Good News From Mary March 27, 2009

When in doubt, throw it out

It smells okay. You don't see any fuzz on it. So what if that bottle of barbecue sauce has been sitting in the back of your fridge since July 4, 2003? And that frost-covered lamb chop that's been chilling in your freezer since last year — it's still good, right?

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Cheese beats Baboon Metaphysics in odd book prize

The prize for oddest book title of 2008 was awarded to "The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais," thanks to a late surge in popularity, The Bookseller magazine said Friday.

Philip M. Parker's "Fromage Frais," which literally means "fresh cheese" in French, beat out titles such as "Baboon Metaphysiscs," "Curbside Consultation of the Colon," and "Strip and Knit with Style" in the annual competition run by the British magazine.

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NASA hopes intrepid space spider is still alive

An intrepid spider may have survived the long months at the international space station, with scientists eager to know for sure once it returns to Earth aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

The arachnid, one of two orb weaving spiders sent to the station last November, is due to land with Discovery's astronaut crew in Florida on Saturday afternoon. The spiders, and some butterfly larvae, are part of an educational experiment with students on Earth to compare their development in zero gravity with their counterparts on Earth.

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With a Buzz Cut, I Can Take On Anything

I GOT a buzz cut last July, four days before radical open surgery to remove my cancerous prostate. I told family and friends that I did it for reasons of ease and style: I wanted to avoid the heartbreak of hospital hair, that lank and greasy thatch that repels visitors.

But I was lying.

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UV-C wand touted as super-weapon against germs

For all the trouble they cause, bacteria and viruses are actually very fragile. Shower them with a little bleach or Lysol and they'll die in apocalyptic waves. Make their homes too dry, too cold or too hot and they'll drop like microscopic flies.

Ultraviolet light -- more specifically, short wavelength ultraviolet light, or UV-C -- kills germs too. In nature, UV-C is almost always absorbed by the atmosphere before it reaches Earth, but scientists have harnessed artificial UV-C rays to blast germs in labs, hospitals and water treatment plants.

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Friday, March 27, 2009 Good News Now Stories

Pastors help make Christian films a hit

"The Rev. Mark Fuller has used his pulpit to preach and inspire.

He also has used it to promote the Christian megahit movie Fireproof.

The movie's marketers looked to pastors like Fuller to pass the word on to their congregations through sermons, group studies and ticket sales."

Click here to read more.





Kale - Growing Kale in the Home Vegetable Garden

"Kale is a leafy vegetable that is usually grouped into the “Cooking Greens” category with collards, mustard and Swiss chard. The leaves can be curly and quite ornamental, but become too tough to eat fresh, as they mature. Kale is a member of the cabbage family and is susceptible to many of the same pests."

Click here to read more.


Scientists find safer way to make human stem cells

"U.S. researchers said on Thursday they have found a safer way to coax human skin cells into becoming powerful embryonic-like stem cells, taking a step closer to their potential use as treatments for diseases.

A team at the University of Wisconsin said they made the so-called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, from human cells without using viruses or exotic genes, which leave behind genetic material that might pose risks if the cells were used as medical therapies."

Click here to read more about this study.


The church ladies of 1969

"My lovely wife recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of her 30th birthday, which occasioned a good friend giving her a copy of the Ladies Home Journal from her birth month, March 1969. It has an advertisement for Palmolive dish detergent on the back, with the unflappable Madge insisting that a client soak her hands in it. Inside are ads for other products that no longer seem so innovative: Breck hair color, Beautyrest mattresses, and Betty Crocker’s fancy new one-step, angel-food cake mix. The articles range from recipes to an interview with Elizabeth Taylor on mothering to an article by Mama Cass Elliot explaining that the diet on which she lost 110 pounds is ill-advised. No wonder people in my generation have such a finely honed sense of irony."

Click here to read more.

Shot of the Day for March 26, 2009

Rural Rays

By Flickr Member Elisabeth Shroyer Photography

Good News From Mary March 26, 2009

Flood forecast worsens in tired Fargo

North Dakota's largest city moved to the brink of potentially disastrous flooding Thursday, with earlier optimism fading as officials issued an updated forecast with an even higher crest by the weekend.

The National Weather Service raised its Red River crest forecast at Fargo to as much as 43 feet. The service had been predicting a crest of 41 feet by Saturday afternoon. The new guidance is for the city to expect between 41 and 42 feet, but not to rule out 43 feet.

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Bucket Baths Make Babies Happy

Anyone who has spent time with a newborn knows how stressful bath time can be. Now a Dutch company has come up with a product that claims to “make bath time enjoyable from birth.”

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How Connected Are You to Your Doctor?

For several years, I cared for a patient whom I’ll call Marcus. Compact and wiry, with a shock of white hair and blue eyes, Marcus was in his 70s when he developed liver cancer. At our first meeting, I was hesitant to put him through an operation based on his age alone. But then he mentioned the work he had done during his youth: he had been a lion tamer.

“Weren’t you ever scared?” I blurted out.

“No,” he replied with a sly smile. “And if I was, I didn’t let the lions know.”

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Natasha's lesson helps save Ohio girl

Connie and Donald McCracken were watching CNN one evening last week when they learned of the tragic death of actress Natasha Richardson from a head injury. Immediately, their minds turned to their 7-year-old daughter, Morgan, who was upstairs getting ready for bed.

Two days earlier, Morgan, her father, and brother had been playing baseball in the yard of their Mentor, Ohio, home when her father hit a line drive that landed just above Morgan's left temple. A lump formed, but the McCrackens iced it down and the swelling subsided within an hour.

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Make No Mistake: To Err IS Human

Erasers … delete buttons … spot removers … that annoying woman on the GPS device ("Recalculating…") … all depressing evidence of the obvious:

We're destined to make mistakes.

Documentary filmmaker Ric Burns says it may be history's greatest lesson: Mistakes happen … again and again … from missteps to miscues, to misadventures with happy outcomes.

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Thursday, March 26, 2009 Good News Now Stories

Music May Help Stroke Patients

"Listening to music you like is a mood booster, and it may also help stroke patients with visual awareness problems do better on neurological tests.

That news appears in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

British researchers -- including David Soto, PhD, of Imperial College London -- studied three patients with visual 'neglect' due to stroke."

Click here to read about this study.


Hands-On History Lessons

"THE quince hedge was already covered with salmon-pink flowers the day Lawrence Griffith, the curator of plants at Colonial Williamsburg, planted 19 varieties of heirloom flowers from seed.

Not indoors in pots, mind you, something the colonists rarely did. Mr. Griffith sprinkled these seeds over meticulously prepared soil, raked them in a bit and tamped them down with the back of the rake."

Click here to read more.


Loving the Neighbor in Our Own Home

"A wise priest once said to me, “It is often easier to love the orphans in Africa than it is to love our own siblings.” I thought of that quote today as we were doing a lesson on “loving one’s neighbor” in third grade CCD. The first page of the lesson talked about how we should love all people as our brothers and sisters. Note to Religious Education publishers: this is a bad analogy to use in a textbook aimed at eight and nine year-old children. The teacher’s manual prompted us to ask the students how they should treat their brothers and sisters. Interestingly, the only student who answered “we should be kind to them” was the one who doesn’t actually have any brothers or sisters. The others proceeded to give a run-down of all the mean things their siblings and they do to each other. As a mother of two boys, nineteen months apart, I can relate. I’m actually pretty lucky. My children get along well most of the time. But when they don’t, I feel like refereeing international disputes at the United Nations might be an easier task than trying to keep them from killing each other. They swear that they will never speak to each again, only to be best friends an hour later."

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Media effort draws 92,000 inactive Catholics back home to church

"An estimated 92,000 inactive Catholics in the Phoenix Diocese have come back to the church in the last year thanks in large part to a groundbreaking television advertising campaign called Catholics Come Home.

The promotional spots featured people and locations from around the Phoenix Diocese to promote the church during prime-time television. The cornerstone of the campaign, the Catholics Come Home Web site, addresses often misunderstood aspects of the faith."

To read more, click here.


Stimulus for a Spiritual Recession

"Dying to Live, Clive Calver offers a powerful corrective to the human soul that injects hope and peace into a world that is looking for something real. Calver gives insight into what it means to 're-start' a stale Christianity in favor of a walk with God that is marked by power and abundant life. But Calver's proposed stimulus isn't found in a surface Christianity filled with the excesses of legalism and emotionalism. Instead, he sets forth the idea that true life, true power, and true stimulus can only be achieved through death"

Click here to read more.

Good News for March 26 (posted by Mary Beth)

E-mail add-ons can tame even the peskiest inbox

"I don't have the sharpest memory around, but my computer forgets nothing. That's why I prefer to communicate via e-mail; it provides a permanent record of the conversation.

But with thousands of messages rolling in every week, how do you keep track of it all? My favorite e-mail software, Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook, has a pretty good set of management tools, but there's lots of room for improvement."

Click here for more information on organizing your inbox.


KFC's proposal: First pot pies, now potholes

"Everybody needs a little KFC. But maybe not Chicago.

The fast-food chain has sent off a letter to the nation's mayors, offering to patch their potholes for free. The company will leave behind a stenciled brand on the patch informing people the road has been 'Re-Freshed by KFC.'"

Read about KFC's newest strategy by clicking here.



Right whales in Cape Cod Bay

"In a rare congregation, about 70 North Atlantic right whales have gathered in Cape Cod Bay. The group represents approximately 20 percent of the endangered species' worldwide population."

Click here to enjoy a slideshow of images taken of this unusual gathering.


A baby's first Bluebonnet patch

"Nature's first green may be gold, but in Texas it's also blue, pink and orange. Take a look at how happy spring makes these kids."

To view the joy of kids and wildflowers, click here!



Bridging the past and present

"Sitting on the banks of the American River, Folsom has always had one engineering feat to aid its transportation needs — bridges.

And in celebration of the city’s newest bridge, the Folsom History Museum is highlighting the structures, both past and present, with a special exhibit that opened earlier this week and runs through May 10."

Click here to visit the Folsom History Museum and its new exhibit.

Shot of the Day for March 25, 2009

The Berlin Wall

By Flickr Member Extranoise