Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Politics

Look at our thermometer! It moved!

We had a contribution yesterday – which I’ve matched – from blog-reader E.D. And she lives in Pennsylvania!

It was an particularly appropriate day, because of Obama’s speech about race. I thought it was remarkable. I'm glad you agree, Stash Haus. I feel thoroughly inspired and hopeful again.

J*mes

This from his wife Cathy yesterday:

"The police came to move J*mes out of his hotel this morning, to a hotel outside the Tibetan quarter. Presumably so he doesn't get to witness the roundup of Tibetans following the Monday night deadline…. He says he's in a cavernous hotel in the middle of nowhere, with only the China Central Television crew for company. But he's glad to have some vegetables! Not something one would expect to hear from J*mes, but he's lived on fried rice and tsampa all week."

Elizabeth, the original point of all those asterisks – which have now become rather silly – was to prevent a Chinese official from Googling on “J*mes M*les Lh*sa” and learning from me that he was broadcasting all over the world whereas he had applied for permission to be in Tibet as the correspondent of a weekly magazine. Once he started appearing in print with a by-line, my caution was useless.

Knitting

I’ve charted the initials BHO for the right sleeve of Theo’s gansey. I’ve done 13 of the 15 cross-overs on that sleeve: can’t really call them cables, when the columns of stitches never actually twist around each other. So I may finish the patterned part of the sleeve today.

The other thing I did yesterday was copy out the pattern for Eunny’s “Autumn Rose” circles in Simply Shetland 4 into Stitch and Motif Maker. This is the pattern I mean to use for the sweater which will carry it down the sleeves, knit sideways. But I find it’s not quite identical both ways – there are a few more stitches in the pattern than there are rows. I’m using S&MM to tweak it, clumsily, and I think it's working.

Thanks for the comments and links on mulesing. I’ll pursue them

2 comments:

  1. We have some connection to the Tibetan community here, and have been watching events closely. It gives an extra edge hearing your son, and feeling that small connection. I'm with you on Obama's speech. And then I saw him interviewed on Nightline (I think) and was more impressed. I might have to contribute again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Til's still at 7 teeth and holding, ie reasonably happy again, so I'm back in blog comments mode.

    Mulesing - Where to start? As a person living in the middle of sheep paddocks in rural NSW, I think that PETA has a point. Melesing is a very painful process but until now thought to be the only preventative for flystrike, which is truely horrible. The intensity of flies and their persistence has to be experienced in Australia! Some species can be really aggressive. Nevertheless, I don't know if the sheep grazing industry would have ever really investigated alternatives without the impetus by PETA. Now, there are a number of alternatives being seriously investigated, including selective breeding and genetic manipulation as well as pesticides and vaccinations and pain relief for lambs during the process. There's a few interesting methods mentioned on the Country Hour if anyone is interested in reading/ listening - http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nsw/today.htm


    V. glad James is OK. Is it likely that there'll be flack rebounding on his posting to Beijing?

    ReplyDelete