Read this story about a 1 year old baby found alive after spending a night in the woods in Quebec. It’s still pretty cold here. The fact that he survived and was in good condition is, I think, a miracle!
Miracle Baby Survives Cold Night in the Woods
British Student Buys African Orphanage
A student who visited a run-down African orphanage was so moved by the children’s plight that she raised the money to buy it.
Amy Lambert, 24, spent eight weeks volunteering at a Tanzania orphanage last summer, where she cared for 150 boys and girls – many of whom had lost one or both parents to AIDS and HIV.
She found children who were starving, dangerously dehydrated and sleeping in dirty beds. The undergraduate at Bath Spa university raised more than £30,000 in just seven months.
(Continue reading in the UK Telegraph)
To help out or read more, visit www.wearecollecting.co.uk
Damaged Great Barrier Reef Makes ‘Spectacular’ Recovery
Sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have made a “spectacular” recovery from a bleaching event three years ago that devastated the coral, marine scientists say. Abundant corals have reestablished themselves in a single year, and overcome the choking seaweed.
State Honors Teen and his Good Idea, Governor Signs the Bill
A 17-year-old Colorado Springs student involved in search and rescue was honored Friday for his efforts behind a law that allows emergency crews to train for free in state parks, rather than paying prohibitive fees.
Transforming Fear into Hope
Fear is the greatest obstacle we face. It can stop us cold. Perhaps the greatest fear of all is loss of something dear to our hearts: Loss of a friend or family member; loss of our own self-respect or the respect of others; loss of a job, job offer or prized possession. Whatever fear we face, he have the opportunity to step out of our comfort zone, look it squarely in the eye, and back away from the fear in order to move forward.
My greatest fears have always been rejection and ridicule. Yet, I chose a high visible career path as a talk radio host. As any broadcast personality will tell you, rejection from listeners or viewers and ridicule about what we broadcast is common in the industry. However, I determined that my mission of delivering a message about positive living was greater than my fears.
With the socio-economic climate the world faces today, it is critical to check our fears, attitudes and feelings each day. For some, emotional paralysis will be unavoidable, but if we do our best to remain open and optimistic, these attitudes will help us discover new avenues of happiness and new doors to enter into in our journey through life: “Out with the negative, in with the positive!”
If you believe there are possibilities ahead, you are more positive and open. You expect good things to happen and trigger a self-fulfilling prophesy. Research has shown that we get what we expect to get. In other words, people who are able to take change in stride and “roll with the punches” tend to rewrite endings to match their positive expectations. They view the change as an opportunity, not as a threat..
One of the rewards of working through our fears is that they can become our greatest lessons in life. Years ago, I was at a business holiday party, and met a man who set up roundtable meetings for CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies. I asked him if those top executives had anything in common. He said, “Yes, they’re not afraid to make mistakes. They use their mistakes to learn, and to propel them to make the next decision.”
Each step you take rewrites the ending. You may wander off the path occasionally. You may even stumble. That’s the nature of “pathfinding.” The steps you take are based on the choices you make, and the choices you make are based on the values, beliefs and experiences that define who you are.
Take a moment for yourself and contemplate:
• What old attitude can you replace with a new one?
• Which of your strengths can compensate for a weakness?
• What have you done to “rewrite the ending” of a “mistake” you made?
• Remember a challenge you have overcome because of inner strength that guided you.
Find a solution to help put you on a path to personal success:
• What old attitudes, beliefs and behaviors can you discard as unhelpful to your new value system.
• Aks yourself how you can work through a fearful situation in a positive way.
Patricia Raskin, host of the Positive Living radio show, is a nationally recognized, multi-media radio talk show host. award-winning producer, speaker and author. For the past twenty-five years, she has been hosting and producing positive media programs that have aired on Fox, PBS and NPR affiliates and WTKF, 107.3FM. Her “Positive Living™” show is heard and streamed live on News Talk 630 WPRO, the Citadel Broadcasting affiliate in Providence RI on Sundays at NOON-2PMET and on voiceamerica.com on Mondays 2-3PMET/11AM-noonPT. www.patriciaraskin.com
Florida Students are Heroes Halfway Around the World
They tossed pies, served spaghetti and walked miles to raise nickels, dimes and quarters.
It added up to $93,450 — enough to build 11 schools in Kenya.
”Can I just say, oh my gosh,” Marc Kielburger, chief executive director of the Free the Children organization, told the Miami Herald. “I’m speechless.”
Kielburger, who attending a celebration at Piper High School on Thursday, said that when Broward students first started raising money last year, he had hoped for enough to build just one school.
(READ more from NBC – Miami)
Photo courtesy of Sun Star
Terps’ Coach-in-Waiting Wears Emotions on His Sleeve
Earlier this spring, former Maryland center Edwin Williams was being honored at the football team’s postseason banquet. Williams struggled mightily with his grades early on at Maryland, but later was named to the all-ACC academic team in each of his final two years….
After the ceremony, Williams’s mother, Cheron, pulled offensive coordinator James Franklin aside.
“Edwin’s mom said, ‘You came into our home and told our son and me where Edwin would be . . . ‘ ” Franklin said. He paused and looked down at his desk.
“I get emotional talking about it,” he said, before continuing.
” ‘ . . . where Edwin would be five years from now,’ ” Franklin said, his voice quivering. ” ‘And all these things have come true for him.’ ”
(Continue reading in the Washington Post)
Internet Breakthrough Could Allow Millions to Trace Ancestors to 16th Century
A new comprehensive collection of documents covering everyday life in London over more than 400 years is being scanned and made available on the internet, including parish registers, wills, land deeds, workhouse documents and school records.
The digitization project, which is expected to take until 2010 to complete, will enable millions of people in Britain and abroad to trace their roots further back than ever before.
Dallas Festival-goers Challenged to do 100 Kind Deeds in 100 Minutes
Well over 200,000 people attending the Dallas Fort-Worth area Arts and Jazz Festival this weekend may be in for a ‘kindness surprise.’
Taking a page out of Michael Chase’s playbook from the Kindness Center in Maine, a Kindness Challenge Booth will be set up to urge passers-by to help complete 100 kind acts in 100 minutes.
If you elect to participate, you will choose a card and complete the good deed described right there on the spot. Many kind acts will be as easy as taking a DVD or book that has been donated and giving it to a nearby stranger. But others may be more challenging, such as picking up trash in the surrounding area for 5 minutes or donating 10% of the money you have in your wallet to the local soup kitchen.
The 100-minute challenge starts on Sunday, April 26th at 2:00 PM, but the Kindness Booth will offer a variety of kind deeds throughout the weekend, handing out stickers, flowers, cards, gifts, and more.
Sponsored by The Good Samaritan Society of Lake Forrest Village and hosted by idontstink.com, the Kindness Challenge Booth offers a refreshing way to:
1. be of service to others
2. raise awareness about the powerful effect kindness can have on our outlook
“We are extremely excited to be a part of this extraordinary event. We pride ourselves in helping others, but this challenge is to get others to do kind deeds also.” says Shannon Ratliff, Staff Development Coordinator at The Good Samaritan Society Lake Forest Village.
“I am truly honored to be in the company of so many outstanding volunteers for this event,” says Bill King of idontstink.com, organizer for the booth. “Our goal is to inspire others to take a new look at how they live their lives and to embrace the concept of doing kind deeds.”
When you attend the Arts & Jazz Festival April 24-26, be sure to stop by booth 18G and be challenged to give and receive kindness.
Congress Honors the Jazz Voice Behind the Iron Curtain
Today is “Willis Conover Day” by congressional proclamation honoring the legendary Voice of America jazz program host who introduced America’s musicians to listeners behind the Iron Curtain and around the world. Conover will be honored during the “Big Band Jam” on the National Mall.
“People used to say that Willis Conover single-handedly felled the Iron Curtain,” said Harry Schnipper, major organizer of the Jam. The jam helps educate students about America’s jazz heritage and brings jazz bands to Washington, D.C.
The congressional resolution, sponsored by Rep. John B. Larson, D-Conn., recognizes VOA and Conover for their “joint contribution toward spreading the language of jazz and American cultural diplomacy around the world over a span of more than 35 years.”
‘Environmental Nobels’ Awarded to Six Grassroots Heroes
Six campaigners who have fought governments and industry to protect the planet won prestigious Goldman Environmental Prizes on Sunday. The awards, often referred to as the Nobel Prizes of the environmental world, went to people in six continents who took on everything from toxic chemical dumps in the former Soviet Union to ship-breaking in Asia, reports Reuters.
The 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize recipients include Maria Gunnoe, a born-and-bred West Virginian who faced death threats for her outspoken activism to stop the coal industry’s plunder of Appalachia via mountain top removal and valley fills.
Another recipient, Marc Ona, a wheelchair-bound civil society leader from the West African country of Gabon, faced arrest, imprisonment and public character assaults for his unyielding campaign to stop a destructive mining concession in a protected national park.
Other recipients include a Russian scientist connecting NGOs across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus to identify and safely remove toxic chemical stockpiles; two Saramaka leaders, members of a Maroon community in Suriname founded by freed African slaves in the 1700s, whose legal struggle to protect their tribal land rights led to a binding decision for all indigenous and tribal peoples in the Americas; Bangladesh’s leading environmental attorney, whose legal advocacy led to tighter regulations on the environmentally-devastating and exploitative ship breaking industry; and an Indonesian woman developing community-based waste management systems to stem her island nation’s overwhelming waste infrastructure problems.
The Goldman Environmental Prize, now in its 20th year, is awarded annually to grassroots environmental heroes from each of the world’s six inhabited continental regions and is the largest award of its kind with an individual cash prize of $150,000.
12-year-old Girl Fires Perfect Game Against Boys
A baseball first in Bayonne, New Jersey: A 12-year-old, Mackenzie Brown, is the first girl in Bayonne Little League history to throw a perfect game. She retired all 18 boys she faced on Tuesday.
She’ll get to throw out the first pitch at Citi Field on Saturday when the New York Mets host the Washington Nationals.
Read or watch the story at MSNBC, or watch the video below…
Humanity’s Earliest Written Works Go Online in World Digital Library (Video)
National libraries and the U.N. put some of humanity’s earliest written works and illustrations on the Web this week at WDL.org.
From ancient Chinese oracle bones to the first European map of the New World, the World Digital Library is an enormous online collection of digital reproductions of original documents from libraries the world over.
The project is sponsored by UNESCO and brings together materials from 26 partner institutions in 19 countries and was the brain-child of US Librarian of Congress, James Billington.
The online descriptions are geared to the average person or casually curious to bring understanding of this treasure trove to all corners of the globe.
Watch both Videos below, one from AP , and another good one from AFP.
‘Banker to the Poor’ Gives New York Women a Boost
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, known as the “banker to the poor” for making small loans in impoverished countries, is now doing business in the center of capitalism — New York City.
In the past year the first U.S. branch of his Grameen Bank has lent $1.5 million, ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, to nearly 600 women with small business plans in the city’s borough of Queens.
Middle Schoolers Want to be the “Kindest School in Maine”
With thousands of acts of kindness under their belts and plans for many more, Biddeford Middle School students are showing they’re serious when they say they want to be the “kindest school in Maine.”
(Read the story in the Biddeford-Saco-Old Orchard Beach Courier)
Photo courtesy of Sun Star
Russians Ring in ‘Bell Week’ From Towers Throughout the Land (Video)
It’s ‘Bell Week’ in Russia which means that churches throughout the land will put on bell-ringing concerts. Trained bell-ringers use their hands to coordinate a series of bells of different sizes from high in the church towers. There is even a campanology school in Moscow.
Priest Becomes Savior in Foreclosure Crisis
In a working class Southern California neighborhood where one out every nine homes is facing foreclosure, Father John Lasseigne is bringing together families and mortgage bankers. His goal is to help the local residents keep their homes and better understand the terms of the loans they receive.
Read the story transcript at CNN or watch the video below:
Turkey, Armenia Agree on Framework to Normalize Ties
Turkey and Armenia have agreed on a road map to normalize ties after nearly a century of hostility. The deal came weeks after President Barack Obama urged Turkey to resolve the issue, and on the eve of the commemoration of mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.
(Read full article in Reuters)
Special Report: The Best News for Planet Earth in Decades
I asked one question to leading environmentalists who are usually keen to point out what is wrong with the environment: What is the good news in the last dozen years for planet Earth?
Historically there is good news. Within two years of the first Earth Day in 1970 a slew of major legislation was passed — the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, establishment of the EPA, the ban on DDT, and the reduction of lead from paint — all of which delivered monumental benefit to the environment.
But what have we done for the planet lately? Here are the top seven favors we’ve done for Mother Earth in the last 12 years …
The #1 Good News Trend: Action on Global Warming
Lisa Jackson, the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, joins the majority of those I spoke to in giving the nod to the new worldwide public consensus that has developed around Global Warming.
Savannah River Success Story Encouraging News for Striped Bass
Perhaps one of the best examples of how mankind can screw up a good thing—and then work to correct it—can be found in the story of the striped bass that once roamed the Savannah River in huge numbers.
The Georgia river is exponentially cleaner than it once was and virtually all major pollution sources are permitted, monitored and regulated. Ironically, the same factories and sewage plants that once were the major polluters have done the most to make those improvements.