Tells us something if the Disney censorship rules are worse than the Victorian ones, does it not? The US has become progressively puritanical in this regard lately, to the point of where the Americans' relation to nudity is beyond prudish - it is morbidly neurotic.

I had some of these very books as a child. All I remembered was that they had really great illustrations - illustrations which didn't strike me as racy in any way, or even unusual, as a child.

io9 shouldn't condone modern puritan idiocy by describing these as "racy". Because they're not.

I don't see the problem with most of these, although the T is pretty damn suggestive. The guy in the crown with the maiden on the plain seems suggestive, too, mainly for the posture of the woman. Beyond that, not much in the way of sexual suggestion. The idea that nudity itself is sexual always seemed…

Sorry dude, 11 hours of patience is all I've got.

There was another parody around the same time, written by an 'anthropologist' studying the ritual combat/fertility ritual of American football. The gist of it was the men had to prove themselves worthy of the fertile women on the sideline (cheerleaders) by battling to carry the egg (football) into the womb (endzone).…

Motel of the Mysteries, by David Macaulay (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979).

Just in case people are confused, there are two species of beaver, the Eurasian beaver, Castor fiber, and the North American beaver, Castor canadensis. C. fiber is the species that has been extirpated in the wild in Britain for 800 years.

This sounds like HERESY!

A Commissar will be visiting you shortly to determine your devotion to the God-Emperor.

How come when these guys set up hidden cameras to get nighttime shots of beaver they are praised and when I do it I get arrested?

Yes:

I am skeptical until I see this report confirmed by an official beaver inspector.

I'm just wondering how the goddamn thing stayed alive for 800 years.

So when people search the Internet for "English beaver" this is what they will find.

I saw the headline, but then I thought, nah, too easy. Even for me.

I think the point is not that war is good, but that crises can bring out the good in us as well as the bad. Crises like war or natural disasters are, in a way, a test of our character. The decisions we make in response to tragedy and devastation help to determine who we are.