Feel Good story du jour - Page 8

MacDoc · May 28th, 2009, 05:02 AM

a Canadian treasure

	Quote:
	Munro 'amazed and thrilled' after winning Man Booker Updated Wed. May. 27 2009 11:49 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff "Too Much Happiness" may be the title of Alice Munro's next book. But for Douglas Gibson, Munro's publisher of 30 years, it captures the Canadian author's mood after winning the third-ever Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement on Tuesday. "I am very pleased - and absolutely amazed and thrilled," Munro said in a statement. "To be among such candidates for the prize was a great honour in itself. It's especially great at my time of life to have this recognition of a lifetime's work." The British-based award is given out every two years to honour an author for an entire body of work that has contributed to fiction around the world. Munro is the first Canadian to scoop up this prize. "I joked with her. 'Well Alice, your statement should say this is a nice launch to my new book coming out.'...But she reacted like Alice. She was very modest. She was very surprised," Gibson told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday. It's an accomplishment that says volumes about Munro and the state of Canadian literature, says Gibson. "If writing were an Olympic event our guys would be on the podium all the time. Here's evidence of that," says Gibson. One of the world's most renowned short-story writers and the winner of numerous literary awards, Munro has lived in and spent much of her career writing about the lives of women in small Canadian towns. In fact, Munro has raised the ordinariness of the human condition to a new level of art. Her first collection of short stories, "Dance of the Happy Shades" (1968), won the Governor General's Literary Award as did her 1978 collection "Who Do You Think You Are?" Many awards followed, including the Trillium Book Award (1990), two Giller Prize wins in 1998 and 2004, and the O. Henry Award for Continuing Achievement in Short Fiction in 2004. Munro'sstories frequently appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Mademoiselle, The Paris Review and The Atlantic Monthly. Her moving story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" also served as the inspiration for Sarah Polley's Oscar-nominated film, "Away From Her." Not bad for a writer born 77 years ago into a family of fox and poultry farmers. Munro gets to heart of who we are Even if you have never read Munro she knows you, says Gibson. Her ability to see into people's hearts and capture their trials and tribulations with such moving clarity is the secret to Munro's enormous popularity around the world. "Newcomers to her work can't believe how much it resonates with them," says Gibson. "It's not unusual for them to say, 'I heard she was great.' But until you actually read her you don't know how wonderful she really is." Filled with incredible life wisdom, Munro's books yank the film off your eyes. "We're talking a genius here," says Gibson. Ever the perfectionist, Gibson says, "Alice rewrites until it is perfect." As he says, "The Atlantic magazine nine years ago said Alice Muntro is the writer most likely to be read in 100 years time." That's what you call too much happiness.

ComputerIdiot · May 28th, 2009, 11:49 PM

It's not Canadian, but a nice story just the same.

	Quote:
	SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian woman who checked a bunch of old lottery tickets because she was worried about her family's finances found she had won more than 10 million US dollars 10 months ago, officials said. The university student in her 30s won 13,185,273 Australian dollars after checking the 10-month old ticket she'd received as a gift from her father -- two months before it would have expired. "I woke up this morning worried about our finances," the woman told Lotterywest, the official state lottery for Western Australia. "Something made me think to check the tickets and I thought that if I win something, then I could help mum and dad out." The winning ticket, entered in a 50-million-dollar Oz Lotto jackpot draw on July 22, 2008, cost 8.70 dollars.

MacDoc · May 29th, 2009, 12:12 AM

Not limited to Canadian stories and THAT is cool. You wonder if that was lurking in her subconscious - "Hey I better check "

if she missed the cutoff it would have been a "You can't make these things up" category and her dad - well we won't speculate on that......

Good story

ComputerIdiot · May 30th, 2009, 11:54 AM

Oh boy, if she'd missed the deadline ... ! I'd hope she'd have had the sense to destroy the ticket and say nothing ... although that level of disappointment might be difficult to keep to one's self!

MacDoc · Jun 9th, 2009, 11:54 PM

	Quote:
	Found Goodwill paintings fetch $150,000 at auction TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE June 10, 2009 5:52 a.m. The two paintings were extraordinary — Helen Zhuang knew the minute she laid her eyes on them. “I thought it was really fine art,” said Zhuang, manager of the Goodwill store on Dundas Street West, who came upon them while pricing things left overnight in the donation bin last fall. They were luminous, on canvas and were framed. Yesterday, the paintings by Federico Del Campo, a celebrated 19th-century painter of European scenes, were sold for more than $150,000 in total. The oil paintings are both signed and dated 1895. They were both bought by an anonymous European buyer after brisk international bidding. They sold for $80,700 and $78,400, respectively, at Waddington’s auction house. She referred them to a supervisor and the two paintings were taken to an auction house for assessment. Goodwill said the money raised would go toward creating jobs in the community. torstar news service

clever girl to see the value.....

MacDoc · Jun 20th, 2009, 11:25 PM

Lucky people....

	Quote:
	Saved by my iPod: Girl survives lightning strike after wire diverts 300,000 volts By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 7:48 PM on 19th June 2009 A teenage girl survived a terrifying lightning strike after she was saved by the wire of her iPod. Schoolgirl Sophie Frost and her boyfriend Mason Billington, both 14, stopped to shelter under a tree when a storm struck as they were walking near their homes. Doctors believe Sophie survived the 300,000-volt surge only because it travelled through the gadget’s wire, diverting it away from her vital organs. Sophie Frost Scorched: Sophie Frost, 14, shows what happened to her clothes when she and her boyfriend Mason Billington were struck by lightning The teenager was taken to hospital and is recovering from burns to her chest and legs while Mason suffered damage to his eyes. Both are expected to make a full recovery and Sophie may not even have a permanent scar. Sophie Frost Sophie, on her hospital bed, said she was saved by headphone wires diverting the bolt away from her body She will be thankful she was wearing her iPod, which she had been given four days earlier as a gift from her grandmother. Returning from hospital yesterday after three days of treatment, she said: ‘I’m just glad to be alive. I don’t remember a thing about what happened, but from what everyone tells me it’s a miracle I’m still here. ‘Everybody’s said the iPod must have diverted the lightning away from my body, which probably saved my life. I’ve got a few burns, but it’s all healing OK.’ Sophie and Mason were knocked unconscious by the lightning bolt while holding hands and taking shelter in a field on Monday night. Mason came round and carried Sophie, who was scorched and unconscious, to a nearby road where he flagged down a female motorist who took the couple to Southend hospital. Apple iPod The iPod had been bought by Sophie's grandmother only a few days before the lightning strike Sophie suffered burns to her body and legs, some temporary damage to her eyes and a perforated eardrum. Dr Ian Cotton, a reader in electrical engineering at Manchester University, said Sophie could have been saved by her iPod. ‘If lightning hits a person it can do one of two things. It can go down the outside of the skin, which is more likely if someone is caught in a storm and their body is wet. ‘Or it can puncture the skin and go into the body. Potentially a metal wire, which is highly conductive could divert the electricity away from the heart and save someone’s life.’ Sophie was reunited with her boyfriend and family in Rayleigh, Essex, yesterday after being transferred to the Broomfield Hospital for burns treatment. She said Mason, whose eyesight is now back to normal, was a hero. ‘My mum thinks he’s wonderful,’ she added. Freak lightning strike puts gaping hole through roof A bolt of lightning hit a home in Cheshire and left a gaping hole in its roof. Lorraine and Luciano Coppola's home burst into flames after the strike and the remains of a bed and chest of drawers can be seen from above the building. Bolt from the blue: A freak lightning strike put a gaping hole in the roof of this home in Altincham, Cheshire Thirty firefighters rushed to the luxury townhouse,in Bowdon, Altrincham, at 10pm on Thursday night, and battled for hours to contain the blaze. Eleven nearby homes had to be evacuated. Fire chief Nigel Perkins said it was the first time in 23 years he'd seen a house struck by lightning. Mrs Coppola, 62, a mother-of-three, was alone in the house at the time. She said: 'There was a very loud bang, the lights went out and I thought there'd been a power cut. I thought lightning must have hit somewhere. 'I went to check with my neighbour John and then from around the back I could see smoke coming from the back bedroom.'

Saved by my iPod: Girl survives lightning strike after wire diverts 300,000 volts | Mail Online

MacDoc · Jun 23rd, 2009, 07:42 AM

Remarkable tale.....both the history and the science....

	Quote:
	Carvings From Cherokee Script’s Dawn LETTERS Characters in a Kentucky cave that may be the earliest examples of the script. Carvings From Cherokee Script’s Dawn By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD The illiterate Cherokee known as Sequoyah watched in awe as white settlers made marks on paper, convinced that these “talking leaves” were the source of white power and success. This inspired the consuming ambition of his life: to create a Cherokee written language. Born around 1770 near present-day Knoxville, Tenn., he was given the name George Gist (or Guess) by his father, an English fur trader, and his mother, a daughter of a prominent Cherokee family. But it was as Sequoyah that around 1809 he started devising a writing system for the spoken Cherokee language. Ten years later, despite the ridicule of friends who thought him crazed, he completed the script, in which each of the 85 characters represented a distinct sound in the spoken tongue, and combinations of these syllables spelled words. Within a few years, most Cherokees had adopted this syllabary, and Sequoyah became a folk hero as the inventor of the first Native American script in North America. It may be, as is often noted, that his achievement is the only known instance of an individual’s single-handedly creating an entirely new system of writing. An archaeologist and explorer of caves has now found what he thinks are the earliest known examples of the Sequoyah syllabary. The characters are cut into the wall of a cave in southeastern Kentucky, a place sacred to the Cherokee as the traditional burial site of a revered chief. The archaeologist, Kenneth B. Tankersley of the University of Cincinnati, said in an interview recently that this was “one of the most fascinating and important finds in my career,” yielding likely insights into “the genius of Sequoyah.” Roughly inscribed on the limestone wall, Dr. Tankersley said, were 15 identifiable characters from the syllabary. They are accompanied by a date, apparently carved by the same hand. Part of the date is hard to read, but it appears to be either 1818 or 1808, at least a year earlier than any previously known records of the script. Dr. Tankersley discovered the cave writing in 2001 and in years of subsequent research established that Sequoyah often visited caves for inspiration while working on the syllabary and made several visits to the region, close to the Tennessee border in what is now Clay County. He had relatives there, the archaeologist said, and could have left the marks there himself. Dr. Tankersley referred to the discovery in a paper on Cherokee rock art presented last year at a meeting of the Society of American Archaeology. Further details and interpretation were reported in an article in the current issue of Archaeology, the magazine of the Archaeological Institute of America. If the date proves to be 1808, Dr. Tankersley said, Sequoyah was probably the only one then with knowledge of the writing and so must have carved the characters himself. If it was 1818, he said, it was possible that someone he taught had made the characters. Specialists in Cherokee writing have yet to analyze the findings. William D. Welge, director of research at the Oklahoma Historical Society, who oversees an extensive archive of Cherokee records, said it “was reasonable to think that Sequoyah or one of his students carved these writing symbols.” Any new findings about Sequoyah, Mr. Welge said, are important because his invention of Cherokee writing promoted rapid strides in education and the culture of one of the largest Native American populations. Some crucial early steps in his development of the script had been lost, the archivist said, because Sequoyah’s wife had destroyed examples of his early efforts, thinking this “the devil’s work.” Dr. Tankersley was especially intrigued by some petroglyphs carved on the wall alongside the Cherokee characters. He said the glyphs appeared to include ancient Cherokee symbols as well as drawings representing bears, deer and birds. Dr. Tankersley is a member of the Cherokee Nation who traces his ancestry to Red Bird, the murdered chief once buried in the cave. He said that he was investigating possible links between the traditional glyphs and a few of the symbols in Sequoyah’s script. If a link can be established, he added, the inscription may be “our Rosetta stone, enabling us to see where prehistory meets history.” Janine Scancarelli, an authority on Cherokee writing formerly at the College of William and Mary, has written, “In their present form many of the syllabary characters resemble Roman, Cyrillic or Greek letters or Arabic numerals, but there is no apparent relationship between their sounds in other languages and in Cherokee.” By some accounts, Sequoyah was a kind of Professor Henry Higgins who enlisted family members who had sharper ears for discriminating distinct sounds. They helped him divide spoken words into their constituent sounds, and to each sound he assigned a symbol drawn mostly, it is said, from an English spelling book. In the script, for example, Sequoyah’s own name reads: The 15 characters on the cave wall — — do not spell any words. “They read almost like ABCs,” Dr. Tankersley said in the magazine article, suggesting that someone taught by Sequoyah may have been “practicing drawing them out just as we would practice our ABCs.” While working on his invention, Sequoyah the silversmith, teacher and soldier traveled widely from North Carolina and Tennessee into Georgia and Alabama. In 1821, after he reached Arkansas, he and his daughter Ayoka demonstrated the writing to Cherokee leaders, who encouraged its instruction. A Cherokee Baptist minister translated the New Testament using the syllabary, Dr. Tankersley said, and Sequoyah was asked to use the translation to teach Cherokee boys to write at the Choctaw Academy near Georgetown, Ky., which was run by a Baptist missionary society. Other missionaries in Oklahoma embraced the script in Bible and other book translations. Within five years, according to the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, “thousands of Cherokees were literate — far surpassing the literacy rates of their white neighbors.” It was not long before the Cherokee were printing a newspaper and learning hymns (one sung to the tune of “Amazing Grace”) in the new script. But the story of Sequoyah and the newly literate Cherokee came to a sad ending. Sequoyah had trekked all the way to Oklahoma, voluntarily joining new settlements. But these newcomers were soon followed by the infamous forced migration in the winter of 1838-39 of a multitude of Cherokees, who starved, grew sick and died on the Trail of Tears. They were cast out of their homeland by order of President Andrew Jackson, the former general whom Sequoyah had loyally served as a soldier on the frontier in the War of 1812.

Dr.G. · Jun 23rd, 2009, 07:53 AM

An amazing story, MacDoc. Thanks for sharing it with us. Paix, mon ami.

MacDoc · Jun 23rd, 2009, 04:43 PM

Yes it would appeal for you given your linguistics background.....what a remarkable leap intellectually for the Cherokee man.

Dr.G. · Jun 23rd, 2009, 05:38 PM

Very true, and I am familiar with that area of Tenn. and north Georgia.