News of Hope September 21, 2005

Welcome to the third issue of News Of Hope

If you see a news story that you think would be a good fit here, I would love for you to drop me an email and send a link.

Study Reveals 5 Year Olds’ Innate Mathematical Abilities
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This Story caught my interest because I have always believed that children are born brilliant.

The brief version of this scientific study is that children are born with an innate ability to do math. The researchers here designed problems that utilized visual input and auditory input to test the 5 year olds abilities to solve math problems. Even though these children had never been formally exposed to the mathematical concepts, at least 66% of the time, the youngsters were able to provide the correct answers to the problems.

While scientific research has been done before which ascertained the presence of a mathematical intuition, this is the first research which actually indicated that kids have an inborn ability to solve mathematical problems they may encounter in school.

Obviously, this test was done before kids from some homes were taught that they just did not have good math genes, or that girls just do not do as well in math. ;-)


Merging Tradition with Technology
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Native Americans of the Ojibwe tribe in Minnesota have found a beneficial way to blend ancient traditions with modern technology.

Harvesting wild rice from the South Chippewa Lake on the White Earth Reservation, has been a Native American tradition but it is a lot of work and the market for the organic product used to be quite small, therefore, much of the local wild rice used to go un-harvested.

Enter the influence of the internet. Seeing a great opportunity and an burgeoning demand for organic wild rice, the White Earth Land Recovery Project was created. Last year, sales through the internet topped
$ 250, 000.

The Land Recovery Project uses the proceeds from its sale of Wild Rice, Maple Syrup and other natural products to repurchase land for their tribe.

Isn’t the internet amazing? People in Europe are consuming hand-harvested, wild rice from Minnesota because of this technology and the creativity of these Native Americans. What a wonderful time to be alive.

Read the Minnesota Public Radio story here

Buy the Natural Products Here


Going Organic
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According to a report issued by the Hartman Group, a well respected market research firm, 66% of the people in the United States consider themselves organic food consumers. While 40% use organic products on a regular basis.

Many family farms, in an effort to survive against the agri-business superfarms, are seeing the light, and making changes to capitalize on this growing market.

One Iowa County has become the first governmental body, to recognize the growth potential in organic farming. The Supervisors from Woodbury County voted to provide property tax rebates for those who convert from conventional to organic farming practices. That action will grant $50,000 a year for five years to those who make the conversion.

Prompting the move was a belief that the organic food industry is going to continue to prosper. By granting these tax breaks, the supervisors hope to encourage companies, committed to this niche market, to move into the county, thereby spurring economic growth.

Here is a copy of the AP story.


Way To Go MacArthur Foundation
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The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today named 25 new MacArthur Fellows for 2005. Each received a phone call from the Foundation this week informing them that they will be given $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over the next five years.

What, you may ask, are MacArthur Fellows?

The MacArthur Fellows Program awards five-year, unrestricted fellowships to individuals across all ages and fields who show exceptional merit and promise of continued creative work.

These fellowships are provided, with no strings attached, so that the recipients may continue their creative endeavors, thereby making the world a better place. I would encourage each of you to visit the MacArthur Foundation's Announcement Website and read the biographies provided for some of the 2005 award winners.

What I think is most impressive about these awards is that the recipients have no idea that they are even being considered until they are notified that they have won.

I am going to try and contact some of these award winners and interview them for future copies of News of Hope. Each one of these individuals are dedicated to following their passions.

Hats off to the MacArthur Foundation. What a blessing they are to our planet. As for the award winners, congratulations and thank you, to each one of you, for the unique _expression of LOVE that you are!


Speaking of Benevolent Donors
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Bill Gates seems to get a lot of negative press over business practices at Microsoft, but no one can accuse the man of being selfish. Hardly a week goes by that I do not read about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation making some amazing contribution in their efforts to improve the planet.

This Story highlights another $ 25 Million dollars the Gates’ have donated to help eradicate polio from Africa.

I must become wealthy so that I may have my own foundation contributing millions of dollars. What a blessing such donations are!


No Waste in this Waste
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Panda Energy will build a 100 million gallon fuel ethanol plant in Haskell County, Kansas that will use a billion pounds of cattle manure each year as a renewable fuel to power the plant's operations.

The $120 million facility will refine US corn and milo into fuel ethanol that will be blended with gasoline to produce a clean, low cost fuel for America's cars and trucks. The ethanol produced in this plant will replace the need to import 100 million gallons of gasoline each year.

The Haskell project is Panda's third fuel ethanol project announced this year. In May, Panda announced a 100 million gallon plant in Hereford, Texas, and in August the company announced that its second facility would be built in Yuma, Colorado. The combined production of the three announced Panda fuel ethanol plants will replace 300 million gallons of imported gasoline annually.

These projects will use a total of three billion pounds of cattle manure a year as a renewable fuel. The manure is gasified and converted into a clean biogas used to power the plant. By using biogas produced from manure instead of natural gas, each facility will save the equivalent of 1,000 barrels of oil per day.

I am really interested in this gasification of the animal waste. Maybe we could do that with human waste and replace all the natural gas usage in the U.S. Based on what everyone is predicting for the prices of natural gas this winter we may need to find some alternatives to run those furnaces.

Here is the full story.


Everyone Wants to Help
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Papers are filled with stories of how children have stepped up to lend a hand to people displaced by Katrina. Here is one such story highlighting a student club in the Hilton Head High School which collected $ 10,000 Dollars, and donated to the Red Cross.

My daughter has gotten in the act and is organizing a book sale to be held in conjunction with the Piper Craft Fair, October 1st. She and some of her middle school friends are collecting books for the sale now. They hope to have 3,000 books for sale and have a goal of raising at least
$ 500.00 to be donated to Second Harvest.

If anyone reading this has any books they would like to donate to the sale give me a call, (913) 219-6644 and I will arrange a pick-up.


For You TV Buffs
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Here is a fun story written by Lynn Elber, of the Associated Press. In this entertaining story, Lynn contacts two phone-psychics to obtain their predictions on this season’s new television programs.

Of note, this reported psychic rated the new show Ghost Whisperer poorly, indicating that it was not written well and the lead could not act.


Cast Your Vote for the Ugliest Animal
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Is there such a thing as an ugly animal? Clearly everything is relative and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. At this Live Science site there is a fun little poll on the worlds ugliest animal.The Hylobius Piceus received my top bid, although the Dobsonfly was a close second.

I could honestly not find anything I actually considered ugly. I guess it is kind of like the Ugly Bartender contest at the local pub. We are not really voting to say someone is ugly, just the most popular.

Anyway, this site is worth the visit just to view the cool photos of the contestants.


What Better Epitaph
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I will spare you the details of Howard Kesseli’s life. I don’t have them anyway, but I stumbled across this short story about this man’s devotion to his community, and it touched my heart.

Now I don’t know anything about this man, but his dedication inspires me, nonetheless. I think there can be no doubt, that one has lived a successful life if at the end someone comments, “He loved his community, he gave it his all without expecting anything in return.”

What better epitaph could one receive?