Israelis and Palestinians: Taking Peace into their Own Hands

Israelis and Palestinians: Taking Peace into their Own Hands

Why Do Your Happy Memories Fade?

Why Do Your Happy Memories Fade?: According to a new study, people overestimate how much they’ll recall from a good time in their life—but there's a way to boost your memory.

80 Beachgoers Form Human Chain to Save Family Being Dragged Out to Sea By RipTide - Good News Network

80 Beachgoers Form Human Chain to Save Family Being Dragged Out to Sea By RipTide - Good News Network

Five Skills in the Science of Happiness

A project manager for Van Acker Construction Associates in Mill Valley, California since 2006, Covey Cowan is committed to helping people, as individuals and in teams, succeed. Covey Cowan has studied the science of happiness.

There are several online courses available that teach the science of happiness. One program that was featured in both the New York Times and Forbes Magazine is a website called Happify, which claims to deliver the most cutting-edge research on happiness to its subscribers.

Happify identifies five skills that are essential to elevate mood and produce greater happiness. Savoring life’s sweet and fruitful moments is recommended to increase optimism and alleviate depression. Gratitude is second on the list. Being appreciative and thanking someone promotes self-confidence and well-being.

Aspiring to reach a a goal makes life more purposeful and fulfilling. Generosity is a positive force as well, since the giver can take pleasure in the happiness of others. Finally, empathy allows us to understand the problems of others, and this understanding leads to friendships and a fuller social life.

They Call Me Musawo

'If you’re living on one dollar per day, thriving is nearly impossible. We asked Joy, a health care promoter for Living Goods, about her experience here.

Years ago, Joy’s husband had been stationed in the army. He died fighting in Rwanda. He left her widowed with a toddler, a baby and pregnant. Thus began the period of her life she called “survival.”

She walked 10km to a charity offering scholarships, for the chance to enroll her three kids in school.Her walking paid off, but only for one child. To eat, a kind neighbor who was HIV+ forged his test results in her name, so she could register at a clinic for free food. She traveled around Kampala, and registered herself at five.

“I have always been skinny, so everyone believed that I had HIV,” she says, raising her forearm and gently circling her wrist with her index finger and thumb, so they touch in the middle. She was ashamed, but with three young children, she was desperate.

Recalling those memories wasn’t easy for Joy.'

To read more click, 'Now I have a name.  Now they call me Musawo.'

The Big Hearted Ice Cream Guy

'As a kid, he sold his drawings door-to-door to neighbors on Colton Street. Many were willing to pay more than the price on the tags he attached to each artwork. At School he sold candy out of his backpack until the principal ordered him to stop. A determined entrepreneur, Karagiannis created a candy catalog with order forms – and sales increased.

Now, at 36, Karagiannis is sold on his city. So much so that he has built his ice cream cart business on serving the underserved.

On business days, Karagiannis and his crew leave the North Buffalo headquarters of Ice Creamcycles pedaling three-wheelers, each pulling an ice cream cart, to destinations on the East Side, West Side and Riverside. There, they sell ice cream and frozen novelties for $1 apiece.

“We’re driving through inner-city neighborhoods,” said Karagiannis, who started his business in 2007.

“When I first started, everyone said I should go to Elmwood Avenue, Thursday in the Square, Delaware Park. But I needed to be right here,” he said during a stop at a street corner in Central Park. “I like bikes. I like joking with the kids and exploring my city.”

With his reflector sunglasses and sneakers the color of a blueberry Popsicle, Karagiannis is a familiar sight in many parts of the city. There, he is known as James the Ice Creamcycle Dude.

But after almost a decade in business, Karagiannis still feels the sting when saying no to a kid who doesn’t have a dollar for ice cream. So he and his drivers keep a stash of freebies to give to children who cannot afford a frozen treat.

Still, nothing is free, he said. So he asks the youngster a math or history question.

Whose picture is this? he asks, unrolling a dollar bill from his pocket. Karagiannis hints heavily until the youngster answers correctly.

George Washington? the youngster says.

Correct.’

To read more click, 'There's been so much interest that Karagiannis started a "Pay-It-Forward" campaign online to allow people to buy ice cream for deserving children.'

You Can Only Get There From Here

“No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.” – Alan Watts

The Dalai Lama's Website for Inner Peace

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'The Dalai Lama, who tirelessly preaches inner peace while chiding people for their selfish, materialistic ways, has commissioned scientists for a lofty mission:  to help turn secular audiences into more self-aware, compassionate humans.

That is, of course, no easy trick.  So the Dalai Lama ordered up something with a grand name to go with his grand ambitions:  a comprehensive Atlas of Emotions to help the more than seven billion people on the planet navigate the morass of their feelings to attain peace and happiness.'

To read more click, ‘Technology is for my next body’



Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

Hidden Villa’s Summer Camps Promote Cross-Cultural Understanding

Covey Cowan has worked in the construction industry since 1975 and now serves Van Acker Construction Associates as a supervisor and project manager. Alongside his professional pursuits, Covey Cowan maintains an interest in the concepts of mind/body medicine and works to give back to the local and global community. In the past, he has assisted several charitable organizations, including Hidden Villa. 

Located just south of San Francisco at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Hidden Villa is a nonprofit educational organization that sits on 1,600 acres of open land. Each year, the organization welcomes 30,000 visitors to the property, which features an organic farm and gardens, wilderness trails, and rustic barns. Dedicated to protecting the environment and fostering social justice, Hidden Villa oversees a variety of programs for people of all ages. 

Since 1945, the organization has operated summer camp programs that focus on promoting cross-cultural understanding and addressing racism. Designed for children and youth aged 4 to 18 years old, Hidden Villa’s summer camps engage campers in activities exploring broad topics such as the environment, race and class, and family and gender. Each year, more than 1,300 youth participate in the camp programs. 

Hidden Villa’s summer camp offerings include day and overnight programs as well as multiday backpacking and youth leadership programs. For more information, visit hiddenvilla.org.

Mental and Physical Benefits of Meditation

Covey Cowan has more than four decades of experience in the construction industry. He has served in project management and other leadership roles, often acting as a liaison between contractors and clients. In addition to his professional pursuits, Covey Cowan has maintained a daily meditation practice for the past 45 years.

Meditation can be both a physically and mentally rewarding practice. By focusing on the moment and developing mindfulness techniques, individuals often find benefits that transcend beyond mere relaxation.

While it might seem like merely an anecdotal observation, the facts indicate that meditation can actually lower stress levels. In a recent study published by Health Psychology, it was found that meditation is linked with lowered cortisol production, which is a byproduct of stress.

Additionally, meditation can help alleviate some of the physiological aspects of stress, including high blood pressure, tension headaches, decreased energy levels, anxiety attacks, ulcers, muscle and joint pain, and insomnia. 

Meditation can also help develop increased mental acuity and help train the brain to more effectively process and manage pain and tumultuous emotions. Other benefits include boosts in creativity, increased happiness, a deeper sense of intuition, as well as overall emotional stability.

How to Solve Every Problem the Earth Faces?



“The World Becomes What You Teach” asks: What if schooling prepared us to solve the most pressing challenges of our time, for ourselves, other people, animals and the earth? What if we educated a generation of “solutionaries”? 

To see the Zoe Weil's Ted Talk click, 'Zoe Weil on what school is for'



Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

Texas Evangelicals Reach Out to Local Muslims

'Every day for five years, youth pastor Rich Reaves has arrived to work in the shadow of a cross and a crescent moon. There, at his Houston church, he and senior pastor Elliott Scott discuss ways they can live out “true Christianity” by loving their neighbors–in this case, members of a mosque next door.

Meanwhile, across town, a dozen religious leaders from the Islamic and Christian communities meet to find common ground and discuss ways to educate Houstonians on “true Islam,” in order to address growing concerns over Islamophobia.

While recent news reports focus on the ISIS threat, and verbal attacks made by Christians against Muslims, a less reported story is going on behind the scenes: members of the two faiths coming together in the name of peace.

For Reaves at Lifepath church, the step in reaching out to his Muslim neighbors was to make contract.  "I couldn't figure out how to reach them," Reaves said, noting that there was no signage around the mosque's gated complex to even indicate what the name of the mosque was.  "I finally called the phone number posted for deliveries."

To read more click, “Most people aren’t afraid of Islam itself. They are afraid of the unknown.”



Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

One World

'Two months ago, Brazilian graffiti artist Kobra, 40, who lives in Sao Paulo, began working on a mural which was recently determined to be the world's largest mural completed by a single man.

To create the masterpiece for the Rio Olympics Kobrda used 100 gallons of white paint, 400 gallons of colored paint, and 3,500 cans of spray paint to transform normal walls into visions of color and beauty.

The mural, titled Las Etnias (Ethnicities) depicts the cultural diversity of the games.  50 feet (15 meters) tall and 30,000 square feet (2,782 square meters) wide, it features five faces from five different continents that represent the Olympic rings.

"These are the indigenous people of the worl," says Kobra on the Rio 2016 official website.  "The idea behind it is that we are all one.  We're living through a very confusing time with a lot of conflict.  I wanted to show that everyone is united, we are all connected."

Too bad there isn't a medal for masterfully painting murals, for Kobra would undoubtedly receive the gold.' 

To see more beautiful photos of the mural click, 'We are all one.'



Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

Six All Time Inspiring Olympic Events

‘The Olympics are a time for athletic greatness - and also a time for truly inspiring feats. Sit back and take a look at some of the most inspiring moments from the past 90 years of Olympic Games.

One of them was Jessie Owens.  He was an Afro-American and was competing in track and field in 1936 Berlin.  Because of the color of his skin, Hitler’s Germany viewed Owens as a lesser athlete.  Owens took the prejudice against him as motivation and would go on to win four gold medals (in the 100 meters, long jump, and 4x100 relay.)'

To see more click, 'These amazing athletes touched thousands of people.'

Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

All Life is Sacred

‘John Malloy’s father was in Army Intelligence and assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Shanghai when Malloy was an infant. When Chiang Kai-shek fled China three years later, in 1949, Malloy’s family was the last one out of Shanghai on a plane. From there they went to the Philippines during the Huk rebellion. And then there was Java and Borneo and jungle living. By the time Malloy was seventeen, he had moved forty-four times. In his young life as a rolling stone, Malloy learned to rely on himself. Whatever allies and friends he might have begun to cultivate in one place were always torn away by his constant displacement. In schools in New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Oakland, as the new kid, he learned to fight. Every day was a trial. While living in San Francisco he ended up in juvenile hall. Later, he did time for assaulting the perpetrators of a rape. Being unprotected from bullies in school wasn’t so different from how it was in jail. The big eat the little. But Malloy was a warrior. It was during his time in jail that something crystallized for him. “I knew that I was going to clean up my mess and spend the rest of my life working in institutions to help take care of the people who no one else was taking care of.”

His resolve led to the creation of a school for young people who had been incarcerated, the Foundry School. Intuitively at first, and later in a more conscious way, he arrived at highly effective ways of helping young people whose lives had spiraled down into violence and crime. Word of Malloy’s integrity, courage, and effectiveness spread. It’s how he began to meet Native Americans who entrusted their at-risk children into his care. For Malloy, it was a pivotal event. In Native American spirituality he found a way of looking at the world that resonated most deeply with his own experience.’

To read more click, “I can’t make a bad decisionbecause I have those on either side of me [Native American wisdom and Buddhism.] I can’t go crooked because I have thisbelief system that makes it so easy to do the right thing. The right thing isto be inclusive. The right thing is to be of service.”

Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

The Librarian Heroes of Timbuktu

'On Friday morning, January 25, 2013, 15 jihadis entered the restoration and conservation rooms on the ground floor of the Ahmed Baba Institute in Sankoré, a government library in Mali. The men swept 4,202 manuscripts off lab tables and shelves and carried them into the tiled courtyard. They doused the manuscripts—including 14th- and 15th-century works of physics, chemistry, and mathematics, their fragile pages covered with algebraic formulas, charts of the heavens, and molecular diagrams—in gasoline. Then they tossed in a lit match. The brittle pages and their dry leather covers ignited in a flash.

In minutes, the work of Timbuktu’s greatest savants and scientists, preserved for centuries, hidden from the 19th-century jihadis and French conquerors, survivors of floods, bacteria, water, and insects, were consumed by the inferno.

In the capital city of Bamako 800 miles away, the founder of Timbuktu’s Mamma Haidara Library, a scholar and community leader named Abdel Kader Haidara, saw the burning of the manuscripts as a tragedy—and a vindication of a remarkable plan he’d undertaken. Starting with no money besides the meager sum in his savings account, the librarian had recruited a loyal circle of volunteers, badgered and shamed the international community into funding the scheme, raised $1 million, and hired hundreds of amateur smugglers in Timbuktu and beyond. Their goal? Save books.' 

To read more click, 'They all made it.'



Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

A Transgender God?

‘Religious arguments are often brought in to defend social prejudices – as in the discussion about transgender rights.  In fact, the Hebrew Bible, when read in its original language, offers a highly elastic view of gender.  The God of the three monotheistic, Abrahamic religions to which fully half the people on the planet today belong, was understood by its earliest worshippers to be a dual-gendered deity.’

To read more click, 'Not a matter of either/or'

Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California 

Wonderful Short Film of the Dalai Lama 'at Home:'

From Alive Mind Apr. 21,2016 - 'The daily life of the Dalai Lama is brought home with remarkable intimacy in Sunrise/Sunset. Granted total access to His Holiness for 24 hours, this is a day in the life of the Dalai Lama from when he wakes up at 3AM until his bedtime at dusk.'

To view click, 'Sunrise, Sunset'

Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

Are We Missing Something?

'In 18^th-century America, colonial society and Native American society sat side by side.  The former was buddingly commercial; the latter was communal and tribal.  As time went by, the settlers from Europe noticed something:  No Indians were defecting to join colonial society, but many whites were defecting to live in the Native American one.'



'Benjamin Franklin observed the phenomenon in 1753, writing, “When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return.”

At the same time, many European settlers were taken prisoner and held within Indian tribes.  After a while, they had plenty of chances to escape and return, and yet they did not.  In fact, when they were “rescued”, they fled and hid from their rescuers.

As Hector Crevecoeur wrote, “Thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one those aborigines having from choice become European.” '

Are we missing something?  To read more click, 'The American Indian Leap'



Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California

Paying It Forward

'A waitress who did a good deed for a pair of firefighters was overwhelmed when they returned the favor—for her father.'

To read more click, 'Your breakfast is on me today.'



Covey Cowan, San Francisco, California