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I Saw This Film Where Kids Were Starved To Death For Sport. It Took Place Here. It's A Documentary.
The Hunger Games was written by a Republican congressman?
05.10.12
Five new stories this week that restore our faith in humanity.
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Need a timeline cleanse? Of course you do. No matter what kind of week you’re having, we bet these five feel-good news snippets will leave you smiling.
This week we’re celebrating:
This Texas woman's breastfeeding superpower
Alyse Ogletree / The Guardian
Texas mom Alyse Ogletree isn’t able to give away money to good causes—so she’s managed to donate something much harder to come by: breastmilk. Ogletree has selflessly donated a record amount of breastmilk (over 700 gallons!) to nourish thousands of premature and medically-fragile babies. Superwoman!
More wishes granted for children fighting critical illnesses
Make-A-Wish® supports kids and families facing critical illnesses, granting “wishes” unique to each child—everything from meeting a celebrity to redesigning their bedroom. Subaru is proud to have helped grant more than 3,600 wishes for kids in need through the Subaru Share the Love Event®. Even better? From now until January 2, Subaru is donating at least $300 to charities like Make-A-Wish® with every new Subaru purchased or leased.
A plane full of strangers helps a struggling single mom
@notaregularnanny Sobbing crying making this video ❤️🩹🥲 my faith in humanity was restored after this whole experience #ittakesavillage #myvillage #motherhood #solotravel #solomom #travelingwithkids #stranded #momsoftiktok #faithinhumanityrestored ♬ Outro by m83 - 𝙡𝙤𝙡𝙖
When her flight was canceled, Gabrielle G., a 27-year-old single parent, boarded a flight back home to Florida with her 18-month-old son. Traveling solo with a toddler is a daunting task—but in a now-viral video, Gabrielle shares how a slew of helpful strangers made the trip bearable, offering their seats and entertaining her son while her plane was stuck on the tarmac for hours. More of this, please, humanity!
This bald eagle's new foster baby
World Bird Sanctuary
When a large, male bald eagle started guarding something on the ground at the World Bird Sanctuary in Missouri, keepers discovered that he had become fiercely protective over a rock. Thinking it was an egg, the eagle, named Murphy, began sitting on it, nudging it, and guarding it protectively (which is classic male eagle behavior, his keepers say, as they share equally in bird-raising and have a strong paternal instinct).
Months later, an eagle chick was brought to the sanctuary after surviving a fall from its nest. When keepers put the baby bird and Murphy in the same enclosure, Murphy’s fatherly instincts kicked into high gear, feeding the baby himself. Now, Murphy has a baby of his very own.
These hilarious animal interviews
In a stunning feat of investigative journalism (lol), YouTuber Maya Higa started a series titled “Tiny Mic Interviews,” where she approaches animals at the ZooToYou Conservation Ambassadors with a tiny microphone and asks them the burning questions we all want to know, including “Can I please touch your snoot?” and “What’s your favorite thing about being a capybara?”
Higa “translates” their answers into text on screen, and the results are adorable. BRB, watching this series all day.
For more ways to smile, check out how Subaru is sharing the love this holiday season.
In act of kindness Louisiana church returns land to Indigenous tribe
In recent years the Land Back Movement has come into public consciousness, it doesn't always necessarily mean physically return the land, but to return the stewardship of the land. Some Indigenous communities work with local government officials to care for the land in a way that will restore lost ecosystems and help the land thrive.
But in some recent instances, land has been physically returned to the local Indigenous communities. One example of physically returning land is California's governor Gavin Newsom returning 2,820 acres of ancestral land to the Shasta Indian Nation in Northwestern California. This move will help restore the natural environment to the area and allow the Shasta members to access sacred ceremonial ground.
a body of water surrounded by lush green trees
Photo by Michael Sanchez on Unsplash
In Louisiana a small Indigenous community acquired some of their ancestral lands after the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana started working with the Takapa Ishaq Chawasha tribe to protect the coastline with recycled oyster shells. But in order to move forward with their project they need to know who owns the property. After some searching, the group discovers the coastal area known as Lemon Tree Mound is owned by St. Pauls Episcopal Church.
A parishioner willed the land to the church after his death in the 80s and after the discovery that the land previously belonged to the tribe, the church has recently given it back.
Indigenous People Thanksgiving GIF by INTO ACTIONGiphy
"We at the Episcopal church have strong commitments these days to restorative justice and to creation care. Maybe it's been a while in coming but better late than never," St. Paul's vestry member Greg Williams shares with WUVE Fox 8.
It's not just the local tribe that is excited for the land to be returned but their sister tribes have been expressing their excitement as well, tribal member Rosina Philippe tells the station, "even some of our sister tribes, you know. I got emails from different people saying, you know, doing that AH YEE YEE YEE YEE YEE in the email, spelling it out knowing that they're rejoicing and dancing with us."
The church leaders say they never hesitated to with the thought of giving the church back to the Indigenous tribe, calling the act "a very small thing" for the church. But that small act for the church was a huge thing for the Indigenous community in Louisiana.
"We're filled with gratitude first of all, and we're rejoicing to be connected to the land, to be tied into the land and you know, to have the land returned to the tribe. It's a rematriation, so connecting the tribe back to mother earth is more significant. You know, in that respect they may think it's a little thing but to us it's one of the best things that the church could ever have done. We're rejoicing. We're so very, very happy. It's a very big thing, a big thing," Phillipe says.
While the lemon trees are long gone, the oral history of how the land helped feed their ancestors and served as higher ground during flooding has been a memory passed down for generations. Since the land has been in the hands of the tribe for care, the recycled oysters used to build a barrier to protect the land's edge has grown coral and new oysters are beginning to thrive.
This is a prime example of "tariff engineering."
If you’ve ever thrown on a pair of fresh Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, you might have noticed an unusual feature—felt soles. While Converse might want you to think this odd layer of fabric is for things like “shape retention” and “quieter usage,” the real reason behind it all comes down to exploiting legal loopholes for the bottom line.
Converse is part of Nike, which imports its products into the U.S. from China. Back in 2018, the Trump administration imposed large new tariffs on a wide range of US imports from China, but some items had heftier price tags than others. As Nicholas Mortimer of the Strategic Sourceror explained, sneaker imports are subject to a 37.5% tariff.
Slippers, on the other hand, have a measly 3% tariff. And lucky enough for Nike, the legal requirement for a shoe to be considered a slipper is having a fuzzy sole. Meaning that by slapping enough felt to the bottom—which eventually deteriorates with a few wears—the company was able to save a ton of money on import taxes.
Interestingly enough, if you look at the images associated with the Converse Chuck Taylor patent, they look a lot more slipper-esque than the sneakers you’ll see on their website.
A sneaker in slipper's clothing. patentimages.storage.googleapis.com
This also kind of explains how Converse can boast of the slip resistance of their shoes, when anyone who’s worn a new pair of Chuck Taylors in the rain—and proceeded to bust their ass—can tell you that is definitely not true. For that issue, GearPatrol suggests using sandpaper to slough off “the hairy bits.”
The whole fuzzy sole loophole is a prime example of “tariff engineering,” which, unlike, say, tax evasion, is a legal way of avoiding higher import rates, usually by redesigning a product—like tweaking the materials or structure, or breaking it into smaller values to qualify for a tariff exemption.
An even stranger example of tariff engineering is brought to you by Disney. As explained in Slash Film, the company, which owns Marvel, had its X-Men action figures classified as toys representing “non-human characters,” since apparently human “dolls” are taxed at a higher rate. A bit of an odd move, considering the entire overarching theme of X-Men. But probably not Disney’s most egregious sin committed in order to make more money.
As Donald Trump’s second term approaches, tariff talk, and its potential consequences, has been all a flutter. The President-elect has said the goal would be to impose a 25% tariff on all items imported from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% tariff on imports from China, possibly affecting electronics, clothing, household appliances, furniture, footwear and travel goods.
Considering that Jonathan Gold, Vice President for supply chains and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, mentioned tariffs for toys specifically would be going from a "practically 0% tariff rate” to upwards of 36% to 56%, it seems that the X-Men are going to feel a much bigger blow than any sneakers will. Although, it wouldn't be a surprise to see Disney and various other companies finding more clever ways of skirting the system as to not upset their profits. Cause after all, isn’t that what capitalism’s all about?