Story here. The vast majority of homeless people are men. I doubt New York would even consider doing this kind of thing if they were mostly women instead. Excerpt:

'As counties like Monroe struggle to cover the cost of legal defense for the poor, state lawmakers have been raiding tens of millions of dollars from a fund designated for that very purpose.

Over the past six years, the state's elected officials have yanked close to $50 million from a fund designated for indigent legal services.

While the "sweeps," as they are called, have not had immediate impact on a fund designated for indigent defense, those lost millions may be needed in future years as counties across New York try to provide constitutionally sound legal services for the poor. And the practice speaks to a larger issue, advocates for indigent defense services say: A continued unwillingness by state officials to confront a patchwork system of indigent legal aid.

Story here. Doesn't surprise me, or, the reason, anyway. But I am surprised that a member of the bench would behave as reported (even if he held no court appointment or elected judgeship at this particular time), since he must have known full well the only response a judge can render and keep authority in the courtroom is to find the disorderly party in contempt. But he is known for his personal mission of "promoting manhood and protecting womanhood" (See 4th paragraph of the article). This is a chivalrous idea that he apparently has taken a pledge (to whom??) to uphold, and like other modern-day (and not-so-modern-day) men who have been conned into this kind of idea, he has just paid for it. A man his age really ought to know better by now. Excerpt:

'The star of the television show “Judge Joe Brown” has been arrested and charged with five counts of contempt of court in Tennessee, court officials in Memphis said Monday.

This book entitled "The Law And Economics Of Child Support Payments" was published in 2004 and addresses the problems with the NCP-pays-CP system in the US, as well as most if not all other countries in the world that have a legal system with the power to adjudicate child custody conflicts.

It is very expensive for a book of most kinds these days, but I thought I would make people aware of its existence, as I was by a MANN reader via email. Such a book would probably make a very good addition to a library of many kinds: college, public, etc. Book description:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Put the phrase "binge drinking Britain" into Google and you will find one over-riding image in use. Young women in tiny skirts and towering heels are shown in the final stages of drunkenness, stumbling down a high street or collapsed on the ground. Nor is the search engine alone in depicting UK's alcohol culture this way. Women, young and old, are invariably used as illustrations of the problems of binge drinking today.

Last year North Yorkshire’s newly elected police commissioner Julia Mulligan said women's binge drinking was a real problem in the area, which leaves them “vulnerable to exploitation” while last month the Daily Mail asked: “Why do some of our brightest young girls want to drink themselves into oblivion?”

But what about our brightest young boys? Are they so brilliant at controlling their alcohol intake? The answer is certainly no but somehow no one seems to care if they get legless or incapable.
...
Gin Lane (1751) [link added], William Hogarth's painted depiction of London’s descent into the gin craze, when cheap alcohol flooded the market, is typical. At the centre of this image of decay a woman lets her child fall from her arms – presumably to its death - as she sits insensible and uncaring. Although Hogarth also shows men descending into debauchery and violence, it is this lost woman that forms his central motif. In the 18th century, gin became known as mother's ruin - not father’s. Segue to the modern times, and the exhibition uses a 2008 photograph - of three girls stumbling down a street, drinks in hand - that has appeared in just about every UK newspaper. Two hundred years later, attitudes have changed not a jot. But why?

Article here. Excerpt:

'The CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi is the most amiable, open-minded guy in the world, with a good sense of humour to boot. The perfect radio host. His weekly show, Q, frequently provides proof of his willingness to explore both sides of a gamut of issues in the classic liberal tradition.

Unfortunately, amongst doctrinaire feminists, amiability, intellectual curiosity and even (especially?) a sense of humour don’t cut it when their pet theories fall into Q’s crosshairs. Ghomeshi had the temerity on Monday to host a debate about the veracity of “rape culture,” between Lise Gotell, chair of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta, and conservative researcher Heather Macdonald of the Manhattan Institute.

Editorial in National Post today (Equal Parenting Bill C560 is being debated for Second Reading today March 25 in Parliament). Excerpt:

'In recent days, the National Post has brought forward two sides of the current debate on Bill C-560, An Act to amend the Divorce Act (equal parenting), set for second reading in the House of Commons today.

Although the two articles, by Barbara Kay (“After a divorce, equal parenting rights should be the norm,” March 19) and Tasha Kheiriddin (“Equal shared parenting laws don’t put kids first,” March 20) appear at first glance to present diametrically opposed positions, each expresses valid concerns in regard to the importance of maintaining parent-child relationships, ensuring continuity and stability in children’s lives, and containing parental conflict. The question is whether any one legal formula can be crafted to take on board all of these concerns.

Petition here. Would they dare try to do this to homeless women? Never. Instead, there'd be a nation-wide effort to find them places to live and get them medical and psychiatric care. Excerpt:

'Private labor contractors in Japan are "recruiting" homeless men and men to work in the disaster area of the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant, taking advantage of their desperation to pay them less than minimum wage and with no proof that their health is being protected.

In a devil's bargain between organized crime bosses and the nation's top construction firms, laborers are exploited by these contractors as they take in state funds for the cleanup, giving them miniscule cuts for the dangerous untrained work and then subtracting more for food and lodging.

Story here. Excerpt:

'She lived in a 4,000-square foot, $1.4 million home and drove a bright green Camaro with vanity plates that read "MY SYN," but prosecutors said grandmother Erika Perdue's opulent lifestyle wasn't her darkest vice.

Perdue, who pleaded guilty to charges of trading and shipping child porn last year, was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison on Monday.

“I lost two granddaughters to this,” Perdue said in court Monday, according to the Dallas Morning News.

According to court records, the 43-year-old Dallas socialite downloaded and traded child pornography every day for 13 years while her successful lawyer husband was at work.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the activity only stopped once federal agents raided her home and arrested her in April 2012, finding more than 4,000 illicit images on her computer.

Following the raid, agents told WFAA that the images were extremely graphic, and included depictions of toddlers being raped by men and women.

Article here. Excerpt:

'I like being a woman. I have never felt even remotely bad about being a female member of the species. Chalk it up to an adolescence miraculously devoid of the unrelenting glare of women’s magazines, a fantastic relationship with my supportive parents, or being born in the good ol’ United States of America, but I’ve always known that being a girl is pretty awesome.

And the only time it even occurs to me to feel bad about my sex is when feminists start telling me I’m doing everything wrong.

The most recent feminist triumph had nothing to do with advocating for the right of women to drive in Saudi Arabia or for the right to life of unborn children killed simply for the crime of being girls or any other such problem. It was a campaign organized by high-achieving and popular women such as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to, um, “ban” everyone else from using the word bossy. I already listed seven of the problems with this campaign (e.g. girls don’t need over-protection, victims of unduly assertive people need a word to use to combat bad behavior, not everyone’s a leader and it’s time to stop shaming people who aren’t.)

But one major problem with the campaign is that it has taken a word that wasn’t gender specific and made it into one. So in the name of feminism, we have forever joined the term “bossy” with “girl-trait” in everyone’s minds. What are you going to do for an encore, feminism?

In response to the campaign, Elle magazine came up with an even better idea: “While We’re Banning Stuff, Let’s Ban Sorry“:
...

Link here. Excerpt:

'* Scholarship Opportunity for 4 Weeks Work
*$37,715 - $44,460 p.a. + Generous Super
* Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Darwin, Hobart, Adelaide

A scholarship is offered in each state and territory every year for Australian women studying at TAFE or equivalent level, courses in electronics technology, electrical engineering, communications engineering, computer systems/shared technology or similar.

Successful applicants will receive four weeks paid work in the Technology Division of the ABC, plus a $1,000 educational book allowance.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Connecticut Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers recently acknowledged in The Hartford Courant, there should be established guidelines for appointing guardians ad litem; there must be a mechanism for holding guardians ad litem accountable, including a method to limit their fees or remove them for failing to complete their required tasks in accordance with their orders of appointment; Guardians ad litem should be subject to a published code of conduct.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Penalization of Sexism

For the purposes of this Act, the concept of sexism will be understood to mean any gesture or act that, in the circumstances of Article 444 of the Penal Code,* is evidently intended to express contempt for a person because of his gender, or that regards them as inferior, or reduces them to their sexual dimension, and which has the effect of violating someone’s dignity.

Anyone found guilty of [such conduct] will be punished with a prison sentence of one month to one year, and a fine …, or one of these penalties alone….

* The relevant part of Article 444 Belgian Penal Code refers to the following circumstances/contexts in which the speech/conduct is required to take place:

“Either in public meetings or places;

Or in the presence of several people, in a place that is not public but accessible to a number of people who are entitled to meet or visit there;

Or in any place in the presence of the offended person and in front of witnesses;

Or through documents, printed or otherwise, illustrations or symbols that have been displayed, distributed, sold, offered for sale, or publicly exhibited;

Or finally by documents that have not been made public but which have been sent or communicated to several people.”
...
Vrielink reports that the law will indeed cover not just face-to-face insults, but also things said about people in print or in other forms of mass communications. Thus, I infer, it would be a crime to publish newspaper articles or blog posts that say a politician, journalist, criminal, or whoever else is inferior because of his or her gender, or intentionally show contempt for the person because of his or her gender, or “reduce them to their sexual dimension,” and which has the effect of violating someone’s dignity.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The departure of Alberta's first female premier this week, in the face of mounting public and party pressure, has reignited a familiar question: Did sexism play a role in her demise?
...
The Progressive Conservative premier made mistakes, McLellan said, but her caucus and voters — both male and female — had unfair expectations of her as a female leader.

"There seems to be some standard that somehow it's OK for men in public life to act a certain way. But if women do that, that makes them not nice ladies," she said.
...
Former Saskatchewan NDP premier Lorne Calvert said it may be telling that Redford isn't the only female premier to leave office recently.

Article here.

'After a few male students accused of sexual assault sued their institutions under Title IX, alleging that they were discriminated against on the basis of gender in campus disciplinary hearings, experts suggested they faced an uphill battle in proving that to be the case.

Article here. Excerpt:

A masculist crusader says feminism has come at the cost of men.

The comments were sparked by new research showing New Zealand blokes get a "raw deal" in education, health and wellbeing.

Men are more likely to fail at school, ditch university, end up in prison and commit suicide than women, according to the AUT study.

Meanwhile, females are racing ahead in education, commanding flexible working conditions and have longer life expectancy.

Self-described masculist Kerry Bevin said the women's rights movement went too far and men are paying the price in the "feminist aftermath".

"It's way out of kilter and the boys are suffering," he said. "You've now got men who are primary breadwinners but doing work at home and sports on the weekends. These guys are the true soldiers and don't get enough recognition."