Obama's betrayal of the working-class male

Carey Roberts article is great. Among the best points:

• A "man-cession in the lipstick economy." - many more men are being affected by this recession (construction and manufacturing, traditional male dominated industry's) than for women - health care and education (government services)
• Male unemployment is 10.5% and for Women 8.0% - is the largest gap since 1948.
• Stimulus programs not going to "shovel-ready" projects. A significant amount is going to feminist sanctioned projects. In Mississippi only 13% of Federal Stimulus funds are going to road construction.
• Irony is men propelled Obama to victory in 10 of 17 close states and more (49%) supported Obama/Biden than McCain/Palin (48%)

As Phyllis SHADFLY suggests "this discrimination will make men, husbands and fathers irrelevant as family providers."

[download article from scribd]

Undoing a smear

A quiet legal victory occurred here in June 2009. Dr. Ferrel CHRISTENSEN accepted a settlement in a defamation lawsuit against the National Post and Canwest Global Communications for untrue allegations made against him in an article entitled “Scandal taints fathers' rights group” published April 17, 2001. Dr. CHRISTENSEN received a full written retraction, the right to publicise all documents that had been revealed during the course of the case, as well as an amount of money which far exceeded his legal expenses of $100,000 (he is unable to reveal the exact financial terms/details of this settlement). Although not identified ECMAS is also exonerated by the facts exposed in these documents. All case files are available at: www.fightforhonestjournalism.ca.

Defamation suits prove Mark TWAIN's maxim that “a lie can go around the world while truth is still lacing up her boots” - and such sensationalism was present in this smaller drama. The outrageously tawdry associations made in the National Post article attempted to paint the leadership of ECMAS as unacceptably tolerant (indeed, almost welcoming) of sexual predators and pedophiles. Despite being absolutely UNTRUE, it played into longstanding smears of men's rights and equal-parenting groups.

Much of the smear was based on mis-characterizations of an obscure book Dr. CHRISTENSEN published in 1999 entitled “Pornography: The Other Side”. By reasonable standards, it is a fairly dry, tame, academic exploration of the history of social mores and attitudes towards sexuality. I would attest that I could not find anything that endorses pedophilia and that it fulfills none of the flimsy allegations made by Donna LAFRAMBOISE in her National Post article. It became clear through her testimony that despite claiming to have read this book, she had in fact depended heavily upon mis-characterizations from the main protagonist and had only actually read selected passages.

Another “fact” in the offending article presented an active volunteer, Paul ADAMS, in a very poor light based on his disbarment for his previous sexual misconduct involving a young client (he was saved by a pre-arranged police sting operation before any act occurred). Undoubtedly, Mr. ADAMS paid in full for the consequences of his stunningly poor judgment (which occurred after his own divorce) by being disbarred and detained. He accepted this punishment. After that, the significant time and expertise Mr. ADAMS generously volunteered in ECMAS meetings free of charge was not recognized as valued community rehabilitation but unfairly portrayed as devious exploitation. After this LAFRAMBOISE article he dropped out of regular participation in ECMAS activities.

It was shocking to learn of the methods employed by the supposed journalist. She displayed a complete disregard for engaging in a fair, accurate or balanced reporting of events, and indeed was an active participant in concocting the smear through unconscionable pressure tactics, misrepresentations, untrue characterizations, lack of fact-checking or objective evaluation. Furthermore, The National Post failed to exert any oversight whatsoever over the reporter's actions, even after being repeatedly notified of severe problems with the reporter's story and process. The lack of dialogue with any editor gave way to threats of legal actions which were also blithely ignored. It should come as no surprise that even today, The National Post has not a clearly defined Ethics Policy1 for reporters to follow.

This victory stands as a complete exoneration of Ferrel CHRISTENSEN and by implication ECMAS. Before Ferrel retired from his position as Professor at the University of Alberta Philosophy Department, he held a special expertise in the Philosophy of Science. He has been for 25+ years a major force and proponent of true gender equality and Men's Rights by helping to found and support groups in Edmonton and throughout Alberta like MERGE (Movement for the Establishment of Real Gender Equality2) and ECMAS (Equitable Child Maintenance & Access Society3).

The legal battle has been a long, hard fought fight – one that many others may have given up on when pressed so hard financially and by such a formidable bully as The National Post/Canwest. Most telling however has been Canwest's own failure to publicize its own retraction and draw some attention to their own journalist's weaknesses and obvious operational shortcomings. It remains to be seen if The National Post/Canwest can take the first step in adopting appropriate ethics practices consistent with it's major role in the Canadian media spectrum4.

Footnotes

1)This story investigated the ethical implications of investigative journalists misrepresenting themselves in order to conduct undercover investigative news pieces. In the process they polled major newspapers across Canada only to find that none had a publicly available, written ethics policy to help guide journalists in these activities. See “Lying to get the truth” by Shannon FAY. University of King’s College NS - Department of Journalism, Review, Vol. XIII, Issue 5, April 2009. www.kjr.ca

2)MERGE hyperlink – http://www.ualberta.ca/~fchriste/

3)ECMAS hyperlink – http://www.ecmas.org/

4) A case study in Journalistic Ethics at the Calgary HERALD 1999 by Bob BERGEN - www.chumirethicsfoundation.ca/files/pdf/section4.pdf

[download pdf of article]

Chris a divorced father involved in Family Law issues. He helped start a local network for PAAO in Alberta and has been an active member of ECMAS (Equitable Child Maintenance & Access Society) since 2005. In June 2009 he joined the ECMAS Board of Directors.

All opinions expressed in this article are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or organizations he is involved with.

Book Review - Shakedown

Book Review: Shakedown - How our Government is undermining Democracy in the name of Human Rights. by Ezra LEVANT. 216pp McClelland & Stewart 2009 ISBN 978-0-7710-4618-6 Chapters/Indigo Online C$19.13

by Christopher JONES
Reviewed July 20, 2009

Ezra LEVANT appears an unlikely “Agent Provocateur” as one could ever find, yet on January 11, 2008 the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) gave him an unlikely Ukrainian Xmas gift. That was the day he was summoned to defend himself against charges of “discrimination” for publishing the news. That news was cartoons from a Danish broadsheet published in September 2005 that were deemed offensive to Islamic Fundamentalists. No other country in the world took any legal action against any media like this. No where else in the world was a “crime” perceived to have been committed. Yes, sensibilities were offended in Britain, France and the United States but “Freedom of Expression” is still a tradition in Western democracy's. Of course riots did break out against Danish “infidels” in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,

Within days, LEVANT's “defense” against his “interrogation” by a bland, boring bureaucrat named Shirlene MCGOVERN became a viral sensation on YouTube and within weeks reached 600,000 hits. The painfully obvious point apparently lost on Shirlene was that her questions clearly indicated that Canadians are not free to express their opinions. If we were, Ezra would not have been sitting there responding to her. As Mark STEYN noted in the foreward to Shakedown:

“Canadians do not enjoy the [unreserved] right to free speech. They enjoy instead the right to government-regulated, government-licensed, government-monitored, government-approved speech – which is not the same thing at all.” [Foreward, p. x]

The thrust behind Ezra's vociferous counter-attack on MCGOVERN was that his right to have an opinion - no matter how controversial - is a sacrosanct citizen's right in free democracy's like Canada. But, more obviously as a journalist of a media outlet – it was his lifeblood. Contentious and even offensive opinions MUST be defended against unwarranted incursions like hers. Any idea worth debating will be controversial – abortion, America, climate change or Islam. We shouldn't be coddled by a government “protecting” us from vigorous debate of such ideas. Again to quote STEYN “Anyone can be in favour of Barney the Dinosaur singing “Caring is sharing”. Ultimately, if you do not defend freedom of offensive speech, then you can not believe in freedom of any speech. Exercising our right to free speech is an essential responsibility of every citizen in a democracy and we can not let our responsibility be outsourced to a government agency.

Some see this book as defending Hate Speech. LEVANT disagrees and in fact argues the opposite. To some extent being a Jew gives him some moral authority on this matter. He supports Freedom of Speech and believes that the real enemy are those inept, immoral and unethical Commissions who are attempting to hijack our rights. In Shakedown, LEVANT exposes the Human Rights “Industry” as a rogue bureaucracy spearheading attacks on our freedoms of expression.

• What was the original idea behind “Human Rights” Commissions?

• How/Why and Where have they changed?

• What are the risks to our legal system and social fabric?

• What has been the consequences of these unbridled bureaucracy's and are they still needed?

These are some of the questions LEVANT weaves together in an entertaining narrative of his journey in uncovering the inner workings of the various “HRCs” - but he had a lot of help. Some of the “Alice in Wonderland” encounters he describes are surreal – like when CHRC investigator Richard WARMAN admitted he hacked into an unsuspecting women's internet access so he could hide his hateful postings on a Nazi discussion board in order to entrap others. Or the decision against a McDonalds Restaurant in BC that upheld a employee's “right not to wash her hands” while preparing food! Yuck. Or a bar in Ontario that was prohibited from stopping a cancer patient smoking his medical marijuana on the premise, despite the threat of losing its liquor licence. Honestly, you couldn't make some of this stuff up!

For those of us seeking to reform Family Law, it may be more relevant to ask “How does this effect us?

Because Shakedown explains how a good idea went bad. How the HRC have become overrun with ideologues and social activists. He unmasks the shocking lack of ethical guidelines, amateur personnel, no due process and failed constitutional safeguards that characterize HRC's across the country. He describes how these HRC have evolved into a special cottage “industry” that has been built up and how these bureaucracy's have become part of the problem because they “manufacture” discontent in order to justify their own continued existence churning out phoney HR files, cases and rulings. How they are infecting traditions in law enforcement and encroaching upon existing court jurisdictions. How they are bringing their tremendous power to bear on poor, inexperienced and often well meaning citizens for issues far removed from the original HRC mandate. LEVANT believes by revealing these outrageous abuses, ordinary Canadians will demand reform.

I have only one serious objection with Shakedown and that is its lack of any proper index (names, keywords or topics), bibliography or footnotes to support the numerous assertions made throughout the book. This is a shame because such academic habits keep political hyperbole properly anchored to the earth. Lack of these research aid's weakens the intellectual weight of the book and is all the more perplexing as LEVANT is never shy of providing many hyperlink references on his blog. Laziness is a poor excuse.

Summary

I highly recommend Shakedown to anyone involved in Divorce or Family Law as an object lesson on how our law enforcement and court system can be subverted against us – the hard working citizens of Canada. Beware. If we don't protect our rights - anything could happen. This is the template.

p.s Ezra LEVANT's Blog can be found at: http://ezralevant.com

Be careful the next time a telemarker calls

This article from St. Louis is a sign of the times.

Phone rage leads to arrest here for Ohio man

Charles Papenfus, arrested for making threats to a telemarketer selling extended auto warrenties.

By Matthew Hathaway ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

07/21/2009

An Ohio man, fed up with deceptive junk mail, made the mistake of losing his temper while on the phone with a St. Louis company pitching an extended auto-service contract. Now he finds himself behind bars, where he is charged with making a terrorist threat.

Christopher Thetford, a spokesman for the BBB in St. Louis, said he isn't surprised to hear of a consumer threatening a service-contract broker.

"While it's not something we condone, it is something we can understand," Thetford said. "Oftentimes, consumers feel pushed and pushed. ... It's a frustration we hear from consumers every day when they talk about the extended-service contract industry."

Among the Comments were these gems:

Deze1 July 20, 2009 10:37PM CST
And stupid Americans will continue to believe that the Patriot act was put into place for our protection against Islamic extremists.

icantthinkofone July 20, 2009 10:58PM CST
Sounds like they arrested the wrong side in all this. The real terrorist was the original caller.

via Drudge Report

Equal Parenting (EP) Amendment for Divorce Act

As many of you know, MP Maurice VELLACOTT introduced his PMB C422 Equal Parenting Amendment in Parliament just before the summer recess on June 16. Here are some of the reasons CEPC* gave to support EP. Here is a copy of the Hansard and a backgrounder.

Australia introduced a new Family Law Act in 2006 that included the presumption of Equal Parenting. Here is an interview with Chief Justice Diana BRYANT of the Australian Family Court on how their experience is going.

Many men's groups have been pressing for EP in the hopes that it will create a better climate between couples who split up. Currently mothers achieve sole/joint custody with primary residence in something like 90% of contested divorces.

Dr. Edward Kruk of FIRA (Father Research Involvement Institute) based in Guelph ON also released a report that reviewed recent academic Literature which notes the vitally important role of fathers in their childrens lives, and advocates for correcting imbalances that have seen their role minimized or excluded.

*Canadian Equal Parenting Council
Fathers have be marginalized from their children's lives by our Family Law (FLAW) process. We think the evidence has been growing for decades but no one has had the political will to make change happen.

Here are some international statistics that indicate the harm to children when their fathers are not included in their lives. They show a litany of social mis-behaviours that threatens our very social fabric.

• Massachusetts Fathers & Families
• Charting Parenthood (USA)
  
• ACFC Shared Parenting Facts and Fictions
• Rainbow International (US & UK)
• The Fatherless Family (2002 UK CIVITAS)
  

How much evidence do we need to take action in reforming Family Law.


[Addendum: July 29 - I encourage everyone to write letters of Support for C422 to your MP's, Senators and MLA's. (Admittedly, the MLA's will claim it is not their responsibility, but I suggest you ask them to consider similar changes to the various provincial Family Law Acts that affect common-law relationships.) To help kickstart this effort, here is a draft letter (in RTF format - just add your MP/Senator/MLA's name + your contact information) and link to Parliaments MP's/Senators contact info - they also are in the sidebar along with links to all Provincial/Territorial Government MLA's/members.

Things to remember for effective communication with your MP/MLA:

1) Include your address + tel# so they can keep track of your comment/complaint.
2) Keep letter short and to the point - 1 page and no more than 3 points.
3) Tell them a solution/response/action you want taken.

Remember that a any Canadian can send a letter to his/her MP without postage simply by addressing to any MP/Senator at: House of Commons/The Senate, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6. I have found such a method will always get a reply/response (although it can take a long time). If you send to a constituency office, you will have to apply a stamp.]

The Myspace Suicide

This case has now passed into the history books with it's final drawn-out, dismissal but I wish to highlight a few things that escaped my notice before.

1) Lori DREW, the mother who was charged as the agent of the cyber bullying to "mess with" the unfortunate young, troubled girl, Megan MEIER who subsequently committed suicide, was a single mom.

2) None of the original, sensational criminal charges stuck if only because "cyber-bullying" can not meet the test of a felony crime. It was the only federal statute that could be applied, but fell apart because it would have basically criminalized a "breach of contract" - which makes no sense. There is now a "cyber-bullying" law in Missouri where the offenses occurred. The State of Missouri prosecutors declined to press charges, by the Federal Government decided to on a long shot and lost.

3) An 18 yr old family friend/employee Ashley GRILLS who gained immunity for her testimony against Ms. DREW, admitted that it was her idea to start the hoax and in fact she created the online persona "Josh" used to torment Megan.

4) On Nov 26, 2008 the federal jury could not reach a verdict on the main charge against 49-year-old Lori Drew — conspiracy — and rejected three other felony counts of accessing computers without authorization to inflict emotional harm. Judgement had been reserved for May 18, 2009, it was postponed a number of time but finally was rendered last week July 2, 2009.

All charges against Ms. Lori DEW were dismissed.

Archive - 2009jul02-judge-acquits-lori-drew-in-cyberbulling-case-pdf

Feminists + Male Feminists in Canada

In researching the recent report from RADAR, Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting entitled "50 Domestic Violence Myths" I came across some of the Canadian actors in the tragedy.

Dr. Andrea O’Reilly is a professor of Women's Studies at York and has been the founder and Executive Director of The Association for Research on Mothering Centre (ARM) at York University, Toronto ON. The Association’s mandate is to promote feminist maternal scholarship by building and sustaining a community of researchers interested in the topic of mothering-motherhood. She and her common-law spouse are the parents of three children, a son, 24 and two daughters, 22 and 19. Her most recent book was Rocking the Cradle: Thoughts on Motherhood, Feminism and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering (Demeter Press, 2006).

I made comment rather humorously about O'Reilly's ARM sponsored a conference on "Feminist Aspects of Mothering" in Oct 2008 in Toronto at the same time as a Fatherhood Conference sponsored by FIRA, the Fatherhood Involvement Research Alliance.

I find it interesting to note that ARM keeps track of comments made by other academics who criticize their work. Here are some comments from their April 2008 Newsletter.

IMPORTANT ALERT FOR FEMINISTS IN THE ACADEMY.

The work of psychologist Don Dutton (and a considerable number of others who think like him) provides a clear and present example of the rising threat to feminist feminist (and less visibly but no less so anticolonial) antiviolence work both in Canada and the US. Dutton uses piles of so called evidence to support his argument that feminist antiviolence practice is unethical and that it may even be a form of malpractice. Yes, he says this in those very words! Dutton argues that ~feminist accounts of violence against women don't deserve to be called social theory since feminism is an ideology that doesn't account for much that we might ask about violence, and overgeneralizes based on what is he claims are only a minority of cases of violence against women. Dutton's appeals to those in psychology to overturn feminist "ideology" with a revival of psychology and science are apparently starting to work on some of those who have been feminist allies in the past. This is alarming.

This all spells bigger trouble. Dutton got a lot of airtime with his 2007 book Rethinking Domestic Violence, but he's been producing work of this kind for years. The timing on this should be a concern because in Canada we have a government that may actually be willing to be convinced by this stuff. In Canada, Dutton's findings are being used by REAL Women of Canada to lobby government to withdraw funding from feminist antiviolence work and from the Status of Women (one of the usual targets of REAL Women).

It may interest those in law to learn that Dutton's work also questions legal practice in this area. One can only guess that he may begin working on (and turning the heads of) some of those in law, as he appears to be doing elsewhere, certainly he is making very obvious efforts to turn the heads of those in psychology.

Dutton buries his readers under mountains of evidence that he uses to argue among other things that most intimate partner violence is bilateral and that in most cases women are aggressive themselves and choose aggressive partners (i.e. they ask for it). Dutton also draws on data and evidence from a number of official Canadian and US social surveys to argue that most violence is bilateral, that only a minority of couples (about 10%) in which violence occurs are male dominant, that extreme violence occurs in an smaller percentage of couples, and that women are responsible for a good proportion of that extreme violence.

Molly Dragiewicz at UOIT is one of the feminists who has taken the fight on in the last few years. She and Walter Keseredy and a handful of others have taken up the fight and are continuing to push back. Ed Gondolf ~published an article recently presenting the evidence for Duluth against Dutton; Gondolf has been working in this area for years.

The Duluth Model is being targeted for attack as a very visible example of feminist community-based practice in violence against women. Dutton argues that Duluth is only a relevant model for work with a small minority of women and that since psychological factors account for most violence, psychotherapy other psychological couple/family interventions are indicated.

I couldn't have made a better case.


Dr. Peter Jaffe PhD, C. Psych. is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario and the Academic Director of the Centre for Research on Violence Against Women & Children. He is the Director Emeritus for the Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System, which is a children's mental health centre specializing in issues which bring children and families into the justice system in London, Ontario.

He has co-authored nine books, 24 chapters and over 70 articles related to children, families and the justice system including Children of Battered Women and Working Together to End Domestic Violence. He has presented workshops across the United States and Canada, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and Europe to various groups including judges, lawyers, mental health professionals and educators.

Both of these individuals are strongly funded and very active internationally having written, lectured and presented a number of research articles and papers in support of feminism. Jaffe is a regular speaker about DV and Child Custody in the media and has authored innumerable opinions on these issues many of which are still acted upon.

Do Female doctors hurt productivity?

Forgive me for taking so long to get back to this article (from May 20) I seemed to have a hectic time from Victoria Day until Fathers Day. I am grateful to Robert Franklin at GlennSacks.com for also picking up on the report.

The story is that a whole cohort of newly recruited doctors work less (30 hrs per week) than their older peers (35 hrs per week). Dr. Robert Ouellette, president of the Canadian Medical Association, said medical schools need to train even more doctors than they do now. The new generation of physicians -- both male and female -- tends to work fewer hours generally than older colleagues, he said. This has altered the assumptions upon which manpower projections have been made. To remedy the situation someone sensibly did a study on it suggesting we need to increase funding to attract more doctors - either as intake through teaching or by overseas recruitment.

One may think such foresight would be applauded. WRONG!

With 60% of enrolled medical students female the question somehow became seen as an attack on women. An editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal last year that urged "ending the sexist blame game."

The author of the report, Dr. Mark Baerlocher, a radiology resident at the University of Toronto, said he agrees women should not be blamed, but lamented a general reluctance in the medical profession to examine controversial issues, such as gender differences and abortion. "There are a lot of topics that aren't adequately studied, because it's deemed a socially sensitive topic."

Footnote: CBC Radio The Current - Bob MacDonald did an interview with Dr. Baerlocher in Hour3 on May 29, 2009. Click here for the interview (in MP3). It is interesting that Dr. Bob EVANS - an economist has written on this topic before (1999).

[Ed: National Post reporter Tom Blackwell seems to spend an awful lot of time sympathizing with feminist positions. At the same time he does some pretty good reportage in a vital "beat" for the National Post. I had this vigorous email exchange with him at the end of May about another of his articles that minimized the incidence of paternity fraud in a story about liver transplants.]