It’s a toughy. Just because these d-bags (kidding!) I meant “banksters”will give portion of their hefty bonuses to charity, does that fulfill the point of giving to charity? Do we give to charity because it makes us feel good? or because we actually give a damn about other people in the world who have less and suffer more. Hard to say, probably both. I guess it’s good thing Goldman and Sachs is taking this step, but I’m not convinced they deserve a pat on the back.
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North Korea Calls for Peace
New York Times just revealed North Korea proposed a talk with the the U.S. to reach a formal peace treaty. 57 years ago a truce was made that halted the Korean War. Nuclear weapons were really the worst thing ever invented.
‘Between 1997 and 1999, the two Koreas, the United States and China held six rounds of peace talks that produced no agreement because the North insisted on the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea and an end to joint United States-South Korean military exercises’.
Let’s hope this will be the beginning of far less blood shed.
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5 Best Cities for Green Jobs
Huffington Post takes a look at the best cities to find green jobs. I know there are enough of you out there unemployed. Consider moving to one of theses 5 great cities and contribute to being a force for good. Help our mama!
Photo by Flickr, Flipped Out.
A few fun facts:
1. New York City: Check out city launched PlaNYC with 127 initiatives for greening the city. Find a green job in New York City.
2. San Francisco: According to the New York Times, California had the most clean-energy jobs in 2008. Find a green job in San Francisco.
3. Boston/Cambridge: Named the “best walking city” by Prevention magazine last year. Find a green job in Boston.
4. Detroit: Rated number seven on a list of clean energy jobs compiled by Pew Charitable Trusts. Find a green job in Detroit.
5. Portland Oregon: regon was the number one performer in creating clean energy economy jobs, reports the Pew Charitable Trusts. Oregon had almost 20,000 clean jobs in 2007, many of them in the Portland metro area. Find a green job in Portland.
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The Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance opened Dallas’s first supportive housing program for women and children. Pebbles Apartments are now the home sweet homes to 40 homeless women. From drug addicts to bipolar schizophrenics, these women now have something to call their own.
Photo by Flickr. Heji.
One can’t begin to fathom the range of reasons why people end up on the streets. The point is they are where they are and they need help. These women now have homes where they feel a sense of a stability with something to value and take care of.
Many of theses women are recovering drug addicts and find it challenging to stay sober where they were living before under bridges and in squats. Kratson, 50 tells Dallas News that living on the streets can be an abusive situation. Hopefully this housing project is the start of bigger way to help the homeless. Dallas has a goal to open 700 units of permanent supportive housing by 2014.
Dallas News tells-
No one may be more thankful than Rogers’ daughter, Tanisha. The 18-year-old recently got to visit her mother at her apartment.
The high school student, who was raised by her grandparents, said she has hoped for years that her mother would change. She was skeptical when her mother headed to Dallas for help last summer.
But the teenager said she cried when she found out her mother was doing well enough to move into an apartment.
“I’m very happy for her because she’s been a drug addict for a long time. I hadn’t given up on her, but I was beginning to doubt that she would change,” Tanisha Rogers said.
“I’ve been praying for her. I know she’s better than that.”
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They still may have a black market but organs won’t be on it, thanks to the Iranian government. Get this, in order to prevent people like Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ from not getting the liver transplant he needs, the Iranian government has come up with a system where they pay organ donors 1,200 and health coverage, according to NPR.
Aside from the incentive, Why we ask would people be so willing to give up their organs to a stranger?
Iranian doctors state in Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology that, “when Iran was involved in a devastating war [with Iraq] and groups of Iranians were volunteering en masse to sacrifice their lives….” It was this sense of sacrifice, the doctors believe, that led to people’s willingness to donate organs and not primarily the financial incentives”.
Photo by Flickr. Mara Earth Light.
Maybe America should take this advice, that we should all make more personal sacrifices to be more giving to others.
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1. I woke up one morning to hear the birds outside my window and my mother cooking breakfast downstairs. I’ve never cried so much in my entire life. I had been deaf since the age of 8.
2. Today, I found GMH. After reading all the heartwarming stories, I walked into my room, and tore my suicide journal to shreds. I’m shaking out of happiness. GMH.
3. Freshman year, there was a crippled girl bound to a wheelchair. For 4 years, she did physical therapy and progressed to crutches. When we graduated a few weeks ago, she handed her crutches to an officer and walked across the entire stage. The applause from the seniors was deafening. She cried the whole way. GMH
4. Last summer I was working as an assistant wedding photographer in California during the brief period when gay couples could marry there. While working a wedding at the San Fransisco City Hall, I watched two old men in tuxedos help each other up the stairs in order to finally get married after over 30 years together. GMH.
5. A little girl was dying of cancer and her younger brother had a match for the bone marrow she needed. The doctors told him it was a matter of life and death. After he had the surgery, he asked the doctors how long he had to live. He thought if he gave his bone marrow to let his sister live he would die but he did it anyway. GMH
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Jamie Catto, a founder of One Giant Leap and Faithless gathered together members of Radiohead, Pink Floyd, the Police and Elbow to beat on their drums, bringing awareness to conflict in Sudan. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Save Darfur Coalition came together to help organize this drumming event in 15 cities worldwide, including one in NYC on Saturday.
Drummers such as Radiohead’s Phil Selway, the Police’s Stewart Copeland, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason, Snow Patrol’s Jonny Quinn, the Corrs’ Caroline Corr, Elbow’s Richard Jupp, Egyptian musicians Yehia Khalil and Mohamed Mounir, and Ghanaian drummer Mustapha Tettey Addy upload their videos and pictures of them drumming for peace for Sudan365.org
“From a drumming point of view, it was easy for me to think ‘right, we can do something,’” Jupp explained. “Get some high-profile names involved; let people have a little bit of fun with it and make people aware of the plight of the Sudanese people.” – Guardian uk
This past weekend was the 5th anniversary of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement which was meant to end the country’s civil war yet millions of Sudanese are still suffering
Support Beat for Peace by drumming to raise awareness for Sudan.
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Make-up artist Scott Barnes uses his Parsons education and artistic skills to paint face and make it look pretty. Celebrities love him. (He has worked with Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow among many). This month “About Face” will hit the shelves with 20 makeovers that should be used for “purpose instead of for vanity’s sake,” says Barnes.
The best part – every person he chose for the book has a foundation or is involved in a foundation. 4 of them are celebs, but the other 16 are just straight up amazing women, to name a few; Katherine Albrecht, a privacy expert and activist, and the actress Mariska Hargitay, who started the Joyful Heart Foundation, which supports survivors of sexual assault.
The book is dedicated to his younger brother John, who died of melanoma at age 30.
Now if only Esther would reveal her beauty secrets, then we could all meet our handsome Xerxes, become queens and prevent massacres. She makes it sound so easy.
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Daily Inspiration
Meet Charlie:
Q: What Inspires you?
A: In a general sense, I am inspired by greatness. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t.
When it comes to everyday inspiration, New York City does it for me. I like to walk around with my head up, looking at all of the buildings. Walking the streets of Manhattan allows me to think of the past, of all the great people who have made themselves in this city. As much as I don’t like that new Jay-Z song, I can’t help but agree with the chorus. The Frank Sinatra song also inspires me when I hear it.
I think that the relationship between great people and great cities is kind of a chicken and egg scenario. Obviously, if you go back far enough there will be the definitive answer of “great people,” but in modern times, I think that great cities have helped nurture great people to a similar extent that great people have nurtured great cities. And none is greater than New York.
Q: What am I grateful for?
A: I think there is a fine line between sounding like a snob and sounding humbly grateful. Unfortunately I haven’t mastered this distinction, so I won’t run the risk of sounding snobbish. But I would like to say that I am grateful.
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The next time I even consider uttering the words “I’m too tired” in reference to my post work yoga or capoeira class, I will think again. And while I’m thinking, I will be remembering these two folk. Ilse Telesmanich, a 90 year old woman found hiking in South Africa last August and Tom Lackey, 89 who recently took up wind-walking. Whaaaaat?
New York Times reveals,
“Last summer, he strapped his feet to the top of a single-engine biplane, like the daredevils of aviation’s early days, and flew across the English Channel at 160 miles per hour — with nothing between him and the wild blue yonder but goggles and layers of clothing to fight the wind-chill. “My family thinks I’m mad,” Mr. Lackey said in a telephone interview discussing the flight — his 20th wing-walk. “I probably am.”
What a beautiful thing. Having to say goodbye to your wife of a million years, one might be drawn to shrivel up into a sad vegetable, but no, kudos to these elders who put themselves out there in the world to fulfill their deepest desires, understanding old age is simply another stage of exploration.
Apparently Ilse and Tom are not the only ones who have the adventure spirit. According to Grand Circle Corporation, a Boston-based company that specializes in older travelers, adventure tours have gone from 16 percent in 2001 to 50 percent for this year, even as the average traveler’s age has risen to 68 from 62. Thanks to cell phones, GPS and other modern forms of technology, perhaps grandma feels like she can let her hair down, now knowing she won’t be stranded in the ocean!
Cheers to the organizations that take 70 and up on outward bound type vaca’s, I would just triple check ya got supreme insurance.
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