Tim Tebow - QB on a Mission

Tim Tebow led the Florida Gators to their second BCS Championship but his leadership extends far beyond the football field. We can only hope he elects to stay at Florida for one more season as his visibility, integrity, and impact on others is likely maximized in pursuit of a third national title instead of a development year in the NFL. This is how Tim spends his downtime from the Gators.

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.

Full Story

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.

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

Triathlete races past breast cancer

After nearly every joke and inspirational anecdote Nancy Reinisch told the crowd, they exploded with applause. Valley View Hospital’s lobby was packed to the gills with people, mostly women, who were letting out shrieks and whoops and hollers. Though they were there, ostensibly, to celebrate the release of Reinisch’s new book, “Chemosabee: A Triathlete’s Journey through the First Year of Breast Cancer,” they had truly come to celebrate Reinisch.

“To feel so loved is a wonderful thing,” Reinisch said, after the party.

As one of her readers wrote. ” I love this book! It’s a cross between the New England Journal of Medicine and ESPN Sports Center, with a touch of Oprah!”

While she, of course, downplayed it, not many people have a story quite like hers. A self-described “adult onset athlete,” Reinisch is a triathlete who didn’t start exercising until she was 34. That was 1987, and she’s since completed hundreds of triathlons. When, in 2006, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she tackled it in a fashion that blew people away. She didn’t stop her life, didn’t give up her exercising. Instead, she used it to help her get through that trying time. The book chronicles her experience — one that had obviously touched the entire lobby of women.

“She’s a great lady,” said Melissa Miller, dabbing tears out of her eyes.

As a member of Reinisch’s Roaring Fork Women’s Triathlon Team, Miller was deeply affected by how Reinisch dealt with her illness. For the most part, she explained, Reinisch was her “chipper self” — one who still got up in the dark to train. That created a resolve in Miller. Though she had only done the swimming leg at her first triathlon, after watching Reinisch’s year of cancer, she completed her first, full race.

“She’s definitely an inspiration,” Miller said.

Standing nearby, Elaine Grossman used almost the exact same words. A cancer survivor and a founder of the Quality of Life Cancer Project, Grossman spoke of the “grace” Reinisch brings to her survivorship. Reinisch’s unwavering fortitude gets to Grossman.

“I would say Nancy is a thriver. She’s not (just) a survivor,” Miller said.

As Resa Hayes put it, “If anyone could charge through this, it’s Nancy.”

Full Story: Cancer survivor an inspiration to many

Related Posts: Memoirs of an Ironman

Rhodes scholarship or the NFL?

Florida State safety Myron Rolle was recently awarded a Rhodes scholarship.  He is the first major-college football player of his generation to win what is considered the world’s most prestigious postgraduate academic scholarship.

He became the most prominent student-athlete to win the award since Bill Bradley at Princeton in 1965. Bradley was later a Knicks star, a senator and a presidential candidate. Other winners have included Pat Haden (U.S.C. and the Rams) and Tom McMillen (Maryland and the N.B.A. and Congress).

Rolle, a preseason All-ACC and All-America candidate, is an astounding anomaly in a sport synonymous with low graduation rates and dumbed-down majors. He’s a 3.75 pre-med student who will finish his undergraduate degree in just two-and-a-half years; a National Leadership Honor Society inductee; the recipient of a $4,000 research grant for his work studying human mesenchymal stem cells and the facilitator of a health and living program at a charter school run by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Rolle, an aspiring neurosurgeon, will now decide between the NFL and an all-expense paid scholarship for two or three years of study at Oxford University in England.

Rolle’s quest to the win the Rhodes had received heavy attention from the news media because he chose to risk missing all or part of Florida State’s pivotal game at Maryland to have the interview, which took place in Birmingham, Ala.

Don Lemon (CNN) profiles a college football player who has to choose between a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship and the NFL.

Ten NGOs Helping People Around The World

Hero Dog - highway rescue in Chile

See this amazing video of one dog rescuing another dog during rush hour on a highway in Chile.  The scene was captured by video traffic cameras.  The injured dog is seen being hit by a vehicle and then another dog pulls the first one to safety.

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