Never Give Up

Any effort to help is an effort worth making.

 

One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest - a huge woodlands was suddenly engulfed by a raging

wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the

edge of a stream they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and

powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought

there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird.

 

This particular hummingbird decided it would do something. It swooped into the stream and picked

up a few drops of water and went into the forest and put them on the fire. Then it went back to the

stream and did it again, and it kept going back, again and again and again. All the other animals

watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, "Don't bother,

it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too tiny, it's only a drop, you

can't put out this fire."

 

And as the animals stood around disparaging the little bird's efforts, the bird noticed how hopeless

and forlorn they looked. Then one of the animals shouted out and challenged the hummingbird in a

mocking voice, "What do you think you are doing?" And the hummingbird, without wasting time or

losing a beat, looked back and said, "I am doing what I can."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ The Hummingbird Story, told by Nobel Peace Laureate

Wangari Maathai in May 2006 at a conference on poverty

elimination in Montreal.

The Mozart Effect

Named after the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791), this finding, first reported in the journal Nature in 1993 (pdf here) , said that listening to compositions by Mozart increases scores on tests of spatial ability for a short while.



In the original experiment, college students were given various tests after experiencing each of the following for ten minutes; listening to Mozart's sonata for two pianos in D major K488, listening to a relaxation tape, or silence. Performance on the paper-folding subtest of the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale was significantly better after listening to Mozart than after the other two treatments, but the effect dissipated after about 15 minutes, and other non-spatial tasks were unaffected.

 

The finding has been contested by other researchers and has been widely misinterpreted to imply that listening to Mozart, or just classical music in general, increases one's intelligence.

 

Several independent research studies have shown that children who receive extensive training in musical performance achieve significantly higher average scores on tests of spatial ability, but that long-term consequence is not the Mozart effect.

No exceptions for nice people

I pretty much feel that this reading material today may be slightly taxing for being hung-the f**k-over (When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Harold Kushner); but sometimes you can't but help get roped into a few pages of thought provoking material.

 

''Laws of nature treat everyone alike. They do not make exceptions for good people or for useful people ... If Lee Harvey Oswald fires a bullet at President John F. Kennedy, laws of nature take over from the moment that bullet is fired. Neither the course of the bullet nor the seriousness of the wound will be affected by questions of whether or not President Kennedy was a good person, or whether the world would be better off with him alive or dead. Laws of nature do not make exceptions for nice people. A bullet has no conscience; neither does a malignant tumour or an automobile gone out of control ... '' (p. 67, 1978).

 

While the laws of nature have no consideration for my hangover right now; the sh*t load of burgers and absolute junk I've been throwing down my flavour shnout are putting up a fight. 

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''Nature never breaks her own laws'' ~ Leonardo da Vinci