Article here. Excerpt:

'Some people are arguing that this is an excuse by police to increase their arrest quotas, and to crack down on undesirable ethnic minority males. Russia Today reported that the NYPD issued approximately 1,400 summonses for manspreading in 2015.
...
Robert Gangi, Director of Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP), said to Russia Today “We think it’s driven by a quota system. There is almost no other rational explanation for why the cops would conduct this kind of arrest unless they are under pressure to meet certain numbers, to meet with their productivity goals. It’s a classic pattern. Somebody gets a summons for a low-level thing, they don’t show up in court, the warrant is out… A cop stops you a second time, even if for another low-level thing, and it’s the policy of the department to arrest you.”

The first man arrested had his charges dismissed, due to the fact that he was arrested at 12:11 a.m. and the judge believes that no one was likely to be inconvenienced at such an early hour.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Stapleton woman tried to put the squeeze on a male relative - bashing him with a juicer Wednesday night, allege prosecutors.

Awilda Mendoza, 32, attacked the victim at about 9:55 p.m. during an argument in her home on the 200 block of Gordon Street, said a criminal complaint.

The victim suffered lacerations of the ear, arm and torso, the complaint said.

Ms. Mendoza was arrested on a felony count of assault, along with misdemeanor charges of assault and criminal weapon possession, according to information from acting District Attorney Daniel Master's office.'

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Reader Comments:

"I would have used my George Foreman grill. Designed by a heavyweight fighter....."

"The toaster wasn't available?"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Eliot Spitzer’s ex-wife Silda is hosting a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Manhattan, and only women will be allowed to attend the $2,700-a-ticket event.

The two-hour long fundraiser, which Silda will host along with four other women, will allow those who go to chat with Clinton on June 1. All proceeds will benefit “Hillary for America,” Page Six reports.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'This year, nearly all college students in New York and California started their spring semesters under a new state-mandated regime of sexual policing called affirmative consent (“yes means yes”). Under these policies, any student who cannot prove that he obtained active, ongoing, unambiguous consent to any sexual activity will automatically be guilty of violating campus sexual assault policies. These draconian new rules are binding only on college students. They do not apply to college faculties and administrators, and they certainly don’t apply to the legislators who passed these laws.

Article here. Excerpt:

'According to Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly, who spearheaded this bill, college students would be required to “say yes” or indicate nonverbally through “physical cues” that they are willing to have sex with another college student.

A major flaw in this proposed legislation is that it would impose a legal requirement that college students engage in a specific type of speech or behavior in a certain situation. Although this requirement is unenforceable, if a university did find a way to enforce it, the university would be infringing upon students’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech. . . .
Sen. Joe Markey, R-Southington, was correct when he said it is “peculiar” for the state to pass a law that applies only to accused students in university disciplinary hearings and not to defendants in criminal courts. College students are not a special class of citizens who are exempt from the Constitution’s protections of freedom of speech, due process and the presumption of innocence for the accused.

Review here. Excerpt:

'In this blog entry, I have assembled my own shorthand notes of a really important book by Lisa Braver Moss and Rebecca Wald: Celebrating Brit Shalom, (2015, Notim Press, ISBN-13: 978-0692353332). I hope what you find on this page encourages you to buy the book. It is clear and informative, short enough to read quickly, and inspiring in its fully set out scripts (English, and the few bits of Hebrew needed) of three sample ceremonies, including ideas for music. This book would be ideal as a resource for any parents who wanted to inform themselves, but also have as an authoritative and thoughtful resource they could show to family and friends to introduce them to the idea of a brit shalom. And, of course, it is extremely useful for anyone who wants to create their own ceremony to welcome someone into their Jewish family, people, and heritage. Although the authors do not mention it in the book, I can imagine the ideas here would be very useful for men converting to Judaism, but not wanting to have to be circumcised.'

Article here. Wonder if/when the scales'll fall from her eyes? Excerpt:

'The February essay that Northwestern University Professor Laura Kipnis wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education was certainly provocative. Titled “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe,” the piece lashed out at campus overregulation, particularly against dating between professors and students. “Intergenerational desire has always been a dilemma as well as an occasion for mutual fascination,” wrote Kipnis. “Whether or not it’s a brilliant move, plenty of professors I know, male and female, have hooked up with students, though informal evidence suggests that female professors do it less, and rarely with undergraduates.”

Denunciations of what she terms the “Great Prohibition” jibe with Kipnis’s claims that contemporary campus culture essentially coddles students to the point that they can’t rely on themselves to deal with the world that awaits them. “The new codes sweeping American campuses aren’t just a striking abridgment of everyone’s freedom, they’re also intellectually embarrassing,” she wrote. “Sexual paranoia reigns; students are trauma cases waiting to happen. If you wanted to produce a pacified, cowering citizenry, this would be the method.”

In addition to such essayifying, Kipnis summarized a legal battle between a Northwestern University undergraduate student and a philosophy professor accused of “unwelcome and inappropriate sexual advances.” After laying out the conflicting accounts of their interactions, Kipnis commented, “What a mess. And what a slippery slope, from alleged fondler to rapist.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'In December 2013, Amherst College imposed its first major sanction under a new get-tough sexual misconduct policy, expelling a 21-year-old senior after a disciplinary board concluded that he had forced a female classmate to perform oral sex during an alcohol-infused encounter nearly two years earlier.

Article here. Excerpt:

'On Friday, the Army is expected to announce that all the women who had attempted to graduate from Ranger School had officially failed to meet the standards, according to a military source.

Ranger School, which grooms the Army’s most elite special operations fighting force, opened its doors to women for the first time this year. Eight of the 20 women who originally entered the school's first co-ed class were allowed to recycle through the program after they fell out in their first go-round. The Friday announcement will confirm that this happened again.
...
But there is another opinion quietly being voiced as well: that Ranger School is more akin to a rite of passage – an opportunity for men to “thump their chest,” as one Ranger puts it – than a realistic preparation for leading in war. That women can actually make Ranger units more effective. And that the standards that keep them out are outdated.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Northwestern University professor was accused of retaliation and investigated after students claimed an article she had written had a “chilling effect” on students’s ability to report sexual misconduct.

Writing on Friday in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Laura Kipnis describes an academic climate in which professors lay awake at night in fear of losing their careers over a single careless word or missed trigger warning. A new academic culture is rising in which hurt feelings are considered evidence of an attack. This hypersensitivity is being abetted by an expanding process of Title IX charges which allow anyone with an agenda or a grudge to go on the offensive against the faculty:

"As I understand it, any Title IX charge that’s filed has to be investigated, which effectively empowers anyone on campus to individually decide, and expand, what Title IX covers. Anyone with a grudge, a political agenda, or a desire for attention can quite easily leverage the system.

And there are a lot of grudges these days. The reality is that the more colleges devote themselves to creating “safe spaces” — that new watchword — for students, the more dangerous those campuses become for professors. It’s astounding how aggressive students’ assertions of vulnerability have gotten in the past few years. Emotional discomfort is regarded as equivalent to material injury, and all injuries have to be remediated.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A nonprofit company, Sexual Health Innovations, has designed a new online system allowing college sexual assault victims to report crimes anonymously and safely:Callisto has not yet launched, but a campaignto help fund the project has already raised more than $6,000 toward a goal of $10,000.

What's unique about this system is that college-aged sexual assault victims and activists helped create it, and focused on ensuring victims feel safe and comfortable reporting their abusers. Users would visit their school-specific Callisto site and anonymously fill out a form reporting a sexual assault. They would then receive an explanation of reporting options and the opportunity to report as they choose right away, or save a time-stamped notice that the form was received and submit later if/when they feel ready. It's up to the victim who she wants to report it to, how much she wants to reveal, and when she wants to submit it.'

Story here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'What does “Trouble in the Village” mean and how does it relate to changing existing law? The answer is simple — legislators do not act unless they have “Trouble in their Village.”

The secret to changing an existing law is proving that there is a problem. In most cases office-holders will not acknowledge that a problem exists. Your job is to dig up the bodies. In other words, find and expose the evidence of the need for family law reform.

The following are the steps necessary to accomplish legislative reform. When I took on alimony reform in Massachusetts, I was told “it’ll never happen.” Well, I proved them wrong. Not only did I make possible the most dramatic social policy change in decades, I did it with a unanimous vote from both houses of the legislature.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pushing for passage of what he calls “the toughest law in the nation” against campus sexual violence.

It would make campuses in New York a hostile environment for young men. One misstep and they could find themselves accused of “sexual assault,” denied a fair hearing, expelled and unemployable.

The law would apply at all private colleges in the state, extending regulations that Cuomo has already imposed on the state university system.

Everyone should want to prevent rape. But Cuomo’s bill criminalizes normal sexual interactions.