Article here. Excerpt:

At national, state and local levels, experts resoundingly agree: Boys are falling behind in education.

The statistics add shock value. Nationally, 70 percent of D's and F's on report cards are earned by boys. Three out of four children diagnosed with learning disabilities are boys, and boys account for 90 percent of school discipline problems. While graduation rates are on the rise in Florida, boys trail girls in every racial group.

"The concept of a one-size-fits-all education is an outdated idea, and today we see that," said Joyce Swarzman, headmaster at the Independent Day School-Corbett Campus in Tampa and one of the experts featured last week at the Pinellas Education Foundation's fourth annual education symposium.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Cultural progressives often talk about something called “hegemonic masculinity.” By this progressives and feminists mean the standards we use to determine what an ideal man is in a particular culture. Michael Kimmel and Amy Aronson, in The Gendered Society Reader, describe American hegemonic masculinity this way:

"In an important sense there is only one complete unblushing male in America: a young, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual, Protestant, father, of college education, fully employed, of good complexion, weight, and height, and a recent record in sports . . . Any male who fails to qualify in any one of these ways is likely to view himself–during moments at least–as unworthy, incomplete and inferior."

Story here. Excerpt:

'Even as pressure mounts on political leaders for addressing women's issues more efficiently, men's rights activists too have decided to put forth their demands in front of the parties. Four issues these organizations have been fighting since long have been put up as questions to major politicians, asking for their response on any suitable medium.

The demands/queries are related to domestic violence against men, shared parenting, gender-neutral rape laws and men's welfare in general. NGO Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), one of the NGOs working for men, has sought replies from several leaders including Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal, Jayalalitha, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sharad Pawar. The leaders can respond using social networking platforms or media too. Apparently, Yadav has already shown allegiance to these organizations.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Pennsylvania woman claimed “crazy voices” told her to sit on her two children in a bathtub — drowning her 3-year-old son and leaving his 6-year-old brother critically injured, police said.
...
Schlemmer was arrested after she called 911 on Tuesday to report that she dragged the two unconscious boys — Luke, 3, and Daniel, 6 — out of the tub.

The deranged woman allegedly told Allegheny County investigators that she told the children to take off their pajamas and get into the bathtub after she put her 7-year-old son, who was not named, on a school bus about 8:40 a.m., court papers show.

“Schlemmer said after the boys got into the tub, she got into the tub ‘fully clothed’ and ‘crazy voices’ were telling her to push the boys into the water,” read a criminal complaint. “Schlemmer explained that at one point she [was] sitting on top of the boys while they were under the water in the tub.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'I keep getting asked, “What is going on in Illinois?” My answer, “A lot.” But I am sure most people really mean to know what is going on with our Shared Parenting Bill - HB5425. National Parents Organization wrote about it here.

A quick recap, HB5425: (1) recognizes that the involvement of each parent for equal time and not less than 35% of residential parenting time per week is presumptively in the children's best; (2) presumes parents to be fit; (3) requires parents to come up with a parenting plan within 90 days; if not, then the judge has 60 additional days and should award equal time unless it is not in the child’s best interest, then a minimum of 35% parenting time should be awarded to each fit parent; and (4) requires clear and convincing evidence to impose any restriction on parenting time.

Link here. Excerpt:

'A young mother from the US has been found guilty of beating her four-year-old son to death because she thought he was gay.

Zachary Dutro-Boggess died on August 16, 2012 after being beaten so severely his intestines tore.

After finding the toddler collapsed at the homeless shelter where the family had been staying, his mother, Jessica Dutro, 25, rang police.

Little Zachary was rushed to hospital where doctors diagnosed him with blunt-force trauma to the abdomen.

The injuries were so severe that they caused the little boy's bowels to tear.

Two days later he was taken off the ventilator and died.

In a Facebook message to her boyfriend, Brian Canady, 24, Dutro said the boy was going to be gay and it made her angry.

"He walks and talks like it. Ugh," she wrote.
...
Canady, who also participated in the beatings, managed to escape the murder charges by agreeing to testify against Dutro.

Dutro and Canady are still waiting to be sentenced.'

Sad and twisted account here. Excerpt:

'HAMILTON, Ontario - Evidence in the second-degree murder trial of a Fort Erie, Ont., woman accused of murdering her daughter wrapped up Thursday with the continued testimony of a psychologist.

Jurors are expected to begin deliberations in early next week in the case against Roseanne Whalen, 25, who is accused of killing two-year-old Marissa on July 29, 2011, in Fort Erie.

Closing addresses by assistant Crown attorney Timothy Hill and Whalen's lawyer, Geoffrey Hadfield, are scheduled for Monday.

Marissa's remains were discovered in the fall of 2011 on Six Nations territory in Ohsweken.

Twenty witnesses testified in the trial, including Rainbow Hill, Whalen's ex-girlfriend who is currently serving time for her role in Marissa's death.

The jury heard the couple was living in Fort Erie when Marissa suffered a fatal injury while in the bathroom with Hill.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Campus Reform's Katherine Timpf attended the National Young Feminist Leadership Conference (NYFLC) — an event which promised to be about “inclusivity” and welcoming everyone — only to be told that "conservative" women were not welcome.

Timpf attempted to ask students’ their opinions on feminism, but conference organizers made an announcement advising participants not to talk to Campus Reform because it was a “conservative” outlet.

The organizers also followed Timpf around the conference to interrupt her conversations with students to tell them the same thing.
...
“You guys aren’t wanted here,” a participant told the reporter after the warning.

Link here. Excerpt:

'LIMPOPO INITIATION SCHOOLS BILL, 2014

In terms of the Standing Rules and Orders of the Limpopo Legislature, the Limpopo Initiation Schools Bill, 2014 is hereby advertised for public comments.

Any person or organization wishing to comment on the said document may do so in writing, on or before 10/04/2014, with:

The Head of Department
Department of Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional
Affairs

Email: mngomezulup-at-coghsta.limpopo.gov.za

---
Wikipedia on Limpopo here.

Also see: Initiates death toll rises to 33 as six more die in Limpopo

Story here. Excerpt:

'Ana Trujillo is on trial in Texas for the murder of her on and off again Swedish boyfriend, 59-year-old University of Houston Professor Alf Stefan Andersson.

Trujillo is accused of killing her boyfriend by stabbing him at least 25 times in the face with the heel of her stiletto but her lawyers argue that she acted in self-defence.

During the second day of the murder trial on Tuesday, prosecutor John Jordan sat on a mannequin to demonstrate how Trujillo allegedly killed her boyfriend, who witnesses described as a kind man with a drinking problem.

A blood-covered blue stiletto claimed to be the murder weapon was also shown in court.
...
But Trujillo’s lawyer John Carroll said she was defending herself.

He argued that Mr Andersson was a violent drunk who attacked his partner on the night she tried to leave him last June.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'One week before Sexual Assault Awareness Month begins in Nova Scotia, a controversy is brewing over one group’s allegations that Halifax Regional Municipality promotes hatred of men by painting them all as potential rapists in its Don’t Be That Guy poster campaign.

“Halifax is breaking Canadian and international law by discriminating according to gender with its hateful one-sided poster campaign and then threaten (sic) legal actions to silence dissenters,” a posting on the Men’s Rights Halifax website [link added] said Wednesday.
...
Meanwhile, Chief Jean-Michel Blais of Halifax Regional Police confirmed Wednesday that the force has contacted the municipality’s legal department over the unauthorized use of the force’s logo in the men’s rights group’s recent Don’t Be That Girl poster campaign.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A city sessions court has acquitted two youths after it was found that they were wrongly framed in a rape case after the relationship went sour between a college-going girl and her boyfriend. The court observed that false rape allegation can cause distress and humiliation to accused.

While exonerating a tuition class teacher, Lokesh Sharma, and his friend Pankaj Chavda, the court noted: "A woman who is subjected to physical exploitation and rape in particular dies a thousand deaths every day. However, here in this case, the victim unfortunately has become a puppet in the hands of her parents and relatives. To separate her from accused No 2 (Chavda), the parents and relatives of the victim rightly could not find a better way out than to level charges so grave."

Video on YouTube here. Absolute must-see. Send it to everyone you know. :)

Article here. Excerpt:

'Data suggesting that circumcision rates in neonates have declined in recent years have prompted a renewed call for universal Medicaid coverage for the procedure and inclusion of circumcision as part of public health policy, according to a report published online in the April 2 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

A review examining trends in U.S. male circumcision rates and the impact of the
2012 American Academy of Pediatrics policy has found that the overall rate of circumcision in the United States declined from 83% in 1960-1969 to 77% by 2010.
...
They concluded that, over the course of a lifetime, around one in two uncircumcised men would require treatment for some medical condition associated with retention of the foreskin.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Fewer infants in the United States are being circumcised than in previous decades, yet the benefits of the procedure far outweighs the risks, an Australian-American study has concluded.

The findings, reported Wednesday in the prestigious Mayo Clinic Proceedings, found that while the number of circumcised American men aged 14-59 rose slightly between 2005 and 2010 -- from 79 to 80.5 per cent -- the current rate at which infants are being circumcised has fallen by six per cent over the last four decades.
...
And the decrease has the study’s authors arguing that nowadays people should look at infant circumcision “in the same light as childhood vaccination” -- in large part due to the health benefits they say the procedure offers.

More specifically, the study found that the benefits of circumcision outweighed risks by at least 100 to 1. The authors say that half of uncircumcised males will contract an adverse medical condition in their lifetime caused by their foreskin. Uncircumcised men also have a greater chance at contracting genital ulcer disease, penile cancer and a number of STDs, the study shows.

The U.S.-based Center for Disease Control says that carcinogenic subtypes of human papillomavirus (HPV) -- which are believed to cause cervical cancers, 90 per cent of anal cancers, and 40 per cent of cancers of the penis, vulva, and vagina -- have also been associated with uncircumcised men.
...
The Canadian Paediatric Society, which outlined its position in 1996, says that “the overall evidence of the benefits and harms of circumcision is so evenly balanced that (the CPS) does not support recommending circumcision as a routine procedure for newborns.”