Michael Jordan becomes Chief Wish Ambassador

Michael Jordan, regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time and a successful business leader, now has a new title  – Chief Wish Ambassador for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Jordan was formally introduced in his new role by David Williams, Make-A-Wish Foundation of America president and chief executive officer, at the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational golf tournament. The tournament continues through Sunday at Kerzner International’s Atlantis, Paradise Island resort and Ocean Club Golf Course in the Bahamas.

Jordan, who has granted more than 175 wishes during the past two decades, will serve as lead figure for the Foundation’s newly formed Wish Ambassador Council and as a national spokesman, assisting the Foundation’s efforts to increase wish-granting outreach.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation’s Wish Ambassador Council is composed of people who are passionate about the Foundation’s work, including the Make-A-Wish® founders, celebrities and national sports figures such as Jordan, former wish children, wish parents and Foundation supporters.

“An estimated 27,000 children are diagnosed with life-threatening medical conditions in the United States each year, and I’m eager to do what I can to help the Make-A-Wish Foundation reach out to even more of these courageous children,” Jordan said. “Granting children’s wishes through the Foundation has always been important to me. It’s a truly humbling, inspiring experience to see the smiles and joy that granting a wish brings to a child. I want to help even more children have that same opportunity.”

The Make-A-Wish Foundation has increased its number of wishes granted each year since 1985, including 13,425 in 2008, the most in its 28-year history. Yet that many more seriously ill children may be eligible for a wish from the Foundation, creating the opportunity to increase its outreach efforts.

“We are extremely honored for Michael Jordan to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation as our first Chief Wish Ambassador,” Williams said. “Michael is one of the Foundation’s most popular celebrity wish granters ever. He has a great appreciation and enthusiasm for our mission, and we’re delighted for him to help us reach out to even more children with life-threatening medical conditions.”

To celebrate the occasion, Jordan also granted the wish of 7-year-old Donovan Russell of Sacramento, Calif. Russell, along with his family, met his basketball idol in a private meeting Friday at Atlantis, Paradise Island, and he is enjoying a number of activities at the resort as part of his wish experience.

Also on Saturday, the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational made a $150,000 contribution to the Make-A-Wish Foundation as one of the tournament’s charity beneficiaries. The eighth annual tournament will distribute more than $500,000 to selected charities this year.

“We appreciate the generosity of Michael, Kerzner International and everyone involved with the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational,” Williams said. “This wonderful contribution will help us grant the heartfelt wishes of dozens more children who truly deserve the hope, strength and joy that comes from a wish experience.”

A day of Reckoning comes to the big screen

The Reckoning, a documentary film by Skylight Pictures about the first cases of the International Criminal Court, will be presented at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Festival organizers selected about 200 films for exhibition from more than 9000 submissions.

Launched in 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first international tribunal of its kind, a permanent criminal court set up to prosecute individuals for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. The Reckoning, a feature-length documentary filmed in High Definition on 4 continents, follows charismatic, relentless Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo and his team as he issues arrest warrants for leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, puts 4 Congolese warlords on trial in The Hague, charges the President of Sudan with genocide and war crimes in Darfur, challenges the UN Security Council to have him arrested, and shakes up the Colombian justice system. How is this tiny upstart court in The Hague going to bring justice and enforce the Prosecutor’s mandate to end genocide in the Wild West of these conflict zones? As the Prosecutor tells us, he has to take this tiny court, created by dreamers, and turn it into a functional reality. He has a global mandate to prosecute perpetrators around the world for the worst crimes imaginable, whether they are warlords or military brass or heads of state, even as they continue to wreak havoc.  But he has no police force – he needs to shame and pressure the international community to follow through, to muster political will.  It has turned out to be a monumental David and Goliath challenge. Will it succeed?  This is a court for humanity, and it’s fighting for its life against the forces of impunity.

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

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

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

Starbucks to fuel cars?

Coffee is well known for being able to power the economic engine that is the global workforce.  It might fill the tank of an individual but certainly won’t fill your car.  Beyond compost are there any alternative uses for coffee grounds?

New research at the University of Nevada shows used coffee grounds can be repurposed into biodiesel to power vehicles, trains, and even airplanes.  The waste from Starbucks alone could turn into 3M gallons of fuel and $8M in profits.

One of the main limits to the acceptance of biodiesel as an alternative fuel is its price premium above regular diesel. To bring the price of biodiesel down, the industry uses as much waste material from other industries as possible to make it — such as used fryer oil and animal fats from poultry processing.

Coffee grounds are actually about 15% oil.  The research team said that it concludes that the coffee-ground oil feedstock would cost between $0.45 to $1.84 less than feedstocks such as corn or soy, is more stable than comparable feedstock oils, and the grounds can be further processed into fuel for pellet stoves.

Given that Starbucks (NasdaqGS: SBUX) generates 210 million pounds of spent coffee grounds per year in the US, the researchers calculate that it could amount to almost 3 million gallons of biodiesel and 89,000 tons of fuel pellets.   Should gas prices reverse direction and move back over $4 per gallon then the researchers estimate as much as $8M in profits from Starbuck’s waste alone.

One of the main drivers for adoption of biodiesel is energy security. This means that a nation’s dependence on oil is reduced, and substituted with use of locally available sources, such as coal, gas, or renewable sources.

Biodiesel production capacity is growing rapidly, with an average annual growth rate from 2002-2006 of over 40%. For the year 2006, the latest for which actual production figures could be obtained, total world biodiesel production was about 5-6 million tons (over 80% of this production comes from Europe).

Sources: Gas 2.0, Wikipedia, Ecogeeek, Biofuels Digest

Secret Santas spread cheer in three states

At a suburban Goodwill store on Friday, Theresa Settles selected a large, black comforter to warm her family until she can raise the money to turn the gas heat back on. A petite woman approached, her face obscured by dark sunglasses and a wrapped winter scarf, and handed Settles two $100 bills stamped with the words “secret Santa.” “The only condition,” she said, “is that you do something nice for someone. Pass it on.”

“I will,” Settles said, the only words she could get out of her mouth.

The secret Santa was a protege of Kansas City’s undercover gift giver, Larry Stewart, who died of cancer nearly two years ago. Stewart roamed city streets each December doling out $100 bills to anyone who looked like they might need a lift.

Before his death in January 2007, Stewart told a friend how much he would miss his 26 years of anonymous streetside giving, during which he gave away about $1.3 million. Stewart, from the city suburb of Lee’s Summit, made millions in cable television and long-distance telephone service.

The friend promised Stewart he would be a secret Santa the next year. “He squeezed my hand and that was it,” said the Kansas City Santa, who would say only that he was an area businessman and investor. “I honored a promise.”

Two secret Santas, one from the Kansas City area and the other from the St. Louis area, descended on thrift stores, a health clinic, convenience store and small auto repair shop to dole out $20,000 in $100 bills, hugs and words of encouragement to unsuspecting souls in need.

In this economy, they weren’t hard to find.

Cynthia Brown, 40, was laid off three weeks ago from her food service job. Santa found her at the St. Louis County health clinic and gave her $100, exactly what she had asked to borrow from her mother a night ago to buy food.

“I have three daughters, and I can’t get unemployment yet. I was down in food,” she said.

Leotta Burbank, 50, of West Frankfurt, Ill., was at a thrift store Friday to buy decorations for her sister-in-law’s room at a St. Louis hospice, where she is dying of pancreatic cancer.

When Santa gave her money, Burbank collapsed into his arms and wouldn’t stop hugging him.

Read Full Story - Secret Santas

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