Last night, I had a dream of flying. Such magical dreams are these. You wake up, feeling slightly disappointed, as if your wings were clipped and reality has forced you back to earth. Here’s some quotes on flying to get your spirits soaring:

I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious.  And why shouldn’t it be? - it is the same the angels breathe.  ~Mark Twain, “Roughing It”

You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky.  ~Amelia Earhart

How strange is this combination of proximity and separation.  That ground - seconds away - thousands of miles away.  ~Charles A. Lindbergh

There is an art, or rather a knack to flying.  The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.  ~Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

There are only two emotions in a plane:  boredom and terror.  ~Orson Welles

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society.  The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.  ~Gil Stern

Flight is the only truly new sensation than men have achieved in modern history.  ~James Dickey

O! for a horse with wings!  ~William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

The butterfly is a flying flower…  ~Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

More than anything else the sensation is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost, if you can conceive of such a combination.  ~Wilbur Wright

Here at Only Positive News, we’ve written about The Homeless World Cup in the past, one of our favorite organizations. The eighth annual Homeless World Cup, held this year in Rio de Janeiro from Sept. 19 to 26, uses soccer as a vehicle to help homeless people come together and make positive changes in their lives.

Russia is really cleaning up this year:

Team Russia have shown a 100 per cent result in their group at the Homeless World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, scoring 30 goals in four games.

Russia thrashed Switzerland 9-3 in their latest games, beating Greece (5-2), Lithuania (7-4) and the Czech Republic (9-4) in their previous clashes.

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“In Rio de Janeiro, the Russian national team starts every match with a strong winning attitude. There are different ways of people getting into distress, but the thing that unites everybody who came here is the desire not to be a loser,” Arkady Tyurin, Russian team’s leader, said.

Russia is known as a powerhouse of homeless football, having grabbed the World Championship title in 2006 and reaching the finals two years later.

The UEFA-backed tournament is aimed to represent a lifetime opportunity for homeless and excluded people from more than 60 nations from all around the globe.

According to the statistics, more than 70 per cent of the participants of previous homeless championships were subsequently able to normalize their social status, and one of the players – Bebe of Portugal – even signed a contract with Manchester United.

Source: RT

In addition, a Palestinian team is in attendance for the first time:

Palestinian refugees formed a national football team to attend Rio 2010 Homeless World Cup in Brazil for first time during 19 – 26 September as a civilian move, in a move Palestinian youth tries to defy the walls surrounding them in both, homeland and refugee camps abroad.

Organised by the Palestinian Sport Office in Lebanon, The Palestine Homeless World Cup team was selected on 25 August from homeless people living in the refugee camps of Lebanon, Homeless World Cup Foundation said on its website.

Palestine will stand proud with 64 nations, hosted by Brazil, from 2010 at Copacabana Beach, Rio, Brazil.

President, Palestinian Office for Youth and Sports in Lebanon, Mr. Mohammad Zaidani, said: “These Palestinian camps have suffered hunger, murder and aggression. Today sport is the only outlet for these youths who have experienced such loss.”

Source: World Bulletin News

I had a conversation with my friend yesterday. We were talking about an upcoming competition for women. She believed that women weren’t as competitive as men. I believe they’re often discouraged in sports, with not nearly the attention men receive. Then I read about these women today. Guess they’re skating through the glass ceiling!

Cammi Granato (first photo) and Angela James

TORONTO (AP) — The Hockey Hall of Fame is no longer just for male inductees.

Cammi Granato and Angela James changed that on Tuesday when they became the first women elected to be enshrined in Toronto. Along with former NHL All-Star Dino Ciccarelli, Granato and James will go in as part of the players category during an induction ceremony in November.

Longtime Red Wings executive Jimmy Devellano and the late Daryl (Doc) Seaman — a founding owner of the Calgary Flames — were elected as builders.

While women had always been eligible for induction, the Hall made it easier for them to be voted in when it established a women’s subcategory this year.

Up to four male players are eligible for induction annually, but only Ciccarelli was voted in Tuesday. Eric Lindros and Joe Nieuwendyk were potential contenders among NHL players in their first year of eligibility that didn’t receive enough support.

Women were given their own player category this year, and James and Granato filled the maximum of two female inductees per year.

“This is a day I never really thought would ever happen,” James said. “I’m really honored to represent the female hockey players from all over the world.”

Granato played on the U.S. women’s hockey team for 15 years and led the club to a gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Her brother, Tony, played and coached in the NHL.

“I dreamed of being in the NHL my entire life, and this certainly makes up for those dreams,” Granato said. “Being amongst the first women to play at college and later at the Olympics, it certainly was worthwhile being a hockey pioneer.”

This is an amazing story about a quick-thinking cop who saw an upcoming accident only milliseconds before it handed and did his best to protect a citizen.

Watching the video below, I hope we remember how important it is to be constantly aware of our surroundings (meaning, “get off your cell phone, stop texting, take off your ipod and be present!”)

Police officer John Lambert acted quickly and pushed Mariusz Trzeciak out of harm’s way when an out-of-control car came sliding towards them on the side of an icy highway. A dash-cam in Lambert’s car caught the entire incident on tape. Lambert is still in the hospital recovering and is expected to be back in good health after significant physical therapy.

Video of amazing rescue.

Police Lt. John Lambert

Here at Only Positive News, we’ve talked about forgiveness a lot - and it’s for a good reason. Many people get stuck in a state of anger and pain in their lives. It’s hard to see the positive when you feel mired in the negative.

These techniques are deceptively simple but I like them for just that reason. Sometimes forgiveness is simpler than we think. Or we forget that there are actually techniques that can help us move forward today.

1. Allow yourself to experience anger, but don’t hold onto it for months or years on end. When the anger starts to consume you, you’ve held onto it for too long.
2. Express your feelings in a positive way through writing a journal or talking to a professional, close friend or family member who can help you make sense of the situation.
3. Try to step into the shoes of those who hurt you in hopes you’ll see the situation from their perspective.
4. Write a letter about your feelings to the people who hurt you. Using “I feel” or “I felt” are productive ways to start sentences.
5. Most importantly, have patience with yourself: “Remember, forgiveness doesn’t have to happen in a day.”

Like the simple but effective yogic advice to “be kind, starting with yourself,” we can always benefit from being reminded of these basic, healthy premises.

Source: YourTango.com

Take a look at this fact:

Worldwide, women receive only about 5 percent of agriculture extension services and own about 2 percent of land worldwide.

An obvious discrepancy, this article proves that when female farmers are empowered, it benefits the community as a whole.

Although women farmers produce more than half of the food grown in the world-and roughly 1.6 billion women depend on agriculture for their livelihoods-they are often not able to benefit from general agriculture funding because of the institutional and cultural barriers they face-including lack of access to land, lack of access to credit, and lack of access to education. Worldwide, women receive only about 5 percent of agriculture extension services and own about 2 percent of land worldwide.

But research has shown that when women’s incomes are improved, when they have better access to resources like education, infrastructure, credit, and health care, they tend to invest more in the nutrition, education, and health of their family, causing a ripple effect of benefits that can extend to the entire community.

In Kibera - sub-Saharan Africa’s largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where anywhere from 700,000 to a million people live - women farmers, with training and seeds provided by the French NGO Soladarites, are growing vegetable farms in sacks filled with dirt. More than 1,000 women are growing food in this way. During the food crisis in Kenya during 2007 and 2008, when conflict in Nairobi prevented food from coming into the area, most residents did not go hungry because there were so many of these ‘vertical farms.’

In Zambia, Veronica Sianchenga, a farmer living in Kabuyu Village, saw improvements in her family’s quality of life when she began irrigating her farm with the “Mosi-o-Tunya” (Pump that Thunders), a pressure pump that she purchased from International Development Enterprises (IDE). In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the task of gathering water - in the driest parts of the continent this can require up to eight hours of labor per day - usually falls to women.

Explaining that her children are eating healthier, with more vegetables in their diet, Mrs. Sianchenga adds that she is also enjoying increased independence. “Now we are not relying only on our husbands, because we are now able to do our own projects and to assist our husbands, to make our families look better, eat better, clothe better - even to have a house.”

In Rwanda, the Farmers of the Future Initiative (FOFI) helps to empower young girls and other students by integrating school gardens and agriculture training into primary school curriculums. More than 60 percent of students in Rwanda will return to rural areas to farm for a living after graduating, instead of going on to secondary school or university. While both young boys and girls benefit from the training, it is especially important for young girls to learn these skills, says Josephine Tuyishimire, so that they can avoid dependence on men for food and financial security. And so they can share what they learn.

Equality isn’t just a women’s issue, it’s a world issue.

Source: WorldChanging.com

Anne Frank continues to be an inspiration to all of us; a sign of hope even amidst the most horrible and frightening of circumstances. For Anne, the tree outside of her window was a sign of hope; a tree that still remains:

“From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind,” she wrote on February 23, 1944. “As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be.”

The tree that reminded Frank of the promise of life still looms high above the courtyard behind the Anne Frank House, now a museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, that just marked its 50th anniversary. But at about 170 years of age, Anne Frank’s tree is dying.

The spring before her family and the others hiding with them were captured, the girl focused on the tree’s budding life — and her own.

“Our chestnut tree is already quite greenish and you can even see little blooms here and there,” she wrote on April 18, 1944. Two days earlier, she’d recorded her first kiss.

Frank died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen just weeks before the Nazi concentration camp was liberated in 1945. But her name, story and message live on through her diary and, also, through her ailing tree.

The tree that keeps giving

The tree has been sick for 10 years; a fungus has left two-thirds of it hollow, said Anne Frank House spokeswoman Annemarie Bekker.

A battle began in late 2007 between city officials who wanted to chop it down and activists who insisted it stay. But a court injunction, a second-opinion analysis and a committee mobilization later, it still stands, barely alive and supported by steel.

About five years ago, the museum began collecting chestnuts from the tree to grow seedlings, so that pieces of the original tree could take root and flourish elsewhere. The tree is a horse chestnut, which is often called a buckeye tree in the United States and a conker tree in the United Kingdom.

Its saplings have been distributed to international parks and schools named for Anne Frank. One will be planted later this year at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Through a project and contest launched last year by the Anne Frank Center USA, a New York-based educational nonprofit working with the museum in Amsterdam, 11 sites in the United States will see Frank’s tree blossom. They range from the White House and various museums and memorials to a high school that changed U.S. history.

A handful of winning applications were driven by youth inspired by Frank, who would be 80 if she’d survived, and her diary.

One girl in Boston, Massachusetts,12-year-old Aliyah Finkel, felt an immediate connection to the writer, so much so that she chose to have her bat mitzvah — the coming of age ceremony for Jewish girls — in the synagogue Frank’s family attended in Amsterdam before they went into hiding.

“It wasn’t just a diary written by some person, it was written by a 13-year-old girl,” Finkel said. “I was interested in the story of her life. She had so much hope. There are some parts [of the diary] that are really sad, but it’s more inspiring.”

With the help of her family, and contacts they have with local officials, Finkel’s inspired push will bring a tree to Boston Common and lessons about tolerance to the city’s public schools.

Source: CNN News

The instinct to survive is strong - even at a young age. This story is a truly amazing tale of how an infant managed to stay alive amidst a horrible ordeal:

On January 12th, when the earthquake struck Haiti,  Nadine Devilme saw her 2-month-old daughter Jenny Alexis collapse through the floor of the house while in her babysitter’s arms. Both the sitter and the baby were buried beneath the rubble, and there was no reason to believe that the fragile infant would have survived.

But five days later, rescue workers came across an astonishing sight beneath the debris: although Jenny’s babysitter had died, the baby was still clinging to life.

“She had a fracture to her skull, she had broken ribs, she had difficulty breathing,” Jenny’s doctor, Dr. Arthur Fournier, told The Times. “So the first miracle was that she had the heart, the courage, to survive by herself for five days.”

However, odds were slim that Jenny would survive if she stayed in Haiti, where many of the medical facilities had been damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. So Dr. Fournier fought through red tape to allow the injured baby to be airlifted to the US, where she would have the greatest level of care.

With medical attention, Jenny’s condition soon improved, but that wasn’t the end of the trouble: her parents were forced to take DNA tests to prove parenthood, but even after finding that they were a match, they were not permitted to come to the US because they didn’t have the necessary visas.

Finally, the State Department permitted an exception, and allowed Jenny’s parents to come to Florida for one year on humanitarian parole. Yesterday, they were overjoyed to finally hold their baby girl again, covering her in kisses.

“Everything that happened here was a miracle,” Jenny’s father said through a translator. “Jenny faced death and when we learnt Jenny was alive we were very happy and couldn’t stop crying. Every day after that, we have thanked God that she was alive.”

Source: Gimundo

"To me it was a total God thing," said Nelson

Sometimes Mother Nature intervenes. Whether it’s a storm that keeps you happily housebound or a walk in the woods that soothes your harried soul, nature can pop up and aid you in more ways then we probably even notice. In this case, she was more than noticeable!

Last Sunday, professional surfer Jodie Nelson took to the water for a grueling standup-paddle ride from Santa Catalina Island to Dana Point—a distance of almost 40 miles—as a fundraiser to fight breast cancer for the Keep A Breast Foundation. The nine-hour paddle was difficult, but during her journey, Nelson received moral support from a completely unexpected source: a 30-foot minke whale.

The whale, which Nelson nicknamed “Larry,” surfaced while she was fighting off exhaustion during her long trip. And he didn’t just pop his head up once—Larry obviously took a liking to Nelson and her 14-foot paddleboard, as he decided to splash and roll around her for a full two hours while she paddled. Providing endless entertainment, Nelson’s huge new friend made the journey go far more easily.

Although minke whales aren’t often spotted off the coast of Southern California, Nelson believes that Larry visited her for a reason. “We prayed at 4 that morning that God would reveal his beauty and creation and nature, and allow me to endure this long trek, so for me it’s not such a huge surprise that this happened,” she told Grind TV.

Breast cancer is a cause near and dear to Nelson’s heart, as both her mother and sister are survivors. Before Larry’s arrival, she’d been disappointed that she’d only managed to raise $6,000 for the Keep A Breast Foundation. Some of the celebrity endorsements she’d been counting on had fallen through, and she thought she would fall far short of her $100,000 goal.

But Nelson’s new whale friend could be all the star power she needs. “I thought, ‘I don’t need so-and-so,’” she. “Because I honestly feel like Larry is going to help us reach the $100,000 mark with our fundraising effort.”

Looks like she was right: as of today, Nelson’s donation page shows $100,333 in contributions. If you want to contribute even more to the cause, you can make a donation at FirstGiving. (Larry will thank you for it.)

Source: Gimundo

That’s right - after years of debating and in-house feuding, the United States of America has passed a healthcare reform:

The US House of Representatives has narrowly voted to pass a landmark healthcare reform bill at the heart of President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Under the legislation, health insurance will be extended to nearly all Americans, imposes new taxes on the wealthy and bars restrictive insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.

They represent the biggest change in the US healthcare system since the creation in the 1960s of Medicare, the government-run scheme for Americans aged 65 or over.

President Barack Obama:

“It’s a victory for the American people.”

Damn straight.

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and senior staff, react in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, as the House passes the health care reform bill, March 21, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Source: BBC News