This just in from the BBC:

Uncircumcised pupils sent home

A Kenyan secondary school has sent home 20 boys because they were not circumcised, saying it feared they would be bullied by other students.

Just how the other the buggers would find out about their classmates’ unmarred penises, the BBC does not divulge. Now, either that’s some seriously hands-on sex ed, or we’ve exported our “sex in teh skools” crisis to Africa, right along with our grossly ineffective (and totally lame) abstinence-only edumakation. Better get GW and the IWF right on that.

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Tagged: circumcision Kenya penis sex ed

The good part? Since women are only fertile for several decades, our ‘pre-pregnant’ prison terms must surely be shorter than men’s, who are capable of knocking their Baby’s Mommas up well into their golden years.

Then again, I doubt that this delicious little slice of science

Children with older fathers have a significantly increased risk of having autism, a study has concluded.

The UK and US researchers examined data on 132,271 children and said those born to men over 40 were six times more at risk than those born to men under 30.

They said the study in Archives of General Psychiatry was further proof men also had “biological clocks”. […]

The mother’s age did not appear to influence the chances a child would have autism.

will get much play anyway, which makes the whole gender-equality-when-it-comes-to-having-your-babycakes-and-eating-’em-too discussion moot. The Patriarchy loves to harp on the ways in which women’s choices can harm The Children (!), yet conveniently overlooks Dad’s influence on his offspring.* Imagine that.

* Except, of course, when it comes to Daddy’s Little Girl and the Intactness of His Her Hymen.

From the UK’s Medical Research Council, one more reason to hate men and their funk-filled bratwursts:

The growth of cervical and womb cancers may be fuelled by a hormone-like molecule in semen, a study suggests. […]

Prostaglandin occurs naturally in the cells which line the female reproductive organs. Its role is to regulate cell growth and direct the womb lining to either thicken or shed during the monthly menstrual cycle.

But the concentration of prostaglandin in semen is 1,000 times higher.

Cervical and womb (uterine) tumour cells have prostaglandin receptor molecules on their surface.

The MRC team exposed cancerous tissue to prostaglandin.

They found that the influx of prostaglandin in semen boosted the normal level of signalling between cells.

This high volume starts new cascades of signals that eventually lead to an increase in tumour growth.

Fucking Patriarchy. You’ve even managed to use your biology to screw us.

So that we may celebrate His Noodliness, Shane & I had lasagna for x-mas dinner. Actually, that’s a lie - we started the tradition last year, well before I had heard of the FSM. We live about 1100 miles away from our family and, since they live in the Northeast, we have yet to visit them for Christmas (sorry, but I refuse to brave the Antarctic weather to commemorate a fraudulent birthday!). Actually, that’s a good thing - Christmases with the family were always hectic, rushing from one obligatory get-together to another. As a kid, I sometimes didn’t get to open the loot ’till Christmas night. No fun in that!
 
But with just the two of us, nowhere to go, Christmas is delightfully lazy in Kansas. And, just to make sure we have as little responsibilities as possible on the 25th, we’ve begun pre-assembling pasta and desserts on the 24th. X-mas afternoon, just pop the lasagna into the oven for an hour, and viola, an effortless dinner. Follow up with a frozen apple pie an hour after lunch (yummy!). Bonus: minimal dishes to wash.
 
Less time cooking = more time playing with presents, the doggies, and the doggies’ presents.
 
Lasagna, especially, is a treat, since I’m too lazy and/or busy to make it the rest of the year. Why mess with those fussy noodles, so prone to breakage and bonding, and in need of layering, to boot, when you can just throw angel hair, sauce, and veggies into one big pan? Not a culinary master, this one.
 
This year we actually went to the trouble of taking pictures of our noodley opus so that Shane can post them on Hell Food, his newest blog. Inspired by Morgan Spurlock’s Don’t Eat This Book book (which he’s currently listening to on CDs borrowed from the library), as well as his documentary Super Size Me! (viewed over the holiday weekend), he decided to start journaling about various foods. In addition to signaling out “hell foods,” he’ll also offer healthier alternatives. I plan to be a semi-frequent guest poster; while he’ll most likely focus on health issues, I’ll offer an animal rights/envirogeek perspective. Though I’ve become extremely health-conscious in the past few years, the moral components of one’s food choices is by far my area of expertise. The blog is still quite new, so check back now and again for more!
 
 

My best attempt at food critic photography

Me in six months

My haul this year, in addition to a new host blog and a fridge full of leftovers, includes a few much-wished for books (Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture by Sherrie A. Inness; Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society by Danny Fingeroth; and Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body by Rosemarie Garland Thomson), a rat terrier statue that’s a dead ringer for Peedee, some Playstation 2 games, a cute Christmas rabbit, and - the kicker - a freestanding heavy bag from Title Boxing with some Tae Bo DVDs to get me started (Shane rocks).
 
 
That’s it for the post-x-mas x-mas blogging; regularly scheduled snark will resume shortly. Until then, see you at Hell Food. 
 
- K
 
 
 
 

Seriously. Seems like a no-brainer to me!

Let’s just say that, this year, I finally lost those 30 pounds I packed on after moving out of my parents’ house during college. You get the idea (*wink, wink*).

But, hey, if this motivates the most obese population on the planet to lose some weight, then on with the sex studies! Just don’t tell the fundies about it - if they aren’t getting laid, then they don’t want anyone getting laid. They’re selfish like that.

- K

“Pessimism Raises Dementia Risk”

This just in from Reuters! Well, OK, it’s a headline from a month ago, but I only just saw the story recycled in the This Is True weird-news-newsletter this morning - hey, what do you expect from someone who gets 90% of her news from The Daily Show?

A study of 3,500 men and women, conducted between 1962 and 2004, showed that those with higher levels of anxiety and pessimism in the ‘60s were more likely to be afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia in 2004. The higher the subjects scored on the anxiety/pessimism scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the greater their chances of developing dementia decades later. The effects of anxiety and pessimism also appear to be cumulative; those with high levels of both were a whopping 40% more likely to develop dementia, while those who were rated as pessimistic but not anxious had a 30% increased risk of developing the disorder later on.

Of course, the researchers warn that pessimists shouldn’t resign themselves to a late-life of bewilderment, hallucinations, and adult diapers. They caution that this could in fact become a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby an increase in pessimistic cognitions (i.e., that one will develop dementia) further increases one’s risk of developing dementia.

Which brings us to my favorite quote from the article:

Ummm…excuse me, Dr. Geda, but…isn’t that the very definition of a pessimist - worrying about every negative possibility, no matter how remote? Do you really expect pessimists who hear about your results not to fantasize about losing it in 20 years? As if! Scientists say the darndest things!

The good news is that we sourpusses can stave off dementia with the help of “sex, cryptic crosswords and a good run,” according to MSNBC News. Hmmm, could this have been what the author of the original Reuters article meant when he said “many studies have shown that a healthy diet, exercise, keeping active in other ways, doing puzzles and other activities lower the risk”?

Just remember to wrap it up, folks!

- K