Stranger buys a foreclosed home and then gives it back to owner who lost it.

So I read on FoxNews that a woman went to a foreclosure auction, met the person who had lost the house, talked with her, and then did something amazing:

She bought the house for $30,000 (it was originally worth $80,000), and then told the woman who had owned the house previously, that she could move back in, and make payments to her, instead of to the bank.

Wow. That's awesome.

Here's the rest of the story: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,445110,00.html

We need more people like that woman.

Healing after a contentious election

I was in Target 2 days after the election, and the checkout clerk was still wearing her "I voted" sticker. I remarked on it, (saying something like "oh, you're still wearing your sticker" in a friendly voice) and she glared at me, and said in a voice tight with anger, "Yes, I'm still wearing it, because I'm angry. My vote didn't matter, now did it?"

I was stunned.

It was obvious that a) she had to be awfully angry to say something like that to a customer and b) was spoiling for a fight, and nothing I could say would help the matter. So, I said nothing, but was left both shaken, and saddened.

I can't address her anger. Nothing except perhaps time will heal that.

But, I can say this: your vote DID count. It DID matter. No, your candidate didn't win. But mattering, and winning are two different things. What your vote means, is that it sends one tiny message to the president-elect that not everyone agrees with him. That his presidency isn't mandated by everyone. That he must listen to and address those individual messages of dissent, or he will fail.

Your vote, win or lose is the only way you can make a difference in some cases. I have NEVER agreed with the "America, love it or leave it" mentality. To love a country is to strive to make it better. If we didn't love our country, it wouldn't be worth the effort toward trying to make it better. And voting is one of the ways we can struggle for the better.

I also have never liked the "United we stand, divided we fail" mentality. The truth is that part of what makes America great, is the fact that we have stood, and will continue to stand, as an often divided people. That our divisions do not mean we cannot work together. We have stood as an oft-divided people since the close of the Civil War, nearly 150 years now. Look at countries like the former Yugoslavia, the USSR, Rwanda, South Africa. Look at the religious divisions that have caused nearly constant fighting in Ireland, and the Middle East. We - despite our divisions - have managed to survive, and improve. Look at how we treated Japanese Americans in World War II. We rounded them up, and imprisoned them in internment camps. But after 9/11/2001, there certainly were random acts of violence against Muslim Americans, but there was never a concerted effort to imprison them.

And 50 years ago, the marriage between a white woman and a black man that produced President-Elect Obama would have been illegal under many state miscegenation laws. In that 50 years, we've come an awfully long way. Paraphrasing Reverend Al Sharpton: "Obama couldn't have been elected on the black vote alone. Many whites voted for him too." So we haven't healed the divide between conservatives and liberals, religious and non-religious. But perhaps some day we will.

To, continue to vote. Continue to make your voice heard. Because it does matter.

Take down the election signs

Lets take down those political signs, and dispose of other election-related stuff, now that the election is over. Be sure to properly dispose of everything. Can the metal frames for the yard signs be recycled? Plastic goes in the trash, paper fliers should be recycled.

It's election day

Be an ant and VOTE (a metaphor from A Bugs Life )

It's election day tomorrow. People say that their vote doesn't count. But they are wrong. It does count. It really does.

Because there is strength in numbers. Watch the video, and ignore the parts about the "grasshopper world order" and pay special attention to the grass seeds/ant metaphor.



That's why your vote counts. Please go to the polls tomorrow, and cast your vote.

Pay It Forward

"Pay It Forward is a multi-level marketing scheme of the heart. Beginning as a seventh-grade class assignment to put into action an idea that could change the world, young Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) comes up with a plan to do good deeds for three people who then by way of payment each must do good turns for three other people. These nine people also must pay it forward and so on, ad infinitum. If successful, the resulting network of do-gooders ought to comprise the entire world. Trevor's attempts to get the ball rolling include befriending a junkie (James Caviezel) and trying to set up his recovering-alcoholic mother (Helen Hunt) with his burn-victim teacher (Kevin Spacey), who posed the assignment."

Yeah, it's a little schmaltzy, and yes, the ending is a bit contrived, but I think we can all take some inspiration from it. I have been fortunate enough to have been on the receiving end of the pay-it-forward idea on a couple of occasions, and it really made my day.

What Can I Do?: An Alphabet For Living

Another handbook:

What Can I Do?: An Alphabet For Living

Concern for the health of our planet led award-winning actress Lisa Harrow and her husband, internationally renowned whale biologist Roger Payne, to create the performance piece Lessons from Copernicus. But Lisa and Roger found that, following performances of their show, audience members frequently wanted to know: What can I do to help? What can we all do to stop the destructive impact of our current way of life?

What Can I Do? is Lisa’s response, a guidebook on how to take action. What Can I Do? initially accompanied performances of Lessons from Copernicus as a resource for audiences to take home. Its immediate success led Lisa to expand the guide for public and educational use.

Now available to the general public, What Can I Do? is at once practical and charming. The book is written as "An Alphabet for Living," providing readers with an extensive annotated list of Web sites where anyone can begin to explore the practices of sustainable living. Each site in the book has been selected for its wealth of information and links, and each serves as a valuable tool for finding fresh ways to view the world and live gently in it.

A wonderful resource for both new and renewed interest in sustainable living, What Can I Do? makes a great gift. The advice inside covers a broad array of subjects: from stopping the junk mail in your mailbox to reaping the economic and social benefits of green business; from buying sustainably harvested seafood to donating and recycling your obsolete electronics; from finding local food producers to getting your town to turn garbage into soil-improving compost.