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Really Early-Onset Heart Disease
2007-11-16 06:00:00
I love my telephone company.  No, really, I do.  Obviously they know what I need better than I--the chance to relax, take some quiet time for myself, and listen to soothing piano music.  And clearly they know that, as a mother of two active toddler boys who are currently repeatedly crashing a toy race car and fire truck into each other at high speed, the only way I can get that quiet personal music time is to spend it on hold while waiting to talk to the only customer service rep who has the power to fix the nine charges on my bill for an internet security system that we do not, in fact, own.  It’s not exactly a day at the spa, but I suppose I’ll just have to take what I can get. Oh goody.  They seem to have switched now to soothing New Age strings.  If I get a pan flute next, my day will be complete. Since the melodic sounds of wait music have put me in such a splendid mood, not to mention the sweets embargo currently in force in my house because of th...
More About: Heart , Disease , Early , Heart Disease

Plastics. (And Health)
2007-11-14 06:00:00
The small-scale toddler-based germ factory that I currently seem to be running in my living room has struck again, leaving me with a nasty head cold--and just when I was getting over my last nasty head cold.  I haven't even had the chance to re-stock the Sudafed and throat lozenges yet.  What kills me is that the petri dish that is my son (or both sons) don't seem to slow down at all when sick.  They'll happily ignore their runny noses and worrisome coughs while they tear apart toy boxes and scale the furniture.  I, on the other hand, just want to curl up on the couch in the fetal position and think mean thoughts about the guests on Dr. Phil.  Unfortunately, the aforementioned furniture climbing makes that kind of hard.  So please forgive me for linking and running, as I am in desperate need of a pharmacy run and maybe an isolation chamber of some kind. Anyway, I was very interested to see that the EU is planning to investigate the use of DEHP, a che...
More About: Health , Plastics , Heal

Important News About ADHD
2007-11-13 06:00:00
Today, I had planned to go on a long rant about how the word "aggression" is thrown around in regards to boys nowadays, but there was a fairly important article in the New York Times this week, and I would be remiss not to bring attention to it.  (Though I will definitely return to the aggression issue later this week.)  Anyway, two recently released studies revealed that young students who suffer from behavioral problems are not doomed to fall behind in later grades.  Essentially, the research suggests that ADHD, rather than being a lifetime sentence for falling behind, is more simply a case of slower brain development that children generally outgrow by early adulthood.  The other study found that kindergartners who had been labeled “disruptive” or as having behavior problems performed as well as their non-problematic peers by fifth grade.  The article is really worth reading in full, but here are some key quotes: “I think these may become landmark finding...
More About: News

Defending Difference
2007-11-12 06:00:00
At the end of October, the Boston Globe ran an article called "The Diff erence Myth," that purported to discredit the idea that boys and girls learn differently or that educational methods should reflect such differences.  So what did I think of it? It's nonsense, hornswoggle, and any other C. Montgomery Burns-esque 19th-century epithets you can come up with.  In short, what we have here is an opinion piece by two feminist activists who are offended by the thought of gender difference.  That's their prerogative.  It can even be their Bobby Brown prerogative instead of their dismal Britney Spears cover prerogative.  (Interesting question: Would activist feminists prefer the Bobby Brown or Britney Spears version?  Has Spears' dizzying downward spiral robbed her of any claim to post-feminist empowerment?  Can we blame Bobby for Whitney's crazy or should she own her own crazy?  Discuss.)  Anyway, the article’s authors predictably pick...

Boys, TV, and a Little Skepticism
2007-11-09 06:00:00
I know that when I post or link to new studies and reports about boys and development here, I often take a big ol' skeptic stance.  This is not because I'm just trying to be difficult.  Ok, it's not entirely because I'm just trying to be difficult.  There is, however, some amount of evaluation and thought that goes into my decision to be difficult, primarily regarding how solid the research methodology was, how much it tallies with existing research, and (very importantly) how much it seems designed to advance a particular ideological agenda.  People have no problem with being skeptical of researchers hired by tobacco companies claiming that smoking is harmles.  They don't always extend that to other organizations that have an agenda to promote, but activist groups (no matter how worthy the cause) and ideology can promote questionable research as well. (Incidentally, "skeptic" is another one of those words that just looks weirder and weirder the more yo...
More About: Skepticism , Boys

The High Price of Dropping Out
2007-11-07 06:00:00
Today is my birthday (hooray!).  That's right, I'm something-something years old today.  Yes, I do realize that my refusal to name my age makes it clear that I'm old enough to not want to reveal my age, but there we are.  Still not going to name it.  You would be surprised how well that works sometimes.  I honestly did not know how old my mom was until high school.  And my youngest sister (thirteen years younger) made it clear how clear her memory was when she was 6 years old and called my mom out on turning 29 for the umpteenth time, letting my mom know that the game was up and she knew mom was really 34.  My mom quickly gave up and agreed. So it has been a pleasant birthday, as my boys kindly allowed me to make them pancakes, watch Finding Nemo with them and do puzzles.  And little Gigi, the newest addition, kindly slept for four hours at a stretch last night.  And my husband sent me unsolicited flowers.  So I'm feeling pretty ...
More About: Price , High

Moderate Indulgence (I Zinc)
2007-11-05 06:00:00
I am a big damn geek.  I know.  I hate to shatter your illusion that we family/education bloggers lead glamorous, sophisticated lives, but I had to come clean.  What makes me think of it this shiny happy Monday is that I spent a good part of the weekend re-watching the Firefly series on DVD.  (If you’ve never heard of Firefly—and since it was cancelled after one season, way too few of you have—it was a short-lived TV show on Fox, a kind of space western, and very, very good.  It’s also—saving Penn & Teller’s show—probably the most Libertarian show ever to air on television.  In some ways, it has some of the spirit of the original Star Wars franchise, but without the ridiculous pseudo-Eastern mysticism, incomprehensible politics, and incredible prequel let-down.  If you’re a Fox executive, you have a lot of atonement to do for that cancellation—though a generous donation to Boys and Schools and new episodes would instantly qualify you for saint...
More About: Moderate , Indulgence , Zinc

On Humming and Health News
2007-11-02 05:00:00
Lately, my house has a new soundtrack.  It goes kind of like this: (Hum.)  No. (Hum hum.) No. (Hum.) No no. (Hum hum.) No no no.  (Hummm.) Will you two just be quiet for five minutes?! [Short pause follows.]  (Hum.) No no no no no. Waaah. As you may have guessed, Mags is at that phase that all parents know and love, the just-turned-two-and-discovered-the-word-n o phase.  Add this to Andy's new habit of humming random and endless unidentifiable songs and you'll understand why it took me so long to get this blog up today.  Because I was busy going insane.  Anyway, I've got a bit of a round-up of health-related news on this nice Friday evening. A new study to be published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine suggests that there may be a link between watching television and weight gain and high blood pressure among children.  According to the study's findings, the more TV children watched, the more likely they were to be overweight or...
More About: News , Health , Health News , Heal

A Million Princesses Without a Prince
2007-11-01 05:00:00
Here's hoping you all had a nice Halloween.  Andy (the 3-year-old) decided that he really wanted to dress up like a rock star, so we gave him a faux-hawk and a toy guitar and let him enjoy his innocent, Guitar Hero II-based images of rock stardom.  Mags (the 2-year-old) is too little to express much aside from a desire to follow his brother's lead, so we got out the navy blue short-suit and tie and amused ourselves by dressing him up like Angus Young.  (Yes, the guitarist from AC/DC.)  I figured it's probably the last year that I'll be able to impose my Halloween will on his costume choices, and might give me some cool Mom street cred when he's a teenager.  I'm not holding my breath though. Gigi (the newborn) was supposed to be a ghost, but she evidently disliked her ghost pajamas and expressed her displeasure by rendering them unwearable.  So she got to wear her little ghost hat and helped me answer the door and dispense candy.  In all, it w...
More About: Prince , Million , Princesses

Taking-On the "Drop-Out Factories"
2007-10-31 05:00:00
Since it's Halloween, how 'bout a scary story?  Not any of that cliché stuff about dimwitted coeds and men with hooks on their hands and such, but something that a parent could find really frightening.  Like, say, the possibility that your child could be attending a “drop-out factory,” will grow uninterested in school, leave without graduating, and end up back on your basement couch, supporting his video game addiction with a part-time bartending gig at the local strip club.  Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha. The “drop-out factory” (that is, a high school where no more than 60% of entering freshmen go on to graduate) is a real threat, however—at least according to Bob Balfanz, the Johns Hopkins researcher who estimates that as many as one in ten high schools fits this description.  The good news is that the number has grown much over the past decade or so.  The bad news is that it hasn’t declined either.  For what it’s worth, increasing graduation rates is starting to...
More About: Taking , Drop

College--Maybe It's Just Hype?
2007-10-30 05:00:00
Between the declining numbers of men entering college and the surveys of boys who say that higher education is pointless or that, "who you know" is more valuable to career advancement than a college degree, we have pretty much established that there are some serious issues at work regarding men and college attendance.  What we haven’t really questioned is whether college is everything that it’s cracked up to be. In Sunday’s Dallas Morning News, George Leef, director of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, claims that we’re actually putting too many kids into college at present.  His rationale?  Leef claims that the economy hasn’t changed to a type that requires a college education and that while we hear that more jobs “require” a college degree, this isn’t because the work is particularly technically demanding, but rather because employers use the degree as a screening mechanism. As a result, claims Leef, we have academically disengaged (or weak) ...
More About: College , Hype

Toddler Chivalry
2007-10-29 05:00:00
I'm beginning to wonder whether chivalry might be an inborn trait--at least a little anyway.  Three weeks into having a new sister, and my boys are taking every opportunity to watch over her, whether that means standing guard by her crib while she's sleeping, sitting by her playpen to make sure she enjoys the 1548th househod showing of "Toy Story 2" or making sure she gets a few legos to play with/sleep next to while they build.  I might have preferred that they didn't give her crayons to "use" while they were drawing, but I couldn't help but be touched that Andy (my 3-year-old) slipped her his favorite purple pencil when he was done with it.  Thank goodness she has no motor skills whatsoever yet, and can barely move her head, much less pick up a pencil, so I discreetly and quickly removed everything they gave her.  But the thought was very nice. In single-sex education news, I just found out that Woodbridge, Virginia (tantalyzingly close to my own home, but ...
More About: Toddler

Small Steps And Obesity
2007-10-26 06:00:00
After three straight days of autumn rain, I have begun to wonder how one ends up with an obese toddler boy.  Mine, at least, will not sit still in one place for more than three seconds without the threat of dire punishment.  And even then, they tend to feel like punishment is a small price to pay for the freedom to wiggle, run, throw things, threaten each other with toy sharks, color, and dismantle their beds.  Yes, at the moment they are upstairs dismantling Andy's bed.  They seem to think that because I can't see them doing it, I can't hear them, but since they have no conception of the difference between outside and inside voices, I'm pretty sure that the whole neighborhood knows what they're up to.  But after a morning that involved a rather complex game of catch and a marathon run in laps around our dining table, I'm just happy that they're both distracted for the moment and taking on something that is mostly immune to damage.  Such is the l...
More About: Obesity , Small , Steps

Preschool Harassers and Anti-Boy Bias
2007-10-25 06:00:00
Boo on the stereotype of men being emotionally unavailable beings who wilt at the need to express the smallest sign of physical affection.  Not only have I never seen a man who fits that description outside of an episode of Sex and the City and certain predictable “chick lit” stories, but the whole image sends a very confusing and contradictory message to men in general: “Please be more expressive of your feelings, but remember that if I don’t like it, I’ll label you a creepy harasser.”  Bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this, I promise. I myself have a wonderful and affectionate husband, as well as two happy and affectionate little boys.  And, as any mom can tell you, those moments when your child gives you (or his brother or his friend) a spontaneous hug are some of the best mothering moments there are.  So I share the alarm of Yvonne Bynoe, whose recent Washington Post article chronicled educators’ abuses of zero-tolerance policies on sexual harassme...
More About: Bias , Anti , Hara

A Bleg and a Book
2007-10-24 06:00:00
I really, really wish that I could claim that I was the clever wordsmith that came up with "bleg," a clever combination of blogging and begging in said blog.  Unfortunately, I think credit belongs to one of the writers for National Review Online.  (Though I confess that don't really remember which one.)  Still, my word coining insufficiencies aside, I find myself in a position to bleg for some input and advice from all of you who visit this site. The nature of Boys and Schools means that we get a lot of requests from frustrated parents looking for schools or programs that might help their boys.  Sometimes, it's a mom concerned with the school's attitude about her son's learning style or behavioral mis-match.  Often, it's someone worried about the future of a teenage boy who seems to have checked out of his school experience.  And every once in awhile, we get a truly heartbreaking story about boys who are facing serious problems and don't have anyw...
More About: Book

Fight or Flight?
2007-10-23 06:00:00
In Sunday's Washington Post, there was an excellent article from a parent who had struggled with local DC schools before deciding that they were going to have move to a better school district.  Though the problems described are not exclusive to one gender, it is a good portrait of the difficulties many parents experience when their children are in a problem school district.  (And the District of Columbia school district has many problems indeed.)  Though the author begins by describing his dedication to DC, he also starts by acknowledging that he was wrong to chastise others who abandoned DC for its suburbs in order to put their children in a better school district.  His description of his own experiences in the DC school system is familiar, but frightening: I've listened to teachers and principals talk about students with barely disguised contempt, heard teachers gossip about students' sexual activity and had others refuse services or accommodation...
More About: Fight , Flight

Turnabout and Fair Play
2007-10-19 06:00:00
I don't often address Title IX in this space--but that's not because I don't recognize the harm that it has done to men's college athletics (especially the many college programs that have been discontinued as a result of policies that ensure equivalent participation on sports by simply getting rid of some men's sports teams).  Title IX injustices are a serious issue that often affect men and boys unfairly, despite the fact that the statute was enacted in order to promote gender equality.  However, there are a number of commentators who have done a great deal of serious work on the issue, and I tend to bow to their greater expertise in this area. However, I was fascinated to read about the Title IX lawsuit recently filed by a male basketball coach against a female athletic director.  Lamont Bryant, coach of the boys' basketball team at Chicago's Marshall High School has claimed that athletic director (and legendary girls' coach) Dorothy Gayers discriminated aga...
More About: Play , Fair , Fair Play

Them's the Breaks
2007-10-18 06:00:00
As though it wasn't enough that I'm currently suffering the effects of infant-induced sleep deprivation and post-partum painkiller haziness, my two-year-old has seen fit to pass on his current Persistent Toddler Head Cold.  I don't know how it is that a sniffle and cough that don't slow him down a bit can bring grown adults to their knees and turn them into bleary, coughing drones, but it sure does.  I’m just hoping that now that the grown-ups are outnumbered in my house, the kids don’t realize that they can now employ their numerical advantage in addition to their reprehensible use of germ warfare to overthrow us.  Or perhaps they already have and are enjoying the power that comes with getting a fistful of cookies after breakfast in exchange for letting Mommy and Daddy lie down for a few minutes of quiet. Anyway, in my current state, attempting to analyze education trends and test scores is an uphill task.  The numbers start to run together, and the only con...
More About: Breaks , Brea

How's Your Latin?
2007-10-17 06:00:00
It may seem counter-intuitive, but having high expectations is one way to help boys do better in school--assuming, of course, that those expectations are fairly communicated and realistic.  Those who have made a study of helping boys in school will attest to the fact that boys respond well to structure, discipline, and challenges.  And what are high expectations but an expressly issued challenge to one’s students?  If I may be forgiven the indulgent use of sports metaphors, the situation is very much like the culture that surrounds boys on sports teams.  The whole “giving 110%” cliché may be overused, but it remains the model for what is expected of athletes on a team—from both their coaches and their teammates.  There’s no reason why boys can’t flourish when the same level of expectation is laid on them in the classroom.  In fact, one of my favorite classroom recommendations for reaching out to boys is to put them in this very team-based competitive en...
More About: Latin

Back Again, Joyriding, and Books
2007-10-16 06:00:00
I'm happy to say that after a not-quite-as-brief-as-I'd-like hospital stay, I'm now back home with a healty baby girl.  My sons are adjusting well to the presence of their new sister, and this morning found them standing guard over her while she napped--just to keep an eye on her and keep her company.  (Well, they were actually sitting guard after awhile, as the lure of Pixar movies and the length of the nap proved to be a bit too much for them.)  At any rate, I would like to thank you for your patience during my absence, and promise that I'll be back to posting regularly from here on out. I'll try not to draw any overbroad conclusions about boys from this news blurb, but I couldn't help but be tickled about the AP story of three-year-old Jordan Will from Wisconsin (and his two-year-old friend), who took his toy Mustang out for a joyride through their neighborhood, making it 5 or 6 blocks (and across a bridge and highway), before being pulled over by a...
More About: Books , Back

Complaints About Single Sex Education
2007-10-12 06:00:00
Ok, I seem to be on a bit of tear this week about single-sex education.  Maybe we should call it a theme instead. So why am I returning to it again today?  Well, having written approvingly about single-sex classes on many occasions (not to mention championing their introduction in public schools), I seem to constantly be fielding variations of the same criticism, and I thought I might take advantage of the chance to reply summarily.  Fortunately, I have this recent Letter to the Editor of the Boston Globe (in response to a Globe article about single-sex classes in South Carolina) that more or less sums up the complaints I generally hear:“It is naive and prejudiced to assume a child's learning style will match a predetermined classification. Do all the males you know fit into the sports-loving stereotype? Do all your female acquaintances thrive on new makeup?“Yet in South Carolina boys are being taught pre-algebra with skateboard parts and girls are learning science b...
More About: Education , Single , Duca , Sex Education

Running with Dinosaurs
2007-10-12 06:00:00
I love taking my sons to the Smithsonian to see the dinosaurs.  It has that feeling of continuity that you get when you can pass on something of your own childhood.   And the awe it inspires (and subsequent stomping around the house and roaring) is always fun to behold.  As of late, I’ve also noticed that many of the museums we visit are making the effort to become more activity-oriented and child-friendly—a trend that I applaud, especially as it regards boys’ learning.It seems that these efforts to engage kids come from a combination of concern about the rise in childhood obesity as well as a better understanding of how to foster learning in young children.  As a result, many of the country’s children’s museums are looking for ways to create engaging environments and expand their outdoor spaces.  For example, the Strong National Museum of Play in New York now features a rock-climbing wall and yellow-brick road that leads to literary-based activities (i...
More About: Running , Dino , Dinosaurs

Single-Sex Education
2007-10-10 06:00:00
I often take note of experimental public programs that feature single-sex education—mostly in a bid to bring more attention to them and encourage others to follow their example.  (That is, I encourage public school systems to try to incorporate similar experiments in their own schools, and I doubly encourage parents to give them a shot.)  It is my hope that a lot of the nay saying and controversy about single-sex learning will start to diminish once people become a little more accustomed to seeing what good such classes can do.  Today, I have yet another program to add to the list—West Riviera Elementary in Palm Beach County, Florida.  The article describing the new program reinforces many of the reactions and results we’ve seen before: teachers able to find ways to appeal to students’ interests and modify their classes to suit their student’s learning styles; students extolling the lack of distractions in the single-sex classroom or speaking about how they feel ...
More About: Education , Single , Duca , Sex Education

College Un-Bound
2007-10-09 06:00:00
I'm not sure exactly where this comes into play, developmentally speaking, but my two-year-old son has recently discovered an affinity for taking off his clothes and trying to run around the house naked.  This doesn't really connect to what follows, but since he just did this again a bare ten minutes ago (no pun intended), that is my excuse if I’m a little disjointed today.  Toddler exhaustion.  Hopefully, I can have my revenge by reading that opening sentence aloud to him in a few years. Anyway, there’s a good article to be found over on the website for Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Journal Gazette on the problem of shrinking male enrollment in college.  Though a good part of it simply goes over the problems we already know about (such as women making up approximately 57% of entering undergraduates), it does a good job of looking at the problem from a local perspective.  Not only do you get a feel for how deeply the gender imbalance in college has affected all of...
More About: College , Bound , Coll

Tests of Manhood Meet Reality TV
2007-10-05 06:00:00
I will admit that, as a woman, I have an outsider's curiosity about trials of manhood and the various ways boys like to test and prove themselves to their peers and adults.  In my experience, there is more flexibility and fluidity about when one considers one’s self a woman, and very rarely have I run into any woman who seeks some kind of public ritual to establish her “adulthood” to others.  (That is, aside from the trying period between about 16 and 18, when I drove my mom crazy with demands to be seen as an adult—but mostly in the make-up-wearing, no-curfew sense.  Not so much in the bearing-the-responsibility-and-status-of- adulthood sense.  But I digress.)  I hate to wander into hairsplitting territory over coming-of-age rites, so suffice to say that it’s obvious that young men and young women generally approach such adulthood rituals in very different ways, and that the male focus on tests of physical and mental endurance are always fascinating to me.&...
More About: Reality , Meet , Tests , Ality

Violent Assumptions
2007-10-04 06:00:00
This article, from Lansing, Michigan's City Pulse newspaper, just made me totally crazy.  Yes, I realize that we're not talking about the newspaper of record here, but the tone of the article speaks volumes about the kinds of assumptions and biases that make up the background music to debates about gender, and it is chock-full of unfortunate characterizations of masculinity. To clarify, the article in question is about domestic violence and new approaches to dealing with it.  Right off the bat, the author makes it clear that we are only concerned with violence against women committed by men.  Fair enough.  You’re free to tackle any aspect of domestic violence that you wish to, though I don’t see how that should translate into men being the source of the problem.  Men are not the problem.  Abusers are.  For me, the really frustrating fact was that there is almost no way for me to voice my displeasure with what was written without someone misinterp...
More About: Assumptions , Viol , Violent , Lent

NBC Report on Male Teacher Shortage
2007-10-02 06:00:00
Let's take a moment to fully indulge all of our biases and assumptions.  Bear with me--I'm working towards something here.  Pretend for a moment that your adult daughter (for those without adult daughters, we'll make her hypothetical) tells you that she has met someone new and that things are getting serious.  You express interest and ask what he does for a living.  She tells you that he is a full-time kindergarten teacher in the local public school system.  Now be honest with yourself—what is your first reaction?  Do you think, “How wonderful that she has found someone with a love for children and a passion for education.”  Or do you think, “Well, that’s nice and all, but how on earth would he be able to support a family as a kindergarten teacher.”  Or (and remember we’re being honest here) do you think, “Hmmm.  Kindergarten?  Isn’t that a little weird?  Why would a man be interested in watching such little kids?  I won...
More About: Report , Teacher , Male

Sample Chapters for Boys
2007-10-01 06:00:00
If ever doing grocery shopping for the week with two boys under the age of four and while nine months pregnant becomes an Olympic sport, I shall be a shoe-in for the gold medal.  Unless there's someone out there who can do it in under two hours, in which case I call shenanigans.  Though perhaps their supermarket doesn’t have a riot-inducing fresh-baked cookie shop over by the bakery.  Not to mention that the good people at our store have eliminated the candy display in one check-out area and replaced it with . . . children’s books.  You may think this is an improvement, but at least when you’re denying your children candy, you get to feel like a good mom.  Telling your kids they don’t need the book that they’re desperate to look at just doesn’t leave you in as good a place, and you’re left with the nagging fear that you are somehow contributing to the problem in boys’ reading. In order to make up for my hard-hearted, literacy-discouraging activities this mo...
More About: Boys , Chapter , Sample

The Great Doc Search
2007-09-28 06:00:00
Since it's Friday again (at last), it's time for another chapter in Malia's Rambling Discussions of Parenting Stuff.  (Granted, I have occasionally been expanding my rantings beyond Fridays, but I really do try to indulge only once a week.)  Anyway, today’s topic is choosing a pediatrician. The problem is that I really like my sons’ pediatrician.  And having found someone that I like and trust, it’s difficult to embark on the search all over again.  Unfortunately, having recently moved far enough away to make regular check-ups into a trek and emergency appointments into a problem, I’ve faced up to the necessity of finding someone new.  So now, I’m awash in ratings and reviews and lists of “Top Docs in DC,” and other conflicting information.  The difficulty in finding a good doctor is that you want to find someone with all the right credentials of course, but you’re also looking for someone who approaches their work with a philosophy you like.  A...
More About: Search , Great , The G

Anti-Boy Bias?
2007-09-27 06:00:00
It's been awhile since I posted or linked to anything inflammatory (a few weeks at least, I think), so I'm about due.  Though it doesn’t bring many new arguments to the debate, Selwyn Duke at the American Thinker has an interesting article posted called “Banning Boyhood” that is . . . well. . . a finally crafted screed (or perhaps rant?) on the growth of a cultural bias against boys.  I should probably add that Duke comes to the issue from a very conservative perspective, so if you’re not right-leaning and easily offended, you might want to give this one a pass.  In the interest of fairness, I should add that I would be more than happy to link to a left-leaning rant/screed about the cultural anti-male shift as soon as someone can bring one to my attention.  (Don’t everyone volunteer at once.)  So with all of that said, there are some blistering passages in this piece, such as the following: Then there is that which is truly destructive.  It's someth...
More About: Bias , Anti