With special guests:
Amfortas.
This week we look at the struggle of the community to deal with the outrageous effects of extreme feminist dogma on our daily lives. Much of the discourse centers around myths and rogue statistics which paint a very negative picture of the men and boys in our communities.
This propaganda machine which rolls out a production line of inaccurate information of a misandrist nature, is being used as a template to formulate anti male government policy, and which is proving so detrimental to the health and well-being of the males in our society.
Unfortunately our leaders ignore community calls for them to more aggressively enquire about the accuracy of the anti male information they receive, and on which they base their judgement and ultimately cast their vote.
We recently saw our Australian federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, make the mistake of not checking the accuracy of the information presented to him. He did this to his own detriment and is now paying the political price for ignoring the need for scrutiny.
Yet when Senator Steve Fielding goes on a search for the truth regarding the global warming climate debate, he is ridiculed by fellow politicians and the media, for doing so. While at the same time government members, like lemmings jumping over a cliff, blindly toe the anti-male line and continue to refuse to question the accuracy of the extreme feminist dogma that permeates our corridors of power, and continue to vote against equality and justice for men.
Amfortas together with other concerned citizens, has put together an excellent series of podcasts on the need for accuracy in reporting, on what can only be described as the human rights abuses of men and boys, and explains how, when and why, this is happening.
With special guests:
This week we look at the struggle for family law reform in Canada, the home of some of the world’s most extreme anti-male anti-father legislation. Recently Dads On The Air interviewed Canadian MP Maurice Vellacot, who has introduced shared parenting legislation into the Canadian parliament. This week we follow on from that interview by talking with the highly experienced family lawyer Karen Selick, who has been an outspoken proponent for reform of the system; Roger Gallaway MP, who co-chaired an inquiry into shared parenting in Canada and Jeffrey Asher, a lecturer on men’s studies who taught the last men’s studies course in the country.
With Australia’s left wing government heading in exactly the opposite direction to the rest of the western world and winding back the modest reforms of the previous government promoting cooperative care of children after divorce, now is the perfect time to look at the situation around the world. Canadian society and many tens of thousands of fathers and their children have paid a very high price for the country’s previous embrace of extreme anti-male ideology; and numerous voices are now united in a call for sanity to prevail.
With special guests:
Amfortas
Over the past week father’s activists around Australia have been appalled by announcements from the Australian Labor government that it intends winding back the 2006 reforms to family law which promoted more cooperative arrangements after divorce or separation.
The government is conduction three separate inquiries into family law, inappropriately linking the inquiries with domestic violence. Not one of them consults the views of fathers or even the general public. There could be no clearer case of the mandarins regarding the great unwashed with contempt and not trusting their opinions, because after all there is strong public support for shared parenting.
Against this background, this week we play samples from the compelling podcasts compiled by a private practicing psychologist with 25 years experience who is driven by his own experiences and the experiences of many of his clients. He goes by the handle Amfortas, after the keeper of the Holy Grail. “I am a Men’s rights activist who is fighting against the excesses of feminism and the deleterious affects they are having on our public policies, particularly as they affect families and children,” he says. “I am not at all embarrassed by the use of the term Men’s rights, even if its unfashionable. Men’s rights are part of human rights.”
With special guests:
This week we range across a wide variety of subjects, talking first up with the ever lively author of a new book on becoming a dad, Be My Baby Neil Humphreys. From the cheery to the rational, we then talk with Sue Price, the founder of the Men’s Rights Agency, arguably the most articulate supporter, of the rights of men in our modern society.
This is followed by a fascinating interview with academic Dr. Michael Woods UWS, as we take a revealing look at the way the real statistics on Domestic Violence and Child Abuse have been kept from the general public, and how many Government Policies appear to be formulated based on inaccurate information.
We close the show talking with Benjamin Easton a Political Busker, who is participating in a demonstration outside the Bank of New Zealand, protesting their outrageous portrayal of all men as bashers and all women as victims, clearly themselves the victims of domestic violence hysteria. Somewhere along the line they forgot that half their customers are male and most of them object to being portrayed as Neanderthals.
With special guests:
First up we talk with Jeff Kennett, former Victorian Premier from 1992 to 1999, a man always admired for his outspoken directness. He began the National Depression Initiative Beyond Blue after the death of two of his daughter’s acquaintances. As Premier at that time he was shocked when it was revealed that both the deaths in question were actually as a result of suicidal intent. That started his investigation into what was being done and his involvement in the development of Beyond Blue.
Beyond Blue’s mission is “to provide a national focus and community leadership to increase the capacity of the broader Australian community to prevent depression and respond effectively to it. The aim is to build a society that understands and responds to the personal and social impact of depression, works actively to prevent it and improves the quality of life for everyone affected by it. The steps they have taken are to raise awareness of the problem, to de-stigmatize depression and mental illness in general, to conduct research into the problems of depression and impacts on our society, and to advocate for better government and corporate policies to accommodate and support sufferers of mental illness.”
With special guests:
With moves clearly afoot to wind back the modest reforms of the previous government on shared parenting legislation designed to encourage a relationship between both parents and children after separation, we take a look at the very strong case for shared parenting as the norm post-separation, with advocates arguing it works best for both children and parents - as well as saving the government a great deal of money by encouraging single parents to get off welfare and into work.
Maurice Vellacott is a Canadian Member of Parliament who has just introduced a bill promoting shared parenting into the Canadian legislature. He says a recent poll demonstrated that 78% of Canadians support equal shared parenting, with slightly more women than men supporting co-operative care of children post divorce.
Surveys in Australia have shown similar high levels of support, with the main obstruction to the commonsense notion coming from government bureaucrats and the family law industry itself. Regular guest Sue Price from the unfashionably named Men’s Rights Agency will talk about the devastating impacts on individuals and the broader community of the sole-mother custody model which has done so much harm over recent decades. She dismisses the current spirited campaign by feminist lobby groups outside Family Courts as nothing but hysterical male bashing by people with absolutely no knowledge of family law.
We close the show with an extended interview with Michael Green QC, author of the book Shared Parenting, who is also alarmed at the current moves to unwind shared parenting legislation. He argues that with legislation in many jurisdictions now enshrining shared parental responsibility and parenting time, there is ample research which indicates how important it is for children to continue meaningful relationships after family breakdown.
With Special Guests:
Barbara Biggs has become the new “poster girl” for the anti-shared parenting movement. While many fathers have been disturbed by her comments in the media against shared and co-operative parenting after divorce, this is the first opportunity for many to hear what she has to say directly. Barbara Biggs spoke at a Fellowship of the Roundtable forum at NSW Parliament House with the subject Family Law - Is The Man The Loser? This is the speech she gave followed by her answers to questions from the floor. Family law reformers around the country have been alarmed at the scurillous campaign, including a number of demonstrations outside family courts and other locations, to return family law to the dark ages when more than half of all children entering the Family Court arena rarely if ever saw their fathers again and almost no fathers were ever given any substantial time with their children.
The campaign is being conducted under the guise of preventing domestic violence against women and sexual abuse against children. Biggs claims that the shared parenting laws have forced children to spend time with abusive parents, but her target is clearly fathers. One simple point reformers make: child abuse is committed by both genders, it is a crime, and is a police matter, but Biggs only focuses on sexual abuse of children ignoring child homicide, infanticide, neglect, emotional and physical abuse where women make up the majority of perpetrators. Most sexual abuse of children occurs at the hands of other siblings, step parents, mother’s boyfriends/defactos and other relatives. Fathers are the least likely to sexually abuse their children.
For the vast majority of family law cases, the research is clear: children benefit from a continued relationship with both parents after separation. Barbara Biggs has made a career out of her colourful life, including alleging she was sold as a sex slave by her grandmother at 14 as well doing stints as a prostitute, mental health patient and property developer. Her books include In Moral Danger, The Journey Home, The Accidental Renovator and Money and Sex: How To Get More. Whether Biggs is a dangerous hysteric promoting irrational hatred against men or a true champion of the nation’s abused children, you can decide for yourself.
With special guests:
Dads on the Air was pleased to accept an invitation from the debating group Fellowship of the Round Table. We were asked to contribute to their debate called Family Law: Is the Man The Loser? We argue men, women and children are all losers under the present system. With the current left-wing Labor government preparing to wind back the modest family law reforms of the previous conservative Howard government which encouraged shared and cooperative care of children after divorce or separation, there could hardly be a more controversial subject in Australia today. Prior to the reforms more than half of the country’s dads barely if ever saw their children again after divorce. With the enormous pain this was causing parents, and the enormous damage the destruction of the relationship between children and their fathers was doing to the kids and to society at large, these reforms were long overdue. This week we play a fascinating speech from senior family law lawyer Mark Yousseff as well as speeches from DOTA representative Peter van de Voorde and Warwick Marsh from the Fatherhood Foundation.
With Special Guests:
For the first time Dads On The Air takes a look at the family law and gender situation in India, where less than one per cent of fathers gain custody of their children after separation. Uma Challa is the founder of the group All India Forgotten Women and talks movingly about the damage being done to men, women and children across the subcontinent by the adoption of the West’s anti-family anti-father ideologies. First off we begin the show talking with psychologist Marijke Alida, the organiser of this week’s Fellowship of the Round Table forum at NSW Parliament House on the topic Family Law - Is The Man The Loser. We’ll be playing extracts of the forum’s speaches, including from family lawyer Mark Youssef and the infamous Barbara Biggs, next week.
But this week we concentrate on India, with a fascinating interview with Uma Challa.
She says that in India there is not only have a Ministry dedicated to women’s welfare but also a National Commission for Women and several regional and local organizations representing the cause of women.
With Special Guests:
Being International Men’s Health Week, we’ve decided to talk to two of Australia’s most entertaining characters: author of the new book Lessons From My Left Testicle: A Turbulent Tale to Put Life Into Perspective, survivor of testicular cancer Ben Peacock and the so-called Kings Cross Doctor, a leading expert on men’s health and addiction, Dr Raymond Seidler.
Reviewed by Denise Noe
Set 120 million years ago, Robert T. Bakker’s Raptor Red is science fiction of a special sort: fiction with a completely scientific base. There are no time-traveling humans or Disneyfied “talking” critters. It is about life as it might actually have been lived in the early Cretaceous period.
Raptor Red tells the story of one year in the life of a dinosaur of the predatory species Utahraptor. Bakker is an omniscient narrator who takes us as far as possible inside the heads of creatures very different from ourselves. He explains that Raptor Red “has no name for herself. Her brain doesn’t op¬erate with words, not even silent, unspoken syllables. It works with images, colorful bursts of memory that make up a dreamlike history the brain con¬stantly updates.” Generally, Bakker succeeds in conveying animal conscious¬ness without anthropomorphism; when he translates their thoughts into words he writes explicitly that he is “translating.” However, he should have avoided slang like “pissed off” and “cool.”
The author emphasizes that olfactory images played as great a role in Raptor Red’s thoughts as did visual and auditory signals. The dinosaurs had, as most land animals still do, a system of advertisement whereby factors of health, gender, sexual availability, species, and mood were broadcast to each other: the “dung bulletin board” which animals sniffed to learn about each other and defecated to tell about themselves. Unlike our human classifieds, it allows only truthful messages.
Raptor Red is a superb thriller when our heroine stalks and mercilessly kills prey and narrowly escapes being killed herself several times; a poignant domes¬tic drama when she loses a mate and helps her sister raise her nieces from fumbling chicks to killing adults; and an enchanting romance when she is courted by a male Utahraptor.
It is never erotica since “the act” was a perfunctory once-a-year matter of seconds. Both male and female Utahraptors focused on relationships rather than sex. Perhaps “Raptor Family Values” (the title of a final chapter) possess a quaint, special appeal in today’s social climate.
More from Denise Noe
Posted in: Book Review, Entertainment, Psychology, Science & Nature, Vox Populi, Weird | 241 views
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Interesting book to review, Denise. Many children grow up, fascinated by dinosaurs, becoming adults fascinated by dinosaurs.
Whether or not this fascination remains for women, I would be a poor judge.
But I can tell you this much – it’s an absolutely relevant review for many MND readers (obviously comprised mostly of former little boys grown up with their fascination with dinosaurs intact!).
I have written a belated comment attached to your extraordinary blog on the William Hetherington rape case.
February 6th, 2008