In addition to their grades for math, English, and social studies, students at schools in Gilette, Wyoming are being graded on how fat or thin they are, and this new grading system has some parents upset. The "weight" grade is actually based on each student's mass body index (BMI), a a simple calculation based on a student's height and weight that, according to the school district, indicates whether a student is too fat for his/her own good.

Some parents don't think it's the school's place to be passing judgment on their children's size, and don't appreciate the "free offer" to join a "Strong Kids Club" for those students who exceed the normal range for BMI, in which students will exercise three times a week.

I understand the school district is trying to do something about a serious problem affecting so many young people today, but I have to say this seems like the wrong way to go about it. I remember truly obese kids in my schools growing up, and my recollection is they had things hard enough without getting officially judged by the school and segregated into an exercise program. But I also think the parents getting all defensive is pretty ridiculous too. The school is trying to send a message to these people that they obviously haven't been getting in their day-to-day interactions with their kids. Help them eat less and move more. Spend that energy on helping your kids rather than heaping on the self-righteous indignation.

According to police, a dead newborn fawn was discovered abandoned at the Pantages Theater in Tacoma, Washington, wearing a n human infant sleeper and a bib that said, "You think I'm cute? You should see my aunt."

A police officer discovered the cute, yet gruesome, carcass on Tuesday night, and it was clear from the odor that the deer had been dead for some time. A vet from the local humane society said the fawn might have been stillborn.

Police are baffled as to why anyone would dress up a stillborn deer in baby clothes, place it in a basket, and leave it outside a theater that is a local landmark.

"It's just bizarre," said police spokesman Mark Fulghum.

What's up with all the dressing up of dead animals in baby clothes these days?

When I was a kid, I used to make Meals on Wheels deliveries with my grandfather. The experience had a profound effect on me. It's the kind of experience I want to give my daughter as soon as she's old enough to appreciate it.

Students at Matthews Elementary School in Columbus, Ohio are participating in a program that supplements Meals on Wheels by providing free bags of pet food for recipients with pets. Run by the Progressive Animal Welfare Society of Columbus, it's called the AniMeal program. Meals on Wheels volunteers in the area had noticed that the recipients often gave the protein portion of their meals to their pets, and this allowed them to keep a beloved pet in their home. The program receives donated 50-lb bags of food, and the kids help by scooping the dog food into smaller containers, and then organize the containers in cardboard boxes to be distributed to the needy.

Click here to read more about the kids volunteering.

Researchers in Britain have found a "definite link" between artificial additives with no nutritional value used in drinks, sweets, and processed foods to behavioral problems such as temper tantrums and poor concentration. The study also suggests a possible link between food additives and allergic reactions such as asthma and rashes.

This could be a potential wake-up call for the entire food industry, which could be forced to reformulate many popular children's food products by removing additives that could trigger such reactions. Vyvyan Howard, professor of bio-imaging at Ulster University said: "Parents can protect their children by avoiding foods containing the additives. I personally do not feed these sorts of foods to my 15-month-old daughter."

Britain already has laws banning such additives for foods designed for children under th age of one, and could easily extend the age affected by that ban. Most of the additives are simply used to brighten colors in the food. Those tested to produce the results above were artrazine (E102), ponceau 4R (E124), sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), quinoline yellow (E104) and allura red AC (E129). The researchers also looked at the preservative sodium benzoate (E211), a commonly additive in soda.

The complete results of the study aren't being published until a thorough peer review have been conducted.

I was really influenced by the recommendations that kids shouldn't watch television until they are two. I became one of those self-righteous anti-TV people, and I took a lot of flak for that whenever I mentioned television here or at my personal blog. I know everyone thinks I'm a snob. You don't need to remind me.

Now that my daughter is two, I do let her watch about 20 minutes of television a day. She isn't that interested in it, and that anti-TV guy in me doesn't want to encourage it. But a new study just released shows that I am definitely in a minority in my beliefs. The study by the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that 40 percent of infants are regular television watchers by the time they are 3-months old. By the time they are 2 (the age that the American Academy of Pediatrics suggest parents start allowing their children to watch television) 90 percent of children are already regular television viewers. The study also showed that the TV is not being used as a "babysitter" to allow parents to get chores done or give attention to other kids, but that parents are actively seeking out television time for their toddlers because they believe television will "expand their minds, language skills and cognitive abilities." No study has ever been able to determine that television helps kids in those ways, but I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence that it does.

A second study by the same entity determined that 14-year-olds who watch more than three hours of television a day are far more likely to "have a negative attitude toward school, skip homework and to have trouble paying attention" than kids who watch one hour a day or less. Kids who watch 3 or more hours are also less likely to go to college.

One recommendation from the study was resounding: parents shouldn't let kids have televisions in their room at any age.

A woman in Las Vegas is suing the hospital where she gave birth to her child because the hospital is refusing to release her placenta to her, and she had been planning to ingest it for its nutrients. Anne Swanson, 30, is an earthy mama who google searches reveal is an advocate for natural hypnobirth, and before the April birth of her second child by emergency C-section, she had planned to have her placenta dried, ground into powder and placed into capsules for the treatment of post-partum depression. The theory behind this non-traditional practice is that excess hormones build up in the placenta during pregnancy, and new mothers can take the pills and replenish depleted hormones and control PPD.

Swanson says the hospital has told her the organ was contaminated. "Like any other body part, placentas contain a lot of blood, which can carry infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis,'' said Twinkle Chisholm, a spokeswoman for the hospital. "We take great measures to prevent disease transmission.'' Swanson thinks that is ridiculous, because she does not have HIV or hepatitis, and believes she is really just a victim of intolerance for non-traditional beliefs. "I can keep my baby, but I can't have the link that connected us,'' Swanson said. "This was my last pregnancy. I am not going to have another placenta. To me, it was a big deal to have it, whether I was using it for medicinal reasons or planting it.''

Swanson is planning to sue the hospital, though concerns over legal fees have her considering the ACLU and Planned Parenthood for support. The placenta is scheduled to be destroyed tomorrow. There are no state or federal laws regulating whether hospitals should or should not return placentas to mothers. The hospital has not explained why Swanson's placenta is contaminated more than any other placenta, and it sounds to me like they are treating the matter this way because they think it's weird. It is a little weird, but I don't see how it's any of the hospital's concern what she wants to do with it. It came out of her body, wrapped around her daughter after sustaining her for so many months. If she wants to eat it, or bury it her garden, or wear it draped over her breasts during a naked solstice moon dance, I don't see why she shouldn't be able to do whatever she would have been able to do had she given birth at home according to her wishes.

For years she has considered herself a stay at home mom, but staying at home is the last thing on Margo Pellegrino's mind these days. The 39-year-old mother from Medford Lakes, New Jersey recently embarked on a 2,000 mile solo canoe journey from Miami Beach, Florida to Camden, Maine. She expects that her journey will end in late July, and hopes to use the trip to help raise awareness of man's impact on the earth's oceans. "I'm just hoping to get enough awareness going so that we can put some pressure on the guys at the top to do some ocean conservation measures," she said.

Pellegrino hopes to paddle 25 to 65 miles a day and spend 90 to 95 percent of her time canoing along the Intracoastal Waterway. She will stay in the homes of members of a volunteer ocean conservation group along the way. Her husband, Carl, will be the sole parent for 3 months, and he told reporters he has "spent a lot of time with the kids without her in preparation." I'm willing to bet when Margo comes home, Carl will have a whole new appreciation for his wife.

It's got to be hard when your mom is any kind of celebrity, but I imagine it's really rough when the primary role your mom has played in society for more than a decade has been serving as masturbation fodder for teenage boys and men with really bad taste in women. Pamela Anderson's kids are just getting old enough to realize their mom's entire oeuvre involves heaving her enormous breasts in slow motion, and they aren't comfortable with it. Anderson recently admitted that her son Brandon, 10, was embarrassed when he saw his mother's naked picture on the front cover of her novel Star. . .

Wait, Pamela Anderson wrote a novel?

But Pamela's kids aren't the only ones uncomfortable looking at pictures of her naked. The blond novelist herself says she is uncomfortable with pictures she sees of herself, but only because they don't do her justice: "I can't stand pictures of myself because I'm much better looking in my mind. I see pictures and go, that's not me."

Regardless of what she thinks, the pictures (and Playboy spreads) are out there, and for her sons with ex-husband and former Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, things are only going to get worse. Someday they are going to realize that video is out there. And in addition to their mom expressing sincere and thorough admiration for the size of their father's penis, the video also purportedly shows them having sex on a boat. I can only imagine the psychological torment of realizing that your own fate was born of a presumably similar lurid encounter.

Angelina Jolie and her partner-in-parenthood Brad Pitt have been in some pretty violent movies. They met and fell in love on the set of the uber-violent gunfest Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Jolie has played the double-pistol-packing and well-endowed video game heroine in Tomb Raider, and Pitt has handled a weapon in films such as Kalifornia, Seven, Snatch, The Mexican, and more. Despite their willingness to make these kind of movies, apparently Jolie and Pitt don't feel their kids should watch them. Your kids, though, well, that's up to you and your local cable programmers.

A source on the set of Angelina's new movie, Wanted (in which she plays a bloodthirsty killer) told reporters that the couple don't let their kids watch their violent movies, and have even prevented them from playing with toy guns of any kind. "Angelina is protecting them from seeing her making violence look good," the source said. "It's caused a few chuckles. Most of her successful roles have had her waving weapons and getting violent. Staff have been told the kids can't even see props. And toy guns are a complete no-no."

While I have no beef with Jolie and Pitt trying to protect their kids from the culture of gun violence, I do wonder if they are capable of appreciating the irony of how much their own movies have contributed to it.

I hate zero tolerance policies at schools. They remove the ability of a human being to implement critical thinking skills and use their better judgment to prevent ridiculous stories like this one from making their way into the media.

An eighth-grade student in Norfolk Virginia has been found in violation of her school's zero tolerance policy for drugs. She was suspended indefinitely. School officials want her to attend a drug counseling program. Her crime: she attempted to take one tablet of over-the-counter Tylenol to counter the effects of a headache.

Gabriella Nieves, 13, was suspended after she asked a teacher whether she could take the tablet---given to her by an unnamed classmate---for a headache. She was told by her teacher she was in violation of the school's "zero tolerance policy" and was removed from the classroom by a security guard, who took the pill and forced her to write a statement about how she got it.

After two days of suspension, school officials have allowed her to return. But they are insisting that she attend a counseling program. Her mother has refused: "She's not going to no drug and alcohol program," she told reporters.

I certainly can't vouch for the translation by Palestinian Media Watch, but if it is accurate, this video might be one of the most twisted things I have ever seen. The makers of a children's program called "Tomorrow's Pioneers," (on the official Hamas television station Al-Aksa TV) are using a guy dressed up in a Mickey Mouse costume to teach young Palestinian children to hate America and Israel and promote extremist viewpoints. If you ask me, the subject matter would be a little dull to most 4-year olds, but it is clear that it is an attempt to indoctrinate even the youngest and most innocent minds to hate. The show features "Mickey" (called Farfur) and a young girl named Saraa discussing captivating topics like how the viewers themselves "will liberate Al-Aksa, with Allah's will, and we will liberate Iraq, with Allah's will, and we will liberate the Muslim countries, invaded by murderers." The duo repeatedly implore the viewers to pray and issue strict religious warnings.

Well, with the exposure this show is receiving, I don't think Farfur is long for this world. If Hamas thinks the Israeli army is tough, wait until they meet the Walt Disney Corporation's elite squadron of intellectual property attorneys.

A family clinic in London is set for the first time to screen embryos for a cosmetic defect. The Bridge Centre Family Clinic has been licensed by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to create a baby free from a genetic disorder which would have caused the baby to have a severe squint. The clinic's client is a businessman who, along with his father, suffers from the condition, and he does not want to pass the defect on to his child. This may not seem like such a big deal, but critics say it is a landmark shift from HFEA's former policy of granting licenses for doctors only to screen for life-threatening problems, not simply those that might affect the quality of a child's life. They also say this is the first step towards using advances in genetics and embryology to creating "perfect-looking" babies in a laboratory.

Prof Gedis Grudzinskas of HFEA also does believe this is a major shift, and says this procedure will still be used primarily to prevent major defects that would cause a family major distress: "We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions," he said. While he uses modifiers like "major" and "severe," Grudzinskas also said he might consider licensing such a screening for problems as minor and as common as asthma or ginger hair color.

Critic David King, the director of Human Genetics Alert, responded to this decision by saying: "Philosophers love to deride the idea of a slippery slope, but here it is in practice. We moved from preventing children who will die young to those who might become ill in middle age. We now discard those who will live as long as the rest of us but are cosmetically imperfect." It's a brave new world.

I just got back from the old food co-op and I saw something there that blew my mind: right next to the soy milk and the rice milk and all the other non-dairy milks I've seen all my hippie friends pour over their nutty nuggets in the morning, I saw a new product: hemp milk (or HempMilk™) from Living Harvest foods. The product is advertised as a dairy free, soy free, cholesterol free, vegan non-GMO, kosher, gluten free delicious and nutty-tasting beverage that provides essential and balanced nutrition to the entire family. Whoa. The milk is apparently made from the hemp seed, not those delicious green THC-filled buds that made college so much fun, and hemp seeds are full of protein and healthy Omeda-6 fatty acids.

I'll admit I was intrigued. I took a look at the product's website, and Living Harvest assures its customers that they will not get high or fail a drug test if they consume any of their products, because they contain 0.0% of THC. Disappointed, I read on. The milk is made from delicious hemp seeds grown in the Canadian prairies, using only the whole hemp nut inside. I also learned that in addition to hemp milk, I can "sprinkle on salads or yogurt or eat them straight from the can, drizzle hemp oil on steamed vegetables, make a dressing with it, use it in a marinade or as a dipping oil with bread, or add it to a smoothie. I can also start my morning with a Hemp Protein powder smoothie with Living Harvest™ Hempmilk™ or stir the Hemp Protein into soups or use as a flour substitute in low temperature baking. Yowzah! My life is going to be Hemp-terrific from here on out! I just need to go to Woody Harrelson's garage sale and pick me up one of those hemp suits!