"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities."
-- Maya Angelou
Get Involved
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"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities." -- Maya Angelou
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Get Involved
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December 1, 2008 | |||||||
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 GoodThings on Public Radio August 1, 2002 We want to hear from you. What's the best public radio story or show you heard this past week? Share. If you want to listen, you'll need RealPlayer on your computer. (If you don't already have it, it's a FREE download.) Visit Real Networks. FRIDAY, July 26 | Two-Wheeled First Aid In London's congested streets, calling an ambulance to the scene of an accident is often a lesson in futility. But a new service could change all that. The brainchild of former European mountain biking champion Tom Lynch, a new bicycle ambulance network has just launched in London. Six paramedics carrying defibrilators, oxygen, bandages, basic medications, and infant-delivery equipment make their way through the streets on mountain bikes and represent the first call when an emergency happens and often can treat patients completely, diverting ambulances to more patients more seriously in need. The city agreed to the service when tests showed that bicycles could make it to an emergency scene faster than ambulances, nine out of ten times. [PRI's The World] Listen (3:21). SATURDAY, July 27 | Happy-Sad When four-year-old Liza Lister became aware of the fact that she had life-threatening leukemia, she began an extraordinary journey of courage and determination. She wanted to choose the way she lived in the time leading up to her inevitable death. As her parents explain in this moving piece, Liza asked many questions and expressed many opinions about life, death, separation, fear, and loss. As young as she was, she seemed to understand the need for privacy in death and the drive to share life's waning moments peacefully with loved ones. Her parents made tape-recordings of Liza and did everything they could to reassure her, even though their own doubts abounded. Liza's life became a quest for little victories -- a sixth birthday, a sister's birthday, having the ability to read -- and is the source of this profoundly heartwrenching and heartwarming story. [NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday] Listen (9:15). :: Read Liza Lister's story in the book Giving a Voice to Sorrow: Personal Responses to Death and Mourning by Steven J. Zeitlin and Ilana Beth Harlow. SUNDAY, July 28 | Hard Rocking for Literacy If hard-rocking, head-banging teenagers don't like to read books, is it too late to turn things around? A library in Bellevue, Washington, says no. Instead of considering surly teens a lost cause, the library has enlisted the help of a literate heavy metal band -- appropriately called Bloodhag -- to help convince angry youth of the power of reading. Band members are rabid fans of science-fiction novels and perform songs named after the likes of Ray Bradbury and Ursula LeGuin while their teenage fans thrash in the library's makeshift mosh pit. At the end of their shows, members of Bloodhag throw copies of sci-fi novels into the crowd. What do library officials say to the few opponents of the youth program? Essentially, that anything promoting literacy make senses to pursue. [NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday] Listen (5:15). MONDAY, July 29 | Enjoying Senior Moments The National Institute on Ageing has just released the results of an uplifting study by Harvard clinical psychologist Becca Levy. The study appears to show that maintaining a positive attitude during the ageing process can have profound physical and mental health benefits. The impetus behind the study was the proliferation of negative stereotypes about the eldery and about the process of growing old; Levy wanted to determine if the stereotypes about declining health in old age were self-fulfilling. She found that the everything from the images of old people on drugstore greeting cards to messages in the media can severely affect the quality of life of the elderly. [NPR's Morning Edition] Listen (4:24). :: Learn more about Dr. Becca Levy's ageing study and about the work of the National Institute on Ageing. TUESDAY, July 30 | Radiation Treatment As Metaphor An author of 230 children's books, Jane Yolen resorted to a different kind of writing when her husband of 40 years began undergoing radiation treatment when a malignancy was discovered in his skull. She began writing sonnets, poems comprised of 14 rhyming lines and concluding with a couplet. During her husband's seven weeks of radiation, Yolen ended each day by composing a sonnet about the experience. The poem gave her memory structure and offered her a unique opportunity to infuse the process with both humor and melancholy. Compiled, the body of sonnets helped Yolen make sense of one of life's trying moments and stand as a reminder, during the recovery process, of the human ability to face adversity. [NPR's All Things Considered] Listen (8:00). :: Read Jane Yolen's latest children's book Briar Rose. WEDNESDAY, July 31 | Steadfastly Finding An Audience By all critical accounts, the new film by Iranian-American director Ramin Serry should be broadening the horizons of audiences throughout the world. But Maryam, the tale of an Iranian-American teenager trying to come to terms with her own duality in the suburbs in the 1970s, still has no distribution and is struggling even to get a VHS/DVD deal. Film critic Roger Ebert is astonished and has suggested that Maryam's difficulties in reaching an audience has everything to do with the film's Iranian subject matter and a cast of almost entirely Iranian descent. Ebert thinks the film is powerful in the way it portrays the daughter of immigrants as a quintessentially American teenager. Maryam is currently showing on a 15-city tour. [NPR's Morning Edition] Listen (5:18). :: Learn more about the film Maryam and about Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival. THURSDAY, August 1 | Controlling Autism? A new treatment for autism may offer new hope for controlling the neurological disorder that affects some 250,000 children. Risperidone, an anti-psychotic drug often used to treat schizophrenia, has improved the most extreme behavior of at least 70% of children living with autism in a clinical test. Many questions remain, such as what the side effects might be and whether the treatment can translate into sustained behaviorial benefits. [NPR's Morning Edition] Listen (3:59). :: Learn more about the latest published study on treating autism and about the National Association for Autism Research. [ : previous week : ] WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU. Did we miss a good public radio story this week? Want to recommend one for next week? Share it with us! 
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