The Kent State Basketball Team Is Just Awesome

In a show of unity, Kent State basketball players invited
fans of varying genders, ages and races to stand with
them for the National Anthem before the start of a recent game.

Three cheers and more to the Kent State basketball team for a gesture of unity that this country sorely needs.

The players decided that before a recent home game, they would go into the stands and invite people of varying ages, races, genders and abilities to come down to the basketball court with them to stand for the National Anthem.

The video is at the bottom of this post.

According to Cleveland.com and ESPN:

"''We understand all of the issues going on in our world,' sophomore point guard Jalen Avery said in a statement on behalf of his teammates. 'In these times, we felt it was important to show a sign of unity in our community.'"

The team approached coaches and staff ahead of time to bounce the idea off them, and the coaches said go for it.

ESPN quoted Kent State Head Coach Rob Senderoff:

"'This was not my idea,' Senderoff said. 'This is something they came up with and brought to me. My first reaction was, What a statement for them to make. For a bunch of 18 to 22 year olds to come up with this is incredibly mature.'"

 The team said they would now probably do the unity move during the Star Spangled Banner at every home game.

This won't cure all the divisions in this nation, but every little bit helps.

Here's the news video of this wonderful incident:

Uber Driver Goes To The Dogs In Best Possible Way

Uber driver Jonathan Guarnano. (left) helps passengers
greet rescue dogs during his drives.  

Uber driver Jonathan Guarano wanted his passengers to know that rescuing dogs from shelters is a good thing.

OK, good, but he went one step further. He put rescue dogs in his car for his passengers to greet when they got in for rides to wherever they're going.

According to The Dodo, Guarano checked with animal welfare people first to make sure his car is safe for the pups.

Here's the resulting, charming video:

My Favorite New Pipeline Transports Beer, Not Oil

The beautiful of city of Bruges, Belgium now
has a beer pipeline.  

Pipelines have been controversial and in the news lately.

There's the standoff in North Dakota over the oil pipeline there, and here in Vermont, they're still fighting about a natural gas pipeline into Addison County.

In Belgium, though, one pipeline is causing no concern, but celebration. That's because it's transporting not oil, but beer.

According to The Guardian, a two mile pipeline is starting operations from De Halve Maan (Half Moon) brewery in the middle of Bruges, Belgium, to a bottling plant just outside the city. The pipeline has the capacity to fill 12,000 bottles of beer per hour.

Xavier Vanneste, director and heir to De Halve Maan, said he saw workers laying broadband cables outside his house, and had a flash of inspiration.

His brewery is in the middle of the old city of Bruges, and because of the lack of space in town, the bottling plant is a couple miles away. That meant he had to truck beer to the bottling plant - expensive for him and annoying to the city because of all those trucks.

This schematic aerial photo shows the path of the
beer pipeline from the center of Bruges, Belgium to a
a bottling plant out by the expressway.

De Halve Maan could have just moved the brewery out to where the bottling plant is, but that would mean he could no longer say De Halve Maan was brewed in the historic beer city of Bruges.

Vanneste wanted to preserve the brewery tradition of the city, which dates back at least to the mid 1500s.

Vanneste hired tunneling experts from the oil and gas industry and Belgium's top professor in malting and brewing to plan and construct the pipeline, according to The Guardian.

By the way, you can buy Half Moon beer in the United States, so if you want to support the company that came up with this great idea, I'd say go for it.

Of course, a lot of people would like to have a beer pipeline going by their house. Although it wouldn't happen in this case, wouldn't be cool if the beer pipeline was like a municipal water line?

You could tap into the beer pipe and have very good beer running out of your faucets in the kitchen.

Any local entrepreneurs want to try that idea?

Win/Win: Kids Read To Shelter Dogs; And They Help Both Dogs and Themselves.

A kid reads a story to a dog in a Missouri shelter.
The dog becomes less anxious as a result.  

The Humane Society of Missouri has hit upon a great idea to make shelter dogs more adoptable, while at the same time helping kids:

They just sit children down in front of the shelter dogs and have the kids read books to the pups.

According to the animal advocacy site TheDodo, the Missouri idea is called the Shelter Buddies Reading Program. The kids' storytime readies the dogs for foreer homes, while the kids learn empathy for pets, and sharpen their reading skills.

The kids draw the interest of shy and nervous shelter dogs, helping them feel comfortable around people and make them more appealing for families who might want to adopt them.

Kids read to dogs in a Missouri animal shelter to help
calm them down and make them more adoptable.  

The storytimes also calm down hyper dogs as they settle down to listen to the kids stories.
The children are also trained to give the dogs treats when the pups calm down or show interest in the story times, as a way to reinforce the good behavior.

The kids, ages six to 15 are also trained to read a dog's body language to tell whether they are anxious  or stressed out. They can then calmly read to settle the dogs down.

As program director Jo Klepaki told TheDodo:

A kid and a shelter dog enjoy reading time together.  

"Its encouraging children to develop empathy with animals. It's a peaceful, quiet exercise. They're seeing fearfulness in these animals, and seeing the positive effect they an have....It encourages the to look at things from an animal's perspective. That helps them better connect with animals and people in their lives."

I have a feeling this idea will spread to a lot of Humane Societies and animal shelters across the nation.

And we will be a better place because of it.

Here's a video of kids reading to the dogs back around Christmastime. It's a very sweet video:

Watch:

Great Summer End: Calgary Pools Go To The Dogs

Dogs enjoy a frolic in Alberta, Canada swimming pools
on the day after they close to the public in the fall.  

In early September, the public pools in Calgary, Alberta, Canada close for the season, but the closing goes out with a furry grand finale.

Dogs are normally not welcome at public pools. The hair, the risk to swimmers, all that.

But the pools are now closed, and they have to be drained and cleaned for the winter anyway.

So they let the community's dogs take to the water, which gives the dogs a chance to frolic, and raises money for the local animal shelter.

I hope this idea spreads to other municipal pools.

You can see it's a lot of fun, as you can see from this video via the CBC: