cheddah reports that his local Ames department store has indeed removed the boy-bashing stickers from its vending machines, as promised. A sincere thank you, cheddah, for starting this whole thing and to everyone who wrote to Ames in protest!

This article on Yahoo! News is interesting because not only does it affirm that children conceived through artifical means after their father's death have inheritance rights, but it also stipulates that the mother must prove 1) that the dead man is the child's genetic father, and 2) that the dead man had agreed to conceive and support the child prior to his death. Although posthumous conception is a touchy subject, the court's decision in this case sounds fair to me.

frank h writes "I'm submitting this link, which is the links page of a website maintained by a woman named Trish Wilson. She's mounting her own pro-feminist, anti-father campaign to stop the Bush administration from closing several offices fo the Women's Bureau at the Department of Labor. Other topics she's written on are of "interest" as well. As Sun Tzu says: know thine enemy as thyself. I found this page by following a link from at Men's News Daily. A proper response from us might be to send some letters to Dubya in SUPPORT of closing those offices."

Mike LaSalle writes "Comrades - Men's News Daily is now carrying a daily audio news digest called MND News Briefs. Please take a listen and let me know what you all think! My intention is to focus on the current men's news topics of that day and do a quick audio overview of those stories-- maybe two minutes total. Links to the full story text can be found on my web site. The audio is in mp3 format - playable by the usual streaming audio players. Happy New Year!" Nice idea, Mike!

An Anonymous User sent us this link to a BBC story about the results of an Army study which is to be published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1998, the British Army ended the double standards for training men and women and the results were predictable: women trainee's likelihood of being injured increased dramatically, while men's stayed about the same. "women are now eight times more likely than the male recruits to be discharged with an overuse injury...the findings point to a serious conflict between equal opportunity law and health and safety legislation."

DaveW submitted this UK Independent article and writes "Authorities use insurance fraud laws to prosecute this modern-day, man-killing witch." This story confirms again that women who murder their husbands often use subversive methods rather than direct ones. Also, do you see the term "domestic violence" anywhere in this article?

Neil Steyskal submitted this article from the Washington Post that addresses the issues that low-income men face. It even points out that child support payments should be reduced when a man's income declines, and suggests that arrearages should be forgiven if they can become consistent in paying current support. Read it, this is a rare article.

After hearing about the problems some people are having ordering the book Spreading Misandry, I contacted Katherine Young, one of the book's co-authors. She wrote, "Yes, the book is out of print. It was released only in November 2001 and six weeks later was sold out. It has had enormous media and print attention in Canada, which was a surprise to everyone.The press is reprinting it. I've just called them to see when it will be available again. I know they are trying to turn it around fast but the holidays have intervened. When I get the news I'll let you know." I guess we should be glad that this book is selling so fast. Maybe the publishers will realize there is a market for books on men's issues that they hadn't realized before.

Neil Steyskal sent in two recent letters from Ann Lander's advice column. One of which addresses the taboo subject of "deadbeat mothers," and the other from a man who reminds people of the problems that non-custodial parents (mostly fathers) face which are not prioritized the way child support payment is.

frank h writes "The letter copied below is one that I submitted to the Times Of Trenton and it was published today. There's nothing really remarkable about it, except that it does include use of the word "misandry." When submitting the letter, I made a point of asking that the word be left intact. (I covered her last name in this submission; it was not covered as such in the newspaper.)" Click Read More to view frank's letter.

This story, which appeared in the Dec. 27 Washington Post details NOW's efforts (via a "Women at Ground Zero" video) to derail federal attempts to assist the victims and cities in recovery by diverting funding earmarked for recovery to encourage more women to enter the rescue fields. Apparently, NOW is upset that only 25 of the 11,000-some-odd firefighters in New York are female, and it doesn't matter to them that women make their own career choices. It's also worth pointing out that images of men in the media got a boost from the emergency workers responses to the 9/11 outrages. Perhaps NOW simply can't stand positive images of men?
Update: My apologies to Neil Steyskal for not mentioning him earlier. He also submitted this story.

In her latest column, ifeminist and friend of MANN Wendy McElroy describes how the efforts of American government to force "diversification" is not the same thing as promoting equality. While she does criticize the men's movement for claiming that the recent Ford discrimination lawsuit and the Jim Babyak lawsuit are victories, she has a point that government needs to stay out of the diversification business.

This Wednesday's on-line chat will be a discussion about what worked for us in 2001 and how to apply these strategies to promote men's rights and fight male bashing in the new year that has begun. Stop by our chat page at 9:30 PM EST on 1/2/02, say hello to everyone, and share your New Year's Resolutions regarding activism! I'll also be looking for a volunteer to help me maintain the Media Watch page, which I think will become a more important and utilized resource of this site in future. See you there!

Stan Gaver writes "Columnist Mona Charen has a great article about the latest male heroes who confronted the "shoe bomber" on AA flight 63. Her closing is particularly enheartening: "God bless our men, who've taken so much undeserved abuse for decades, yet never stopped being men and gentlemen."" Thanks also to krob4399 for sending this link in, too.

As the founder of Mensactivism.org, I'd like to take a few moments to thank the people who have made this site such a success this year, and more than I ever expected it to be. Click Read More below to read some notes on the history of MANN, the people who have brought us to our current point, and the top five comment posters. Let the good times roll...