Story here. Excerpt:

'Thursday evening, December 12, 2013, Chad Borgen hoisted the first Healthy Man Beard Competition Trophy, donated by U.P. Laser Engraving, as the Copper Country Grand Champion.

The event was hosted to help bring awareness to the staggering extent and impact of violence against women, and to focus community attention on the transformative roles that men play in stopping this violence. According to the World Health Organization, one in three women (35.6 percent) experience sexual or physical violence worldwide, much of which occurs from their intimate partner. It is important to remember that most men are not violent; however, if this global epidemic is to ever be reduced or eliminated, it will require men to model and demonstrate healthy masculinity by stepping up, actively engaging issues of violence, and deeming it unacceptable in our society. It is not enough just to be a healthy man; earning this distinction requires courage and strength of character to stand up for others.'

It is the current vogue to claim Santa's reindeer are really all female since male reindeer drop the antlers in December. This is an urban hoax. Henceforth, I concede nothing to feminism. Excerpt:

'Analysis: Well, look. If we're really going to let science be our guide in this matter, the first thing we have to admit is that reindeer don't fly, let alone haul a jolly fat elf around in an airborne sleigh. And if we start down that slippery slope, there's only one conclusion we can possibly reach: Santa Claus doesn't exist. That way lies madness.

But there's a loophole.
...
The experts go on to explain that some younger bulls, depending upon hereditary and environmental factors, may keep their antlers well into spring — even as late as April.

So it is plausible to suppose that if, for the sake of argument, there were a Santa Claus, and if, for the sake of argument, he did circumnavigate the globe in a reindeer-powered sleigh every December 25th, then at least some of those reindeer — including one in particular with a shiny, red nose — could be males.

Article here. Excerpt:

'There was a lot of press last week about the 6-year-old first-grade boy who was suspended for a day from school for kissing a girl on the cheek and later on the hand after he had been told to stop kissing her. The media coverage takes the view that the administrative discipline in this case was too severe for the conduct, that boys are just being boys, and that talking about sexual harassment at that age is inappropriate and/or harmful to the children. Most of us probably would agree that both the words used and actions taken by schools in these situations need to be age-appropriate. At the same time, the idea that the underlying dynamics should be ignored, or seen as cute or natural, do all of us a great disservice.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A high-ranking Indian diplomat and women’s rights activist is being accused of visa fraud and paying her children’s nanny only $3.31 an hour for five months.

Devyani Khobragade, a 39-year-old mother of two, is the Deputy Consul General at the Indian Consulate in Manhattan. She’s in charge of Political, Economic, Commercial and Women’s Affairs, according to NDTV.

Just thought you might be interested in this speech excerpt (video) of Richard Dawkins.

Wikipedia on Dawkins here.

Just reporting... a few weeks ago, someone posted a link to a website called womenshealth.gov. I noticed there was no menshealth.gov. I got *FEROCIOIUS AND FOCUSED*.

I e-mailed all my representatives, "harassed" the Facebook page 'Democrats Abroad', e-mailed news agencies and even the White House, and e-mailed the NIH, the CDC, and other sites.

I would like to report that the web site womenshealth.gov has been non-responsive for four days now. No idea why. There is still no menshealth.gov. But I am forced to wonder what happened.

I am grateful to have met men like those I have found here. I just wanted to report this news to encourage all of you to fight the good fight. Our time is here.

Masculinity will not be feminized.

Someone posted about how men should not compete so much with each other. However, I think men do know how to have fun and not compete. But the media only presents men one way.

I'd like to share a video of how some men learn compete AND have fun at the same time. (Why is it that I fully expect men to come up with stuff like this?) It is just a minute and thirty seconds, but reveals just one facet of good competition between men.

Link here. Excerpt:

'Violence committed against women by men is vastly under-reported in many countries, a large new study finds.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 93,600 women in 24 countries who survived sexual or physical violence, often called gender-based violence. Only 7 percent of the survivors reported the incidents to legal, medical or social support services, and only 37 percent informed family, friends or neighbors.

In 20 of the 24 countries, the majority of women told no one at all, according to the study published online Dec. 12 in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that reports of gender-based violence to officials may underestimate the number of actual cases by 11 to 128 times.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'VERNON — A University of Connecticut student accused of falsely claiming she was raped had her charges dismissed Wednesday in Superior Court in Rockville.

Isabella Himmel of Chicago was arrested in September 2012 and charged with second-degree falsely reporting an incident, second-degree making a false statement and second-degree breach of peace.

She was accepted into a diversionary program a year ago; the program required her to write a letter of apology to UConn's police chief, make a $500 charitable donation and do community service. If she completed the program successfully, she was told, the charges would be dropped.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The two former Vassar College students who were expelled for creating hoax bias incidents and then filing false reports about them were also actively involved with the college’s Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention committee, which currently faces a lawsuit for prosecuting a wrongful rape conviction.

The Daily Caller first reported that Genesis Hernandez, a transgendered student and vice president of the student government, had been named as one of two perpetrators in a string of hoax bias incidents on campus. The perpetrators wrote hateful messages on students’ doors — including “Hey Tranny. Know Your Place” — and then filed false reports to the Bias Incident Response Team, of which Hernandez was the only student member. (RELATED: Shocking discovery in hoax bias incident at Vassar College)

Watchdog Wire recently reported that Henandez’s partner in crime was her girlfriend, Imani Wong. Both were expelled, and could not be reached for comment because their university email addresses are no longer active.
...
Despite Yu’s request to have a student sit on the adjudicating panel, his guilt was determined solely by three members of the faculty — a significant fact, given that Walker’s father is a professor at the college.

As an adjudicative body at a private university, the IVP is not required to follow typical criminal court proceedings. It denied Yu the use of an attorney, prevented him from cross-examining Walker and utilized a “preponderance of evidence” standard rather than a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard.

Story here.

'Turkish club Fenerbahce this week took the unusual step of banning all adult MALES from their Sukru Saracoglu stadium.

The Super Liga leaders refused to allow men in for one match after they came under fire for swearing in what is one of Europe's most hostile arenas.

However, the absence of testosterone from the stands didn't affect the home side.

Roared on by women and children, they ran out comfortable 4-0 winners against Akhisar Belediye on Friday.

And curiously, this isn't the first time they have gone down such a route. Back in 2011, Fener hosted Manisaspor and handed free tickets to women and children after the Turkish FA banned men following a pre-season match against Shakhtar Donetsk.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Across the U.S., female students have filed federal complaints that claim campus sexual-assault investigators lack training, fail to adequately probe incidents and treat the attackers with too much leniency.

Now, college men accused of sexual assault are protesting the same system. Taking a page from the women’s complaints, men are citing violations under Title IX, the anti-gender discrimination law that women have used to demand equality in sports programming and education for 40 years.

Article here. Excerpt:

'If men are obsolete, then women will soon be extinct—unless we rush down that ominous Brave New World path where females will clone themselves by parthenogenesis, as famously do Komodo dragons, hammerhead sharks, and pit vipers.

A peevish, grudging rancor against men has been one of the most unpalatable and unjust features of second- and third-wave feminism. Men’s faults, failings and foibles have been seized on and magnified into gruesome bills of indictment. Ideologue professors at our leading universities indoctrinate impressionable undergraduates with carelessly fact-free theories alleging that gender is an arbitrary, oppressive fiction with no basis in biology.

Is it any wonder that so many high-achieving young women, despite all the happy talk about their academic success, find themselves in the early stages of their careers in chronic uncertainty or anxiety about their prospects for an emotionally fulfilled private life? When an educated culture routinely denigrates masculinity and manhood, then women will be perpetually stuck with boys, who have no incentive to mature or to honor their commitments. And without strong men as models to either embrace or (for dissident lesbians) to resist, women will never attain a centered and profound sense of themselves as women.
...

News.com.au is reporting this story from Italy. Excerpt:

'AN ITALIAN student is facing sexual assault charges for kissing a riot police officer in the middle of a protest.

Nina de Chiffre, 20, was demonstrating against the construction of a rail link in northern Italy when she came face to face with riot police. She decided to get a bit intimate with one of the officers, kissing and licking his helmet visor.
...
Then the Italian police union filed a complaint with a court in Turin, accusing Ms de Chiffre of sexual assault, La Repubblica reports.

"We have accused the protester of sexual violence and insulting a public official," said the union's general secretary, Franco Maccari.

"If the policeman had kissed her, World War III would have broken out," he said. "Or what if I had patted her on the behind? She would have been outraged. So if she does that to a man on duty, should it be tolerated?

Article here. By no means do I suggest the regime leaders of N. Korea have merely been puppets of controlling mothers, wives, aunts, etc., any more than I'd suggest the Nazi leaders were being controlled by the infamous "women of the Third Reich". I am however pointing out that regimes of any kind, be they murderous dictatorships or relatively benign republics, require the active participation of everyone at or near the top-- regardless of sex. The impression that evil gov'ts are purely a consequence of the machinations of evil men isn't true. Evil women are also necessary. Excerpt:

'In the scant collection of carefully-staged photos that emerge from North Korea, Jang Song-thaek was everywhere.

At the funeral of Kim Jong-il, marching directly behind Kim Jong-un, the newly anointed Dear Leader; on an escalator, visiting a shopping centre to glorify the triumph of the regime; dressed in the uniform of a full general whispering words of wisdom into the ear of the world’s youngest head of state.