Doh, A Deer

Police spent over four hours rescuing a baby deer Thursday that fell 20 feet into a manhole in Long Island, N.Y.

Landscapers working by a vacant lot under construction in Mount Sinai, N.Y., called Suffolk County Police just after 3:30 p.m. when they noticed the fawn had fallen into the manhole, police said.

The officers hoisted the deer to ground level at around 8 p.m. and then brought up Justincic back up.

The officers then released the deer and it ran into the woods, seemingly unscathed. 

That's a whole lot of work for a baby deer.  Acts of compassion make up for the other stuff we have to face every day.  By the way, go read the whole article for adorable baby deer pictures and one burly cop about to go in the ground.

 

StupidiNews! Two Miracles Edition

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (AP) — A stray cat has survived two trips to a Utah animal shelter's gas chamber, leading shelter volunteers to seek a switch of its euthanasia method to lethal injection, which they called more humane.

She was saved and adopted, and is settling in well. The article above says they expected this cat really wanted to live. Though my heart breaks thinking about the others who were not so fortunate, this is a little bit of good. And for one special cat, a lot of good.  Excuse me, I have to go get something out of my eye, darn allergies.

On to miracle #2:

Rosie O'Donnell was invited to Diddy's New Year's Eve party.  She was invited by Mr. Combs himself, and showed up with guests.  Due to an error on the bouncer's part she was turned away.  That in itself isn't much of a miracle, but here's the amazing thing.  No Twitter rant.  No loud, nasal outcry that this was some kind of insult.  Silence.  Folks, an amazing thing happened that day.  Rosie O'Donnell showed some class.

Anything can happen if you just believe.

Sealing The Deal

Things are looking up for the little ginger-coloured seal pup whose fate touched the world after being rejected by the rest of its sleek black family.

Left as an outcast, the vulnerable creature was found huddling under a pile of logs on Tyuleniy Island in the far east of Russia.

Photographer Anatoly Strakhov, 61, took heartbreaking pictures of the world's loneliest seal, which would have been unable to survive in the wild.

Two months on and Russians have taken the rare albino seal - who turns out to be female - to their hearts.

Named Nafanya - after a lookalike Soviet cartoon character - the seal was given VIP treatment and has now moved into a plush new home at the country's leading aqauarium.

Nafanya was taken on a 7,890-mile odyssey to the Russian mainland and then by special plane to Adler, near Sochi on the Black Sea coast, where she is rapidly becoming a star attraction.

A little kindness goes a long way. She will get plenty of love and attention, and after quarantine will live in captivity but adored. It's the best possible outcome for her.

Little Boy, Big Heart

CARROLLTON, GA (CBS ATLANTA) -
Bradley Thomas earned his yellow belt in Taekwondo, but it is what the 7-year-old Canton boy is doing from the heart that has earned him praise.

Bradley decided to help a family have Christmas as part of his Taekwondo community service project.

Dewayne Thomas was surprised when his son came up with the idea. He said Bradley knew the Moody family had lost their Villa Rica home in an April fire.

Kelly Moody, her husband, 12-year-old son and twin 10-year-old girls live in a small, cramped hotel room. They did not have renter's insurance and had nowhere else to go.

Moody said getting by day-to-day is hard enough, and can't even think about Christmas.

Since the beginning of October, Bradley has spent his spare time earning money. He helps the neighbors and collects money at church.

"Helping organize stuff, a lot of stuff. I keep on forgetting what I do," said Bradley.

He has earned $300.50 to buy presents for the Moody children, but it's not just money he has raised.

Bradley was supposed to stop in October, but has been so successful that he will continue through November. It's just nice to hear that someone out there is working to make the world better, and this one child was able to bring a whole family hope and cheer. They will never forget this, and neither will he.

The article links to it, but I'll list it here as well. Anyone who wants to help can email his father at dewayne_1980@hotmail.com.

Looks like Christmas really does start earlier every year!

Sunday Sunshine

Here's something to brighten your day, courtesy of the New Haven Independent:

Stuck inside a subterranean pipe, the kitten howled. But it wouldn’t come out. Lt. Holly Wasilewski knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep that night if the feline remained there.

So began an hour-plus-long drama in Kimberly Square.

Finally Wasilewski had the cat in her arms. It didn’t fight her.

“I’m coming up!” Wasilewski called as she, slowly, straightened. The cat relaxed. “It knew at that point it was being rescued.”

She handed the grayish tiger kitten to one of the officers above, who placed it in the Corona box. Then Wasilewski called the animal shelter, which didn’t have room. She took the kitten to the veterinary hospital on State Street, which also couldn’t take in the kitten. But the folks there did give the kitten a bath, washing away its fleas.

Wasilewski took the kitten home—just for the night. She said she couldn’t permanently take on a fourth cat. As it was, she had the kitten sleep in her bed, away from Shane, Bella, and Pumpkin. Especially Shane, who’s “kind of a bully.”

An hour in a storm drain, a fellow cop who adopted the kitten for his son despite his allergies, an innocent creature makes it out okay.  Win-win-win.

Happy Sunday!

The Best Thing I've Heard All Year: It's About Damned Time Edition

It's been a while since I had a decent candidate.  This one has made up for the wait.

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists are reporting the first clear success with a new approach for treating leukemia — turning the patients' own blood cells into assassins that hunt and destroy their cancer cells.

They've only done it in three patients so far, but the results were striking: Two appear cancer-free up to a year after treatment, and the third patient is improved but still has some cancer. Scientists are already preparing to try the same gene therapy technique for other kinds of cancer.

"It worked great. We were surprised it worked as well as it did," said Dr. Carl June, a gene therapy expert at the University of Pennsylvania. "We're just a year out now. We need to find out how long these remissions last."

While maintaining an appropriate sense of caution, this may be the beginning of a whole new level of medicine.  Manipulating the immune system into recognizing its blind spots has a potential that is limitless.  The fact that the T-cells are tricked into behaving differently makes me wonder if this breakthrough will eventually affect AIDS therapy and lupus treatments.  I will definitely update as more is published.

Surprise!

A plane breaks in half and everyone survives, all 163 of them.  Check this out:

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Flight 523 from New York had just touched down and passengers were applauding the pilot's landing in the South American country Saturday when something suddenly went wrong.

The Boeing 737-800 slid off the end of a rainy runway, crashed through a chain-link fence and broke in half just short of a deep ravine. Yet all 163 people on board survived.

I'm sympathetic to plane crashes.  I can control myself, but I am painfully aware of being in the air when flying.  These guys weren't in the air, but when all hell broke loose they were still faced with the big scary monster that every flyer has faced.  They were helpless and at the mercy of a malfunctioning plane, in this case heading towards a ravine.  There's some serious pucker factor right there.

This gets a super good karma thumbs up.   

Blind Hope

I have spent many years following advances for the visually impaired.  My father lost his sight when I was a teenager, and I watched him struggle with daily activities and give up many things we take for granted.  Below I've linked to an article that centers around cars made for the blind (yes, you read that right).  The technology isn't quite there but the author does a great job of explaining what they have accomplished and what surprisingly few obstacles are left.  Not only will this open a world of opportunities for transportation, it is the beginning of a unified way to use technology to assist blind citizens with responding to the world.  From improved security to getting around independently, this type of effort will someday be recognized for the groundbreaking changes that are surely to follow.

Sighted people, myself included, do it every day and take it for granted. Unfortunately, because of physical challenges, not everyone has the privilege to drive. My team of researchers wants to find a way to give the blind the ability to drive.

When we first announced that we were going to take up this challenge, many thought we were crazy, and most of the critics doubted that it could be done. Even some of my colleagues challenged us on the idea of developing a vehicle for the blind.

Regarding the capability of the blind, I believe that with the right nonvisual user interfaces, once we can deliver all the information needed to safely operate the vehicle to the driver, the blind can perform as well as, or possibly even better than the sighted. Mark Riccobono, the first blind driver who drove our vehicle on the Daytona International Speedway, is a better driver than I am -- at least with this vehicle.

It's a start, and a darned good one. Kudos to them, and a pleasant surprise. 

 

A Little Good News For A Change

The Joplin tornado set a record, but they are just the most recent victims.  It's hard to imagine how it feels to lose everything, but anyone who has been through an experience like that can tell you that giving up on pets is one of the many things that weigh on your heart after your home has been destroyed.

A scruffy Alabama terrier mix named Mason was whisked away by fierce twisters last month, prompting his owners, who lost their home in the storm, to fear the worst. But the redoubtable mutt apparently crawled back to his home days later with two broken legs in a remarkable tale of survival.

Local news outlet WBRC reports that Mason was blown away by the storm from the garage in Birmingham where he was hiding on April 27. His owners looked for him everywhere but couldn't find him. Two and a half weeks later, though, they found Mason waiting for them on their front porch when they returned to the house to look through the debris.

Every bit of good news helps.

Win Win Win (Epic Win Cubed)

I just love this stuff.  It's common sense being used to help everyone involved. A program shared between a few prisons has allowed prisoners an opportunity to perform good deeds.  Rescued animals are calming for the prisoners, and beneficial for animals in need of a home.  In some cases, it even helps little girls:

Butterfield trained Mickey through a 2-year-old program at Luther Luckett called Camp Canine that has resulted in adoptions for around 140 dogs. Celia's family adopted Mickey in June after a doctor suggested sleeping with a dog could calm her at night.

For many prisoners, this will fill a void and is far more logical than some of the other "perks" given prisoners for population control.  The companionship of an animal is a healthy and healing thing.  Allowing them to love and care for others is the core of rehabilitation.  Most importantly, everyone involved gets a second chance.

A Little Ray Of Sunshine

GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. -- A dog survived a raging house fire for six hours by hiding in a water-filled bathtub, according to firefighters.

He said Mia was able to get to a bathtub on the lowest level of the house, where she waited as firefighters doused the home with water. As the water ran down into the basement, it filled the bathtub and soaked Mia, keeping her safe from flames, Brock said.

Brumby said the dog has learned how to open doors throughout the house, and that she had to open four doors to get to the bathtub where she was found.

Firefighters rescued the dog, who was scared but unharmed.  The owner says she had steam coming off her when they brought her out.  She is happily reunited with her family, and the link above has a picture of the equally adorable kids loving on the her.

There's Still Something In My Eye

I'm a sucker for a happy ending.  Here's hoping this will put a smile on your face.

David Loomis lost his job last year, and his unemployment benefits were about to expire. But while Beth Loomis was walking their dog Tuesday morning, she found a dollar and thought, "I guess this might be our lucky day," she told CNN affiliate WBNS.

Ohio Lottery officials had invited the couple to come to lottery headquarters to pick up a hat and cup consolation prize from a 2010 drawing.  What they didn't tell the Loomises was that there also was a $150,000 check waiting for them from a lottery ticket David Loomis had bought last year.

This almost makes up for the Wal-Mart story.  Almost.

Helping The Homeless Find Themselves

There is no universal answer to helping the homeless get their lives back, but this is one solution that is working, and has made a difference in the life of many people.

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- An art studio doesn't usually make anyone's list of what the homeless need.

But when Anita Beaty decided to start painting in the storefront window of a homeless shelter, people were soon looking in and asking to join.

 A creative solution was born, which allows people to have free studio space if they adhere to certain rules.  There are more success stories than failures, and some hardworking people who ante up the effort get a second chance.  That's a win win, folks.  Not only does it give me the warm fuzzies, but it gives me hope.  When faced with some hard times, we have our epic fails but we also occasionally get it right.  This is one of those times.

The Best Thing I've Heard All Year: Part I

We see this story on news, hear it on the radio and at the water cooler.  We've heard it so many times that we tune it out.  But we so rarely get to hear it with a good ending, that I'm going to tell it here anyway:

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- Police found a missing Georgia girl Sunday and arrested her alleged kidnapper.

Fabiola Morales, 13, was located at a residence in Jasper, Alabama, the Columbus, Georgia, Police Department said.

She was with Luis Garcia, 18, who had a previous kidnapping warrant, according to police.

That she was with a man who had a previous kidnapping warrant at 18 tells me there was nothing good in store for this little girl.  She wasn't "stolen" by a caring relative or even a lovingly unhinged parent.  She was kidnapped by a criminal, and there was nothing but pain and fear ahead of her.  Thanks to some good work done by police, she will get to come home and have a second chance at a normal life.  

New tag: BTIHAY (Best Thing I Heard All Year)