Today, on July 4th, the Statue of Liberty will be reopened, inviting visitors to visit the pedestal and the crown for the first time since Superstorm Sandy pummeled the Mid-Atlantic region last fall.
Visiting Liberty Island, or circling it in on the ferry is one of the most rewarding experiences of any trip to New York City.
Three years after the Panchots received the ultimate bad news delivered on their doorstep by two soldiers, a compassionate response from a stranger arrived via FedEx truck, essentially delivering the memory of their son Dale, back home.
“There’s definitely a lot of love going in that box,” says goat rancher and artist, Kaziah Hancock.
She started Project Compassion, a fund that helps provide personal hand-painted portraits of soldiers killed in action, “so their faces will never be forgotten.”
It started years ago when Kaziah painted a portrait of Utah’s first fallen soldier. Since then, she has personally painted on canvas — and framed — over 800 portraits of US soldiers killed in action and shipped them across the country as gifts for their families.
Though her landscapes in oil normally sell for thousands of dollars, Kaziah accepts no money from a soldier’s family.
She started the non-profit organization (www.heropaintings.com), so many more tributes could be painted. Three other artists are now creating portraits; more than 2,500 families have received them as gifts.
Visit her website to see the portraits that Kaziah painted in Manti, Utah.
(MUST SEE the unforgettable video from KARE-TV)
In honor of Independence Day, Clint Carter of Men’s Health magazine shares some items for your closet, your yard and your kid that all support companies that have made products in the United States — including Stetson hats, New Balance shoes, Crayola Crayons and a company that makes cutting boards in the shape of any of the 50 states, which you can see here: aheirloom.myshopify.com.
The Indian government this week launched an ambitious food distribution program to make sure grain gets to millions of malnourished children and adults rather than rotting in grain silos.
Under the $22 billion-a-year National Food Security Bill, 75% of rural dwellers and 50% of the urban population would get five kilograms of grain per month at the subsidized price of 3 rupees (five cents) for a period of three years. The program would massively expand an existing program that provides food to 218 million people.
Pregnant women and families with children up to age 14 would get extensive benefits for buying food.
A decade after Julie Caldwell had the initial inspiration to build a peace park in Elko, Nevada, the community is spinning the park’s final installation, a hand-crafted 3000 pound “Universal Peace Wheel,” which is filled with thousands of hand-written notes and printed mantras collected by volunteers, and sent in, from people wishing for peace.
An inviting gazebo houses the cylindrical copper art form adapted from Tibetan Buddhist culture that features 36 colorful peace symbols from around the world on 80 wheel that provide the rotating outer casing.
The embossed casing crafted in Nepal by Gopel Sapota was hand painted by a team of local artists led by Julie Caldwell and installed by Jim McCann. The design process included five artists from four countries (Nepal, Canada, Tibet, USA).
Inside the wheel thousands of handwritten peace statements, wound by hundreds of volunteers around the wheel’s central shaft, called the Tree of Life. The peace statements were collected from local Elko County School students and residents. It is believed that every time a visitor spins the wheel, millions of wishes for peace and healing go out into the world.
The city of Elko, with a population of less than 20,000 in Northeast Nevada, invited the artists and poets, aroused by the idea of peace following the Iraq War, to build the park on an 8-acre parcel of land donated by the Bente family. In 2007, the Tibetan Lama, Zopa Rinpoche, performed a traditional land blessing on the property.
The park now features a medicine wheel, installed by the Te-Mok Shoshone Western Band of Native Americans, a labyrinth, and natural gardens nestled among pathways and bridges along a creek, and includes a pet-friendly trail system, a small amphitheater, picnic areas, shade structures, and bathrooms.
The global community is invited to celebrate International Peace Day at the Elko Peace Park on Saturday, September 14, where three stages of entertainment, art and poetry will, send further wishes for peace out into the world.
The group is on its final fundraising leg, collecting donations to build a permanent sign explaining the significance and meaning of the wheel. To donate, visit: UniversalPeaceWheel.net
See all the photos documenting all the steps of building the wheel on their Facebook page.
(WATCH the video below from KENV-TV)
Using scrap metal and tin sheets, a 44 year-old farmer has built a windmill in a remote village in India. He doesn’t notice the power shortage that is “gripping the rest of the state.”
Siddappa Hulajogi installed the windmill four years ago on his Nargund taluka farm after the local power company refused to extend service to his rural location.
It can be a nuisance when seaweed piles up on the beaches after high tide, but the leafy, brown plants might be the key to helping Galveston survive its next major hurricane.
Galveston officials have agreed to spend $140,000 on a project that will rely on the plant to create “seaweed-enhanced sand dunes” to shore up the island’s beaches.
In 2007 James Bowen had been a homeless heroin addict for more than a decade when he found a stray, injured cat called Bob, who would not leave his doorstep.
Sensing a bond with another lost soul, he nursed the tabby back to health and began traveling with him on the city bus.
Bob became the subject of an international bestseller, “A Street Cat Named Bob: How One Man and His Cat Found Hope on the Streets“.
James still pinches himself about the success of the book, which would go on to become a series and a 2016 movie, and he began saving to get a mortgage, no longer on federal benefits–or drugs.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story w/ photos in the UK Mirror)
Jacob Barnett didn’t speak for years. Doctors declared that autism would keep him from ever doing simple tasks like reading or tying his own shoes. But after his mother began injecting fun and music and science into his life, he emerged from his cocoon.
Fortunately for Jacob, his mother noticed that when left to play on his own, the 3 year-old created wondrously complex maps and patterns. She yanked him out of “special ed” classes — where he was forced to do things that caused him to fail — and began preparing him for kindergarten herself.
The many forced hours of therapy, trying to persuade him to talk, finger paint, and to do basic physical tasks only frustrated and bored Jacob, making him more withdrawn.
A woman who could be considered Africa’s Oprah Winfrey launched an entertainment network yesterday that will be beamed into nearly every country on the continent with programs showcasing its burgeoning middle class.
Mosunmola “Mo” Abudu, who was born in the UK, wants EbonyLife TV to inspire Africans and the rest of the world, and change how viewers perceive the continent.
Apple Inc said it plans to build a new solar farm with NV Energy Inc for power supply to its new data center in Reno, Nevada, a major step towards its goal of using renewable energy to power its data centers, which use huge amounts of electricity.
14 Year old Will Thomas is not just shooting hoops. He’s using his jump shot, and Operation Hawkeye, to honor and raise money for fallen special operation troops and their families.
The Virginia schoolboy launched Operation Hawkeye in 2011, and his father pledged one penny for each basket he made, as he tried to score 1000 times for fallen soldiers.
Late Night With Jimmy Fallon was celebrating Video Game Week recently and asked the TV show’s fans to record scenes of themselves playing video games with their moms.
Most of the moms had never done any gaming before and were unfamiliar with handheld controllers. Hilarity ensues and the show picked the best moments for this very funny video clip.
After witnessing a close friend suffering through cyber bullying, 14 year old Azariah Brown decided to do something about it. She founded a website for teenage girls called, “Love Share Care”.
She wanted a social online hangout where adolescent girls 13-17 can share photos, post status updates, and send love shouts. They can even get discount tickets to local movies and stores.
The website’s official mission is to build self esteem and create unity within schools, while pushing back the tide of cyber-bullying online.
Fireworks lit the sky and festive crowds gathered on the streets to mark Croatia’s entry into the European Union, a major milestone some 20 years after the country won independence in a bloody civil war.
As the 28th EU member state, Croatia’s achievement seems historic because the small Balkan nation of 4.2 million endured years of carnage after declaring independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
Croatia’s admission to the fraternity of nations perhaps stands as another reason why the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.
(READ the story from the Telegraph)
It’s 4 AM and I am laying awake, feeling unsettled and thinking about how distant and disconnected I feel from my personal life. Not from my beloved, sleeping sweetly at my side, but from myself.
I’ve spent a lot of time and energy focused on everybody else this past month. Caught up in everyone else’s life. Their world. Their family. And there was a sadness stirring in me. I began realizing that I had, once again, wandered, even lost myself. With that awareness, I took a very deep breath and allowed myself to feel as lost and upset as I was.
Chinese officials have lifted a ban on Tibetan monks displaying photographs of the Dalai Lama at a prominent monastery, a rights group said on Thursday, an unexpected policy shift which could ease tensions in the restive region.
The looser restrictions may be introduced into other regions and may signal a policy shift regarding Tibet, three months after President Xi Jinping took office.
Vietnam vet Jim Power is a local celebrity in New York City known for his eclectic and colorful mosaic work on lampposts throughout the East Village.
He started what he calls the “Mosaic Trail,” in 1985. Each light pole is unique.
Dubbed the “Mosaic Man” in 1988, the city eventually gave him permission to continue his work on public property along with thanks from Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2004 for “beautifying the city with distinctful, artful mosaics.”
Construction of the Israeli wall, which has scarred the ancient landscape of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the name of security, has been halted for the first time in years, bringing relief to a Palestinian village with 2,500-year old farm terraces and aqueducts.
Israel’s high court in May gave Batir and its 6,000 residents – famed for its annual yield of aubergines – reason to hope that a way of life preserved through centuries won’t be destroyed.
When Abbey Curran first saw a flyer for a local beauty pageant, she was 16 and walked with a pronounced limp due to cerebral palsy. Despite classmates who dismissed her chances of winning, she was determined to compete.
In 2008, Abbey was crowned Miss Iowa and became the first disabled person ever to compete for the title of Miss USA.
She says she broke the glass ceiling so it would be normal for girls who seem different to be counted among beauty pageant contestants.
In fact, just recently, Nicole Kelly, who was born without her left forearm, was crowned Miss Iowa. As a result, the 23-year-old will find herself competing at the Miss America pageant in September in Atlantic City, N.J.
(WATCH the video below)
