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Sunday, December 1, 2024

On the Virtual Prowl As December 2024 is Before Us

  



Sunday, November 24, 2024

On This Thanksgiving Week

  On This Thanksgiving Week, we wish you all the very best as we're thankful for all and the continued privilege to serve:





Thursday, October 24, 2024

On Our "Virtual Route 66" (Special Edition): A Look Back

 Our team, although on a sabatical, decided to release this "blast from the past" to remember and honor all as we await the results of the US Elections as we also released a Celebration of Life courtesy the great Yanni on our Visions Property as we released a snapshot of shots in our Perspective as well:



Thursday, September 26, 2024

On Our "Virtual Route 66" As a New Quarter Looms


Our team will be going dark until after the US November Elections here in the United States as we present this snapshot of #RandomThoughts for all to review and enjoy the possibilities:    

 

Mahdi Atiya builds puppets from the remnants of possessions among the destruction left behind by Israel's bombing of Gaza and teaches children how to operate them. Photo: Ruwaida Amer
Mahdi Atiya builds puppets from the remnants of possessions among the destruction left behind by Israel's bombing of Gaza and teaches children how to operate them. Photo: Ruwaida Amer

Last week I really struggled to find the right stories to fill the edition. It felt like a difficult week in the news world was going to get the better of me. I got there eventually, but after I sent Beshara out, a colleague asked why I hadn't included a particular story from Gaza, one I had failed to see the potential of at the time, and I suddenly realised I had been looking at filling this wonderful newsletter all wrong.

Beshara isn't just about straightforwardly happy stories – though we do like those! I pitched it to our editor-in-chief because I wanted to give a dedicated space to celebrate people doing their bit in trying circumstances and shine a light on projects that are helping others. All this with the hope we could inspire you, our readers.

So with that in mind, let me tell you about Mahdi Atiya. A puppeteer by trade whose collection of puppets was destroyed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, he has turned to teaching children how to make and operate marionettes. He is building new puppets from items he finds in the camp to which he has fled in the south of the enclave. Click here to watch a video of Mahdi at work helping children cope with a life marred by war.

Read on for more tales of resilience and discovery, with a Lebanese firefighter determined to help his community and the fight to end malnutrition.

Thanks, as always, for reading

Taylor

PS. If you are wondering what the story was I should have included last week, you can learn all about the makeshift shoes being made for Gaza's children here.

Do you have beshara to share? Email newsletters@thenationalnews.com


Solutions to ending hunger are already here

Workers collect bouillon cube packages at the Sweet Nutrition factory in Otta, Nigeria. The foundation has said adding nutrients to bouillon could save lives. AP
Workers collect bouillon cube packages at the Sweet Nutrition factory in Otta, Nigeria. The foundation has said adding nutrients to bouillon could save lives. AP

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has outlined its ideas on how to combat malnutrition, including upping milk production in low and middle-income countries and adding nutrients to household staples such as stock cubes.

The foundation's chief executive told Willy Lowry that although the world is still far behind where it needs to be on the issue, the solutions to malnutrition already exist. He said his organisation is determined to combat the issue in children as it can have a huge impact on their future prospects.


QUOTED

‘Our findings show that consuming six additional servings of flavonoid-rich foods per day, in particular berries and tea, was associated with a 28 per cent lower risk of dementia’

– Prof Aedin Cassidy, from Queen’s University Belfast, on a new study on cutting dementia risks


Burnt but not broken

Fireman Anis Abla tackling a wildfire in the hills near Marjayoun, south Lebanon, in July. Matt Kynaston for The National
Fireman Anis Abla tackling a wildfire in the hills near Marjayoun, south Lebanon, in July. Matt Kynaston for The National

A Lebanese community is thanking one of its bravest members this week after a firefighter risked his life to control a blaze threatening the landscape.

The head of Marjayoun's civil defence centre Anis Abla is still co-ordinating firefighting teams battling blazes caused by Israeli shelling despite an incident in which he sustained deep burns to his face and hands.

His and other civil defence teams are under-resourced but are responsible for their communities.

"I can’t leave, I’m helping my parents and neighbours – we are all one family," Anis told The National. Read more on his work and the challenges faced by firefighters here.


 

SNAPSHOT

Two-month-old baby hippo Moo Deng in the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, Thailand. AP
Two-month-old baby hippo Moo Deng in the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, Thailand. AP

An adorably cheeky pygmy hippo is making headlines around the world after more than 20,000 people voted in a poll to name her. The name Moo Deng was ultimately chosen and her home, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand, has even started the process of patenting her image.

See the most captivating photos of the week here


 


HIGHLIGHTS

Abu Dhabi researchers believe green algae could help further cancer research. Photo: Sinhyu
UAE study explores how green algae could boost fight against cancer
The southern necropolis of Mughayir Shuʿayb at Al Bad. Photo: BDAP and H Raguet
Amazing secrets of the Nabataeans in Arabia revealed in groundbreaking study
The AI for Good Lab in Abu Dhabi will seek to address key economic and societal issues potentially facing the Middle East, using artificial intelligence. Khushnum Bhandari / The National
Microsoft to open its first Middle East 'AI for Good Lab' in Abu Dhabi

 
 

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

On Our Virtual Route 66: On the Education Front


 

Welcome to September!!

It has been quite a week on the Education Front as we begin in our Home State On the Education Front Courtesy EdSource on Michael Horn's The Future of Education and  on Ryan Halliday & Brian Dodd on Leadership:


In today’s roundup, I have just two items for you. The first is on how what people envision when it comes to the return of school in the late summer and early fall may be changing. I joined the crew from OpenEd, a school network that serves over 12,000 students in Utah and Oregon through their district partnerships, on their podcast to talk “Unbundling Education.”

I talked about the gradual shift toward personalizing learning and why it's happening faster in places like Utah. I made the point that the Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) being passed in many states are significantly different from vouchers. We also talked about the importance of building sustainable alternative education models and why top-down reforms often fail. Bottoms-up is the way to go, as I’ve learned over the years. And we talked about why so many schools are failing at “the hidden curriculum”—things like executive function, agency, and the like. All that and more here.

 

Education Unplugged

I also joined Education Unplugged with host Vicki Greene, president and CEO of the GED Testing Service. I shared insights from my own career and then we delved into a few topics:

– Addressing Employer Needs and Overcoming Bias: We discussed the need for employers to adapt their hiring practices to include non-traditional educational credentials like the GED and explored how such credentials not only fill urgent skill gaps, but also enrich the workforce with individuals who have demonstrated perseverance and a proactive approach to personal development.

– Leveraging Technology in Education: The conversation also touched on the role of AI and technology in education. I talked about some of the ways that AI can provide personalized educational support and remove barriers such as the fear of asking questions to enable a more inclusive learning environment that caters to individual needs, particularly within non-traditional education settings.

– Empowering Through Education: We both talked about a need to shift the perception around adult education and the GED program. You can check it out here.

 

Apprenticeship 2.0

My friends at Reach University—Chancellor, co-founder (and past Future U. guest on back-to-back shows!) Mallory Dwinal Palisch and President and co-founder Joe Ross—operate one of the most interesting and important teacher preparation programs that works through an apprenticeship model. Joe also hosts the Apprenticeship 2.0 podcast. In this episode, he interviews Mallory about the journey and founding of Reach University and the apprenticeship degree.

In it, they detail the ABCs of apprenticeship:

Affordable (with zero debt)

Based fully in the Workplace (i.e., starts with a job)

Credit for Learning at Work (for 50% of the program by inverting what everyone thinks of the “Carnegie Unit”). 

And the stories and geeking out—including how the Carnegie Unit was actually helpful as they innovated and how they had to hire a law firm to appeal to the Department of Education to not let Reach give out student loans—is fascinating and well worth the listen.

As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.

By Diana Lambert, EdSource

The Phone-Free School Act requires school districts and charter schools to develop a policy limiting the use of smartphones by July 1, 2026.


PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:

When we say Amor Fati, when we say The Obstacle is the Way, we’re not talking about just sitting there, being provided with fuel. We’re talking about surging forward, pulling ourselves towards the oxygen—going towards the fuel, towards the next thing, never stopping, using all of it. We seek out energy and create energy in the process. We don’t wait. We don’t stop. We are not passive. We become unstoppable.

Read: You Must Go Toward The Oxygen


YOUTUBE TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:

video preview

In a recent video on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel, Ryan Holiday shares Stoic strategies to set yourself free from our ill-fated attachments to material goods, money, and ambition:

“We think that having money, having power, being ambitious, striving upwards is going to make us feel free, but in many cases, it chains us down because we’re dependent on somebody else’s favor, we’re dependent on what our industry allows, what our peers do. We just don’t want to lose the things that we’ve gotten really comfortable having.”
Watch the full video here: Financial Freedom Won't Set You Free (These Stoic Tips Will)

Subscribe to Daily Stoic YouTube


PODCAST TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:

In a recent episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan Holiday speaks with author Richard Dawkins on the biggest misunderstandings of his work and our society’s compartmentalization of religion:

“Einstein used the word God as a kind of symbol of that which we don’t understand. When he said, ‘did God have a choice in creating the universe?’, he really meant, ‘is there only one way for a universe to be?’ But I think that you’ll find that many of these very intelligent people who describe themselves as religious are probably no more religious than Einstein, which means not religious at all in the kind of sense that a supernaturalist would understand the world. It’s a sort of compartmentalized part of their life where they don’t even look at what’s in the compartment.”
Listen to the full episode: Richard Dawkins’ Perspective on Faith, Philosophy, and the Layers of Human Existence​

Subscribe to Daily Stoic Podcast

13 Things Extraordinary Leaders Do Every Single Day

No one wants to watch an average movie.  Or eat at an average restaurant.  Fewer still want to listen to an average sermon. And no one wants to work for or follow an average leader!  Let’s be honest, at least bad leaders will soon be replaced or you can always find another job.  Conversely, people are often forced to endure average leaders with no hope of a brighter tomorrow.

So if you are an average leader, how do you move from average to extraordinary?  Is there a plan you can implement for personal growth and self-improvement?  

The answer is "YES!!!"

Click HERE for 13 Things Extraordinary Leaders Do Every Single Day.

For additional articles on high performance, read the articles below.