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)

It’s going to be the big word of 2010. Remember it, boys and girls. Because sustainability has never mattered more.

Here’s the definition. Read:

Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the capacity to endure. In ecology, the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. For humans it is the potential for long-term maintenance of well-being, which in turn depends on the well-being of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources.

Sustainability has become a wide-ranging term that can be applied to almost every facet of life on Earth, from a local to a global scale and over various time periods. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. Invisible chemical cycles redistribute water, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon through the world’s living and non-living systems, and have sustained life for millions of years.

As the earth’s human population has increased, natural ecosystems have declined and changes in the balance of natural cycles has had a negative impact on both humans and other living systems.

Music is powerful. We all know that. Even the most tone-deaf can be transcended by a beloved song. But did you know that music can literally transform your mind?

In an experiment comparing preschoolers who had taken music lessons to those who didn’t, researcher Laurel Trainor of the Institute for Music and the Mind at Ontario’s McMaster University discovered that the musically-trained kids had larger brain responses to certain sound recognition exams. Trainor’s findings reveal the possibility that musical education can actually modify the brain’s auditory cortex, leading to better overall learning skills.

The study’s results indicate that “musical training (but not necessarily passive listening to music) affects attention and memory, which provides a mechanism whereby musical training might lead to better learning across a number of domains,” Trainor said in a statement.

The effects of music education are even more pronounced in children with dyslexia and other language-related disabilities. “A music intervention that strengthens the basic auditory music perception skills of children with dyslexia may also remediate some of their language deficits,” said Gottfried Schlaug, who has also studied music education in relation to learning.

So, whether or not you can play a Tchaikovsky symphony part, it’s likely that your years of music lessons prepped your brain for all the presentations, emails and adult conversations that are part of your life today.

To help make sure that kids today have the same opportunities for music-inspired brain enhancement, help out by volunteering with or donating instruments to your school’s music education department, or contributing to a nationwide group like Little Kids Rock.

Source: Gimundo

This is an older positive news story but bears repeating:

The giant lobster caught 100 miles off the Massachusetts coast spent last month in the lobster tank at Angelica’s Restaurant in Bethlehem. He recently was returned to the water, just off the southern tip of West Island, five miles from New Bedford, Mass.

Fred Cunha, the restaurant owner, bought the 37-inch Monstro with his 15-inch-long claws from a New Bedford fishing boat in mid-October. Cunha estimates Monstro is 50 years old.

Fifteen-pound lobsters are rare anywhere, but especially in the North Country. Half the customers who weighed in on the subject wanted to eat Monstro; the other half felt sorry for him.

After persistent lobbying from diners and his 7-year-old daughter, Angelica, Cunha decided to raffle off Monstro, with the winner deciding whether to send him to the ocean or the cooking pot.

So Monstro lounged in the restaurant’s tank with Mr. Crabby, Angelica’s pet 2-pound lobster, feasting on minced crab and scallops. Cunha sold chances at $1 apiece until he reached Monstro’s retail price of $150.

“She was really worried,” Cunha said of his daughter. “She really wanted him to go free.”

Last Friday, Angelica drew the winning ticket. The winner, Claire Lupton of Whitefield, doesn’t eat lobster. She said a lobster that big and that old shouldn’t end up on a dinner plate.

The Monstro raffle was so successful that Cunha extended it to another lobster, a 9-pounder who’d joined Monstro in the tank a couple of weeks ago. That lobster was set free, too.

Source: MSNBC

Lobsters - born to be free, too!

Judith Lang takes her jewelry making very seriously. She uses found objects on the beach such as plastic and metals and creates amazing pieces of artwork from it. To her, its a small step in reversing the damaging effects we are having on our planet:

Judith Selby Lang is an artist who never pays for material for her jewelry or artwear. This bright plastic junk is forever washing up on shore at her beloved Kehoe Beach in Marin County.

“The environmental situation is so dire, the plastic pollution is enormous, it goes back to what can I do? As one individual, where can I begin?” said Judith.

One of Judith’s bracelets is made of discarded flip-flops. It’s all stuff we can relate to, like a bouquet of popped balloons still strung together, soon to be a necklace.

“I hope to engage people in the idea that they can take a bag to the beach and they can pick up some plastic and make stuff of their own and that’s a way we can get the beach clean also,” she said.

There are lots of disposable lighters out there and some may be about to light up someone’s wardrobe.

There is no sitting around waiting for these pieces to sell. At studios, like the Donna Seager Gallery in San Rafael, this artwear is on display and selling. A bracelet is made of milk carton pull tops now selling for $45. The plastic necklace worn by the gallery owner is $300.

“I think they get an especially big kick out of it because it looks good. I don’t think they would be so impressed if it didn’t, but it has both qualities,” said Donna Seager Liberatore.

And Judith is now adding a twist to her trash collecting, moving from the beach, to the high seas. She has received her first shipment from the North Pacific Gyre, a massive circulating pile of plastic trash out of both sides of Hawaii. She has big plans for a fishing line and may turn it into a necklace.

“Not only will it be a great reminder of what’s going on about ghost nets and the gyre, but I think it will also make a beautiful piece of work,” she said.

With many more loads from the gyre to follow, a world’s worth of trash is one woman’s treasures.

What can you do that matches this woman’s efforts? Can you turn a piece of trash into a treasure? Can you reuse something or repair something you were ready to discard? Can you visit a second-hand store for a “found treasure” instead of buying something new?

Remember, change starts with you.

Source: ABC7 (Take a look at the video for her amazing work.)

Some of us make the most of our time, no matter how limited. Such was the case of Elena Desserich, a little girl with a serious problem. When Elena was only five years old, she was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer.

“They told us at the very beginning that she had 135 days to live,” Elena’s father, Keith Desserich, told WLWT News.

Elena and her family made the most of that time. She spent the long days in the hospital working on her paintings, which were full of hearts, fairies, and smiling families. One of her artworks was displayed in a local gallery in Cincinnati, right next to a Picasso painting. As the tumor grew larger and she lost the use of her voice, she began to communicate with her family by writing notes.

Elena died in 2007, just nine months after her diagnosis, lying in bed beside her parents.

Even though they’d known Elena’s death was inevitable, her parents Keith and Brooke were devastated by the loss. But they soon discovered that she had left a gift behind for them.

Not long after her death, Elena’s parents were sorting through her things when they began to find notes that she had written to them. “They would be in between CDs or between books on our bookshelf,” said Keith.

All through her final days, Elena had been writing love notes to her family, and hiding them in secret places throughout the house.

“We started to collect them and they would all say ‘I love you Mom, Dad and Grace.’ We kept finding them, and still to this day, we keep finding them.”

While Brooke and Keith treasure all of the notes from Elena, each of them has left a single envelope unopened. “We always want to know that there’s one more note that we haven’t read yet,” said Keith.

Elena’s parents Keith and Brooke recently published a book about Elena’s short but inspiring life, called Notes Left Behind. All proceeds from the sale of the book go towards The Cure Starts Now, the non-profit they founded to help find a cure for cancer.

Source: Gimundo

“The holidays are more for the kids,” you’ll often hear weary parents moan, as they go through the motions but have long since forgotten their own connection to this time of year.

This year, instead of writing Halloween off as a sweets-laden waste of time, remember its your time to change who you are - to play “dress up” without any repercussions.

Why not dress up in a way that really suits the inner you (and sure, wicked witches are allowed in this category!) More than just dress up, dare to act it out. When was the last time you allowed yourself to make-believe? BE Dracula, down to the ominous stare. Get in touch with your Inner Ghost. Take some imaginative chances. Act the role.

Halloween exists for many reasons. It’s a powerful time of year, for one. But it’s also just a time to play, before it gets cold and our natural tendency toward hibernating sets in.

In short, LET LOOSE!