now posting regularly

Whew, what a week! It seems as if I've been trying to make up for all the NPR I missed while we traveled at the end of last month, and this week's round-up is chockful of book fun, education talk, health bits, and one stupid little Weiner.

• "Paying nature to do its thing"-- Conservation and economic theory come together in this Marketplace story, which thankfully, is told in simple terms for those of us not terribly familiar with either subject.

• "Honoring — And Poking Fun At — Book Trailers"-- I love that hubby called me while on his way home from work to tell me, "Push your NPR button right now!" I would have otherwise missed this All Things Considered story, and that would have been a shame since I've never heard of the Moby Awards, given to book trailers. Sadly, there's no direct mention of children's books trailers, which I have found to be quite fun as opposed to the the dreck they mention in the piece.

• "Food pyramid out -- plates in"-- I'm not sure I ever transitioned from the Food Pyramid of my youth- the one with the horizontal layers of categories- to the more recent Pyramid that lined up the types of foods vertically. Now, according to this Marketplace piece, I've got to dump the whole pyramid concept completely and move over to the image of a plate. 

• "Price chop for vaccines for world's poor"-- "Western pharmaceutical companies cut prices after UNICEF publicizes what they charge for life-saving vaccines." The subtitle on this Marketplace story really enraged me because it seems ridiculous that it takes public shaming for pharmaceutical companies to be freaking decent. Ugh.

• "Unschooled: How One Kid Is Grateful He Stayed Home"-- I've got lots of issues with our public school system as it stands in both theory and practice today, but I also don't have the lifestyle or relationships with my children that would allow for successful homeschooling. I don't know much about the "unschooling" theory, but my curiosity was piqued by this All Things Considered story.

• "Conn. Poised To Be First State To Mandate Sick Pay"-- Another All Things Considered piece for you, and this one makes me cheer out loud. This action is simply humane, and I'm happy that it's my home state leading the way.

• "Seeing Teenagers As We Wish They Were: The Debate Over YA Fiction"-- From the Monke See blog comes another fabulous opinion piece about teen readers and the books that they pick. I could SO relate to the author's personal reading history, as VC Andrews, Stephen King and Danielle Steele books were my go to choices for much of my early teens. I'm happy that there seems to be more quality books that still address the "dark and twisty" reading preferences of many YA readers!

• "What Does It Mean When A Politician Takes 'Full Responsibility'?"-- The only answer I can come up with to this Monkey See headline is this: nothing. Whatever. Yeah, he's sorry, he's ashamed, yada, yada, yada. I'm sick to death of these stupid politicians who do stupid things, stupidly thinking that no one will find out about it. Really?! Are you that stupid?! And honestly, every single Republican who is publicly calling for this stupid weiner's resignation sure as hell better have spoken up for the resignation of Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY), Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY), Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), among many other Republican elected officials who have admitted to sexual scandals in recent years. Several of these specifically named Senators and Representatives even admitted to actual crimes, so I'm sure that the same Republicans were immediately calling for their resignations, too, right?

Hoping for less ridiculous news this week,