Article here. Excerpt:

'Okay, in fairness, I’m the guy who wrote “The silent war on noncollege-educated white men.” But most observers of this phenomenon have concluded that we just need to “man up.” That is, until now. Dr. Helen Smith’s new book, Men on Strike is decidedly different, inasmuch as she argues that if men are checking out of society, it’s only because we are making rational decisions about changing incentives.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A massive twit-storm washed over your humble columnist yesterday, set off by our Wall Street Journal op-ed defending an Obama nominee and the rights of criminal defendants. To recap briefly: Sen. Claire McCaskill has placed a "permanent hold" on the nomination of Gen. Susan Helms to be vice commander of the Air Force Space Command. McCaskill is punishing Helms for having granted clemency to an officer under her command, Capt. Matthew Herrera, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault.

Article here. Excerpt:

'President Obama repeated a myth about equal pay and pay discrimination, as the economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth notes at RealClearMarkets:

I can't make this stuff up. Tell me, in what bizarre, complicated way would one need to come up with to pull this off? Excerpt:

'Police say a woman who lives in the home found her husband dead in the garage.

His hands and feet were tied and the body had been decapitated.

Tulsa police told KRMG news the death was due to suicide.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'One of the seemingly infinite complaints voiced by the anti-father crowd is that men spend too much time at paid work. It was one of Gideon Burrows gripes in his piece in the Huffington Post UK. According to them, fathers’ working forces women into childcare which, presumably, they’d never do were it not for those selfish dads.

Needless to say, none of these shoot-from-the-hip commenters ever suggests that it might work the other way around – that if Mom would earn a little more, Dad wouldn’t have to and he could spend more time with little Andy or Jenny. Nor do they acknowledge that female human beings, like females of every mammalian species, are hormonally bonded to their children. The idea that mothers might be staying home with the kids because one of the most powerful forces in nature encourages them to goes unmentioned. No, the anti-dad crowd is, well, anti-dad, and can be counted on to spin essentially anything to blame fathers.'

Press release here. Excerpt:

'Chief Justice of the Trial Court Robert A. Mulligan today announced the promulgation of revised Child Support Guidelines to be effective on August 1, 2013, based on a comprehensive review by the Child Support Guidelines Task Force he appointed in 2012. The Task Force that conducted the review, which is required every four years, was chaired by Probate and Family Court Chief Justice Paula M. Carey.

The Child Support Guidelines are used by Trial Court judges in setting temporary, permanent or final orders for current child support, in deciding whether to approve agreements for child support, and in deciding cases that are before the court to modify existing orders.

“The Task Force has worked diligently to develop guidelines that account for the economic realities facing families,” said Chief Justice Mulligan. “I greatly appreciate their commitment to ensuring the well-being of children across the state.”

Article here. Great piece on compassion from Stanford’s Emma Seppala, PhD, whose work on PTSD and veterans was recently covered here. Tackling the question of whether women are more innately compassionate than men, Seppala outlines some of the scientific research on the topic before concluding:

'Rather than suggesting that [bonding and nurturing] tendencies might have made women more compassionate than men, I would argue that they would simply have altered the expression of compassion. While women’s expression may have become one of nurturing and bonding, men’s compassion was expressed through protecting and ensuring survival (hunting, warfare). Compassion just took on a different “look and feel” depending on our evolutionary needs for survival.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin [link added] said it was time to stop deprecating fathers and to recognise they had an essential role in society, which single mothers simply cannot fulfil.

He said: “We’ve had enough of this image of fathers, in fact men in general, being perpetrated at all levels, as at best feckless and at worst violently abusive. There has been a relentless attack on the worth of men over the years which has been very damaging to their self-esteem.”
...
Mr de Bernières said: “I’m lucky. I have equal custody with my former partner over our two children. But many other fathers suffer real plight. If your children have been heisted by your ex-wife and you can’t see them while claims of abuse are investigated, or she is generally uncooperative and obstructive, you miss out on seeing them time after time.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A pair of U.S. Senators who co-chair the Congressional Coalition on Adoption have introduced a piece of legislation that would create a federal level "Responsible Father Registry."

Democratic Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma introduced on Thursday the Protecting Adoption and Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2013.

In a statement, Sen. Landrieu argued that the proposed national registry would be valuable to fathers across the country. "By establishing a national registry, we can better ensure that any father has the chance to be involved in the life of a child he may have fathered," said Landrieu.
...
On the website PopVox.com, posters decried the proposed measure as an example of government overreach.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Utah lawmaker wants the state to stop waiting for Congress to act on a national putative father registry and move ahead with an electronic, confidential registry that unwed fathers, adoption agencies and attorneys — and potentially other states — could use to make and search paternity filings in adoption cases.

Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake, told members of the Health and Human Services Interim Committee on Wednesday the proposal is aimed at providing "equity and justice" to unwed fathers, particularly those from other states who want to be involved in a child’s life but may not know where the mother plans to give birth and place the infant for adoption.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Supreme Court is poised to release its opinion on an affirmative-action case that could forever change the way public colleges and universities consider race in admissions. But even if, as some predict, the justices issue a broad ruling slapping down the use of race in admissions, an open secret in higher education—that many colleges lower their admissions standards for male applicants—remains unchallenged and largely unremarked upon.

This video is from 1/13. There is no text and I can't find any news articles about the incident.

Story here. Excerpt:

'LUBEC, Maine — Washington County Sheriff Donnie Smith was the victim of an alleged domestic violence assault Thursday evening that resulted in the arrest of his wife, according to Maine State Police.

Around 5:30 p.m., Lynne Kelsey-Smith called state police from the couple’s Lubec home, alleging that the sheriff had threatened her, according to Lt. Roderick Charette.

“She requested a police response to the residence,” he said. “She alleged that she had been threatened [by Smith], but when we got there and actually did the investigation, we arrested her for assaulting him.”
...
Kelsey-Smith was released on $1,000 unsecured bail early Friday morning. She is scheduled to appear in Machias District Court on July 1. Domestic violence assault is a Class D crime punishable by up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Brevard County woman is accused of having sex with an 11-year-old boy she was baby sitting.

Megan Nicole Hayes, 21, of Rockledge was arrested on felony sexual battery charges on Thursday, according to court records.

Hayes admitted to police that she had sex with the child she was watching, the Cocoa Police Department said.

Her father told local television stations that his daughter has a low IQ and does not know right from wrong.

Her family declined to comment to the Sentinel.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'This year's end-of-year paper purge in my middle school office revealed a startling pattern in my teaching practices: I discipline boys far more often than I discipline girls. Flipping through the pink and yellow slips--my school's system for communicating errant behavior to students, advisors, and parents--I found that I gave out nearly twice as many of these warnings to boys than I did to girls, and of the slips I handed out to boys, all but one was for disruptive classroom behavior.

The most frustrating moments I have had this year stemmed from these battles over--and for--my male students' attention. This spring, as the grass greened up on the soccer fields and the New Hampshire air finally rose above freezing, the boys and I engaged in a pitched battle of wills over their intellectual and emotional engagement in my Latin and English classes, a battle we both lost in the end.