“Children’s literature is inherently sexist because the majority of heroes are male, a study claims. An analysis of 6,000 best-selling children’s books published during the past century concludes that male lead characters vastly outnumber female ones. And in a conclusion that will baffle fans of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, researchers said their findings indicated a ‘symbolic annihilation of women’.”
 — Plus, why are animals so overrepresented? Isn’t that a little speciesist?

by Awl Sponsors

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to immerse yourself in a clever cross-promotional marketing campaign that features Acura as the official vehicle of S.H.I.E.L.D., the top-secret worldwide peacekeeping agency that protects society from destructive forces. Of course, this organization only exists in the Marvel cinematic universe as portrayed in the highly anticipated film from Marvel Studios, Thor, only in theaters, but even fictional spies need cool cars, right?

To get an inside look at this elite organization, you must log on to joinSHIELD.com and prove you have what it takes to be S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. As you pass agility tests and challenges, you’ ll be outfitted in different SHIELD edition Acura packages, including “Stealth,” “Recon,” and others. You’ll be rewarded for your valor with entries to win prizes like free passes to see “Thor” with a friend, an iPad, even a trip for two to Acura’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Evasive Driving Center where you’ll be trained to perform stunt-driving maneuvers., for official rules, visit joinSHIELD.com.

Think you’re up for the job? If not, pass it on to your comic-loving and/or speed-seeking connections.

“It’s no use, Philo,” I said. “It just won’t play.”

“But why?” he asked, crestfallen.

“The idea has originality,” I said, searching for a way to sweeten the rejection. “But there’s no part in it for Carla Bruni, and we have an agreement.”

— Woody Allen “explains” how “Midnight in Paris” came to be.

Do you know what the McKenzie River Reflections weekly paper has, besides the delight of being located in McKenzie Bridge, some ways inland from Eugene, OR, right in the middle of the Willamette National Forest? Yup, a really awesome crime blotter.

April 7: 9:27 AM: Suspicious Conditions ­ 55000 block, McK. Hwy. Complainant is upset because a female put a flyer in his mailbox. Caller is unsure if she tampered with his mail but is worried because he is expecting a tax refund. Citizen self report.

Heh. Also really good: “Caller reports hearing someone shooting guns in the air. The noise is upsetting caller’s dogs.” We all make so many assumptions.

¹ Yes.

“It’s no secret that I love pigeons. They have been a fascination of mine since I was a young boy, and they continue to bring me great peace even now. People are curious as to why I have such great affection for them. The answer is simple. It’s because they aren’t difficult to understand. Unlike human beings that have the capacity to manipulate and deceive one another, they are basically animals of habit. If you treat them well, feed them, give them safe housing and lots of love, you can expect a good relationship with them.”
 — Mike Tyson, oddly like Bert from Sesame Street.

“The world’s last known combat veteran of World War I, Claude Choules, has died in Australia aged 110. Known to his comrades as Chuckles, British-born Mr Choules joined the Royal Navy at 15 and went on to serve on HMS Revenge. He moved to Australia in the 1920s and served in the military until 1956.”

With the passing of Mr. Choules, Britain’s Florence Green, also born in 1901, is the last remaining veteran of the First World War. In case you skipped our piece earlier this week on the subject, do yourself a favor and take a look.

Nutrition Roundup of Health

I eat a lot of Questionable Things, with gravy on ’em and stuff, so I thought I maybe should find some ways to improve my diet, and to that end, I have been eating a lot of those “Energy Bar” CLIF® bar things lately, in order to be Healthy, you know? I mean, it’s like this, I thought instead of a greasy baconeggandcheese every morning from the place on the corner, I would instead enjoy CLIF® bar at my desk (along with two giant glasses of water, which is also Healthy, but mostly because otherwise a goddamn CLIF® bar will choke you out because they are so compacted with Energy or Nutrients or whatever), so I went to the “Price Club,” which is always on a road called “Price Club Drive” or else it is a numbered road, like “Route 582” and you are right, going to a “Price Club” sounds like a Bad Idea in terms of cultivating Sensible Eating habits, because, stereotypically, a lot of the customers at these “Price Club” places are Obese, and also you walk around and there are all these “free samples” stands all over the place with hair-net ladies in aprons working electric skillets and frying stuff and announcing what they are handing out, and hey, it’s Free Samples, so you start walking faster toward one with your oversized shopping cart and then you just get your nose open and you are a sightless animal wheeling around the aisles, reacting only to scent and sound of stuff frying, headed toward “Hello, try some Chicken Quesadilla” and “Hey Turkey Pot Roast,” which you think might be good for you almost, or at least way-less bad than regular cancer-meat pot roast since it’s made out of Turkey? But don’t fall for it.

Because I ate enough of the little goddamn paper shooter-cups of that crap they were handing out because when it’s not real busy they usually don’t care how many you eat, really, you can just stand there with the lady who is working the stand and knock ’em all back, she doesn’t care, as long as you have a little chat with her, but sometimes they are not so nice and they say like, go over to the display and buy some, and sometimes they even have it right at their stand, a bag of frozen whatever, maybe some kinda spicy honey-barbeque chicken wing, let’s say, and so what you can do is just go ahead and take the bag from her (and one more sample of fried ravioli) and then go down another aisle and put it in one of the freezer-things, it’s cool, they have people who go around all the time and rearrange the frozen food, nobody is getting hurt by this. But that Turkey Pot Roast, don’t get it, man, it’s like, all dark meat (and I bet a whole buncha the skin, that ocurred to me on like my third sample, for more of a meat-like fat flavor, yuck) and you know they gotta just salt the living shit out of it, seriously, I would never buy that stuff unless it was for a really good sale price, because you could thin it out or something, cut it with something, use it as a base for something not as bad maybe?

Man, I’m hungry.

But then, like, conversely, somehow, I have been to “Health Food” stores where you pay $3.99 for a teeny little tray of frozen organic Macaroni & Cheese that you would probably have to eat three of ’em to even feel a little bit happy, and I have noticed that the people in those stores with the “Natural Foods” and stuff tend not to be overweight. Unfortunately, I also think it would probably be kinda uncomfortable going to a “Natural Food” store if you are way overweight, though, like I think if you go to the gym and you are hefty, it makes sense you might be self conscious, you know, so you go to the “Price Club” where you blend in and nobody judges you. I mean, I don’t know because I don’t go to the gym, but not because I’m way overweight, I just think it costs too much to go to the gym, so I take walks, and I bought a chinup bar, but right now I’m not strong enough to do any chinups so I just hang from the bar, but I read about this study on students, and they would just hang from a bar for a few minutes every day, and they got strength from that. So far I can hang from the bar for 30 seconds, and pretty soon I’m gonna take my feet off the ground. It’s all part of a sensible plan, man, you gotta make sure you don’t over-train, otherwise you’re gonna get injured and then you’re back to Couch One, you now? Also probably that Macaroni & Cheese example might not have been the best item to be discussing in terms of Health Food, but anyway, these goddamn CLIF® bars cost too much at the regular supermarket. I mean, if I’m gonna buy something Healthy, I want it to be a Good Deal, you know? Does that make sense? I don’t want to get overcharged for some Healthy crap just because it is good for me, you know? Anyway, I have been thinking maybe I’ll just skip breakfast and have a cuppa coffee with a lot of half-and-half in it for protein because I probably shouldn’t be eating an “Energy Bar” with a picture of a guy rock-climbing on a rock or whatever (a cliff?) just to sit on ass at my desk, right? Really, especially since the other day I got a leg cramp from sitting at my desk, I’m not kidding, the whole back part of my leg was trying to curl up into a ball, so I had to get up from my desk and work at my computer hunched over, but look, my point about the CLIF® bar is at the “Price Club” they only sell ’em in multi-packs of 24 CLIFs and you only get three flavors, so it gets pretty boring only having the “Carrot Cake” flavor and the “Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch” flavor and some other brown-colored flavor and I was wondering what a CLIF bar would taste like if I buttered it and fried it in a fry pan and put an egg on it.

Mr. Wrong can instruct you via many medias.

Everywhere you turn, a gay crisis! First it was the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, and now, it’s San Francisco Gay Pride? “Its board and staff didn’t realize they’d veered sharply into the red until the organization outspent its revenue by nearly 25 percent…. In the months since, Pride has also experienced a leadership exodus befitting a Central American junta. Its dysfunctional board has burned through four presidents in eight months.” But all is not gloom in the world of gay nonprofit events! “Folsom Street Events” — which runs the Folsom Street Fair, which is a fun, friendly and definitely kink-friendly event — “is run tighter than a size-L pair of chaps on a XXL derriere. One intriguing indicator of the esteem in which the city holds Folsom is that the Department of the Environment tapped the leather festival to pen the official city best practices guide on large-event recycling.” The Folsom Street Fair organization also now donates almost three times as much to charity as SF Gay Pride does.

Let us take a quick break to appreciate the majesty of this amazing time-lapse video of the Canary sky. [Via]

Hahahah, that duck looks so angry! Cheer up, duck, it might not happen!