Issues news
Trees are good for a number of reasons - you can climb them; many grow yummy food; they provide shade in summer and artistic photo opportunities in winter. Oh and trees also make oxygen; clean the air; control noise pollution; reduce erosion and slow storm water erosion. And you think your job's important! As you know, Australia has some pretty good biodiversity going on - of which trees play a massive part, so with the signs of global warming ever present it's now more imperitive than ever to sustain the branches that giveth the life. Sunday, July 27 is National Tree Day - a day to celebrate trees, learn about trees and, most excitingly, plant little baby trees!! There's thousands of registered tree-planting sites around australia looking for volunteers on the day - click here to find one near you and get digging.
I DON'T normally pass these kind of `forward' emails on, but this one is particularly cute and so I had to blog it for ya'll to see.
In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately,due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.
The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.
After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother.
The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only 'orphans' that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs.
The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger.
See for yourself the incredible bonding that took place and ask the question - why can't the rest of the world get along?
I stumbled upon this genius website a couple of weeks ago. It documents the errors behind the eternally misunderstood punctuation mark known as quotation marks. The above picture in particular has all kinds of shenanigans going on. Since when do labs rate real estate agents and if it’s not "an independent lab", WHAT IS IT?
Another pet peeve in the grammar circles at the moment is the misuse of the word literally (http://literally.barelyfitz.com). When speaking of a married couple, a writer proclaimed that- “...they are literally two peas in pod”.... well no, they’re not. Because that would be just be creepy. Another tried to say that a football player “literally blew up all the defenders and ran for a touchdown every time”.
All this reminded of a show I heard on NPR with a Missouri man whose official legal name is They. Formerly known as Andrew Wilson, They says that he changed his name because he wanted to have fun and test the limits of English grammar. For example, "They is here" is now proper English.
Matched only by Gordon Ramsay for screen time, Jamie Oliver - despite his lispy catchcry of "it's not me, it's the food!" - has become as known for his televangelist-like presence as his rustic dishes. Over the years the cherubic chef has gone naked (in title anyway), turned disadvantaged yoof into top chefs and accosted school lunch ladies - but it's his latest prime time venture that's really got feathers ruffled. Premiering in Australia this wednesday,
Jamie's Fowl Dinners sees mister Oliver turn his attention to chicken farming - exposing to viewers just why everyone's favourite stand by can be sold for as little £2. How does he do this? With a good glug of shock value; in the opening sequence Oliver asks a live audience to separate female chicks from male before putting the latter in a container and suffocating them, he also electrocutes a chicken and drains the blood from it's neck. You
know animal rights groups are up in arms over this one, but as Jamie explains; "I hated (killing the chickens) but let's be honest, this is a job that needs to be done and I'm prepared to do it if it helps to make a difference... I don't think it's sensational to show people the reality of how chickens live and die at the moment". What do you think, educational or sensational?
A Queensland security guard was given a two-year jail term today after using his walkie talkie (two-way radio) to torment a 36-year-old woman.
Stephen Russell Bain, 33, began making radio contact with the woman when he was intoxicated and apparenty "bored" at home.
She was working on a construction site nearby and shared the same radio bandwidth as him.
Bain harrassed the woman for the next seven days.
He told her he worked at a morgue and would do the same as what he does to female bodies at the morgue, to her.
Bain also told the woman that she would make a good prostitute.
He was tracked down by police via radio frequency and recorded conversations before facing court today.
Bain's lawyer could not give an explanation for his behaviour and the security guard pleaded guilty.
WELCOMING new twins into the world is always a momentous event. But when brothers Ryan and Leo arrived they had an extra surprise for their parents - they were born with different coloured skin. For one twin to be black and one to be white is so rare that it is thought by medical experts to be a one-in-a-million occurrence. The twins' mother, Florence, 35, is from Ghana, west Africa while their father, Stephan, is German. Stephan, 40, said though the couple were surprised by the colourings, the most important thing was the babies were healthy. The infants caused a sensation at the Sana Hospital in Lichtenberg, Germany, where they were born last week, with guests crowding around to greet the new arrivals. And the twins are already revealing opposing personalities.
Light-skinned Ryan is described as a "spirited" baby, while Leo is laid back.
Are you an emerging or established designer, photographer, artist or all around creative soul? How would you like to flex your nimble fingers toward a good cause and be in the running to win $5000? Headcase is an art exhibition that aims to bring together
