Everyone loves a hero story. This weekend the news featured Stephen Gill – accountant by day – superhero at weekends! He rescued a ten year old girl who had been swept out to sea by large waves.
The story on the BBC News website was one of the few positive stories I found this deeply sad week:
So this week, the news report that warmed me was the care that was taken of turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.
You probably saw the news that temperatures plummeted in Texas with rare snow storms that resulted in many being cut off from electricity and water for days.
At the same time the freezing temperatures were a shock for the turtles in that region. They were cold stunned, and unable to swim when the temperature dropped. They could not swim, but even though they floated up to the top of the sea, they could not lift their necks to be able to draw breath.
That would have resulted in those little guys drowning. So wildlife agencies launched a rescue mission to save thousands of turtles. This week there was a video on the BBC website showing the return of the turtles to the now much warmer Gulf of Mexico waters:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-56218484
When I watched it, I actually felt tears of joy welling up, and it told me that we humans – we are working in all sorts of crazy industries that are harming our planet and it’s creatures. We need to switch to working on looking after our planet and making it as special as it is obviously supposed to be.
I had a lot of good news to choose from for this week’s Tuesday News. There were so many reports on animals frolicking in the snow and coming to the rescue in various lands. But in the end I chose an article more local to these shores.
This news is from up in Scotland. It is about the relocation of Golden Eagles chicks from the Scottish Highlands over to Dumfries and Galloway:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-56153883
Apparently they are so excited about the potential boost to the numbers of Golden Eagles in the south of Scotland, they are even planning a festival for them.
These are magnificent birds, and it is always good news to hear of wildlife flourishing.
There was a lot of bad news this week, so it was a challenge to find a news report that brought a smile to my face. But a feathered friend from the natural world supplied that smile.
This is the news report on “Duck”, the surfing pet duck from Australia:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-55836596
Whatever is happening in the world, nature finds a way to bring a smile to our faces and relieve the pressure.
It’s hard to explain my headspace over the weekend. I came home from work on Friday night to hear news reports suggesting that the new vaccines had become a startling political issue.
It was one of the most demoralising phases of this pandemic for me. The idea that nations could virtually “go to war” over a vaccine designed to help keep people healthy and safe, was truly discouraging.
The whole world needs to be offered the vaccine and that will take time, but we will get there. We have to, if we want to feel safe. There should not be a mad scramble to get in there first. Everyone will need the offer of a vaccine for the world to be safe.
I believe most people feel that it it is right to offer the vaccination to everyone. So governments should not let us down by sparring politically in a time we are trying to heal the world.
So the great news this week is that here in the UK a record breaking 493,013 people were vaccinated with the new Covid-vaccines on one day this weekend. I think I might have been one of them.
You can read the report in the Express Newspaper here:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1388509/covid-19-injections-boost-vaccinations
News reports are claiming that around 75% of people over the age of eighty have now been vaccinated. When I went along for my jab. there were a lot of young people. I heard them explaining they were NHS staff, care assistants, pharmacy staff (like myself). We actually had an email on Friday afternoon asking us to make an appointment and to go along and get ourselves immunised.
Since the start of the pandemic, we have had no choice but to work closely with people, only reliant on PPE and good hygiene to protect us. So after seeing how many of our colleagues have tested positive with the virus and how many of them have been very ill, we were jumping at the chance.
So far, the government say that over 6.3 million have been immised, meaning they are on track to reach their goal of vaccinating 15 million people by mid-February.
The good news I found this week was a BBC article about Mike Hind from Teeside, who donated three thousand meals to children in his areas. There was a lot of attention on the poor standards of food parcels issued to children entitled to free school dinners. But the story on the BBC website shows you just how far Mke Hind went:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-55681924
Any news report highlighting someone with the giving spirit, generosity in action is truly good news! This is absolutely what the world needs so much more of.
My 2021 goal is to look for good news, positive reports in the media that warm the soul. Well, this past week has had the craziest news, with US politics dominating newspaper headlines and television news bulletins , but I still managed to find a great report to make the world feel better:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/omar-atiq-doctor-medical-debt-patients-650k/
This is the story of Doctor Omar Atiq who was retiring. He chose to write of the debt owed by around two hundred cancer patients. That amounted to $650,000.
Doctor Omar Atiq – what you did was priceless and you will be remembered for it by those two hundred patients and others for sacrificing those wages.
I read in the article that when he asked why he did write the debt off, Dr Atiq answered, “some of those patients might need they money more than we did”.
If only more people thought that way. “They might need it more than I do” – what an awesome way to see the world.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? 