As I've been working on compiling my Halloween costume, I've tried several hats and haven't been happy with them. I went to a party at the North Street Nickel City coop house Saturday night and some lovely woman let me borrow her adorable black velvet hat with rose detail but of course wanted it back as the she left. I wasn't quick enough to ask if I could rent it from her for this weekend's festivities. I had found a cute little half-hat at Patricia's, the crazy over-stuffed store next to East End Salon on Allen but I couldn't get it to sit right with my too-big head and too-thick hair. I highly recommend Patricia's for accessories. Adorable black velvet bag, elbow-length gloves... she even had white kid-leather elbow length gloves with the buttons at the wrist - they were gorgeous! They're something I've only read about. I feel like a bull in a china shop - the pathways are so narrow and everything is piled so high - so I just tell her what I need and she scurries around, digging deep into piles of furs, hats, suits, accessories, shoes, and random household items until she finds the perfect item. It's like a combination grandmother's attic, thrift store, and Claire's.

Anyway, so I checked out House of Randolph, 70 Allen St., hoping the cute fancy dresses in the window would be accompanied by hats. Irma, the owner, said she doesn't carry hats but did show me her gorgeous clothes "for us voluptuous women... the clothes are not for sticks." Really beautiful stuff and next time I need a fancy outfit, I'm going to try there first. As funky & cool as Allen Street Dress Shop is, they rarely have anything that fits me.

So I used the google machine to find "hats buffalo ny"... and I found Flashy Toppers over on Jefferson Ave. Stunning hats!!! They've got men's and women's hats, flashy and subdued. Very fun, great service. They've got a coupon in the Buffalo First coupon book, too. My hat has sequins, lace, and rhinestones and even came with a big huge proper hat box! Can't wait to wear it!

I just had dinner with my Tioga County friend Liz (her activist blog: and her store website: ) and her gf Hannah at Falafel Bar as they were on their way home from a wedding in Denver. Two hours of intense brain sharing about everything from crazy friends to natural gas well drilling to the proposed closing of North Penn High School.

I guess I need to get some of my brain energy out before I can focus again...

The Southern Tioga school board is going to choose whether to renovate or close the high school I (and my parents, aunts & uncle) graduated from. Closing the high school would mean busing kids in grades 9-12 to the schools 10 miles north and south and renovating the elementary school into a pre-k to 8th grade facility. It's a $17M vs. $27M project according to the feasibility study, but it looks like there's a lot of waste/unnecessary stuff in the high school renovation part that is inflating the cost. I created a facebook fan page five days ago for "Save North Penn High School!" and already have 440 fans and my dad and few friends have asked me to create an ad in the free weekly classifieds paper to promote the cause. I don't have access to the feasibility study these proposals are based on, which prevents me from having solid substantive arguments. The best I've got so far is "closing NPHS will negatively impact educational outcomes for students" and "closing NP means the death of Bloss." It'll be interesting.

Liz has been focused on the impacts of natural gas well drilling that's happening all across PA. There was a massive fish kill a few weeks ago in a formerly healthy stream on the West Virginia-PA border caused by dumping of untreated hydraulic fracturing waste water into an abandoned deep coal mining hole. The West Virginia DEP-equivalent says that it caused by a naturally occurring golden algae bloom - exactly the same cause proposed by the responsible company - but the PA DEP says it's from the waste water and wants the company's US EPA permit revoked. NY has halted all drilling - smarties! She's set up an information session with our county planner (possibly retired - i forget) for tomorrow night. I'm hoping a lot of people will show up and learn about the environmental devastation that's happening elsewhere so that we can be on guard in Tioga County. Companies are already drilling and spilling the frac water - we're getting reports from the local DEP office - 8,000 gallons of this toxic stuff. I'm so frustrated that so many people haven't learned from the devastation of the mines - the Tioga River, which runs through Bloss, is a dead river because of acid mine drainage.

And now I must return to the grey and gloomy world of law school... someday I'll get paid for the analysis work and the resulting legal actions, right?

I can't figure out how to swipe this video from facebook and it's not on youtube so I hope this is public...

Tioga County Visitors Bureau tourism promotion video:



in contrast, a new Buffalo Niagara tourism video

Among developed countries, America is viewed as one of the most religious nations, and it seems that there is no end to its inhabitants' appetite for Christianity in all its flavors. Americans tell pollsters that they go to church in immense numbers, and most of them name the Bible as their favorite book.

Church attendance as established by surveys is one of the main factors alleged to illustrate the depth of religious feeling in America. Depending on which poll you consult, between 33 percent and 43 percent of Americans claim to attend church weekly. Using the low end of that range, we get a figure of around a hundred million people. Even cursory crack research, however, reveals that this can not be true, for the simple reason that there are not enough seats in all churches in America to hold nearly as many people.

I think the article is snarkily amusing, but the second half is easier to poke holes in,

According to a study conducted for the Catholic Biblical Federation in 2008, 93 percent of Americans have at least one copy of the Bible at home. Twenty-seven percent of Americans surveyed believe that the Bible is "the actual word of God, which must be taken literally, word for word," and 78 percent view its contents as true. Almost half of American respondents agree-either somewhat or completely-with the statement "The Bible should be studied at school," and 56 percent have given a Bible as a gift at least once. In addition, a Harris poll conducted the same year showed that Americans overwhelmingly name the Bible as their favorite book.

One might deduct from these numbers that the Americans' knowledge of the Bible is at least somewhat satisfactory. Nobody could like the Bible, let alone maintain that its contents are true, give it as a gift, or recommend that it be taught in schools, without possessing at least an elementary awareness of its teachings. In order to agree that the Bible contains the unerring pronouncements of God, which are to be taken literally, word for word, from beginning to end, one must necessarily be acquainted with what these pronouncements are.

Since they don't reference other polls of American ignorance, it's easy to make fun of Bible literalists' ignorance of the Bible. But it totally correlates with general American ignorance about history (or any other substantive topic).
or

This weekend is peak leaf peeking in Tioga County, but I was there last weekend... Got these shots as the sun was slipping behind the mountains, up past Pirate's Rock.








We kept driving up the trail to the Wrench and found that people had been burning the plastic/insulation off aluminum, probably to get a higher price selling it for recycling.



The plastic had melted off and run towards the creek and then pooled where it cooled. The dark bits are the burnt plastic.



Ew.

Yeah. So interesting.

thanks, (e:zobar)!



(okay, not a great shot. i think my room is too dark)



(better... would prolly easier if i wasn't using a sleepy, resistant puppy)