A nursing Chihuahua with two new puppies has become a foster mom to five more babies — tiny possums that lost their mother. Now all seven are nursing and snuggling together. (Union Leader )
Oddly, a baby possum showed up on our doorstep yesterday during daylight hours — see photo — I think I may call animal rescue.
When you see a product marked with the Fair Trade emblem, it means the farmers were paid top dollar for their goods. UK Green & Black Maya Gold – a chocolate bar, made with organic cacao from Belize, is the epitome of such a product – the first British one to carry it.
Volunteers and officials near Panama City Beach, Florida, have been helping sea turtle eggs survive so that baby turtles can safely hatch and return to the sea. An ordinance against too much light on the beach at night helps to prevent disorientation in egg-laying females.
One by one, Turtle Watch volunteers crated and relocated 104 translucent pink loggerhead turtle eggs on Friday in an effort to save the Panama City Beach area’s first marked nest of the season. "The nest was laid very close to the water below the tide line so it was relocated to higher elevation where it’s safer for the eggs…" (visit the Herald Today )
Read an inspiring story on the 60 Minutes Web site about soldiers who are living without limbs, but doing so while helping others to do the same. Melissa Stockwell’s story is an upbeat addition to my Memorial Day, and it also reminds everyone of the consequences of war. (The sentiment one WWII veteran expressed this morning on C-Span’s call-in show, implored the listener, "When are we going to find another way? War is only the killing of people. We need to stop doing it.")
Like many soldiers benefitting from life-saving armor these days, Melissa survived an explosion, but lost a leg:
Melissa is full of enthusiasm for her country, her life … and now, her new leg. Her prosthetic leg goes all the way up to her hip. Getting her new leg helped Melissa find a new calling: She is studying to be a prosthetist, to help other amputees. (cbs news)
Turning manure into a source of electricity is a reality today. The manure from Lee Jensen’s cows can power about 600 homes in Wisconsin.
A machine mines the methane, or natural gas, from rotting manure and feeds it into a pipeline that connects to local power grids. Additionally, many byproducts benefit the farm. . . .
______________________________________________
A 2004 article by Gallop shows that negativity costs US businesses billions of dollars each year. Positivity, it turns out, not only enriches the individual but also raises productivity and competitiveness in companies. Bring a little Good News philosophy into your company and watch your fortunes improve:
Gallup polling has revealed that 99 out of 100 people say they want a more positive environment at work, and 9 out of 10 say they’re more productive when they’re around positive people. Employees who report receiving recognition and praise within the last seven days show increased productivity, get higher scores from customers, and have better safety records. . .
The broad, nonpartisan movement for Internet freedom notched a victory on Thursday, when a bipartisan majority of the House Judiciary Committee advanced the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006 a bill that preserves the level playing field websites enjoy on the internet. 20 members of the Committee voted for the bill (14 Democrats and 6 Republicans), while 13 opposed it. (Save the Internet)
A May 18 article in GNN-i described the broad coalition that has formed (Former Foes Join Together) including gun owners and artists; Christian groups and MoveOn.org.
A wife in England gave birth on March 23 to babies that were "monochorionic quads," an extremely rare occurrence meaning that four identical babies all shared the same placenta. A nice story about how the parents are caring for them and even they can’t tell the babies apart!!
The quadruplets — Ellie, Georgina, Holly and Jessica Carles — were conceived naturally at incredible odds… This week, the girls were allowed home — which meant their mother Julie, 37, could hold them all at once for the first time. (-Daily Mail with photo)
Angelina Jolie gave birth to a baby girl, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt in a hospital in Namibia, Africa. There is no word on the condition of mother and daughter, or father, Brad Pitt, but one piece of good news is, according to some reports, the parents have already sold the rights to the first baby pictures for $5.4 million dollars and will give all the money to charity.
UPDATE: May 30 – Following the birth of their daughter, Jolie and Pitt donated $300,000 to help other mothers to safely deliver babies in public hospitals around impoverished Namibia. The couple also pledged $15,000 for a school and community center in Swakopmund a place they’d visited. A doctor in the private hospital where Jolie delivered said the baby was healthy and mother too.
Photo: UNHCR
UPDATE: May 28 — Yesterday I wrote, "Our apologies go out to our RSS feed users…" Well, it turns out the software "bug" is not only infecting RSS feeds. Any link to the site is met with an error message, "You are not authorized to view this page"… So, we need to apologize to the whole world at large! The problem will be fixed as soon as possible. There are two work-arounds in the meantime: All the links work if you are logged in and additionally, ALL stories are viewable on the site itself (click on any page in the left menu to view the stories)
____________________
Our apologies go out to our RSS feed users. Every time they click on links to headlines (if they are not logged in) they reach a dead end. Detailing the reasons for the problem is geek-talk, which I don’t speak fluently, but you know how when you upgrade one piece of software, it can make another piece of software stop working?. . .
The LA Times features some good news in the stand-off with Iran:
Amid concern that the U.S. is drifting toward eventual confrontation with Iran, a growing number of influential statesmen, Republican senators and foreign policy experts are stepping up pressure on the Bush administration to consider doing what no U.S. administration has done in 27 years: talk directly with Iran.
Last Sunday, more than 760,000 people took to the streets of more than 100 countries to walk five kilometres in support of Fight Hunger: Walk the World. All around the globe, in 420 locations people came out in force to deliver a message: child hunger has no place in this world and citizens working together can root it out.
The World Food Programme, its partners, and supporters, as well as war-displaced families and over 100,000 school children in sub-Saharan Africa alone, declared it is unacceptable that 18,000 children die of hunger every day on a planet that produces more than enough food for every inhabitant. (Walkers in London, photo by World Food Programme)
Funds raised will support two programs aimed at reducing child hunger: projects to help pregnant and lactating women and young children and school feeding projects. Last year, WFP provided school meals for 21.7 million children in 74 countries. . .
"The good news keeps on coming for blogger legal rights. Friday, a California Appeals Court ruled that Apple could not compel several bloggers and website operators to reveal their sources." (more in the Daily Kos)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation led the court battle for the citizen journalists and described the decision in a press release:
In their decision, the judges wrote: "We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish ‘legitimate’ from ‘illegitimate’ news. Any attempt by courts to draw such a distinction would imperil a fundamental purpose of the First Amendment, which is to identify the best, most important, and most valuable ideas not by any sociological or economic formula, rule of law, or process of government, but through the rough and tumble competition of the memetic marketplace."
From the Oregonian comes this Memorial Day tribute to an American soldier who gets a kick out of bringing gifts to the kids in Iraq. Anne Taylor of Lake Oswego writes this charming ode to her 25 year old grandson, Sgt. Joe Coon of the Oregon National Guard:
Sometimes “Joe’s kids” get candy. Other times it may be toothbrushes and toothpaste, Beanie Babies, stuffed animals or hair ornaments. But Joe always has something for them from his stash of goodies, supplied by family and friends… Joe was so moved by the bare feet he saw in Iraq, he urged his friends to send shoes for the children. The result was 1,200 pairs of shoes and 300 pounds of clothing sent to Iraq in 54 large boxes, inundating the post office.
Grasses in the Chesapeake Bay are rebounding, covering double the acreage they did in 1984. In 2005, grasses, a key component of the bay’s health, inhabited 78,260 acres, 7 percent more coverage than in 2004. Efforts to control Nitrogen must be redoubled to reach scientists’ goals of 185,000 acres in 2010.
While the Good News Network normally does not cheer someone’s guilt or punishment, this week’s verdict against two executives at Enron underscore two of the seven values upon which we’ve built our good new philosophy: integrity and responsibility.
The verdicts, while not reimbursing Enron empoyees the hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost pension plans, will renew their faith in the sense of fairness in our justice system. Business leaders should bear not only the privilege of office but also the responsibility. Read the hometown account from the Houston Chronicle.
Leading U.S. publisher Random House will use more recycled paper in its books — up to 30 percent from its current 3 percent — and preserve more than 550,000 trees a year. By 2010 nearly a third of the uncoated paper used will be recycled and at least 10 percent for glossy paper within two years.
Volkswagen Group UK, which includes Audi, launched a new environmental policy switching to renewable energy to power two of its plants; buying 100 percent recycled paper for the head office; implementing an Environmental Management System and encouraging staff to reduce and recycle.
Michigan’s Rouge River has been returned to health thanks to the Clean Water Act, $1 billion and measures to filter runoff from surrounding factories, neighborhoods and golf courses. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agengy calls the collaborative efforts that contributed to the river’s clean-up a “Blueprint for success.” Much needs to be done before swimming there will be attractive to most people, but many of the million nearby residents have returned to the banks to launch canoes, fish or walk. A valuable lesson was learned. It’s cheaper to keep a river clean than to rehabilitate it later… AP details the efforts
A team of eye doctors, fellow researchers, and students at MIT have produced a “seeing machine ” that allows the visually challenged to view the face of a friend, access the Internet, and “previsit” unfamiliar buildings …
