What Makes a Country Happy?
December 13, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
The Happiest Countries in the World
1. Denmark
> Life Satisfaction Score: 10
> Debt As a Pct. of GDP: 39.5% (14th lowest)
> Employment Score: 8.4 (5th best)
> Self-Reported Health: 7.37 (15th best)
> Employees Working Long Hours: 9.72 (3rd best)
> Disposable Income: 4.0 (18th best)
> Educational Attainment: 7.39 (18th best)
> Life Expectancy: 5.71 (25th best)Danish residents have consistently rated themselves as the happiest in the world for years in several different studies. This is in some ways surprising, considering the Scandinavian country received only average scores for several metrics that other highly satisfied countries consistently perform well in. For example, Denmark’s 26% income tax as a percent of GDP (the highest in the OECD) has resulted in an average disposable income of $27,080 compared to the OECD average of $36,800. This places Denmark among the bottom half of developed countries for disposable income. The country also ranks in the bottom third life expectancy and just average in self-reported health. However, Danes have one of the strongest senses of friendship and community, with 97% reporting they had someone other than a family member that they could rely on. Danish culture and government policy is one of the most leisure-friendly. Denmark’s citizens spend more than 16 hours each week on leisure time, the second-highest rate in the OECD. The government also subsidizes a full year of maternity leave.
Beth
Little Guy Wins Big Gem
September 12, 2011 by admin · View Comments
CORTLAND, Ohio - He calls himself “just a country boy,” but a retired home builder from Trumbull County just out-bid the world for one of the most notable diamonds on the planet.
Jerre and Donah Hentosh of Cortland are proud owners of The Golden Eye Diamond. It’s a 43.51 carat diamond, one caret less than the famed Hope Diamond. It’s a yellow or canary diamond. The cut is a one inch long rectangle and its clarity is rated internally flawless.
It was confiscated during an FBI investigation and was sold this week by the U.S. Marshall’s Office in an on-line auction.
“We read about the auction and the stone and I know diamonds pretty well, precious metals, so we decided to bid because we thought it might be exciting and an opportunity,” Jerre Hentosh said.
Jerre says they made several bids and couldn’t believe they ended up with the winning bid. “Shocked, I didn’t have a clue. I thought some big wheels would be there instead of a little country boy like myself,” Jerre said.
“I just thought there was no way that the two of us living in Cortland, Ohio had a chance against people probably all over the world,” said Donah Hentosh.
The diamond was seized by the FBI in 2006 from Paul Monea of Alliance. He was arrested after he attempted to sell the diamond and the former Southington estate of boxer Mike Tyson to an undercover FBI agent.
Monea was convicted of money laundering and is serving a 13 year sentence in federal prison.
Jerre and Donah just learned that the Golden Eye is listed as number four on the list of the ten most notable diamonds in the world.
Donah says Jerre was a successful businessman and they saved their money. “We live pretty frugally and I mean that’s the way were able to save the money we do,” Donah said.
When and if they sell the diamond, they plan to give the money to charities that help the poor.
Source: WFMJ.com
Beth
Repurposing Old Vinyl - What’s Next?
September 6, 2011 by admin · View Comments
Repurposing is one of my favorite words. I love the idea that something can be used in a new and different way, saving the world of another “new” thing and maximizing our resourcefulness and creativity. Here’s a great example. Today, ask yourself what you can repurpose? What “old thing” could have a new and improved use?
Source: Environmental Graffiti [Great site - check it out!]
Beth
Island In the (Air)Stream: Floating Sculpture Goes Missing
August 10, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design & Nature & Ecosystems & News & Politics. ]
If you live in Europe and recently saw a lush green island floating by in the sky, don’t worry – you haven’t lost your mind. A team of U.K. artists and designers have lost something very important to them, though: this mesmerizing floating structure called Is Land.
(all images via: Is Land)
At the Secret Garden Party festival in Cambridgeshire in July, a group of vandals cut the support ropes tethering Is Land to the ground. The helium-filled floating island sailed away on the wind, carrying with it months of hard work on the part of artist Sarah Cockings, designer Laurence Symonds and a whole team of other contributors.
Is Land, a lushly vegetated artificial island in the sky, is a sculpture that reminds us all how close and how far away our perfect worlds are. It floats above the heads of onlookers, tantalizing them with glimpses of a lovely but ever-unreachable landscape.
Sadly, the few malicious festival-goers who decided to set Is Land aloft nearly deprived an American audience of this beautiful sculpture. It was due to make its first American appearance at Burning Man 2011 shortly after the Secret Garden Party. Thanks to the generosity of the Secret Garden Party fund, the Is Land creators have been able to start work on a new version of the piece that will be presented at Burning Man.
The team is still on the hunt for the original, however. Due to the time and money invested in Is Land, it would be a shame for this beautiful piece of art to disappear forever. According to wind patterns, the helium-filled sculpture should have touched down somewhere in the Czech Republic. Anyone who has seen Is Land or has information on its whereabouts can contact the designers through their website.
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Painting in the Dark
July 25, 2011 by admin · View Comments
(CBS News)
DALLAS - Henry David Thoreau once said “the world is but canvas to our imaginations.” In tonight’s “American Spirit,” CBS News correspondent Don Teague shows us an artist who chose to speak through canvas when his world went dark.
If you ask John Bramblitt to describe the world, chances are he’ll tell you it’s colorful.
Bramblitt is an artist whose work is defined by bold and expressive use of color which has emotion all its own.
“Fear, it’s a red with a lot of black mixed in,” Bramblitt said. “It’s almost like the color of blood and dirt or soil -it’s really deep.”
To submit an idea for The American Spirit send us an email.
He knows a lot about fear and anger and depression. Emotions that almost overwhelmed him nine years ago when at just age 30, complications from epilepsy left him irreversibly blind.
What color was the depression?
“Oh my word, it was the worst black. It was like being in a hole,” Bramblitt said.
He eventually climbed out of that hole by learning to paint. He figured out how to mix the colors by feeling the different textures in the oils. He also learned how to apply paint by outlining an image and using his fingers to guide the brush strokes. He sees his subjects with only his fingertips.
Beth
Washed-Up Artwork: Bright Rainbows of Beached Trash
July 17, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design & Geography & Travel & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
The general consensus regarding garbage is that it is, by definition, ugly – and nature is unquestionably more beautiful. But photographer Alejandro Duran finds a beautiful intersection of the two in his photo series “Washed Up,” in which the garbage of the world makes a poignant and strangely beautiful statement about our consumerism.
Sian Ka’an is Mexico’s largest federally-protected biosphere preserve. Located south of Cancun on the Caribbean coast of Mexico, the shores of Sian Ka’an are covered in detritus from around the world. Due to the ocean currents that meet in the location, debris from every point on the planet make their way to the beach of this ecological research and education center.
It may seem like a cruel joke of nature that this ecological center should be plagued by such garbage, but Alejandro Duran uses the refuse to create truly memorable scenes in his photography series called Washed Up. He arranges the garbage by color in distinctly natural-looking arrangements. His site-specific sculptures suggest wave-carried garbage that has settled into place thanks to the natural movement of the water.
While breathtakingly beautiful, the sculptures are incredibly sad as well. Duran has identified garbage on this shore from 42 countries on six continents. The “out of sight, out of mind” effect that makes so many of us ambivalent about waste management is abruptly lost here. There is no ignoring the blatant consumerism and throw-away culture that has caused this massive build-up of human debris.
In addition to his sadly lovely sculptures, Duran takes portraits of individual items that have washed up from nearly every part of the world. Lovingly documented as though they were rare seashells, the bottles and jars captured by Duran’s camera are not necessarily painted in a negative light. Duran photographs them in an almost tender way, presenting these items from all around the globe as objects of interest.
The obvious sadness of this photo series is somewhat tempered by Duran’s choice to document the shameful build-up of garbage in an artistic manner. He arranges the washed-up objects in precisely the way that lapping waves would arrange them, almost suggesting that the ocean itself has carefully selected the collections by color and placed them on the beach for our perusal.
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Kindness - The Movie
June 30, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
THE PROJECT:
Kindness is a groundbreaking documentary project in which people are invited to share true stories of kindness that they have received or observed. Even as you read this, volunteers are beginning to collect stories in the form of interviews. The most compelling stories will be featured on this website and will be considered for inclusion in the upcoming documentary film Kindness.
HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED
Our Video Contest is now open! Top prize – $1000! We are inviting you, the public, to record or document true stories, or create short pieces related to kindness. These pieces might be you telling us a story on video, getting a friend or family member to tell a story, a short video showing us some kindness that you observe in the world, or a short film or video on the theme of kindness, a piece of animation, a photo, a written story or poem, an original song or piece of music, or any other form you wish to use to share your experience of kindness. The only restriction is that all material must be original (you created it), not commercial or licensed material (unless you own the license). Check out all the details under How to Enter Contest.
WHY KINDNESS?The goal of this project is to celebrate kindness in our world. We want to create an opportunity for people to look for evidence of kindness, from the simplest acts to the most profound. Kindness really is the best of human nature, and we can find it everywhere, in every culture, in every form. Often we just don’t notice it. So what would happen if people started paying attention to kindness? Celebrating kindness in all its forms? What would that mean in our world? A world of kindness? It’s a radical idea, we know, and that’s what we have in mind. We want to create a kindness revolution, and you’re invited to be a part of it. Are you in?
Beth
Positive Quote Wednesday - on Home
June 29, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.
Mother TeresaThe ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya AngelouA house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
Benjamin FranklinAt home I am a nice guy: but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.
Muhammad AliSay there’s a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter - for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that’s saying is that he’s living a fantasy life of rebellion.
EminemTen men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I’m tired.
Mae WestAn artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.
Friedrich NietzscheI believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.
Zig ZiglarIf my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.
Audrey HepburnHome is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Robert FrostAnalogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home.
Sigmund FreudIf you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Dale Carnegie
I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.
Andy Warhol
A girl phoned me the other day and said… ‘Come on over, there’s nobody home.’ I went over. Nobody was home.
Rodney Dangerfield
Beth
Princess Máxima explaining the World Bank micro loan third world enslavement con
May 23, 2011 by · View Comments
believersunderground on the World bank con: www.youtube.com Princess of The Netherlands Máxima Zorreguieta (UN special advisor on micro finance), dressed in UN blue for the occasion, explaining the new con of the World Bank: micro loans for the ‘Third world’ (January 2010). She’s married to the son of Queen Beatrix. Current Queen Beatrix (together with Queen Elizabeth) is the major stockholder in Shell Corp. and daughter of Bilderberg group founder Prince Bernhard, a German Nazi, and betrayer of the Dutch people in WW2 (there was a plan of becoming the head of the ‘Dutch province’ within the Third Reich) Máxima Zorreguieta’s father was a junior minister of Agriculture in the Argentinian fascist Videla regime. Mr. Zorreguieta shared the same extreme ideology that was put into practice with dictatorships in several Latin American countries (Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru etc), with the support of the United States and the West, coordinated by several intelligence services. “Operation Condor” was carried on by which all those opposed to these ideas were ELIMINATED (by being tortured to death or by being drugged and dropped into the ocean by planes/heli’s) She is notorious for stating that “the Dutch culture does not exist.” I only watched once, that’s more than I can take. Copyright by Radio Netherlands Worldwide Fair Use bla bla bla
Mauritania: Women Microfinance
May 2, 2011 by · View Comments
Mauritania is helping its tens of thousands of urban poor by creating job opportunities where there once were none. A microfinance program is giving small loans to inner city residents to start small businesses, most of them run by women…. For more information, please visit: World Bank in Africa go.worldbank.org World Bank in Mauritania go.worldbank.org
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