Last April the Dept. of Education's (DED) stirred up a hornet's nest when it released its new sexual assault policy that requires colleges to change their standard of proof from the "clear and convincing" standard to a "preponderance of evidence." Adding fuel to the fire, Sen. Patrick Leahy's recent discussion draft of the Violence Against Women Act includes the DED's directive, which would turn the controversial policy into statutory law.

To date, the American Association of University Professors, the National Association of Scholars, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and SAVE have all come out against the DED policy: http://www.saveservices.org/falsely-accused/sex-assault/complaints/

Story here. Excerpt:

'A mother is facing child abuse charges after she starved her three-year- old son to the point that he went into cardiac arrest.

Arlena Alanz, 28, is alleged to have tied the special needs toddler to his crib with a rope to stop him from climbing out.

The severely malnourished boy weighed just 26lbs when he was finally taken to a hospital in Houston, Texas on October 2

Authorities found the boy after Alaniz called emergency services to her dilapidated apartment in a west Houston complex when the child stopped breathing, said Houston Police Department spokeswoman Jodi Silva.

Doctors said that the child was in cardiac arrest and suffering from severe 'failure to thrive'.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'It is being said that young women cannot find men of equal social status and are having to ‘marry down’. And the universities minister, David Willetts predicts that women will earn more than their male partners.

According to the Daily Mail ‘experts’ predict that women will become the breadwinners and men will become the stay at home carers as women ‘power ahead’ in education and in the workplace.

Well, is anyone surprised at this since we took the decision in the UK to keep male teachers out of schools, change the system completely to favour girls and ensure that women always benefit from reverse sexism, otherwise cries of male dominated sexism ring out?
...
When boys did better at school and got the good jobs it was their fault. That was how feminism was born. But now that boys are lagging behind somehow it is once again, you guessed it, their fault. Or why say that boys are said to be ‘lagging behind’.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas is a violent attack on masculinity. The men are accused of having made the world a shit place. Solana line up all the men are obliged to: war, violence, money system, imagination, ugly buildings and more. She puts forward the thesis that men are biologically inferior to men and that it is the foundation for all problems.

We are now setting up the show as a monologue. We think the text is funny, sharp, provocative, imaginative and liberating. It is a reaction to centuries of oppression of women. There is no equivalent. She draws his conclusions so far that men no longer have any raison d'etre.

This is of course provocative. And that is exactly what is meant. We want to create discussion. Not telling the truth. The point of our conception is that the audience is forced to own reflective.

Link here. Excerpt:

'A new study finds that low-income, urban fathers in the United States take an active role in their children's health and encourage them to eat healthy foods and exercise.

But the study also found that when their kids are sick, some of these dads may not give recommended doses of medicine to their children and may feel ill-equipped to handle emergency medical care.

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers studied 31 fathers, most of them black and Hispanic, average age 31, in Chicago and Milwaukee. About 40 percent of the men earned $34,999 or less a year.

Story here. Excerpt:

'NOVEMBER 9--Two young Milwaukee women were arrested this week after an 18-year-old Arizona man--who traveled to Wisconsin by bus after meeting one of the suspects online--told cops that he was held captive in the duo’s apartment for two days and slashed and stabbed more than 300 times as part of an apparent satanic sex ritual.

A Milwaukee Police Department search warrant for the East Knapp Street apartment where the man was held details his ordeal. The warrant authorized cops to seize an assortment of items from the residence, including “knives or other cutting instruments,” blood and DNA evidence, duct tape, restraining devices, and “Books or literature relating to Satanism or the occult.”

The police investigation began Sunday night after cops responded to a report of a possible stabbing. Officers found the Arizona man “bleeding from the neck, arms and back.” He told cops that after arriving at the home of a woman he met online, he “was bound and was stabbed numerous times over a timeframe of what he described as ‘two days.’”'

Story here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON (AP) — A woman who settled a sexual harassment complaint against GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain in 1999 complained three years later at her next job about unfair treatment, saying she should be allowed to work from home after a serious car accident and accusing a manager of circulating a sexually charged email, The Associated Press has learned.

Karen Kraushaar, 55, filed the complaint while working as a spokeswoman at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Justice Department in late 2002 or early 2003, with the assistance of her lawyer, Joel Bennett, who also handled her earlier sexual harassment complaint against Cain in 1999. Three former supervisors familiar with Kraushaar's complaint, which did not include a claim of sexual harassment, described it for the AP under condition of anonymity because the matter was handled internally by the agency and was not public.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Fathers and Families member Chris Gregory, a Marine combat veteran of Desert Storm and Somalia, recently told an Oklahoma House of Representatives committee that the family law system is rife with injustices and often separates children from the fathers they love and need.

Led by Representative Mark McCullough and Representative Jason Nelson, the Oklahoma House of Representatives conducted an interim study on family law and no fault divorce earlier this month. According to the legislators’ press release here, “Oklahoma’s family law is dangerously failing the children it is supposed to protect, leading some lawmakers to consider reform of both divorce statutes and the foster-care system.”
...
Gregory, who was asked by Representative McCullough to share his experiences with the divorce system, is a good example of the way fathers are plundered financially.

From SAVE:

The Forces of Darkness are gathering in Washington DC, preparing to push through another 5-year reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Even though we met with Sen. Leahy’s staff numerous times over the last 2 years, in the end the good senator completely blew us off.

Not only does Leahy’s VAWA draft fail to include a single proposal that we presented, the draft bill adds incredibly bad stuff, like re-educating middle school children into domestic violence ideology.

Fortunately, our coalition is well-positioned to fend off this latest assault on the Constitution, the family, and on our nation’s fiscal integrity.

Today we are sending a Group Letter to Senators, asking them to not support or co-sponsor Leahy’s draft bill. I’m now writing you to join in this effort, and add your voice to the calls to reform VAWA.

Please take the attached letter, paste it on to your group’s or personal letterhead, make whatever changes you want to make, and send, email, or fax the letter to your 2 senators.

Press release here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The National Association of Scholars recently released a position paper condemning an Education Department directive that forces colleges to remove fundamental due process protections from persons accused of sexual harassment. The statement describes the Dept. of Education mandate as "ominous," bordering on the "surreal," and excluding any mention of free speech.

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) position statement follows similar letters by the American Association for University Professors, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and Stop Abusive and Violent Environments: http://www.saveservices.org/falsely-accused/sex-assault/complaints/

Article here. Seems a bit suspicious the accuser works for a competing political party. Excerpt:

'Washington (CNN) - One of the women who claims she was sexually harassed while she worked at the National Restaurant Association while Herman Cain headed the organization stepped forward publicly Tuesday.

Karen Kraushaar confirmed she was the accuser in interviews with The Washington Post and New York Times after her name was first published in several media stories. The name was initially reported by online news source The Daily and then Kraushaar confirmed it to National Public Radio.

Kraushaar is a director of communications at a bureau within the Treasury Department.

"When you are being sexually harassed in the workplace, you are extremely valuable," Kraushaar told the New York Times. "You do whatever you can to quickly get yourself into a job some place safe and that is what I thought I had achieved when I left."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'They hugged each other backstage in a full embrace like old friends.

She grabbed his arm and whispered in his left ear.

She kept talking as he bent to listen, and he kept saying “Uh, huh. Uh, huh.”

Huh?

“I don’t know if what she was giving him was a sucker punch, but he didn’t put his arm down while she was talking to him,” said the Sneed source.

The “he”... is GOP presidential contender Herman Cain, who has been accused of sexual harassment by several women.

The “she”... is Chicagoan Sharon Bialek, who held a news conference Tuesday as the only woman to PUBLICLY accuse Cain of sexual harassment.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Though her lawyer Gloria Allred painted a respectable and prestigious education and employment history for Sharon Bialek, 50, just a day later it has been revealed that she has not held a job for more than two years and has filed for bankruptcy twice.
...
Meanwhile, a friend of Ms Bialek, from Chicago, told the New York Post: 'She has a very infectious personality. It’s easy to see how she won [Cain] over. But the reality of her situation is -- she’s a complete gold digger. It’s all about the money.'

Adding that she was from a middle-income family but lives in a posh house while running from bill collectors, the source said: 'Most of her jobs ended in termination. It’s always the employer’s fault, not hers.

'This is a lady who lives off the system. She is hellbent on finding a way of never having to work and living the lifestyle she wants to live, a very affluent lifestyle.'
...

Is it just me, or do most men get upset with all the pink breast cancer products out there (that's not a bad thing at all) and the total void of any blue prostate cancer products in Sept. (that's bad). I wrote to two corporations asking why men's health is totally unimportant to them, but praising their efforts to raise money for breast cancer. Ghirardelli wrote back saying they would forward my email. Probably never hear from them. General Mills did as well, though I did call too and left my comment to a consumer help operator to be forwarded. I also wrote my son's school district as they had a whole thing with breast cancer and t-shirts and a walk, but never heard back. I wrote to the local baseball team here on Long Island, The Ducks, as they had a breast cancer awareness night and auctioned off game worn pink uniforms to benefit the cause, but had no prostate cancer night. Never got a reply. I didn't write yet, but Pepperidge Farm and Dannon are two others. Has anyone ever seen a product donating to prostate cancer or men's health?

Perhaps these companies can have a Hall of Shame, even though they do help donate for women.

Story here. Anonymous reports of flirting (*gasp*!), ambiguous hand gestures, comments about a woman's height being like his own wife's (that cad!), and even suggestions around going back to his room just weren't doing the trick. So now... it's full-on sexual harassment as legally defined, rather than as defined in WST101 textbooks or college campus conduct codes. Wonder what's next, will he be rumored to eat kittens (only female ones) for breakfast, too? Excerpt:

'Sharon Bialek of Chicago became the first woman accusing Herman Cain of sexual harassment to go public Monday, describing an alleged incident in Washington in 1997 in which the presidential contender, then the president of the National Restaurant Association stuck his hand up her skirt and tried to pull her head toward his crotch.

"I said, 'What are you doing?'" alleged Bialek, who said she had contacted Cain for help getting a job. "You know I have a boyfriend. This isn't what I came here for."

According to Bialek, Cain answered, "You want a job, right?"