A story from L. Tom Perry:

"Many years ago I found myself as part of occupation troops in a foreign land just at the end of a terrible war. It was not long after we arrived in this country before we developed a great love and concern for the people we were there to watch over. This was especially true of the young people, the children. Many times we would find them scavenging in our garbage cans looking for food to keep themselves alive. This deeply touched us, and we wanted to make a more substantial contribution to them. We raised what money we could and found a local religious group that was willing to open an orphanage for them. We donated as much time as possibleto improve the facilities and provided them with the operating funds they needed.
"As Christmas approached, we sent letters home to our families asking that, instead of sending gifts to us, they send toys for the children in the orphanage. The response of our families wasoverwhelming! Toys arrived daily from our homes.

"We found a tree suitable to use as a Christmas tree, but we had no traditional decorations for it. A lady taught us how to make little birds by folding square pieces of paper, and these became the major part of the decorations for the tree. The presents were wrapped mostly in discarded Stars and Stripes newspapers. I'll never forget Christmas Eve with those children. I am sure many of them had never seen a Christmas tree in their lives.

"We sang Christmas carols to them, but we weren't very good at this. They had been rehearsing for weeks so they could sing a song to us in English. It was not a Christmas carol, but it was beautiful. They sang, 'You Are My Sunshine.' We were deeply touched with the spirit of the children that Christmas Eve, especially as they opened the presents sent from our families. I suppose some of them had not had a toy in many, many years.
"This is a Christmas I'll never forget because we were learning the true meaning of this great holiday season. The greatest joy we can receive in life is giving--to bring into the life of someoneelse a little joy and happiness."

Photo of mountain goat taken a week ago on Ben Lomond Peak. The big, white-topped building above the Mountain Goat is the Harrisville Walmart.

My daughter wrote this in her journal this last spring:


Bud of wishing flower.
It has green curls on the bottom. Still curling.
Seeds with folded umbrellas. Tucked in green.
When it fully curls, umbrellas will open.
Creating a wishing flower.
I can't believe it.

© 2006 Cambridge Hinds (9 years old)

I saw this picture a number of years ago and was very moved/disturbed by it. It is circulating in email now, but with a fabricated suicide note. Here is the picture and the information on it http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/kevincarter.htm from truthorfiction.com.

Summary of the eRumor:
The eRumor includes a dramatic photograph of a starving child being watched by a vulture.The email says that the picture was taken in Sudan 1994 by Kevin Carter who won a Pulitzer prize for it.The eRumor says he committed suicide three months later and left a note about world hunger.

The Truth:
The picture is real as is the story of the photographer's suicide, but the alleged wording of his suicide note is fabricated.
Kevin Carter was a South African photojournalist.
The picture of the vulture stalking a starving girl is real and was taken in Sudan in 1993.
He was awarded Pulitzer prize in May of 1994 for the picture.
Two months later he connected a hose to the exhaust pipe of his pickup truck and committed suicide.
His long time friend Judith Matloff wrote in the Columbia Journalism review that Carter was the kind of person who seemed more affected by some of the violent events he photographed.
She says that he would often return from upsetting assignments with bouts crying, drinking, or using drugs.
She says that after he shot his Pulitzer prize winning picture, he "sat under a tree and cried and chain-smoked" and couldn't distance himself from the horror of what he saw.
He was criticized for not helping the girl in the picture and said he did not know what happened to her.
In his suicide note he said he was "depressed...without phone...money for tent...money for child support...money for debts...money!!!!!"
He also said he was haunted by vivid memories of killings, corpses, anger, pain, starving or wounded children, and trigger-happy madmen."

The eRumor includes a comment about world hunger that was created by someone along the way who decided to turn the picture into a lesson about not wasting food.
Such wording was not included in Carter's suicide note.

A goal is only a wish until it is written down!

From the the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

"For six days, investigators wondered exactly how someone as familiar as longtime New Orleans broadcaster Vincent Marinello could execute his estranged wife in broad daylight and get away undetected.

But he took great pains to disguise himself with a false beard and mustache, rode away from a brazen crime on a bicycle and fashioned an out-of-state alibi, police say.

They know because he wrote it all down on paper. And police found what they said is his checklist when they searched his home Wednesday night."

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry

This appears to be a true story:

A picture began circulating in November. It should be "The Picture of the Year," or perhaps, "Picture of the Decade." It won't be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the US paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it. The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with spinal bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb. During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr. Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile. The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, "Hand of Hope." The text explaining the picture begins, "The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life." Little Samuel's mother said they "wept for days" when they saw the picture. She said, "The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person." Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.

ASK A NINJA

Have you ever wondered whether there are ninja midgets, or how, if you absolutely had to, you could kill a ninja? Or have you had to decide whether to go to Pirates of the Carribean II or dress as a clown, jump into a large aquarium and sing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" backwards? If so, this is a source of information you definitely don't want to miss.

My high school buddies and I had a lot of our personal jokes centered around an exaggerated macho-bravado theme (e.g., Eddie Murphy, "That ain't how you start a fire, son, go and get me some gasoline!").

So we find Ask A Ninja especially hillarious. I got an iPod and found Ask A Ninja on iTunes for free. Some of the early ones aren't that funny, but the guy has perfected his schtick and it is extrememly funny.

I'm a big fan, and my daughters love my "I look forward to killing you soon" T-shirt.

Kids, never give up hope. Keep persevering and just maybe . . . you'll find your pot at the . . . oh crap. You know, just give up now, it's a lot easier.