In September, 1997 newspapers in Wellington, New Zealand carried the tragic story of a young girl who saw a puppy that had been struck by a car. She ran to aid the injured animal and was herself struck by a car and killed. How sad that a person should lose her life in trying to save a dumb animal. Yet the difference between a...

A strange event occurred on September 17, 1997 in Bologna, Italy. Bob Dylan sang and played for Pope John Paul II. The occasion was a religious congress for young people. It was a chance for the 77-year-old pontiff to spend time with young people. When he spoke to the crowd of 20,000 the Pope referred to a classic Dylan...

William Satchell wrote a novel about early migrant workers going through the forests of New Zealand's Northland province. They followed after the timber cutters looking for the gum from stumps and branches of the Kauri tree (a gum used for varnish and linoleum). They lived a rough and lonely life so the novel is entitled...

The same newspaper that reported in September 1997 Ted Turner's gift of $ 1 billion to various charities of the United Nations also reported the gift of a Mississippi washerwoman who gave $150,000 for scholarships to a local college. Both were significant. Both are to be praised. But one gave out of his abundance and the...

An Australian psychologist says, "Good fathers make good managers." Steve Biddulph, author of The Secret of Happy Childhood and Manhood, says good fathers turn out to be empathetic, listening managers for whom employees enjoy working. That should not surprise us. We have learned that...

In the Peanuts comic strip Sally says to Linus, "I think I would be a good evangelist." "Why?" asks Linus Sally answers, "I convinced the boy who sits behind me at school that...

Towering over the resort town of Banff in the Canadian Rockies is Mt. Rundle. The mountain is named for Robert Rundle, first missionary to come to that part of the world. Robert Rundle was a Methodist missionary who came to convert the Cree Indians to Christianity. He learned their language and labored among them from...

Time for Life is the title of a new book by James Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey. In the book they say that while Americans feel more rushed they actually have more leisure time than ever before -- nearly 40 hours a week. The findings are disputed by some. In fact numerous publishers rejected the manuscript because, they said...

There are about 6,033,686,000,000 dollar bills in circulation in the United States at any one time. That's six trillion, thirty-three billion, six hundred and eighty six million. With so many bills in circulation I wonder how it happens that I have so few of them! I also wonder how it happens that so few of them find their way into...