Sunday, January 23, 2011 Jogging for a Smile  Lots of people jog for exercise. And as long as you're going for a run, why not run an errand for someone who needs the help at the same time? That's the idea behind The Good Gym, an organization that matches runners with elderly and less mobile people in their neighborhood who need groceries, errands, or just some friendly human connection. On top of runner's high, The Good Gym volunteers finish their runs with the extra boost of making someone smile. Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, January 22, 2011 Pilot Holds Plane for a Dying Child  Time was running out, and Mark Dickinson wasn't sure whether he'd get to see his dying 2-year-old grandson one last time. A long line in security had kept him from getting to his gate on time. In a desperate last attempt, Dickinson's wife called the airline to ask them to hold the plane for him. That's when the pilot stepped up and held the flight at the gate until Dickinson arrived, running in socks, so rushed that he just grabbed his shoes at security and ran through the terminal. While most airlines punish any staff member who holds up a flight, this remarkable display of empathy and discernment had this one celebrating. Read More >>
back to top Friday, January 21, 2011 The Wisdom of Old Ted  "I placed Ted's ashes in the ocean and watched as they made a rainbow before dissolving into the sea." So begins the story of an unlikely friendship between Jimpa, a monk, and Ted, a hobo in his 80s who lives in freedom and dignity in a homeless camp. The friendship started when Ted saw Jimpa and said: "I'm hungry can you feed me?" It was to become a sweet refrain from a dear friend. Jimpa fed Ted, and listened to him tell stories of his life. When Ted died, Jimpa's name and phone number were on a piece of paper in his pocket. The last chapter was to become as simple and meaningful as the first. Read More >>
back to top Thursday, January 20, 2011 Kitchen Teachings: An Interview with Cherri Farrell  Cherri Farrell teaches Consumer and Family Science, a subject that used to be called Home Economics. Talking with Farrell, it's as if a window opens into the hidden worlds that exist in between the requirements of standard curricula, and to how important these hidden realms really are. These insights come out in her stories, "One time I had a child from Afghanistan whose parents were killed. He came to America and lived with his extended family. I found a student for him to talk with, too. I'd bring him to my computer and we would look up holy spots, mosques. He showed me all these beautiful places in his country and we'd just talk. And I had another child who came from Mongolia. We would talk about Mongolia and what it was like. He came from a very prominent Tibetan Buddhist family. In the summer he lived in the old way- in yurts in the middle of the Steppe. He rode horseback and used a bow and arrow just like Genghis Khan! Today, he's in a pre-med program." Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, January 19, 2011 Out of Ice, Comes Music  Terje Isungset is a composer and percussionist who crafts stunning pieces of music from ice. "It is very inspiring to be able to make music out of the world's most important resource: water. Pure, clean water from a lake or river. I seek for new sounds in music, new colors; I try to find a new flower somehow - and to me the ice opens up a new landscape. A landscape of beauty and silence," he remarks. Among his inventions are instruments like the ice horn and iceophone! Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, January 18, 2011 Dance Class Helps Parkinson's Patients  An unusual dance class takes place in Kirkland: one taught by professional dancers and offered free of charge for people with Parkinson's disease and their caregivers. It's one of a small but growing number of such classes worldwide. At this dance class, the students walk in slowly, some rigidly or with a bit of a tremor. They take their places, not at a ballet barre or on the dance floor, but sitting in chairs. As the live music starts, they flutter their fingers like hummingbird wings, point their toes along the ground. Limbs loosen and start to flow. And perhaps something even more important happens: Smiles emerge and laughter erupts. Read More >>
back to top Monday, January 17, 2011 Lessons From Caring For Strangers  In 1973, Charles Garfield discovered a lost civilization in San Francisco: the occupants of cancer wards in hospitals, hordes of anxious people facing a limited life span, whose social and psychological needs were going unmet by their well-meaning, but largely ignorant caregivers. Turning to volunteers, Garfield trained over 15,000 to provide sophisticated emotional support to the seriously and terminally ill. Read More >>
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Human behaviors are often explained as hard-wired evolutionary leftovers of life on the savannah or during the Stone Age. But a study of one very modern behavior, fairness toward total strangers one will never meet again, suggests it evolved recently, and is rooted in culture rather than biology. In a series of behavioral tests given to 2,100 people in societies around the world (from hunter-gatherers to wage laborers), an innate sense of fairness dovetailed with participation in markets and major religions. "You can't get the effects we're seeing from genes," notes evolutionary psychologist Joe Henrich. "These are things you learn as a consequence of growing up in a particular place." [ 
Texas home builder Dan Phillips transforms trash into artful treasures, creating intricate floor mosaics with wood scraps, kitchen counters from ivory-colored bones and roofs out of license plates. The fantastical houses which spring from his imagination cost as little as $10,000 and are made almost entirely with materials which would otherwise have ended up in a garbage dump. [ 
About two years ago, LuAnn Kessi started a group called Living Well with Cancer and Healing Through Quilting. The Harlan resident has three aunts who are cancer survivors, and all had been making things to sell to raise money for cancer research. But she felt moved to do more. "You knew that you were doing something good, but we just wanted to help in a more personal way," she said. So she decided to start a quilting class for those who have cancer. It quickly took off, already making over 100 quilts. But exhibitions aren't what it's all about. "Most of the time, we're just in love with whatever we're teaching," explains one instructor. That spills over to the students, and then the curious customers in the front store who hear the laugher. [ 
In an under-construction school building in India's Bihar village, children are learning algebra, chemistry, Newton's laws of motion. There's no teacher in the classroom, no blackboard. The teacher is hundreds of miles away, and he is teaching via Skype. In this very unsual school, teachers mark their attendance using a biometric fingerprinter, and students log their attendance in a computer. The school is even more unusual because Chamanpura has no electricity yet! [ 
Toby Orb is a researcher at Oxford University who lives off little more than 300 pounds a month. Yet he's inspiring a movement of charity-giving that's even more impressive than Zuckerberg, Gates, and Buffett. In the past year, Ord has given more than a third of his earnings to charities working in the poorest countries. Why? For Ord, the question is: why not? "If you only have a certain amount of money then the real question is how much you can do with it... I realised that by donating a large part of my future income to the most efficient charities, I really could save thousands of people's lives." [ 
In the age of multi-tasking, constant communication, and overwhelming stimuli, studies show that a 20 minute walk helps refocus our minds and revive our spirits. Researchers explain, "Nature engages your attention in relaxed fashion- leaves rustling, patterns of clouds, sunsets, a bird, the shape of an old tree. It captures our attention in subtle, bottom-up ways and allows our top-down attention abilities a chance to regenerate. Attention, therefore, is "restored" by exposure to natural environments. [ 
