Creative potential abounds, even in the most unlikely situations. One would think a boy with a terminal illness would not have the energy, let alone the know-how, to produce such sophisticated and impressive artwork. It reminds us: we are all creative. Convince yourself otherwise and you won’t produce. Allow your inner child to express and you may have the next Picasso:

A terminally ill boy who was not expected to live past six-months-old, has stunned doctors by surviving and holding his own art exhibition.

Leo Haines, aged five, was born with cerebral palsy and a terminal condition affecting his lungs and heart.

Doctors told his mother Marianna Haines, 26, that little Leo would die in his first year. But his fighting spirit saw him through and after spending his first brithday in hospital, Leo was able to move home.

The talented young artist, from Taunton Somerset, England, began painting alongside his grandmother Marianna Thomas, who quickly recognised his talent.

Leo now has 40 unique works, reminiscent of the American abstract artist Jackson Pollock, featuring in their very own art exhibition where they are being sold for charity.

His grandfather, Brian Thomas, 59, said: ‘My wife, his grandmother, is a well-known local artist and it started with Leo joining in, basically uninvited, into her work.

‘So she used to get him a canvas and set him up with paints on the floor and it just went from there.

Artistic Leo, pictured here aged 3, is able to concentrate on his work for over an hour at a time

‘It began by getting him to recognise different colours and mixtures and shapes. Now it is his favourite pastime.

‘I suppose you’d call them impressionism - they’re definitely inspired by his choice of colours, and I think he’s got a very good choice in colours.

‘And they’re really quite good. The first day of the exhibition a man came in and got halfway down the wall and turned to me and asked, ‘Are you Leo?’ - quite seriously.

‘He thought they’d been painted by an adult, and I pointed him to the other wall which tells Leo’s story. He immediately bought a painting. We’ve got about 40 in the exhibition, and they represent two years of Leo’s work.’

Leo was born with cerebral palsy and terminal pulmonary vein stenosis, a condition that means the veins running from his heart to his lungs will become eventually blocked, killing him.

Doctors told his mother, a care assistant from Taunton, Somerset, he was unlikely to survive past six months old, and in the first year of his life Leo’s family was told nine times to prepare for the worst.

But Leo, who suffers from intermittent deafness, battled through and eventually moved home, where he developed a fascination for art as part of therapy to help him communicate.

Now he creates dazzling abstract works full of feeling with sweeping colours on black backgrounds.

Leo’s grandfather, a retired electronics and communications worker, added: ‘Amongst his biggest problems is the ability to communicate because he has cerebral palsy.

Little Leo’s work has been likened to Jackson Pollock’s paintings such as ‘Number 17, 1949′ pictured

‘One of the ways we actually got him to communicate is through activities - painting is one of those things that he can do.

‘My wife’s taught him a sort-of no boundaries approach. It has been great for Leo - it’s got him communicating. He has at least three sessions a week, and in the winter four or five.

‘Some children of his age would not concentrate for more than 15 minutes, but he loves painting so much he can be absorbed for an hour and a half.’

Source: Daily Mail UK

She may look like a puppet to you, but to baby owls, she looks just like mom.

Animal rescue workers at Hampshire, England’s Hawk Conservancy Trust came up with a novel and wonderful use for an owl hand puppet that had nothing to do with children: feeding orphaned owl chicks.

Two chicks and one egg were brought to the center recently, after their nest was inadvertently damaged by farmers. The egg hatched within days of arrival, and the three tawny owls were named Brownie, Woody, and Ivy. The tiny birds were all healthy—but the rescue center wouldn’t be able to release them into the wild if they fed them by hand.

“Owls imprint whatever they first see, this means if they see a human feeding them they will trust humans from that moment on,” Gale Gould of the Hawk Conservancy Trust told The Daily Mail. “These little owls are wild and we want them to remain wild - that’s why we created Super Mum.”

“Super Mum” is the Center’s name for their handmade owl puppet, which Center workers and volunteers use to feed the three baby birds. Super Mum has a pair of tweezers that sticks out of her nose, and the baby birds’ food is placed in the tweezers. For the babies, it’s very similar to how they would take food directly from the mother’s beak in the wild.

The babies will need to continue eating from the hand puppet for the next two months, but after that, they’ll be free to fly off and build their own nests, thanks to Super Mum and her friends.

Source: Gimundo

Leave it to Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson to think out of the box with this one!

Former Velvet Underground frontman, Lou Reed, and his wife, performance artist Laurie Anderson, are curating a music and arts festival called Vivid Live at Australia’s Sydney Opera House this month—and one of their events promises to be a barking good time.

On June 5th at 10 AM, four-legged visitors will be welcomed to the Opera House Forecourt (along with their human companions) for the first event of its kind in the world: a concert only for dogs.

Laurie Anderson has created a performance piece consisting of tones so high that we humans won’t be able to hear them, but our canine friends are sure to enjoy the sound. “Our canine friends will be treated to a glorious cacophony of sound, while all we will hear is the lapping of the water on the harbor,” says the Vivid Live website.

Actually, we’ve got a feeling that the human audience members may well be treated to the sound of a few hundred dogs barking in unison—but maybe that’s just part of the music, too.

Live Down Under and want to see the show with your favorite pooch? Check out the details on the website.

Source: Gimundo

This story is a great example of people making the most of out of difficult economic times as well maximizing space in a trying real estate market. What can you do to make the best of a limiting situation in your life? How can you think outside of the box and optimize your space better?

They spent a lot more than a penny doing it up, but turning the public toilets into a home was a true labor of love.

For nearly a century the Victorian WC was used as a loo by visitors to the beach at Scarborough.

Now the distinctive building has been transformed by Tracy Woodhouse and her partner Graham Peck into a cosy house, with magnificent views overlooking the North Sea.

Now named Lookout, the single story building, built into the cliff overlooking the resort’s famous North Bay, is widely admired by local residents who have witnessed its reincarnation.

Miss Woodhouse, 45, said: “Some people joke about it. At work they’ll say things like, “Oh yes, you’re the couple who live in a lavatory.”

“But we now have a lovely little house with a sea view that used to be a loo. We understand the amusement it causes. It tickles us, too.”

The public loo, which became an ammunition store during the war, was closed down in the 1990s and for a few years became a seasonal cafe.

When the lease became available five years ago, the couple, both factory workers, decided it would make a perfect home. A local architect produced plans which maintained the character and style of the building and the council backed the scheme.

The Lookout has stunning views out over the North Bay in Scarborough

Boarded up: The delapidated public toilet before being bought and converted

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1271229/Scarborough-couple-convert-15k-public-toilet-seaside-home.html#ixzz0nXoSY4Rs

We all feel for the horrible natural disaster continuing to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s hard to remain positive when so much damage is being done. A sense of powerlessness can take over. But for some, innovative solutions to difficult problems are what they do best.

Take this next story:

By Katherine Gustafson for Tonic.com

As our newest oil spill seeps toward the Louisiana coast, it’s natural to wonder whether there are any out-of-the-box ways to clean up the mess. Is rubbing animals with dish detergent the best we can do?

Looking to the Philippines, we found our answer: human hair. In 2006, the country’s worst-ever oil spill prompted an unusual program in the country’s prisons. Thousands of Philippine inmates had their heads and chests harvested for hair to be used in the clean-up effort. The hair was combined with feathers to create a spongy material that would soak up the more than 50,000 gallons of industrial fuel that had leaked from a sunken tanker off the central island of Guimaras.

The method was also used in San Francisco, when hair mats were employed to clean up the Cosco Busan spill of 2007, which resulted when a cargo ship hit the base of the Bay Bridge and let loose some 58,000 gallons of oil. Lisa Gautier, director of a nonprofit called Matter of Trust, donated 1,000 “oil spill hair mats” she had made for the San Francisco Department of the Environment to absorb motor oil spills.

Once the hair mats, which are size of doormats and feel like Brillo pads, had absorbed all the oil they could, oyster mushrooms were cultivated on the mats to absorb the oil and turn the oily hair into nontoxic compost within 12 weeks, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Mycologist and author Paul Stamets donated $10,000 worth of oyster mushrooms to the cause.

So could hair and mushrooms work in the gulf? Yes, indeed. Lisa Gautier is at it again and wants your hair to the help with the clean-up effort. Find out how to donate your excess locks here.

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

Hannah Mitchell is 8 years old and blogging about her first Olympic games. What makes this blog so special? Seeing something as colossal as the Olympics and the beautiful city of Vancouver from a child’s point of view is refreshing and fun. It removes all the hype and gives you the child-like essentials, such as:

Then, we were walking back to the hotel when we saw six guys with suits standing outside a building. A limo pulled up and a man walked out, surrounded by the six guys in suits. We didn’t know who he was, but we asked a person next to us and she said it was the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. We looked his picture up on the Internet at the hotel, and it was really him.

Check out her blog when you get a chance. Get a child’s eye view of the Olympics and Vancouver!

We’ve told you about the Songs of Love Foundation in previous posts but since their good work doesn’t stop, we have more to tell you. This week’s story is about rock musician Jason Mraz contributing to the cause for 13 year-old Christian Burn.

According to Good News Now:

Christian is battling Ewing’s sarcoma, a type of bone cancer, and Mraz recorded the song for the Songs of Love Foundation, which provides personalized songs to young people with serious illnesses. The organization draws on the talents of 350 professional lyricists, instrumentalists and vocalists.

Songs of Love was founded in New York by John Beltzer after his brother Julio, the lead singer in his band, took his own life. Shortly before dying, he had recorded a composition called “Songs of Love,” which inspired Beltzer to start his nonprofit.

Their first song was recorded for a 5-year-old cancer patient named Brittany in Memphis, Tenn. Mraz became involved with Songs of Love through a friend of his, Michael Natter, who also co-wrote the song with his wife, Nancy. Natter approached him about recording the landmark 20,000th song in the organization’s 14-year history.

Here’s the song and video. Beautiful!

Christian Burn

Did you ever feel stranded, left out at sea, with little to no hope in the word? We’ve all had our moments. But sometimes, an outside force comes in and saves the day:

THE luckiest dog alive has been rescued from an iceberg floating 32km from land in the Baltic Sea.

Sailors plucked the animal to safety after it got trapped on ice on Poland’s Vistula river and drifted for more than 122km, the Daily Mail reports.

Rescuer Adam Buczynski said: “He didn’t even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes.”

It’s thought Baltic’s problems began when he got trapped on ice on the Vistula River near Torun on Friday.

A day later he was spotted in Grudziadz, 64km upstream, where fireman tried to reach the German shepherd-type mongrel.

But thick ice made it too risky to launch a rescue craft despite Baltic floating just a few yards from the river bank.

Another bid to save the stranded mutt was made at Kwidzyn, 22 miles further on towards Poland’s coast.

After sightings dried up it was assumed the dog had perished.

But incredibly Baltic had traveled a further 35km to the river mouth before heading out to the ocean where finally his luck turned when scientists on a research boat spotted something odd moving amid the broken ice.

Natalia Drgas, of the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, said: “One of the sailors thought they had seen another seal but then he noticed it had legs, ears and a tail.”

However the men onboard the Baltica soon found saving the stranded dog was by no means plain sailing.

First they tried to catch the dog in a net on a pole but when that failed they had to drop a pontoon with crewmen.

Seaman Adam Buczynski said: “We tried to sail as close as possible but as we approached the boat pushed the ice and the dog was sliding off.

“The dog didn’t even yelp but you could see the fear in his eyes.”

With darkness falling and time running out Baltic was finally hauled on board in sub zero temperatures late on Monday.

Captain Jan Jachim said if his ship had passed that way a few moments later the dog would never have been spotted amid the gloom.

He said: “We were just at the right place at the right time.”

And he added that few boats chart those waters at that time of year.

“Baltic was drifting with the current further and further out to the open sea. He would have gone further if we hadn’t seen him.”

But Captain Jachim may not have seen the last of the Baltic, the salty seadog. If no-one claims him, the lucky hound will be adopted as the ship’s mascot.

Source: Herald Sun (watch incredible video here)

Today, we take a moment to celebrate The Onion.

The Onion is a satirical newspaper that has been making fun of the “real” news for years now. Poking fun of our current events allows us to take a step back and laugh - to not take it all too seriously. Laughter, of course, is the greatest medicine.

The staff consists of some ridiculously smart and daring writers who pride themselves in producing “faux news” and clever headlines.

Some of their headlines include:

Man With Apple Hovering In Front Of Face Sues René Magritte’s Estate

New VH1 Show Cancelled For Not Being Pathetic Enough

Woman Profoundly Moved By Lyrics Artist Put Zero Time Or Effort Into

Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

‘I Am Under 18′ Button Clicked For First Time In History Of Internet

Powerful ‘His And Hers’ Towel Lobby Stalls Gay Marriage Legislation

MTV Movie Awards Snubs Director Jonas Mekas Yet Again

Commas, Turning Up, Everywhere

Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequences

History Doomed To Repeat Itself, Reports Man Who Just Dropped Food On Pants

Hashing out headlines at The Onion: From left, Will Tracy, Dave Kornfeld and Todd Hanson.

Photo Source: NY Times (plus great article on their process)