Article here. Excerpt:

'Kenneth Braswell shot his documentary, "Spit'in Anger," an examination of the violence spawned by fatherless sons, with inexpensive equipment and a shoestring budget.

He buttonholed experts on adolescent anger during breaks at conferences he attended around the country. He poured his own painful life experiences into the project.
...
Braswell will premiere the one-hour independent film Thursday at Spectrum 8 Theatres, followed by a question-and-answer period. He hopes to generate a constructive conversation about a contentious topic in the African-American community: that absent fathers are exacting a terrible toll on black youngsters, whose deep sorrow causes them to act out in destructive ways.

"I'm not being critical of black men as much as urging accountability and trying to get them to recognize a problem, to step up and to tell their story as a way of being able to release the pain and begin to forgive and to heal," he said.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Kahal, a community group for Israeli parents with intact sons is active and counts thousands of Israeli Jews among it’s members.

Intactivism—the movement to end circumcision—continues to win social acceptance worldwide, including in the Jewish state of Israel. Jews in the holy land are increasingly open to questioning circumcision, much more so than in the United States. In recent years, Jewish Intactivists have published articles and essays in some of Israel’s largest papers including Haaretz (Israel’s largest and most influential daily paper), 927mag, and the Jerusalem Post. A variety of active Intactivist groups such as Gonnen (Protect the Child), The Israeli Organization Against Genital Mutilation/Intact Son, and Kahal (a community group for parents of intact sons) have sprung up. The leaders of Kahal say that thousands of Israeli Jews are choosing to keep their sons intact.

Article here. Excerpt:

'By a 77-14 vote, the Ohio House passed a bill (HB 307) designed to ease adoptions in Ohio. Unfortunately, HB 307 not only doesn’t adequately protect the rights of birth parents, it significantly curtails the rights that birth parents currently have in Ohio.

Children deserve loving parents and adoption is often the best option. But children deserve first to be raised by their biological parents if those parents are fit and willing. Streamlining the process for adopting newborns is not necessary to ensure that all newborns who are put up for adoption find good homes. There is already more demand than supply for healthy newborn adoptees. And streamlining the adoption process in ways that curtail the rights of biological parents to raise their children is wrong. HB 307 is a flawed bill.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Just as I was feeling defeated, I found a website that lists over 100 rabbis and celebrants who perform brit shalom, an alternative to brit milah. (Brit shalom contains the symbolic elements of the covenant ceremony, but without circumcision.) At the time, there was only one rabbi listed for all of British Columbia… but he just so happened to be in my city, Vancouver! I later discovered his name had been added about three weeks before I’d found it. I believe this was the universe rewarding us for following our hearts.

I connected with Rabbi David Mivasair in such a deep, meaningful way. I grew up going to Jewish school, attending synagogue--and yet I had never met a rabbi whose words inspired me the way his did. If I wasn't convinced before that we had made the right decision, I was now.

We hope to see you at our June conference.

We're sure you'll enjoy keynote speakers Jim and Nancy Petro. Jim, former attorney general of Ohio and Nancy are authors of False Justice: Eight Myths that Convict the Innocent.

Back by popular demand, Gordon Smith. You can expect a riveting presentation by Gordon, who was falsely accused, wrongfully arrested, and recently exonerated.

We also have U.S. Senate candidate Erick Bennett. Erick, victim of a falsely allegation, founded the Maine Equal Rights Center to raise awareness on the loss of our Constitutional rights and liberties,

More speakers: http://www.prosecutorintegrity.org/schedule/

Article here. Excerpt:

'“Nearly one in five women have been raped in her lifetime,” according to the White House Council on Women and Girls. Is that a fact? Or is it allegation or an estimate based on self-reporting surveys?

Interestingly, the White House asserts that the same number of women, one in five, “has been sexually assaulted while in college.” Is that a fact? Not exactly: It’s a statistic derived from “a web-based survey of undergraduates,” which means that one in five women has reported suffering a sexual assault. Maybe their reports are absolutely, unassailably accurate. Maybe not.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that one in five women has been sexually assaulted on campus or “in her lifetime,” and I shouldn’t be surprised that the administration, with its dismal record on civil liberty, is oblivious to the difference between allegations, estimates and facts.  Still it’s a little shocking to read a White House report that effectively assumes all accusations or reports of rape are true, and all of the accused are guilty.

These assumptions are implicit in the language of the report: “Despite the prevalence of rape and sexual assault,” (“apparent prevalence,” I’d have written) “many offenders are neither arrested nor prosecuted.” Then how can we be sure they were offenders? All we can say with certainty is “many alleged offenders are neither arrested nor prosecuted.” In fact, since only 36 percent of sexual assaults are reported to the police (according to a National Crime Victimization Survey) and since reporting rates on campus are described as “very low,” we can’t even talk about “alleged offenders,” while so many remain unidentified.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'After serving nine months in prison for stealing, Jacqueline McDougall’s future was on the line. A parole board would decide whether she would be locked up for an additional three years.

But her fate was not the only one hanging in the balance. If denied parole, McDougall’s young son Max, who grew up behind bars with her, would be sent home if he became too old.

“Nightline” spent a year following McDougall and Max at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Bedford Hills, N.Y. They are part of the small, but growing number of inmates raising their babies behind bars.

The vast majority of the 2000 or so inmates who give birth in American prisons are separated from their babies shortly after birth. Bedford is one of the handful of women’s prisons that allow some incarcerated moms to keep their newborns with them, in some cases until the babies are 18 months old.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'German listed companies will be granted no exceptions to a 30 per cent women's quota for supervisory boards by 2016, said Manuela Schwesig, the minister responsible for drafting the legislation.

Schwesig, 39, a Social Democrat and the youngest member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's third-term cabinet, dismissed industry pleas for exemptions in fields that are a traditional preserve of men, such as metalworking or engineering.

"It's an argument often advanced that certain sectors don't have enough women available to fill the supervisory-board posts," Schwesig said last week. "I don't buy it."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'The FPB ruled that the website, ulwaluko.co.za, run by Dutch doctor, Dingeman Rijken was a "bona fide scientific publication with great educative value," the City Press newspaper said.

The FPB stipulated that the website -- which shows photographs of the penises of initiates who are suffering from deformities, wounds, infections and amputations after undergoing botched traditional circumcisions -- must place an age restriction warning that its contents are only suitable for those over the age of 13.

The Community Development Foundation of SA initially lodged the complaint, suggesting the images were pornographic and that they broke doctor and patient confidentiality.

However, Rijken said he had obtained informed consent for each photograph.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Centre Party (Senterpartiet, Sp) politician Jenny Klinge wants to ban circumcision in Norway, or bring the penalty for a boy’s circumcision-related death in line with laws governing female genital mutilation. Health minister Bent Høie criticized Klinge for comparing the two practices on Wednesday, and said while laws are being developed to regulate male circumcision it won't be outlawed.

“It can not be such that when a boy dies, then it’s not punished at all, while if a girl dies it’s punishable by up to 10 years,” said Klinge, reported Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). She wants the act of removing part of the male foreskin banned in Norway, like female circumcision is.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Yet, says Senior, women are still cranky about this because they believe men don't do their share of the household tasks. She makes no mention of the idea that women should pick up more paid hours to compensate, or to allow their husbands to work less. Nope, it's just about hubby working more so that the wife feels better.

How about instead, women say, "Gee, honey look at this! We're both working equally hard!"?

Senior notes that women's work is difficult because it requires multitasking. We have to do things that have to be done now. "Complicating matters,"she writes, "mothers assume a disproportionate number of time-sensitive domestic tasks, whether it's getting their toddlers dressed for school or their 12-year-olds off to swim practice."

Story here. Excerpt:

'A California teen who fathered a baby with his high school teacher has filed a civil lawsuit against the convicted child molester and the school district where she worked.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of the now 18-year-old student alleges that the Redlands Unified School District and Citrus Valley High School were negligent and complicit in the victim’s abuse at the hands of 29-year-old Laura Whitehurst.

‘Children in California, children in Redlands should not be a sex toy for their teacher,’ said one of the boy’s attorneys, John Manly.
...
Faced with a 29-year prison sentence, the former AP English teacher pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful sex with a minor and two counts of oral copulation with a minor in exchange for the dismissal of the other charges against her.

Whitehurst was sentenced to a year in prison in August, but was released last month after serving only six months.

Article here. Excerpt:

'British MPs have just made public an extensive report into the status of women in scientific careers, and it’s full of well-considered insights. First up: it recognises that women are really, actually, needed in STEM fields.

When discussing the role of women in science and what we can do to improve the ridiculous gender gap in senior science positions (the word used in the report is “astonishing”), people often act as if helping women into the field is somehow doing them a favour. But giving women the same opportunities as men to advance in scientific careers isn’t just good for equality; it’s necessary if we’re to meet the country’s demand for scientists and engineers, and reap the resulting economic benefits.
...
The MPs then looked at why women are so poorly represented in STEM jobs, and their conclusions were obviously made up of many different points. It’s worth reading the full report if you’re interested, but their key observation was the “leaky pipeline” effect. While girls are successfully encouraged to get into science, they’re not making it to the top levels. On average, only 17 percent of professors across STEM fields are female.

The reasons for this are multiple, but one obvious one is systematic discrimination. We’ve seen study after study on gender bias in the scientific community—from rates of publication, to funding, to job opportunities—and the report thankfully doesn’t pussyfoot around the issue. Scientists both male and female, it explains, are susceptible to gender bias just like anyone else.

Article here. Excerpt:

'More than 10 million men, or one out of every six in the 25 to 54 age bracket, are unemployed in the United States, and only about one third of them say they are actively seeking jobs. Experts believe this dire condition could also be causing declining marriage rates.

Ask yourself would this "humor" be posted on Scientific American's blog if the victims had been women with their vaginas cut out? Then why is it "funny" when the victims are men? Please post your thoughts on the blog. Excerpt:

'This is one of the ones for the IgNobels that really is only funny because, well, it’s about penises. Getting eaten by ducks sometimes. But otherwise, it’s actually quite a serious subject, and the paper itself has important implications for surgery in…delicate areas.

It turns out, during the 1970s, Thailand had an epidemic. Not an epidemic of cholera or polio or something (though it may have had those, too). No, this was an epidemic of revenge. A particular type of revenge, by women on their philandering husbands.