"Play It Again God"

Good Deeds, Good News, Good Times

Archive for December, 2009

Therapy animals bring joy, comfort to Stanford Hospital patients

Dec 30

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By Jessica Bernstein-Wax
Daily News Staff Writer

This holiday season hasn’t been Teri Corpus’ happiest. The 51-year-old Lindsay, Calif., resident has spent the past month in a Stanford Hospital bed far away from friends and family undergoing numerous procedures for her kidney cancer.

“I spent my birthday and Christmas here, and I’m probably having my happy New Year here too,” Corpus said Monday afternoon as she lay in bed hooked up to an intravenous therapy tube and with a catheter in place.

But a 10-minute visit from Chloe, a black Scottish terrier sporting a bright red bandana, seemed to lift Corpus’ mood.

“Isn’t she sweet?” Corpus said, as Chloe’s handler, Ruth Hodos, lowered the small dog onto the hospital bed.

Chloe nestled in and was soon lying peacefully with her head on Corpus’ lap.

The 11-year-old pooch is part of a group of about 25 specially trained dogs, cats and bunnies who visit patients twice a week through the Pet Assisted Wellness at Stanford, or PAWS, program.
mercurynews.com

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Veterans and Shelter Animals Meet With Pets2Vets

Dec 29

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Pets2Vets program started by Air Force vet matches veterans with shelter animals

By LINDA LOMBARDI
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Dave Sharpe was troubled by thoughts he couldn’t share after he returned from serving in Iraq. “I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, punching holes in walls, kicking and beating the refrigerator door,” he said.

Then one day, the former Air Force senior airman went with a friend to a local pit bull rescue and took home a puppy, Cheyenne. Next time he found himself kicking something, “I saw this puppy, cocking her head, looking up at me, like, what are you doing?”

Finally, Sharpe had someone he could open up to. “I froze, I put down my drink, I picked her up and laid with her in my bed,” he said. “I cried and I told her the whole story. I didn’t feel judged.”
abcnews.go.com

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Woman gives away jewelry in Wellsville

Dec 20

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Says Santa sent her and she’s from the North Pole

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Life Is Good

Dec 18

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A-dog-runs-in-the-snow-at-008

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Dog Helps Save Baby’s Life

Dec 18

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hero dog
Hound Leads Owner To Drowning Baby

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — A Treasure Coast dog is being hailed as a hero for helping to save a baby’s life this week.

Reyna Zurita said she had just walked into her Port St. Lucie home when her 2-year-old hound, Hunter, suddenly ran out the door.

“I run behind my dog because that’s for my kids and I don’t want to lose my dog, and I run behind” Zurita said in broken English. “I say, ‘What happened? Stop,’ but he never listen to me.”

Hunter ran for nearly half a mile and led Zurita to an infant who was lying on the ground after nearly drowning.
wpbf.com

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Send a Net, Save a Life, See a Game

Dec 17

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The National Basketball Association (NBA) and the United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets tipped off a promotion — Send a Net. Save a Life. See a Game. presented by HP — to send anti-malaria bed nets to refugees in 11 African countries. The effort is part of the NBA Cares Season of Giving and runs through January 31, 2010. Starting today, NBA fans can log on to NothingButNets to donate $10 or more and get two complimentary tickets to an NBA game, subject to availability.
unfoundation.org

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Couple pays it forward

Dec 16

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The 52-year-old landmark restaurant at 3356 Aramingo Ave. is open 24 hours a day, so it’s always a-bustle. But the place really hops during weekend breakfast and lunch time. Last Saturday was no different, and both wings of the diner – the booth area and the bigger dining room – were lively.Aramingo_Diner_195wide2

The manager on duty, Linda (who asked that I not mention her last name here, for reasons I can’t get into but let’s just say everything worked out okay…), tells me that a couple in their 30s paid their check at the register, then asked the cashier to let them secretly pay the check of another couple in the dining room – a couple they didn’t know.

“They just wanted to do it,” she said. “They thought it would be a nice thing to do.”

When the unsuspecting patrons went to pay their check, they were floored to find out that strangers had picked up their tab. So they asked the cashier to let them pay another table’s check, also anonymously.

When that table’s patrons approached the register, they, too, decided to pay the favor forward for yet another table of unsuspecting strangers.

You know where this is going, right?
philly.com

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Salvation Army Strikes Gold, Again

Dec 15

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Christmas came early for the Salvation Army of St. Joseph County. In front of a Walmart, a good samaritan donated a gold coin worth an estimated $1200.

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Stephen King pays for troops’ holiday trip home

Dec 14

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AP
king
BANGOR, Maine – Author Stephen King and his wife are donating money so 150 soldiers from the Maine Army National Guard can come home for the holidays.

King and his wife, Tabitha, who live in Bangor, are paying $13,000 toward the cost of two bus trips so that members of the 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Unit can travel from Camp Atterbury in Indiana to Maine for Christmas.

The soldiers left Maine last week for training at Camp Atterbury. They are scheduled to depart for Afghanistan in January.
msnbc.msn.com

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Wireless Devices to Read Words in the Brain

Dec 13

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By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience

Wireless brain-machine interfaces could one day scan minds in real-time for speech data to help people with brain injuries talk, new research suggests.

Recently, scientists have developed brain-machine interfaces that help restore communication to people who can no longer speak by reading brainwaves using electrodes stuck on their heads. Unfortunately, these have proved very slow, at roughly one word typed per minute, making normal conversations and social interactions virtually impossible.
livescience.com

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