Suicide Awareness Day - Sept 10

I am a bit annoyed at Dakota Fanning for being part of the most recent Anti-Cancer Campaign "Stand Up2Cancer" that I have been seeing -  even though it pays homage to men by recognizing that we are MORE affected than women by this awful disease.  The main reason for my distemper is that Sept 10 has been Suicide Awareness Day and 80% of suicides are men and boys.

In Edmonton the memorial event will take place at City Hall with a gathering at 11am before the walk at 1130am. There will be a service in the Square at 12ish and then a reception/speeches at 1pm in City Hall Atrium. Here are more details.

I found this site provides a unique viewpoint on the differences of how men grieve (but I'm not sure I agree with everything).    He also created this website and produced this YouTube video.

Stalking and obsessive behaviour

Normally I agree with Colby Cosh - as he lives here AND has his prestigious gig with Macleans - an would cut him some slack - but not on this one.   He is exhibiting the same "alpha male" attitude that has kept MRA divided for years.  That is even more of a surprise given Colby Cosh's appearance (zap!)

But seriously, is he not confusing the issue.   This guy had some psychiatric issues that are not being addressed in jail.    Whose fault is that?  His or ours?

I happen to have heard of men with equally as crazy women stalkers.   What do we do with them?   Say "wait to go guy" to the man?

Here is another kind of "obsession" - do we blame the mother or just pour MILLIONS into post-birth treatment programs for these seriously damages individuals?  No one can say we don't know the harm to an unborn child from drinking, tobacco or drug use during pregnancy.

Outrage after woman caught dumping cat in trash

Here is the complete story.

Lola's owner Stephanie Mann said she and husband Darryl couldn't find Lola on Sunday morning but followed the sound of her meows.

The couple had previously installed a personal surveillance camera outside their home following a spate of thefts in the area.

Mann said they checked the video tape expecting to discover local youths, or a drunk, had thrown Lola into the bin late on Saturday evening, but were shocked to discover the culprit was a respectable looking woman.

"I was absolutely heartbroken to see how someone could just be so cruel," she told the newspaper. "I don't know what went through her head but it was just disgusting to watch and it broke my 8-year-old daughter's heart."

How interesting that it was a middle-aged women who stopped and obviously considered her actions before dumping the cat.   I know how much my daughter missed her cat after it disappeared.

[Update:  The women was found and this was her response:

"OK, I shouldn't have done it, but it's just a cat at the end of the day. I don't think I deserve to be hated by people all over the world, it was just a split second of madness."

Another example of deluded and exclusion to reality thinking?]

Bizarre Case of Noah Kirkman of Calgary

This bizarre case cropped up in April 2010 around the dates for PAAD (Parental Alienation Awareness Day) and I was not able to track it.    I believe her son Noah has been returned to her.   It is international jurisdictional dispute - but also one of bureaucratic inertia. (I was not aware until I read the article that she has a bit of a reputation as as a marijuana activist.  Although I would tend to agree with a number of her points about cops teaching drug awareness.)



[Addendum: An odd but more thorough investigation may be here.  I also note this strange disclosure on Lisa's FaceBook profile, furthermore is toned down from the one that was there before - although it is difficult to distinguish fact from fantasy on FB.   I suppose the question should be what  are the standards for parents?]

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After Duty, Fathers come home

Courtesy: WhatMenThinkofWomen blog

Rights of Women?

During a press conference for her new movie, Jennifer Aniston announced,

“Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child,”

This got her in trouble with pop-conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly.
 
But I have to thank Equal but Different for this contribution:

We got it...women can do anything they want.

We can dress in next to nothing and parade ourselves through the streets if we want, we can sleep with as many men as we can fit into a day if we want, we can abort our children or choose to keep them and sue for child support if we want, we can walk out on our marriages if we want, we can have children and condemn them to a life without ever knowing a father if we want...all free from censure because woe unto anyone who dares question, judge or condemn us for our actions.

What a disturbing and shallow thing our empowered, modern day women have become....so consumed with proving what they can do that they've lost all sense of what they should do.

According to the logic of Aniston and her ilk, if a woman wants a baby she is simply entitled to have one. What is intrinsically wrong with this thinking is that it's egocentric and rooted in selfishness....and parenthood, when done correctly, is the single most selfless endeavor a human being can undertake. There is no room for puerile, narcissistic whim when it comes to the caring for and bringing forth of life.

 Another celebrity's has convinced herself that - just like she needs a Gucci handbag - she needs a child.  It is all about her.

The Myth of the Gender Pay Gap

Marty Nemko wrote this the other day as he is perpetually confounded that this lie - that women are only paid 77c vs men - maintains itself ("a bad statistic is hard to kill than a vampire" was how Barbara Kay characterized it - although in reference to a different issue).  However he blames the news media and notes that it is usually trotted out on Labour Day. Here were the useful links:

• Sept 5,2005 Warren Farrell "Exploiting the Gender Gap" NYT.

Then I asked myself, "If an employer has to pay a man one dollar for the same work a woman would do for 76 cents, why would anyone hire a man?".

Perhaps, I thought, male bosses undervalue women. But I discovered that in 2000, women without bosses - who own their own businesses - earned only 49 percent of male business owners. Why? When the Rochester Institute of Technology surveyed business owners with M.B.A.'s from one top business school, they found that money was the primary motivator for only 29 percent of the women, versus 76 percent of the men. Women put a premium on autonomy, flexibility (25- to 35-hour weeks and proximity to home), fulfillment and safety.

He discovered 25 differences in the work-life choices of men and women. All 25 lead to men earning more money, but to women having better lives.

Not quite. It's about parents' choices. Women who have never been married and are childless earn 117 percent of their childless male counterparts. (This comparison controls for education, hours worked and age.) Their decisions are more like married men's, and never-married men's decisions are more like women's in general (careers in arts, no weekend work, etc.) .

• July 29,2010 Penelope Turk "A salary gap between Men and Women? Oh please"

She even made mention that The Economist had published a piece put the lie to death at the beginning of the year. In addition here is article that points out the women do not opt out but are pushed out - which would happen to their husbands double quick if they tried to do it.

Ferrel again: Finally, we perceive men who earn more money as having privilege but we are blind to dads who sacrifice their own dreams because earning more, even if the job is disdainful (e.g., traveling widget salesman) better helps their children live their dreams. When we view men's higher earnings only as discrimination against women, our anger blinds us to his mid-life crisis when he realizes he will never be the writer or artist he once hoped to be. And more important, it blinds us to how his love for his wife and children made him make the enormous sacrifice of giving up his dreams. In turn, our blindness deepens his crisis of meaning and often, his depression or anger.

Men, you have the right to be more than a beast of burden, the right to have open-non-manipulative discussions with your spouse about such issues. Each couple should decide for themselves, without gender-based expectations, the appropriate division of income-earning and domestic responsibilities.

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Male Partner Abuse in UK

Rarely has this kind of data been produced as it is usually misrepresented by the feminist bias of researchers in the Official Statistics offices. But here are the relevant parts of data from this study from UK group Mankind UK.

British Crime Surveys (BCSs), gives much higher totals of domestic incidents against women than against men, the proportions of total male victims based on these totals ranging from about 15% to 34% during the period 1995 to 2008/09.

[A] second measure of interpersonal violence,  ....... gives significantly higher proportions of male victims of non-sexual partner abuse, particularly for the more severe forms of assault, ranging from about 38% to almost 50%.

Usually in Canada we see the lower end of the Crime Stats quoted (10%) probably because they are based on the #incidents, however I have never seen the analysis done to show the MUCH HIGHER figures for non-sexual abuse of 38-50% based on the #victims.  These figures need to be publicized to move opinion away from the low figures now embedded in peoples minds.

Although women tend to be more harmed or frightened by domestic violence and more tend to be injured, men can also suffer similarly physically and emotionally, and about one third of those injured are men.

Although the experiences of male and female victims have much in common, and both sexes can suffer physical and emotional harm, the plight of male victims of partner abuse is compounded by:

• A greater reluctance to report, even when injured or suffering chronic abuse.
• More likelihood of being disbelieved or even ridiculed if they do.
• A greater likelihood of being themselves arrested.
• A dearth of effective support services including emergency accommodation - male victims being often directed to bed and breakfasts or hostels unsuitable for fathers with children.
• A greater likelihood of being themselves removed from the family home with a high risk of subsequent loss of meaningful, or any, contact with their children, and risk of an adverse effect on their career prospects.
• A greater difficulty in obtaining court orders against violent female partners.
• The institutionalized effects of official policies and practice still negatively influenced against them by entrenched and hostile perspectives based on women as victims and men as perpetrators, so that a holistic and more equitable approach is ignored, and little government funding made available for male victims.

 Source: http://www.mankind.org.uk/factsmalevicitms.html  (accessed Aug 2010)

The Politics of Fear

This article in the National Post is perfect in that it identifies the problems of "clipboard killjoys" and the intrusion of government regulation into all aspects of life.

He called it an attempt to modify behaviour opportunistically, like a sexual education course that is motivated by morality.

"They think their job is to save people from themselves," he said of politicians who promote rules designed to send social messages, and that this reveals their "contempt" for "people who cannot be relied on to manage their everyday existence."

This is similar to the most recent plan by the Conservatives to spend $9 bn on building jails and serving an increased population of inmates.  Little thought appears to have been given to the impact on the population of such "patriarchal" moves as it is well known that jails are often breeding grounds for more crime.

Furthermore, the RCMP most recent experience with the public continues to deteriorate.

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