“There’s concrete, concrete, everywhere. But if we look hard enough, there is vacant land we can farm.”

- Sigit Kusumawijaya, 30

Sigit possesses a quality we all need to embrace: the ability to look beyond our concrete jungles and find a place for change to take place:

Young Indonesians are breathing new life into their polluted concrete capital city with little more than buckets of soil and seeds.

A group of mostly young professionals, known as Gardening Indonesia, has joined the global urban farming movement, converting vacant patches of land between Jakarta’s skyscrapers into lush green vegetable gardens.

On a one-hectare (2.5-acre) lot between luxury homes in a north Jakarta suburb, Kusumawijaya and his fellow gardeners grow tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and chillies where an eyesore dumping ground once stood.

The group’s goals are to encourage a healthy population and a green city while saving money on grocery bills.

Source: AFP

What would you do if it started raining money? Make a mad dash for it or do what these Chargers fans did and help out? Great story on people coming together for the sake of one woman:

At a recent preseason football game between the San Diego Chargers and the San Diego 49ers, it began raining money.

The Chargers fans gathered in the stand where the dollar bills dropped were initially delighted with the surprising change in weather. But the money wasn’t theirs to keep: A waitress had tripped on a stair, and had dropped about $1,000 in bills of various sizes.

Fans who’d seen the waitress fall immediately began calling out to those in the lower seats to alert them to what had happened. “All my customers began screaming over the railing to the people below: ‘That’s the servers’ money,’ ” the server, Heather Allison, told Signs on San Diego.

Immediately, the crowd began working together to help Allison, collecting the stray dollar bills from the stands and passing it to a security guard. Within ten minutes, the guard returned the money to Allison. “It was all there,” she said.

Allison, a mother of four, even pocketed $170 in tip money.

She wasn’t surprised that the crowd had come together to help her out. “Chargers fans are amazing,” she said. “We’re like a family.”

Source: Gimundo

Pride goeth before a fall, it is often said. But sometimes pride is just the ticket to reminding you of your worth. What do the famous minds of our time and times of yore have to say on the topic?

A competitor will find a way to win. Competitors take bad breaks and use them to drive themselves just that much harder. Quitters take bad breaks and use them as reasons to give up. It’s all a matter of pride.
Nancy Lopez

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.
Horace

All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride.
W. Edwards Deming

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!”
John F. Kennedy

All the world wondered as they witnessed… a people lift themselves from humiliation to the greatest pride.
Corazon Aquino

Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
Mohandas Gandhi

At some point, the pride has to be a part of the whole day-to-day oeuvre. It’s part of who you are and doesn’t need to be discussed anymore.
Sandra Bernhard

Attacks of divine transports are of pride and I accept the part assigned.
Elizabeth Barton

Everyone I know has attention deficit, and they say it with great pride. It’s a bad time to be right.
Joni Mitchell
Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.
Joe Paterno

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.
William Butler Yeats

Elizabeth Barton

Fostering children can be a complicated and multi-layered process for both the child and the parents. Certain people make great foster parents and can instill in their child love, guidance and wisdom. But Thomas and Ann Rose have taken it a step further:

Thomas and Ann Rose had a huge reason to celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday. Thomas, who is in his 70s, and Ann, who is in her 80s, raised not only their own children years ago, but also were foster parents to over 71 children over the past 15 years, reported CNN. The couple is hoping to welcome their 72nd foster child soon.

Thomas and Ann Rose live in Allentown, Pennsylvania and are enjoying their senior years by helping raise not only young children, but babies as well. They reported to CNN reporter Fredricka Whitfield that the job is very “satisfying”.

The Rose’s told CNN that they only take up to 2 children at a time and that they “try to provide children with a loving environment and teach them to have fun and get a sense of humor and, if they’re old enough … some manners”.

Like the Rose’s, many families take in foster children for temporary periods of time and attempt to give these children, who for one reason or another have been taken from their homes and their biological families, love, care and understanding.

Source: Examiner.com

Crushes are fun. And for the most part, pretty harmless. They make you feel alive and giddy, put a spring in your step and probably make you look a little better. So crush away! Bathe in the glory of love lite!

Forget love - I’d rather fall in chocolate! - Sandra J. Dykes

I don’t think I’ve ever been in love, I’m sure I will be some day. I’ve had enormous crushes, although I’ve never been into the Brad Pitt thing.
Natalie Portman

I get crushes on directors because they are so brilliant.
Dorothy Malone

You get crushes on people. You have to see them every day in that week. They’re a fantastic person, and it could be a man or a woman.
Jennifer Saunders

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. - Rose Franken

It is astonishing how little one feels alone when one loves. - John Bulwer

It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone and a day to love someone - but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

If this is a crush, then I don’t know if I could take the real thing if it happens.

Love, and a cough, cannot be hid. - George Herbert

If you live on this planet, you pretty much see, hear and feel the effects of fossil fuel dependency on a daily basis.

But in Spain, they can celebrate a huge milestone, based on the power of the sun. Let’s hear it for alternative sources of energy. Let’s make the change now:

While Americans celebrated U.S. history on the Fourth of July yesterday, a company in Spain celebrated an historic moment for the solar industry: Torresol’s 19.9 megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power plant became the first ever to generate uninterrupted electricity for 24 hours straight.

The plant uses a Power Tower design which features a field of 2,650 mirrors that concentrate sunlight onto a boiler in a central receiver tower. The plant also utilizes molten salt as a heat transfer fluid that allows it to generate electricity when there’s no sunlight. Recharge News reported on the milestone:

After commissioning in May, the plant was finally ready to operate at full-blast in late June and benefited from a particularly sunny stretch of weather, according to Diego Ramirez, director of production at Torresol. “The high performance of the installations coincided with several days of excellent solar radiation, which made it possible for the hot-salt storage tank to reach full capacity,” Ramirez explains.

Torresol says that the plant will provide electricity for about 20 hours each day on average, with numerous days in the summer seeing 24 hours of supply. How does that compare with a similar-sized photovoltaic plant? The 21.2 MW Solarpark Calaveron in Spain generates about 40 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year. This smaller 19.9 MW power tower plant will generate about 110 GWh per year.

Yesterday’s news is a big milestone for Power Tower technology, which is still very nascent compared to the more mature parabolic troughs. There are only a few operating commercial-scale plants around the world, and Torresol’s is the only one with molten salt storage.

Stephen Lacey is a reporter with Climate Progress covering clean energy issues. He formerly worked as a producer/editor at RenewableEnergyWorld.com.

A first-class violin becomes an instrument of change and charity in this hopeful story.

A Stradivarius violin known as the “Lady Blunt” sold for a record price of nearly $16 million, an amount equivalent to four times the previous record selling price for one of the rare violins. And better still, all of the proceeds will be donated to aid Japan’s relief efforts from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The Nippon Music Foundation on Monday auctioned off the antique violin – one of some 600 string instruments made by the legendary Antonio Stradivari (1644 – 1737) that are still known to exist – to help raise funds for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that ripped through Japan’s Tohoku region on March 11. It is the first time the Tokyo-based nonprofit organization sold an instrument in its care.

“While this violin was very important to our collection, the needs of our fellow Japanese people after the March 11 tragedy have proven that we all need to help, in any way we can. The donation will be put to immediate use on the ground in Japan,” said Kazuko Shiomi, president of the foundation, in a released statement on Monday. The proceeds of the sale will be donated to the earthquake and tsunami relief fund established by its parent organization, the Nippon Foundation.

Source: Wall Street Journal

What an amazing story of a community realizing a need and then stepping up to the plate to meet it. Read more about how you can help (at bottom of piece.)

Inside Whitney Elementary School in East Las Vegas, nearly 85 percent of the children are homeless. That’s 518 kids out of 610.

Learn more about the Whitney Elementary School

Principal Sherrie Gahn says, “I thought that I saw the ultimate poverty when I got here eight years ago and every year it has gotten worse and the recession made it ten times worse.”

Gahn knew she had a problem that a traditional public school could not fix. “When I saw the children eating ketchup for lunch, and wanting to take it home,” she says, “it just crushed me.”

So Gahn came up with a plan involving the kids, their parents and the community.

“I told the parents that I would give them whatever they need,” Gahn says. “All I need them to do is give me their children and let me teach them. In turn I will give you food and clothes and we will take them to the eye doctor. I will pay your rent, pay your utilities, but keep your child here.”

The children get free clothes, free bread to bring home and even free haircuts. Almost all of it given by 500 donors and local businesses who drop off donations daily. Gahn creates a wish list, and her army of volunteers makes it happen.

The contributions are large and small. One woman in Philadelphia sends $20 per month. A gambler gives $2,000 monthly - a portion of his earnings. This is Vegas.

Las Vegas has long been the city of bright lights and broken dreams. But especially now - with 12.1 percent unemployment, and the highest foreclosure rate in the country. One in every nine households receives a foreclosure notice.

Like most of her classmates, Charlee lives in one of the many rundown crime-ridden motels in the shadow of the Vegas strip.

Her family lost its home to foreclosure three years ago. Her father Chad is a construction worker. He hasn’t had a fulltime job in two years.

“There is not a lot of people moving dirt right now in the Vegas valley,” Chad says. “That’s what I do. That’s what I love to do.

As for Charlee, she dreams of being an actress. Principal Gahn has a bold dream of her own.

“I tell every 5th grade class if you make it through junior high you make it through high school and you can’t afford to go to college come see me and I will make sure that you go to college,” Gahn says. “We have a small trust fund that we started.”

Gahn says the children are worth the big promise. She defines success as “The look in their face that I made their life better. That’s my success rate when they hug me and thank me for the food, the clothes. Then I know it’s a good day.”

Today is especially emotional for Gahn - it’s the last day of class. Many of these kids and their families will be on their own until September. So next fall, she hopes to open an after-school program. So Charlee and her classmates can have a safe haven when the school day’s done.

Homeless children of the recession one year later

60 Minutes: Homeless kids: the hard times generation

60 Minutes: Hard times generation: How you can help

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/09/eveningnews/main20070437.shtml#ixzz1Pp650Mff

When the Bronx Zoo’s Egyptian cobra went missing several weeks ago, all eyes were on them. Would they find this venomous snake? Was the snake going to be alright? Now that the snake is safe and sound, a naming contest is underway.

How is this positive news? Attention and love given to our wildlife is always cause for celebration!

A fake Twitter account named @BronxZoosCobra has attracted almost 240,000 followers as users became gripped at news of the snake’s fate.

The zoo, in collaboration with New York Daily News, has now launched a competition to find a name for the cobra now she has been found ‘alive and well’.

The competition is due to end later today and has already attracted over 25,000 entries. The winner and the snake’s new name are set to be announced on Thursday.

The venomous snake’s escape last month sparked a frantic search and rescue mission, with the Reptile House shut down as a precaution.

However, the drama ended only a few days later when she was found in a dark corner of the building, not far from her tank.

In Venomous Snakes of the World, Mark O’Shea writes that the reptile, which can grow to be eight feet long, lives in savanna and dry woodland to semi-desert, and eats mammals, birds, toads, and other snakes. Its venom is a postsynaptic neurotoxin.

The Egyptian cobra is the cobra of Cleopatra, the royal snake of the Pharaohs and a more likely instrument of her suicide than an ‘asp’, which would have caused a painful and unpleasant death. Egyptian cobras are large snakes that exhibit a fragmented distribution surrounding the Sahara with populations along the Mediterranean coast, across the Sahel south of the Sahara and throughout East Africa. The black Moroccan Atlas Mountains population is sometimes recognized as a separate subspecies, as is the southwest Arabian population. They can raise one-third of their length vertically, and spread a broad, rounded hood, with little provocation.

One snakebite victim relates his experience, in the book:

“I received a single fang snakebite from a medium sized Egyptian cobra and experienced the rapid onset of neurotoxic symptoms: ptosis (drooping eyelids), flaccid facial paralysis and breathing difficulties before I received antivenom. The effects were rapidly reversed by a combination of antivenom and neostigmine. I was discharged from the hospital the next day.”

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/859920-competition-launched-to-find-name-for-bronx-zoo-cobra#ixzz1IZMtyUec

There’s nothing positive about the disaster and aftermath that’s occurring in Japan. What can be positive is your contribution. Here are some ways to help, thanks to The Huffington Post:

How To Help Japan: Earthquake Relief Options

Visit Redcross.org or text REDCROSS to 90,999 to donate $10 from your phone.Save the Children has also responded. Eiichi Sadamatsu of the organization released a statement, saying:

“We are extremely concerned for the welfare of children and their families who have been affected by the disaster. We stand ready to meet the needs of children who are always the most vulnerable in a disaster.”

The organization is currently organizing efforts and donations to its Children’s Emergency Fund will support outreach.

UNICEF is also coordinating efforts to help the children of Japan. Use this form on UNICEF’s website to donate 100 percent of your desired amount to their fund designated for victims of the earthquake or text JAPAN to 864233 to donate $10.

Story continues below

International Medical Corps is responding to the health needs of the disaster’s victims. Nancy Aossey, President & CEO, International Medical Corps said in a statement:

“We are putting together relief teams, as well as supplies, and are in contact with partners in Japan and other affected countries to assess needs and coordinate our activities.”

To donate or learn about other ways you can contribute to its medical response, visit Internationalmedicalcorps.org. Also, text MED to 80888 from any mobile phone to give $10.

The Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund was launched at GlobalGiving.org to garner funds that will be given to a variety of relief organizations helping victims of the earthquake. It has already raised over $100,000, particularly from concerned Twitter users around the world. The project page explains:

We are working with International Medical Corps, Save the Children, and other organizations on the ground to provide support. Our partners on the ground are working hard to provide immediate relief.

Salvation Army personnel are organizing efforts in Tokyo and will soon send a team to help the severely damaged city of Sendai, Japan. To contribute to earthquake relief, text ‘JAPAN’ or ‘QUAKE’ to 80888 to make a $10 donation or visit SalvationArmyUSA.org.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is sending two three-person teams to the Iwate and Miyagi prefectures in Japan. To learn more about the organization’s efforts or make a donation, visit Doctorswithoutborders.org.

Other relief organizations are also sending representatives to disaster sites, including AmeriCare and Shelterbox.

MercyCorps is gathering donations for its overseas partner, Peace Winds Japan, which currently has personnel on the ground distributing emergency relief in Japan.

Along with an appeal for monetary donations, Operation USA has also announced efforts to collect bulk corporate donations of health care supplies. If you are interested in donating bulk medical items, visit OpUSA.org.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare will soon be deploying a team to assess needs regarding animal rescue. Dick Green, the organization’s emergency relief manager for disasters, wrote on IFAW’s blog:

“As we saw most recently in Haiti, major disasters require long-term planning and a concerted effort between NGO and governmental ranks to ensure that the greatest number of animals and humans benefit from the intervention.”

They are encouraging support through donations, which will be used to buy pet food, veterinary supplies, vaccines and other necessities for animals needing help.

For any who have loved ones abroad, Google has stepped up to help. Along with a tsunami alert posted on its front page, Google has launched the Person Finder: 2011 Japan Earthquake to help connect people that may have been displaced due to the disaster. Google has also launched a crisis response page filled with local resources and emergency information.

Judy Chang, head of PayPal’s nonprofit group, announced that transactional fees incurred by money transfers to US 501(c)(3) organizations (or charities registered with the Canada Revenue Agency) between March 11 and April 10 will aid relief efforts in Japan.

World Vision has announced global mobilization in response to tsunami warnings. Geoff Shepherd, the organization’s humanitarian and emergency affairs director for the Asia-Pacific region, released a statement on World Vision’s website, saying:

“We’ve also alerted our Global Rapid Response Team and have put team members on standby for possible deployment to affected areas. This could be a very serious disaster in multiple countries and our staff are prepared to respond.”