Friendly Reminder...:)

Quote of the Day

Starfish

After a friendly debate yesterday over politics and healthcare reform, etc, I was left feeling helpless and silly. I cannot adequately explain the emotion involved in feeling the need to eradicate malaria (an African child dies every 30 seconds from malaria,) or to help feed children left orphaned and starving from mothers who died from HIV infection (acquired from prostituting themselves at ages as young as 11 in order to make money to eat after being orphaned themselves,) or to enable a mother whose child is sick to be able to go see a doctor.

And then I thought of the starfish story. You probably know it, but here it is again:

There once was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day he was walking along the shore, as he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day and he began to walk faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man, and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something, and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

He called out,
“Good morning, what are you doing?”

The young man paused, looked up and replied,
“Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I guess I should have asked;
why are you throwing starfish in the ocean?”

“The sun is up and the tide is going out.
And if I don’t throw them then they’ll die.”

“But, young man, don’t you realize that there are
miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it.
You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man listened politely, then bent down,
picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea,
past the breaking waves and said,
“It made a difference for that one.”

-Author Unknown-

I like this parable. It reminds me that every little thing you can do does make a difference, in some amount to someone, and that's it worth keeping on, even in the face of wise old skeptics who sit back and belittle your efforts. Keep on keeping on, you bleeding-heart, tree-hugging, "liberals"! Do what you can, do what feels right, one starfish at a time.

Malaria No More Update

Super Garbage Man...

is able to leap garbage trucks in a single bound!
(and is pretty cute, too!)

Why I'm a Crazy Person...

And...
why there are so few pictures of Kate:
(and more of why I'm a crazy person...)

World Air Traffic: View from Space

The yellow dots in the video are airplanes in the sky during a 24 hour period.

This is a 24 hour observation of all of the large aircraft flights in the world, condensed to just over 1 minute. Keep watching!

You will see the aircraft flow of traffic leaving the North American continent and travelling at night to arrive in the UK in the morning. Then you will see the flow changing, leaving the UK in the morning and flying to the American continent in daylight.

You will see the light of the day moving from the east to the west, as the Earth spins on it's axis. You can also tell it is summertime in the north by the sun's foot print over the planet. You could see that it didn't quite set in the extreme north and it didn't quite rise in the extreme south.

Cool.

Smile of the Day