'Get ready to memorize new words to the national anthem.

Parliament is to be asked to review the "original gender-neutral wording of the national anthem," says the throne speech delivered by Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean on Wednesday.
...
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said the initiative to change the lyrics is the kind of "symbolic gesture" the Conservative government makes when it doesn't want to do anything real.

"Anything that makes a national anthem more gender-sensitive is a good thing," he told CBC News.

"But, I mean, no disrespect to those who feel strongly on this issue, but, for heaven's sake, we have some very important challenges and every time the government is asked to do something real, it does something symbolic.

"There's lots of things to do for women that are more important than changing the words of the national anthem, just as there are lots of things to do for pensioners and seniors that are more important than having a Seniors Day."'

'NEW DELHI: After a day of high drama that saw the Rajya Sabha swarm with more than a hundred marshals in blue dresses called in to bundle out seven MPs blocking proceedings, the House recorded a historic vote in favour of a bill providing for 33% reservation for women in Parliament and assemblies.

The legislation is likely to be brought to the Lok Sabha after the vote-on-account has been passed, with the Congress leadership showing that it was not deterred by the bigger strength of the quota opponents in the lower House. It has to be brought to the LS as a logical corollary, said Sonia Gan-dhi although she refused to get into the specifics of the likely time-table.

The vote had been vehemently stalled by anti-women's quota protesters in the RS throughout Monday while the government calculated the political fallout of all-out hostilities with SP and RJD leaders Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad. While the government dithered, a handful of dissenters held the House to ransom.'

'PHILADELPHIA – A Pennsylvania woman has been charged with using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters and help terrorists overseas.

Authorities say the case shows how terror groups are looking to recruit Americans to help carry out their goals.

A federal indictment charges Colleen R. LaRose with agreeing to kill a Swedish citizen on orders from the terrorists and traveling to Europe to carry out the killing. It doesn't say whether the Swede was killed.

U.S. Attorney Michael Levy tells The Associated Press the indictment doesn't link LaRose to any organized terror groups.
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The indictment describes LaRose as in her 40s and from Montgomery County, in suburban Philadelphia. LaRose has been in custody since Oct. 15.

Telephone calls placed Tuesday to her federal public defenders haven't been returned.'

'BANGOR, Maine — Fathers and father figures are most often the perpetrators of severe physical abuse of children, including cases that result in death, according to law enforcement and child abuse authorities in Maine.
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Statistics maintained by the Maine Department of Public Safety show that 12 children have died as the result of homicide or manslaughter over the past five years. The numbers show that the youngest, the most vulnerable, are most at risk. Eight victims were under age 3, and most of the children died at the hands of a parent, stepparent or the partner of a parent, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. Click here to see a list of Maine homicide victims under age 18 from 2005 to present.
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One service that Ricci said he would like to see one day in Maine is long-term home visitation that would specifically target high-risk families. Ideally, the service would be provided until the child reaches school age before development problems from abuse and neglect have a chance to set in.'

Note that comments are disabled for this story. Contact info. for the paper is here.

'What's the biggest emerging market of them all? I'll give you a hint: The answer isn't geographic but demographic. The answer is...women.

Women leaders are the new power behind the global economy, proclaims Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu's announcement of its second annual webcast celebrating International Women's Day. In developing nations, women's earned income is growing at 8.1 percent, compared to 5.8 percent for men. Globally, women control nearly $12 trillion of the $18 trillion total overall consumer spending, a figure predicted to rise to $15 trillion by 2014.

More significant, the majority of tertiary degrees are now being awarded to women. Highly qualified, well-educated and ambitious, these women are taking over the talent pool from Delhi to Dubai and bringing new urgency to the issue of managing diversity.
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By investing in women in emerging markets, companies are betting on a brighter future — for a workforce just waiting to blossom, for economies whose development depends on this new crop of talent, and, of course, for themselves.'

'A MOTHER found by the Family Court to be violent, untruthful, lacking moral values and responsible for the psychological and emotional abuse of her children has been given custody of them.

The father, deemed "principled" and with "much to offer his children", has been effectively banned from seeing his daughters.

The case will spark renewed debate about family law and the issue of shared parenting.

The father, who we will name "Bill" because he cannot be identified for legal reasons, is described by a Family Court judge as no threat to his daughters, a successful parent who is "courteous" and "intelligent".

The same judge found the mother, whom we will call "Jasmine" and who abandoned her first daughter at two and spurned the child's subsequent attempts at reconciliation, had displayed "dreadful", "cruel" and "malicious" behaviour.
...
Historian and Family Court critic Prof John Hirst questions the underlying principles in family law.

"The Family Court by law has to make the children's interests paramount in divorce cases. Everyone thinks this is wise and proper, but to elevate one principle above all others can produce terrible results," he said.

"To stop mothers being tempted to make accusations of sexual abuse and so keep children to themselves, the law should state that any parent making false accusations of this sort will lose the right to be chief carer of the children. If a mother has so turned the children against the father that they don't want to see him, for a time at least the children should be taken into care.

"Even on the present test of child's best interests, it is hard to see how a child will benefit from being left with such a mother. She has burdened the child with the story that her father abused her.

"Then when the child comes of age she will discover that the mother's accusations were false."'

In case you missed it, yesterday was International Women's Day. I'm passing along the placards they distributed in India featuring the theme, "No more gender war." Great to know our struggle is being waged on the other side of the globe.

-----Original Message-----
From: Uma Challa
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 4:01 AM
To: Uma Challa
Subject: Int'l Women's Day Placards

Attached are the placards I have designed and got printed today.

You are free to print and use them.

Thanks
Uma

---
Ed. note: The off-linked placards in .pdf format were so good I registered on MediaFire just to make them available.

'A group of 50 mental health experts from 10 countries are part of an effort to add Parental Alienation Disorder to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V), the American Psychiatric Association’s “bible” of diagnoses. This scientific coalition is led by psychiatrist William Bernet, who explains that adding PAD to DSM “would spur insurance coverage, stimulate more systematic research, lend credence to a charge of parental alienation in court, and raise the odds that children would get timely treatment.”

Fathers & Families wants to ensure that the DSM-5 Task Force is aware of the scope and severity of Parental Alienation. To this end, in December we asked our supporters to write the Task Force to urge them to consider including Parental Alienation Disorder in DSM-5. As usual, the response was overwhelming. It also helped lead to progress–while as expected the newly-released draft version does not specifically include Parental Alienation Disorder, the DSM-5 Task Force has now listed Parental Alienation Disorder among the "Conditions Proposed by Outside Sources... that are still under consideration by the work groups."
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The National Organization for Women has learned about our efforts and is concerned about them. They have now sent out an Action Alert to counter our campaign.
...

While Simmons’ claims aren’t credible, there are legitimate questions to be asked about Parental Alienation Disorder, as there are with all mental health issues. We address many of these in Frequently Asked Questions about Parental Alienation and also summarize the scientific perspective in the Case for Including Parental Alienation Disorder in DSM V.

To participate in our campaign, click here.

'A Vancouver man who was mistakenly beaten by two police officers says Delta police have botched their investigation of the incident.

In the early hours of Jan. 21, Yao Wei Wu, 44, was woken up, dragged out of his house on Lanark Street and beaten by two police officers in plain clothes.

Wu, a tiling subcontractor, suffered fractures to his face and injuries to his legs and back. His eyes were swollen shut. His wife, Chi Nan Man, who was present during the assault, says she has suffered serious psychological trauma.

Vancouver police subsequently apologized, saying the officers had been called to a domestic-violence incident but had got the wrong address.

Police Chief Jim Chu asked the Delta police to conduct an “independent” investigation into the matter.'

Friend –

The family is the most protective institution of women and men in the world – that’s true in every country, and even more so in low-income countries that have little or no “safety net” for the dispossessed.

One month ago the International Violence Against Women Act was introduced in the House and the Senate. Let’s be candid: I-VAWA is a thinly-disguised attempt to export a radical gender ideology and break up families around the world.

Originally, we hoped the rad-fems weren’t going to move I-VAWA very fast. But as of today, I-VAWA has 42 co-sponsors in the Senate and 40 co-sponsors in the House. It now appears the liberals are hoping everyone will be distracted by the healthcare reform debate, so they can slip this through while no one is watching.

It is critical that we act promptly to get word out that this bill is a pig in a poke. Instead of helping women, it will harm them by breaking up the family and forcing women to become dependent on the state.

An analysis of the bill is here. Feel free to use this analysis in any way you wish – modify it, elaborate on it, post it, distribute it, whatever. But it’s critical that we get word out that I-VAWA represents a raw deal for women, a disaster for men, and would be a devastating blow for families around the world.

Please do whatever you can to help us stop this bill.