Breast cancer fundraising bracelets that proclaim "I (heart) boobies!" are not lewd or vulgar and can't be banned by public school officials who find them offensive, a federal judge in Pennsylvania said in a preliminary ruling. The ruling is a victory for two Easton girls suspended for defying a ban on their middle school's Breast Cancer Awareness Day. "The bracelets ... can reasonably be viewed as speech designed to raise awareness of breast cancer and to reduce stigma associated with openly discussing breast health," U.S. Judge Mary McLaughlin wrote in a 40-page ruling issued April 12. She added that the school district had not shown the bracelets would be disruptive in school.
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/other/1110/04-12-2011/20110412140501_20.html

When Prince William and Kate Middleton exchange their wedding vows at Westminster Abbey on April 29th, they will join decades of royals who have bowed before the famous golden arches* of the abbey's gothic apse. The abbey, officially known as the Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, has been the coronation church since 1066 when William the Conqueror became the first royal to be crowned inside the abbey. Benedictine monks first came to the site in the middle of the 10th century, to what was then a marshy area called "Thorny Island" on the banks of the River Thames. The church, or monetary as it was at the time, earned its link with the Crown after the support of the then King Edgar. One century later, Edward the Confessor's body was moved into the building after he was made a saint. His Anglo Saxon crypt still remains at the heart of the building, now resting alongside 17 more monarchs as well as notable authors and writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. Their bodies rest in Poets' Corner in the south transept. King George II's funeral was held at the abbey in 1760 and more recently in 2002 the funeral of the Queen Mother took place. The present church design, built by Henry III in 1245, is one of the most important Gothic buildings in the country with architectural influences from French cathedrals at Reims and Amiens.
http://www.t elegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/royal-wedding/8435055/Westminster-Abbey-what-it-means-to-the-Royal-family.html

*I was amused to read "golden arches of salvation" in the novel, Man in the Middle by Brian Haig when a hungry person saw McDonalds.

Citizens of Indonesia gobble up more rice than almost any other country. With annual per-person consumption of more than 275 pounds, Indonesians shovel down more than 15 times as much rice as Americans eat, and twice what the average Japanese consumes. Many Indonesian meals feature rice as the main course, with meat and vegetables on the side. But now, after years of promoting rice as the greatest thing since sliced bread, the government wants to diversify its consumers' carbohydrates. "We are too dependent on rice," says Bayu Krisnamurthi, Indonesia's vice minister of agriculture. "The price is going up, so the less we are depending on the international market, the better." Indonesia is hoping to slash average rice consumption by more than 10% over the next four years. So far, it has launched a "One Day, No Rice" campaign, which has First Lady Ani Bambang Yudhoyono on posters asking people to pick a day not to eat rice. The government has also started a program to subsidize thousands of villages to grow more fruits and vegetables. It's encouraging companies to make more foods that use cassava, a tropical tuber whose price is also rising, and sweet potatoes. Chefs have been commissioned to re-engineer traditional foods to use other ingredients. A village named Cireundeu in Java, for example, is being commended for its "cassava rice," a local process that shreds cassava so it can be cooked and eaten like rice.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703905404576164212551766804.html

The Sandwich Historical Society and its Glass Museum, collects, preserves and interprets the history of the Town of Sandwich, the oldest town on Cape Cod. A large part of Sandwich history is involved with American glass production. Incorporated in 1637, Sandwich, originally settled by the English, became an agricultural community, the main export of which was timber sent back to England. Even during the American Revolution, it remained a primarily agrarian community, supplemented by coastal fishing. But in 1825, the landscape of Sandwich would drastically change because of Deming Jarves, a Boston businessman and former agent of the New England Glass Company of East Cambridge, Massachusetts. Deming Jarves, the principal founder and manager of the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company, did not choose Sandwich as a site for the glass factory because of the beach sand that was readily available. Beach sand is too impure to make glass which requires pure quartz silica. The Company shipped in pure silica supplies first from New Jersey and New York and later from the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. http://www.sandwichglassmuseum.org/about.php?pgID=2

3500 Years of Glass
Glass, that remarkable substance born of sand, alkali and fire, has fascinated and served humankind for more than 3,500 years – ever since some long-forgotten Middle Eastern artisan stumbled upon a way to control its manufacture. From quite beautiful luxury items prized by the pharaohs, glass has evolved into highly sophisticated functional uses deeply imbedded in the fabric of our twentieth century civilization. "Cut glass" is glass that has been decorated entirely by hand by use of rotating wheels. Cuts are made in an otherwise completely smooth surface of the glass by artisans holding and moving the piece against various sized metal or stone wheels, to produce a predetermined pleasing pattern. Cutting may be combined with other decorative techniques, but "cut glass" usually refers to a glass object that has been decorated entirely by cutting. Cut glass can be traced to 1,500 B.C in Egypt, where vessels of varying sizes were decorated by cuts made by what is believed to have been metal drills. Artifacts dating to the sixth century B.C. indicate that the Romans, Assyrians and Babylonians all had mastered the art of decoration by cutting. Ever so slowly glass cutting moved to Constantinople, thence to Venice, and by the end of the sixteenth century, to Prague. Apparently the art did not spread to the British Isles until the early part of the eighteenth century. Although glass making was the first industry to be established in America at Jamestown, Virginia in 1608, no glass is known to have been cut in the New World until at least 160 years later. Henry William Stiegel, an immigrant from Cologne, Germany, founded the American Flint Glass Manufactory in Manheim, Pennsylvania, and it was there in about 1771 that the first cut glass was produced in America. http://www.cutglass.org/Connections/articles/art11.htm



Many of North America's best old-house neighborhoods are in long- or formerly forgotten cities, towns, and 'burbs that are worth a fresh look. They're also places where you'll discover some of the best, most architecturally eye-popping older houses on the continent. http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/best-old-house-neighborhoods-of-2011-2465459
For all 64 Best Old House neighborhoods in the U.S. and Canada, visit http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/info/0,,20469788,00.html?xid=shine-110315-bestoldhouse

In recognition of the power of millions of individual actions, Earth Day 2011 will be organized around A Billion Acts of Green®: Personal, organizational and corporate pledges to live and act sustainably. A Billion Acts of Green® campaign – the largest environmental service campaign in the world – is steadily building commitments by individuals, corporations, and governments in honor of Earth Day.
See what others are doing and decide if you want to commit at: http://act.earthday.org/