jezebel blorg

All we know for sure is that the Vatican’s official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano fucking haaated Rowling’s latest novel, observing that, although Rowling “has all the qualifications to be the worthy successor of Grace Metaloius,” there’s simply “something missing” in The Casual Vacancy. Get it?? It’s a big-tim Catholic burn.

The negative review probably had something to do with all the book’s sex, swearing, and drug use, although, to be fair, the paper’s resident movie critic really liked Skyfall, so unless the new James Bond movie is actually a Care Bears movie, there’s probably a little more substance to L'Osservatore Romano’s critique. Like, there was zero Harry Potter in The Casual Vacancy. Vatican slams J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy [Telegraph]

“Dogs can have OCD?” you ask suspiciously as you watch your dog rearrange your bookshelf by color. According to a study on canine compulsions published over the summer in the journal PLoS ONE, certain behaviors such as tail-chasing and snapping at invisible insects might be manifestations of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Study co-author Hannes Lohi, a professor of canine genomics at the University of Helsinki, explained that these compulsions are usually specific to certain breeds (like German shepherds, for instance). In order to figure out what was driving such seemingly compulsive behavior, Lohi and her colleagues distributed a detailed questionnaire to 368 dog owners in Finland (150 of the dogs in the study showed none of the supposedly compulsive behaviors and therefore served as the controls), and also collected blood samples from 181 of the canine subjects.

Researchers determined that several characteristics of canine compulsive disorder are suggestive of human OCD, including the fact that dogs usually begin demonstrating compulsive behavior before they reach maturity. Thanks to the blood tests, researchers also found that littermates have a strong tendency to have the same behavioral dispositions, meaning, says Lohi, “There might be a shared biology behind the development of the disease.” If that sounds convincing to you, then you clearly don’t have the scientific skepticism of Perminder Sachdev, who was all like, “Um, hold up” after reviewing Lohi’s research:

Perminder Sachdev, director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, Australia, notes that humans, unlike animals, usually recognize these distressing behaviors and attempt to control them. Tail chasing, he argues, is more akin to stereotyped and repetitive behavior, which is often seen in people with autism. “I think that it is difficult to argue that tail chasing is a true model of OCD,” Sachdev says. Lohi, however, plans to check further into dog-human connections in future studies.

So dogs could suffer from anthropomorphic OCD, or they could suffer from anthropomorphic autism. The natural world abounds with mysteries.

Dogs That Chase Their Tails May Have OCD [Scientific American]

Image via Michael Pettigrew/Shutterstock.

According to the Huffington Post, vandals struck Powell’s campaign headquarters in Midlothian, but, in case that wasn’t enough stomach-churning awfulness for one morning, a Powell spokesperson also confirmed that staffers reported that someone had demonstrated his or her proclivity for racism by spray painting “N--- Lover” on a sign in front another Powell office in Henrico (police departments in both counties have been contacted).

Cantor, alas, has his talons deeply dug into Virginia’s 7th District, but that just goes to show you how poorly some people handle winning. And racial equality. And reproductive freedom. And not mouth-breathing on all the Dixie Forever mud flaps in Walmart. [via HuffPo]

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You might, at this point in your Sunday news perusal, be wondering why this is at all newsworthy and maybe also thinking that we shouldn’t make fun of bird for enjoying the occasional cocktail after a long day of preening and harmonizing. I’m glad you’re such a critical-minded reader. Researchers determined that birds can get drunk on fermented berries after investigating the mysterious, mid-air deaths of 14 blackbirds that apparently just flew into each other.

Wild theories abounded as to how this could have happened. Were we witnessing an outbreak of avian flu? Were the birds trying to kill themselves before the Rapture? Nope! Bird coroners detected a fermenting smell coming from the dead birds and discovered, much to their chagrin that each bird had rowan berries in their stomachs. Further testing showed that at least one bird had pure, unadulterated booze in its system.

One bird, which was captured alive and observed for a few days, stumbled around for a while before recovering, helping confirm for concerned ornithologists that the birds were merely involved in a deadly berry bacchanal. [via NYDN]

Zeitlin told the Wall Street Journal’s Barbara Chai that, though his film sprung out of the storm-ravage Gulf Coast, Sandy proves that the world’s weather (and thus, the world’s sea-dwelling population) is changing:

"For me, this film wasn’t about the past, it was about the future. When I was writing the film it was in 2008 when we had Gustav and Ike, really bad hurricanes not in New Orleans but in the South where we shot the film. It was inspired by a moment of just realizing that storms used to come every 100 years, then they came every 50 years, now it’s like every three years. It was really about a future where storms are a perpetual threat.

I do feel South Louisiana is the first place to deal with this, but that’s what it is, the first. The world is changing, the planet is changing, and this is something that’s going to become a big part of everybody’s lives. It’s crazy to come up here and see the same thing happen in a place where no one was prepared for it or expecting it."

Let’s hope the mostly-underwater Manhattan envisioned by the mostly-terrible (except for Jude Law!) A.I. is something that we can collectively avoid. [via WSJ]

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If Celebrate was actually a novel narrated by a young recluse who’d only ever had stuffed animals for friends, it might be worth checking out, but, as it is, the book is only worth digesting in small bites courtesy of a Sunday article in the Telegraph, which is for the best because Pippa, fyi, is something of a foodie.

I’m a real foodie – something, I think, not a lot of people know about me. For instance, the last dinner I cooked for friends was slow-braised pig’s cheeks. I didn’t tell anyone what it was in case it put them off, but it was a huge success. Pigeon-breast salad and venison stew also appear regularly on my dinner-party menu.

Not only that, but she also used her unsuspecting (and plush) friends as test palates for kitchen experiments, like hare jugs (which is British for breast of rabbit, obviously) and seafood pies:

My friends at Edinburgh University were often my guinea pigs. I knew I could try anything on them as friends don’t really mind if something doesn’t quite work out, like my jugged hare (a recipe I won’t be trying again in a hurry). But the salmon and prawn pillow – which I have included in my book, Celebrate – always went down well. In fact, any pie was popular. As was making sushi as a starter, which was fiddly but well worth the praise.

If that’s not incentive enough to buy Pippa’s party book, rumor has it that with each purchase of Celebrate, Pippa will throw in one free birthday cake, an old-world British confection made from kippers, marmalade, and haughty disdain for flavor. [via Telegraph]

Though the Federation (which, when you put it that way, sounds like a nefarious governing body that presides over intergalactic affairs) did say that Vonn could request to be a forerunner, i.e. official course-tester, it rejected her request to compete in the men’s World Cup race, officially insisting “one gender is not entitled to participate in races of the other.” There you have it, folks -- the nefarious Inter[galactic] Ski Federation has spoken, and though Vonn could totally be included in the men’s race as a forerunner, she then wouldn’t be eligible to actually compete in the women’s race.  

According to the BBC, the much more congenially-named U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association petitioned the Federation to consider Vonn’s request, and is pretty disappointed by the decision to not let Vonn compete. Also pretty bummed about the Federation’s intransigence is President of Alpine Canada Max Gartner, who told the BBC that, not only would Vonn’s inclusion in the men’s race be a boon for the popularity of downhill skiing, but that Vonn, of all female skiers, was uniquely qualified to compete in the Lake Louise event:

Lake Louise is the perfect venue to have that comparison because Lindsey has as much experience on the mountain as many of the men have had. I hope Lindsey gets a chance to fulfill her dream at a later date.

Nbd or anything, but Vonn is a four-time overall World Cup champion, so...what’s the problem? In an earlier statement to the New York Times, Vonn said she simply wanted the chance to do for her sport what Annika Sorenstam did for golf in paving the way for women to compete against men. Contrary to naysayers who put her “far outside” of the men, Vonn obviously thinks she could finish in the top 30 and just wants a chance to prove it. The Federation, however, bent on intergalactic ski tyranny, has taken great pains to ensure penis-wielding skiers all across the universe will not have to answer this opposite-sex ski challenge and therefore can continue to sip their hot cocoa in the warmth and safety of the lodge while a winter squall of gender inequities beats futilely against the window. Lindsey Vonn denied chance to race in men’s World Cup downhill [BBC]

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According to the AP, Ortega had recovered enough from her apparently self-inflicted wounds Saturday to be interviewed by police, who then formally charged her with two counts each of first- and second-degree murder for the stabbing deaths on Oct. 25 of 6-year-old Lucia Krim and her 2-year-old brother, Leo. Though Ortega had come out of a coma last Sunday, police delayed filing formal charges because she was still intubated (which, according to police spokesman Paul J. Browne, is pretty much standard operating procedure).

In an earlier statement to police, Ortega mentioned “friction” in her relationship with her employers, Marina and Kevin Krim, and apparently complainted about having housekeeping duties heaped on top of her childcare duties. Since plenty of people go through the daily grind of living and working -- which almost definitely includes doing a whole lot of unpaid, one-for-the-team extra work -- there’s probably a little more to Ortega’s stabbing motives than a tale of simmering class angst. Police charge NYC nanny in stabbing death of kids [AP via USA Today]

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