Here at AndNowfortheGoodNews.com, we love kids, of all ages. But when we heard that some movie theaters are offering a new over-21-only option in moviegoing, we couldn’t help but consider it good news. (Options are a good thing, right?)
As Jeffrey Zaslow of The Wall Street Journal reports, a growing number of universities are conducting a lecture series in which professors are asked to give hypothetical last lectures—as in, if they only had one shot left, what would they tell their students. It's a great idea in itself, but for 46-year-old Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, the term "last lecture" takes on true meaning. Professor Pausch has pancreatic cancer and expects to have only a few weeks or months to live.Click here for the 4:40 minute video.A week after that first video ran, which resulted in a rush of public response, Zaslow ran this update:
Click here for the 4:20 minute video follow-up.
Click here for the entire 1.5 hour lecture (includes introductions by colleagues and friends).
This weekend nearly 200 countries, including the U.S., agreed to accelerate the elimination of chemicals that threaten the ozone layer. According to the agreement reached at the United Nations–sponsored conference in Montreal on Saturday, September 22, developed countries will phase out the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) by 2020 and developing states have until 2030. This is 10 years earlier than previously promised under the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
"It is perhaps the most important breakthrough in an international environment negotiation process for at least five or six years," said United Nations Environmental Program chief Achim Steiner.
The Montreal Protocol was initially designed as a way of stopping destruction of the ozone layer, but it turns out that it also provides a way of curbing global warming, making Saturday’s new agreement all the more important and historic.
Read what the BBC has to say.
Read what the global news agency AFP has to say.
Here's a conversation-inducing good news story to share with your kids. A couple of 12th graders got courageous and creative and came to the rescue of a 9th grader being bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school.
Did you miss it? We did. Friday, September 21, was National Park(ing) Day and when we weren’t looking 150 public parking spots across the country were transformed into mini public parks.After rolling out their sod or Astroturf, placing their potted trees and lawn chairs, volunteers soaked up the sun in their makeshift parks as curious onlookers asked questions.
National Park(ing) Day is sponsored by The Trust for Public Land and is part of a nationwide movement to publicize the need for more natural spaces in urban areas. The concept may sound a little silly, but the visual these spots offer is undeniably effective, as illustrated by these photos of mini-parks in cities across the U.S.: San Francisco, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida.
So, get that potted tree growing and mark you calendar for next year. Visit The Trust for Public Land for information and pictures of some of this years marvelous mini-parks.
On Thursday, September 20, hundreds of thousands of children and adults across America will have their noses in the same book. Yes, it’s time for Jumpstart’s second annual Read for the Record event, part of a record-breaking campaign aimed to raise more than $1 million for early education programs in low-income communities.To learn more about the September 20 Read for the Record event and how you can
get involved, visit http://www.readfortherecord.org/
To read more about Jumpstart visit http://www.jstart.org/
About 85% of the U.S. population now has at least a high school education, compared to about 51% in 1967, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.