At least 11 kids and their parents, refugees from Fukushima and other parts of Japan, are visiting Oregon this month and living with U.S. host families as part of a grass-roots effort to give them a break from the stress and health risks they had been facing at home.
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami forced residents indoors for months, required them to wear protective gear when they did venture outside — even made them wary of plants, grass and rain.
I’ve been writing to the President since May 5th… almost a letter a day. Since his birthday was August 4th I decided to write about good news for a change. I googled ‘good news’ and found your site.
Here’s the letter I wrote on Day 77:
Dear Mr. President,
It’s been about a week since my last letter… during that interval I’ve had my granddaughter, Sophia with me for the week, the debt ceiling fiasco is over, you’ve signed what’s necessary to enable the FAA workers to resume work, and you’ve had your 50th Birthday. It’s been quite a week.
In many of the other 76 letters to you I was often critical of one thing or another, so I promised that for the whole month of August I was only going to write ‘positive’ comments. You’ve edured enough bad news and bashing-about by one group or another, and you certainly didn’t need additional negativity on your birthday.
Check out the celebration going on here at the Good News Network, as we start our 15th year delivering News to Enthuse.
Every day, members get a daily dose of uplifting news and reports to prove the world is getting better. Now you can join the good news revolution with a SPECIAL deal — available for two weeks only — or buy one for someone you love.
Optimistic people live longer and have better heart and lung health, according to studies from Harvard and elsewhere. Get yourself a full year of good news for just $15.00. Included are a slew of membership bonuses you can download, like “How to Be Happier”, an audio interview with Harvard positive psychologist, Tal Ben-Shahar, author of the best-selling book, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment.
Just log-in with your user name and password. After you log-in, click on BUY SUBSCRIPTIONS, and grab the $15 Holiday Special. You can choose to pay via Paypal or to send a check. This offer will disappear in 2 weeks. (I’ll post another reminder at the end of the month.)
You can choose to give a gift to yourself or others with a simple credit card payment (or by sending a check). Click here for details…
Start LIVING in a better mood with more optimism today — it averages out to just $1.25 per month!
May GOOD bless!
Geri Weis-Corbley, Founder and Managing Editor
Kjerstin Gruys isn’t looking at her reflection for one whole year (including before her wedding!)—all for the sake of having a better body image.
The Ph.D. candidate has taken on the prenuptial challenge because of her self-described “struggle with poor body image”. She wondered if a year without mirrors could lead to greater self-acceptance and appreciation for her body.
Former President Bill Clinton will be co-hosting a New York City gala Sept. 23 to benefit actor Ben Stiller’s foundation for building schools in Haiti.
The cause is dear to Clinton’s heart. He launched the Clinton Foundation Haiti Fund and created the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund in 2010.
Labrador Retrievers are known for their hunting skills and friendly dispositions, but Beau, a black Lab who lives in Montana, is winning acclaim for his math abilities.
“He counts, he adds and subtracts, he can do some division and has memorized square roots,” owner David Madsen said.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has fallen to its lowest level on record, dating back to 1971.
The rate on the most popular mortgage dipped to 4.15 percent from 4.32 percent a week ago, Freddie Mac said Thursday.
Long Island resident Aidan Dwyer is just 13 years old and is already a patented inventor of solar panel arrangements.
On a winter hiking trip, he noticed a pattern in the tangled mess of branches above him, took photos of them and began to investigate “whether there is a secret formula in tree design and whether the purpose of the spiral pattern is to collect sunlight better.”
The city of Detroit and Bank of America have teamed up to solve three problems at once: By enticing cops to live in urban neighborhoods, offering them refurbished homes and low cost loans, houses standing empty will be inhabited, rather than vandalized, communities will feel more secure with law enforcement nearby, and urban property values and the city’s tax base will be bolstered.
The group of altruistic technology professionals working under the name Apps for Good is now recruiting immigrants or unemployed youths from East and South London to develop phone programs relevant to their needs, and in the process teaching entrepreneurial skills and encouraging confidence.
One of the most successful apps developed through the program has been Stop and Search, related to the stopping and searching of young male teens by police.
A trio of young unemployed South Londoners created an app that lets users give feedback on police searches, providing data on whether or not their experience was positive or negative. The app also provides an overview of an individual’s rights, letting them know what is legal and illegal in searches.
Learn more about Apps for Good at the website, appsforgood.org.
(READ the story in the CS Monitor)
The earthquake and tsunami that walloped Japan left much of its coastline ravaged, but left one thing intact: the Japanese reputation for honesty.
In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets found in the debris, containing $48 million in cash.
The “high level of ethical awareness” in the Japanese people is matched in their officials, who have spent countless hours tracking down people in shelters and elsewhere to return their valuables.
(READ the story from ABC News)
Great news for your wallet: Gas prices dropped this past month and are expected to continue their slide.
The drop in crude oil prices today to below $85 a barrel further lubricated the trend downward, echoing last week’s plunge below $76 a barrel.
Prices at the gas pump, meanwhile, slipped to a national average of $3.58 per gallon, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report.
Great news for your wallet: Gas prices dropped this past month and are expected to continue their slide.
The drop in crude oil prices today to below $85 a barrel further lubricated the trend downward, echoing last week’s plunge below $76 a barrel.
Prices at the gas pump, meanwhile, slipped to a national average of $3.58 per gallon, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report.
A heroic New Mexico man who alertly rescued a 6-year-old girl from the clutches of a kidnapper is proof no good deed goes unnoticed.
Cops and reporters are being bombarded with requests from people who want Antonio Diaz Chacon’s address so they can send him gift cards and cash.
Chacon, 24, who has two young daughters, is fielding requests from people who want to donate to a college savings fund for his girls.
(READ the story in the NY Daily News)
With solar panels spread over almost 400 acres (160 hectares), a solar power facility in Ukraine began producing power on Monday, aiming to power 20,000 houses with electricity.
Poised to become Europe’s largest solar station by the end of the year, the Crimea facility substitutes clean power for the traditional coal-fired plants, with their high carbon-emissions, as part of the government’s new green energy plan.
The idea of making school lunches better and healthier has not taken hold for many poor and struggling districts, but a city in Colorado is bucking the trend.
In the midsize city of Greeley, where 60 percent of its 19,500 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, the district will make a great leap forward – and at the same time back to the way it was done a generation ago – in cooking meals from scratch.
A weeklong culinary boot camp is teaching cafeteria workers to relearn their cooking skills to prepare for mega-fresh delivery of, let’s say, 300 pans of lasagna when school starts next week.
Four years ago, in one of the Philippines’ largest dumpsites and home to 12,000 families, women searched through garbage for fabric scraps to weave into rugs.
Today, thanks to Reese Fernandez-Ruiz and other young Filipino professionals, the women of Payatas are now weaving fashionable handbags for top designers, using fabric remnants delivered directly from factories.
The local craftswomen no longer live in poverty and the Rags 2 Riches label, sewn into each item as RIIR, now has cachet and respect, which has changed how the women see themselves.
Four years ago, in one of the Philippines’ largest dumpsites and home to 12,000 families, women searched through garbage for fabric scraps to weave into rugs.
Today, thanks to Reese Fernandez-Ruiz and other young Filipino professionals, the women of Payatas are now weaving fashionable handbags for top designers, using fabric remnants delivered directly from factories.
The local craftswomen no longer live in poverty and the Rags 2 Riches label, sewn into each item as RIIR, now has cachet and respect, which has changed how the women see themselves.
Inventor Steve Katsaros perfected his solar design in June 2010, a simple bulb that charges up during the day and lights up the room at night.
He dubbed his company Nokero — short for “No Kerosene” and adopted a “social entrepreneurship,” model to get the bulb into the hands of people in the developing world.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has taken its revolutionary OpenCourseWare initiative, launched 10 years ago, to another level. Moving beyond the web, the new initiative extends higher education to anyone with a mobile phone.
The MIT Media Lab yesterday announced the creation of the MIT Center for Mobile Learning, with initial funding from Google, dedicated to transforming education and learning.
The Center, housed at the Media Lab, will focus on the design and study of specific mobile technologies and applications, that enable people to learn anywhere anytime with anyone. Research projects will explore location-aware learning applications, mobile sensing and data collection, augmented reality gaming, and other educational uses of mobile technologies.
The Center’s first activity will focus on the free (and soon-to-be open sourced) App Inventor for Android, a programming system that makes it easy for learners to create mobile apps for Android smart phones by visually fitting together puzzle piece-shaped “programming blocks” in a web browser.
“The Media Lab has always been about creativity – not only developing new technologies, but getting them out to the world in ways that positively impact people’s lives,” said Joichi Ito, who will take over as the Media Lab’s director next month. “Our new Center for Mobile Learning continues this tradition, empowering people everywhere to create, invent, and learn with their mobile devices.”
Three MIT professors will serve as co-directors of the Center: Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Eric Klopfer, Associate Professor of Science Education; and Mitchel Resnick, LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research.
The Center’s three directors have a long history of collaboration on educational technology. Resnick, who heads the Media Lab’s academic Program in Media Arts and Sciences, is famous for his work on LEGO Mindstorms and Scratch, two of the world’s best known and most influential platforms for introducing young learners to programming. Klopfer is director of MIT’s Scheller Teacher Education Program, which trains MIT students to be secondary school science and math teachers. He is an expert on educational games and simulations and author of Augmented Learning: Research and Design of Mobile Educational Games. (MIT Press; 2008).
Hal Abelson, who proposed an idea that prompted the development of App Inventor during his sabbatical at Google in 2008 said, “For me, it’s a terrific experience of starting with an idea, finding visionary industry leaders willing to make it a reality, then bringing it back home to MIT so I can work on projects I love together with colleagues I admire.”
