A long winter's nap...

As I type, the weather outside my window is disgusting. There is no other word for it. The somewhat-delightful snow of this morning has morphed into a cold, pelting sleety rain that pings off the AC unit which still droops from my office window. The sneaky wind has found it's way through the outer walls to breach my office and leave me with cold feet and fingertips.

Which is why I chose today's stories to bring a (very) brief glimpse of the light at the end of the winter tunnel - spring. It seems in this unforgiving season, scientists around the world have been discovering members of the animal kingdom which were long thought to be extinct. Most are still considered very endangered, but the fact they still exist at all is a point of celebration.

MSNBC.com seems to have collected a few of these stories. The site has a distinct article on the discovery of a rare giant turtle in Vietnam which narrowly avoided becoming soup. Long prized as an ingredient, Swinhoe's soft-shell is on the brink of extinction in the wild. However, one was spotted in a lake in northern Vietnam. A fisherman had caught it, but researchers convinced the man to eschew the large prices dangled by restaurateurs and instead, return the animal to his home.

MSNBC's John Roach also did a slideshow on eight other species which were considered extinct until recently - the Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frog, the Banggai crow, the Pyant Cheezar turtle, pygmy tarsiers, Beck's petrel, Armoured Mistfrogs, the long-billed reed warbler, and the ivory-billed woodpecker. Some of them have not been seen since the turn of the 20th century, and their reappearance has caused all sorts of excitement in the scientific and environmental communities.

(Image courtesy of MSNBC.com)

Alternative medicine...

There's so much debate swirling on the national and state levels about health care. Should it be universal or is that one step down the slippery slope of socialism? What programs are "valuable enough" to survive massive budget cuts?

Since starting in my current field, I've become aware of so many programs available to patients beyond the usual check ups and eye exams. Medicine's pendulum has swung from superstition to hard science, but now it seems to have settled or is approaching settling somewhere in the middle. Not that I want to go back to leeches and animal sacrifice, but I do see the value in treating the spirit as well as the body.

The New York Times profiled an art therapy program called Project Moving On, run by the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service, for mentally ill patients. People with chronic mental illness are either referred by the Brooklyn Mental Health Court or by physicians and hospitals gather daily to draw, paint, sew, and crochet. The skills needed for these tasks - beyond talent - help people focus and deal with the issues that come with their illnesses.

In my hospital system we use both art therapy and animal-assisted therapy in our treatment programs. In our case, the animals help people with emotional issues, but Frankie Two-Paws has made an impact on people with physical challenges. The disabled cavalier spaniel has limited usage of his back legs after being rescued from a puppy mill, according to The Beacon News. He now races around in his doggie wheelchair at the Rush-Copley Medical Center, inspiring the physical therapy patients there.

The New Haven Register reported on a local artist who volunteers at Yale-New Haven Hospital painting watercolors on demand for patients in the outpatient oncology unit. Dennis Gentle, an 80-something Renaissance man, visits with the patients as they receive treatment and paints scenes as per their requests. He does have a list of things he won't paint, but patients and their families treasure these little works of art. Some people use the scenes he creates as their own happy places, places to go to during the draining treatment.

(Photo courtesy of The Beacon News)

A solemn anniversary...

Today is the 68th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor - Dec. 7, 1941. In itself that is certainly not good news. And none of my articles for today are strictly good news. But I think it's important to remember the day and all the good that came from it. Hundreds of thousands of men and women banded together to fight an evil threatening the world. And they did it.

Kinda gives you hope, no?

I found the excerpted part of this on the Boston Globe website, but MSNBC had the full story on Ed Johann, an 86 year-old Pearl Harbor survivor who is returning to the base for the first time since the attacks. Johann enlisted as a teenager to ease the burden on his family and found himself in the middle of the firefight when the Japanese attacked. The sailor ferried injured men from the burning and sinking ships without regard to his own safety. Later he returned for the dead. After the war, he returned to the mainland and became a firefighter because he "wanted to help people."

I imagine few of the men Ed Johann steered to safety came from the USS Arizona. Two direct hits by the Japanese sank the ship and entombed 1100 men. Those men may be gone, but they are not forgotten. The US government allocated $58 million to build a memorial to them and all the rest of the heroes that day. USAToday posted a story today on the vivid memories World War II veterans still carry from that Hawaiian morning. The story also details what the new memorial will look like.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution had a story on a local Marine's memory of Pearl Harbor. Mack Abbott was supposed to learn how to fly that morning, but instead, he spent it shooting at the enemies' planes. Some flew so low over the base, Abbott could see directly into the cockpits. The AJC's story goes on to tell about Abbott's post-war life and family.

A lot of "The Greatest Generation" have refused to talk about their efforts in the war, preferring to forget the horrors or were uncomfortable "promoting" themselves. Unfortunately that has led to members of several generations not having a connection to an important piece of history. I'm one of them. My grandfather fought in the South Pacific, but I know next to nothing about it because he never spoke of it. Even when directly questioned, he gave as little information as possible and changed the subject. That's why I feel it is important to put these stories on my blog; you don't ever want to forget.

Going (red) and green...

Most of the green you will see this month belongs to wreaths, fir trees and the money spent in pursuit of this year's It gift. The trees are bare, grass soon will be covered by snow, and the flowers are asleep until April. But on Monday, all environmental eyes will be on Copenhagen, Denmark, as world leaders gather to debate what to do about our depletion of the planet.

Previous protocols and decrees have not worked, so once again presidents, prime ministers and other leader-type people will show up in Denmark to try again. ABC News in Australia posted an article on a new Google app that might help save the world instead of just shrinking it. Google Innovationist (cool job title, guy) Justin Baird has developed an international ballot box to let the people of the world have a say in the actions taken at the climate summit. Everyday people will be able to see maps of who is doing what in what country, and the votes will be aggregated to show the strength of public support for the initiatives.

If you can ignore the slightly militant tone to the following website, you can get a top 10 list meant to whet your appetite for learning more about those behind the move to stop climate change. It has been said that well-behaved women rarely change the world; whether any of the 10 women on the Pacific Free Press website are/were well-behaved is not for me to say, but they have done their share (and more) to save the planet.

A lot of focus these days in the media is on how everyone can do their part to be kind to the earth. The Christian Science Monitor "green" blog is giving an option for holiday decorating beyond the usual brightly lit reindeer and roof-top Santas. Apparently there are such things as solar-powered LED Christmas lights, which save electricity and the fossil fuels burned to produce it as well as money on your bill. If I had my own house, I'd look into it.

(Photo courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor)

A helping hand...

Walking an elderly person across the street. Picking up a classmate's dropped books. Walking a neighbor's dog when she's on vacation. These are simple kindnesses repeated daily the world over.

I suppose you could argue that kindness is a "nature vs. nurture" thing. Kind begets kind but then how do you explain a person who has been through hell and is still willing to stick out his or her neck for someone else?

In this argument, the New York Times has given the "nature" side a leg up. The Times reported on some studies produced recently which conclude people are "born to help." By studying children young enough to not yet be socialized to how you're "supposed to act," the biologists found babies are innately sociable and willing to help. Children will pick up dropped things and point to things adults pretend to have lost without the stimulation of a reward.

NBC San Diego posted a story illustrating that some adults have not lost that willingness to help a stranger. Virginia Saenz received a desperate voicemail after another woman dialed Saenz's number by mistake. Lucy Crutchfield left the message, telling her daughter she'd send grocery money but would have to miss a mortgage payment to do it. So Saenz called Crutchfield back and told her to pay the mortgage - Saenz would buy the groceries. She took her son along with her and bought a Thanksgiving dinner and enough groceries to last the daughter's family until the end of the month, which was the daughter's next payday. Special thanks to my friend Blair, who helped me find that story. : )

Doing the right thing on a person-to-person level sometimes gets less attention than helping out in the face of larger peril. Daily kindness is no less important, but stories of those who put themselves at risk to aid someone else can loom larger. This morning I got an email my from my old roommate Michelle, a forward telling a story about a woman named Irena Sendler. Being a bit of a cynic still - I'm working on it! - I went to Snopes.com to check on the story. The verdict there was: TRUE.

Called "the female Oskar Schindler," Sendler passed herself off as a nurse and went in and out of the ghetto, sneaking out nearly 2500 Polish Jews, mostly children. She smuggled them out in a tool box and burlap sacks. Sendler recruited 25 others - mostly women - to help her. Before joining an organized resistance, she saved around 500 people on her own. Sendler survived brutal beatings by the Nazis and prison when she was finally caught to help reunite the children she saved with any family left after the Holocaust.

This email reminded me of a story I saw a week or two ago about a British soldier who smuggled himself INTO Auschwitz. The BBC interviewed "Ginger," Denis Avey, who spoke of his actions over 55 years ago for the first time. Avey served in the British army during World War II and was captured by the Germans. His prison camp was attached to the death camp, and he arranged with Ernst Lobethall, a prisoner, to switch places twice. Avey wanted to witness the atrocities first-hand. Now 91 and living in Derbyshire, Avey didn't know Lobethall survived until the BBC recently reunited Avey and Lobethall's sister, Susana.

(Photo courtesy of the New York Times)

The final frontier(s)...

If I had my way, I would be a professional student. Regular careers do not much interest me, but finding out things I did not know before absolutely fascinates me. I'm talking "newborn first figuring out she has a hand" or "seven year-old at her first magic show" kind of hooked.

For most of history, people have had the same type of fascination with outer space. To this day, the idea there might be real little green men out there or that we could colonize the moon still holds people in thrall. But for astronaut Randolph Bresnik it was what was on earth that held his attention. On his first-ever space mission, Bresnik floated 220 miles above the earth as his daughter, Abigail Mae, made her first appearance on it. It is just the second time in NASA history an astronaut in space has welcomed a child to his family while in orbit, according to the Boston Globe.

After humans "conquered" space, we have turned our attention to the oceans. Now being called the "real" final frontier, divers/researchers/treasure-hunters/James Cameron have only just begun to plumb the depths of the sea. Just last night I was watching the tail end of a show on the History Channel about ancient cities found on the bottom of the ocean floor, complete with building remnants and cobblestones. MSNBC reported on the over 5500 new species found in the ocean recently. Long thought to be barren, the deep sea (depths of 3,280 feet) now appears to be teeming with creatures straight out of a Salvador Dali painting.

The United Nations women who have reached new frontiers through their own hard work. India has deployed an all-female police unit to serve with the UN security force in Liberia. There they teach the local women self-defense and computer skills. India is the first country to send such a unit to a UN peacekeeping mission.

The kid stays in the picture...

Happy December everyone! I'm excited because (for me) it's the official start to the "most wonderful time of the year." : ) I started my Advent calendar this morning, a common event except mine is filled with chocolate. Yum! Nothing like starting a cold day with a little square of milk chocolate embossed with a fun holiday image. Today was a train, in case anyone was wondering.

This is also the time of the year when a lot of photos are taken - holiday cards, the first snow, opening presents, and all other good kinds of things. I'm a big shutterbug; I love me some photos. For me, it's the feeling I get when I look at a picture and am transported back to how I felt in that moment.

Photos have been around since before the Civil War, but the kinds of images we have these days has changed. The YouTube video above is from a mid-1970s episode of "Sesame Street." Ernie was always my favorite, but Grover was a close second. Here he sings an "echo" song with the late, great Madeline Kahn.

The following photo essay from The New York Times isn't strictly "good news," but it allows locals and non-New Yorkers alike to connect with at least "One in 8 Million." The photos and the accompanying audio recorded by the photos' subject(s) examine a slice of a complete stranger's life, and there is something about the absolute honesty involved that's refreshing to me.

Finally, the Times published a story last week on the virtual opening of the Iraqi National Museum. Opened three times since the 2003 invasion, members of the public are still not allowed inside because of the security situation (or lack thereof). Google has partnered with the museum's directors to photograph the collections, and make the photos available for free, so the antiquities and treasures of one of the world's most ancient civilizations - considered to be the start of modern civilization - can be viewed and enjoyed by anyone with access to the Internet.