Decent News, 2006

Some of the more decent news in the world: hopeful, courageous, funny, or just cool. A few are not pleasant, but are stories I think need to be heard. The following are all LINKS to external sites. Some links (e.g., many boston.com, many NY Times) stop working after a few days; some do not. URLs are added when appropriate (not necessarily daily).

Also on this page: News to Think Over

Link to: HappyNews.com and HeroicStories.com.

  • Parrot's oratory stuns scientists news.bbc.co.uk 12/26/06
  • Mysterious Santa helps Bethlehem's neediest SFGate.com 12/24/06
  • Life is good after brush with death: With the wounded toll topping homicides, some survivors are gaining insight that makes them whole in a new way SFGate.com 12/23/06
  • Getting the poor off the grid: Habitat for Humanity builds 22 energy-efficient homes in Livermore and finds that green doesn't cost more SFGate.com 12/23/06
  • On the Soup Line, Endive and Octopus NYTimes 12/20/06
  • Longest arm in world saves dolphins SunTimes.com 12/15/06
  • Black History Trove, a Life's Work, Seeks Museum NYTimes 12/14/06
  • Thrift store worker finds nearly $7K Boston.com 12/12/06 (And she gives it to police.)
  • Quake team catches show on sea's floor: Scientists place gear in exact spot where magma erupted SFGate.com 11/29/06
  • Evicted From a Blighted Street, Newark's Mayor Finds Another NYTimes.com 11/20/06
  • Digging out of drug abuse: Can gardening help reform habitual drug abusers? BBC News 11/3/06
  • Dutch save trapped flood horses BBC News 11/3/06
  • Microloan Pioneer and His Bank Win Nobel Peace Prize NYTimes.com 10/13/05
  • Nature's wonders, unscripted: Whale watching is chancy, but payoff can be magnificent SFGate.com 10/10/06
  • 100 years, 100 million acres of land saved SFGate.com 9/16/06
  • MIT students place fire truck on dome to honor Sept. 11 9/11/06
  • FINDING MY RELIGION: Subba Rao has spent his life promoting and living the peace-loving principles of Mahatma Gandhi SFGate.com 8/21/06 He convinced 600+ bandits to embrace peace!
  • IT'S RISING AND HEALTHY: Three decades ago, a bunch of college students reported on and worried about the fate of Mono Lake. This month, they celebrated its recovery. SFGate.com 7/29/06 Wow!
  • Disowning Conservative Politics Is Costly for an Evangelical Pastor NYTimes.com 7/30/06 "I'm sorry to tell you ... that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ."
  • BATTLING AIDS - A Man on a Mission: Physician Robert Scott is split between a busy practice in Oakland and another treating AIDS patients in Zimbabwe SFGate.com 6/4/06 Great article.
  • SAN FRANCISCO: A place for orphaned pets: SPCA program places animals in new homes SFGate.com 6/5/06
  • Given a Chance to Be Little Ballerinas, and Smiling Right Down to Their Toes NYTimes.com 5/5/06 (registration required)
  • THE FACES OF ORGANIC SWANTON: Farmer is a first in his field SFGate.com 5/3/06 Employment & Environment ftw.
  • 'Mr. Speaker, I'd Like to Do the Waggle' NYTimes.com 5/2/06 Cool bee decision-making.
  • Pardons Granted 88 Years After Crimes of Sedition NYTimes.com 5/3/06 Late, but needed.
  • Henriette D. Avram, Modernizer of Libraries...>/a> NYTimes 5/3/06 Neat woman.
  • Startup will help homeless: Company will offer free voice-mail service through local shelters SFGate.com 4/12/06
  • Bladders grown from patients' own cells show promise: Formed in 2 months on scaffold in lab SFGate.com 4/4/06
  • Condors nesting in Monterey County: Pair tracked to redwood tree in remote coastal canyon SFGate.com 3/29/06
  • One in a million -- Good Samaritan turns in purse full of jewels: Hiker finds tourists' Louis Vuitton bag on park bench SFGate.com 3/29/06
  • Smitten by old-time American country music, Toshio Hirano left Tokyo with a twang in his heart for where the grass is bluer SFGate.com 3/9/06
  • `It's all good at the new Plaza Supportive housing provides green oasis on gritty Sixth Street SFGate.com 3/3/06 the new Plaza Apartments stand stocky and tall -- an eight-story cube that not only is designed to provide shelter and support for 106 once-homeless adults but to do so as a showplace of "green" design.'
  • Scientists Discover World's Smallest Fish SFGate.com 1/25/06
  • Cleaning up the cleaners: New methods offer alternatives to toxic solvents SFGate.com 1/10/06
    News to Think Over
    And Pray About....

  • Africa's World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old's Eyes NYTimes.com 10/29/06
  • An Elephant Crackup? 10/8/06 NYTimes.com What have we done to elephants? Why do some of them still treat us like one of their own?
  • Let Us Now Kill All The Dogs China slaughters tens of thousands of canines with giant clubs. How appalling is it? SFGate.com 8/9/06 Asks some tough questions.
  • New energy law limits public's say in decisions. Activists dismayed: Cash flows from gas pumps to industry's pockets, they say The Salt Lake Tribune 8/12/05
  • Tracking the Imperiled Bluefin From Ocean to Sushi Platter" NYTImes.com 5/3/05 "...the intensifying trade in bluefin may soon empty the waters of this master of the sea"
  • LIVING IN THE SHADOWS: Bay Area doctors join fight against a rare genetic skin disorder that afflicts an alarming number of Mayan children in rural Guatemala. SFGate.com 11/28/04
  • Decapitating Appalachia NY Times.com 1/13/04 "In 2002, the administration essentially repealed a longstanding provision of the Clean Water Act prohibiting the dumping of mining wastes in streams. Now...."
  • Quarantining dissent: How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech SF Gate.com 1/4/04
  • Searching for hope in Uganda BBC News 12/28/03
  • U.S. Proposes Easing Rules on Emissions of Mercury NY Times 12/3/03 ...Mercury is a potent toxin that causes brain damage, folks....
  • For Billions of Birds, an Endangered Haven NY Times 9/23/03
  • New lessons from a look at Hitler's rise 5/15/03 Particularly: "Ed Gernon, an executive producer, lost his job last month after telling TV Guide that the social climate in Germany during Hitler's rise was similar to that in the United States as it headed into war with Iraq." Might the action of firing him be another step down the same road?....
  • The press and freedom: some disturbing trends courier-journal.com 4/20/03
  • Groups Fault Rule on Automatic Detention NY Times 3/31/03 Yes, we are the land of the secret tribunal. "One Sudanese woman, who said she had fled to the United States to escape slavery that she lived under in Kenya for 14 years, said she was handcuffed, placed in leg shackles and paraded through the Newark International Airport after she filed for asylum in November 2001." `Referring to the automatic detention of new applicants, the woman, who was once jailed for a month in Iraq, said, "That's horrible. It's not much different than what I went though in Baghdad."'
  • Bush Administration Wins Court Victory on Guantanamo Detentions NY Times 3/12/03
  • Plastic Invades Ocean KGO-TV from 11/12/02 ...pretty alarming and really disgusting.
  • Rep. Howard Coble's support of the internment of American citizens during WWII....
  • NASA Dismissed Advisers Who Warned About Safety NY Times 2/3/03
  • KMart reports evidence of wrongdoing: Internal investigation uncovers evidence of "grossly derelict" actions by former top managers. CNN.com 1/25/03 ... in other words ... the way our laws are now, if you want to be a thief and live the high life, become a CEO.
  • Two Scientists Contend U.S. Suppressed Dolphin Studies NY Times 1/8/03 ... maybe minor on the human scale of things, but more indications of the usual politics, this time hurting other species.
  • Court says military may hold citizens: Panel finds broad powers for president during warfare Boston Globe 1/9/03 ... sure some stuff is necessary, but is the government so trustworthy this won't be abused?
  • Half a Million Afghan Refugees Left Homeless and Cold in Cities NY Times and Orangutans Said to Exhibit Hallmarks of Culture NY Times (reg. req'd) 1/2/03 - just as we begin to learn, we are destroying them....
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