you know what it's for

Well, you can guess, I think.

Richard Dawkins and Harry Potter

Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, celebrity-atheist, oxonian and wife of Timelady Romana, has never read Harry Potter, yet he wants to write a book about the 'pernicious' effects of the Potter books on children. Although he doesn't know if there are any.

'Looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's something for research.'

He calls bringing children up to believe in spells and magic anti-scientific and in his book wants to compare mythical/magical thinking with scientific/rational thinking. Comparing myths with factual events and such. The intent of the book is going to be to encourage children to always think for themselves and look for the eveidence of things.

Well whoopteedoo, as though fairytales are supposed to be taken literally. As though children think Harry Potter is real. Like those prudish shrieking crusaders who want to remove Harry Potter from library shelves he seems to vastly underestimate children. It may be fun to make believe that Harry Potter is real, that you can do spells, but I think that most children can differentiate between fact and fiction very well.

I suspect that what mr. Dawkins is afraid of is not that children might believe in Harry Potter, but that it will somehow make them more susceptible to believe in god.

In the end he should look at his own words again I think. 'Looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I'm not sure.'
Well it hasn't affected him much, has it?

Anyway he should save himself the trouble and just recommend Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books, which through the use of mythical storytelling manages to promote thinking for yourself and developing a rational mind.

Lastly, he has trouble with children reading fantasy, but not apparently with them watching it on tv.

Daikon maru

Inspired by some pictures of japanese children growing radishes (daikon).

More Tanukis

I made one from rubber cement, paper and paint. And yes, that is a scrotum.
I think I've been modest in fact.


I mean look at these chaps!

't is autumn

In case you had't noticed

tantastic tanuki

Croptastic

Html is hard, I know. You could even call it labyrinthine,
but anyway to get to the point. I made this drawing recently for the ecometro blog of B., and it's been accidentally cropped.
So I'm posting it here, so you can see what it's supposed to look like.
And of course to tell you to head over to Green to the last bite and read some of B.'informative pieces about seasonal fruits and vegetables and her excellent recipes.