It was recently revealed that Russian spies posing as “ordinary” Americans were arrested. They lived in happy surburban homes. They sent messages to their handlers using invisible ink. They posted images on the internet with secret, coded texts hidden in them. They had “American” children. One alleged spy, Anna Chapman, was a “demure, divorced 28-year-old who said she founded an online real estate company worth $2 million.” They were, in short, “normal” Americans, which is probably what gave them away.

Jessie Gugig, 15, said she could not believe the charges, especially against Mrs. Murphy. “They couldn’t have been spies,” she said jokingly. “Look what she did with the hydrangeas.”
Quotation from In Ordinary Lives, U.S. Sees the Work of Russian Agents by Scott Shane and Charlie Savage (The New York Times)

“She said they were from Canada.”
Quotation from Lila Hexner, who lived next door to one of the spies.

PHOTO: Jack London’s Palace Hotel for Pigs.

In the Valley of the Moon, there has been laughter among ranchers over the latest achievment of Jack London. He built what the valley dwellers call a “Palace Hotel for Pigs.” The structure is all of concrete, circular in form, with a feedhouse in the center of the ring. “In twelve years, I’ll save the price of the thing in saving of labor, by feeding in the center of the pens,” said London in defense of his scheme.
Quotation from San Francisco Examiner, 1915

In Costa Rica, many store mannequins have impossibly big boobs, as compared to mannequins in the United States, which are impossibly thin. It’s intriguing what different cultures consider “ideal” and seductive.

Strange and Beautiful Tattoos (1dak.com) Do you find ink sexy?
Pierced Pink and a beautiful touch of plastic destruction (Flickr.com)

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” That is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Poem by John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn