“Now is the time for all good men to fight for their rights before they have no rights left.”
So says Roy Den Hollander, a US attorney who is engaged in a mission to “battle the infringement of Men’s Rights by the feminists and their allies.”
Unfortunately for Roy, Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum – yes, a dastardly female – threw out his lawsuit alleging that ladies’ nights at nightclubs discriminate against men. The learned judge said nightclubs can price their products as they wish because they’re not acting as representatives of the state.
Roy didn’t like this. He lavished the judge with what, for him, is evidently one of the worst things that can be said of a woman. Yes, he called her a “feminist”. As AP report here, he also said her dismissal of his lawsuit was consistent with the discrimination embedded in many of America’s institutions, and, just so that his point was clear, he told the New York Daily News that “This lawsuit would have put an end to guys financially subsidizing girls to party at nightclubs.”
Does Roy have a case? Is he a prophet without honour, a man whose coruscating vision of equality shines too brightly for the age into which he was born? Or should he go online and buy one of those time travel devices – which, these days, are available from all good websites – and transport himself back to, say, the 15th century, where good men can, with impunity, vanquish the feminists and their evil allies with the best tools that diplomacy has to offer – the axe, the guillotine, and the stake-in-the-fire?
We cannot say, but if you would like to contact Roy but find yourself gender-challenged (as in, you’re a woman), we say this: make sure you get the first round in. And the second. And maybe the third. Damn it, why not get ‘em all why you’re there? You know it’ll be worth it.
Image of a man captured in a nightclub by feminists courtesy of dCapFoto on Flickr. Portrait of evil feminist by like_shipwrecks. Thanks to Robert J. Ambrogi for bringing Roy Den Hollander’s brave work to light via the Law.com newsletter.
For a certain poet, an unspoiled stretch of seaside was like “the holy hush there is in the land on Christmas morning. The roads fairly empty, the sky almost free of aeroplanes and you begin to hear and see and smell once more”.
But who uttered these lines?
(It’s a Monday, and this is your starter for 10 – and yes, we’re fresh to the metropolis, from a coastal sojourn.)
The following words appeared in a Times article in 2003, about the paper’s recently departed Head of Legal, Alastair Brett. They’ve been doing the rounds in the wake of Brett’s sudden exit last week, though without attribution. Who, we wonder, wrote them? Two suspects present themselves – our own occasional scribe, Alex Wade, and Dominic Carman, son of the late, great George (an old mucker of Brett’s). Or was someone else the author? Whatever: the fact remains that Brett was a fearless, tenacious and excellent newspaper lawyer, a man whose commitment to press freedom coursed through every vein in his body. We don’t know the precise reasons for his departure, but he will be missed.
“[He] is known for his impassioned commitment to press freedom – so impassioned that he has been described as “certifiably insane”. Capable of an intimidatory snarl or two, and prepared to be stubborn, Brett is far from mad. He is erudite, charming (so the ladies say), and not known for sitting on the fence. If his sanity has, tongue firmly in cheek, been questioned, one thing not open to doubt is that Brett epitomises the old school Fleet Street lawyer”.
Pictured: Fleet Street - not the same as it used to be.
A curious observation leaps at us from Roy Greenslade’s piece about whether Conrad Black, shortly to roam the high-class hotels of the world again as a free man, will return to the UK and carry out his threat to sue his biographer, Tom Bower, for libel:
I somehow doubt that he would have the appetite, or the funds, to pursue a libel action, but Black marches to the sound of his own drummer, so he might just do that. Even if he did, my money would still be on Bower winning.
Hang on, Roy – what about suing via a no win, no fee deal? Funds or no funds, a CFA would see Conrad through – though maybe he’ll remember what happened to the last press baron who sued Bower. Anyone for Richard Desmond’s curious dalliance with libel?
Pictured: the kind of place in which Conrad Black may be spotted (if not at the Royal Courts of Justice).
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A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
Πλάτων, Greek philosopher.