Bathing Birds, Bugs, and Bees...

How to take a proper bath... if you are a bird.

Do teachers work hard enough?

Paul Krugman discusses the good ol' days.

Those who pay (or don't pay) income tax.

Margaret Atwood interview.

Fantastic views of the lions of the Serengeti.

What is really causing heart disease.  (Hint: our crappy diets and what we're being fed by the food industry.)

Bugs, toilets and mushrooms will save the world!

Musical mobs in subways!!

Bach on a mobius strip.

Studying the bee deaths in detail.

The condition of China's farm land.

Because they might actually learn to question?

JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie notes the uproar at a Catholic College ... COLLEGE .. where parents are upset that Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" is required reading:

"Atwood is known in Canada as a major figure in the ultra-feminist, anti-religious and largely state-funded literary establishment. When it was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985, the book was heavily criticized, largely outside Canada, as an anti-Christian screed relying for its appeal on the titillation provided by its frequent expletives and graphically depicted sex-acts, and a heavy-handed feminist ideology."

Ka-Boom! The sound of a thousand Catholic crania exploding as parents go apeshit hysterical that their little angels are being exposed to this (multi-award-winning) feminist filth. Their protest site screams about the novel's premise: a dystopian future society taken over by extreme fundies, where abortion and contraception aren't allowed, and "lower-caste" women function as living incubators for the rich. No way do they want their kids exposed to that... Gee. I. Wonder. Why.

I thought you sent your child to college to learn how to deal with the world on his own, you know, to learn to think for himself?

Take away voting rights from those silly little bitches

Ann Coulter quoted by Think Progress:

Earlier this week, Ann Coulter told The New York Observer that she believes women shouldn’t have the right to vote:

If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

Ann reminds me of the Serena Joy character in The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: (my bold)

Though Serena had been an advocate for traditional values and the establishment of the Gileadean state, her bitterness at the outcome—being confined to the home and having to see her husband copulating with a Handmaid—suggests that spokeswomen for anti-feminist causes might not enjoy getting their way as much as they believe they would. Serena’s obvious unhappiness means that she teeters on the edge of inspiring our sympathy, but she forfeits that sympathy by taking out her frustration on Offred. She seems to possess no compassion for Offred. She can see the difficulty of her own life, but not that of another woman.

The climactic moment in Serena’s interaction with Offred comes when she arranges for Offred to sleep with Nick. It seems that Serena makes these plans out of a desire to help Offred get pregnant, but Serena gets an equal reward from Offred’s pregnancy: she gets to raise the baby. Furthermore, Serena’s offer to show Offred a picture of her lost daughter if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena has always known of Offred’s daughter’s whereabouts. Not only has she cruelly concealed this knowledge, she is willing to exploit Offred’s loss of a child in order to get an infant of her own. Serena’s lack of sympathy makes her the perfect tool for Gilead’s social order, which relies on the willingness of women to oppress other women. She is a cruel, selfish woman, and Atwood implies that such women are the glue that binds Gilead.