Julie Mackin becomes a hero - trades nuclear medicine for career with kids

As a young woman in the 1970s, Julie Mackin wanted to make it in a man’s world and make lots of money doing it.

“I wanted to do it all; I wasn’t going to let anything stop me,” she said. “I was running marathons back when women weren’t.”

A radical change to her career path, though, and the lives she’s changed since earned Mackin the title of 2008 Green Bay Press-Gazette Everyday Hero in the category of education. Everyday Heroes are people whose deeds make Northeastern Wisconsin a better place to live.

Mackin was a nuclear medicine technologist at St. Vincent Hospital and said she was succeeding in a male-dominated career.

She was never one to ooh and ahh about babies, but when a little girl with Down syndrome came in for tests, Mackin felt at home working with her when another tech hesitated.

Mackin believes that event foreshadowed the midlife change in her career path. Today, she teaches special needs students at Franklin Middle School in Green Bay, and her focus shifted from making cash to making a difference.

The transformation began when Mackin married her husband, Mike, and had children. After her first child was born, she went back to work, and intended to do so after the second.

“Our second (Marnie) was special needs, and I thought I’d be able to go back to work, but after three months I realized that wouldn’t work,” Mackin said. Marnie, now 21, had health problems and needed to be in a full body cast for about eight months. Mackin left the hospital to care for her daughters, and then had a son and another daughter. Ten years later she went back to the hospital, but found her heart wasn’t in it.

“I wanted to do something with kids,” she said. “I found myself wanting to do something to make a difference.”

So she became a part-time paraprofessional working with special education students for the Green Bay School District. Two years later, she signed up for education courses at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

“It’s hard to make a change,” she said. “I was terribly afraid.”

Completing undergrad courses and achieving a master’s degree took about 10 years, she said. She’s now certified to teach special education.

Now she wouldn’t have it any other way. She considers her students her family, and admits she spends a lot of home time thinking about her second set of “kids.”

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Police officer recognized as Oregon’s 2008 hero

Police officer Ernie Happala recently was named one of Oregon’s 2008 Everyday Heroes by the Governor’s Commission on Senior Services, and he was honored in Salem along with 11 other individuals, a bank and a Portland fire station.

The commission created the heroes’ campaign to raise awareness of elder abuse, increase reporting, reduce tolerance of elder abuse, and find ways to connect individuals and families to community resources.

At the ceremony, Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers said, “The Oregonians we are honoring today noticed something that was consistent with elder abuse, they did something about it, and their actions kept someone safe or minimized the harm that was done.

“They set an example for all of us of what needs to be done to keep Oregon seniors safe in their communities.”

Janet Martin, who is a Washington County Adult Protective Services specialist, nominated Happala after he assisted her with a case of elder financial abuse last summer. Although the crime occurred in another jurisdiction, the police force there would not take a report because the victim lived in King City.

Martin lauded Happala for working with her to get the case referred for prosecution.

“This was a difficult case to investigate due to the victim’s cognitive challenges, the alleged perpetrator’s relationship to the victim and a great deal of resistance from the victim’s bank in providing necessary documentation,” Martin stated in her nomination.

“Office Happala never gave up and provided the legal assistance necessary to obtain the evidence needed,” she added.

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A rubbish life

Dave Chameides has spent almost an entire year living a life full of utter garbage and hoping he can inspire other Americans to do the same.

The Los Angeles-based cameraman has lived in his comfortable Hollywood home without throwing away a single piece of trash, from wine bottles to chewing gum and pizza boxes.

Instead the 39-year-old Chameides - nicknamed ‘Sustainable Dave’ - recycles his garbage or else stores it in his basement. He says he wants to show that it is possible to dramatically reduce his family’s consumption habits.

And he can show astounding results. Rather than the 1,600 pounds of trash the average American family produces each year, Chameides, his wife and two daughters have amassed only 32 pounds over the last 12 months.

‘If I were the average American, this entire basement would be filled with plastic water bottles,’ said Chameides, who chronicles his campaign with an Internet blog (http: 365daysoftrash.blogspot.com).

Chameides has shunned bottled water in favor of filtered tap water - except when on holiday in Mexico, but even those water bottles were brought back to his home, compacted and stored with other trash.

His war on packaging also extends to the family groceries. Rice and pulses are bought by the kilo and placed in containers, while fresh fruit and vegetables are purchased at a weekly neighborhood farmers’ market.

In fact, groceries was one of the easiest areas to eliminate packaging, Chameides said.

‘The food is not so bad, but with DVDs, kids’ toys and so on, it’s packaging you don’t want, and it’s frustrating,’ he told AFP. ‘What you don’t realize is that you’re paying for it, and pay for it again to dispose of it.’ ‘So I buy rice and beans in bulk, there’s no packaging. I pay less, it just makes sense. People need to wake up and say, this is not OK.’ Ironically, even Chameides’s rubbish will not go to waste. In January, his refuse will be sent to the Trash Museum of Connecticut to be exhibited.

Meanwhile, organic waste such as banana skins and egg shells is minced up by worms and used as compost.

‘Any kind of organic food and paper, except meat and fish. It’s a really amazingly efficient system,’ Chameides enthuses.

His southern California home is fitted with solar panels while his car runs on used cooking oil. However, he insists that even if you don’t follow his example to the letter, ’sustainable living’ can be achieved without huge sacrifices to your quality of life.

‘I’m eating fresher food, I’m saving money, helping the local economy, supporting farmers instead of corporations. For me that’s worth it. It’s just thinking about doing the right thing,’ he says.

‘It’s just little steps. I’m not living in a cave. People think that the US quality of life should be living in a house with lights on all the time. We live a pretty decent life, by many people’s standards we live a phenomenal life.’ Even wrapping paper for Christmas gifts presents an opportunity to recycle.

‘If we wrap something, it would be either in comics or something useful, reusable,’ he says.

AFP, Straights Times

Man returns lost money twice in same week

A Maine man found a wallet stuffed with cash on the floor in a home improvement store. Two days later, he found a loaded money bag in the same store. Gil Steward was shopping Tuesday at The Home Depot in Auburn when he spied the wallet, which was stuffed with nearly $1,000 in $100 bills. He returned it to The Home Depot store’s service counter, and it was returned to a very grateful owner.

On Thursday, same hour and same store, Steward saw a green money bag on the floor. Again, it was returned to its rightful owner.

His wife, Dee, said her husband thinks he’s being tested. As for Steward, he said he plans to play the lottery this weekend.

The Price of Silence (music video)

As the world celebrates the 60th birthday of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this month, a new music video is circulating on the Internet, bringing together 16 of the world’s top musicians — some of whom have fled oppressive regimes — in a rousing musical plea to world leaders to guarantee human rights for all.

Kids Speak Out About Environmental Issues and Going Green

The Kids’ Environmental Report Card is part of the Science Explorations program, a collaboration of Scholastic’s classroom magazines, SuperScience® (grades 3–6) and Science World®(grades 6–10), and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). In addition to sharing their views through the poll, kids can pose questions about the environment to be answered by scientists at AMNH each month. Each of the questions will be supplemented by multimedia content from Scholastic and AMNH, including interviews with the Museum’s scientists and curators, photographs, artifacts, and much more. Students and teachers can explore a range of topics such as ecotourism, preserving biodiversity, and reducing pollution.

“Kids have a lot to say about the job we’re doing as stewards of the environment, and the Kids’ Environmental Report Card gives them a chance to express themselves about these important topics,” said David Goddy, Vice President of Education at e-Scholastic. “With AMNH, we can provide students and educators with a hands-on way to investigate ecological issues, learn about careers in science, and expand their knowledge of the world around them.”

This marks the fourth year that Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education, and media company, and the American Museum of Natural History, one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions, have joined together to promote science literacy among students in grades 3 through 10.

“Interest in the natural world and passion for conserving it is key to the mission of AMNH,” said Rosamond Kinzler, Senior Director of the National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology at AMNH. “Partnering with Scholastic is a powerful way for us to share this mission with kids across the country, in classrooms and on the Web.”

To learn more about the Kids’ Environmental Report Card or Science Explorations, go to www.scholastic.com/scienceexplorations.

For more information about the American Museum of Natural History, please visit www.amnh.org.

Carnegie Heroes awards 19 for bravery

A Wisconsin man who lunged in front of a train to save a 3-year-old from certain death and a New York man who twice entered a burning building to rescue two little girls were among 19 people awarded Carnegie medals Monday for their courage.

Merlin Harn, 40, and his wife were driving by a railroad track on Sept. 1, 2007, in their hometown of Menasha, Wis., when they saw an unattended 3-year-old boy wandering on the tracks.

Before police arrived, the crossing lights, bells and whistles went off. Harn ran to the boy, grabbed him under the arms and carried him to safety seconds before the train passed them, its emergency brake activated.

The Carnegie Heroes Fund gave its fourth group of awards this year to 19 people who risked their own lives to save others. Some of the people died or were injured rescuing others who were drowning, being attacked or were trapped in fires.

The heroes announced bring to 92 the number of awards made in 2008 and to 9,243 the total number of awards since the Pittsburgh-based Fund’s inception in 1904. Commission President Mark Laskow stated that each of the awardees or their next of kin will also receive a financial grant. Throughout the 104 years since the Fund was established by industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, $31.1 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance.

See the entire list of heroes here.

Another of the heroes, James Carpenter, was at his home in Gloversville, N.Y., when he noticed the house next door had gone up in flames. Running into the burning building, Carpenter made his way through dense smoke and found two girls trapped on the second floor.

He grabbed 5-year-old Chelsea and made his way out of the house with her, but her 3-year-old sister, Jocelyn, remained inside. Carpenter, 28, re-entered the burning home, ran upstairs and called for the little girl. Grabbing Jocelyn, Carpenter realized the stairs were impassable. He went into a bedroom and lowered her out the window into the arms of two men outside.

The two-fold mission of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission: To recognize persons who perform acts of heroism in civilian life in the United States and Canada, and to provide financial assistance for those disabled and the dependants of those killed helping others.

We live in a heroic age, Andrew Carnegie wrote in the opening lines of the Commission’s founding Deed of Trust in 1904. Not seldom are we thrilled by deeds of heroism where men or women are injured or lose their lives in attempting to preserve or rescue their fellows.

Those who are selected for recognition by the Commission are awarded the CARNEGIE MEDAL, and they, or their survivors, become eligible for financial considerations, including one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance. To date, more than 9,000 medals have been awarded, the recipients selected from more than 80,000 nominees. About 20 percent of the medals are awarded posthumously.  Awardees are announced five times a year, following meetings of the Commission.

Among the other heroes was Walter Rosenthal, 58, of Toms Place, Calif. He died trying to save James J. Juarez and John S. McAndrews from suffocation after they were buried by snow at a resort in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., on April 6, 2006.

Steel baron Andrew Carnegie launched the hero fund in 1904 after hearing about rescue stories from a mine disaster that had killed 181 people. Since then, $31.1 million has been awarded to 9,243 people. Each recipient, or their heirs, receives $6,000 and a medal.

Rare rhino calves found in Indonesian jungle

Four calves of the world’s rarest species of rhino have been found in remote jungle on Indonesia’s Java island, giving hope to efforts to save them from extinction, an official said Tuesday.

“Four Javan rhinos of six to seven months age were seen by scientists on the beach near the jungle during a recent field survey,” Agus Primabudi, the head of the Ujung Kulon National Park in West Java, told AFP.

Alerted to the presence of humans, the baby rhinos fled into the park to where two adult rhinos aged roughly 35 to 36, believed to be their parents, were staying, Primabudi said.

Primabudi said that the birth of the four calves has given new hope that the Javan rhinos can breed in the wild at levels high enough to keep the local population alive into the future.

“The most important thing we can do is to protect their habitat so that they can breed easily,” he said.

The Javan rhino, which is distinguished by its small size, single horn and loose skin folds, is likely the most endangered large mammal on the planet, according to WWF.

Roughly 90 percent of the world’s 50 or so Javan rhinos live in Ujung Kulon park, an oasis of wilderness on the western edge of one of the world’s most densely populated islands.

The Javan rhino is classified as critically endangered by WWF and none of the animals currently live in captivity.

AFP

First ever face transplant in US - success

A horribly disfigured woman who lived like an outcast because of her appearance woke up Wednesday with a brand new face.

The Cleveland Clinic announced it has performed the first ever face transplant operation in the U.S. - and the most radical makeover of its kind ever.

Doctors replaced all but the woman’s chin, lower lip, upper eyelids and forehead. The other 80% of her face was replaced with one donated from a female cadaver.

They also grafted on facial nerves and muscles so the woman’s new face functions - and is not just a mask.

“Our patient was called names and humiliated,” said Dr. Maria Siemionow, who led that team that performed the 22-hour operation two weeks ago. “You need the face to face the world.”

Siemionow did not identify her patient and said even less about the female donor beyond saying that she “deserves our thanks.”

Before the operation, the transplant patient - whose face was ruined by some kind of traumatic accident - could not smile or smell or taste. Now, she can, doctors said.

“We never thought for a moment that our sister would ever have a chance at a normal life again, after the trauma she endured,” the woman’s sibling said in a statement. “There are tears of joy, and tears of pain that it took one to pass for one to have the life.”

Dr. Warren Breidenbach, a surgeon at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., who did the nation’s first hand transplant in 1999, said the woman with the new face was in good hands.

“She’s a leader in this field,” Breidenbach said of Siemionow, a graduate of the Poznan Medical Academy in Poland.

It is only the fourth face transplant ever.

Full article from the NY Daily News

More than a coach - Marty Biegel

He is frail now. The years have taken their toll on legs that once pounded and paced the sidelines of Fairfax High’s gleaming basketball court. On a recent Sunday, the slight Jewish man in the red wind-breaker and baseball cap reading “Coach” shuffled with a cane into Canter’s Delicatessen.

Marty Biegel, 86, was heading for a table across the room, and when he got there a group of tall black men rose to cheer:

Biegel, the father figure who helped raise them.

Biegel, the wizard who turned them into champions.

Biegel, the bridge-builder between blacks and whites.

“What’s up, Mr. B?” they said one after another, lining up to give him bear hugs.

“You’re looking good, fellas,” Marty shot back, beaming up at them. “What the hell happened to your Afros?”

Once again, Marty Biegel was back with his boys.

A story that began in angry debates over school desegregation in Los Angeles continues as a love affair today, between a teacher and the players whose lives he changed.

Nearly 40 years ago, in 1969, Biegel took over the basketball coaching job at Fairfax High School. He was a pint-sized scrapper from New York, a history teacher with a heart of gold and no illusions about his new post: The mostly white, Jewish school near Hollywood was strong academically, but pitiful in sports. The chess team won medals. The football players? Don’t ask.

Then Biegel got a gift — a product of good timing, an earthquake and decades of agitation for civil rights.

In 1968, school district boundaries were redrawn, allowing black students living south of Pico Boulevard to attend the school at Melrose and Fairfax avenues. Its numbers grew from 35 to 1,000 in four years, and Fairfax became one of the few city schools to achieve racial balance on its own, without a court order.

Much of Los Angeles fretted when blacks began appearing in white schools during the 1970s. Not Biegel.

He celebrated the new black athletes in his gym — players who could go to the basket with either hand and leap high above the rim. An orthodox Jew, he’d look heavenward and murmur a prayer.

“We’re winners!” he would crow. “We can take anybody!”

Full Story from the Los Angeles Times

Related Links: Marty Biegel - So Cal Jewish Sports Hall of Fame

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