Article here. Excerpt:

'On a small piece of woodland next to the Technido daycare centre in Karlsruhe, a group of boys noisily build a bush camp out of logs. Amid whoops of glee, they start running around, wildly shooting at each other with sticks.

“Karl, Lennie, the rules are keep the sticks down at belly height,” says teacher Todd Phillips calmly as he walks up to the boys. “No sticks near anyone’s eyes.”

“It's important to have a man here when the warring camps construct their battleground,” Phillips said afterwards, tongue in cheek.

The 47-year-old has been working at the daycare centre looking after children aged between four and six for more than four years.

Phillips, who hails from Florida but has been living in Germany for 15 years, had been working as a graphic designer at an advertising agency. As he became increasingly dissatisfied with his job, he started looking for alternatives and decided that he wanted to work with children.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Why are boys — even those who cultivate college dreams — so prone to underachievement? Explanations abound, but boy advocates say we’ve created a classroom culture that ignores critical boy-girl learning differences and mainly rewards the things girls do well. Bored and disengaged, boys tune out or act out. Too many drop out.

By the time the SAT rolls around, these boys have vacated the school building. They aren’t sharpening No. 2 pencils; they’re mulling the unemployment line.

Feminist groups surely will seize on the latest reading and math scores as proof that girl power is enfeebled, even after years of concerted efforts to work toward gender parity in education.

But this argument doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Of course, we must continue our efforts to help girls achieve. The mother of a son and a daughter, I want a level academic playing field for both boys and girls.

But I’d say right now, the girls are all right. Boys, however, need our targeted attention if they ever are to realize their full potential.

Article here. Excerpt:

'On Barack Obama: “I think that he has an incredible devotion to our Constitution.”

On culture:

I believe that the social construction of gender - the cultural beliefs and practices that divide the sexes and institutionalize and normalize the unequal treatment of girls and women, privilege the interests of boys and men, and, most nefariously, incessantly sexualize girls and women - is the root cause of poverty and suffering around the world.

And she’s a fanatical supporter of abortion. Remember when she viciously mocked Rick Santorum?'

In case you need it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Judd

Link here. Excerpt:

'A new PSA from Women's Health lets women Veterans know they've come to the right place when they choose VA health care.

Watch the video and learn more about VA's ongoing culture change campaign. Read a recent article that expands on the message. See more headlines about women Veterans and Women Veterans Health Care.

Did you know that women are the fastest growing group within the Veteran population? Learn more about the changing face of women Veterans and what VA is doing to meet their health care needs.

This web site provides information on health care services available to women Veterans, including comprehensive primary care as well as specialty care such as reproductive services, rehabilitation, mental health, and treatment for military sexual trauma.

You can also find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about women Veterans health care.

A NYT OP-Ed piece, so of course if you try to get to it by clicking this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/opinion/brooks-the-heart-grows-smarter.html, you'll be asked to sign in. The way around this is to copy the actual link text:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/opinion/brooks-the-heart-grows-smarter.html

and paste it into the Google search box at Google.com. Then the page link will come up as the first hit and click on that link. Now, you can see the page. Excerpt:

'If you go back and read a bunch of biographies of people born 100 to 150 years ago, you notice a few things that were more common then than now.
...
It wasn’t only parents who were emotionally diffident; it was the people who studied them. In 1938, a group of researchers began an intensive study of 268 students at Harvard University. The plan was to track them through their entire lives, measuring, testing and interviewing them every few years to see how lives develop.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the researchers didn’t pay much attention to the men’s relationships. Instead, following the intellectual fashions of the day, they paid a lot of attention to the men’s physiognomy. Did they have a “masculine” body type? Did they show signs of vigorous genetic endowments?

Article here. Excerpt:

'Family breakdown is as devastating for today’s children as it was when divorce was a source of social disgrace, a state-backed report warned yesterday.

Even though divorce is no longer considered ‘shameful’ – as it was until the 1970s – the children of broken families continue to suffer destructive effects throughout their lives, the report said.

The paper, produced by a team of senior academics, found that the damage caused to a child by divorce continues to blight his or her life as far as old age.

It said parental separation in childhood was ‘consistently associated with psychological distress in adulthood during people’s early 30s’.

The report added: ‘This seems to be true even across different generations, which suggests that as divorce and separation have become more common, their impact on mental health has not reduced.’'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Ohio judges confront a growing problem. Increasingly, parents involved in family law disputes are coming to the court without representation. They either cannot afford or choose not to employ attorneys to represent them. Because they are unfamiliar with the rules and procedures of courts, these parents’ attempts to represent themselves often create additional burdens for, and delays in, the courts.

To address this problem, the 2006 Ohio Supreme Court Task Force on Pro Se (self-represented) and Indigent Litigants recommended that the Court develop easily completed forms for a variety of legal issues, including many in family law. The Supreme Court has now drafted a set of proposed forms and has published them for public review and comment.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The ad shows a "typical" British mom masterminding a family Christmas dinner, exhausting herself in the effort. It's cheesy, heartwarming stuff. The tagline: "Behind every great Christmas there's mum and behind mum there's Asda."

Fathers4Justice, however, objects to the portrayal of the dad in the commercial. His character is portrayed as ineffective and clueless -- a typical "dumb dad" stereotype that has become increasingly common in advertising.

The context here is that when it comes to groceries, women tend to make most of the purchasing decisions; thus grocery ads tend to see things from their point of view. And Fathers4Justice is a media-stunt loving group that believes the law discriminates against men who have split up with the mothers of the their children.'

---
Ed. note: Asda is owned by Walmart.

Article here. Excerpt:

'While single-parent homes are more common than ever, less than 18 percent of custodial parents are fathers. Jack Frost, President of Father and Families in New York, discussed some of the frustrations of being an active, involved father without full custody on a segment for HuffPost Live.

One of his greatest concerns was not having access to his child's medical records in the early stages of his divorce. His wife made medical decisions concerning his son, including filing a do-not-resuscitate order without his consent.

But when Frost found that he legally had a say in his child's DNR order, he was still met with opposition.

"I told the doctor, I said I wanted the DNR gone. You didn't include me when you filed this. You were supposed to include me and you didn't," Frost said. "She just ignored me."'

Article here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'The PM's political strategy is clear. An eight-page spread in Marie Claire taps Gillard into a younger demographic -- the 445,000 monthly readers of the magazine are mostly women aged 25 to 39. In fact, much younger women are also being encouraged to join the Gillard gender wars. Well-meaning schoolteachers have started showing Gillard's tirade to their female high school students as evidence that misogyny still happens. Disappointingly, when the YouTube video was played at one school, there was no classroom discussion of the underlying hypocrisy of Gillard's continuing support for Peter Slipper, whose distasteful texts about female genitalia should have required his removal from the Speaker's chair by any fair-minded and consistent feminist. Nor was there any real analysis of the man Gillard accused of being a misogynist.'

Article here. WARNING: Both graphic and disgusting! Read no further if you don't have a barf-bucket handy. I wonder what excuse will be made for this "caregiver" based on her "her-ness". Excerpt:

'A female caregiver was arrested today and charged with sexually assaulting a 106-year-old woman in her care, according to cops.

Taquita Lashay Watson, 29, had been providing in-home care to the bedridden victim, according to the Pensacola Police Department. Investigators determined that Watson last month had "used a sexual instrument" on the elderly woman.
...
[Ed.: I am deliberately breaking the 'Read more' section here since the more disgusting stuff follows. This is so the reader can decide for him- or herself if they really want to go on reading.]

Description here. Excerpt:

'2012 International Men's Day: Helping Men and Boys Live Longer, Happier, Healthier Lives

In the run up to International Men’s Day 2012 (Monday 19th November) we’re asking supporters of the day to focus on five key challenges that will help us improve the health and wellbeing of men and boys all over the world.

Some of the universal health issues that men and boys in all countries around the globe face include lower life expectancy, difficulty accessing mental health services, educational disadvantages, lack of male role models and tolerance of violence against men and boys.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'There's a lot of love and chaos in the David Nicolato household.

"I'm doing it backwards," Nicolato said. "They're upside down. I've got 15 things to do and I have to get out of the house on time."

Nicolato is a stay-at-home dad.

"It's the hardest job in the whole wide world," he said. "But, at the same time, there's nothing else I would rather be doing."

Nicolato's children, 4-year-old Jacob and 2-year-old Ian, are a hand-full.

When mom is at work and on business trips, they know it's dad who runs the show.'

Press release here. Admittedly, this is a press release from a commercial entity. (Everyone's always trying to see you something. *sigh*) Anyway, if you can ignore that much for now, the meat of the text is worth reading. Excerpt:

'Identigene, maker of the only DNA paternity test available in drugstores and supercenters, is working to increase awareness of paternity fraud in America. Paternity fraud occurs when a woman allows a man to assume he is the biological father, even though he is not. It’s an issue with potentially serious consequences for everyone involved, from financial obligations to custody arrangements to emotional attachments.