The Rude Guys

With Special Guests:

• Rich Zubaty and
• Ian Purdie.

The Australian Rude Guy meets the American Rude Guy. This hilarious show covers a great deal of ground, with both men being highly prolific and outspoken non-conformists, ready to fly in the face of many an accepted norm.

Both men publish their own books and produce their own broadcasts, and both men have little time for the establishment. “Everyone who is calm and sensible is insane” is the leading quote at Rich Zubati’s website www.therudeguy.com. “The Rude Guy is the poison mushroom on the pizza of corporate culture. The arrow in the ass of the institutions of our time.”

As well as broadcasting The Rude Guy podcast, Rich Zubaty has published a number of books including What Men Know That Women Don’t, The Corporate Cult and Your Brain Is Not Your Own. You can find out more at his other website www.happyfool.org.

Ian Purdie has been a wonderfully entertaining part of Dads On The Air for more than two years now. His handmade books include: The Imnothero Principle, Splatterpuss, The Book of Nasty and The Daddies’ Split Guide. See more at www.ianpurdie.com.

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Gay Dads and Surrogacy

With Special Guests:

• Corey Irlam and
• Rodney Cruise.

This week Corey Irlam from the Coalition for Equality and Rodney Cruise from Gay Dads Australia talk about changes to surrogacy laws which could see potentially thousands of gay male couples bringing up children around the country. While society is getting more accustomed to the idea of lesbians bringing up children, gay men doing the same is still something of a novelty. Rodney Cruise and his partner are already bringing up a surrogate child in Melbourne.

A paper has been released on a national proposal for public consultation in a move to harmonise State and Commonwealth surrogate parenting laws. The national Standing Committee of Attorneys General (SCAG) and the ministerial councils for Community Services and Health are calling for submissions on national surrogacy regulation. The paper, A proposal for a National Model to Harmonise Regulation of Surrogacy, makes a number of recommendations including that people who use a surrogate mother would be able to apply for legal recognition as the child’s parents and that the differing state laws be harmonised. Other regulations under review include paying a surrogate mother’s medical costs, financial losses during and other expenses during pregnancy. But commercial surrogacy would remain illegal in Australia, the paper recommends. Submissions Close on 16 April 2009.

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Divorced From Reality

With Special Guest:

• Dr Stephen Baskerville.

We are delighted to have the author of Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family, Dr Stephen Baskerville, on the show once again.

No one has done more to expose the ideological war against fathers by the welfare, family law, domestic violence and child support industries as Dr Baskerville. While those impacted by these industries, many of whom have seen their lives and their children’s lives destroyed, know all too well the disastrous impacts of the current reigning ideologies, separated fathers are traditionally ridiculed. With his academic credibility and forecefulness of personality, Baskerville has been able to articulate the shocking damage being wreaked not just on fathers and their children but on society as a whole.

In Australia, the Labor Party, now in power, created many of the country’s most despised and destructive institutions, including the Family Court and the Child Support Agency. The conservatives did nothing to stop their ever increasing power.

We last interviewed Dr Baskerville in 2007 on the publication of Taken Into Custody. This week we catch up with activities since, including the establishment of his own blog.

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Insane Levels of Stress

With special guests:

• “Matthew”
  
• “Dave” and
• “Steve”.

In the wake of an appalling tragedy where a four year old girl was allegedly thrown off a bridge by her father, we talk with three fathers about the stresses in their lives. It surprised no long term observers that shortly afterwards the father was found and then arrested in the environs of Melbourne’s Family Court.

While vigilantes have called for the man’s blood, others have called for compassion and understanding. Disgracefully, some feminist commentators have attempted to use the incident in their ideological campaign against the commonsense notion of shared parenting.

While making no direct comment on the case itself - the father has now been charged with murder - we do look at the insane levels of stress that fathers are put under by our reviled family law system.

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