Silent Protest

This woman is occasionally out by The Commons with signs supporting peace. I wonder if she is Quaker. I'm also a bit confused by her sign from last week - wouldn't PEACE  be eliminating the inequity of "me first," not equal to it? But I am very literal. I hated the speeding signs in Oklahoma that said "Watch Your Speed We Are" because of the lack of clarity due to missing punctuation. Ah, but I digress. Sometimes, I honk and wave at this woman, but this time, I was too busy taking her picture.

Today's Doctor Who-ism

"The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things... hey... the good things don't always soften the bad things; but vice-versa the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant."

~The Tenth Doctor

Postcrossing Statistics

A record of my sent and received postcards by country for June!

BP and Animal Cruelty

In the blog, The PETA Files, Ingrid Newkirk argues that if any charges are brought against BP for the oil spill, animal cruelty should be among them. Newkirk almost presents this as fantasy, which of course it is, but she concluded her post by offering a number of personal choices that can make the world better for animals, including reducing meat consumption (or better yet going vegetarian), working to reduce or eliminate factory farming, and buying less gas and other petroleum-based products. All these suggestions are relevant, and so easy. But, for the record, I am totally OK with charging BP with animal cruelty.

Quotation of the Day

“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.”

--Albert Schweitzer

SPCA of Tompkins County Buddy Tag Necklace

A local jewelry store, the Ithaca Jewel Box, is raising money for the SPCA of Tompkins County through the sale of "Buddy Tags," adorable charms with the SPCA logo. Free engraving is available on the reverse side, so I had Walter's name etched.



Many people use them as charms on their dog's collar, but I put mine on a silver chain to make a cute necklace!

Meet Milo

Milo is one of our adorable teddy bear hamsters. We've had him for several weeks, but I've only recently been able to get a flattering photograph of him. His good looks hide a beastly personality: he's already bitten me twice! Although a hamster bite does little damage, it does hurt!

No Dinosaurs on Bikes

You may have heard about this already... Ithaca is having a problem with dinosaurs on bicycles running amok. For your own good and the good of the community, please keep your bicycles safe and locked up! If you see a dinosaur, please call the authorities.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Thanks to my Ravelry Vegan for Every Season swap partner, I had a copy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which I had been coveting for some time. Because this is a book from science writer Rebecca Skloot on HeLa cells, I thought the book might take longer to read than one of my usual selections. However, I devoured it in just over a single day, it was written so clearly and so well. Of course, it's not just about the immortal HeLa cell line, which has been used for decades of medical and scientific research. Skloot also tells Henrietta's story, the story of the doctors who first discovered and used the HeLa cells, and of Henrietta's descendants who did not know that Henrietta's cells were so important, and who did not even know they were used until twenty-so years after they were cultured.