Douglas Rome sent in this story from the UK Observer. It's the story about divorced dads who are alienated from their children. One man was quoted as saying, "I have been to court about 13 times, mostly to try to stabilise the access to my children. I've been in front of nine different judges, none of whom has seen my problem. I feel powerless. I started off seeing my children two or three times a week. Now I see them once a week for four hours, if I'm lucky. I have no overnights, no weekends, no holidays. I'm like an uncle they see occasionally, rather than their father." I'm sure many readers know this kind of pain and frustration.

A woman interested in the masculist anthology Steve Imparl and I are working on sent this link to me today. The site is full of stories and poetry, much of it celebrating men. In fact, there's a section specifically dedicated to celebrating men. I urge you all to check out this site if you need a little inspirational boost in your day.

The National Post reports that a mother who became an international fugitive after she kidnapped her three children from their father (who had full custody) was absolved of those kidnappings by a jury, who found her "not guilty by reason of necessity." The outraged father says that the court has now set a precedent for an "open season" on child abductions by non-custodial parents. I wonder if the same jury would've found not guilty a father in this mother's same situation.

Neil Steyskal sent in another story, this one about the draft. To me the most interesting part was her good summary about the recent history of the draft, and why a constitutional challenge to the all-male draft probably won't hold up this time, since women can and do serve in combat positions today. It's an excellent article.

Neil Steyskal pointed me to this NY Times article (free registration required to read) about intimate partner homicide rates. According to a new CDC study printed in The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the "rate at which men were killed by their wives or companions fell by close to two-thirds over the last 20 years...The rate at which women were killed...also fell, by almost a third....The researchers speculated that the sharper decline in the homicide rate for men was related to various social and legal movements that had given better alternatives to women in abusive relationships."

Glenn Sacks' latest column is being included on Mensactivism.org as our newest feature article. Glenn continues to be the only regularly published columnist in the U.S. who writes about gender issues from a perspective unapologetically sympathetic to men. This time, Glenn researches the declining state of male athletic programs at the CA State University system, and how legal attacks by N.O.W. have destroyed dozens of men's sports at schools around the state. Read More below for his essay.

This page serves as a good guide on how to perform a testicular self-examination, a check which should be done monthly for men 15 years old and older. Early detection is the key to beating this cancer, which is highly treatable when discovered early. Remember, being an activist about your own health is the only way you can stay around to be an activist for men's rights!

Steve writes "So many men spoke up against the idea of Men's Day of Shame, that the lawyer who proposed it had a "week of hell." The story is here." I was seeing a lot of activity about this on the men's rights mailing lists, and all I can say is, awesome job people! This is what should happen when someone makes such a public attack on men and fathers!

A federal court ruled recently that those accused of violating a restraining order cannot be arrested unless the police have determined probable cause for arrest. You'd think this is a basic right but this article from The Massachusetts News explains how men are routinely arrested for 209A violations based only on an accusation. An accusation does not and should not create probable cause. This is definitely a step in the right direction for men's rights, and also civil rights in general.

This story from an Australian publication details a lecture Warren Farrell presented recently to an audience of men about modern man's lack of choices compared to women. Farrell's central argument is that the traditional image of male-as-oppressor is inaccurate, that power is about choice, freedom to explore options that men don't have. Being a man means being obligated to earn money that other people spend, he says. Farrell recently received an email from his 91-year-old accountant father telling him to give up the fight. "If you continue this way you are going to starve to death," his father wrote.

Anonymous User writes "This article by Maggie Gallagher on Yahoo! News talks about the issue of single parent and dual-service couple soldiers needing to leave their children in the care of others while they go to war; and questions whether it is 'civilized' to send mothers to war. Even though the article quotes a statistic from Brian Mitchell's 1998 book, Women in the Military, which states that dual-service couples and an equal number of single moms and dads will need to leave their children in the care of others, the article gives almost all of it's focus to protecting mothers, and single mothers in particular, from being sent to war. Fathers are merely subsumed into the category of 'parent' - as in a child being asked "to risk both of their parents, or their only parent, for us"."

Claude Moreau sent in this article from the Seattle Times about domestic violence. It's an excellent refutation of myths about domestic violence, and was written by a female family law/domestic violence attorney. From the article: "Many male victims are ignored or ridiculed by a system that seems to recognize only female victims. When women are the abusers, they are more often than not given a pass. Recent cases with which I have personal experience involve men who have been hit, punched, gouged, choked and threatened with weapons by their spouses. Despite reports to police, none of the women were charged with crimes."

I recently found this article written by Murray Rothbard, while it was written in 1970 it's just as true today (maybe even more so) and it's quite a read. In the article he makes the case that men are the real slaves, and implies this is due to women having a matriarchy over men. He makes such a good case it's just plain scary (is it the truth facing us?) It might be heretical but it's worth hearing him out. Oddly enough, the woman he talks to says she'd rather see a man than be one; is this proof that she knows men have it worse or was she just being polite? I don't know about you, but words fail me.

Henry Makow wrote an interesting article about the political nature of feminism for TooGoodReports.com. While I've heard and agree with requests from readers to avoid becoming political with this web site, I think this article and its perspectives deserve some airtime here to balance things out. It's interesting to note that ifeminism is almost completely the opposite of Makow's description, suggesting that ifeminism has few ties with the modern feminist movement.

Foster's Daily Democrat, which ran a story about my domestic violence project at UNH, wasn't exactly forthright with my views regarding statistics about domestic violence. So I wrote them a short letter explaining the statistics further, which they printed in today's letters section. Hopefully this will help to set the record straight.