The Bates Family Are Like the Duggars Only, Uh-Oh, They Also Sing [Quiverfull Movement]

The United Bates of America — a show that, like its nightmarish predecessor 19 Kids and Counting, follows a long haired lady and her moon-faced husband on their quest to fill the world with their white, blond, Christian children — premieres on TLC this upcoming Monday and, as a part of their promotional tour, all 21 members of the Bates family (A.K.A. The Duggars 2: Electric Boogaloo) traveled from rural Tennessee to the mean streets of New York City.

While in New York, the Bateses stopped by GMA to discuss The United Bates of America and what it's like to be a part of such a big family. If one word came up a lot, it was "fun." Grocery shopping? "Fun!" Doing the laundry? "Fun!" Being surrounded day and night by your own bloodline and only having time to yourself when you sneak into the woods (where even the trees have eyes)? "FUN." If the children's words and frozen smiles are to be believed, growing up in the Bates house is one big Bible-thumping carnival where you don't even need to buy a ticket — you get a lifetime's worth of free admission just for being one of 19 who clawed their way out of their mother Kelly Jo's birth canal.

Speaking of, Kelly Jo, who, along with her husband Gil, is a big believer in the Quiverfull movement, she says 19 kid just might not be enough:

"We are content, whatever the Lord wants to give us. If he would like to give us more, we would definitely welcome it to the family... That would be a blessing."

That muffled wail you just heard? You didn't imagine it. It's her war-ravaged vagina and uterus screaming for help.

None of this creepy enough for you? Don't worry (wait — definitely worry). The family also sings.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Family Planning at Zoos Can Get Really Depressing [Sad]

This isn't going to be easy, but, um, you know how you go on some random squee site and see really adorable pictures of the new tiger cubs born, let's say, at the Copenhagen Zoo? Yeah, well, some of those cubs were probably euthanized to help control the tiger population and recreate the extremely high cub mortality rate in the wild. It's just all part of making animals in captivity feel more at home.

According to a downer of a New York Times report on how zoos handle exotic animal reproduction, there are two ways zoos can control their exotic animal populations: Option A, the American method, ironically, is to put animals on birth control, while Option 2, the European method, is to put animals to sleep. Forever. Before your heart breaks into a million pieces, consider the logic behind euthanizing zooborns. European zookeepers have argued — nowhere more ardently than in Denmark — that euthanization helps an exotic animal retain as much of its natural behavior as possible. Bengt Holst, director of conservation at the Copenhagen Zoo, explains the rationale behind putting down newborn additions to the zoo:

We'd rather they have as natural behavior as possible. We have already taken away their predatory and antipredatory behaviors. If we take away their parenting behavior, they have not much left.

To have animals maintain their "natural behavior," Holst and many of his European colleagues let animals give birth to offspring, raise those offspring to a certain age, when zookeepers then take those cubs, kits, pups, and whelps that don't figure into the zoo's breeding plans and euthanize them. Why, just this spring, the Copenhagen Zoo euthanized two 2-year-old leopard cubs whose genes were already overrepresented in the zoo's leopard population. In the wild, 80 percent of feline offspring die before they reach maturity, so the Danish strategy mimics life in the wild and allows animals the opportunity to reproduce and raise offspring more or less the same way they would if they weren't languishing around a really complex nature tableau.

American zoos opt for birth control, claiming that this more easily prevents inbreeding among populations, allowing animals like gorillas, for instance, to remain in their family units without giving birth to genetically redundant offspring. Hormones in contraception, moreover, can dull some aggressive mating behavior in males, which can help create a way mellower zoo experience for easily-rattled visitors.

The problem, however, with giving birth control to animals is that, while it's safe for some, it can present a myriad of health problems for others. Birth control works best with apes because they're the most similar to humans, but some big cats can develop uterine infections or tumors as a result of birth control implants. European zoos arguing against contraception cite the potential health risks, though some employ euthanasia with more zeal than others — Denmark, for example, is very open with the public about its euthanasia practices, while Germany only employs euthanasia in "reasonable" circumstances, which, for zookeepers, can be a little ambiguous, meaning anything from, "There are too many anteaters and we're instituting a Shirley Jackson lottery," to "There is no way I can euthanize this tiger cub — it just mewed at me."

When Babies Don't Fit Plan, Question for Zoos Is, Now What? [NY Times]

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Germany's Family Minister Doesn't Think Marissa Mayer Is Taking Enough Maternity Leave, Just FYI [Running In Heels]

When Yahoo! invited the perilously pregnant Marissa Mayer to captain its rudderless, waterlogged ship (hooray for nautical metaphors!), everybody collectively scrunched their brows and wondered why Mayer would want to give up a sweet Google gig to get in a time machine and go run 1999's search engine. Actually, what pundits, analysts, and soothsayers really wanted to know was how she was going to get Yahoo! back on track (yay for locomotive metaphors!) while simultaneously raising a baby. Much patronizing ensued, but now Mayer is facing criticism for her decision to "work through" her maternity leave from an altogether different observer — German Family Minister Kristina Schröder.

According to Spiegel, parents in Germany can take up to three years off to raise their kids and still have their jobs guaranteed, and, once they're no longer receiving paid time from their employer, the government will pay them commensurate with their previous salary for up to 14 months. Schröder, who's a member of Angela Merkel's cabinet with the conservative Christian Democratic Union party, is pushing for German mothers to take even more maternity leave, and thinks that a high-profile businesswoman such Marissa Mayer isn't doing working women any favors by assuring everyone she'll be working through most of her maternity leave. Says Schröder,

I respect this personal step being taken by Ms. Mayer. But I regard it with major concern when prominent women give the public impression that maternity leave is something that is not important. Maternity leave is absolutely important and not just from a medical point of view.

It would seem that Schröder has tapped into a new wellspring of Marissa Mayer criticism, that is, of course, until one realizes that the Family Minister cut her own maternity leave time short after she gave birth in June 2011. Schröder took just 10 weeks off instead of the mandated — mandated! — 14, and some people criticized her then for not taking more time. She defended that position, however, by calmly explaining that every mother's experience is different:

I was never of the opinion that a family minister should set the example for the country. Besides, the issue isn't such a big deal — I'm not, after all, the first woman to have a child.

Not the first, last or even 47th — it happens all the time, and women deal with childbirth in all different ways. Given the (subsidized) opportunity, sure, taking time off to raise an newborn is important to a lot of people (not just moms, btw), but everyone's priorities are different. Schröder does have a point that Mayer's reassurances of continuous work could negatively affect people's perceptions about paid maternity leave, but Mayer has her own agenda, which right now is intimately entwined with the anxiety of her new company's shareholders, whom she must convince that her company is capable of crawling out of the internet woodshed. However, even without that pressing need, a working parent should be allowed to take as much — or as little — time off as he or she needs because we are all snowflakes and the world is a stovetop.

German Family Minister Slams Yahoo! CEO Mayer [Spiegel]

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.