she waived spousal support. She later returned to sue for and get spousal support.

Dan Lynch submitted this article from White Horse Star in the apparently ongoing controversy over remarks about the radical women's movement by Yukon minister of women's issues Sue Edelman. Apparently, Edelman had already resigned as of Friday, several days prior to the initial posting of her story here. What is more unfortunate is that she has publicly apologized for her anti-radical-feminist remarks in her e-mail (Edelman had referred to radical feminists as "feminazis" in an e-mail titled "women's movement dying"). Statements made in her defense by the prime minister during the public statement were laughed at by black T-shirt wearing feminists, some of whom surrounded Edelman's husband in the audience.

Subversive writes "After the relationship between Sean Fabre and his girlfriend, Amalia Walton, soured and Walton placed a restraining order against Fabre, he countersued her for 'abuse of process,' claiming that she filed it for vengeance, not for protection. On Friday the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that under existing anti-SLAPP laws, alleged abusers who are the subjects of restraining orders should not be able to 'easily retaliate' with civil lawsuits against their accusers. Alleged abuse victims will now be able to quickly end any civil litigation filed by the target of a restraining order unless that person could prove there is a 'substantial basis' that the restraining order was 'devoid of any reasonable factual support.' This suggests to me that battered men in Massachusetts who have also been falsely accused of domestic violence may have to look to other means than the legal system in order to protect themselves--what a terrible decision!

Wednesday night's on-line chat will be on the topic of establishing a state men's commission. I'll be there to discuss the process that led up to this bill, and will try to answer any questions as best I can. I've invited members of the NH NCFC activism group to join the chat and help answer questions and be available as contacts to people who are interested in trying the same in their own states. Stop by the MANN chat room on 4/17 at 9:30 PM EST and say hello!

Anonymous User writes "Unfortunately, today everything has to get filtered though a women's perspective. Read this article and see what you think... "Guys are given a bad rap. They are sensitive and caring and all this stuff, but it's just a matter of semantics. If you ask a guy `Do you care about your relationship?' he'll say no. But if you say `Do you want to have more sex?' Yes. `Do you want to fight less?' Yes. It's semantics. We are just giving men the room to be who they are,'' she adds." It is important to remember that men are also individuals. Note: This was the 2,000th story posted to Mensactivism.org!

warble writes "Sen. Katherine Wheeler, D-Durham claims, "Men are not suffering the kind of institutional discrimination women did. I’m sorry you feel put upon, but it’s not institutional discrimination..." This callus statement demonstrates that many women in positions of power do not believe there is a real crisis for men. It does not matter that suicide rates have dramatically risen. For her, that is an acceptable condition. This article outlines some of the objections by democrats to the commission for men. It is truly an indication of ignorance, on the part of Ms. Wheeler, to claim there is no institutional discrimination against men. Ms. Wheeler just doesn't get it." It has certainly been interesting to see from where the objections to the commission have emerged so far.

Dan Lynch submitted this article from the Ottawa Citizen. According to the story, Cathy Fordham, who falsely accused Jamie Nelson, 35, of raping her, also allegedly falsely accused several other men. Nelson was exonerated after 3.5 years in prison. But... Mr. Nelson's [false accusations] complaint was investigated by Ottawa police Sgt. Garry Granger. Sgt. Granger's report was finished in January, and was forwarded to the Ottawa Crown attorney's office to determine if charges should be laid. However, in the meantime, Mr. Nelson filed a civil suit against the police, investigating officer Sgt. Robert Kerr, the Crown attorney who prosecuted him, Mark Moors, Ontario's Attorney General's office, and Ms. Fordham, 31. Because an Ottawa Crown attorney was named in the suit, Sgt. Granger's report was forwarded to the Belleville Crown's office to avoid a conflict of interest.

Marc Angelucci writes "The L.A. Times printed a front page story about the paternity fraud bill in California. The story gives some of the basic arguments on both sides, but as one might predict the author didn't quote any of the men's rights groups who helped write the bill, namely the National Coalition of Free Men (L.A. chapter) and the Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents' Rights. Maybe some letters (letters@latimes.com) would help."

Dan Lynch submitted this story from White Horse Star. Apparently, the Yukon Minister of Women (Sue Edelman) sent out an e-mail in March in which she used the term "feminazis" to describe gender feminists/radical feminists and lamented the way radical feminism took over what was originally an equality movement. Radicals are demanding her resignation, and she has offered it to the prime minister. I certainly do not agree that men are responsible for all the woes of the world. I don’t think my son should be held responsible for all the batterers in the world, and the men who use crude language. Edelman has both a son and a daughter and seems particularly offended by the anti-male slant of gender feminism. She might be an important person to keep in the position of minister of women's issues as long as such a position exists. If anyone has contact information for Edelman, please post it.

Glenn Sacks takes on American school systems in his newest column, which examines how boys are disciplined more often than girls and are less likely to receive a quality education comparatively. Boys at all levels are far more likely than girls to be disciplined, suspended, held back, or expelled. By high school the typical boy is a year and a half behind the typical girl in reading and writing, and is less likely to graduate high school, go to college, or graduate college than a typical girl. Boys are three times as likely to receive a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder as girls, four times as likely to commit suicide, and far more likely to fall victim to teen drug or alcohol abuse.

A while ago, I brought you a story about a guy called Steven Stevenson, a man who Held A Masculist Workshop And Lived and guess what? He did it again. I guess you can't keep a good man down, eh? Anyway, I think you'll want to read Son of Confest Masculist Workshop to find out how his second excursion went.

Steve sent us this story from ABCNews, about a workplace program for men which focuses on men's health, and particularly getting men more comfortable talking about health issues and going to see a doctor. The article provides several examples of men who had gone through great lengths to avoid seeing a doctor, and the unique problem we have in getting men to seek medical attention for themselves. Foster's Daily Democrat also printed a story on this today, which can be read here.

Given the way things have been around here, I think we could do with some humour. So I had a look around the web and I happened to find The POW Pages which is a collection of satirical articles on "Being the ideological Ms.-adventures of Colleen Hyphenated-Lastname, president of the Propaganda Organization for Women, who personifies the traits of paranoia, delusions, megalomania, bigotry, greed, and intellectual dishonesty, yet still makes more sense than Andrea Dworkin." Hmmm, how can one refuse a look? That being said, there is still the feeling that somehow, somewhere, these things were really said....