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Potluck GNR for Wednesday, February 5, 2025 — Bring your own good news! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-05
Good morning, Gnusies! In the absence of a designated writer for the first Wednesday of the month, we’re posting a potluck with just a few items and asking all of you to pitch in with stories of your own to encourage, cheer, and comfort all of our readers.
These are tough times, and we all need to help each other stay hopeful and engaged.
I’ll get things going with a few cheerful items that didn’t fit in yesterday’s GNR, starting with a really cute baby and a couple of other animal stories:
The Oregon Zoo welcomes a new baby elephant
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
Thirty-year-old Asian elephant Rose-Tu gave birth on Saturday after 20 months of pregnancy, the zoo said in a news release. The calf appeared to be a 200-pound (90-kilogram) female, but zoo staff are giving the pair time to bond before conducting a first checkup to confirm weight and sex. “We couldn’t be happier with how everything is going so far,” Steve Lefave, who oversees the zoo’s elephant program, said in the release. “This was one of the smoothest births I’ve ever seen. Rose knew just what to do. She helped her baby up right away. The kid was standing on her own within 15 minutes and took her first steps soon after that.”
As a bonus, here’s a video of baby’s first steps:
x YouTube Video
Trained dogs working inside hospitals help ease burnout among health care staff
From NPR:
Outside HCA HealthONE Rose medical center in Denver, the snow is flying. Inside, on the third floor, there's a flurry of activity at Labor and Delivery. "There's a lot of action up here. It can be very stressful at times," said Dr. Kristina Fraser, an OB-GYN in blue scrubs. ...She said she feels ready in part thanks to a calming moment she had just a few minutes earlier with some canine colleagues. Nurses on a break crowd around to pet Peppi, a Canine Companion dog, in November at Denver's HCA HealthONE Rose medical center. A pair of dogs, tails wagging, had come by a nearby nursing station, causing about a dozen medical professionals to melt into a collective puddle of affection. A yellow Lab named Peppi showered Fraser in nuzzles and kisses. "I don't know if a human baby smells as good as that puppy breath!" Fraser had said as her colleagues laughed. The dogs aren't visitors. They work here, too, specifically for the benefit of the staff. "I feel like that dog just walks on and everybody takes a big deep breath and gets down on the ground and has a few moments of just decompressing," Fraser said. "It's great. It's amazing." Hospital staff who work with the dogs say there is virtually no bite risk with the carefully trained Labradors, the preferred breed for this work. The dogs are kept away from allergic patients and washed regularly to prevent germs from spreading, and people must wash their hands before and after petting them.
Mexico’s Long Road To A Scarlet Macaw Revival
From All About Birds:
..nearly 250 macaws...have been released into the Lacandon rainforest, crucial additions to the last viable population of this endangered subspecies left in Mexico. The macaw reintroductions were made possible by Natura y Ecosistemas Mexicanos, a nonprofit group founded by biologists to collaborate with local communities to save these birds and this remnant rainforest. Collaboration with the people of the Marqués de Comillas communities bordering the jungle is the key to keeping macaws in the skies and trees on the ground here, says Julia Carabias, a cofounder of Natura and former Secretary of the Environment, Natural Resources, and Fisheries (Mexico’s equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of the Interior). The 70-year-old Carabias is a conservation hero in Mexico, a legend who confronted those who invaded the Lacandon rainforest for illegal clearcutting. Even as she was being held captive by kidnappers, she spoke passionately about preserving the jungle and the macaws, because protecting the ecosystem is in the best interest of the people. Indeed, she says, the conservation movement here is successful because of the people. “From my point of view,” Carabias says, “it is impossible to claim to conserve if we do not have the involvement of the communities that own the land.”
Some resistance suggestions
Chop Wood, Carry Water If you haven’t already signed up for the daily newsletter from Chop Wood, Carry Water, by Jessica Craven, do it!! And sign up to use Resistbot, the messaging tool that makes it really easy to act on Jessica’s suggestions: Go here! And then here. Here’s how she describes what she’s up to: I started sending these emails right after Trump's election in an attempt to help bolster my own spirits and those of my devastated friends. “Chop Wood Carry Water” is a saying I learned from my dad; the idea is: when the going gets tough, put your head down and focus on simple actions. This newsletter offers such actions; they’re easy, but they’ll also help build a better democracy (and keep you sane). As we head into the biggest election of our lives, also, the danger from MAGA Republicans is more real than ever. Our engagement and simple actions have never been more important. SO THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE! What’s in the newsletter: Each weekday I post: A short pep talk
A call script for your two Senators
A call script for your House rep
An "extra credit" action
A Resistbot letter [Jessica provides complete info on this]
Sometimes a strategic donation suggestion
A way to help win an election
An invitation to a politics-related webinar It should take you about 5-7 minutes to take the actions. I find her actions easy to accomplish and very satisfying! She also does a GNR-style summary of the best news stories of the week every Sunday, which is a wonderful gift. I used several of the stories she highlighted on Sunday in today’s GNR.
Indivisible’s action steps This is new information from the Zoom webinar last night. Jessica Craven summarized it: Indivisible’s calls to action are as follows: First, they want us to call our reps, for sure... But they’re also urging us to go in to our U.S. Senators’ offices in person between now and Thursday. They’ve created a toolkit to tell us how to do it. I know it sounds daunting, but remember, these offices are there for constituents and they’re supposed to be willing to meet with anyone who asks. You won’t talk to the lawmaker, of course, but to a staffer who will convey what you say to them. I’m going to Senator Padilla’s L.A. office with a group of Indivisibles on Wednesday—if you’re in the L.A. area email me and you can join us. We will be demanding a NO vote on Russell Vought and an immediate ejection of Elon Musk. (Oh, and if you don’t know where your lawmakers’ offices are, guess what? Resistbot has a keyword for that! Text the word VISIT to 50409, follow the simple prompts, and they’ll give you all of your lawmakers’ office addresses.)
An omega-3 a day keeps the ageing away Omega-3 and vitamin D supplements, taken over the course of years, might slow biological ageing, according to a new study. Results of a trial of people aged over 70 showed that a combination of the two supplements daily and 30 minutes of exercise three times a week over three years reduced biological ageing — ageing measured at a molecular level — by three to four months. The reduction sounds small, but can translate to important public-health benefits such as a reduction in the prevalence of some age-related health conditions, says clinician-scientist Heike Bischoff-Ferrari. Nature | 4 min read
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