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The DesertLight Journal
Volume 1, Number 17
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November 28, 2001
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The bi-weekly e-zine of the International Men's Rights Movement. This is the first e-zine intended to focus primarily on the issues of domestic violence against men and divorce/child custody issues. We welcome news of groups, websites, and people in the men's rights movement worldwide. We encourage new writers and commentary.
For all the news all the time, visit our buds
http://www.mensactivism.org in the US
http://www.angryharry.com in the UK
or Men's News Daily http://www.divorceport.com anywhere.
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"A woman needs a man like a fish needs the river."
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IN THIS ISSUE
·
El Dildo Bandito
·Useful Websites for Activists
·UK Judge Backs Dads in Custody Cases
·News From the Battered Men's Helpline
·Men's World Day? Input requested
·DLJ Website Updates
·Your Chance to Educate Health Canada!
·Menweb Renewed
·Update at Paternity by Choice
·First joint MANN/iFeminist chat
·AMEN Ireland DV Awareness Week
·BOAM: TIME TO BREAK THE SILENCE
By now just about everybody's heard about el Dildo Bandito, the guy in Colorado who appropriated an offensive artwork display at the Boulder library. He's becoming a celebrity of sorts, and by golly, he's OUR celebrity! Wendy McElroy checks in on this issue at link below.
Last week, the YWCA in Nashville TN had ads promoting their DV programs in two local newspapers. This ad, which showed a little boy with his backpack walking up the walk to his house, was captioned, "One day he'll own his own home, raise his own kids, beat his own wife." The small print went on to explain how the YWCA was so fabulous in 'helping' 7700 TN families and you should give them money. NOT! If you think this kind of promotional campaign is in itself abusive, as Rev Ken Deemer (Shatterd Men) pointed out, register your complaint with the Y, the Nashville Scene, and/or the Nashville city Paper:
YWCA of Middle Tennessee E-mail Addy: info@ywcanashville.com
Nashville Scene Phone Number: 615-244-7989
Nashville Scene E-mail Addy: editor@nashvillescene.com
Nashville City Paper Phone Number: 615-298-9833
Nashville City Paper E-mail Addy: letters@nashvillecitypaper.com
Earl Silverman of Family of Men MHW suggested: "A good counter to the Y's ad is a picture of a girl walking up to her house with the caption, "One day she'll own her own home. Raise her own kids. Drown them in a tub."
Wendy McElroy's FOX News column entitled
"Hang Male-Bashing Out to Dry" on the breaking "El Dildo Bandito" story.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,39447,00.html
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WEBSITES FOR ACTIVISTS
eActivism
The premise of the site is to provide eActivism in 3 clicks or less, thus making it easier and faster to become a participant in a number of grassroots and civic rights
organizations. They appear to be open to partnership with new orgs, so give them a look and see if your org might benefit.
http://www.eactivist.org/
Tech Soup
Outside of the fact they published my recipe (Dragon's Bowl) and sent me a coffee mug and a t-shirt, ;>) this site is a good one for tech advice related to non-profits.
http://www.techsoup.org
Technology served the way nonprofits need it, powered by CompuMentor
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JUDGE BACKS DADS IN CUSTODY CASES
http://www.thisislondon.com/dynamic/news/top_story.html?in_review_id=94939&i
Fathers fighting for the right to care for their children have received a
major boost from one of the country's senior judges. High Court Family Division judge Mr Justice Cazalet has made it clear in an Appeal Court ruling that judicial opinion, which traditionally favoured children from broken marriages being cared for by their mothers, has now changed.
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NEWS FROM THE BATTERED MEN'S HELPLINE
The Debra Duncan show on Ch 13 in Houston TX taped a program last September on domestic violence featuring Jan and Tedd Brown among others. This program has yet to be aired. Contact them and let them know you'd like them to run it!
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/features/Meet_Debra.html
e-mail the show direct at: ktrk.debrashow@abc.com
KTRK TV
3310 Bissonnet
Houston TX 77005
Our Phone Number is (713) 666-0713
Our News Tip Line is (713) 669-1313
Here is another way you can show your support for Battered Men's Helpline. Go to www.iGive.com and do some Holiday shopping!! Your Holiday shopping will be easier and faster!!
Use this URL to shop http://www.iGive.com/html/refer.cfm?causeid=18234
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MEN'S WORLD DAY? INPUT REQUESTED
Check out this website and let us (and Jim) know what you think of this site!
From: Jim Bailey <taximan@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Men's World Day
My attention has just been drawn to your website
http://mensworldday.inca.at/main.htm
Your initiative looks wonderful and I am initially drawn to support it 100%.
However I wish to check the initiative with many of my colleagues, Men and some Women working in the Mens / Fathers groups throughout the World to seek opinion.
Sadly I have become aware of much unwarranted male bashing that takes place Worldwide and want to be careful not to promote anything that suggests one gender is more or less responsible for violence.
I am well aware of much research that is making it clear that the perpetration of Domestic violence is a 50-50 and desperate problem for all of us. The perpetrators must be taken to task be they male or female.
Before giving my support and promoting your website on mine I want your
assurance and the majority of my Colleagues assurance that "Men's World Day"
is not just another Hi-Profile Male Bashing exercise?
Jim Bailey (JimBWarrior)
Jimbwarrior@fom.org.nz
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FamilyOrientatedMen
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fomtalkcs
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DLJ WEBSITE UPDATES
A new "Heart of the Matter" editorial for the month of December is up. Entitled, "The Internet Grows Up," it's about understanding the new ways we now use our Internet presence, and gives some suggestions on making things work even better.
Our Guest Editorial for this month is "Holidays Hit Non-Custodial Parents The
Hardest" by Tony Zizza
We also added submissions guidelines on the page where the current Journal appears.
(If you're reading this online, look up and to your left!)
If you're looking for the promised new sections on stress and contributions to orgs, we haven't got there yet! These sections have been delayed due to activism beyond our control. ;>)
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YOUR CHANCE TO EDUCATE HEALTH CANADA!
From Greg Sherk in Ontario:
I just received another letter from Alan Rock, Canada's Health Minister.
I've complained for many years about Health Canada's absolute and total
refusal to allow any booklets for men abused by women. The position of
Health Canada is that all males are liars and therefore any effort on their part to stem violence against males would be counter-productive.
The Honorable Minister says that because Health Canada produces five
booklets for men molested as boys by other men that there is zero
discrimination in their publication policy. He goes on to say that Health
Canada does not condone violence against anyone. However, as Health Canada
make it a policy to never under any circumstances publish anything to help
a male harmed by a female their position stinks of typical misandry. As
Health Canada also publishes materials defending women's right to be violent
towards their husband, they do, in every sense of the words, support
violence against men.
Would everyone please write to:
Alan Rock.
Minister of Health for Canada
Ottawa Canada K1A 0K9
It will take millions of letters (and I am not joking on saying MILLIONS)
to get the Minister to agree that males are also human and therefore worthy of information which is not predicated on hate.
Greg G. Sherk
http://clix.to/support/
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MENWEB RENEWED
The latest from Bert Hoff:
First, the BIG news. MenWeb finally has a new address on the Web. The old one, I kept hearing, was too hard to remember. All the files are in the same old place, and your old links work. The new address also works:
http://www.menweb.org
MenWeb, as you probably know, covers the full range of men's issues. There's "inner work." (E.g. spirituality, Jungian, mythopoetic). There's therapy, healing and living. (E.g. relationships, anger, depression, grief, surviving childhood sexual abuse). And there's gender justice. This area's become a lot more active, especially around domestic violence and dating violence. So we have new addresses for these areas. (You can still get to them through the old www.vix.com/menmag/ address and menweb.org, too.)
http://batteredmen.com
http://www.datingviolence.org
http://www.dateviolence.org
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PATERNITY BY CHOICE
A quick note to let you know there has been a new story added to the victims' section of the website...
A cry for some serious help from Mary L., a woman who is feeling the pain of the legal absence of family-planning choice for men and the rights of fathers and their children.
Sincerely,
-Stephanie Frostic, Founding Mother
www.PaternityByChoice.com
admin@paternitybychoice.com
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FIRST JOINT MANN--iFEMINIST chat
Be there or be square!
Sunday night, December 2nd 9:00 PM EST. (2:00 AM Monday GMT)
http://www.mensactivism.org
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DV AWARENESS WEEK IN IRELAND DEC. 3-9
Time to act!!!!
Would you be interested in supporting and joining with us in making this an international event?
What we are doing is sending this press release, (along with a brief history of our group), to papers, magazines, radio and TV stations. If only one of them pick up it will be a bonus and we do have to start somewhere.
Naturally, you will have to adapt it to suit [with] whatever stats. available to you.
We intend sending it out early next week in time for the Sunday papers.
Please disseminate this as widely as possible.
I have enclosed some documentation re Amen.
Mary Cleary
Amen (Ireland)
00 353 46 23718 or 76864 or
00 353 86 6013448
http://www.amen.ie/
Full press release at:
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MEN'S HEALTH NETWORK ACTIVIST PROJECT
BOAM: TIME TO BREAK THE SILENCE
Over the past several years, men in Afghanistan have been subjected to
public beatings, separation from their families, involuntary
conscription, arbitrary arrest, secret torture, and widespread
killings. Those men who have not actually endured these abuses have
lived in constant fear of victimization.
These human rights abuses have been documented in reports by Amnesty
International, by the international press, and by United Nations
representatives.
Unfortunately, the brutalization of Afghan men (BOAM) has received only
scant coverage by the mass media. Indeed, there is evidence that while
the mistreatment of women has received extensive publicity, the
brutalization of men is being downplayed. As Adam Jones, director of
Gendercide Watch, has commented, "There is a wildly disproportionate
emphasis upon the plight of women, a virtual taboo on raising anything
on the other side of the coin."
On Friday, November 23, a grass-roots campaign to publicize the plight
of Afghan men began. A number of media representatives,
organizations, and men's/father's rights advocates have already
indicated their support for this campaign. The support of other groups
is expected soon.
The initial phase of the intensive campaign will last about 10 days.
The campaign will include daily reports that spell out the exact nature
of the brutalization of men, and will ask persons to express their
concerns to their elected officials and local media outlets.
Our goal is to assure that in post-war Afghanistan, the men who have
been maimed by the Taliban receive the treatment they need, and that
men's health receives the attention it deserves.
We should be thankful for the life that has been given to each of us.
We, the living have a duty to speak out to break the silence, a silence
that has allowed the brutalization of Afghan men to endure.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/menshealth
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"Turn the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."
-- Frank Lloyd Wright
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We leave you with the 'Zonie blessing--"May you always have a full tank of
gas and underwear that doesn't ride up!"
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Trudy W. Schuett
Publisher
http://www.desertlightjournal.homestead.com/
PO Box 1252 Yuma AZ 85366
©2001 TWSchuett
All rights reserved
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Commentary and contributed articles are not necessarily the opinion of the DesertLight
Journal. We strive to include all views in the emerging men's rights movement, and
therefore cannot be expected to agree with everything.
