This one really speaks for itself...
Happy Facts
A reddit user was feeling down one evening, so asked the internet community to tell him anything that would make him think higher of the world. They responded in full...
- Every year hundred of trees grow because of squirrels forgetting where
they buried their nuts.
- It's impossible to say 'beer can' without sounding like a Jamaican saying 'Bacon'.
- Even if they've never been able to witness it themselves, blind people smile when they are happy. Smiling is a basic human instinct.
- No two dogs' nose prints are
the same, much like human fingerprints.
- Newborn giant pandas are about the size of a stick of
butter.
- There’s a superhero with a hearing aid called ‘Blue Ear’. He was created
by Marvel Comics to encourage a little boy to wear his own!
- There is a program that makes prison inmates responsible for training
and raising seeing-eye dogs. Many reported that they felt like they were making
amends for their past actions by working with the puppies.
- Dolphins have names for one another.
- Octopuses actually do make gardens by collecting stones and shiny things
and arranging them in the sand. Ringo was right.
- The voices of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse got married in real life.
- The man who does Winnie the
Pooh's voice spends some of his spare time ringing up children in the cancer
wards of hospitals putting on Winnie's voice and telling them how much he loves
them and how brave they are.
- Speaking of which, Winnie the Pooh totally gets life...
Pooh-
What day is it?
Piglet-
It's today
Pooh-
oh good that's my favourite day.
- If you plug your nose,
you can't hum.
- There
is a group of nine women in West Tennessee who call themselves the 9
Nanas. They bake cakes together and leave them on the doorsteps of the needy,
unemployed, or those who have lost family members. They've been doing it for 36
years.
- Worms communicate by snuggling.
- Cuddling releases Oxytocin which helps speed healing and recovery from
physical wounds.
- Otters hold hands when sleeping so they don’t drift away from each
other.
- The
word "suns" is written the same way upside down.
- Crows
play pranks on each other.
- A 6-year-old applied for a job at a railroad museum in York. In his
letter he wrote "I have an electric train track. I am good on my
train track. I can control two trains at once." They hired
him as Director Of Fun.
An Homage To The Red Panda
Red pandas are arguably some of the cutest animals on this planet, but they are not all that well known. So here is a little more info on these little lovelies a.k.a. the red cat-bears.
Found across the Eastern Himalayas and South West China, red pandas live in high altitude temperate forests. Excellent climbers, they spend most of their day snoozing up a tree. They become a little more active in late afternoon and early evening. Sensitive to temperatures, these little guys like to be warm. They also enjoy rubbing their backs and bellies on the bark of trees. Simple pleasures.
I think it's fair to say that they are not all that adept in snow...
Like their distant cousins, red pandas can't digest cellulose and so have to eat a lot of bamboo. Bamboo is not a highly nutritious plant, so red pandas conserve energy by being active for only 56% of their day. In other words...they're super lazy.
And they do NOT like being snuck up on...
With those faces and such magnificent tails, they're pretty impossible not to like, but in case you had any doubt left in your mind, here's one freaking out over a pumpkin...
Celebrating Global Progress
Us humans have a tendency to strive for more, to want the best. Most of the time that's pretty awesome; it can help us to achieve our goals and become more fulfilled. But sometimes in striving for the ideal, we can forget to celebrate the progress we have made.
A classic example of the above is the progress on the Millennium Development Goals. There is a lot of criticism of them and yes, they omitted certain factors, yes, we might not achieve them all and yes, there have been issues in their delivery BUT - and this is a big but - there have been some truly amazing changes.
Since 1990 ...
We have reduced extreme poverty by half.
Child mortality rates have dropped by nearly half.
Maternal mortality rates have dropped by 45%.
22 million tuberculosis deaths were averted (since 1995).
The incidence of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa has dropped by over 50%.
The proportion of underweight under fives in Bangladesh has reduced by 25% (1990-2012)
The number of children not attending primary school has reduced from 102 million in 2000, to 58 million in 2012.`
We have got substantially closer to gender parity in education.
The participation of women in politics has increased substantially.
And millions of lives are being saved by access to better drinking water.
Now granted we still have a long way to go, but come on...that's pretty amazing right?
We totally have the capacity for large scale positive change.
If this has left you thinking, "but what can I do?" here are a few suggestions:
- Buy Fair Trade. Tea bags, bananas, chocolate - pay growers a fair price.
- Sponsor a child via a legitimate organisation who spread benefit across whole communities via initiatives such as clean water, crop irrigation, school houses and supplies for school children.
- Stop buying from known sweatshop environments.
- Give canned goods to food-banks to help hunger in your community or donate to your local soup kitchen.
- When travelling abroad, try to invest in local communities and pay fair prices.
- Put pressure on your local MP and your government to take action on issues that matter to you.
- Reduce your environmental footprint - take the bus, fly less frequently, eat vegetarian food more often.
- Learn more about being an ethical consumer.
- Choose a project of interest and donate to a legitimate charity that uses funds to establish and maintain projects where needed.
List adapted from developmentgoals.com
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