A Bit of the Old Thursday Round-Up

It's time for the round-up of news insightful, intriguing, or bizarre.

On the bizarre verging-on-disturbing end of the spectrum was this recent headline, Brooklyn judge pens kids' book about unchecked immigration.

In "The Hot House Flowers," self-published by Judge John H. Wilson, an envious dandelion releases her seeds into a hothouse, where they grow and eventually use up so much water and food that there's none left for the plants that were already there.

In the end, the master of the hothouse _ clearly standing for God _ removes the dandelions, and when the original dandelion tries to send more seeds in, the hothouse flowers trample the seeds so they can't grow.

Um... wow. I think Kelly at Big A little a said it best. "ewww".

And speaking of sending messages through children's books, The Star News Online had a great article recently about changes made to North Carolina textbooks over the years. It's always interesting to look at how "history" changes.

Now a week or so ago I cheered loudly over the upcoming Moomin comics collection by Tove Jansson that was released on November 1st. If you would like a closer look at what is actually in that collection, this site has lots of the strips available for your viewing pleasure.

And finally, we've some info on the upcoming Arthur and the Minimoys feature, based on the book by Luc Besson. According to the wonderful Cinematical,

"A mixture of live-action and computer graphics, Martha Fischer previously reported on the interesting cast that contains the voices of pop music icons Madonna and David Bowie. Now it's time to add a whole mess of non-musical names to the list. There are the funny men, like Jason Bateman and Jimmy Fallon, but there are also a whole slew of actors known for their macho image. With the likes of Harvey Keitel, Chazz Palminteri and Robert De Niro also in the film, do the Minimoys have their own collection of mini-mobsters?"

Haven't a clue. Here is the trailer in any case. So odd.