Miracle Of The Trees

Many nations plant trees, but no other as Israel has.When Israel was born in 1948 , half it's land was desert and wilderness ; most of the the rest was gaunt gray stone and eroded hills . Today in excess of 600 forests , great and small clothe the once naked land. As many as nine million trees are being planted yearly.Surprisingly , there is no Forestry Department.Forestry is handled by the Jewish National Fund which also involves itself in land reclamation. These monuments of foliage and wood are the result of the JNF's "plant a tree with your own hands" program which hardly no other nation has poured itself into with such fervour , dedication and reverence.

Stop Feeling So Guilty!

On any given day Li Yang has a laundry list of things to feel guilty about . When she's working she feels guilty about not spending enough time with her children. When she takes time off she feels guilty she is not contributing financially to the household. When she needs to discuss something badly with her husband she feels guilty she's not letting him have his 'break' at home. Most of us have this kind of guilt feelings. Guilt is constructive , but after making amends you still feel gulity you are probably suffering from false guilt.
Unrelieved guilt can lead to stress and stress leads to getting ill .If you have these pangs here are 3 steps you could take :
MAKE AMENDS . Don't chug ancient misdeeds along life's roads , crossroads and paths.
FORGIVE YOURSELF . We all have our legion of things done wrong , gone wrong , went wrong ..... Compare guilt to pain .Pain signals something is wrong.When you feel it , you just don't sit there - you do something about it. The same is true of guilt.
DISABLE 'guilt buttons' - We can't escape people or circumstances manipulating us into feeling guilty.A martyred sigh from Mother sends some people into paroxysms of guilt.But you should deal with them! Identify these 'guilt buttons' , whatever makes you feel so : work , friends , family , children. Next identify the people who can push those buttons and take the power away from them. Accept that the others are not gods and they may not always be right. Decide you are going to be in control of your life! Guilt tends to fester in an environment of secrecy ; it's important to get them out into the open.Talk about them , Laugh at them with others , Write them away in a diary and you get to see how inconsequential the guilt has been !

The Killing Of Baby Jane ..........

Day 1 : All human chromosomes are present , human LIFE has begun
Day 22 : heart begins to beat with the child's own blood
Week 3 : backbone , spinal column , nervous system forming liver , kidneys and intestines taking shape
Week 5 : eyes , legs , hands begin to develop
Week 8 : every organ in place , bones begin to replace cartilage , fingerprints begin to form , baby can begin to hear
Week 14: baby's heart pumps several quarts of blood through the body everyday
Week 20: baby recognizes mother's voice.... but it's the earliest stage at which partial abortions can be performed....
5th Month : mothers' feel an increase in movement , kicking and hiccups from the baby
7th-9th month : Baby can relate to the moods of Mother.Baby's heart is now pumping
300 gallons of blood per day and a week before birth Baby Jane "drops" head down into the pelvic cavity ..... but we won't get to see Baby Jane .
1 in 5 pregnancies worldwide
end in abortion . Globally 49,000,000 abortions per year , 150,000 per day....

An Art With Twigs....

When Patrick Dougherty came out with this spin on art it had families in my hometown talking about hobbies , talent , skills etc etc . His art can truly be called " twisted " - he wove saplings , twigs and branches into fanciful sculptures that seemed to sprout out of the earth. He took materials from the immediate environment wherever he was . Dougherty's works are songs to the natural world. " Saplings have an inherent property that causes them to snag and entangle easily , there's no need for extra support. Over the substructure , one could weave smaller sticks and fine branches to mask irregularities " he adds. These artworks finally subside back into the earth or they are converted to mulch thus returning them to their origins.

Will The Guinea Worm Strike Again?

It's a two and a half foot long parasite the width of angel hair pasta.HUMANS are the only known reservoirs for these disease.There's no cure , there's no vaccine.Guinea Worm larvae live in tiny crustaceans/water fleas.When people drink water contaminated by these fleas , the human digestive systems destroy the fleas but not the worm larvae.These larvae,usually females , migrate through the subcutaneous tissues , and in about a year the worm emerges headfirst usually,through a blister somewhere in the legs or arms.The host person experiences itching,fever,swelling, and burning sensations - infected persons have found relief from these pains by immersing in water ; shallow lakes , wells and open ponds.The contact with water stimulates the worm to emerge through the blisters and release thousands of larvae into the water.A single infected person could reinfect hundreds of people . Ostensibly civil wars,poverty, wrecked, neglected economies have been the Worm's best allies ........

P.S.Siemens has come up with a portable water purification system that can be used in even remote regions.Aroun one fifth of the world's population has no access to clean drinking water.In helping the UN achieve reaching out to the close to 1.2 billion without clean drinking water, a team from Siemens Water Technologies has developed what they call the Sky Hydarnt and established the SkyJuise Foundation.More Info SkyHydrant ensures clean water in remote regions.

The Spirit Of Men

The curiosity to go forth into unmapped darkness , to seek the unchartered , to explore the wildest reaches of the earth or the Milky Way or the train tunnels below Park Avenue , setting out to build a school for a tribe in a remote corner of the earth keeps reminding us of the expanse of living life , of worlds yet unconquered or tamed . In January 1915 , Sir Ernest Shackleton with 28 men on board Endurance on it's way to Antartica became hopelessly locked in ice.When the ice broke ten months later , Endurance sank leaving the crew homeless and adrift on a sea of ice . After five months drifting on ice floes the crew took to lifeboats for a dangerous journey to desolate Elephant Island.Reaching it , Shackleton went on with one lifeboat and five of his best men hundreds of kilometres across bone chilling Scotia Sea to South Georgia completing one of history's greatest open boat journeys. He and two of his fittest men then traversed the island's glacial mountains , a feat as yet unrivalled.