To Make You Happy: Elephants Greet New Arrival

Last year, a baby elephant had been orphaned, but rescuers found it and brought it to an animal sanctuary.

The little elephant lost its family, but judging from the goings on in the video you'll see below, the kid is in good hands with a new family, which rushed to greet him.

True, the video is several months old, having been uploaded in May. But when you need good news, old news is both good news, and refreshing news.

Here's the video:

Just Because We Need It: Dog Gets Great Gift, Everyone Happy

Cash, left, meets his new, young best buddy Jennings
at Christmas, making everyone happy 

It's been a trying 2017 to say the least, so the last post of this year, or at least something close to the last post, should go like this one. Just ot make us feel better.

In Ortonville, Michigan, Cash, a 12-year-old Golden Retriever, also had a bad 2017. His best friend, a fellow dog in the household named Rosie, passed away.

Cash mourned. He was getting older and this was too much. He lost all his energy after Rosie's death, and pretty much slept close to 23 hours a day.

That is until Christmas. Cash's human companion, Marie Ahonen, decided Cash needed a new companion to get him back to his old self.

It was a Christmas present: "It'll be our Christmas present to our family - that was our first thought. Then it just kind of piqued in my mind that this will be Cash's present," Ahonen said.

The idea worked. "(Cash) just got so excited and his paws were going a million miles an hour and I'm so excited, like this is what he needed," Ahonen said.

The gift for Cash was a Golden Retriever puppy. In the video,  Marie's husband, Jay, brings in a box and Cash immediately knows something cool is inside. Cash opens the box, and there's the puppy.

Cash immediately came back to life. The puppy looks confused at first, but then at the end decides he's game.

The puppy's name is Jennings (named after Waylon) At last report. Cash and Jennings were gettin along famously, and Cash was indeed back to his old, pre-2017 self

Let's hope the same for the rest of us.

Here's the fun, cute video:

Wouldn't It Be Great If There Were Breaking Good News For Once

Bodies in the streets of Nice, France after
the latest in an unending series of terrorist attacks.  

Last night was the same old sad routine.

And to call the deaths of 84 people routine made the evening particularly sad.

As you well know by now, some scumbag drove a truck into a crowd in Nice, France who were out enjoying Bastille Day. 

Cue what happens with such hideous regularity now:

Networks broke in and gave updates. It was all Nice truck attack all the time on outlets like CNN and MSNBC.  It was the sad top topic on social media. Governments vowed vengeance, and we learned the stories of people who died while just living their lives and trying to enjoy the moment.

Mayhem and murder keeps happening  again and again and it's going to happen again and again. It's hard to stay positive in this kind of environment, isn't it?

I know this is fantasy, but wouldn't it be great if, just for once, some sort of shocking but wonderful breaking news came out of the blue?

Television stations would break into the mid-day game shows to breathlessly announce the news.

Wolf Blitzer and his CNN Situation Room would give us all the up to date news and rumors about how this Great Development just keeps getting better and better.

Rather than having somber and argumentive pundits give their take on what the latest tragedy means, they'd be forecasting the happy effects of this Great Breaking News.

People would be out on the streets celebrating. All you'd see on Facebook and Twitter is ecstatic reaction to the Great Breaking News. Wouldn't this be a great Top Trending Topic.

A smiling President Obama would hold an impromptu news conference, in which he announces this is the best day of his presidency and the United States would do everything in its power to ensure this Great Breaking News just keeps going and going.

Fantasy isn't reality, though.

The even sadder thing is I can't even imagine what my theoretical Great Breaking News would actually entail.

Depressingly, it's easy for me and everyone else to imagine the next terrorist attack. The guns, the bombs, the deaths, the bitter aftermath.

But what would the Great Breaking News look like? I can't even think of too many examples in history. Maybe the end of World War II? The moon landing?

The optimistic side of me wants to think that the reason the bad news dominates the airwaves is because things are basically good, and the bad is the exception. News is defined as something out of the ordinary happening. So a terrorist attack is out of the ordinary and an exception to the goodness maybe?

We also take comfort in the people who rush in to help the victims.

All that is well and good, but it doesn't feel like enough. What else can you do, though?

The darker side of me wants a little bit of torture against people like the idiot who drove the truck into the crowd in Nice, killing all those people.  I know torture is wrong and shouldn't be done.  I'm not talking about physical torture, though.

Most of the time, the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks are killed to stop them from doing further damage.

My idea of torturing the perpetrators is try to take them alive.  Meanwhile, videotape statements from victims and relatives of victims about the impact the attack had on them.  Get as many victims as you can who want to talk.

Then you put the perp in a cell forever. In that cell, 24/7 for years on end until the perp dies, you project the video of the victims' statements on all four walls of the cell, and play their words full volume. And just never stop

If it drives the terrorist in the cell insane, oh well. Let 'em suffer. The dark side of me says they deserve such awful mental pain.

Meanwhile, I keep longing for the Great Breaking Good News. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were some anti-terrorist cell that keeps launching "attacks" of wonderful goodness and kindness on an an unsuspecting population

Love This Video Of People Tricked Into Giving Speech At Fake Graduation

This impromptu graduation speaker broke
into his song during his address in this
Improv Everywhere scene.  

I love a New York group called Improv Everywhere.

They prank people and put the videos up on YouTube.

I know, a lot of people do that, but unlike most of these videos, the Improv Everywhere stuff is not insulting to the people who they prank.

There's no meanness.  Which makes their videos fun instead of aggravating.

Plus, Improv Everywhere, whose motto is "We Cause Scenes" have more elaborate setups than most videos.

Their latest prank, video of which is at the bottom of this post,  involves a college graduation ceremony in Bryant Park, New York. The graduates of some college are there, ready to get their diplomas. College administrators are there.

But where's the commencement speaker? He missed his flight, so the "college dean," one of the Improv Everywhere actors, wades into the people enjoying the park on a nice day and asks them to step in and be the substitute commencement speaker.

Some people seem to know this is a joke but cooperate anyway, so why not? Others have no idea this is fake, but give really good speeches.  

Improv Everywhere created a fake college
graduation ceremony that was desperate for
a speaker. The results were tons of fun. 

One New Yawker with a thick Brooklyn accent tells the "college graduates," "You're are all going to kick ass in real life, just go for whatever you want."

Loved her.

And this delightful non sequitor from a young woman who addressed the crowd thusly. "Just last year I was standing in your seats."

One guy breaks into song. Another person gives the speech in Spanish but in reality speaks fluent English ("You tricked me, so I tricked you," she later told the Impro Everywhere people.

Here's Improv Everywhere's delightful college graduation video:

This Is Why I Like Some Gruff, Tough New Yorkers

The gruff, tough talking bro on the left
side of this image turs out to be a real sweetheart.
The woman on the left is crying because of him,
but DEFINITELY not because the bro did anything mean.  

A viral video is circulating about an incident on a New York subway.

Nope. No weirdos. No crimes. No embarrassing people.

The video, uploaded two years ago but just now getting a lot of attention, shows us a tough talking New Yawker guy confronting a woman selling roses on the train. She's just trying to get by and make a few bucks.

She had to buy the roses from somewhere. If she doesn't sell most or all of them, chances are she'll lose money.

The tough young bro in the business suit with the untucked white shirt demands to know how much the roses cost. They're $1 per rose.

Our bro New Yawker next orders the woman selling the roses to tell him how many of them she has.   She's got 140 of them.

He then hands her $140, right on the spot and tells her in no uncertain terms that she must now give them away to passersby, as he has already paid for them. He wants no bullshit with this, either.

Which means our tough guy, not-born-yesterday New Yawk dude is a total sweetheart. Certainly helped the woman, and brightened the day of up to 140 people who got a free rose.

The woman sellling the roses is so take aback by the bro and so verklempt she just breaks down and cries. It takes her awhile to speak.

Through her tears, the woman with the roses finds her New Yawk tough talk voice. "For anybody who wants a rose, you can come get it."

This is totally a reason to love New York.

To get the whole effect, you gotta watch the video, even if it is improperly filmed with a vertical smart phone. It made my day:

Sweet Local News Story: Elderly Embrace Old Songs; Make Us Feel Good

A 99-year-old woman enjoys some music
and memories at an Atlanta, Georiga assisting
living facility in a WXIA-TV news piece.  

Often, on a slow new day, local TV stations fill time with stories that aren't all that important, just fluff.  Sometimes these stories are kinda boring, frankly.

Sometimes, though, when they're done right, those "fluff" stories are actually pretty amazing.

WXIA in Atlanta recently put together a feature on a music therapist who works with the elderly in an assisted living facility.

That doesn't sound like a big deal, but the producers edited and reported the piece in such a way that it was quite moving.

You'll see in the video at the bottom of this post how WXIA mixed interviews, images of the elderly enjoying the music, and flashes of the mementos they cling onto as they remember these old songs.

"Music memories last longer than other memories," said John Abel, the music therapist featured in the WXIA piece.

It's true. I bet you agree with me that some songs you heard in your youth, even tunes that aren't even really that good, evoke strong memories. Usually they're memories that have nothing to do with the song, but that's OK.

For some reason, the song "Rhiannon"by Fleetwood Mac  is my current earworm and it makes me think of a glorious spring hike I took in 1976, when the song was a hit. No rhyme or reason to the memory, it just is.

I'm sure everyone reading has this experience.

As the WXIA piece shows, sometimes these musical memories are absolutely poignant and beautiful.

At WXIA, one of the news anchors actually started weeping a bit when the piece ended (this is included in the video below), because it reminded him of his own father.

Without further ado, watch the piece. It's very nice:

A Wisconsin Winter Valentines Love Story To Warm Your Heart

Bud Caldwell leaves a penny and a daisy for his
late wife at a Fond du Lac, Wisconsin park bench.
Park employees saw this going on every day, so they
keep a path cleared in the snow for Caldwell
so he can get to the bench daily.  

Valentines Day is coming up, so that puts people in the mood for love stories.

Plus it's winter, and we all need any excuse to warm our hearts.

Which might make it strange then, that I'm now taking you to the bitter cold winter winds of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

But here it goes:

Bud Caldwell's wife of 56 years died two years ago. Caldwell, 82, bought and dedicated a bench in his wife's honor at Lakeside Park in Fond du Lac, a very nice, semi-forested area of the park.

Every day, day in and day out, Caldwell brings a penny and a daisy to the park bench so he can commune with his late wife, says television station WDJT in Milwaukee.

The songs "Pennys From Heaven" and "Daisy A Day" were the couple's favorites, so that's why Caldwell does this.

"A lot of people might think it's a dumb thing," Caldwell told Fox 11, another television station in the Milwaukee area.

That's the one thing the otherwise perfect and adorable Caldwell is wrong about. I bet everybody joins me in thinking that's the most charming thing in the world.

Needless to say, it snows quite a bit in Fond du Lac in the winter. Last year, Caldwell fell while trying to trudge through the snow to the park bench.

This year, when it snowed, Caldwell understandably didn't want to risk slipping and sliding through the deep snow to the bench.

We'll let WDJT pick up the story:

"So, he sat in his car and spoke to Betty instead, that is until two Fond du Lac parks employees noticed his routine.

Jerrod Ebert and Kevin Schultz got shovels and cleared the path for Bud.

The gesture brougth them both to tears, but Ebert and Schultz couldn't bear to see Bud not be able to leave his daisy and penny.

'We have to make sure he can get to his bench and talk to his wife,' Ebert said.

Bud said that Ebert and Schultz have vowed to keep the path clear all winter for him. So, as long as he can, Bud will leave his daisy and penny for Betty."

When Caldwell visits, he catches her up on the events of the day, how her friends are doing, and all that. When he leaves, he says "I'll see you later, Munchkin."

Honestly, it melts your heart, if not the snow.

Of course, visuals always help with the story. So, here's video from another local television station, Fox 11, which also covered the story.

Warning: Major Kleenex alert if you watch the following video:

Budweiser's New Superbowl Commercial Awesomely Brings Back The Puppy

In the 2015 Budweiser Superbowl ad, we find our
puppy has gotten himself in a lot of trouble.
But you know it ends well.  

Budweiser this morning released their 2015 Superbowl Clydesdale horse commercial and brought the puppy back, like the one we fell in love with in the 2014 commercial.   

This one is the same kind of heart-tugging cuteness, lovey-dovey story about the loyalty among the puppy, the horses and the good looking guy who takes care of them all.

Watch the ad at the bottom of this post.

I love this new ad.

In this one, the curious puppy, looking for adventure, gets more than he bargained for.  A bit scary for very little kids, but it's OK, it all works out in the end, as you would predict.

Much better than GoDaddy's horrible attempt at a doggie commercial.

Like the brand new 2015 Budweiser puppy/Clydesdale ad, the dog accidentally finds itself far from home, but finds his way back. Unlike the new Budweiser/puppy/Clydesdale ad, it ends cruelly, not in a warm, satisfying way.

The public outcry led GoDaddy to pull the ad. 

The GoDaddy ad was even worse than their usual women-objectifying trash, which public pressure finally ended.

The ad agency for Budweiser must be loving this GoDaddy mess, since it brings even more positive attention to the Budweiser Superbowl ad

Anyway, I'm not a real fan of Budweiser beer, as I live in the Land Of Many Awesome Microbrews, better known as Vermont.

I also shouldn't like these Budweiser Superbowl commercials, they're so cliched, really. But my heart melts each time. I'm too much of an animal lover, I guess.

I really think you and a zillion other people will like this new Budweiser ad, too. Watch and judge for yourself:

Sometimes There's Bad Cops, But Sometimes There's REALLY Good Ones.

Police Detective Jack Mook leaves with his sons
after the best court hearing he's ever had to attend.  

There's good cops, and there's bad cops.

Bad cops shoot unarmed teenagers, arrest people for breaking nonexistent laws and pilfer money from innocent people. 

Good cops play by the book. And they go above and beyond. They are heroic. And sometimes, like one Pittsburgh detective named Jack Mook, really take human decency to a new level.  

He'd been mentoring a couple kids, two brothers who were not having a good time.  They disappeared for awhile. He got worried, tracked the older one down and got to the bottom of the story.

The brothers' foster parents were abusing them.

Yeah, he could have opened an investigation into the foster parents (Actually, I do believe they're in trouble.) But he had to do something else for the kids.

Mook pulled some strings and got the brothers a new foster parent: Himself.

So now the unmarried Mook is basically a single father to the two kids. After he became a foster parent, he took things one more step further, as you will see in the video, below.

Hat tip to Laura Stark for alerting me to this one.

Neil Young Helps Us Celebrate Tonight's Harvest Moon

The full harvest moon is about to rise over my home state of Vermont this evening.

The sky is totally clear, so we'll get a gorgeous view of it.

They call it the harvest moon for obvious reasons. It's the harvest season. You can go out and gather your fruits and veggies by the light of the moon, I suppose.

The harvest moon puts me in a romantic mood, so to complete the idea, here's the video to Neil Young's very sweet song "Harvest Moon."

I dedicate it, of course, to my husband Jeff Modereger.

Here it is:

Nicest Kid In The World Spotted At Fenway Park

The Boston Red Sox are woeful this year, placed firmly in last place in the American League East. 

Charming everyone, especially the woman in back of him,
a boy named Ryan hands a foul ball to the girl
behind him at Fenway Park in Boston Friday.  

But, at least some of the fans are really polite.

NESN, the New England Sports Network,  has a nice video of a ball girl picking up a foul ball and handing it to a 12-year old boy in the stands during a game Friday.

The boy immediately hands the ball to the little girl behind him.

He's either an incredibly nice kid or he wants to go out on a date with the girl. Since he's only 12, the verdict is he's probably just a very good young man, named Ryan.

When you watch the video, below, note that the kid handed the ball to the girl with no hesitation, and no prompting from any parents.

(By the way, if you want to see a fun compilation of foul ball catches in various stadiums, click here.)

A bit after Friday's Fenway Park incident, a NESN reporter interviewed Ryan. "I've seen people do it before and I thought it's a nice thing....and it's good to make people happy."

NESN gave Ryan a gift bag that contained a couple baseballs and other goodies. One of the items in the gift bag was a bracelet, which he also gave to the girl behind him.

So all and all, it was a good night at Fenway Park. Oh, and the Red Sox managed to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays, 9-8.

Here's the great video.

April Fool "Prank" That Wasn't: More Fine Dining With The Homeless

A couple weeks ago,  I featured an Internet prankster who "pranked" homeless people by pretending to be a waiter in a decent restaurant and served them nice meals.    

Homeless people are served filet mignon
by professional waiters in Glendale, Calif.  

Today, I found an even better one along those lines. Greg Benson, a comedian known on line as pulling off cell phone prank videos, decided to do something a little different.

He went to the Ascencia Shelter, a place for the homeless in Glendale, California. He and his team converted the institutional style lunch room into something close to a 5-star restaurant.

Benson got chef Jesse Brune and his staff to come in and make a very tasty, high end meal.  Some musicians set up in a corner and played some nice classical music.

Benson dressed up in a tuxedo, and as homeless people arrived expecting the usual donated meal, he welcomed them as if he were a maitre d greeting valued customers who had reserved a table for the evening.

Brune whipped up a top shelf filet mignon and a dessert that was to die for.

What I like about this "prank" is that it was about respect. When we go out to a decent restaurant, the staff (hopefully!) treats us with respect. Why not be deferential to the homeless who come in for a meal?

I honestly don't think most homeless people choose to be in their situation, and maybe if you offer a little respect, it'll give them hope they can get out of circumstances they're in. And if they do, we're all better off, right?

Yeah, that's a little pollyanish, but what the hell, it's still plausible.

I was actually quite moved by the video of this "prank" and you this might warrant a Kleenex alert for you. Watch:

We All Love A Head, Neck Massage: A Video For a Monday Smile

In a video taken last year in Slovenia, Silver the Husky enjoys a head and neck massage. Because we all do. And Silver's smile is infectious and we all need that. So enjoy.

Another Christmas Flash Mob: A Cliche, But This One Is Lovely

It seems holiday musical flash mobs are all the rage this Christmas season.

A still from the lovely flash mob video of Berklee College
of Music students in Boston.  

So much so that they're fast becoming a cliche.

Nevertheless, this one moved me.

Students from the Berklee College of Music recently showed up at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts for the performance you see in the video below.

Hat tip to Candace Page who tipped us off, via Facebook.

I know you'll enjoy it:

A Dog Adoption Proves Perfect And Perfectly Timed, As They Always Do

Political blogger and commentator Andrew Sullivan usually spends his days entertainingly sparring over disputes involving public affairs, society and the sausage factory that is Washington, DC.

Andrew Sullivan and his new bestie Bowie
get to know each other last weekend.  

He makes no secret, though, that he has a serious soft spot for dogs, particularly beagles. His heartbreak was palpable after one of his beagles, named Dusty, died last summer.

Today, in his blog, however, he tells us how fate took over once again, as it usually does when dogs and people unite to become a team.

Sullivan said he was invited to upstate New York, where a three legged, 18-month old beagle named Bowie was looking for a home. Was Sullivan interested?

After a slightly rocky first meeting involving intestinal upset and an unfortunate pee time accident, Sullivan was smitten.

He writes:

"I have to say this weekend was a bit of a love affair. There is so much about her that reminds me of Dusty as a puppy--the pathological wolfing of the food, the constant interest in every smell, scent and sight, the sheer constant energy. But unlike Dusty, she's extremely affectionate. And even obedient.

By the end of the weekend, she perfected "sit" and "stay" and (almost) "down"--and there were no more accidents. We didn't use her crate after the first night. If I didn't see her, all I had to do was say "Bowie" and she would come scampering around the corner to shower me with love.

Just when you least expect it...just what you least expect. I think the grieving is done now."

It's interesting how Bowie came into Sullivan's life, apparently at the precise moment he was ready for this kind of thing to happen. Not sooner, not later, but at the right time. 

I think dogs just know how to do that.  The right dog comes into our lives just when we most need them. Even if we don't realize we need them.

Jackson The Cocker Spaniel (front) and
the late Bailey the Wonder Dog keep
watch over me and Jeff last fall.  

The past three years have been chaotic, but fun for me. Jackson the Cocker Spaniel has been there through that, cheering me up in my dark moments, enthusiastically sharing in my excitement at the good times, and calming me down during my too-often excitable, frustrated moments.  

It's as if he knows just what to do.

And I had Bailey the Wonder Dog in my life for a year before he died last May. His passing felt too soon, too painful, as we only knew each other for a year. 

But Bailey The Wonder Dog taught me to embrace the ones we love, because we never know when they will go.

Because of what Bailey taught me, or at least reinforced for me, I wake up each morning and see my husband, alive and well and loving right next to me. Which means I get another day with him. Another day to cherish.  May there be zillions more.

Some people say that dogs are wonderful teachers for humans. 

Some people are spot on. 

Lots Of Mean, Stubborn People In The News, So We Give You A Boy And A Dog Becoming Friends

I'm still obsessed with the stupidity of Congress in an unhealthy way. I get angry every time I think about how they're not getting what they need to get done because they have to show how "principled" they are, or something.

Much better than Congress: A dog and a little
boy become friends in a wonderful video.  

Since when is it's principled to act like an overtired toddler who is not getting the expensive toy he wants?

Anyway.

I try to distract myself with nicer images. Yesterday, it was those heroes who saved people and showed what the opposite of the U.S. Congress is. 

Today, I'll give you a sweet video that actually came out a year ago, but has gotten a resurgence in popularity on line today. I guess everybody is looking for something positive.

It's a golden retriever in Buenos Aires named Himalaya who is making friends with a little boy with Downs Syndrome. The boy doesn't normally like interactions with other beings, he's incredibly shy, we understand, but even he can't resist the charms of a dog wanting to be a friend.

Neither can I, and I bet you can't either, so here you go:

I Love Those Heartwarming Animal Videos

I was just struck by the video I'm putting in this post of a mother elephant saving her offspring from drowning in a water hole at Kruger National Park in South Africa.

You'd expect nothing less from a mother of any species to protect her young, so in that sense the video is unremarkable.

But there's always something heartwarming in the scenes like this one, involving the elephants. And it goes beyond the sense of drama:

Will the baby elephant be saved? What happens when the mother gets stuck and in a bad position?

I think we're all drawn to selfless acts, be they the instinct or love between animals, or the same thing between humans. Maybe we like the animal incidents a little better, because we know the motivation is less complicated than in humans

Anyway, here's the video:

How To Brighten An Unemployment Office

So far in my life, I've been blessed by having not been forced very much to spend time in unemployment offices.

But I know they're depressing, anxious places. People are out of work, there's too much competition for too few jobs, people are frustrated by paperwork and anxious about the future.

In Spain, unemployment has gotten ridiculously high with the economic crisis in the Euro zone. Unemployment offices are crowded. And sad.

So, a flash mob decided to try and cheer people up.  I hope it did. Watch the video and see for yourself:

Santa Worked Fast For This Kid

I'm a bah humbug kinda guy around Christmas, but like the Grinch, my too-small heart can go three sizes (and break the frame of the X-ray picture) under certain circumstances.

Here's one: A fun little video in which Santa has learned a little boy wanted Spiderman for Christmas.

Here's what happened: