Just some thoughts as I browse through the “shop” section of the Girl Scouts of the USA site.

• There is a big flower on the Daisy tunic now! And what’s this? A Daisy VEST? Nooooo! They wear tunics! For some reason they even sell a set of iron-on petals…that can’t be because they still sell plain tunics, can it? Nah, it’s for the hand-me-down tunics, I guess. Oh, and for when a Daisy’s petals fall off.
• Brownies are wearing brown again, that’s good. But it’s paired with powder blue. When I was a Brownie, we wore brown and ORANGE and we LIKED it! Can’t beat THAT for classic 70’s/80’s style. But what’s this?! NO FLASHES?? Those were SO COOL when I was a Brownie, I really wanted flashes for my socks! At least the Brownies aren’t wearing that floral pattern anymore. God that was awful…I think it was the late 90’s when they came up with that one?
• I’m not sure that the green of Juniors is quite as IN YOUR FACE as it used to be. Man, we wore BRIGHT green.
• Khaki? Older girls wear khaki now? Blue was so nice! But, erm…what is an ambassador?
• Adult uniform stuff is just as boring as always. Oh well.

Before you think this is some new thing that I’m obsessing with, I’d like to note that I was obsessing over Girl Scout uniforms back in November 2001 when I wrote this article.

I’m still reading the “first 50 years” history of Gallaudet, and I find it interesting to note that the oral/manual debate has been going on there since 1868. When Edward Miner Gallaudet convened the first National Conference of Principals of Institutions for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, he didn’t send invitations to some of the schools that had recently been established, which were oral schools. Some saw this as a snub to the oral methods, but Gallaudet said it was simply because they didn’t have principals yet, they were still too new. He said that his school should “provide for the instruction of speech of all pupils until it plainly appears that success is unlikely to crown their efforts.” So even though it may have seemed that he was anti-oral, he was encouraging the use of oral/aural instruction until it was deemed a failure.

I think my brain is fried. I have studied for about 10 hours probably. Six hours tonight and probably four last night, maybe a little more, I don’t know. This exam is going to be my bitch though. I can tell you anything you want to know about American history from about 1400 to 1790. Well, not anything, but anything on the study guides, which are what she’s doing the test from. But seriously man…I think my brain is going to explode sometime soon. I keep forgetting what I was going to say in this post. It feels like I’ve been interpreting for three hours straight or something…bleurgh wharck wharck foomp! At least I finished before midnight like I wanted to. And now Underclassman is on TV and I am watching it because I don’t have the energy, brain, or whatever is needed to change the channel.

Deaf Cats.
Mr. Harrison Weir, president of the National Cat Club, England, says in his book “Our Cat,” that a white cat of the long or the short-haired breed is likely to be deaf. Should it have blue eyes, the fancy color, it is almost certain to be deaf. Mr Weir, at a cat show, purchased a white cat - a beauty, loving and gentle, for the low price of two guineas. When he got it home, the cat proved to be “stone deaf.”
Then the trouble began. if shut out of the dining room, its cry for admission could be heard all over the house, for it being deaf did not know the noise it made, though its owner often wished it could hear its own cry. When it called out as it sat on his lap, it called with ten-cat power, and its commanding voice caused it to be named the “Colonel.”
One day a friend saw the “beauty,” and admired it so much as to accept it for a gift, even after being told that it was “stone deaf.” A few days after Mr. Weir received a letter from the friend offering to return the loud-voiced cat.
“Give it to any one you please, but don’t return it to us,” was the reply.
The “Colonel” was given to a deaf old lady, and both were very happy.
The Silent Worker, vol. 4, no. 35, October 29, 1891.

Prologue: It is difficult to write about the death penalty without taking a side, but I am going to attempt to remain neutral. Additionally, this topic may make some readers uncomfortable.

A debate currently taking place in California questions whether lethal injection is a cruel and unusual form of execution. Out of all methods of execution currently practiced in the United States, lethal injection is the most common; if the California case determines that it is cruel and unusual, significant changes may be coming for how America executes its prisoners.
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Prologue: I have been meaning to write this piece for at least a year and a half. Thanks are owed to NonFicWriMo for finally spurring me to write it.

May 10, 1996 was the deadliest day ever on Mount Everest. Deaths are not uncommon in mountaineering, and Everest has claimed many lives in its history, including some of the strongest in the climbing community. But never before had eight people died in a single day: the greatest tragedy on Mount Everest. Even after the climbing season was over, debate raged on about what had happened on that day.
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The Jetsons. Scooby Doo. Tom and Jerry. The Flintstones. These familiar cartoon characters all originated from the same artistic team: Hanna-Barbera.
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Harvard University has been around longer than the United States - a lot longer. Only sixteen years after the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they established an institute of higher learning that has lasted for more than 350 years.
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The Six Flags family is among the best-known theme parks in the United States. While Disney only has five flagship theme parks, Six Flags has twenty in the U.S. and one each in Canada and Mexico. Presently headquartered in New York City and Oklahoma City, the company has been running amusement parks for 45 years.
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Note: Although there are no explicit details, this topic may disturb some readers.

During World War II, Hitler’s Germany established dozens of concentration camps around Europe. Some of these were solely for forced labor, but others were also extermination camps. Human beings sent to these camps were either selected for immediate death or forced to work at hard labor that all too often led to the same result.
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