A golden retriever guide dog was honored this week with the title of ASPCA 2015 Dog of the Year for his courage and loyalty in the face of danger.
Last June, Figo was helping his blind owner, Audrey Stone, cross a major street in Brewster, New York.
As they did, a bus was quickly approaching.
Acting as much on his innate courage as his Guide Dog Foundation training, Figo immediately put himself in the path of the bus, sustaining a severe injury but successfully protecting Audrey.
Even after getting injured, Figo did not leave his owner’s side until help arrived.
While Audrey mended in the hospital, and media reports touted the retriever’s heroic deed, Figo recovered at a local veterinarian’s office, when the cost of his treatment picked up by an anonymous benefactor.
We get so caught up in the rush of everyday life that we often forget to stop and really think about why we do things the way we do them. We fall into the same routines that keep us from really exploring the world around us.
After turning through hundreds of pages in Lori Deschene’s new book, Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges, I picked out my seven favorite tips for doing things just a bit differently.
Here’s hoping these suggestions, though they may seem small, will make a big impact on your life.
1. Tell someone who is rushing for your benefit, “Take your time!” to help alleviate their anxiety.
You could say this to someone who’s running late for lunch with you, or to a customer service representative who’s having difficulty with their computer, or to someone who’s telling you a story and struggling to express themselves. Lovely.
2. Start a conversation with a stranger
Comment on something about your shared experience (such as waiting in line or riding the bus) or offer a compliment. Remember, all of our friends start off as strangers.
3. Let someone off the hook for a mistake or shortcoming that won’t be a big deal in the grand scheme of things
Think about it: haven’t there been times that you wished someone would ignore your mistakes or shortcomings and just cut you some slack?
4. Do something alone today
Eat a meal at a restaurant, sit in the park drinking coffee, or go to a movie by yourself. While you are doing that, smile at the people around you whenever you make eye contact.
5. Do one small task so someone else won’t have to
Pick up a friend’s prescription, pick up your loved ones clothes, bring a busy coworker coffee, or do the chore at home that you usually expect the other person to do.
Let someone with only a few items cut ahead of you in line at the store, or let someone go first as they board the bus, or – even more challenging –let those cars go ahead of you from the merge lane.
A single play, for a single yard, shattered two football players’ lives forever — and made them best friends.
In the 30 years since that fateful day when Marc Buoniconti’s tackle of Herman Jacobs left him a quadriplegic, they have each carried the other through difficult times.
Buoniconti, a linebacker for the Citadel launched himself headfirst at Jacobs, who was carrying the ball for East Tennessee State on October 26, 1985. It was an accident, of course, but stopping the player with his head left Buoniconti paralyzed.
When Jacobs learned of Buoniconti condition, his own life began spiraling out of control over guilt. He lost interest in football, gave up a likely professional career, dropped out of college, and suffered from depression.
Buoniconti reached out to Jacobs in 2007 and their meeting turned into a solid friendship — even led to them being roommates for a while. When Buoniconti’s regular nurse fell ill, Jacobs took on care-giving duties.
The friendship turned Jacobs’ life around for the better, inspiring him toward a new degree and a culinary career.
Likewise, Jacobs’ friendship inspired his old opponent throughout his days as president of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis — a nonprofit credited with various breakthroughs in spinal cord research.
The Project’s stellar research and new rehabilitation center at the University of Miami medical school leads Buoniconti to believe he will one day walk again because of the treatments.
(WATCH the Real Sports video below and READ more at the Miami Herald) — Photo: Real Sports video
Breast cancer is a disease that affects more than just the body—so, to help heal the mind and the spirit, a holistic approach is often an important complement to medicinal treatment.
In recent years, a growing number of organizations have begun to bring free yoga classes to patients in treatment—the practice has been proven to help improve both their mental and physical health as well as overall quality of life.
A study conducted by an M.D. Anderson Cancer Center back in 2006 followed 61 women receiving 6 weeks of radiation treatment for breast cancer. Half the women took a yoga class twice a week while the other half did not. Compared with the women who did not take yoga, the women in the yoga group reported having more energy and less daytime “sleepiness.”
Other research has shown that yoga can help breast cancer patients reduce stress and fatigue levels, improve their sleep cycle, and help them learn better mind-body control.
A certification in yoga therapy requires hundreds of hours of specific training—Ellen Patrick, owner of the Breathe Easy Wellness Center in New York City, has over one thousand hours. Every Wednesday at 6:30, she teaches at Mount Sinai’s Dubin Breast Center.
“On a physical level, it is very challenging to teach these women, as they are in varying stages of physical recovery and have had to undergo different forms of treatment,” Patrick told Good News Network. “Some women are dealing with the effects of chemotherapy like nausea and fatigue, while others are finished and are hoping to rebuild strength, flexibility, range-of-motion and stamina.”
Patrick conducts her classes through a partnership with Kula for Karma, a nonprofit group that brings yoga to cancer patients, adults with special needs, caregivers, veterans, domestic violence victims, at-risk youth, and veterans.
One of her former students still practices yoga back at home, and believes it will be part of her life forever.
“I was feeling so worried and concerned about my upcoming biopsy and tests, and then I started thinking that I should try and do some yoga poses that I learned in class,” said the student, who wishes to remain anonymous. “I did the one when you bend the knees and you’re rocking, also the one when you put the feet together and open the knees. I started to breathe deeply, and slowly, I finally fell asleep.”
Kula for Karma was founded in New Jersey in 2007 by a woman named Geri Topfer, who wanted to bring yoga to underserved communities that might not otherwise have access to it. To date, the organization has launched 600 different programs on the East Coast.
Jody Winsick-Soluri of Hillsdale, New Jersey says that throughout the course of her treatment, these yoga classes have helped her get ready to face the hectic day ahead.
“The first class was overwhelming, because I didn’t realize how much my physical strength deteriorated,” she explained. “But now, the Monday classes help me kick-start my week physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. To have an hour of quiet uninterrupted time to shut off my brain rejuvenates me. If I miss a week, I definitely feel a difference in my strength, balance and state of mind.”
Photos: Pan American Health Organization, Eli Christman CC
Rehabilitating baby owls can be a tricky job—if you’re not careful, they can imprint on you as a surrogate parent, making it nearly impossible to release them back into the wild.
Baby Oakley’s rescuer, known as the Raptor Rehabber, has gone to great lengths to make the owlet comfortable, while still avoiding becoming a recipient of the creature’s imprint.
In order to feed the bird, he calls like a Great Horned Owl to signal mealtime, and, to actually feed Oakley, he camouflages himself under a sheet with holes in it.
This gentleman is on a mission to reunite 100 homeless people with their families as a memorial to his “Uncle Mark,” a man who spent 30 years on the street.
Kevin Adler left his California home to travel around the country and help the homeless find their families using nothing but social media and his smartphone.
He asks them to record a video message, which he uploads to YouTube and social media sites under the project name, “Miracle Messages.”
The first post was made in San Francisco, a few days before Christmas last year. A man named Jeffrey recorded a message for his sister, and, within an hour, someone had tagged her as the likely relative.
People in Jeffrey’s hometown raised $5,000 to help him reunite with his sister one month later.
A man named Johnny received an overwhelming response after not seeing his family in 33 years. All his siblings recorded videos in response, and they all flew in from across the country with their partners and kids to reunite in person.
Right now, Adler is working his way down the East Coast, an unstoppable force determined to deliver 100 miracles.
(WATCH the WMUR News video) — Photo: Miracle Messages
The sterile, ornamental fruit trees of San Francisco will be returned to their “roots”, thanks to a group of urban agriculture activists known as the “Guerrilla Grafters”.
The city’s barren population of apple, plum, and pear trees lining parks and street corners will begin to bear new life—and the fruit they produce will be free for all–if grafters get their way.
Members of Guerrilla Grafters make a simple incision in the tree, splice in a small cutting from a fruit-bearing species, and tape it up. If done correctly, the new branch grows into the tree and eventually starts producing edible fruit.
In total, there are 10,000 public fruit trees throughout San Francisco, which could feed many of the city’s poor.
The alterations to public trees are technically illegal, and the California city will have to deal with possible rotting fruit.
In any case, the group’s founders want their civil disobedience to bear its own fruit– through added attention given to “food deserts” and hunger in the city.
(WATCH the video below from Fair Companies or READ more at Web Urbanist) Photo: Fair Companies video
Photo used with permission of The Trust for Public Land/Brendan Moriarty
Photo used with permission of The Trust for Public Land/Brendan Moriarty
A California landowner is returning his family farm to a neighboring Native American tribe that was forced inland, away from their breathtaking coastline, 150 years ago.
The small, water-poor reservation that became home for the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians has become 18-times larger, and for the first time in more than a century, will reach to the Pacific coast where they and their ancestors once hunted, fished, and roamed free.
Bill Richardson’s family bought the 688-acre property in 1925, which features dense redwood forest, towering coastal bluffs and waterfalls along the Pacific Coast Highway.
After five years of fundraising by the Sonoma County government, The Trust for Public Land, private foundations and groups, the newly established Kashia Coastal Reserve restored ownership of the land to the tribe, after Bill agreed it was time the land was returned to its original inhabitants.
Sonoma County contributed two million dollars for the project, while another six million was raised by the coalition of groups seeking to buy the property for the Kashia. In exchange, the California Coastal Trail will extend north for one mile across their land, giving the public access to a cliff walk overlooking this dramatic stretch of coastline.
The Tribe will manage the land as protected open space, and a demonstration forest for educating and engaging the public about the history and practices of native people in the area.
The Pomo Indians will get to start using the land immediately, the same coastline where their ancestors harvested and lived off of the plentiful abalone.
Richardson will get to live out his days on the mile-long stretch of property—and be buried on a hillside when he passes on.
(WATCH the video below from KNTV) — Photo used with permission of The Trust for Public Land/Brendan Moriarty
When a Cedar Park, Texas police officer came upon a man parked in a truck with an expired registration, he noticed that three small children sitting in the back didn’t have car seats.
Instead of issuing a citation and fining the man, they decided it was better to help, than to make the situation worse.
“If we gave the man a ticket, those kids would still need to be driven somewhere with no car seats,” Officer Justin Gower told KVUE recently.
He learned from other officers that the man in the truck had been living in the vehicle or a motel and trying to save up money for his family.
Gower decided to call for backup and when Officer Cale Hawkins arrived, the two decided to pool their money and visit a local Walmart to buy the car seats themselves.
The cops, both fathers, then personally installed the three pink safety seats for the girls, ages 1, 3, and 4.
President Obama has given standardized tests a failing grade and wants to limit their involvement in U.S. classrooms to no more than 2% of students’ and teachers’ time.
“Learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble,” he said in a White House video.
A new action plan was released yesterday in response to parents and teachers who have complained for years that students are spending too much time taking too many tests.
American students in major cities take roughly 112 standardized tests during their elementary and secondary school years. Eighth graders are the most heavily tested, spending up to 25 hours during the school year filling in their multiple choice answers.
The administration now believes all the time spent memorizing facts has taken the joy out of learning–not just for kids, but for the teachers who are restricted in their creativity. The president suggests the time could be better used for them to take up a musical instrument, study a new language, or learn computer code.
Obama said the Department of Education intends to work with states and school districts to make sure certain testing principles are put in place so that assessments are not consuming too much instructional time and creating undue stress.
“Tests shouldn’t occupy too much classroom time, or crowd out teaching and learning,” wrote Obama in an open letter. “And, tests should be just one source of information. We should use classroom work, surveys, and other factors to give us an all-around look at how our students and schools are doing.”
No Child Left Behind is currently U.S. law and any major adjustments would require Congressional approval, so the White House has laid out a plan urging legislators to follow the lead of many states by enacting new guidelines.
Ten states have already conducted assessments or streamlined statewide and local standardized tests. New York has limited the amount of time that can be spent on state – and district – level standardized tests to just 2% of class time. Since 2010, New Mexico has reduced the time spent every year on the tests by an average of a half-hour each year – with some districts cutting the time by three hours.
North Carolina, Rhode Island, Delaware, Florida, Tennessee, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and DC have all taken some steps toward the improvements the president is calling for — to make tests worthwhile, to enhance learning in the classroom, and to limit the tests as only one measure of a student’s performance.
(WATCH the White House video below – only on Facebook)
If our kids had more free time at school, what would you want them to do with it? A) Learn to play a musical instrument?B) Study a new language?C) Learn how to code HTML?D) Take more standardized tests?Take the quiz, then watch President Obama's message about smarter ways to measure our kids’ progress in school.
Kids lucky enough to step up to this house are in for tricks and treats.
Children throughout this mysteriously unnamed California neighborhood have been dragging their parents to see the “Monster House,” an eight-eyed, multi-fanged Victorian house belonging to the parents of Christine McConnell, an artist, photographer, and year-round Halloween fan.
Inspired by the movie, Monster House she spent four days converting her childhood home into a haunted mansion that comes to life.
“It came out even neater than I had planned,” McConnell told TODAY. “It was a bit of a madhouse once the eyes were up. Tons of people were stopping their cars to take pictures.
Believe it or not, the entire project only cost $250 for paint and materials — the green lights being the most expensive part.
A photo posted by Christine McConnell (@christinehmcconnell) on
This isn’t the first time McConnell has scared up attention for her creations: she’s also a baker who’s gained Instagram notoriety for horror-themed treats.
This is definitely the kind of playtime we can get behind.
In the video below, hidden cameras have been set up to capture adults’ reactions when tiny career women are dropped right into their dream jobs—a museum tour guide, a veterinarian, a college professor.
It’s not until the end—and many chuckles later—that we realize it’s all pretend.
For now.
(WATCH the video below)
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Six months after radically raising pay for all its employees, both revenue and profits have doubled at Gravity Payments in Seattle, Washington.
CEO Dan Price announced in April he would cut his own $1.1 million annual salary to help make sure everyone in the company earned at least $70,000 a year. Within a week, he was swamped with new customers and flooded with resumes from people who wanted to work for him.
Half a year later, he’s added ten new positions at his small business to handle all the extra work coming in. Old customers are sticking with him; his customer retention rate has risen from 91% to 95%, which is 37 points better than the national average.
The raises are being phased in over three years — with a current $50,000 minimum wage this year and $10,000 increases in each of the next two. Price’s own pay cut – to the same $70,000 level – is covering most of the transition.
The CEO is investing everything he has into the company. He is convinced that higher productivity from his better-paid employees is going to pay off in the long run, in the form of higher profits.
(WATCH the KING News video of the original announcement below and READmore at Slate) — Photo: KING video
When a tourist’s car rolled, out of control, toward a watery end in the Bosphorus Strait, some quick-thinking locals in Istanbul, Turkey sprang into action — and sat down.
Four men jumped onto the hood of the car as it teetered on the edge of a stone pier, just feet above the water, using their body weight as counterbalance. They sat calmly atop the see-sawing car, waiting for help to arrive.
The Canadian tourist forgot to set the parking brake, and the empty rental car rolled backward, across sidewalks, down steps — not stopping until its rear half was dangling over the edge of the pier.
Credits: Ervins Strauhmanis (CC BY 2.0 on Flickr) and Peter Burka (CC BY 2.0 on Flickr) – cropped
When a two million dollar lottery ticket accidentally ended up in the trash, a pair of store owners had to become detectives to reunite it with the customer who bought it.
The unidentified winner routinely buys $200 worth of lottery tickets at a time from Yogi Patel and his wife, Vilsa, who own Leprechaun News in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Recently, a glitch in their lottery machine almost cost their regular customer a huge jackpot.
Usually, he’ll scratch off the covers and hand the tickets to Yogi or Vilsa to scan as he moves on to the next ticket. At the end, he collects his winnings while the store owners drop the losing tickets into a collection box.
For some reason, the two million dollar ticket didn’t set off any alarms when scanned and ended up in a trash box for losing tickets.
When Yogi went over the lottery receipts for the day, the printout showed a two million dollar ticket had been sold, but no one had claimed the prize.
Some quick detective work let him zero in on the winner.
Few customers played the Double Diamond game because of the expensive $20 tickets, but he knew a regular customer who did. Vilsa realized he had been in the store about the time the winning ticket went through the scanner.
Yogi dug through the collection box and found the winning ticket, and called the customer at home, asking him to come to the store because of an “emergency.”
In a house boat in Holland’s capital city of Amsterdam, there is a Dutchman whose ability to control his bodily functions with his mind has reformed what scientists have long believed was possible. He insists everyone has this ability–even those with debilitating diseases.
Auto-immune disorders, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease or arthritis can easily take control of one’s life, making any sort of physical activity challenging. Even something as simple as being on your feet for prolonged periods can easily result in pain. So climbing a mountain must certainly be out of reach for people with these conditions, right?
Wim Hof, who believes that he is not an exception and anyone can do what he can, led a group of eighteen people without any previous mountaineering experience to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in January. The oldest was sixty-five, and some of them had conditions such as asthma, Crohn’s, and rheumatoid arthritis. After only four days of training his climbers, the goal was to reach the nearly 20,000-foot summit in three days, wearing nothing but shorts and shoes. The Marangu route traditionally takes 5 or 6 days– they got there in two.
During the four days of preparation, Hof’s trekkers practiced primarily two things–extreme breathing techniques and cold water immersion.
“Iceman” as he is known to many, currently holds twenty world records, including the longest time spent in an ice bath, at one hour and 44 minutes. The feat was all the more amazing because his core body temperature did not change. He broke his own record twice, adding a cool 41 minutes to his previous time. The 56-year-old has also climbed mount Everest in his shorts, and completed marathons in both arctic temperatures (4°F / -15 °C ) in Finland, and scorching heat (104 °F / 40 °C) in Namibia.
The Beginning of His Love Affair With Cold
It all started for him as a troubled seventeen-year-old, when Wim was “attracted’’ to jump into a pond of freezing cold water, and in it he experienced an “awakening”. As a result, he began to develop a method of physiological control, which allowed him to accomplish seemingly superhuman feats involving the cold. Part of his method uses a forced breathing technique practiced in Tibetan yoga called tummo, or “inner fire”, that has been shown to increase body temperature.
In research done by Radboud University in the Netherlands in 2012, Hof trained a group of 12 volunteers to show that they could modulate their immune system, after already demonstrating the ability to do it himself. They documented his skill to not only control his immune system at will, but also the endocrine (hormonal) system, and autonomic nervous systems. Put simply, using his breathing techniques, The Iceman in a laboratory setting was capable of consciously influencing his immune system, even circumventing disease using the power of his mind–something scientists thought to be impossible.
“Because we wear clothes and control the temperatures at home and work, we have changed the stimulation on our body, and thus the old mechanisms related to survive and function,” says Hof, who claims not to be able to cure disease, but to provide strategies that will make you “stronger, more resilient, and healthy… to help prevent and reduce disease.”
The father of four decided to bring his method to the public after his wife’s tragic 1995 death by suicide following her battle with depression. His mission became clear. With the help of his son Enahm, Wim began to get his message out, promising control over happiness, strength, and health, to any who practice his techniques.
Particularly for people suffering with depression, Wim offers a “very simple” way that he believes can fix chemical imbalances by manually altering serotonin and melatonin hormone levels.
A new group of believers will be tackling Kilimanjaro again in January of 2016–a trek that normally leaves more than half of climbers with acute mountain sickness due to extreme elevation levels. His goal is to prove once again, that the human mind, body, and spirit, are capable of truly remarkable things, even while wearing nothing but shorts.
(WATCH the videos below for more persuasive info) – Photos via InnerFire on Facebook
A retired bricklayer’s act of kindness four years ago has won him a penguin friend for life.
When João Pereira de Souza found an oil-soaked bird on the beach near his southeast Brazilian home in 2011, he cleaned off the penguin, fed him some sardines, and when it was strong enough, took the bird to the beach, expecting it to swim away.
But the black and white Magellanic penguin, now known as Jingjing, refused to leave.
De Souza even took him out in a boat, far from land and turned him loose in the ocean. When he got home, Jingjing was already waiting for him.
Magellanics are known to migrate thousands of miles between breeding grounds in Patagonia and feeding grounds farther north, but Jingjing seems to have adopted the warmer climate of Rio de Janeiro, where de Souza lives on the beach.
Jingjing will head out to sea for days, or even months, at a time, but he always returns. The penguin spends roughly eight months every year with de Souza in Brazil.
(WATCH the Wall Street Journal video below) — Image from WSJ video
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An Indian company’s new $30-million-dollar factory will make new car parts while repairing lives in the beleaguered Motor City.
Sakthi Automotive Group has officially broken ground on a Detroit, Michigan factory that will actively recruit former convicts for many of the 350 jobs it will create.
The Indian company has already hired 25 former inmates through its partnership with Focus: HOPE, a nonprofit that trains ex-convicts for manufacturing jobs.
“Everything about this city’s recovery starts with jobs,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said during the groundbreaking ceremony October 19. “This city is not going to be what it should be unless everybody’s included in that comeback, and if you look at what’s happening here, it’s remarkable.”
The company builds suspension and steering parts for Ford and General Motors. The new plant will supply parts for two GM cars.
Sakthi expects to open the 180,000 square foot, $30 million plant in March.
Hoping to encourage a love of reading in children whose resources are limited, a man has enlisted the help of his horse.
Three times each week he takes his tiny library of donated books to children living in the Purbalingga Regency of Indonesia on the back of his favorite horse, Luna.
He believes Luna is instrumental to the operation in ways more important than just transporting books. The animal creates a bond with the youngsters that is hard to resist.
“In my opinion, the horse attracts children,” Ridwan Sururi told Reuters.
(WATCH the video below from Reuters) – Image: Reuters, via YouTube
