The city of Grand Rapids came together to produce a sweeping and inspiring music video as an official response to the Newsweek article calling the Michigan metropolis a “dying city.”
With 2.7 million views on YouTube, the public seems to agree with film critic Roger Ebert who called it “The Greatest Music Video Ever Made.”
The filming on May 22nd involved 5,000 participants and a major shutdown of downtown Grand Rapids.
They represent the opposing principals in one of the Supreme Court’s landmark blunders, Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws mandating segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.
The descendent of the man who tested Louisiana’s law requiring separate railroad cars for whites and blacks and the great-great-granddaughter of the judge who upheld it met in 2004.
She felt the need to apologize. He said there was no need to do so and suggested a union instead.
Now, they run a civil rights education organization bearing their famous names, the Plessy & Ferguson Foundation. They created the Foundation to perpetuate the truth that separate but equal is inherently unequal when decisions are made based on race.
(READ the full story in the Washington Post) – Thanks to Kevin for sending the link!
Viktor Frankl asserted in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, that the fundamental need for purpose and direction in our lives may be as important to our psychological growth as eating is to our biological survival.
With the accelerating pace of life, it’s not easy to maintain our sense of direction. Yet we strive to do so, because a sense of purpose toward a meaningful goal may be the best part of happiness. In this pursuit, the journey may indeed matter more than the destination — but without a destination to aim for there is no journey; we can only wander.
Viktor Frankl asserted in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, that the fundamental need for purpose and direction in our lives may be as important to our psychological growth as eating is to our biological survival.
With the accelerating pace of life, it’s not easy to maintain our sense of direction. Yet we strive to do so, because a sense of purpose toward a meaningful goal may be the best part of happiness. In this pursuit, the journey may indeed matter more than the destination — but without a destination to aim for there is no journey; we can only wander.
Volunteers have been pouring into a Florida marine conservancy center to help care for a group of stranded whales.
Three remaining pilot whales from a pod of 23 that stranded itself off the lower Florida keys have fought to stay alive in a bayside pen at the Marine Mammal Conservancy center.
Last month in Geneva, Bill Gates laid out his vision for the impact that broadening access to vaccines can have on the world.
Now, only a few weeks after his inspirational speech, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has promised to cut a whopping 95% off its rotavirus vaccine for sale to the globe’s poorest countries, while Merck has also said it would cut the price on its vaccine against the same illness, which causes diarrhoea.
A small Catholic school was presented with a check for one hundred thousand dollars during an an unforgettable assembly celebrating recycling. The 150 students at St. Pascal School performed beyond expectations, collecting more than 300,000 recyclable containers during a 3 month period. They beat out every other school in the country to win the title and generous check.
The school plans to use the money on “green” projects like converting their computer center to run on solar.
(WATCH the video from Greenopolis, or READ the story in CBS Chicago)
A small Catholic school was presented with a check for one hundred thousand dollars during an an unforgettable assembly celebrating recycling. The 150 students at St. Pascal School performed beyond expectations, collecting more than 300,000 recyclable containers during a 3 month period. They beat out every other school in the country to win the title and generous check.
The school plans to use the money on “green” projects like converting their computer center to run on solar.
Rising forest density in many countries is helping to offset climate change caused by deforestation from the Amazon basin to Indonesia, a study showed on Sunday.
“Higher density means world forests are capturing more carbon,” said the study which looked at 68 countries and was published in the online journal PLoS One.
National Football League players are rallying around a ten year-old boy whose mother, in desperation, drove him and his siblings into the river. Now that his family is gone, the boy’s new extended family includes many players providing fun activities, financial support, and lots of love.
(WATCH the inspiring video below from MSNBC)
National Football League players are rallying around a ten year-old boy whose mother, in desperation, drove him and his siblings into the river. Now that his family is gone, the boy’s new extended family includes many players providing fun activities, financial support, and lots of love.
(WATCH the inspiring video below from MSNBC)
For the first time, patients with the deadliest form of skin cancer have two new treatment options that prolong survival, according to new research presented at a cancer conference in Chicago on Sunday.
One drug specifically targets a mutated gene that tells a cancer cell to grow, the other boosts a patient’s immune system in the fight against the disease. Both drugs cause tumors to shrink and prolong survival for patients with melanoma that has spread to other parts of the body.
A 13-year-old boy invented a doorbell that fools burglars into believing somebody is home even when the house is empty.
The Smart Bell, designed by Laurence Rook, dials the homeowner’s mobile phone when pressed, allowing them to talk to whoever is outside their front door.
The doorbell can also be used to help delivery workers to complete their deliveries.
A University of Brighton student has developed a safety device that projects a bright green laser image of a bike onto the road ahead – alerting motorists to their presence.
Emily Brooke’s invention – BLAZE – uses a small, battery-powered device attached to the handlebars to project the image, which is visible even in daylight hours.
As China’s Li Na tossed the ball while serving at match point in the French Open final, a cry from a fan in the stands pierced the silence at Court Philippe Chatrier.
Distracted, Li stopped and let the ball drop. The words of support were in Mandarin: “Jia you!” — which loosely translates to “Let’s go!” After so many years of “Come on” and “Allez” and “Vamos,” there’s a new language on the tennis landscape.
Li became the first Chinese player, man or woman, to win a Grand Slam singles title.
A boy of nine has become the youngest trained pilot to fly solo in a hot-air balloon.
The New Mexico boy floated for 29 minutes, landing perfectly after two years of training. “Showing maturity well beyond his years,” news reports say, his parents, both licensed pilots, prepared him for the trip.
(WATCH the video below or read the story at Telegraph)
Both daughters are alive today because the parents had faith that a new baby would turn out to be an unlikely organ match and able to donate bone marrow to her older sister, saving her from leukemia.
(WATCH the video and interview from MSNBC)
A group of more than 200 Japanese seniors are volunteering to clean up the mess left in the Fukushima nuclear power station.
All over the age of 60, and many retired engineers, they are taking responsibility for the nuclear power plants which their generation erected.
They say they should be facing the dangers of radiation, not the young.
Destruction of the world’s rain forests has declined by 25 percent in the three most important regions — the Amazon, the Congo and the Borneo Mekong — during the last decade, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
