Bob Knight is quoted as suggesting that Americans don’t have this policy on their radar now but will be quick to react negatively if the policy is debated nationally. I think he is probably on target. While attitudes toward homosexuals continue to become more positive, I think questions about practical matters of living arrangements, morale and recruitment will be raised by opponents.

Today, Chris Vogel writes about a dispute within the murky inner-circle of the MKP which has become public. Vogel writes:

Here’s some news for you readers who’ve been keeping up with The ManKind Project, the controversial so-called men’s self-help group that detractors have criticized for targeting members of 12-step recovery groups, practicing therapy without a license and maintaining a dark cloak of secrecy regarding its “New Warrior” rites and rituals.

Reid Baer, the former editor of the non-profit organization’s monthly publication, the New Warrior Journal, says he was fired from the position because the group’s leadership is tired of him demanding more transparency to the public.

“The problem,” Baer tells Hair Balls, “is that they have been a secret organization for so many years that they don’t know how to stop being secret. I fought for stuff for five years and I think they just got tired of me telling the truth, because I would interview men who had dissenting views, and they hated it.”

Nice that Baer confirms what has been obvious: MKP deliberately keeps practices secret from initiates and requires participants to keep these activities secret. Baer’s firing may have been multi-determined though, as Vogel explains.

But, Baer concedes, that was not the official reason he was let go from his $10,000 a year post. According to a letter Baer says MKP’s Executive Director Carl Griesser wrote him, Baer, a former journalist turned poet on the Internet with his own Wikipedia entry, was terminated because he uses the nom de plume “NewWarriorMan.” In his letter, Griesser says the name “New Warrior” is a registered trademark of The ManKind Project and therefore Baer cannot use it.

Baer says that while MKP has trademarked similar phrases to the one he uses, his specific Web name is not one of them.

Griesser also complains in his letter that Baer made the “unilateral decision” not to publish the organization’s periodical in November (to which Baer says his supervisors made the call) and is concerned with “some especially offensive videos in recent weeks.”

One such video Griesser points to, taken by Baer, shows the poet drop trou in front of the camera, bend over a desk, smack lube across his backside and then say, “Go ahead, I’m ready.” The segment is titled, “Jack Nicholson is ready for Barack Obama, et al.”

Thanks to the Houston Press, and several websites, including this blog, men who want to know more about the MKP can find out almost everything about a New Warriors Training Adventure via an Internet search in advance. So Baer argues that MKP should become more transparent, saying,

“Some of the things we do we keep from the public because the surprise value of it, historically speaking, has had more impact. But now that we’re in the Google world, I have for the last five years been campaigning to be more transparent and to share more about what we do on the weekends because men now, before they go, will Google ‘MKP,’ and if all they see are the bad stories, a lawsuit, this and that, then that’s not doing us any good. And so for them to fire the very guy who wants to put good information out there is insanity.”

Another reason Baer may have been fired is to save money. MKP is not doing well and has recently informed members of significant financial problems.

The Mankind Project is currently facing one of the biggest financial challenges of its life. Due to a significant decline in men enrolled in NWTA’s, and despite $30,000 in budget cuts over the past three months, we are facing a projected shortfall this year of $75,000. We need your help.

Historically, about 90% of the revenue generated by the Project has come from tuition from our trainings. The rest is raised through contributions, primarily to the Chairman’s Campaign. For the first
time in 23 years, our average number of men per training has decreased significantly – by about 10%. We expect to initiate 2849 men this year, down from a high of 3209 in 2005. We are budgeting
for a similar decrease in 2009.

MKP is now holding re-initiation weekends where men who have been through the weekend Training Adventure can do it all over again. Despite the gay friendly nature of New Warriors, NARTH, JONAH, Richard Cohen, and Northern Ireland’s Paul Miller continue to recommend New Warriors as a kind of reparative therapy intervention to reduce same-sex attraction via an enhancement of masculinity feelings.

Back to Mr. Baer; he is not too happy about the copyright issue and has created another YouTube identity at NewWarriorMan2.

AHO!

And then read this article.

It could take awhile to get through the recount if that kind of vote is challenged.

UPDATE: Coleman now leads by only 174 votes as the recount winds up day 2.

There are several of these cases meandering their way through various courts. Here is one which has gotten to the conference stage (Donofrio vs Wells).

No. 08A407
Title: Leo C. Donofrio, Applicant
v.
Nina Mitchell Wells, New Jersey Secretary of State

Docketed:
Lower Ct: Supreme Court of New Jersey
Case Nos.: (AM-0153-08T2 at the New Jersey Appellate Division without a docket number)

~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nov 3 2008 Application (08A407) for stay pending the filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Souter.
Nov 6 2008 Application (08A407) denied by Justice Souter.
Nov 14 2008 Application (08A407) refiled and submitted to Justice Thomas.
Nov 19 2008 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of December 5, 2008.
——————————————————————————–
~~Name~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~Address~~~~~~~~~ ~~Phone~~~
Attorneys for Petitioner:
Leo C. Donofrio P.O. Box 93
East Brunswick, NJ 08816
Party name: Leo C. Donofrio

Donofrio also asked Justice Souter for a stay of the election and simultaneously in the same application (08A407) for a writ of certiorari in his challenge made in New Jersey. Souter dismissed both the stay and the writ petition. Donofrio exercised his right to petition another Justice and in this case petitioned Justice Thomas on November 14. Yesterday, the petition was distributed to the other Justices for a conference on December 5. It is important to remember that the conference will be devoted to whether to grant review of the case. As with Berg, I will be surprised if SCOTUS grants review.

I am wondering if the six cases referred last Friday involve these folks or this woman?

Here is the amended Docket entry:

No. 08-570
Title: Philip J. Berg, Petitioner
v.
Barack Obama, et al.

Docketed: October 31, 2008
Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Case Nos.: (08-4340)
Rule 11

~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~
Oct 30 2008 Petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment filed. (Response due December 1, 2008)
Oct 31 2008 Application (08A391) for an injunction pending disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Souter.
Nov 3 2008 Supplemental brief of applicant Philip J. Berg filed.
Nov 3 2008 Application (08A391) denied by Justice Souter.
Nov 18 2008 Waiver of right of respondents Federal Election Commission, et al. to respond filed.
——————————————————————————–

~~Name~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~Address~~~~~ ~~Phone~~~
Attorneys for Petitioner:
Philip J. Berg 555 Andorra Glen Court, Suite 12 (610) 825-3134
Lafayette Hill, PA 09867
Party name: Philip J. Berg

Attorneys for Respondents:
Gregory G. Garre Solicitor General (202) 514-2217
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Party name: Federal Election Commission, et al.

Nothing about this has appeared on the Berg website. I suspect the Court will eventually deny the petition for certiorari. Here is the waiver:

Note the document says: “The Government hereby waives its right to file a response to the petition in this case, unless requested to do so by the Court.” At this point, SCOTUS has not requested a response, only provided a date by which a response could be filed.

Loan or not, the long term issues must be confronted. Romney’s ideas seem reasonable.

I can hear justin timberlake now…”I’m bringing Clinton back. Them other pols don’t know how to act…”

“After I interviewed Obama voters on Election Day for my documentary, I had a pretty low opinion of what most of them had picked up from the media coverage of the campaign, but this poll really proves beyond any doubt the stunning level of malpractice on the part of the media in not educating the Obama portion of the voting populace,” said Ziegler.

Ninety-four percent of Obama voters correctly identified Palin as the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter, 86% correctly identified Palin as the candidate associated with a $150,000 wardrobe purchased by her political party, and 81% chose McCain as the candidate who was unable to identify the number of houses he owned. When asked which candidate said they could “see Russia from their house,” 87% chose Palin, although the quote actually is attributed to Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey during her portrayal of Palin during the campaign. An answer of “none” or “Palin” was counted as a correct answer on the test, given that the statement was associated with a characterization of Palin.

Obama voters did not fare nearly as well overall when asked to answer questions about statements or stories associated with Obama or Biden — 83% failed to correctly answer that Obama had won his first election by getting all of his opponents removed from the ballot, and 88% did not correctly associate Obama with his statement that his energy policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry. Most (56%) were also not able to correctly answer that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground.

Nearly three quarters (72%) of Obama voters did not correctly identify Biden as the candidate who had to quit a previous campaign for President because he was found to have plagiarized a speech, and nearly half (47%) did not know that Biden was the one who predicted Obama would be tested by a generated international crisis during his first six months as President.

During the campaign, I pointed out a Rasmussen poll which suggested the media leaned Obama’s way. Another way of interpreting this outcome is that voters cared more about the issues correctly identified than the others. I think I am biased, but the MSM certainly seemed to overlook relevant issues. I felt like Obama’s record as a State Senator was largely untouched, whereas Sarah Palin’s record as Governor was mined in detail.