Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Amid the negativity all around us, some rays of cheer and good news…
Erika Jenkins was riding her bike home when she noticed an elderly woman walking alone, eastbound on Main Street, carrying a framed picture. Her own ears were freezing, but Jenkins noticed the woman wore only sweatpants, shoes and a long-sleeved shirt, with no jacket to shield her from the cold. Read it all
Here’s some great news from a disaster site:
Rescue workers on Monday reinforced a small drill hole to serve as an umbilical cord to 33 miners found alive 17 days after a cave-in in Chile’s far north and say it will take months to dig them out.
In what relatives called a miracle, the miners on Sunday tied a note to a perforation drill that had bored a shaft the circumference of a grapefruit to the refuge where they are sheltered, 2,300 feet (700 meters) vertically underground.
[…]
Rescue workers now plan to use the bore hole to send plastic tubes containing glucose, hydration gels and food down to the miners to keep them alive while they dig a new shaft to extract them — which could take up to four months.
“The wait is very different now,” said Elias Barros, 57, whose brother is among those trapped. “It is a wait free of anguish. This isn’t over but we are much more hopeful it will end happily.”
May they all get out alive.
And bald, too.
(His color wasn’t so hot either.)
He came with a friend.
And went home with a friend.
Then the next day (ie, today) two of the latter friend’s children took Long Hair to the Molalla Post Office! 😯
Some books have rough covers; others, frightening covers.
Some of those same books also have stories within them to match their covers.
Yet once in a while — unexpectedly, surprisingly, refreshingly, shockingly, happily — light bursts forth from the darkness.
So amidst the bad news, how about some good news?
The detention deputy was sitting at his desk when the inmate attacked. The deputy is 64; the inmate 40 years his junior.
Deputy Kenneth Moon had another disadvantage: He was the sole deputy in a jail pod that houses 62 inmates. The only nearby people who could help him were there because they have been charged with attempted murder, home invasion, drug dealing.
And yet they did.
The first one, Jerry Dieguez Jr., is in jail on an armed home invasion charge. When he saw inmate Douglas Burden put Moon in a chokehold, Dieguez didn’t hesitate.
He ran behind the desk and landed a haymaker of a punch on Burden.
Inmates Hoang Vu and Terrell Carswell also provided backup. […]
While Dieguez, Vu and Carswell kept Burden off the deputy, another inmate came charging over.
David Schofield […] reached over to the deputy, took his radio and called for help.
The inmates are credited with saving their jailer’s life.
Source: Inmates saved deputy’s life during attack, sheriff’s office says
Jason, taking a break from his normal work:
A construction worker dangled from a heavy-duty chain supported by a crane to rescue a woman from the swirling waters of the Des Moines River on Tuesday afternoon.
The dramatic rescue was met with cheers from spectators who had gathered on the banks of the river and nearby bridges after the boat the woman was in went over the Center Street dam.
[…]
Capt. Steve Brown, a spokesman for the Des Moines Fire Department, said rescuing someone trapped in the turbulent boil is “very rare.”
“We are trained for getting people out of those situations,” Brown said. “The construction workers definitely went well above and beyond.”
“She was getting beat up by the water pretty good – they didn’t think she had much longer to last.”
Brown said a rescue team from the fire department made multiple attempts to get close, but was unable to do so.
[…]
When asked if he volunteered to be rigged to the crane, Oglesbee said he just happened to be wearing the harness. Joe Lowe operated the crane that suspended Oglesbee above the water.
“I just told her to hang on tight. I won’t let go,” Oglesbee recalled.
| Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to military operations in Georgia on Tuesday, saying Moscow had achieved its objectives by punishing Tbilisi.
Just before meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy for peace talks at the Kremlin, Medvedev issued instructions to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to “stop the operation to force Georgian authorities to peace.” “The aim of the operation has been achieved,” Medvedev said in televised remarks. “…The aggressor has been punished and has suffered very considerable losses.” Close U.S. ally Georgia entered conflict with Russia last week after launching an offensive to retake the pro-Russian region of South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgian rule in 1992. Moscow responded with a huge counter-offensive. |
In other good news:
…followed by bad.
Potential Leukemia Breakthrough
| Australian scientists said Monday they had mapped a blood cell structure which could hold the key to improved drug treatments for diseases such as leukaemia, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.
[…] “We hope that this discovery will lead to targeted therapies, more specific to the malfunctioning cells seen in diseases such as leukaemia.” |
Lesbian, Atheist, Muslim to “Attempt” Christian Life
| A new television program being broadcast this month follows a group of 13 non-Christian volunteers, who, on camera, attempt to “live by the teachings of the Bible for three weeks.”
“Make Me a Christian,” broadcast in a three-part series, asks the participants to be mentored by four pastors from a variety of backgrounds – Anglican, Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal – as they attempt to live like Christians, an effort that runs in stark contrast to many of the participants’ backgrounds. The 13 volunteers who will make the effort include a tattooed militant atheist biker, a man who converted from Christianity to Islam, a lesbian schoolteacher, a lap-dancing witch with a lust for expensive shoes, a middle-class yuppie couple that can’t find time to spend with their children and a party animal who claims he’s slept with over 150 women. Whether people can be made into Christians by a three-week crash course in discipleship, however, remains a matter of debate. […] The show’s website concludes with the teaser line, “All this is just the start of their three hard weeks. Can they embrace Christian ideals and learn to live in a different way or will their old lives prove just too strong to resist?” |
You cannot live the Christian life without Jesus.
There is no Christian life without Christ. Not in real life. And certainly not in for-TV life.
| As a Russian jet bombed fields around his village, Djimali Avago, a Georgian farmer, asked me: “Why won’t America and Nato help us? If they won’t help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?”
A similar sense of betrayal coursed through the conversations of many Georgians here yesterday as their troops retreated under shellfire and the Russian Army pressed forward to take full control of South Ossetia. |
Note to other countries: Who will go to war against Russia for you? 😯
| Dozens of Russian warplanes staged air raids in Georgia on Monday, officials said, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of trying to undermine Russia’s mounting military offensive.
[…] Russia and Georgia pursued their attacks as diplomatic tensions worsened. US President George W. Bush, Georgia’s biggest western ally, said he had told Russia’s influential prime minister that its bombing of Georgia was “unacceptable.” Putin responded by accusing the US of trying to disrupt the Russian military operation by transporting Georgian troops from Iraq into the “conflict zone.” “I regret that some of our partners are not helping us but in fact are trying to impede us,” Putin said directly referring to the US flights of Georgian troops. […] The UN refugee agency said up to 80 percent of Gori’s population of 50,000 have fled the city because of Russian attacks. […] Russia, which has already moved battleships to the Black Sea and said it has sunk a Georgian navy vessel, is preparing to deploy 9,000 troops to bolster its forces inside a second separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, a military spokesman was quoted as saying by Interfax. It will send more than 350 armoured vehicles to add to what is officially a Russian peacekeeping force in the breakaway region, the spokesman said. |
“What is officially a Russian peacekeeping force” highlights a concept I’ve found difficult to grasp for years. Look at Russia’s track record through fairly recent history and who wouldn’t consider their “friendly” military presence anywhere without at least some trepidation?
PS to Putin: So some of your partners aren’t helping you? Well, what’s the US to do when it’s also partners with your adversary? Ah, the strange world of geopolitics. And of plain ole politics. 🙄
Well, may the good news from Australia result in new and effective cures for leukemia. Amen.