Per's MANifesto May 1998

Per's MANifesto: A newsletter of news and opinion on
man-bashing, anti-male stereotypes and other great moral principles.
May, 1998.
WELCOME, READERS: We need a title for this issue, so we'll
just MAKE SOMETHING UP. Actually, that's an appropriate title, because
it concerns feminists and their penchant for making things up. We'll
examine phony charges that have sent men to jail. We'll examine phony
grievances feminists have invented to claim "bias against women." Well
discuss nurses who think their patients are "touched by an angel" when
it's the nurses themselves who seem a bit "touched." Remember, if you
can't think of a real reason why men are evil or you are a victim,
then just MAKE SOMETHING UP! Enjoy.

MANifesto is available on the web at
http://idt.net/~per2/manifest.htm

INDEX:
I. VIRAGOS VERSUS VIAGRA
II. MAKE SOMETHING UP
III. BRAVO, MARK
IV. PHIL HARTMAN WILL NOT BE REMEMBERED
V. EQUALITY: ALL WASHED UP
VI. TOUCH TOUCHE
VII. YOU'RE SO INANE
VIII. SIEG HER!
IX. QUOTABLE

==========
VIRAGOS VERSUS VIAGRA
Question: If men had almost no means of contraception
available to them and women had multiple methods to choose from, do
you think feminists would demand equality (for men)? Or do you think
feminists would find something else to complain about?
And we think you know the answer to that one.
Feminist hypocrisy is in the spotlight once again because of
the publicity surrounding the new impotency drug Viagra. Feminists saw
that -- horrors! -- some of our health-care dollars were going to be
spent on men. So how do they object to that? Well, they just Make
Something Up.
In this case, feminists invented a strained and farfetched
grievance: that some insurance companies were quick to cover Viagra
while some of them do not cover contraception for women.
So here is what feminists see as unfair. Women have "the
pill," diaphragms, spermicides, Norplant, and many other methods, and
men do not. Half of medical plans cover "the pill," while they do not
cover anything similar for men because there is nothing similar for
men. Naturally, with such inequality working in *their* favor,
feminists had to find something else to complain about.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America said this situation
is a sign of "bias against women." That might make sense if companies
were covering contraceptives for men and not for women. But when
*only* women get the benefit, feminists say it's a sign of "bias
against women."
Incredible!
The fact is that about half of insurance companies now cover
Viagra about a month after it went on the market. About half of
insurance companies also cover "the pill." The funding rates are about
equal, while the conditions they cover are not.
One of the arguments feminists make in favor of more coverage
of contraception is that it is a "health" issue, and as such it is of
concern to all of us.
What? A few seconds ago, feminists were saying that pregnancy
is a private matter, that it concerns a woman and her body and no one
else. In fact, legalized abortion in the United States is based on the
argument that it is a privacy right.
Which means that, according to feminists, pregnancy is a
private matter of public concern that involves only a woman and her
body though it also involves your money -- and the decision must be
left up to the woman while the decision to have your insurance
premiums funding her sexual activity is not left up to you.
Got that?
While feminists argue that pregnancy is a matter of choice,
impotence is not a matter of choice. Impotence is a medical
malfunction -- and the purpose of medicine is to treat medical
problems. Hence the drug Viagra.
Pregnancy is not a dysfunction -- much as feminists would like
to demonize the condition as oppressive to women. Pregnancy occurs not
because the body is malfunctioning, but because it is working.
If pregnancy is a matter of "choice," a woman has the choice
of engaging in sex and having abortions. It's just that feminists want
us to foot the bill for her choice, while fighting tooth and nail over
any money being spent on men.
At Per's MANifesto, we actually can see the need for providing
contraceptive coverage to some women. We're not against it. We're
against feminists demagoguing the issue and the newspapers playing
along with them. We don't need this man-bashing, these shrill claims
of "bias," these imaginary forms of victimhood.
But if feminists want to make it an issue of fairness, then
maybe the rest of the world will start asking questions: If a woman
chooses to engage in sex, why should we subsidize her choice and only
*her* choice when we do not pay for -- or even have -- a pill or
similar method for men? And who but a feminist could call this
situation "bias against women"?
There are only two basic methods of birth control available
for men: the condom and the vasectomy. One kills sexual sensation, the
other involves surgery, cannot be casually reversed, and might be
linked to higher rates of prostate cancer.
But feminists have been remarkably successful in getting the
major news organizations to play along, presenting the feminist
argument without and counterbalance or without pointing out the
obvious flaws in it. It is amazing how many newspapers and TV news
shows presented the feminist argument of "bias against women" in
funding contraceptives without noting the simple, obvious fact that
contraceptives aren't funded for men!
If you want to deny that the media are biased in favor of
feminists, just look at this issue. Feminist accusations were given
major coverage by papers, but many of these same papers did not bother
pointing out the simple, obvious fact that there are no contraceptives
for men and hence no insurance coverage for them. It's a basic,
stare-you-in-the-face fact, yet amazingly it got overlooked as the
news media gave the feminists a free ride. When feminists have a
complaint like this one -- even a spurious complaint -- it's treated
as news. When men have legitimate grievances with anti-male
discrimination in jobs, the courts, and society, it's covered under
the topic of "backlash" and "sexism."
That's why Per's MANifesto has to keep on pointing out what
the news media omit. We do not have the type of staffing and budget
you get at major newspapers and TV news shows, but we can still see
the obvious. Are major news organizations incapable of seeing the
obvious? Or would they rather not rock the feminist boat?
In particular, we'd like to note a Washington Post story on
the Viagra controversy that missed the obvious facts we just pointed
out, while also going off on a tangent to inject some feminist
propaganda. The article said: "Women of child-bearing age spend an
average of 68 percent more out-of-pocket on health costs than men in
the same age group, recent research has suggested." Whoa, there.
"Suggested?" What does that mean? If you're not sure about a
statistic, why are you putting a precise number on it and printing it?
Moreover, the article never tells us what this supposed "research" is,
when or where it was done or, most important, who did it. We suspect
it was yet more "feminist" research. You know what that is -- the same
thing that gave us phony statistics about one in four (or one in
three) women being raped in their lifetimes, or a "holocaust" of
anorexia victims, or five billion trillion gazillion women being
victims of domestic violence every minute.
Why are the papers still using this type of spurious feminist
claptrap?
And just think what is being implied by saying "Women of
child-bearing age spend an average of 68 percent more out-of-pocket on
health costs ..." Does that mean *women* spend the money, or that it
was spent *on* women? There's a big difference, especially when there
is a husband spending money on his wife's prenatal care, or the
insurance policies that we all pay into paying more out to women. It
looks like feminists took an advantage for women and fudged it into a
new form of victimhood. Just Make Something Up.
Also, that same paragraph goes on to say: "It is unclear how
much of that disparity arises because women consume more health care,
and how much occurs because insurance fails to pay for the services
that women alone use."
So your research "suggested" a conclusion on which you were
still "unclear."
So why are you even bothering to print it?
One final note: Feminists and their sympathizers are making a
nationwide push to pass laws mandating certain levels of coverage for
women's contraceptives. A half dozen states have passed such
legislation. But only for women, of course. (While feminists continue
to claim this is a sign of bias *against* them.)
-----
(Reference: "Viagra's Success Fuels Gender Bias Debate:
Birth Control Advocates Raise Issue"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-05/20/145l-052098-idx.html)
==========

MAKE SOMETHING UP
"Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?"
Pardon us for remembering a line from the novel "Catch-22." We
recalled it because of Grant Snowden, who is now a free man in Miami,
Florida. But Snowden's yesteryears will never return -- not the twelve
years he spent behind bars for a crime that never happened.
Grant Snowden used to be a police officer. He was once named
officer of the year.
Now his plans are to go to work on a potato farm.
Snowden, now 51, was convicted in 1986 of having sexually
abused two children at his wife's home day care. This was the heyday
of the national hysteria over supposed "ritual abuse" and satanic
worship. Many of the cases from that era have dissolved under closer
examination in a less hysterical atmosphere. Today, the contaminated
evidence, the leading and deceptive interview techniques used on
children, the coercion of child witnesses, the "recovered memories"
and "guided imagery" on which accusations were based, have been
largely discredited. Among the mass abuse cases that collapsed under
closer examination are the McMartin preschool case in California, the
Little Rascals case in North Carolina, the Margaret Kelly Michaels
case in New Jersey and the Fells Acres case in Massachusetts.
In Wenatchee, Washington, a notoriously flawed prosecution of
"child sex rings" has been drawing international attention and shame.
Twenty-eight people were accused of ritually molesting children in a
ring supposedly connected to a local church.
Every defendant who could afford a lawyer was acquitted or had
the charges dismissed. But every defendant who could not afford a
lawyer was convicted or pleaded guilty: That's fourteen guilty pleas
and five convictions on charges that the accusers are now recanting
amid evidence of serious prosecutorial abuse.
Among those in prison are Harold and Idella Everett, who now
have been jailed more than three years. But a judge in Spokane
recently ruled they should be allowed to withdraw their confessions
and be given a new trial. Their 13-year-old daughter has withdrawn the
accusation she made against them and has said she was coerced into
making it by a police official.
According to the Associated Press, Superior Court Judge Wallis
Friel ruled for a new trial after "questioned the objectivity of
Wenatchee Police investigator Bob Perez, who was a foster parent to
the Everett girls. The older girl said she told Perez and
child-welfare workers that nothing happened to her but felt pressured
to make her accusations. ... Critics maintained that Perez,
prosecutors and obsessed social workers created a whirlpool of sexual
hysteria -- coaxing children into accusations and bullying bewildered,
poorly educated adults into confessions."
Back to Snowden's case. He had been sentenced to five life
terms in prison. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta
overturned his conviction.
In getting the conviction overturned, his defense team cited
tainted evidence, child witnesses who were asked loaded questions,
dubious medical tests, and a prosecution psychologist who used
questionable techniques in trying to elicit accusations. The appeals
court also noted the factor of inaccurate expert testimony, including
prosecution psychologist Simon Miranda, who made the remarkable claim
that "99.5 percent of the children who report an incident of abuse are
telling the truth." Actually, prosecutors in the hysteria era rarely
believed children when they said no abuse occurred. They subjected the
children to threatening and coercive interviews until they got the
answers they wanted, then declared that children do not lie -- even
though they must have been lying once if they changed their stories!
False accusations are not victimless crimes. The conviction of
Grant Snowden hurt both him and his family immensely. As an Associated
Press story noted: "I got my father taken away from me 12 years ago,"
said Grant Snowden Jr., who was placed on probation for losing his
temper with the mother of one of the young accusers after his father
went to prison. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."
Snowden's case is of wider interest to citizens of the U.S.
The Florida attorney general who led the charge against him was none
other than Janet Reno.
Yes, that's the same Janet Reno who today heads the entire
U.S. Department of Justice as the nation's top law-enforcement
official.
This isn't the first such witch hunt that our esteemed Ms.
Reno was responsible for. The book "Satan's Silence" recounts how, in
1989, fourteen-year-old Bobby Fijnje was arrested and accused of
assaulting several children. A diabetic, he was detained, denied food,
and went into the first throes of insulin shock, at which point he
"confessed." Reno had him jailed and cut off contact with his parents,
whom she said were probably satan-worshipping pornographers.
Bobby Fijnje was acquitted of all charges.
Reno was head prosecutor in another case that took place while
she was facing a serious re-election challenge. During this time, Reno
grabbed onto a case involving hysteria over a daycare center in County
Walk, a suburb of Miami, Florida, and rode the hysteria back into
office.
The case involved Ileana Fuster, a young Honduran woman
accused of kissing the bodies of babies placed in her care.
Prosecutors seemed to ignore the evidence that this was a common
custom in the households of many Honduran families, instead trumping
the case into a sensationalized, and exaggerated, sex scandal. It
really took off when they learned that Ileana's husband had a prior
conviction for fondling the breast of a clothed nine-year-old girl at
a party.
Ileana Fuster was arrested in August of 1984 and placed in
solitary confinement. Even though it was a woman who initially was
accused, prosecutors decided they wanted to go after her husband -- a
man apparently makes a better target when you need votes. There was no
evidence -- but prosecutors knew ways to get some anyway.
Principally, they wanted Ileana to accuse her husband, but
though she was terrified of jail and threats of a long prison
sentence, she consistently refused. The prosecutors essentially kept
her there about a year, until she broke. She was 17 years old.
The techniques they used to break her are worth noting. When
Ileana consistently told them her husband had not molested any
children in her care, it was decided that she had hidden memories that
she had not recovered yet. Her defense attorney had ambitions of being
appointed to head a multimillion dollar state program -- and it was no
secret that Ms. Reno wanted convictions in this case. So her own
defense attorney had Ileana subjected to various forms of
mind-altering techniques -- so-called "visualization" exercises in
which she was told to picture sex crimes occurring -- while at the
same time being told that a deal could be cut to get her a light
sentence!
Experts who have examined the records of these and other
sessions say the techniques are much like brainwashing and hypnosis.
Ileana was so strung out after these sessions that once she did not
recognize her own mother who had come to visit.
Her "therapist" told her she could not remember the supposed
sex crimes because she was having "blackouts." When she had nightmares
in this nightmarish setting, she was told that they were "memories"
that were emerging.
Under this pressure, the girl cracked. She signed a confession
of sex crimes while declaring she still could not consciously remember
them! Janet Reno came to court and held Ileana's hand while she
confessed. It was the least she could do for someone helping her win
an election.
As part of the deal, Ileana had to accuse her husband, Frank,
of a wild array of ritualized sex abuses, including putting snakes in
children's bodies -- the types of bizarre accusations seen in other
hysteria cases such as McMartin Preschool.
Ileana served three and a half years in a juvenile facility
and was deported to Honduras. Her husband, Frank, was sentenced to six
life terms, plus 165 years. He is still in prison.
Prosecutors admitted they probably wouldn't have been able to
convict him without Ileana's confession.
And once in Honduras, out from under the threats and
brainwashing of Janet Reno's justice system, Ileana retracted
everything.
The County Walk case was never brought up by anyone when Janet
Reno went before Senate hearings to become attorney general of the
United States. But supporters cited her concern for children.
-----
(Sources: "Ex-police officer free after child-abuse conviction
thrown out," By Catherine Wilson, Associated Press Writer.
("Judge recommends new trial for couple in sex ring case," by
John K. Wiley, Associated Press Writer.
("Satan's Silence," Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker, 1995,
Basic Books, New York.)
==========

BRAVO, MARK
Mark Bravo has a law degree today.
Contrary to what feminists say, Mark didn't get his degree by
exercising some sort of "male privilege" or because he had some sort
of advantage in being male. Just the opposite. Mark Bravo earned a law
degree after being sent to prison on a false rape charge. His "male
privilege" consisted of the "privilege" of being sent to prison based
solely on the word of one woman.
The case was truly amazing. He was a nurse at Metropolitan
State Hospital in Norwalk, California, in October 1990 when he was
accused. He had an alibi. Other employees backed up his version. And
the woman who accused him was a mental patient. What's more, she
claimed a "Tony Bravo" had raped her. Despite all the evidence of his
innocence, the system railroaded him. He was sentenced to eight years
in prison. It shows once again that feminism is a much more powerful
force than justice.
We know what feminists will say: that women don't lie about
such things. But, in fact, the woman admitted she lied. She eventually
recanted her story and said someone else attacked her. A Los Angeles
Superior Court judge ordered new DNA tests, which showed Bravo was
innocent. He was freed in 1994.
One of the incredible things about this case is that Bravo had
appealed his conviction all the way to the California Supreme Court,
and at each level the system rejected his arguments. The word of a
woman mental patient was held in greater esteem than that of an
innocent man with an alibi! It wasn't just the accuser who was crazy
-- it was the entire system.
Once he was free, Mark set out to earn a law degree. Bravo,
now 29, graduated this month from Western State University College of
Law. He also has been awarded $3.9 million in damages in a civil
rights lawsuit. A Los Angeles Superior Court found that investigators
in his original case "deliberately and with malice," deprived Bravo of
his rights.
We wonder: what was the agenda of those prosecutors? Was Mark
Bravo nothing more to them than another notch on their guns? Were they
of a feminist bent, prejudiced against men, or were they merely afraid
of the feminist lobby? Did they think that sending innocent men to
prison is going to somehow help them "take back the night"?
As usual, the false-accuser's name is not being released. Her
identity is being protected, and she is not facing any charges. Of
course feminists will say "How could you hold a mentally unstable
woman responsible for her actions?" But she was considered responsible
enough to send a man to prison based solely on her word.
Whatever their motives, we have to remember that false
accusations are not victimless crimes. They destroy innocent people.
We have seen some feminists who have been remarkable callous
toward falsely accused men. These feminists shrug and say that the men
aren't really hurt much by such accusations.
But Mark Bravo has a family, too. He has children, whose
father was taken away from them. Though the children always believed
in the goodness and innocence of their father, they still had to live
with the cruel stigma of having a father in prison on a rape charge.
And they missed their father's love and guidance all those years he
was in prison.
Somehow we would feel better if just one major feminist or
just one major feminist organization expressed some regret over
innocent men who are falsely accused. But we've seen precious little
remorse or regret from them. Instead, they dig in their heels despite
all the cases like Mark Bravo's, and insist that false accusations
either never happen or are not a big problem when they do.
Well, we suppose that depends on whether it's you or someone
you love sitting in a prison cell, disgraced for life. Then it no
longer looks like a minor problem anymore.
Feminist denial of false accusations is like the Titanic
Syndrome all over again: you can always sacrifice men to protect the
lives of women.

(Source: "Wrongfully Jailed Man Earns Degree," By Martha
Bellisle, Associated Press Writer, Sunday, May 24, 1998,
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19980524/V000174-052498-idx.html)
==========

PHIL HARTMAN WILL NOT BE REMEMBERED
Actor-comedian Phil Hartman will be remembered for his
skillful impressions, his long run on the TV show "Saturday Night
Live," his contributions to projects ranging from Pee-wee Herman shows
to "The Simpsons" and an impressive array of movies and television
projects.
But mark our words: Phil Hartman will not be remembered when
the topic turns to domestic violence.
Phil was killed by his wife, who then turned the gun on
herself. By definition, it ought to be an obvious example of domestic
violence. The problem, however, is that feminists have succeeded in
re-defining domestic violence as something that only men do, with
women the only victims. And the news media have fallen in line.
Whenever the news media cover domestic violence issues, it almost
certainly will involve feminists talking of violence by men. There are
many other forms of domestic violence -- women abusing children, women
abusing women, and women abusing men -- but feminists have worked
miracles in making these disappear from coverage of domestic violence.
In the October 1977 issue of MANifesto, we told you about the
staged propaganda event in Washington, D.C., on November 22. The
organizers put up 1,500 life-sized wooden figures of women murdered by
domestic abusers. Women and only women. This type of event is staged
quite often -- with some symbol standing in for the victims -- and the
only victims represented are women. You can bet when feminists stage
the next such propaganda rally on domestic violence, there will be no
mention of Phil Hartman, or of any man killed by a female
acquaintance. He will not be remembered.
That is quite remarkable, because men make up about 40 percent
of spouses killed in domestic violence, according to Justice
Department figures. The feminist reaction to this is that it must have
been self defense, the men must have deserved it. Male equals guilty.
Now there is before the public a clear-cut case showing what
researchers have always known: there are violent women, and they kill
men for a lot of other reasons besides self defense. In 1977, Suzanne
Steinmetz released results from several studies showing that the
percentage of wives who have used physical violence is higher than the
percentage of husbands, and that the wives' average violence score
tended to be higher, although men were somewhat more likely to cause
greater injury. She also found that women were as likely as men to
initiate physical violence. Of every 100 families, 3.8 experience
severe husband-to-wife violence, but 4.5% experience severe
wife-to-husband violence. (Straus, Gelles, Steinmetz, "Behind Closed
Doors: Violence in American Families," 1980).
Brynn Hartman, the wife who killed Phil Hartman, was not
acting in self defense. Phil Hartman was shot multiple times, in bed,
apparently while sleeping. Early reports indicate is body did not even
show defensive wounds that would indicate he was awake and knew a gun
was aimed at him.
Friends and acquaintances say that Brynn Hartman was a
troubled woman and a drug abuser. Early in life, she had wanted to be
a model or actress, but obviously that career never went anywhere. So
she married a successful comedian and latched onto the good life that
way. But friends say she had a violent temper and a violent streak,
and at times Hartman would have to restrain her violent attacks. He
was doing a sensible thing -- getting ready to leave her -- when she
killed him. The picture emerges of a woman who couldn't control her
violence, and couldn't take responsibility for it. If he left her, she
might have gotten a fat financial settlement, but she would be a
nobody while her ex would continue on a successful career. Perhaps she
just couldn't stand that thought.
Who knows? Feminists might still try to turn Brynn Hartman
into a heroine or a victim the way they did with Betty Broderick, the
abusive, narcissistic woman who murdered her ex-husband and his new
wife in a jealous rage. Ms. Broderick attracted a great deal of
sympathetic responses from feminist defenders, showing just how many
women are amenable to the use of violence when it suits *their* moods
and outlooks. Feminists might just Make Something Up -- and blame Phil
Hartman for his death -- saying he deserved it for "deserting" his
wife. Bullhockey. No man should stay with an abusive woman. Brynn
Hartman's ultimate violence showed how right he was to decide to leave
her.
==========

EQUALITY: ALL WASHED UP
Here is one of the most incredible stories out of feminism
that we've heard in a long time. At first we thought it was a joke,
but we checked the Electronic Telegraph, web site by the publishers of
England's Daily and Sunday Telegraph, and the story was there.
In Austria, a committee of the Parliament has voted that the
country should legally require men to do at least half the housework,
as part of a campaign to reduce Austria's rising divorce rate.
As the Electronic Telegraph article states: "The nationwide
campaign to change the old divorce laws was started two years ago by
Austria's Women's Ministry. Its Halb Halb (half half) campaign argued
that not only housework but other aspects of marriage, such as care of
the children, should be divided on a 50-50 basis, with allowances for
partners who work or have other commitments."
The article also states: "The new laws, which were recently
approved by an all-party parliamentary select committee, are part of a
radical shake-up of marriage and divorce legislation that dates from
Adolf Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938. The Nazi view that women
should content themselves with Kinder, Kuche, Kirche, (children,
kitchen and church), is, not surprisingly, unpopular with modern
Austrian women." The policy has been promoted by a publicity campaign
costing about two million British pounds.
Watch how one feminist jumps through hoops to defend this
governmental mandate of private matters. Sonja Kato, a spokeswoman for
the Austrian Women's Ministry, said: "Partnership in marriage is
something private, but the state is a community of private people."
Another supporter is Terezilja Stolsits, the legal
spokesperson for the Green Party. Ms. Stolsits also denies that the
law involves the government intruding into domestic affairs.
We certainly love feminist logic: a law involving domestic
affairs does not involve domestic affairs.
Feminists who object to "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche" on the grounds
that is was a governmental intrusion into private lives now want to
intrude into private lives with a law of their own. Remember, with
feminism, nothing is ever right or wrong. It's merely right if
feminists do it, and wrong if anyone else does. As we say at Per's
MANifesto, Sieg Her!
Others are planning to cash in. "Walter Penk-Lipovsky, who
has run his own private detective agency in Vienna for 30 years, said
he had already planned how to monitor how much a husband was doing
around the house." Clearly the law is going to supply lots of money to
lawyers and private-eyes.
All this caused us to reflect that, after its defeat in World
War I, Austria was transformed from a monarchy to a republic, and both
men and women had the right to vote. Since the female population was
undoubtedly higher than the male population -- considering the men who
died in the war -- that means that the majority of the Austria
electorate was female. And sentiment was high for union with Germany,
even after the rise of Hitler. Despite feminist poses of purity, it's
a fact of history that women adored Hitler. He was a charismatic man
of power. At parades and rallies, women would sometimes swoon when he
drew near.
So now modern Austrian women are protesting the modern state
of affairs, without, of course, taking any responsibility for them.
Oh, we know what feminists will say -- that women could not possibly
have supported the "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche" policies because it turned
out so badly for them. Using that logic, we could argue that Austria
could not possibly have wanted union with Germany because it turned
out so badly for them. And, of course, no one could have supported
Hitler.
One thing about "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche" policies is that it
was sending women to kitchens and nurseries at a time when men were
being sent to combat zones, graveyards, and amputee wards. And leading
up to these events there had been a majority-female population, armed
with the vote. It's both hilarious and sad that women could have
voted the kitchen for themselves and the death-trenches for men and
still claim to be the victims.
But while we're at it, let's write a bill that truly divides
up the work around the house fifty-fifty.
That means that Austrian women will have to do half the
snow-shoveling.
They will have to get up at night in investigate half the
noises heard downstairs.
They will have to do half the yard work, including hauling
half the bags of clippings, trimmings, etc.
Austrian women will have to change half of all flat tires.
They will have to go fetch the car half of the time when it's
pouring down rain.
They will have to pick up the check fifty percent of the time.
They will have to handle half the burglars who break into the
house.
They will have to fix half the stopped toilets, flooded
basements, broken sump pumps, and backed-up sewer lines.
Austrian women will have to dish out half the reassurances
about their partner's weight, hip size, clothing, and new hairdos.
Austrian women will have to buy half the flowers purchased in
the household to make up for offenses they're not quite sure how or
when or if they committed.
But let's not stop there. While we're at it, let's demand that
Austrian men really do half the work in the household -- including the
complaining. And men will have to do half the pouting when their
partners fail to read their minds. Women will have to give half the
diamonds and jewelry. Men will have to own half the clothes and shoes.
And if men are expected to do half the work caring for
children, we should expect that men get custody half the time in
custody disputes.
This still doesn't cover the women who never lift a finger
around the house. If a woman has maids and servants doing the work for
her, we should require that she gets a job and pays at least half the
salary of those employees.
In some households there are who just plain don't do
housework. The new law should be a boon for their husbands and
children. We can't wait until the law forces these women to do half
the work.
Of course we can already hear feminists screaming in outrage
over this. They will say that it is forcing women into a traditional
gender role.
-----
(Source: "Austrian husbands must do washing up - by law," By
Michael Leidig in Vienna
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000502331060165&rtmo=a3bReeXL&atmo=99999999&P4%5FFOLLOW%5FON=%2F98%2F2%2F22%2Fwcho22%2Ehtml&pg=/et/98/2/22/wcho22.html
==========

TOUCH TOUCHE
Witchcraft is alive and well and living in our hospitals and
universities. We're talking about the practice of "therapeutic touch,"
which has caught on with many in the healing profession, most of them
women.
The "therapeutic touch" people believe that an energy field
emanates from each person and can be manipulated to help heal them.
This field supposedly can be detected as a sensation of hot or cold
just above the skin of the patient. The healer moves her hands over
the patient's body, without touching the patient, to holistically
realign this invisible field and make nice.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association
and the Associated Press, more than 100,000 people worldwide have been
taught the technique, including at least 43,000 health-care
professionals. It is practiced in at least 80 North American hospitals
and taught in more than 100 colleges and universities in 75 countries.
It has been used to help conditions from premenstrual syndrome,
headaches, burns and bone fractures to asthma, reproductive problems,
cancer and AIDS.
The concept is so absurd that a child could see through it.
In fact, a child did.
Nine-year-old Emily Rosa conducted a study as a science
project showing that 21 experienced "touch" practitioners couldn't
even find the field they were supposedly manipulating. Her study
passed review and was included in the March 25 issue of the Journal of
the American Medical Association.
The Associated Press reported: "Emily set up a cardboard
screen through which practitioners put their hands. With their sight
blocked, she asked them to identify which of their hands was near one
of hers. The 21 practitioners chose the correct hand 44 percent of the
time. That was slightly less than the 50 percent chance they would
have had of choosing the correct hand by guessing."
But the supporters of therapeutic touch aren't going to let
science get in the way of what they "know" is true. Dolores Krieger,
professor emeritus of nursing science at New York University and
co-founder of therapeutic touch in 1972, quickly labeled Emily's study
as invalid. Ms. Krieger claims that therapeutic touch has been back up
by numerous doctoral dissertations and "innumerable" clinical studies.
She herself has written two books about it.
It's best to know your terms when you're dealing with folks
like Ms. Krieger. "Clinical studies" are differenentiated from
laboratory studies done under rigidly controlled, scientific
conditions. "Clinical studies," on the other had, got their name
because they are done out in the field -- often in clinics -- under
unscientific and subjective conditions. Often a clinical study simply
involves a therapist making observations and drawing subjective
conclusions that cannot be tested. They might be right, they might be
wrong -- and another "clinical researcher" observing the same things
might draw the opposite conclusion. With laboratory studies, one of
the most important aspects is that someone else using your methods
could produce the exact same results. With clinical studies, the
results are often subjective -- an "art form," if you will. Clinical
studies have given us all sorts of techniques ranging from "recovered
memory therapy," investigations of "past lives," memories of "satanic
cults," and so on.
We think that practitioners of therapeutic touch like Ms.
Krieger might have good intentions. We wonder if they can use their
uncanny powers, then, to detect the pavement on the Road to Hell.
-----
(Source: "Fourth-grade science project casts doubt on
"therapeutic touch,' " by Brenda C. Coleman, Associated Press Medical
Writer.)

==========
SIEG HER!
Maybe you've heard the feminist propaganda about how wonderful
the world will be when women are in charge. As leaders, women are much
more caring and nurturing -- so the argument goes.
Well, there's a woman in charge in the town of Cicero,
Illinois, and she's demonstrating once again how equal men and women
are.
Town President Betty Loren-Maltese recently fired eight police
officers. She cited several supposed reasons for this action,
including that some of the officers did not live within the Cicero
limits, as required. But why was she suddenly enforcing those rules
now?
Well, it might have something to do with the fact that one of
the officers, Lt. Charles Hernandez, ran against her for the position
of town president. And the seven others? Six of them supported
Hernandez, and the last one refused to support Ms. Loren-Maltese.
And then Ms. Loren-Maltese purges them from the force. Of
course it has *nothing* to do with them challenging her in a fair and
open election.
We're glad Cicero has a caring and nurturing town president.
If it had been some man, he probably would have tried to stifle
dissent. You know how patriarchal men are.

(Source: "Eight ousted Cicero cops sue over alleged political
purge," The Associated Press, May 20, 1998.)

Meanwhile, an independent counsel has been appointed to
investigate charges that U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman
"solicited illegal campaign contributions and engaged in influence
peddling while a White House aide." Isn't it great that we're getting
rid of corrupt men in favor of such people as Alexis Herman?
(See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-05/27/063l-052798-idx.html)
We've said it before and we'll say it again: women really are
equal to men. Let's stop the man-bashing involved in claiming that
women are somehow more honest or are more moral as leaders. When women
say they should be elected because they're women, then they're running
on a stereotype rather than their individual merits. And that's
probably because they don't have many individual merits.
Which leads us to Geraldine Ferraro ...
==========

YOU'RE SO INANE
Geraldine A. Ferraro was the first woman nominated by a major
U.S. political party to run for the vice presidency. Ferraro was
picked to be Walter Mondale's running mate in their failed White House
bid because of her gender. And her career has followed the fault lines
of gender politics ever since.
Now she's running for office again, in New York state. She's
seeking the Democratic nomination to run against wily Republican
senator Alfonse M. D'Amato. And, predictably, Ferraro is playing the
gender card.
She's already in a tough primary race and might not even win
the nomination to face D'Amato. But any way you slice it, we are
guaranteed to see more divisive, feminist demagoguery out of Ferraro.
Ferraro accused D'Amato of sponsoring a measure she calls a
"drive-by mastectomy bill" that, she says, would victimize women to
benefit the insurance industry. D'Amato's bill is actually in response
to women who say they've been forced to leave hospitals within hours
of having a mastectomy. His bill stipulates that the length of time a
woman stays in the hospital after the procedure would be determined by
her in consultation with her physician.
That's not good enough for Ferraro -- at least not when she's
out seeking votes and playing sexual politics. She's trying to paint
her opponent -- a man -- as a heartless brute who is selling out
women.
The problem is, Ferraro has nothing similar to say about
D'Amato's co-sponsor on the bill -- who is none other than
ultra-liberal, feminist Senator Dianne Feinstein of California.
Apparently only the man's motives were suspect in sponsoring this
bill.
To make Ferraro's sexual politics all the more absurd,
virtually every major breast-cancer organization has lined up behind
D'Amato on this issue. The American Cancer Society and the National
Breast Cancer Coalition praised D'Amato for his help in drafting the
bill. Both groups say it's not good policy to create a federal law
mandating how long women should be kept in the hospital for a specific
procedure.
Ferraro, on the other hand, is demanding a mandatory minimum
48-hour hospital stay for women following a mastectomy. Like most
feminists, the thought that women might actually be strong enough to
leave earlier does not seem to have occurred to her. Like most
feminists, she tells women they are weak and then plays on their
fears.
But we have to remember that there are a limited number of
hospital beds. When you start requiring mandatory minimums for certain
"popular" conditions that have a certain amount of political momentum
behind them, what happens to people who have more serious conditions
but less clout? Does a woman with a mastectomy really deserve to hold
that bed longer than a woman with a stroke or heart attack? Or longer
than a man with pancreatic cancer?
We'd like to mandate a hospital stay for Ms. Ferraro --
provided she can find a surgeon who can take out her sexual
demagoguery.

(Source: Ferraro Lashes Out On Mastectomy Bill: Outraged
D'Amato Demands Apology, And Breast Cancer Groups Defend Him," By
Blaine Harden, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, May 19, 1998;
Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-05/19/031l-051998-idx.html)
-----
And in related news, singer/songwriter Carly Simon recently
was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her breast and had it removed.
Her prognosis is, fortunately, very good.
Unfortunately, she decided to grab some publicity from it
while also making some very stupid remarks. She said of breast cancer:

"We need a lot more money for research. There's a feeling that if this
had been a man's disease it would have been licked already.''
Carly is in perfect keeping with the theme of this issue:
"Make Something Up." If Ms. Simon had thought for a moment -- an iffy
proposition with many pop stars -- she would have realized that
neither testicular cancer nor prostate cancer "have been licked
already." And these are men's diseases.
We checked the American Cancer Society's web site,
http://www.cancer.org/frames.html and found that "The American Cancer
Society estimates that in 1998 about 184,500 new cases of prostate
cancer will be diagnosed and 39,200 men will die of this disease in
the United States." Well, Carly, that's not exactly cured, is it? If
you can shake your self-absorption for a moment, just think how this
might affect you. If those men had lived, some of them might have
bought your CDs. Now do you grasp the tragedy?
And while about the same number of men die from prostate
cancer as women who die from breast cancer, the funding for breast
cancer research is about 600 percent greater -- and public awareness
campaigns, news coverage, and political activity on breast cancer are
similarly much greater. It continues to be so much greater because
people like Simon would rather cry "victim" than look at reality.
Ms. Simon's comments fit perfectly with our modern feminist
era -- when you don't need logic, truth, intelligence, or the simplest
powers of observation to claim to be a victim of sexism. Just ignore
reality and Make Something Up.
Logic, Carly. Lots of people do it better.
-----
(Note: For more information on prostate cancer, visit the
American Cancer Society's site at http://www.cancer.org/frames.html
then click on "Cancer Information" and then "Specific Cancers." Scroll
down to the prostate section. Be sure to check out the Man to Man
Prostate Cancer Information section.)
==========

QUOTABLE
The late Bella Abzug, a very vocal feminist, once said the
following:
"I am not elevating women to sainthood, nor am I suggesting
that all women are good and all men are bad. Women have screamed for
war. Women, like men, have stoned black children going to integrated
schools. ... Some women. They, of course, have a right to vote and a
right to run for office. I will defend that right, but I will not
support them or vote for them."

=============================
THE FINE PRINT
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