Bledso writes "This is yet another classic example of the male buffoon advertising style that plagues us. The Red Lobster commercial can be viewed here. There is also a nauseating writeup that sings its praises here. Some guy acts like a fool as his significant other, not surprisingly, rolls her eyes with disgust. Same old nonsense. Although I'm not a fan of this type of "buffoon" advertising, if they are going to use it, they should at least be "inclusive" and allow women to join men and be free of their "state of invisibility" with regard to idiot characterizations. I hear no cry for equal representation in this arena."

Neil Steyskal also sent in this link to a USA Today story and writes "Geena Davis is being used to push Title IX even after USA Today showed that it has devastated men's teams. Comment to: editor@usatoday.com." It's one thing to promote girls' interest in sports, but another to encourage discrimination accusations with "quizzes" on Title IX compliance and promoting a destructive double standard.

This story in the Nashville Scene reports on the opening of the Mary Parrish Center for Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence, coming Feb. 14. According to the article, victims of abuse face more bureaucratic red tape than assistance in Nashville, and this center hopes to change that. The author alludes that the center assists both women and men. A woman--or man, for that matter--who finally musters the courage to seek protection from their abuser is always in for a rude awakening when she or he encounters the city's Byzantine bureaucracy. But the new center's opening is expected to mitigate such procedural red tape for Nashville victims, many of whom face life or death situations.

Due to various reasons, it has been decided that the MANN on-line chats will be held on the first and third Wednesday nights of every month. Topics will be announced 1-2 days before the scheduled chats. Thus there will be no official chat this evening. If you still want to meet an chew the fat with other men's activists, you can still stop by the chat room every week, but there's no guarantee that anyone else will be there.

A new DesertLight Journal issue has been released, which includes news about a Maryland paternity fraud court case, a college which is getting a dialogue going between the women's programs and men's programs administrators, and further progress on the International Men's Network, which recently added groups such as Family Oriented Men and Live Beat Dads - Scotland to its umbrella. You can read the latest DLJ at this link.

Neil Steyskal submitted this USA Today article critical of Title IX. " When college administrators cut men's programs, they rarely add women's sports. Getting equal numbers of athletes, in other words, ''living by a quota,'' is all that matters." The article states that in the past six years, more than 350 men's athletic programs have been cut. Mike Moyer, the author, is the director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association.

Garth sent in this article from the Vancouver Province and writes "Take a loving father, an alcoholic and drug addicted ex-wife, and the British Columbia Children's Ministry. Watch as the Ministry does everything possible to keep the kids away from Dad." The article details this man's struggle for custody of his children. It's good to see his story in print - the more the public is made aware of how often this kind of thing happens, the more likely we are to create change based on outrageous cases such as his.

AFG writes "This article discusses the battle being waged by Massachusetts dads in the courts and in the state legislature. In particular, it talks about the many reforms that father's rights groups are trying to get politicians to enact, while meeting considerable resistance from feminists. Some fo the demands are as follows: "We'd like to see the legislature enact shared parenting legislation like S813 from Sen. Stephen Brewer and/or H2546 from Rep. Scott Brown. We also need restraining order reform like S952 or S953, which would protect good, honest and innocent men and fathers and their families from state persecution, political correctness, judicial sophistry, bad laws and people of low character who use the system for vicious and vindictive reasons.""

Bill Kuhl sent in a short essay on his thoughts regarding a recent NPR program about the new book, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. While the book wasn't written from a men's issues stance, Bill's comments point out that there is a strong connection between the lynching of blacks and men's issues. Read More for his submission...

Neil Steyskal submitted this short article from the New York Post which dispels the myth that older men can die of a heart attack during sex. It even goes so far as to say that frequent sex is good for your heart as you get older. What a relief!

Neil Steyskal sent us this interesting review of The Fellowship of the Ring. In it, Marian Coombs talks about the masculine camaraderie that the Fellowship exhibits, and the importance of this movie as a cultural event. I have a friend who also thinks the greatest part of the book and the movie was the male friendships and how they were portrayed. Did anyone else see it and get the same impression?

Luek writes "[This] article... is about the push in Massachusetts to revise the child support and custody statutes to make them more equitable. There are some interesting statements in the piece made to the Chief Justice (a female) sic by a Father's Rights advocate, Mark Charalambous about non-custodial parents (males mostly) being at the breaking point and threatening social upheaval and unrest. Let's watch this one." Interestingly, the Boston lawyers in this piece are arguing for more child support, even in light of the recent suicide of Derrick Miller, who was ordered to pay out 82 percent of his monthly income to his wife (who made twice as much as he in one month).

This stunning victory for a man who was sued for $12,303 in back child support, even though he was not the father of the child, is heartening. The Washington Times reports that a 4-3 vote in the Maryland Court of Appeals released Nicholas Todd Walter from the payments. "Without paternity, there is no legal duty; without a legal duty, there can be no financial obligation," according to the judgment written by Lynne A. Battaglia, former U.S. attorney for Maryland who was appointed to the court last year. The ruling reverses a 1994 decision by the state's highest court that a man who agreed to pay child support, but later discovered he was not the biological father, must continue to pay. Scott's note: Thanks also to Neil Steyskal for submitting this story.

This story in the Sun-Sentinel once again highlights how boys and girls (and men and women) are treated differently when it comes to criminal activity. Four youths (three boys and one girl) produced a pornographic video starring themselves. All four were set to benefit financially from its production. The three boys are now likely to face child pornography charges. The girl will not be charged. “You can’t pick and choose who you’re going to charge when you have more than one child involved,” Lerman said. “It shows the way society treats boys and girls. The boys are punished but the girls have to be protected.”

I'm again late in announcing this, but the streaming audio program MensHour has had a new release this month. This episode is a kind of year-in-review, with contributions from several people involved in the men's movement, including Karl from AngryHarry.com, Philip Cook, author of Abused Men, Trudy W. Schuett of the DesertLight Journal, Jim Bailey from Family Oriented Men, and several others. You can listen to the program here.