Still waiting for the "male pill"? So am I, but according to this CNN article, it's still a long way off. And there are side effects to consider too. Nevertheless, the drug may have a rough beginning but be refined as time goes on, so time will tell how effective an option this will be for men.

The Detroit News had an excellent editorial by Martha Churchill, on the subject of trials on sex crimes. She reasonably examines the hysteria surrounding these cases, and suggests that many of them are not fair trials, using examples to prove her point. No doubt we need more writers such as Churchill to help expose this problem. You can read the article at this link.

The Hartford Courant had a very informative article on Divorce and its effects on children. The results are are somewhat surprising, and very politically incorrect. You can read the article here.

This is definitely something to think about: The Washington Post printed this story on a carefully built study which shows with great accuracy how race and gender play a role in sentencing. Here are the results: in a typical drunk driving vehicular homicide, if a man is a victim the sentence is 56 percent shorter than if a woman is killed, and if the victim is black the sentence is 53 percent shorter than if a white person was killed. This is some very strong evidence of how men's lives (both black and white) are devalued compared to women's. And we are paying a very real price for this injustice.

IHF submitted this link to a UK Times story on false accusations. A UK teacher's association is asking for changes to be made to school policy in cases of student accusations - including not suspending teachers and maintaining as much anonymity as possible until a conviction is made. This proposal was prompted by a female teacher who went through a false abuse accusation recently.

The Daily Record printed a short article on jealousy and revenge, quoting a psychologist who claims that women are more likely to have jealous feelings and take revenge on others. I'm sure any man who has initiated a divorce knows exactly how true this is! I'm not trying to present this as a sound scientific study, but something that's perhaps worth further investigation...

George writes "I found this article in the Seattle Times. Despite the title, it's more of a collection of views from prominent people in the field on the difficulties faced by boys compared to those faced by girls than it is about scholarly debates, although it does mention The War Against Boys as a catalyst of the discussion. The article seems to convey a positive message in that all children are worthy of our best efforts to raise them well even though that may mean using different approaches to addressing boys' and girls' problems." Great submission George - thanks!

Rand wrote in to tell me about this link from the Washington Times. It's an editorial piece by a woman who is exposing unfairness in the way that Title IX is implemented - and gives examples of how it also works in the reverse, to work against women's sports. It seems to me that sports must be one area were the physical differences between men and women cannot be ignored, and she makes this point well.

This is to let everyone know that Prostate Cancer Awareness Week is Sept. 18-24, 2000. There's a web page, www.pcaw.com, which has a list of free or low-cost screenings around the country you can attend if you are over the age of 50 or a "high risk" (if it's in your family medical history or you're an African American) male over the age of 35. Click on "Read More" to read a general announcement about PCAW, and please do something to promote awareness of it - write a letter to your local newspaper about it, or buy some prostate cancer awareness US postage stamps.

Sean writes "Well, you can't teach old dogs new tricks, but some young women can think on their own. In a breath of freash air, a twenty one year-old woman pronounces "Feminism: obsolete" in a response to an article in the Seattle Weekly. It is the last letter to the editor, of course. It made my day. I thought it was worth sharing...here's the link."

Men's rights news seems kind of slow lately...but I recently found this article from the Huntsville Times that outlines a child custody study done by a local father's rights group in Madison County, Alabama. The findings shouldn't be a big surprise to any of my readers (there was extreme bias against giving custody to the father), but it's interesting that there is data in this level of detail for a local community. It might be useful to keep for future reference.

Ed Bartlett from Men's Health America announced, "Many persons may not be aware that a great deal of medical research is done by the Department of Defense. Much of this research addresses
cancer. On August 9, President Clinton signed into law a bill that will increase the DOD prostate cancer research budget from $75 million to $100 million for Fiscal Year 2000. Congratulations to those who worked long and hard to make this increase in the prostate research budget a reality."

Here's some new news on the Lane domestic violence tragedy: Deidra Lane told the 911 operator that her husband had hit and choked her before she shot and killed him. ABCnews has the story here. Want to see something interesting? Observe how little attention this case got up until this point, and then see how much attention it will be given from this point on. It was not stated in the article if there was any physical evidence, ie, a physician's report, that would validate her claims of being abused.

An anonymous reader sent in this link to a short UK Times article on male suicide - in an interesting context. Apparently it is the case that power line workers and people (generally men) who work with large electrical machinery are more likely to kill themselves. The reason for this is that exposure to high magnetic fields affects the levels of melatonin in the brain. Perhaps this should call for suicide prevention programs at these types of workplaces?

Okay, I've now got some pictures from the male reproductive rights demonstration held in Washington, D.C. on August 26, 2000. You can check them out here. Congratulations to all of the protesters and thanks for getting the ball rolling!