I've detailed in numerous columns and blog posts the myriad problems with the domestic violence system.

This week we have a chance to have an impact on the way California family courts and law enforcement handle domestic violence. California's laws and policies have a tremendous impact on other states, and the OJ Simpson case and the laws California passed in its aftermath have spread to one degree or another to almost all other states.

The California Judicial Council's Domestic Violence Practice and Procedures Task Force is currently inviting comments on its Draft Guidelines and Recommended Practices for Improving the Administration of Justice in Domestic Violence Cases. The recommendations focus on court leadership, restraining orders, criminal law procedures, and others.

There's a big problem with the Draft Guidelines--they don't deal with the false allegations issue. Thousands of men reading this right now have had restraining orders based on false allegations of domestic violence made against them as part of a custody battle. Beyond victimizing many innocent men and the children who love and need them, false allegations also draw resources and credibility away from women who really are victims of domestic violence, and who need protection.

Also, the Draft Guidelines do not address the issue of male victims of domestic violence, even though research establishes that women are just as likely to physically attack

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If dad goes for a walk with his daughter and holds her hand, apparently Virginia Department of Health officials wants you to pick up the phone and destroy his life by reporting him as a possible sexual abuser. I would've thought this article about this campaign was from the Onion or some satirical publication, but it's for real.

One of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen is a picture of my father walking on the beach near sunset holding my daughter's little hand. The picture above of a man holding a child's hand--a touching little scene--is actually supposed to make us think he's sexually abusing the child. Unbelievable.

From Campaign advocates recognizing, reporting suspected abuse (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 6/21/07):

"For years, campaigns to stop child sexual crimes have focused on encouraging children to speak up about abuse.

"State health officials are trying a new tactic. The latest push, at least in Hampton Roads, is to educate adults on how to spot - and stop - sexual offenders.

"The 'Stop It Now' campaign - just launched locally - will urge people to call a help line if they see an adult whom they suspect of having a sexual relationship with a child.

"Billboards and posters show an adult hand holding a child's hand, with the words: 'It doesn't feel right when I see them together.'

"A national help line number is listed, and through it callers can get advice about what to do.

"Rebecca Odor, who directs the sexual and domestic violence prevention division for the state Department of Health, said officials hope to reach people who might feel uncomfortable reporting a relative or acquaintance to law enforcers.

"'We want to teach them to trust their instinct and, if it doesn't feel right, take action,' Odor said."

To write a Letter to the Editor to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot about Campaign advocates recognizing, reporting suspected abuse, click here.

Rebecca Odor's publicly listed contact information is becky.odor@vdh.virginia.gov and 804-864-7740.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

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Background: On numerous occasions over the past year I have condemned the June, 2006 actions of Darren Mack. Mack is a wealthy Nevada father who was involved in a divorce when he stabbed his estranged wife to death and then executed a well-planned murder attempt on a Nevada judge.

Mack shot and wounded the judge but failed to kill him. According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, when police searched Mack's residence they found he "had bombmaking materials in his bedroom" as well as "several boxes of firearm ammunition."

 At the time of Mack's murder spree, I wrote:

"I condemn without qualification the crimes allegedly committed by Darren Mack in Nevada last week. Mack was angered by his divorce and custody case. Some on the not insubstantial lunatic fringe of the fathers' rights movement see Mack as some sort of freedom fighter. Most of the commentary by other fathers' rights advocates seem to be of the 'he couldn't take it anymore and snapped' variety.

"I don't buy it. Though everyone is focusing on Mack's attempted murder of a judge, everyone seems to forget that he first stabbed and killed his ex-wife. After murdering her, he shot the judge through the judge's third-floor office window with a sniper rifle from over 100 yards away. That's not 'snapping'--that's premeditated murder. Mack is not a good man trapped in a bad system. He is a bad guy. Because of men like him the system had to create protections for women, and unscrupulous women have misused those protections to victimize countless innocent men. Men like Mack aren't the byproducts of the system's problems--they are the problem."

Since it was the one-year anniversary of Mack's murder spree recently, I posted my commentary from June of last year on my blog, with the comment "In reading it again now, I can't say I'd change a word."

MensNewsDaily.com blogger "The Gonzman" didn't like my blog post and posted an extensive response to it on MND called "Darren Mack II: A Response to Glenn Sacks." In it Gonzman details his own miserable experience with the family law system and the way it often allows mothers to destroy the loving bonds children share with their fathers.

A few points:

The Gonzman's main point in his criticism of me is that I do not have the right to criticize Mack because I've never walked in his shoes (i.e. I'm not a divorced dad). There are several problems with this argument:

1) When Gonzman writes of Darren Mack, he doesn't see Darren Mack, he sees himself--himself and all of the decent loving fathers whose lives were manhandled by the family law system. Gonzman is assuming that Darren Mack is a good man victimized by the family law system. This is very speculative, particularly when you consider the terrible violence that Mack wreaked upon his ex-wife and those around him.

It is, of course, possible that Mack was mistreated by the system, but from what we know it sounds far more likely that he was the problem, not the victim. There are plenty of bad women out there, but there are also plenty of bad men out there. Mack is one of them.

2) "Only those who have been victims can judge" is a very flawed and dangerous line of thinking--a line of thinking feminists and misguided women's advocates use against men every day. Much of the feminist movement and the anti-male laws and polices it has successfully promoted are based on the idea that only (female) victims can truly understand the enormity of the (male's) crime. Women and their advocates are the only ones who should get to make the rules and everybody else (i.e. men) must shut up and take it.

For example, the criminal justice system has become very stacked against men accused of rape. One of the reasons is the deference of male legislators and judges to the pain of women who claim they've been raped.

Another example--male judges hand out restraining orders to any woman who cries, destroying innocent men's lives along the way. This is in part because feminists promote the idea that a (male) judge doesn't know how a battered woman feels and what she needs--how dare he refuse her what she says she needs?

(A personal note: No, I'm not a divorced dad, but I've received tens of thousands of letters from divorced dads, and I have a pretty good idea of how they feel and their pain. I've also spent an unfathomable amount of time answering these letters and trying to direct fathers towards help or offer advice.)

3) We're often frustrated with the way the feminist movement and the media excuse women's misdeeds. There are countless examples of this. When Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub, Patricia Ireland, the former president of the National Organization for Women, blamed it on the patriarchy. When Gilberta Estrada murdered three of her four children, the media pinned blame on her allegedly abusive ex.

Whenever a woman does something evil, the feminists and the mainstream media always seem to have some reason why she's a victim, or it's really a man's fault. If we excuse or sympathize with Darren Mack, are we any different?

4) The Gonzman is outraged that I "put something out like this when Father's Day is mere hours away from us" and asks "What the HELL were you thinking?"

I didn't put it out for Father's Day--I put it out because it's the one year anniversary of Mack's murder spree, and numerous media outlets (including CBS and several Nevada newspapers) are covering the anniversary.

5) John Dias, a commenter on MND and on Gonzman's post, wrote:
 
"How sad it is that Glenn feels he has to be so trapped in a rhetorical box that he can't even extend sympathy."

I'm not "trapped" on Darren Mack--I had no need to even mention him, much less feel "trapped" into condemning him. I condemned him because it's the right thing to do.

(As an aside, after Mack's murder spree I was offered the chance to go on a couple of major television shows and take the point of view that "I condemn the murders but can sympathize with the pain that drove him to it." I declined, because I don't sympathize with him, and I believe such sentiments are bad for the movement. Others in the movement went on the shows instead.)

6) I can't go into great detail on this, but while Mack was on the run after his murder spree he tried to bring in/corral certain leaders of the fathers' movement to defend him in the media and explain away what he did. In other words, Mack was willing to publicly drag our movement through the mud and set us back 25 years over his case and his violence. I can't imagine anything more selfish.

One final point--it is said that you can judge a movement by who its heroes are. Any modern movement which chooses to make a hero out of (or sympathize with) a murderer might as well pack up and go home right now--it will never go anywhere.

Gonzman's criticism of me can be seen on MensNewsDaily here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

"Pets are too often the silent victims of domestic violence. They cannot fight back, and they are presently afforded no protection under our current legal system."--Connecticut Governor Rell

Like most states, Connecticut does little to help protect male victims of domestic violence, even though studies show men comprise a significant minority of domestic violence victims. While male victims are ignored, Governor M. Jodi Rell (pictured) is taking measures to address a much more politically correct issue--pet victims of domestic violence.

It reminds me of my Cuban immigrant father-in-law's description of our culture--"In the American family, the mother comes first, then the kids, then the dog, then the cat, and then the father." With this new Connecticut DV law, I guess we can add the family hamster and goldfish in there before the father, too.

Ms. Rell also says:

"Threatening the pet often causes the victim to stay for fear of what might happen to the animal if they leave. Studies have found that almost half of battered women delay their escape for that reason."

Half of supposedly "battered" women stay there and get beat up over a goddamned pet? I find that hard to believe. The fact that this information probably came from domestic violence advocacy groups, who have major credibility problems, makes it even more unlikely.

The article is Connecticut Governor Rell Signs Law to Protect Pets in Domestic Violence Cases. Note that even though men are as likely to be physically attacked by their wives or girlfriends as vice versa, the entire article frames the discussion only in terms of female victims and male perpetrators.

Also, the bill "permits courts to issue orders of protection for animals owned or kept by victims of family violence," thus creating yet another way for men involved in custody cases to get in trouble and be subject to punitive action.

I criticized a similar bill here in California--to learn more, see my co-authored column  "CA Legislators Vote to Protect Pets from Domestic Violence but Deny Services to Male DV Victims" (Long Beach Press-Telegram, 4/21/07).

Connecticut Governor Rell Signs Law to Protect Pets in Domestic Violence Cases
6/21/2007

June 20, 2007 -- At a ceremony today at the Connecticut Humane Society in Newington, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell signed An Act Concerning the Protection of Pets in Domestic Violence Cases. Governor Rell thanked State Senator Andrew Roraback of Goshen, State Senator Tony Guglielmo of Stafford Springs, State Rep. Michael Alberts of Woodstock, State Rep. Joe Mioli of Westport and State Rep. John Hetherington of New Canaan for their leadership in moving the bill through the legislative process. The Governor also thanked the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence for their advocacy.

The new law, effective October 1, permits courts to issue orders of protection for animals owned or kept by victims of family violence, stalking, or harassment. The orders may, at a minimum, prohibit respondents or defendants from injuring or threatening to injure the animals. In family violence cases, the order may be a civil restraining, or criminal protective, order.

One way to further traumatize the human target of domestic violence is to injure or kill that person's beloved pet. When domestic violence erupts, family pets are often the first target because abusers understand and exploit the deep bond between pets and family members...

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

The horrendous murder of Jessie Davis, a pregnant 26-year-old mother, allegedly by her boyfriend, Bobby Cutts, Jr., has already begun triggering renewed publicity about the "fatal fathers/maternal homicide crisis" myth. For example, Day Gardner, President of National Black Pro-Life Union, just released a statement warning, "We are seeing more and more of this type of heinous crime."

The maternal homicide crisis myth gained prominence in large part because of a widely-distributed series of articles by Donna St. George of the Washington Post in December 2005. I countered St. George's piece in my column New Report on Maternal Homicide Crisis: Myth-Making and Manbashing (Lexington Herald-Leader, 1/3/05), which is posted below.

Davis' murder is certainly heart-wrenching. The first clues were provided by her little two-year-old son, who was found home alone by his grandmother, who he told, "Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in rug." Nevertheless, individual cases, no matter how tragic, do not constitute a trend.

To learn more about the Jesse Davis killing, see Body ID'd As Missing Mom, Officer Arrested (CBS News, 6/24/07). To read Day Gardner's full comments, click here.

New Report on Maternal Homicide Crisis: Myth-Making and Manbashing
By Glenn Sacks
Lexington Herald-Leader, 1/3/05

"Pregnant women murdered at an alarming rate." "Killings of new, expectant mothers mount." "Many new or expectant mothers die violent deaths." "Violence trails expectant mothers." "Pregnant mothers often die of murder."

These headlines top a highly-publicized new series of articles by Donna St. George of the Washington Post. The series, which appeared in many major newspapers and media outlets this week, details an alleged epidemic of maternal homicide by male intimates.

The series powerfully depicts the tragedies of murdered expectant or new mothers. The mother-to-be killed the day her mother ordered the cake for her baby shower. The pregnant 14 year-old murdered by her 14 year-old ex-boyfriend. The bank manager killed because she wouldn't convert to her husband's religion before their twins were born. However, despite the emotion, alarm bells and blaring headlines, the series fails to build the case that maternal homicide is an epidemic, is on the rise, or is even a significant social problem.

According to the Post's numbers, there are about 100 documented murders of pregnant women in the United States each year. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly four million women give birth each year. One out of 40,000 is not an epidemic. The Post speculates that the true number could be significantly higher but also notes that 30% of these killings are not related to childbearing, but instead involve drug dealing, robberies, errant gunfire, or other causes. And some pregnant women are killed by other women, as in the recent Missouri murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett by a woman who cut her live baby from her womb.

St. George and others point to a Journal of the American Medical Association article which states that in Maryland a "pregnant or recently pregnant woman is more likely to be a victim of homicide than to die of any other cause." This sounds alarming until one considers that there are an average of eight murders of pregnant women each year in Maryland--alongside 75,000 live births.

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One of my readers in Holland recently brought the new, anti-male ad campaign by Sprox, the Belgian shoe company, to my attention. Sprox believes men are inferior to women, and isn't shy about saying so. Its slogan is "Superior Shoes for the Superior Sex," and its promotional video explains:

"Women are the strong sex. Women are...more practical, able to focus on different things at the same time...more intelligent, more rational than men.

"Sprox confirms and strengthens this image. Sprox is the ultimate proof of the superiority of the female sex. Sprox: Superior Shoes for the Superior Sex."

The video also portrays men in degrading situations, such as the one pictured above. To watch the promotional video, click here. The anti-male stuff starts about a minute in.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Turns out the April Griffin Custody Case is a Little Different than Feminist Bloggers Say Earlier this week, numerous feminist blogs were proclaiming the April Griffin custody case to be the new "Woman victimized by sexist family courts" outrage (aka "Custody-visitation scandal case"). Past ones have included Genia Shockome, Sadia Loeliger, Bridget Marks, and others. According to the feminist website MotherWarrior, which is leading the charge for Griffin, she "has been in the Milwaukee County Jail since May 14th, 2007 because she refuses to give up custody of her nine month old son. Mr. Sebuliba [her ex] was trying to obtain full parental custody of their infant son. "Griffin, representing herself, asked Judge Goulee how he could consider giving custody of a 9 month old breastfeeding baby to a man who: Is on record for having beaten Griffin during her pregnancy; Is not a US Citizen (Mr. Sebuliba wants to send the baby to Uganda for his mother to raise); Wanted the baby to be aborted; and Openly had nothing to do with Ms. Griffin during her pregnancy?" Read her full blog post here. MotherWarrior also asserts, "Ms. Griffin has no criminal record, no parental issues, and no mental health issues." I'm not very familiar with the April Griffin case, but a new article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel by Diana Sroka, Father wins custody of baby son (6/19/07), tells the story quite a bit differently. According to Sroka: The judge granted joint custody to the parents, but Griffin insisted the father be stripped of all parental rights. It was Griffin who was arrested for "battering" Sebuliba. The judge criticized the mother's behavior in court and at the visitation center. Griffin's former lawyer called her behaviour in court "outrageous." Griffin severely interfered with Sebuliba' s visitation. At a May 4 visitation at a visitation center, Griffin arrived almost a half hour late and then declared that Sebuliba--who is a nurse--was not allowed to change the baby's diaper because it is "against her religion." At the visitation Griffin insisted that the visit "had to be done her way." "While Sebuliba was with the child, Griffin became hysterical and asked for the infant to be returned to her, the report states. When the social worker brought the baby to her, Griffin had her sister call 911 because she believed the baby was having trouble breathing. The report says that when paramedics arrived, they determined the baby was fine, but Griffin insisted the baby be taken to a hospital." Read the full Journal-Sentinel article here. Other feminist commentaries on the case can be found at Amanda Marcotte's Pandagon here and SuperBabyMama's blog here. To learn about other feminist "Custody-visitation scandal cases," click here. To discuss this issue on my blog, click here. The Business of Love 50% of 1st marriages fail, the rate of marriage has declined 48% in 40 years, single households now outnumber married households...if there ever was a time for a radical, new approach to marriage, it's NOW. The Business of Love, by Dr. John Curtis, an organizational development consultant and former marriage counselor, is the first book to show how to take the same "best practices" that build successful businesses and apply them to an intimate relationship. Learn more at www.TheBusinessofLove.org. Help for Michigan Dads Michigan family law attorney Mindy L. Hitchcock has experience fighting for noncustodial parents against Michigan's abusive FOC. Her holistic approach to divorce gets results for her clients while avoiding the scorched earth approach to law that leaves families emotionally and financially devastated. Lady4Justice.com Experience the Book that Dares to Scream the Inner Thoughts of Men Author Tom Ellis unleashes his savage wit on women's studies, gender norming, implants, affirmative action, rape hysteria, pornography, women's spirituality, homophobia, and bad dates. Intended for male readers, women also find it shockingly insightful. Contains adult situations and language. The Rantings of a Single Male: Losing Patience with Feminism, Political Correctness... and Basically Everything by Thomas Ellis -- $11.95 + shipping from Amazon via direct purchase--click here. DV Expert John Hamel: 'Majority of Mainstream Researchers are now Acknowledging the Gender-Inclusive Nature of Intimate Partner Abuse' Background: As I've noted on many occasions, the domestic violence establishment is not telling us the full truth about domestic violence, and many destructive family law and criminal law policies have been based on misinformation. Research clearly establishes that women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat, often employing the element of surprise and weapons to compensate for men's strength. Yet arrest and prosecution policies are stacked against men, as is the public dialogue on this important issue. Perhaps worst of all, misguided women's groups' distortion of the domestic violence issue has been the leading impediment to passing shared parenting legislation. John Hamel, LCSW, a court-certified batterer treatment provider and author of the book Gender-Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse, is one of the leading authorities in the field.  Springer publications recently did an interview with John which can be found below. An Interview with John Hamel Both of your books are based on the concept that men and women are equally capable of abuse against each other. This runs completely counter to conventional thinking, which insists that men are always aggressors and women are always victims. What first led you to this line of research, and what prompted you to begin writing about it? In 1991, I took over a domestic violence caseload and was trained in a variation of the well-known "Duluth" model. In the Duluth theoretical framework, domestic violence is caused by a patriarchal society that sanctions violence by men against their female partners. Women are assumed to be either victims or, when they are found to aggress against their male partners, to be doing so in self-defense. In group, many of the men I was working with claimed that their female partners were equally or more abusive than they were, and wondered why I wasn't treating them as well. I had been trained to automatically disbelieve such claims as victim-blaming. However, while many of my clients did in fact seek to displace responsibility for their actions onto others, I found other claims to be quite credible, so I changed my assessment procedures and began to insist on interviewing victims separately. According to the victims themselves, the majority of these cases did indeed involve mutual abuse and, and some featured a dominant female perpetrator whose partner was arrested after fighting back. This clinical data contradicted much of what I had been taught, and led me to conduct an extensive review of the research literature. What I found more than corroborated my clinical findings. Would you say that the idea that both females and males can be both aggressors and victims is becoming more accepted among those in the field? Why or why not? These notions are not new; they had found support as far back as the 1970's, in the work of Murray Straus, Peter Neidig and other researchers. For years, studies conducted by these mavericks were dismissed, and in some cases suppressed, because of the long-dominant patriarchal paradigm advanced by victim advocates. Recently, however, there has been an explosion of new research that may very well change the way we look at domestic violence... To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here. 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As Chair of the State Bar of California Family Law Section Executive Committee, Walzer lobbied the state legislature to improve California laws on child support and child custody. He's an American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers Fellow who has authored numerous articles on custody issues, business valuation in marital dissolutions and spousal and child support.  www.California-Divorce.com

The Taron James paternity fraud case is one of the most egregious examples of the abuses the child support enforcement system visits upon men. In my co-authored column Defrauded Veterans Have Mixed Emotions on Veterans Day (Daily Breeze [Los Angeles], 11/11/03), I wrote:

"For Torrance photographer Taron James, a decorated veteran of Operation Northern Watch, Veterans Day always brings mixed emotions.

"James enlisted in the Navy at age 20 in the days leading up to the first Persian Gulf War, and carried out hazardous reconnaissance missions behind Iraqi lines in the war's aftermath.

"He earned four service medals and three ribbons before his honorable discharge in 1994. Yet his reward for his service has been nine years of unremitting government harassment, financial deprivation, and a constant struggle to stay out of jail...

"While serving in Iraq, James was notified that a woman he knew back home was demanding that he pay child support for her newborn son. James knew from the beginning that the child could not possibly be his.

"The Navy's Judge Advocate General is not authorized to handle a serviceman's legal problems outside of the military justice system, but a sympathetic captain helped him obtain an agreement from the child's mother for a DNA test.

"Before the test could be done, however, the mother reneged on the agreement and disappeared with the child.

"James requested a blood test from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, and was told repeatedly over the next year and a half that he would be notified when there was a new development in the case. The D.A. instead went to court without James' knowledge and obtained a default judgment against him. James did not find out about it until the D.A. seized his driver's license and began taking 50 percent of his take home pay.

"Despite subsequent legal appeals and an April, 2001 DNA test which confirmed that the child is not his, the courts have refused to set aside the judgment. In the years since the D.A. and later Los Angeles County Child Support Services have: seized James' tax refund for six years in a row; blocked him from renewing his notary public license, which in turn caused him to lose his job as the manager of a business; ruined his credit, denying him the chance to purchase the business at a low price when the owner offered it to him for sale; blocked him from obtaining a passport; and forced him to drop out of college before finishing his degree."

Los Angeles attorney Marc Angelucci, who does excellent work for men, represented Taron James and Taron was eventually able to get his child support order set aside under AB 252, the California Paternity Fraud bill.

On Tuesday, a California Appeal court ruled that James is not entitled to reimbursement for the money stolen from him. To learn more about the new ruling, see No Refund Due Man Ordered to Support Child Not His--C.A. (Metropolitan News-Enterprise, 6/20/07).

To learn more about paternity fraud, see my co-authored column New American Bar Association Article Points to Crisis in False Paternity Judgments (Baltimore Sun, 8/20/06) and also click here and here.

To discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

Background: Photographic artist Stephen Shames has put together an excellent collection of fatherhood pictures for George Soros' Open Society Institute.

Shames says, "Low-income dads are largely absent from public policy discussions. The government, when it intervenes at all, directs its programmatic and financial support toward mothers. When men are discussed, they are often portrayed negatively--as deadbeat dads, for example--while positive programs that assist struggling, low-income dads are rarely mentioned. Society will throw men in jail for not paying child support before helping them acquire a job or the parenting skills that would enable them to provide for their children."

To learn more about Shames' photo series, click here and here.

To discuss the issue on my blog, click here.

Cadillac's anti-male TV ad "khakis" and the recent controversy over it (see Cadillac Thinks Humiliating Men Is Great Revenge--and Adweek Agrees and As Usual, Feminist Blogger Amanda Marcotte and Her Followers Are a Lot Smarter Than Me...) reminded me of my blog post "When Boys Fall Behind in School, Is It 'Breaking Male Dominance'?"

In the Cadillac ad, a woman boss revels in the fear she inspires in her male employees. To me, it brings up a troubling societal trend. Women say they've been denied advancement opportunities, and men, who normally desire to give women what they want, support their demands. And what happens when women do rise and become bosses? Some feminists--certainly not all, but some--portray the men as hapless losers and revel that women are now getting "their revenge." One example is below.

When Boys Fall Behind in School, Is It 'Breaking Male Dominance'?

From "Swedish women to overtake stupid men" (12/20/06), an amazing article from a Swedish newspaper:

"Swedish men are less intelligent, lonelier and fatter than their female counterparts, a new study claims. Boys have fallen way behind in school, and there are more women than men studying some traditionally male university subjects."

Sounds sad, right? Not for some Swedish feminists.

"'In twenty years men's dominance will be broken and women will have more power in society. There will be more female CEO's and the wage gap will favour women,' researcher Ingemar Gens told magazine Attention."

I love it--boys struggling in school and men being lonely is just breaking "men's dominance."

"Experts have also observed that smart women are struggling to find common ground with members of the opposite sex.

"'There will soon be a large collective of uneducated, low-paid men who don't have any friends, and are unmarried and alone - as well as uninteresting for women looking for a relationship.'

"'This is already happening, but the problem is beginning to accelerate. This is a huge danger for men,' said Gens."

Don't celebrate yet, however--men will still find a way to rig things so they come out on top...

To read more and discuss this issue on my blog, click here.

As annoying as the many Father's Day week father-bashing articles were, there were also some positive stories about dads, and those bear mentioning, too. We've put together five of them below--if you saw other ones, feel free to send me them and perhaps we'll do a "Father Positive Articles for Father's Day Part II" post.

Wakefield dad a Father's Day hero; kept son alive during recent medical episode Hero Brian Demott faces a nightmare and saves his infant's life by administering CPR with the guidance of a 911 operator.

A Fan for Father's Day Night-time talks over peanut butter and crackers and the way his father knew how to keep the house cool and comfortable for his kids, nationally syndicated humor columnist Tim Purcell remembers his father, "The Big Guy."

S.J. sons pay respects to dads on Father's Day Sons rejoice in bonding with their fathers through sports and thank them for important lessons about fortitude of spirit and determination.

Proud papas mark first Father's Day Three new fathers discuss the learning experiences, the rewards, and the immense pride of caring for their new babies on their first Father's Day. One of them is pictured above.

Trailblazing dad raises children while mom works Barber by night, stay-at-home Dad by day, Eddie Rosales helps to redefine what it means to be a man.

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Background: A couple weeks ago I asked you to write newspapers in protest of Berkeley Breathed's new nationally-syndicated OPUS cartoon "Davie Dinkle has two moms" which, I noted "gives fathers a nice kick in the teeth Father's Day week."

In the comic, which appeared in many of America's largest newspapers, two elementary school boys discuss a classmate who is being raised by two lesbian moms. One boy says, "Makes you wonder how he'll do without a male role model in the house." Right afterwards, the drunken, idiot father angrily throws the TV out the window, yelling "Now THAT was a pitch you @$%* moron!"

Not surprisingly, the gay press fired back at me and also at conservative religious writer Jennifer Roback Morse, who had later criticized the same cartoon in a Townhall.com column. Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker covered the controversy in her Father's Day column. To learn more, click here.

I was surprised and pleased to see that The Advocate, one of America's leading gay publications, covered the controversy over "Davie Dinkle has two moms" fairly and accurately in its article "Cartoonist causes controversy with "male-bashing" comic." The Advocate writes:

"With Father's Day fast approaching, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed caused quite a stir with a comic that appeared to criticize fathers while celebrating lesbian moms.

"The latest installment of Breathed's 'Opus the Penguin' strip, which ran in Sunday's comics, has elicited a wide range of responses from outrage on the right to bemusement on the left, according to Townhall.com.

"The strip shows two boys, with their avian companion, Opus, talking about third-grader Davie Dinkle having two moms. 'Multiple moms,' comments one boy. 'Cool,' agrees the other. 'No dad?' asks Opus, as they wonder how Davie Dinkle will do without a male role model in the house. Then--crash!--a television set showing a baseball game is hurled through the window by one of the boys' foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking, beer-chugging fathers.

"'Breathed's message is clear--dads are useless as role models (when they're not outright destructive), and kids have little need or use for them,' commented columnist Glenn Sacks in the American Chronicle.

"Critics cite a growing trend of male-bashing, emphasized by the approaching holiday intended to celebrate rather than denigrate fathers."

To read more and to discuss this issue on my blog, click here.