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WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2007 – Few U.S. troops have the opportunity to deploy with their loved ones, but soldiers of 325th Combat Support Hospital, a unit from Independence, Mo., currently at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, have two such family relationships within their unit. Maj. David Clark and his son, Sgt. Michael Clark, both natives of Manchester, Conn., deployed to Iraq together with the 325th CSH. The Clark family has a long tradition of military service stretching over three generations. This deployment will mark their second tour together, the first being a 10-month deployment to Kuwait with the 405th...

In order to better see where the fathers’ rights movement should go, it needs to think about where it has been and where it is now. For this reason, I present my own initial draft outline of the major phases of the fathers’ rights movement. Phase 0: Prior to 1990, few men saw reason for an organized movement. We had heard for some time that “it’s a man’s world.” In the US, and other civilized western nations, private issues – when they needed any government involvement – would be handled in court. Some men did see reason for men’s...

Ford has come out with a new father-positive car commercial for its 2008 Taurus. The ad, called "We Know," depicts a father looking out for his little son as he rides his bicycle, and then draws an analogy between the way the father knows how to keep his son safe and the way Ford says its automobile engineers know how to keep people safe. The ad depicts the father as being what the vast majority of fathers (and mothers) are--caring, loving parents. To watch, click here.Last year there was considerable controversy in the fatherhood movement over Ford's controversial “Bold Moves”...

Virginia E. Fisher  Other Articles by Virginia E. FisherPrinter Friendly Version   Where Have All the Christian Men Gone? My Conversation with John Eldredge September 3, 2007 Many men balk at the idea of going to church. Some resist the tendency in Christian circles to "feminize" God. Others object to how Christian men tend to be so tame and passive — more like women — and very bored. And so, it is perhaps not surprising that John Eldredge's books, especially Wild at Heart, have been wildly successful. Seeking to discover the secret of a man's soul, Catholic and Protestant...

When children get lost in a mall, they're supposed to find a "low-risk adult" to help them. Guidelines issued by police departments and child-safety groups often encourage them to look for "a pregnant woman," "a mother pushing a stroller" or "a grandmother." The implied message: Men, even dads pushing strollers, are "high-risk." Are we teaching children that men are out to hurt them? The answer, on many fronts, is yes. Child advocate John Walsh advises parents to never hire a male babysitter. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers rather than male passengers. Soccer leagues are telling male coaches...

As with all editorials LifeNews.com features, the comments are solely the views of the authors and not necessarily representative of the views of LifeNews.com.   Why are men reflexively treated as the fall-guy in the abortion debate? Recently National Review Online convened a group to opine what would happen in a post-Roe v. Wade world to women who might obtain an illegal abortion. The panelists reveal that before 1973, women who sought an abortion were not subject to criminal prosecution. So overturning Roe v. Wade would not fill our jails with post-abortive women.One theme surfaces repeatedly in the commentaries: feckless...

Columbus, OH (LifeNews.com) -- Ohio lawmakers are taking a different approach to the issue of abortion by proposing a bill that would prohibit abortions unless the father of the unborn child also provides his consent to it. The measure could draw attention to the lack of a voice fathers have, but it will likely encounter constitutional roadblocks. Led by Republican Rep. John Adams, several state legislators have introduced the bill that they say isn't intended to just make a point or be controversial."This is important because there are always two parents and fathers should have a say in the birth...

Poetry and lore speak of a mother’s grief, a mother’s tears for a deceased child. So perhaps the spotlight after her soldier-son’s death in 2004 was bound to be captured by Cindy Sheehan. For Pat Sheehan, the very private role of simply continuing to be Casey’s father has been enough - until recently, that is. In a blip of publicity Cindy Sheehan bowed out of her diminishing limelight, announcing that she would stop her activism against the Iraq war. In doing so, she declared that Casey Sheehan “did indeed die for nothing.” That statement ended Pat Sheehan’s silence. He called...

Father's importance no laughing matter http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/berman/422242,CST-FTR-berman11.article http://tinyurl.com/yrp9wc Dad may not always know best, but he knows far more than contemporary TV sitcoms suggest June 11, 2007 BY LAURA BERMAN Black-and-white sitcoms such as "Leave It to Beaver," "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and "Father Knows Best" constructed Dad as the center of the American family. The fathers in these shows did it all -- they were the breadwinners, the coaches, the teachers, the advice-givers and the loving guides who saved their children from danger. But if you turn on your television today, fathers on recent sitcoms like "Everybody Loves...

Picture a world where your father walks with you down a starlit road, pausing to point out Orion. He recites Robert Frost, knows how a battery works—and all the rules about girls. "The Dangerous Book for Boys," by brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, is peaking on Amazon's best-seller list (No. 5 last week) by recalling just that world. The compendium of trivia, history and advice is geared toward preteen boys, but it's found a surprising audience in men in their 30s and 40s, too. The book's marbled endpapers, archival illustrations and dry, humorous tone ("excitable bouts of windbreaking will not...

When I had a son of my own six years ago, I looked around for the sort of books that would inspire him. I was able to find some, but none with the spirit and verve of those old titles. I wanted a single compendium of everything I'd ever wanted to know or do as a boy, and I decided to write my own. We began with everything we had done as kids, then added things we didn't want to see forgotten. History today is taught as a feeble thing, with all the adventure taken out of it. We wanted...

The following is a commentary from the Truth and Hope Report (http://www.truthandhope.2truth.com) Weekend update by Democratic Political Analyst Dave Screwtape Father's Day is a happy day of celebration for some people. For others, it's a day when their guilt gets the better of them and they buy the man a tie and place a phone call in order to feel less guilty about a year of neglect. For some, Father's Day is a source of pain because of abusive or absent fathers. My general opinion is that Father's Day is hooey. I didn't have a father around growing up, and...

Fathers deserve a special salute for all they do http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/06/17/opinion/doc4675cd32b9bbf793658538.txt http://tinyurl.com/2gq4t5 Sunday, June 17, 2007 7:18 PM CDT Fathers don’t always get the respect they deserve — and we don’t just mean children ignoring their pleas to take out the garbage or mow the lawn. On television and in the movies today, the theme seems to be “Father Knows Nothing” rather than “Father Knows Best.” Instead of Ward Cleaver in “Leave It to Beaver,” we have Homer in “The Simpsons.” A larger percentage of Father’s Day greeting cards lean toward humor rather than the sentimental variety more often seen on...

If you believe popular culture, the man we're honoring today is a complete idiot. You don't have to watch much TV to believe that. The dads who populate the small screen are mostly dorks, dunderheads or dimwits. Recent ads show dad as the ineffective homework coach (who only gets in the way, to his daughter's utter contempt), as the immature moron who gloats when he beats his small daughter at pingpong, or as the klutz who falls down the stairs. And wise, gently authoritarian dads like Howard Cunningham (Happy Days ) and Cliff Huxtable (The Cosby Show) are nowhere to...

There is a certain immediacy about motherhood that cannot be said of fatherhood. Nature goes a long way in helping a mother know what it means to be a mother. Ovulation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation and breast feeding are natural and immediate experiences that teach a mother a great deal about the meaning of her motherhood. Motherhood is eminent, but fatherhood is transcendent. If nature does comparatively little to teach a man the meaning of fatherhood, his wife, his children and his culture must help to fill in the blanks. Nonetheless, secular feminism, the high divorce rate and abortion most emphatically...

The father factor: Fathers and sons http://www.antiguasun.com/paper/?as=view&sun=281935077507132005&an=410802067106152007&ac=Opinion http://tinyurl.com/38wf8g Saturday June 16 2007 Men become biological fathers in a moment. Not much is required except the right anatomical equipment and opportunity. The father need not love the mother. The father does not need a course in parenting, nor does he need to even desire to be a parent. The father does not always even know of his progeny. Nevertheless, each child born into this world has two parents, and one of them is, by definition, the father. For many men, that is where their input begins and ends. Children need fathers....

Elise Graveline Hilton  Other Articles by Elise Graveline HiltonPrinter Friendly Version   What Makes a Man a Hero? June 15, 2007 It is almost impossible to find a decent hero these days — our sports figures are regularly arrested, dress up in weird costumes or get married for three minutes, our civil servants lie to us on national television and allow their staffs to "put the right spin on it", and the movies offer up too violent a fare to present to our young people for emulation.  Where can we look for role models and people of distinction?I am...

Fathers of the zodiac tracked downAstronomer shows when and where his ancient counterparts worked. Geoff Brumfiel The MUL.APIN tablets record the dates that constellations appeared in the Assyrian sky. R. D. Flavin Using modern techniques — and some rocks — a US astronomer has traced the origin of a set of ancient clay tablets to a precise date and place. The tablets show constellations thought to be precursors of the present-day zodiac. The tablets, known collectively as MUL.APIN, contain nearly 200 astronomical observations, including measurements related to several constellations. They are written in cuneiform, a Middle-Eastern script that is one...

I recently was invited to participate in an interview about home-schooling on "The Tom deSabla Show" on WNET-AM (1160). Three callers to the show, plus the host, were home-schooling or considering home-schooling. Here's an interesting note: All were men. It was inspiring to hear how they help their children learn or they share educational duties with mom and how concerned they are with finding good learning materials or opportunities for interaction with others. This is a phenomenon seen frequently among home-schooling families: dads being actively involved in their children's education. In some home-schooling families, parents work different shifts in their...

Los Angeles - Hollywood star Alec Baldwin, who has provoked a furor over harsh words to his daughter in a phone message, plans to write a book about the injustices done to divorced fathers, a media report said Saturday. Baldwin, whose ex is actress Kim Basinger, stated his intention about the book on the ABC television talk show, The View, in the midst of a discussion about 'parental alienation,' The New York Times reported. To have enough time to write the book, Baldwin mused that he might leave the successful TV comedy series, 30 Rock. Baldwin left an abusive voicemail...

LATE in 1996, while rehearsing for a production of “A Christmas Carol” in New York, Tony Randall was giddily anticipating becoming a father — at the age of 77. “What I look forward to,” he said during a break, “is when the kid is 15 and we go out in the yard to play ball. I’ll only be 90.” (He Died at 84) The news of Mr. Randall’s late fatherhood — and that of other celebrity SODs(Start over Dads) around the same time — evoked a fair amount of tut-tutting. Some joked that these creaky specimens wouldn’t be able to...

Black fathers urged to be 'better role models' By Graeme Paton Last Updated: 1:10am BST 09/04/2007 Black fathers must take greater responsibility for their children's education to stop teenage boys turning to gun crime and gang culture, according to Britain's biggest teaching union. The National Union of Teachers said parents in Afro-Caribbean communities, particularly fathers, must become better role models to stop their children being "engulfed" by damaging influences. The warning is contained in a report to be launched today at the union's annual conference in Harrogate. One of the report's authors described the poor academic performance of black boys...

Have a Pizza, Humiliate a Dad By Glenn Sacks Pizza boxes with “Wanted” posters for child support debtors. Amazing how creative government agencies can be when they’re trying to enforce child support. This is coupled with their mulish, “Gee whiz, we can’t solve that” attitude towards enforcing visitation rights. The Fox News story below details the latest creative effort from child support enforcement to beat child support out of men. Some of these men may be legitimate “deadbeats,” but many are either: victims of a system which demands that they pay beyond their means; victims of a system which demands...

Men of the church Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Saturday, February 24, 2007 In the early days of feminism's ascendance, a certain joke made the rounds -- its theme remained constant, although the particulars varied -- that never failed to raise a knowing chuckle. In it, a man and a woman explain the secret to a happy marriage. The wife, feigning subservience, says: "My husband makes all the big decisions, and I make the small ones." The amiable schlemiel of a husband then adds (ba da boom), "Yes, I decide whether God exists and where the universe ends, while...

Los Angeles, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A psychology professor at UCLA says the impact abortion has on men is too frequently ignored. Dr. Miriam Grossman, who is a psychiatrist at the university's student health service, says that men involved in abortion decisions have become "invisible" to researchers and members of her profession. While research on the medical and mental health problems women face following an abortion has only barely scratched the surface, fewer scholars have examined the impact on men. Grossman says a sociologist named Dr. Arthur Shostak is about the only researcher to examine how abortion affects men. Shostak looked...

The Faith of Our Fathers Being a Plain Exposition and Vindication of the Church Founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ XXIX. The Priesthood The Apostles were clothed with the powers of Jesus Christ. The Priest, as the successor of the Apostles, is clothed with their power. This fact reveals to us the eminent dignity of the priestly character.The exalted dignity of the Priest is derived not from the personal merits for which he may be conspicuous, but from the sublime functions which he is charged to perform. To the carnal eye the Priest looks like other men, but to...

The Early Church Fathers believed that the Catholic Church was the one true Church, that it taught infallibly and that the clergy was made up of three ranks; bishop, priest, and deacon. Ignatius of AntiochFollow your bishop, every one of you, as obediently as Jesus Christ followed the Father. Obey your clergy too as you would the apostles; give your deacons the same reverence that you would to a command of God. Make sure that no step affecting the Church is ever taken by anyone without the bishop’s sanction. The sole Eucharist you should consider valid is one that is...

The media image of fathers--long portrayed as bumbling, inept and irresponsible--is changing. This has been a good year for dads in the media. One example is Sony Pictures’ new movie The Pursuit of Happyness. Happyness stars Will Smith as Chris Gardner, a homeless, hard-luck single father with a five year-old son. Through sheer force of will, Gardner raises his boy and pulls them out of poverty, eventually becoming a multi-millionaire. The movie is based on a true story and co-stars Smith’s eight year-old son as Gardner’s son Christopher. As Gardner, Will Smith strives to create a ''normal'' environment for Christopher,...

Popeye the Sailor is a 1930s comic strip character who is still popular through home video productions of the television cartoon series. What stands out in the old Popeye series are the "Popeye Moments." That's when Popeye has had all he can take. At that point Popeye says, "I've had all I can stand! I can't stands no more!" He flexes his biceps and off he goes to straighten things out. Those of us who work on America's cultural and domestic issues know exactly how Popeye felt. There are moments when we can't stand any more; we've had all we...

No need for a father figure for IVF babies? The need for a child to have a father should be removed from the law governing fertility treatment, a government White Paper said today.  Clinics must still consider the welfare of any child born as a result of IVF or other fertility treatment but whether a father figure is present will no longer be necessary, under government proposals. Do children need a father figure? Tell us in reader comments belowThe move would make it easier for single women and lesbian couples to have children using donor sperm.  The Review of...

"We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Virginia Baptists, 1808. ME 16:320 "The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1819....

Fallen soldier's 11-year-old daughter becomes youngest memorial cross recipient Gregory Bonnell Canadian Press Saturday, December 09, 2006 ST. CATHARINES, Ont. (CP) - Eleven-year-old Danika Storm was bestowed a tragic yet historic honour at her father's funeral Friday when military brass informed her she had become the youngest-ever recipient of the Memorial Cross. Cpl. Albert Storm, one of two soldiers killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan last week, lost his own mother years earlier and was divorced from the mother of his two children. Pall bearers carry the casket of Corporal Albert Storm into hisfuneral. (CP PHOTO/Frank Gunn) The...

I wish I had a dime in my pocket for every time I heard a Republican politician stand up and proclaim his support for “family values.” When we survey the current state of the family, we see that Americans are half as likely to wed compared to a generation ago, mostly due to a growing shortage of marriage-minded men. [www.therealitycheck.org/StaffWriter/croberts112906.htm] How did all this happen? Over the past 40 years, the Sisters of Spinsterhood have cranked out the message that men are not needed or wanted. That message was eventually translated into a broad range of anti-family laws and policies....

Great video, worth 2 minutes to understand how wonderful these guys are. Flags of our Fathers

The watchdogs who patrol Charlotte Ann Cox Elementary School in Cedar Park and Annie Purl Elementary in Georgetown are a special breed. They're friendly and huggable and have names like Fred, Wes and Bill. "One of the great things about being a watchdog is that every kid knows I'm there to help them," said Wes Watkins, father of a Purl kindergartner. "The students smile when they see me, and my son is proud to have me on campus." Watkins is among approximately 90 fathers in the Georgetown school district and about the same number in the Leander district who serve...

Kids hang on to dad's every word 20 October 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition. Fathers: watch what you say. It seems dads may have more of an influence on their children's language development than they might think. Lynne Vernon-Feagans at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and her colleagues sat in on playtime with 92 families with dual incomes, observing how much each parent spoke to their child, the words and sentence structures they used, and the types of questions they asked. Children whose father's vocabulary was more varied when they were 2 years old had more advanced...

America's Father Hunger By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks Are fathers irrelevant? Are they really the useless buffoons we see on TV? The irresponsible deadbeats the local DA says they are? The controlling abusers we see in domestic violence PSAs? That's not the way Tim Russert's readers see them. Russert’s new book Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons is a surprise runaway hit, reaching #1 on both the New York Times bestseller list and on Book Standard’s Overall Bestsellers Chart. In 2004, Russert published Big Russ and Me about his father, and says he received...

" The Democratic Party instituted policies and pandering to the radical Women's Movement are responsible for at least 1 million non-felons- Divorced American Men commonly known as Fathers-- who are today being denied the right to VOTE...."

Call it the backlash against the backlash. Over the past decade, Americans have increasingly understood that the divorce revolution, fatherlessness and single parent households are harming our children. Now those who view the traditional family as disadvantageous to women are firing back, defending women who choose single motherhood and depicting fathers as superfluous. Last fall Stanford University Gender Scholar Peggy Drexler penned the highly-publicized book Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men. This month Oxford Press released Wellesley College Women's Studies Professor Rosanna Hertz’s Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women...

Losing the right to a mommy and daddy Barbara Kay National Post Wednesday, September 27, 2006 "I believe children have the right to a mother and a father, and preferably their biological parents." These words -- I agree with them, and so do the UN Conventions of the Child -- were once the equivalent of saying you believed in peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. But in postmodern societies obsessed with gender equity, as ours has been for the past quarter-century, "mother and father" and "biological parents" have become politically incorrect locutions when joined to "children's rights." Just...

Jane is a successful career woman. She has moved up rapidly in a competitive field, and is advancing her career by attending business school at night. Bob works out of their home and does most of the childcare. If Bob decides he doesn’t want Jane anymore, should he be able to take her kids away and push her to the margins of their lives? The opponents of the North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative think he should. Under the NDSPI, unless a parent is unfit, both parents in a divorce will have joint legal and physical custody of their children. By...

Schwarzenegger Should Veto AB 2051 By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks The California Assembly just passed a domestic violence bill which will perpetuate the state’s harmful policy of excluding men and their children from receiving state-funded domestic violence services. Under AB 2051, only “battered women” are eligible for the shelters, hotel vouchers, counseling and legal services the state provides victims of domestic violence. Governor Schwarzenegger should veto this misguided legislation. Because AB 2051 is based on the discredited premise that men are rarely the victims of intimate partner abuse, the bill has aroused considerable opposition from domestic violence researchers and...

Child support enforcement programs are supported by all sides of the political spectrum, from women’s advocates on the left to traditionalists on the right. While this popularity is sometimes understandable, it has also allowed glaring and inexcusable abuses to fester and grow. Of these, none is more egregious than when men are forced to pay 18 years of child support for children who are not theirs, and who in many cases they’ve never even met. In “The Innocent Third Party: Victims of Paternity Fraud,” a new article in the American Bar Association's Family Law Quarterly, Washington DC attorney Ronald K....

How HHS Bullies North Dakota Citizens by Stephen Baskerville and Mitchell S. Sanderson Human Events Online Aug 17, 2006 Those who work in what was once nobly known as the civil service -- and what has degenerated into the "bureaucracy" -- are required by law and ethics to be politically neutral. Presidents and members of Congress, cabinet and sub-cabinet secretaries can voice opinions. Even judges are permitted (and often abuse) a privilege of obiter dicta. But career officials are supposed to implement the policies of the people and their elected officials, not publicly advocate what those policies should be....

In Kai Ma’s recent AlterNet column “The Difference Between a Womb and a Wallet” (7/26/06) she applauds a U.S. District Court judge’s quick, contemptuous dismissal of Matt Dubay’s “Roe v. Wade for Men” lawsuit. Dubay sought to wipe out the child support payments he is obligated to make to an ex-girlfriend who, he says, used a fallacious claim of infertility to deceive him into getting her pregnant. In opposing “Choice for Men,” Ma asserts that a “woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy is not the equivalent of a man's choice to financially opt out of fatherhood.” She cites the pain...

An important truth has been lost in the controversy over the way the Philadelphia Phillies handled pitcher Brett Myers after his recent arrest for spousal abuse. Mrs. Myers’ injuries and the accounts of several witnesses leave little reason to doubt her husband’s culpability. Nevertheless, the Phillies at first reserved judgment about the case, and allowed Myers to pitch. This was wrong, as the team admitted after widespread criticism, and Myers was given a leave of absence. However, in many domestic violence cases the men arrested do deserve the open mind and support which the Phillies mistakenly extended Myers. Spousal abuse...

Child support debtors are everybody’s favorite punching bag. The Daily News is apparently no exception, as reporter Dana DiFillippo recently penned two ill-advised, one-sided critiques of divorced and separated fathers. In Jail Threat Springs $$, DiFillippo highlights the story of a local "deadbeat” who offered a judge a “list of reasons why he had failed to pay almost $16,000" in child support. The judge “barks” at these explanations and gives the surprised father two months in jail. DiFillippo approvingly quotes prosecutor Maria McLaughlin, who “chalked up another victory” with the case, as McLaughlin blames the debtor for his incarceration. According...

Virginia Dads Take To The StreetsTom Porter, founder of Vision4Children, and Ron Jagannathan, board member of Fathers For Virginia, took their message to Virginia commuters on July 8, 2006. "We plan on demonstrating on a regular basis," said Porter, "We encourage all local parents who feel letdown by the family courts to join us." Porter added, "Vision4Children.org will be online this week." Australian Dads Speak Out On TVNZ(VIDEO)Take a look at this July 9, 2006 television newscast on tvnz.co.nz called The "F" Word. This video lasts about 15 minutes and shows interviews with distraught Australian fathers. It also includes...

Family welcomes 12th Eagle Scouthttp://www.tmnews.com/articles/2006/07/16/sections/news/news74.txt http://tinyurl.com/rwvkn Sunday, July 16, 2006 Last modified: Sunday, July 16, 2006 6:46 AM CDT By Jason Mullis, Hoosier Times BEDFORD - There are 12 virtues the American Boy Scouts espouse to the youth in their charge. Similarly, when Travis Scherschel earned the highest rank of Eagle Scout Saturday, he became the 12th Scherschel to do so. "Becoming an Eagle Scout is an outstanding achievement, which requires hard work and dedication," Mark Scherschel, Travis' father, read from a letter from President George W. Bush. "Your accomplishment serves as an example of excellence and a source of...

In the name of the fatherhttp://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1033732006 http://tinyurl.com/ozefu DANI GARAVELLI Sun 16 Jul 2006 ONCE upon a time, I believed it didn't matter a whit whether a baby was born into a family with one parent or two. Or with two mothers or two fathers rather than a mother and a father. Why should it? What was important was not the number or gender of the parents, but whether or not they were loving and attentive. That was, of course, before I had any of my own. Now I realise that bringing up children is a challenge even for two well-meaning...