As someone who hopes to raise my (future) daughter to reach beyond stereotypes and allow herself to pursue her own interests, I was very intrigued by this book. I’d already decided that I would not color-code my child’s bedroom and I would not categorize their outfits or toys just based on their biological sex. Maybe my daughter will love to play with trains and wear her Spiderman t-shirt. Maybe my son will spend his afternoon drawing a mural on our driveway, wearing his favorite purple t-shirt. I have these ideas and plans about gender neutrality and raising children that don’t get locked into a framework of unbreakable gender rules, but this book help me realize that it’s just not that simple.

There are some generalized differences in how most boys and girls like to play. If my daughter ends up watching Cinderella every day of the week, it’s pretty clear that she has a genuine interest in it. Just as I want to encourage her to be interested in things that aren’t covered in glitter, I shouldn’t discourage her from the interests she does have. I learned that encouraging a broad range of interests shouldn’t include trying to change existing ones. My daughter will be her own person and will be capable of expressing what’s fun for her. Deciding for her how she will and won’t play is not only not fun for her, but manipulative. It’s all about options.

Another complication in raising a daughter with a broad range of interests is that you have to be very careful not to give the impression that “girl toys” are not as good as “boy toys.” Young children do not have a nuanced understanding of gender stereotypes or gender identity and expression. At a certain point, they do realize that there is some difference between boys and girls, but it begins as a very basic understanding, usually based on clothing, hair length, and what they see that person doing. As they come to identify themselves as male or female, a parent has to be mindful of not suggesting to a child who understands themselves to be a girl, that what they may understand to be “girl things” (and how can they really avoid framing that idea when advertising and store layouts have such clear, stark differences) just aren’t as good as “boy things.”
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image by Nobu Tamura www.palaeocritti.com

Scientists recently made an eye-opening discovery at Golden Gate Highlands National Park in South Africa.

Several nests of Massospondylus, a 20ft (6m) long sauropod, including fossilized eggs and hatchling footprints, is increasing scientists knowledge of the nesting, breeding and mothering habits of dinosaurs.

The dinosaur nesting site is believed to be 190 million years old, some 100 million years older than any dinosaur nest previously found.

At least 10 nests were uncovered at several different rock levels. Each contained up to 34 round eggs in tightly clustered clutches. The distribution of the nests indicated that dinosaurs returned repeatedly to the same spot to lay their eggs.

–UKPA

For more on the story, see this article by the UK Press Association and check out the below video report from ITN News.

Image from ARKive.org media library

Image courtesy of ARKive.org media library

Species: Giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis)

Status: Endangered (EN)

Interesting Fact: The giant otter is also known as the ‘river wolf’.

The giant otter is one of South America’s top carnivores, and is the largest of the otter species. The giant otter generally lives in family groups of three to ten individuals, composed of a monogamous, breeding pair and their offspring born during previous years. These groups rest, play, travel, fish and sleep together. When cubs are born, they are cared for in a den by both the adult pair, and the older siblings. At two to three weeks of age, the cubs are taken to the water by the female, and at three to four months the cubs begin hunting and travelling with the family. The patch of cream coloured fur on the throat and chin is unique to each individual from birth. The diet of the giant otter is composed almost exclusively of fish, but it is also known to eat caimans, anacondas, other snakes and even the occasional turtle!

Up until the late 1970s the giant otter was excessively hunted for its valuable fur, with its naturally curious disposition making it a particularly easy target. Today, however, habitat destruction is the major threat to this species, with the areas in which the giant otter lives being destroyed and degraded by mining, logging, and damming.

For more information on the giant otter, visit the IUCN Otter Specialist Group.

View images and footage of the giant otter on ARKive.

Becky Moran, ARKive Species Text Author

Warren Buffett Barack Obama.png

On January 23, Bloomberg News reported Warren Buffett's Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), owned by his lucrative holding company Berkshire Hathaway, stands to benefit greatly from President Barack Obama’s recent cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. 

If built, TransCanada's Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline would carry tar sands crude, or bitumen (“dilbit”) from Alberta, B.C. down to Port Arthur, Texas, where it would be sold on the global export market. 

If not built, as revealed recently by DeSmogBlog, the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side, and could include increased levels of ecologically hazardous gas flaring in the Bakken Shale, or else many other pipeline routes moving the prized dilbit to crucial global markets.

Rail is among the most important infrastructure options for ensuring tar sands crude still moves to key global markets, and the industry is pursuing rail actively. But transporting tar sands crude via rail is in many ways a dirtier alternative to the KXL pipeline. “Railroads too present environmental issues. Moving crude on trains produces more global warming gases than a pipeline,” explained Bloomberg.

A key mover and shaker behind the push for more rail shipments is Warren Buffett, known by some as the “Oracle of Omaha” — of "Buffett Tax" fame — and the third richest man in the world, with a net worth of $39 billion. With or without Keystone XL, Warren Buffett stands to profit enormously from multiple aspects of the Alberta Tar Sands project. He also, importantly, maintains close ties with President Barack Obama.

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SustainUS’ Agents of Change delegation to the 50th session of the Commission for Sustainable Development have hit the ground in New York!

CSocD-50 started yesterday, and will continue until February 10th.

Follow the delegates blog posts at our AoC Blog!

The first post is already up:

Resolution Review, Or, How a UN Document is Birthed

SustainUS’ Agents of Change delegation to the 50th session of the Commission for Sustainable Development have hit the ground in New York!

CSocD-50 started yesterday, and will continue until February 10th.

Follow the delegates blog posts at our AoC Blog!

The first post is already up:

Resolution Review, Or, How a UN Document is Birthed

SustainUS’ Agents of Change delegation to the 50th session of the Commission for Sustainable Development have hit the ground in New York!

CSocD-50 started yesterday, and will continue until February 10th.

Follow the delegates blog posts at our AoC Blog!

The first post is already up:

Resolution Review, Or, How a UN Document is Birthed

SustainUS’ Agents of Change delegation to the 50th session of the Commission for Sustainable Development have hit the ground in New York!

CSocD-50 started yesterday, and will continue until February 10th.

Follow the delegates blog posts at our AoC Blog!

The first post is already up:

Resolution Review, Or, How a UN Document is Birthed

In its press release, the Komen Foundation has promised that only “criminal” investigations will disqualify potential grantees, not political ones. The original criteria (written in late 2011, possibly for the exclusive purpose of ending Planned Parenthood funding) disqualified Planned Parenthood from receiving Komen Foundation funds since it is the target of a political “investigation” [read: “witchhunt”] led by Rep. Cliff Stearns. (What that means for Komen’s $7.5 million grant to Penn State remains to be seen, given the criminal and legal issues for which they are under investigation.)

The Komen Foundation’s statement says that it “will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.” And that’s where we hit the real problem. From the beginning, the Foundation has been clear that no current grants will be affected. As such, this is NOT a reversal of any kind.

Planned Parenthood will remain “eligible” for future grants, but the Komen Foundation has made no commitment to continue funding or to preserve its relationship with Planned Parenthood in years to come.

After all, when Komen Foundation founder and president Nancy Brinkler appeared on MSNBC earlier this week she said the decision to discontinue funding had nothing to do with the Congressional investigation. Instead, she argued that the Foundation was refocusing its efforts away from breast cancer prevention education and towards "metrics" and "direct service" grants.. Over the past five years, Komen Foundation funding has enabled Planned Parenthood to provide more than 170,000 breast cancer screenings, and they have provided 6,400 mammogram referrals – that this doesn’t qualify as "direct service" would surely come as a surprise to the thousands of low-income and young women whose lives have been saved by these services.

So the question remains: Which of the Komen Foundation’s many reasons to sever ties to Planned Parenthood was really behind this decision? Was it a Congressional witchhunt? Or was it new grantmaking priorities?

Or, as we’ve known all along, is this really about abortion? Komen’s blatantly political decision this week followed years of pressure from anti-abortion activists, asking women – primarily low-income and uninsured women, women of color, and young women – to pay for the Komen Foundation’s cowardice with their lives. (In fact, this decision was made over the objections of the scientific staff at the Komen Foundation; their top public health official, Mollie Williams, immediately resigned in protest.)

In fact, the Komen Foundation has also announced that it will stop funding any and all breast cancer research related to stem cells, it is abundantly clear that the Foundation’s decision-making has become infused with politics, placing far-right ideology over science and saving women’s lives. Today’s apology and accompanying PR spin hasn’t changed that at all.

Whether the Komen Foundation’s statement dos in fact signal a reversal of its policy towards Planned Parenthood remains to be seen. It is entirely possible that they intend to fund Planned Parenthood cancer screening services in the future, and we hope they do. It is equally possible that this is simply a public relations move designed to diffuse a lucrative brand from spiraling out of control – and the Komen Foundation will quietly reject future grant proposals from Planned Parenthood once they are out of the media spotlight.

The true lesson this week is the power of grassroots activism – both online and offline – to force a major corporate entity to be accountable for its own actions. This is an enormous victory – for Planned Parenthood, for the movement as a whole, and most of all for advocates like you. This will not be the last time action and anger will be harnessed to protect the sexual and reproductive health of women and young people in America, but it is a striking reminder of how powerfully effective our collective voices can be.

The outpouring of grassroots anger at this decision and the energy directed at defending Planned Parenthood has been immediate, powerful, and inspiring. One longtime activist said it best. If you agree, sign on and share it:

This is for all the anti-choice, anti-women people out there.

Listen up.

You can spend every minute of every day trying to force the rest of us to live by your ideology. You can go after federal funds for health care and pressure private organizations like the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to stop funding breast cancer screenings for poor women. You can try to make it impossible to get birth control.

But you know what you can’t do? You can’t win. You can’t break us. Planned Parenthood isn’t just a family of organizations. It’s a movement. It’s women and men of all ages who believe that health care — including reproductive health care — is a basic human right. We are millions strong. We are everywhere. We act, we give, and we do whatever it takes to make sure that Planned Parenthood is there for the women, men, and teens who rely on them.

Know this: When you go after Planned Parenthood and the people they serve, you go after ME. I stand with Planned Parenthood. I stand with them against anyone who wants to stop women from receiving the health care they need. I stand with them today, tomorrow, and for as long as I need to.

CLICK HERE to stand with Planned Parenthood and add your name to the declaration of support.

Here at Advocates for Youth, we stand with Planned Parenthood in the fight to provide all people, especially young people, access to basic reproductive health care services.
I hope that you will join us.

Julia Reticker-Flynn
Youth Activist Network Manager
Advocates for Youth