estelle getty

Estelle Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success before landing a role of a lifetime in 1985 as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's "The Golden Girls," has died. She was 84.
Getty, who suffered from advanced dementia, died at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica.
"Estelle always wanted to be an actress, and she achieved that goal beyond her dreams," former "Golden Girls" co-star Rue McClanahan told The Associated Press. "Don't feel sad about her passing. She will always be with us in her crowning achievement, Sophia."
"The Golden Girls," featuring four female retirees sharing a house in Miami, grew out of NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff's belief that television was ignoring its older viewers.

http://tv.yahoo.com/show/30728/news/urn:newsml:tv.ap.org:20080722:obit_getty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estelle_Getty
http://www.estellegetty.com/main.html
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001268/

age one

Cancer forces Tasmanian devils to breed earlier
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON - The little devils just can't wait. Faced with an epidemic of cancer that cuts their lives short, Tasmanian devils have begun breeding at younger ages, according to researchers at the University of Tasmania in Australia.

Since 1996 a contagious form of cancer called devil facial tumor disease has been infecting these animals and is invariably fatal, causing death between the ages of 2 and 3.

In the past devils would live five to six years, breeding at ages two, three and four, but with the new disease, even females who breed at two may not live long enough to rear their first litter.

Jones, who has been studying the animals' life cycles since before the disease outbreak, noted that there has been a 16-fold increase in breeding at age one.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080714/ap_on_sc/sci_evolving_devils

Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_Devil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tasmanian_Devil_Facial_Tumour_Disease.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_Devil_%28Looney_Tunes%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoll

http://www.tassiedevil.com.au/

looney bit

"He says, 'we won't be able to let you through because your T-shirt has got a gun on it'," Mr Jayakody said.

"I was like, 'What are you talking about?'.

"[The official's] supervisor comes over and goes 'sorry we can't let you through and you've a gun on your T-shirt'," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7431640.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1023560/Man-threatened-arrest-Heathrow-wearing-Transformers-T-shirt.html

empty doll

"I'm so lost. Will I ever find myself?"
"My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high,"

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/06/28/2008-06-28_models_web_rants_pined_for_love.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruslana_Korshunova