"...girls strip to their underwear and get wet sliding through water on a plastic sheet."

Okay, I know you're just reading this post to find out why girls are doing this but I'll get to that in a moment. First, I want to tell you about a good article by Joe Manthey, educational consultant and trustee for the Boys Project, in the Press Democrat in California entitled, "What about helping boys?"

We as a community, as well as a nation, need to ask the next obvious question that was not asked by any news reporters or editors who covered the National Science Foundation-sponsored math study: If girls are now the equal of boys in math, and that fact is due to the boost the schools gave to girls through teacher trainings, curriculum development, conferences, and programs for the girls themselves, then why are there not similar efforts to close the biggest gender gap of all in K-12 education -- language arts -- where boys are behind girls at every grade level?

When girls were thought to be in trouble academically, we said "There must be something wrong with the schools," and we changed them to be more girl-friendly. But there is no similar push to assist boys academically. Instead, when boys don't do well in school, we blame the boys.

Manthey also points out that 2 out of 3 students who drop out of high school in California are boys. Does anyone there care? Apparently not, perhaps pandering to girls and women is more important than whether or not boys get an education. But in the long run, those who let boys go by the wayside when it comes to education may be harming the girls in the end.

Richard Whitmire, writer of the whyboysfail.com website, had a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education recently entitled, "A Tough Time to Be A Girl: Gender Imbalance on Campuses." The article is hard to access so I will describe the gist of it. The shift of American colleges to predominately female is resulting in more of a hook-up culture as described in author Laura Sessions Stepp's Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both. Why? Because fewer men are attending college, they are in high demand and young women have to compete for their attention. Girls are so desperate at some colleges where girls outnumber guys that they will do anything to get a guy's attention--including stripping to their underwear and getting wet sliding through water on a plastic sheet, according to a senior at James Madison University.

Bureaucrats, politicians and women's groups may think they are doing the right thing for girls and women by looking the other way when it comes to boys and education--or lack of it, but when their daughters are slip-sliding away, or just not able to get a date in college, they may not be so happy with their decisions.

"Justice doesn't always move this slow, but at least it is moving forward."

Raynella Dossett Leath, a woman whose two husbands died suspiciously, has been indicted for the death of her first husband, Ed Dossett:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A former nurse surrendered Thursday on a murder charge in the death of her first husband, a district attorney who authorities initially believed was accidentally killed 16 years ago when he was trampled by cattle.

Raynella Dossett Leath, 59, also faces a murder charge in the death of her second husband. Prosecutors have said there are similarities between the two cases. She was the first person to find both men and call police, and prescription drugs possibly played a role in each of their deaths.

The widow was indicted this week in the 1992 death of former prosecutor William Edward Dossett, 44, who was found dead in his pasture. His breastbone and some ribs were broken and he had a hoofprint on the chest of his overalls. Officials originally concluded he was knocked down by his cattle and ruled it an accidental death.

Well, it's a start.

Democratic Platform is Bad for Men

Glenn Sacks and Mike McCormick: DNC Platform: Bad News for Dads:

If the Democratic Party is interested in garnering men’s votes, one certainly would not know it from their platform. The Democratic National Committee’s "Renewing America's Promise" is bad news for American fathers.

The platform’s "Fatherhood" plank puts all blame for father absence squarely on men, and promises to "crack down" on fathers who are behind on their child support. It also promises to ratchet up draconian domestic violence laws which often victimize innocent men and separate them from their children....

Fathers’ ties to their children are more tenuous than at any time in American history. Child support and domestic violence policies have helped drive a wedge between fathers and their children. Sadly, the Democratic Party has committed itself to policies which will make the problem worse.

No self-respecting man should support this platform and any woman who gives a hoot about civil liberties should be wary of laws that lead to arrests of citizens just because of their sex. These draconian laws deprive men of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Is this really the message the Democratic Party wants to send?

Neo-Neocon: Political disagreement: Can these marriages be saved?

Is Obama's New Tax Plan a War on Women or just a Bad Plan?

The New York Sun has an interesting op-ed entitled, "Obama's War on Women":

It amounts to a declaration of war on two-income families, a marriage penalty of punitive proportions. If those two single persons with income just under $200,000 get married, Mr. Obama is going to hammer them with a huge tax increase. If the second earner, who in many cases is the woman, is going to have to give 54% of what she earns to the government, she might as well stay home with the children. Mr. Obama may be able to get away with symbolic slights to women, such as not picking Senator Clinton as vice president. But punishing them with confiscatory taxes for participating in the workforce at a high income level moves the slight into the realm of substance.

I have never thought punishing people--whether men or women--for making more money and rewarding them for making less was a good strategy. How can you tell your kids to grow up to be successful and earn a good living when Obama's tax plan is to take a good percentage of it if you are "too successful?"

A reader sends in this story of a New York state man who was arrested and jailed for getting too close to his bride on his wedding day.

Brad Pitt as John Galt in Atlas Shrugged? Somehow, it doesn't seem right.

New Book on Fathers and Daughters

Dr. Linda Nielsen, the president of the American Coalition for Fathers & Children, has a new book out, Between Fathers and Daughters: Enriching and Rebuilding Your Adult Relationship. Although I haven't yet read the book, Glenn Sacks has a post up on the book and makes note of "an excellent chapter on the devastating effects that divorce often has upon the father-daughter relationship." He points out a quiz daughters can take to determine if they have picked up negative views of their divorced dad:

The chapter contains a “Divorced Dads Quiz" that every adult child of divorce should take. Nielsen writes:

As for your father-daughter relationship, remember: the negative beliefs that you have about any group of people influences what you remember about how they behaved in the past and how you treat them - even when your beliefs are wrong.

This is why it’s important to ask: what did you, as a daughter, believe about divorced dads at the time your parents divorced. By taking the 'Divorced Dads' quiz, you can see which beliefs were affecting you then – and might still be affecting you now.

Since children mainly reside with mothers after a divorce, it is likely that if a mother says negative things about a father, it will impact the child's view of that relationship strongly. The mother's reality often becomes the child's and they often come to view dad with more contempt and anger than the circumstances might warrant.

If you would like to view the quiz and see if you have false beliefs about divorced fathers in general, you can view it here.

"..on the internet, there is a punky attitude that disguises itself as sort of an electronic libertarianism"

So says internet lawyer, Ron Coleman, during an interview with John Hawkins at Right Wing News on legal issues for bloggers and blog readers. Read it, there is some good advice for all of us who read and write blogs.