Annie’s Journal
by Annie Warner Donnelly
Dec. 1, 2025 – Hello Everyone. National Geographic is described as one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. It’s awarded more than 15,000 grants for scientific research, conservation, and exploration projects since its founding in 1888.
Its book titled, “An Uncommon History of Common Things” include these categories: Food & Drink; Seasons & Holidays; Ceremony & Customs; Symbols & Markings; Hearth & Home; Garments & Accessories; Medication & Potions; Toys & Games; and Tools & Innovation. I wondered which toys it included.
Remember the year people waited in long lines to purchase a Cabbage Patch Doll? Co-inventors Xavier Roberts and Debbie Morehead “have never referred to their soft, stuffed creations as dolls. Cabbage Patch Kids were each different, supposedly individuals with unique personalities, bolstered by ‘birth certificates’ for their ‘adoptions’.” The year was 1983.
What a contrast to 1959’s popular doll! The teenage fashion Barbie doll was named after inventor Ruth Handler’s daughter, Barbara. Handler based Barbie on a German doll, Bild Lilli, inspired by a comic strip about a young working woman … In 1961, Mattel brought out a boyfriend doll named Ken, after Handler’s son.”
The 1916 interlocking Lincoln Logs, “used in old fashioned cabin construction by generations of children, were the brainchild of John Lloyd Wright, son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. He claimed to have been inspired watching the foundation-laying of the earthquake proof Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.”
Did you ever walk a Slinky down a set of stairs? “Marine engineer Richard James was trying to create an anti-vibration mechanism for ship instruments in the early 1940s. He was using tension, or torsion, springs that would quickly counter the effects of waves at sea. One day he knocked over a delicate experimental spring and watched as it crept, its coils fountaining, down a stack of books, onto a table, then to the floor.” James and his wife borrowed $500 to begin manufacturing Slinkys. From 1945 to 2009, more than 300 million Slinkys were sold. Slinky was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2000.
Want to create something? We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. (Philippians 4:13) Amen.
One of the Year’s Best Meteor Shows Arrives December 13–14
By Gary Boyle, The Backyard Astronomer, Nov 29, 2025
The annual Geminid Meteor shower will be at its finest on the night of December 13 into the morning of the 14th. According to the International Meteor Organization (IMO), the maximum peak of possibly seeing 120 meteors per hour is predicted to occur around 3 am eastern, (2 am central, 1 am mountain and midnight western) on the morning of the 14.
A 23% waning crescent moon will rise late into the morning hours so no big interference this year. This is a weekend event. If cloudy Saturday night it is still visible on Sunday night, but the numbers will be reduced.
These are slow moving colourful meteors generated by the asteroid 3200 Phaethon and will be memorable to witness as they burn up in the atmosphere appearing in different directions of the sky. Some very bright fireballs could also be seen. Start looking around 7 pm local time but as the night moves on and the constellation Gemini rises higher over the next few hours, more meteors will be seen. The brilliant planet Jupiter is up in the northeast around 7 pm and out all night long along with the bright winter stars of Orion – the Hunter.
Best to travel out of town to darker wide-open skies to fully enjoy the show. Do not trespass on private property.
We can eliminate cervical cancer with the bulletproof HPV vaccine
By SMDHU, Dec 2, 2025
A new report from the Canadian Cancer Statistics Advisory Committee shows that cancer mortality rates are going down and this is great news. However, cervical cancer rates have stopped declining in Canada. More than 99 percent of all cervical cancers are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). A safe and effective HPV vaccine has been available through Ontario’s School Immunization Program since 2007. This vaccine not only prevents cervical cancer but protects against several other cancers caused by HPV infection, such as oral, throat, anal and penile, types of cancer that many of us have seen affect people we know.
Unfortunately, in Simcoe Muskoka only about 63 percent of Grade 7 students receive this important cancer prevention vaccine, leaving more than 2,000 Grade 7 youth each year unprotected against several types of cancer that could impact them in the future.
Locally, the rate of cervical cancer for females aged 20 to 44 years is about 50 percent higher in Simcoe Muskoka than in Ontario. It is estimated that over 75 percent of Canadians will have an HPV infection at some point in their lifetime, as it is easily transmitted through skin-to-skin contact during sex. Condoms provide only partial protection against HPV infection. By contrast, HPV immunization offers lifelong, bulletproof protection against HPV—a fact supported by a 2024 study in Scotland that found zero cases of cervical cancer among young women fully vaccinated against HPV.
The Public Health Agency of Canada shares that the risk of cancer from HPV goes beyond cervical cancer as there are more than 100 types of HPV and it is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections (STI). Both men and women can get HPV which is responsible for 80 to 90 percent of anal cancers, 40 percent of vaginal and vulvar cancers, 40 to 50 percent of penile cancers, and 25 to 35 percent of mouth and throat cancers in Canada.
The HPV vaccine is 99 percent effective at preventing HPV infections, as well as the cancers and warts they can cause. In my clinical practice, I have seen young people devastated when they seek medical care for their genital warts. None of these patients had received the HPV vaccine and all of them wish they had.