Two strangers became heroes at an Overland Park Blake Shelton concert last Saturday.
Patrick Connelly’s wheelchair kept him from being able to actually see his favorite country singer perform at the outdoor show.
In the sweltering summer heat his mom and sister tried to hold him up but he was too heavy for them.
16-year-old Allyson Ahlstrom of Santa Rosa, Calif., wasn’t satisfied with the idea of underprivileged teen girls settling for wearing used clothing from a thrift shop. At an age when outward pressures can easily threaten a girl’s self esteem, she should be able to look her best and take pride in her appearance.
That’s why Allyson created Threads for Teens, a clothing boutique that gives girls in need a confidence-booster when they walk out the door with two brand new head-to-toe outfits. Girls ages 13-17 visit the store and shop for items they need at no cost.
This month she was named one of 15 Build-A-Bear Workshop Huggable Heroes and awarded $10,000 in cash and a $7,500 educational scholarship for her outstanding work.
16-year-old Allyson Ahlstrom of Santa Rosa, Calif., wasn’t satisfied with the idea of underprivileged teen girls settling for wearing used clothing from a thrift shop. At an age when outward pressures can easily threaten a girl’s self esteem, she should be able to look her best and take pride in her appearance.
That’s why Allyson created Threads for Teens, a clothing boutique that gives girls in need a confidence-booster when they walk out the door with two brand new head-to-toe outfits. Girls ages 13-17 visit the store and shop for items they need at no cost.
This month she was named one of 15 Build-A-Bear Workshop Huggable Heroes and awarded $10,000 in cash and a $7,500 educational scholarship for her outstanding work.
The Waldo Canyon Fire, the most destructive in Colorado history, is under full containment Tuesday night.
The announcement comes after a helicopter flyover in the Colorado Springs region Tuesday evening.
Fire commander Troy Nelsen was unable to see any smoke in the Blodgett Peak area.
A new Olympic Park arose in a once derelict and contaminated industrial area of east London turning neglected waterways into wildlife havens.
Almost 500 acres of land (200 hectares) have been razed and redeveloped for the 2012 Olympic Games, and one-fifth of those have been given over to creating new wildlife habitats for a variety of fauna — including kingfishers, bats, otters and grass snakes — while much of the rest has been left as parkland.
“I was told that my sister and I were going to be sent to England. I was only 9 and not aware of the situation. A lot of us thought it was an adventure. We didn’t know what was happening.”
Here’s what happened. Milena Grenfell-Baines and 668 other mostly Jewish children were transported from Czechoslovakia to England in order to save their lives before the outbreak of WWII.
The man who made this possible was Sir Nicholas Winton. In 1939, Winton, at the time a 29-year-old stockbroker, spent nights and weekends organizing logistics, raising money and cutting through red tape to get children out of Czechoslavakia.
Winton, an ordinary person who made an extraordinary difference, was given an opportunity to experience the full emotional effect of his actions when he found himself in front of a TV studio audience filled with the people he had helped.
(READ the full article on Brad Aronson’s blog)
We call them heroes, but there is a sense among many of today’s vets, and those who deal with them, that the public often has not embraced war veterans in a manner they can bear. Now, one ex-soldier, after having attempted suicide, is reaching out through his original music and making a difference for warriors who’ve returned home.
Iraq War vet Jason Moon rejects the “hero” label, but still considers himself a warrior. So he is using his songwriting and musical talents to look back to see who among his comrades remain in trouble.
One co-founder of a wellness center for veterans explains the healing quality of Moon’s songs like this: “Once (they) know we can hear their suffering, and not judge it, it allows them to heal as human beings, not just veterans.”
The child within is long dead and gone.
Somewhere between lost and alone.
I’m trying to find my way home.
He released an album and has been performing across the country — sometimes for veterans, other times for civilians. He does it through his small nonprofit, Warrior Songs Inc. located in his suburban Milwaukee home. The title track “Trying to Find My Way Home” is a soothing lament that sounds a bit like the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Hear the songs and donate here: www.warriorsongs.org
(Read the AP story via Huffpost)
The rings marking the life of a tree have been turned into music, using a record player that plays slices of wood.
The year ring data — analyzed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth — is translated into music using a computer, camera and acrylic glass.
The modified turntable outputs piano music to a scale which is defined by the overall appearance of the wood — and presumably the environmental events in the life of the tree.
When a volunteer first saw the flame-scarred nest west of Utah Lake he thought there was no way the eaglet could have survived.
Mr. Keller climbed through the scorched landscape on June 28 to document the loss of the nest and unfledged baby.
“There was not a stick from the nest left — not on the ground or the cliff,” Keller said. “I’ve seen nests burn before, but this is the first year I have seen one burn with young in it. They are usually long gone and flying when fire season starts.”
When a volunteer first saw the flame-scarred nest west of Utah Lake he thought there was no way the eaglet could have survived.
Mr. Keller climbed through the scorched landscape on June 28 to document the loss of the nest and unfledged baby.
“There was not a stick from the nest left — not on the ground or the cliff,” Keller said. “I’ve seen nests burn before, but this is the first year I have seen one burn with young in it. They are usually long gone and flying when fire season starts.”
After their beloved dog fell on a spike and home remedies were only prolonging her suffering, the family decided to surrender the pet to the SPCA to be put down.
In a final goodbye, the family’s father looked into Kayla’s eyes, apologizing for being too poor to care for her and begged his pet to forgive him for his shortcomings.
After the family began coming to terms with their loss, two weeks later, they received the surprise of a lifetime.
After their beloved dog fell on a spike, and home remedies only prolonged its suffering, the family decided to surrender the pet to the SPCA to be put down.
In a final goodbye, the family’s father looked into Kayla’s eyes, apologizing for being too poor to care for her and begged the dog to forgive him for his shortcomings.
After the family began coming to terms with their loss, two weeks later, they received the surprise of a lifetime.
Irvin Gordon expects his odometer to turn over on three million miles this year as his spiffy 1966 red Volvo — like the Energizer bunny — keeps going, and going.
The retired school teacher from Bay Shore, New York purchased the sporty P1800S when it was new and has since driven as many road miles as it would take to make nearly 1,200 trips around the globe at the Equator.
Most kids with vision problems don’t look past the tip of their own nose when it comes to the issue of prescription eyewear. But not Yash Gupta, a 15-year-old high school junior from Irvine, California. His vision has extended to thousands of people who have benefitted from his nonprofit, Sight Learning, which provides eyewear for students who can’t afford it.
Gupta has been named one of 15 Build-A-Bear Workshop Huggable Heroes and awarded $10,000 in cash and a $7,500 educational scholarship for his outstanding work.
Most kids with vision problems don’t look past the tip of their own nose when it comes to the issue of prescription eyewear. But not Yash Gupta, a 15-year-old high school junior from Irvine, California. His vision has extended to thousands of people who have benefitted from his nonprofit, Sight Learning, which provides eyewear for students who can’t afford it.
Gupta has been named one of 15 Build-A-Bear Workshop Huggable Heroes and awarded $10,000 in cash and a $7,500 educational scholarship for his outstanding work.
While her husband waited for her to arrive at the hospital, Canadian mom Carolyn Murdoch was in the middle of a dramatic delivery at 4:33 a.m. Sunday in the back seat of her Honda Accord.
The baby, born four weeks early on the shoulder of Highway 400, is doing fine, weighing in at almost 7 pounds.
Friday’s non-farm payrolls report overshadowed some relatively good news in other key U.S. employment metrics.
As Goldman Sachs noted last week, many indicators have been pointing to stronger labor markets than the big figure highlighted Friday (80,000 jobs gained for June). And a few new data points confirm this thinking.
For 13 years, Bryan Martin kept the book hidden from his daughter, dutifully taking it to her teachers, coaches and school principals every year to have them append it with positive comments and messages.
Finally, on June 8 — the day of her graduation from North Johnston High School in Kenly, N.C. — Brenna Martin received a special copy of the Dr. Seuss classic “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’’
“At first I just smiled and said that it meant a lot and that I loved that book,’’ Brenna said. “But then he told me ‘No, open it up.’
For 13 years, Bryan Martin kept the book hidden from his daughter, dutifully taking it to her teachers, coaches and school principals every year to have them append it with positive comments and messages.
Finally, on June 8 — the day of her graduation from North Johnston High School in Kenly, N.C. — Brenna Martin received a special copy of the Dr. Seuss classic “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’’
“At first I just smiled and said that it meant a lot and that I loved that book,’’ Brenna said. “But then he told me ‘No, open it up.’
Dr. Rajiv Parti, MD has written a book detailing his journey of overcoming personal injury, cancer, and a dependence on pain medications to emerge as an alternative medicine advocate and crusader for wellness.
I experienced my own ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ when I was hit with prostrate cancer, surgical complications (life-threatening sepsis), chronic pain, depression and, finally, a dependence on pain medications. I had to sell my house and quit my job, all while feeling my marriage teetering and my health suffering.
I was very angry at myself, at God, at people, at the world – at the universe.
Healing from my ‘dark night of the soul’ was not easy, but I succeeded. The three main steps I had to go through were: forgiveness, love and healing.
This mantra “Forgive, Love, Heal” will help you to deal with a dramatic ‘dark night,’ such as mine, or what I call ‘mini dark nights’ – those things that happen all the time in our busy modern lives – being cursed at, lied to, or cut off in traffic on the road.
My healing happened in three steps.
I had to forgive myself for anything I had done that might have led to the dark night. Forgive the circumstances. ‘Forgive’ God and accept God’s will. I had to surrender to the possibility that the Spirit alone has the infinite wisdom. There were lessons I had to learn in this lifetime, so that I could evolve.
It transformed me. I started to live in present in the ‘Now’ and not be stuck in what my circumstance once were in past or what I wanted them to be in future.
The second step was to start loving myself, my life, my circumstances.
The beauty is that when I started to love ‘myself’, my health improved in leaps. I started eating healthy, going to the gym regularly, meditating and praying regularly.
This self love should not mean a narcissistic way of prioritizing the self at the cost of others. I started to have gratitude and love re-kindled for the people, the world, the environment; I even changed my car from Hummer to a Camry Hybrid.
Love is defined as, “A virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection; and “the unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another and one self.”
A famous Mother Teresa quote comes to mind: “We all can not do great things but we all can do things with great love.”
So, my friends, start the ‘ripple effect’ from inside your heart.
The Third Step is to HealAfter the first two steps of change within our mind, and within our heart comes the step that addresses change at the level of the soul, our spirit.
I have observed in others, and personally experienced, that to really heal there has to be a ‘shift’ that has to happen at a deep level of our consciousness. Effectively, the consciousness needs to not just heal but evolve too.
Healing is defined as, “to make healthy, whole, restore to health; to rejuvenate, to free from evil; cleanse; purify.”
Looking back, I am thankful for the circumstances I had to go through. It has brought love, compassion, sharing, and creativity as my guiding principles – where as before I lived for cancerous materialism, expensive toys, the satisfaction of myself above all others: it really was all about me: my status.
My ‘Dark Night’ transformed me to find my true Divine purpose and my ‘Dharma’, which is to be a healer at the Soul level. I wouldn’t be writing this but for going through the the heat of that Dark Night. It made me whole. I learned to embrace my dark shadows.
A Gandhi Quote comes to mind: “Be the change you want to see in the world”.
Friends have noticed the change in me. Even my driving habits have changed. I was always in rush in the fast lane.
This approach will work for you, too. Through the practice of my own prescription in “The Soul of Wellness
I have gotten myself out of intense pain, managed to free myself from depression, free myself of addiction, and reverse my weight gains through this mantra. The quality of my relationships with my beloved wife, my beautiful children, my dear friends and working associates – is, I can tell you – genuinely infused with joy, understanding, love and laughter.
My advice is to not just say the mantra, but to practice it – to live it: to BE the change it beckons from us.
Rajiv Parti, MD (aka Dr. Raj) is a world leading specialist in pain management with over 30 years practicing clinical experience. He was the Chief of Anesthesiology at Bakersfield Heart Hospital where he specialized in cardiac anesthesia for 15 years. Dr. Raj founded the Pain Management Institute of California, and under his direction it has served thousands of patients for acute and chronic pain relief. He left his medical practice and now touts alternative and complimentary healing methods, promoting spiritual wellness and personal growth. His new book “The Soul of Wellness
