Quote of the Day: “Those truly linked don’t need correspondence. When they meet again after many years apart, their friendship is as true as ever.” – Deng Ming-Dao
Photo: by GWC Copyright 2014
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Four American brothers who were in Ireland for their grandfather’s funeral ended up saving the life of a little girl on a serendipitous day with a magical meaning. Hear our Good News Guru tell the inspiring story on the radio in Los Angeles—during the August 2, 2019 Ellen K. Morning Show on KOST-103.5.
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A new survey of 2,000 Americans asked people to pinpoint the moment they felt fully like a grown-up adult—and their answers revealed some amusing key differences between generations and genders.
Realizing you’re in charge of your own life occurs early on with the sudden realization that, like Jerry Seinfeld, you can eat cereal whenever you want! However, realizing you are an adult most often occurs when a person deals with finances on their own.
The survey, conducted by OnePoll in conjunction with Farm Rich, examined the mindset and process of transforming into a fully-fledged adult, otherwise known as “adulting.”
All of the top five signs of adulting are related to money. Having a budget is the number one answer indicating when someone’s reached adulthood (55%)—followed closely by filing your own taxes (52%).
A quarter of those surveyed started to save money like an adult, too, by using coupons for the first time.
In sixth place is doing your own laundry. (Beware: every adult learns in the beginning how to turn all their ‘whites’ red, and how horrifying it is to pull your favorite sweater out of the dryer, when suddenly it can only fit a 3-year-old.)
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More than a third of respondents said adulting involves scheduling regular doctor’s and dental appointments, and making a list to take to the grocery store.
No one surveyed thinks that just because you’re an adult you should be eating all kale salads and almonds. Over half of Millennials and Gen-Xers pointed out that eating snacks for dinner is an indication that you have officially reached adulthood. And, 33 percent of older Baby Boomers eat comfort foods whenever they want, as a way to handle stress.
Both Millennials and Baby Boomers believe that having vegetables and coffee in the house are important if you want to call yourself an adult. And 22% said you should be taking something out of the freezer to defrost ahead of time!
No matter what generation, the poll found that everyone indulges in comfort foods from their youth—the top 5 being pizza, spaghetti, hot dogs, mac and cheese, and a grilled cheese sandwich—with Millennials more likely to reach for the chicken nuggets—compared to just 20% of older folks.
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(See the Top 20 list of What Makes You an Adult below…)
Millennials seem to put more pressure on themselves to reach adulthood. According to the survey, after age 26 Millennials believe it becomes embarrassing if you are not a full-fledged adult. Surprisingly, Baby boomers were more forgiving and named age 31 as the cut-off.
Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a difference between men and women in their 20s: the average man considered himself to be an adult at age 26, while women identified as adults three years earlier, at age 23, according to the survey.
Though independence is the top perk of adulthood, it does create some stress. Both Millennials and Gen Zers named stress as their least favorite part of adulthood.
43 percent of Millennials turn to video games to forget their adult responsibilities—and who can blame them?
TOP 20 SIGNS OF BEING AN ADULT
1. Having a budget 55%
2. Buying a house 54%
3. Filing your own taxes 52%
4. Understanding and monitoring your credit score 48%
5. Investing in a 401(k) 46%
6. Doing your own laundry 43%
7. Scheduling regular doctor’s appointments 38%
8. Making a list to take when going to the grocery store 35%
9. Cooking dinner most of Monday through Friday 33%
10. Watching the nightly news 31%
11. Changing the bed sheets regularly 31%
12. Reading the newspaper 29%
13. Hosting dinner parties or gatherings with friends 29%
14. Buying a sensible pair of shoes 27%
15. Making the bed every morning 26%
16. Drinking wine 26%
17. Using coupons 25%
18. Getting excited over staying in on a Saturday night 25%
19. Starting the morning with coffee 23%
20. Taking something out of the freezer to defrost 22%
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A new study says that “tickling” the ear with a small electrical current might slow down some of the effects of aging.
Scientists from the University of Leeds found that a short daily therapy delivered for two weeks for people over the age of 55 led to both physiological and wellbeing improvements, including a better quality of life, mood and sleep.
The therapy, called transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation, delivers a small, painless electrical current to the ear, which sends signals to the body’s nervous system through the vagus nerve.
Their measurements showed the therapy could help protect people from chronic diseases to which we become more prone as we get older, such as high blood pressure, heart disease and atrial fibrillation.
The researchers, who published their findings this week in the journal Aging, suggest that the “tickle” therapy has the potential to help people age more healthily by recalibrating the body’s internal control system—also known as the autonomic nervous system.
“The ear is like a gateway through which we can tinker with the body’s metabolic balance, without the need for medication or invasive procedures,” said Lead author Dr. Beatrice Bretherton, from the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Leeds. “We believe these results are just the tip of the iceberg.”
“We are excited to investigate further into the effects and potential long-term benefits of daily ear stimulation, as we have seen a great response to the treatment so far,” she added.
The autonomic nervous system controls many of the body’s functions which don’t require conscious thought, such as digestion, breathing, heart rate and blood pressure.It contains two branches, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, which work against each other to maintain a healthy balance of activity. The sympathetic branch helps the body prepare for high intensity “fight or flight” activity, whilst the parasympathetic is crucial to low intensity “rest and digest” activity.
As we age, and when we are fighting diseases, the body’s balance changes such that the sympathetic branch begins to dominate. This imbalance makes us more susceptible to new diseases and leads to the breakdown of healthy bodily function as we get older.
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Clinicians have long been interested in the potential for using electrical currents to influence the nervous system. The vagus nerve, the major nerve of the parasympathetic system, has often been used for electrical stimulation and past research has looked at the possibility of using vagus nerve stimulation to tackle depression, epilepsy, obesity, stroke, tinnitus, and heart conditions.
However, this kind of stimulation needs surgery to implant electrodes in the neck region, with associated expense and a small risks of side effects. Fortunately, there is one small branch of the vagus nerve that can be stimulated without surgery, located in the skin of specific parts of the outer ear.
In Leeds, previous controlled research studies have shown that applying a small electrical stimulus to the vagus nerve at the ear, which some people perceive as a tickling sensation, improves the balance of the autonomic nervous system in healthy 30-year-olds.
Other researchers worldwide are now investigating if this transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) could provide a therapy for conditions ranging from heart problems to mental health.
In their new second study of this therapy (the first one included a placebo sham intervention), scientists at the University of Leeds wanted to see whether tVNS could benefit over 55-year-olds, who are more likely to have out-of-balance autonomic systems that could contribute to health issues associated with aging.
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They recruited 29 healthy volunteers, aged 55 or above, and gave each of them the tVNS therapy for 15 minutes per day, over a two week period. Participants were taught to self-administer the therapy at home during the study.
The therapy led to an increase in measured parasympathetic activity and a decrease in sympathetic activity, rebalancing the autonomic function towards that associated with healthy function. In addition, some people reported improvements in measures of mental health and sleeping patterns.
Being able to correct this balance of activity could help us age more healthily, as well as having the potential to help people with a variety of disorders such as heart disease and some mental health issues. Additionally, improving the balance of the autonomic nervous system lowers an individual’s risk of death, as well as the need for medication or hospital visits.
Researchers found that individuals who displayed the greatest imbalance at the start of the study experienced the most pronounced improvements after receiving the therapy.
Further studies are now needed to understand what the long-term health effects of tVNS might be, as this study involved a small number of participants, over a short time period.
Edited from article by the University of Leeds
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During a particularly hot English afternoon, this adorable owl spied a children’s swimming pool—and relished the opportunity for refreshment.
The opportunistic tawny can be seen hopping into the makeshift bird bath—looking left and right for danger. Then it precedes to dip its beak into the inches-deep water checking out the potential.
Getting its face wet was not quite enough, so the bird starts flapping its wings to make the water fly up into the air then rain down on its back.
The clip was captured by renowned wildlife artist and photographer Robert E. Fuller at around midnight earlier this month.
WATCH: Bald Eagle Weighed Down by Large Ball of Ice is Freed By Locals Who Jumped into Frozen Lake
Fuller uses wildlife surveillance cameras in his garden near Malton, North Yorkshire, to capture the after-dark goings-on that inspire his paintings.
“The paddling pool belongs to my children but they hadn’t really used it for a while and it had filled with rainwater,” said the English artist. “When I spotted an owl chick using it to bathe in I decided to direct one of my cameras on to the pool.
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“Last year I filmed some tawny owls bathing in my garden pond,” he added. “I was very surprised to see that their chicks had adopted the paddling pool for their own fun this year.”
Fuller said that the main reason the animals bathe is to clean their feathers—and the kiddie pool, is just enough water to do that while keeping frisky feathered visitors safe and happy.
(WATCH the cute clip below)
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Quote of the Day: “What a great therapist, teacher, or coach does is to alert people to resources they did not realize they had. That is the ultimate gift.” – Nathaniel Branden
Photo: by Kullez, CC license on Flickr
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An exciting new startup can make clean energy by vaporizing heaps of trash without any waste or emissions.
The Sierra Energy company is aiming to tackle all of the non-recyclable garbage that ends up in landfills—from hazardous wastes and plastics to everyday trash and tires.
The company’s modified blast furnace uses FastOx gasification technology to heat all of the trash to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about twice as hot as the heart of a volcano.
While it may seem like this would require large amounts of energy, the system is able to generate the heat simply by injecting pure oxygen into the furnace. The oxygen then reacts with the carbon emanating from the rotting garbage in order to create carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The steam is then pumped back into the furnace to maintain the internal temperature.
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The fuel that is made from the FastOx technology is reportedly 20 times cleaner than California fuel standards. And all of the gases that are generated by the chemical process are captured for reuse—for instance, to replace fossil fuels that power airplanes or for use as fertilizer, hydrogen, or ethanol.
Earlier this week, Sierra Energy announced that they were able to close a $33 million Series A investment round in order to further develop and commercialize its technology for municipalities and landfills so they can convert waste into clean, renewable energy and fuels.
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“The world is drowning in trash which, when landfilled, is a leading generator of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more harmful to our climate than carbon dioxide,” said Mike Hart, Sierra Energy’s CEO.
“Our FastOx gasification technology can efficiently and cost-effectively convert this trash into electricity, hydrogen, renewable natural gas, diesel, ammonia, and a variety of other valuable end-products. When you combine our technology with recycling and other waste diversion strategies, you have the solution to the world’s waste problem as well as a mobile casinos valuable source of renewable energy.”
The first commercial FastOx system was installed at a U.S. Army installation at Fort Hunter Liggett in Monterey County, California in 2017, to help achieve the Army’s zero waste goals.
(WATCH an explanation of the technique below…)
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Canadian doctors are now being encouraged to prescribe for their patients a new kind of supplemental treatment that doesn’t have any side effects: a relaxing trip to an art museum.
Back in November 2018, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) teamed up with the Médecins Francophones du Canada (MFdC) to develop a plan that encourages physicians to write out art therapy prescriptions for their patients—and they included some great motivation.
Ordinarily, adult admission into the museum can cost as much as $31—but a doctor’s prescription will allow up to two adults and two children to enjoy the museum together for free.
Doctors participating in the program are given a pad of 50 free admission slips to dole out at their discretion. Since the initiative launched last year, the museum has filled over 185 prescriptions in the greater Montreal area.
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The program, which is being called “the first of its kind in the world”, is also being used to conduct further studies of the effects of art therapy on a variety of physical and mental conditions, including anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and cardiac arrhythmia.
“I am convinced that in the 21st century … the cultural experience of art will contribute to health and well-being as much as the practice of sports,” Nathalie Bondil, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the MMFA, enthusiastically said of the program.
“For skeptics, remember that a hundred years ago, it was said that sports distorted the body and threatened the fertility of women! Today, doctors prescribe exercise!”
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A compassionate mom from Arkansas is being praised for buying out the entire stock of a closing shoe store so she could donate all of the pairs of shoes to people in need.
Carrie Jernigan had been shopping with her kids at the Payless Shoe Store closing in Alma when her daughter asked if they could buy an extra pair of Avengers-themed shoes for her classmate whose shoes were too small.
Jernigan was more than happy to buy the shoes for her daughter’s friend. Then, following a curious afterthought, she asked the cashier how much it would cost to buy the rest of the store’s supplies.
She told KFSM: “As I was checking out I just said ‘how much for the rest of the shoes in the store,’ almost joking, and I could see the clerk’s face, her wheels start to turn, and she finished checking me out. She said ‘can I have your number?’”
The district manager later called Jernigan and told her the cost of purchasing all the product left in the store—about 1,500 boxes of shoes—and Jernigan jumped on the chance.
Since she bought out the store’s supply back in May, she and her family have been giving the shoes away to needy kids in their community.
“If you ask [my kids] what they want to be when they grow up, they say be kind—and so I don’t care what they do in life as long as they are kind and good people,” Jernigan told the news outlet.
“This just reiterates to me that their hearts are in the right place, and if it’s in the right place they can do amazing things.”
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by KFSM
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The company that runs the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotel chains announced this week that all of its 843,000 guest rooms will provide shampoo and other bathroom amenities from bulk-sized containers, eliminating millions of plastic bottles from landfills.
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), one of the world’s leading hotel companies, will be implementing the phase-out across all 5,600 of their properties worldwide with the transition to be completed within two years.
Building on its efforts to reduce plastic waste as part of a broader sustainability agenda, this pledge makes IHG the first global hotel company to commit all brands to removing bathroom miniatures in favor of bulk-size amenities.
Almost a third of its hotels have already adopted the change, according to Keith Barr, the CEO of IHG.
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“It’s more important than ever that companies challenge themselves to operate responsibly—we know it’s what our guests, owners, colleagues, investors, and suppliers rightly expect,” said Barr. “Switching to larger-size amenities will allow us to significantly reduce our waste footprint and environmental impact as we make the change.”
IHG currently has an average of 200 million bathroom miniatures in use across its entire hotel estate every year. As the new brand standard is adopted between now and 2021, the company expects to see a significant reduction in plastic waste.
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Switching to bulk-size amenities is a tested approach at IHG, which believes their hotel guests increasingly want more sustainability without any impact on the quality of their experience.
In October 2018, IHG announced the removal of single-use plastic straws from its hotels globally—an average of 50 million straws removed from IHG’s hotel estate each year, enough to stretch all the way from New York to Tokyo.
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This 50-year-old New Yorker is being hailed as a “highway hero” after she took it upon herself to clear a flooded expressway with nothing but a traffic cone.
Daphne Youree had just picked her cat up from the veterinarian’s office last week when she started driving down the Long Island Expressway.
To her shock, she found that the highway had been flooded due to a recent storm. When she and her fellow motorists realized that there was no way for them to drive through the floodwaters, they all parked their cars and watched in helplessness.
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“When I got out I saw a bunch of guys standing around talking about how someone needs to go do something,” Youree told The Gothamist. “Someone suggested we see how deep it was. But no one wanted to do it. So I volunteered.”
So without any further ado, Youree marched into the muddy floodwaters in her Crocs and found that the expressway drains had been clogged with dirt and sticks from the flooding. She then grabbed a traffic cone and began clearing the dirt from the drains.
“It didn’t really smell bad, just rain water with pieces of wood and dirt in it—that was what was clogging the drain,” said Youree. “So when I unclogged it, it cleared pretty quickly. At deepest it went above my knees.”
Guess what. I cleared it ! pic.twitter.com/DpHagvg5c9
— Daphne Youree (@DaphneYouree) July 23, 2019
After Youree managed to successfully clear the highway, she responded to a tweet from the Emergency Management Department announcing that she had cleared the floodwaters.
In addition to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson thanking her for being a “great New Yorker,” Twitter users have begun rallying for Youree to be elected as the new mayor of New York—but the photographer says that she was simply happy to do her civic duty as a city-dweller.
Thanks Daphne for being a Good Samaritan and great New Yorker! https://t.co/v3X7lbvlSI
— Corey Johnson (@CoreyinNYC) July 23, 2019
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A Canadian woman is crediting one of her favorite heavy metal bands for saving her and her dog from a hungry cougar.
Dee Gallant and her dog Murphy were hiking through the wilderness of Vancouver Island in British Columbia last week when she found herself in a spine-chilling predicament.
As they were walking down through the woods, Gallant noticed that she and her pup were being stalked by a cougar standing 50 feet up the trail. Upon noticing that the cat was slowly creeping towards them, Gallant yelled at it to stop—and even though it remained at the end of the trail, it was still crouched in a predatory position with its gaze fixed on Gallant and Murphy.
Since the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, Murphy had not even picked up the scent of the cougar when Gallant spotted it. She knew she had to try and scare the big cat away before it pounced, so she began waving her arms in the air and yelling at the cougar.
She spent about one minute trying to frighten the cougar, all while it remained transfixed on Gallant—but when her scare tactics failed to work, she knew she had to try something different.
Gallant then cranked up the volume on her cell phone, scrolled through her music library, and played the loudest song she had: “Don’t Tread On Me” by Metallica.
“I thought it was the noisiest thing on my phone that would probably scare it, that was also the messaged I wanted to convey to the cougar,” she told Kelowna Now. “As soon as the first notes blared out it ran into the bush.”
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Though Gallant was a little shaken during the remainder of her hike back to civilization, she and Murphy eventually made it home safely.
She now hopes to one day tell her story to the members of Metallica and thank them for coming to her rescue.
“I would love to contact them someday and tell James Hetfield that he saved my life,” she laughed.
(WATCH the video snippet below) – Photo by Dee Gallant
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We are now one step closer to having the first ever vaccine for genital herpes.
Last week, BlueWillow Biologics announced the issuance of a US patent number for the development of their intranasal herpes simplex virus (HSV) vaccine, which puts them one step closer towards conducting human trials.
The patent protects the use of the pharmaceutical company’s unique NanoVax adjuvant platform in the development of a vaccine that provides protection against HSV-1 and HSV-2, the two viruses that can cause genital herpes.
The intranasal NanoVax platform elicits both mucosal and systemic immunity through its novel oil-in-water nanoemulsion adjuvant, offering a unique advantage to combat sexually transmitted infections including genital herpes. The mucosal immunity elicited by intranasal NE vaccines provides critical protection against infections at the port of entry by which a pathogen enters the body.
The vaccine has demonstrated safety and efficacy in both prophylactic and therapeutic animal models for genital herpes. In a prophylactic guinea pig study, the intranasal vaccine prevented genital herpes infection in 92% of animals vaccinated. The vaccine also reduced recurrent lesions and viral shedding by more than 50% in therapeutic study animals previously infected with genital herpes compared to the animals who received no treatment.
More than one in six people aged 14 to 49 are infected with genital herpes and an estimated 776,000 new infections occur annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Genital herpes increases a person’s risk of contracting HIV and can lead to miscarriage and premature birth in infected pregnant women. Herpes can also be passed from the mother to child during birth, potentially resulting in neonatal herpes, a fatal infection. Most genital herpes vaccine candidates have failed or been abandoned in recent years, leaving no reliable therapeutic or preventive vaccine for the disease.
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“Genital herpes is easily and often unknowingly transmitted between partners. The lifelong infection frequently causes psychological distress and negatively impacts quality of life,” said Dr. Ali Fattom, Senior Vice President of Vaccine Research and Development at BlueWillow.
“After years of research in animals, we are moving closer to studies in humans where we expect results to validate the potential of this much-needed vaccine,” he added.
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When a man with Alzheimer’s disease could not remember the lyrics or melody to a song he liked, his caretaker offered up his own voice to help him out.
The caretaker began singing the gorgeous tune after his patient mentioned how he loved Bolero, but could not recall any songs.
After the caretaker began singing a few bars, however, the patient was able to join in—and the resulting duet is magical.
(WATCH the heartwarming video below)
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Quote of the Day: “We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, from which no one can spare us.” – Marcel Proust
Photo: by Simon Matzinger, CC license
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As pressure mounts for companies to transition away from single-use plastics, industry giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have announced that they plan to end their memberships with the Plastics Industry Association, which has advocated against plastic bans nationwide.
Earlier this year, Greenpeace highlighted the role that the plastics industry and front groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have played in pushing preemption bills meant to “ban plastic bans” and undermine statewide progress on plastic pollution.
“Companies understand that they cannot publicly say they want to end plastic pollution, while financially supporting an association that lobbies for our continued reliance on throwaway plastics,” said Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar.
“This is a victory for every person that spoke up and asked Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to put their money where their mouths are and tell the Plastics Industry Association to stop preventing plastic reduction efforts,” he added.
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Greenpeace, alongside other investors and organizations, have urged companies like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola to reject the Plastics Industry Association’s secretive lobbying against plastic bans. The association uses a front group, the American Progressive Bag Alliance (APBA), and works side by side with ALEC to push state legislators to prohibit plastic bans across the country. Thus far, 15 states with a combined total of 88 million people have passed these pro-pollution preemption laws.
“Local communities should have the right to protect and preserve their environment without corporations interfering,” said Jan Dell, an independent engineer and founder of The Last Beach Cleanup. “It is time for companies that claim to care about reducing plastic pollution to take a stand and reject the Plastic Industry Association’s lobbying to block local plastic bag and container ordinances.”
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While the Plastics Industry Association hides most of its membership, SC Johnson was also identified as a member as of 2018. SC Johnson has publicly stated that it supports plastic straw bans despite the APBA’s continued lobbying against local plastic pollution ordinances. Walmart was identified as a member of the association in a recent exposé from The Intercept, despite the company announcing several tepid plastic packaging initiatives earlier this year. Greenpeace urges SC Johnson and Walmart to publicly demand that the Plastics Industry Association stop its repressive lobbying, or leave the association.
“As we’ve seen with companies ditching ALEC over the last few years, when companies start standing up for their values, these front groups lose significant power over local lobbying efforts,” Hocevar said. “The Plastics Industry Association is desperate as governments and companies continue to realize that the tide has turned on throwaway plastics.”
Clean Up Negativity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media – File photo by Tuchodi, CC
After Patrick Hoagland was laid off from his job as a forklift operator, he spent weeks applying for work around town—but he didn’t have any lucky until he finally took a more creative approach to getting work.
With temperatures soaring as high as 110º Fahrenheit, the 30-year-old father headed to a street corner in Phoenix, Arizona with 200 copies of his resumé in hand.
He also carried a sign that told passing drivers he had been laid off and he wanted them to take a resumé.
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For three days, Hoagland would spend a few hours at the same intersection handing out resumés with a huge smile on his face—and then he caught the eye of Melissa DiGianfilippo.
DiGianfilippo, who works at a PR and marketing agency, had been driving back to work from lunch when she saw Hoagland on the street. After taking one of his resumés, she realized Hoagland did not have the right skills for her agency; nevertheless, she posted a photo of Hoagland and his resumé to social media with the hopes that it would help land him a job.
To their surprise, the posts spread like wildfire. Within days, Hoagland was flooded with hundreds of job offers.
I was driving down Camelback Rd in Phx near my office and saw this guy on the side of the road with a smile in 110-degree heat, with a sign asking people to take his resume. I love that he was not asking for a handout, just for people to consider him for a job. #pleaseshare #job pic.twitter.com/5QAUpCkGWk
— MelissaDiGianfilippo (@MelissaPR) July 23, 2019
Hoagland ended up taking a job at a concrete grinding company in Phoenix—and he says he could not have done it without DiGianfilippo’s help.
“She has been so great, she didn’t need to help me, but she did and it has changed my life,” he told CNN. “I am so grateful for her.”
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Quote of the Day: “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville (born 200 years ago today, the author of Moby Dick, died in relative obscurity, his masterpiece considered a failure)
Painting: by Carl Jüng; photo by GWC, copyright 2019
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When Ariel Rigney lost her prosthetic leg in an Oregon river, she was almost sure that she would never see it again—so imagine her surprise when it was rescued by a friendly snorkeler the very next day.
Rigney, who lost her leg in a car accident as a teenager, says that she regularly uses her prosthetic to go running and swimming. In fact, she had gone rafting down the Clackamas River with her friends last weekend in order to celebrate her 32nd birthday.
Unfortunately, the bungee cord that had been securing her prosthetic became undone—so when the gang of friends hit a particularly bumpy part of the river, Rigney’s leg went flying into the river.
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Several of her friends tried diving down to get the leg, but they didn’t have any luck.
Embarrassed and frustrated, Rigney made a Facebook post about her missing prosthetic at the suggestion of a friend.
She didn’t expect anything to come of the post—but then the very next day, she received a photo of her rescued leg from a man named Eric Ganter.
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Since Gantner is an avid scuba diver, he says he is no stranger to finding peculiar things in the river—but he was particularly stunned to find Rigney’s prosthetic leg with the rainbow sandal still attached at the bottom of the river.
Upon returning home, he searched “Clackamas River lost leg” and found Rigney’s post.
Not only did Ganter help to successfully reunite Rigney with her prosthetic, the two of them also managed to strike up a happy new friendship.
(WATCH the news coverage below)
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