...a livable universe; each one of us is the essential element.

...we make it a world worth saving when we bring out the fine qualities of character possible to us all. Handling disappointments and negative energy with serene determination gives dignity to the battle. In our public lives, on occasion, it can provide a determining factor of grace under pressure.


Making Nice; A Few Good Performances
By: Ruth Calvo Sunday November 29, 2009 8:00 am


The world would be harder to bear without people like Jane Goodall and Bill Moyers, and last night they made the point together that one person can make a difference. Watching them talking about the work they do, and the lengths they go to, to get that point across, I was nudged as well as encouraged. They’re looking to us to make this a livable universe; each one of us is the essential element.

Moyers, the host, brought out the relationship that Jane Goodall had developed with creatures that had never had a bond with us before. Goodall told about a moment when in her work she got a recognizable reassurance from one of the chimpanzees she was studying. The chimp reached out and pressed her hand, a gesture of active bonding. It was a breakthrough.



BILL MOYERS: And where in the long journey that we have made do you think this empathy comes from? Where does it come?

JANE GOODALL: It’s the bond between mother and child, which is really for us and for chimps and other primates, it’s the root of all the expressions of social behavior you can sort of see mirrored in the mother-child relationship.

BILL MOYERS: I know that you consider cruelty the worst human sin, right? I mean, you wrote, "Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain. Then if we knowingly and deliberately inflict suffering on that creature, we are equally guilty. Whether it be human or animal, we brutalize ourselves."

…

Goodall: …But if we’re not raising new generations to be better stewards than we’ve been, then we might as well give up. So I can go to kids living in poverty in Tanzania or inner city Bronx. And tell them my story. And say, "Follow your dreams." And they write to me and say, "You taught us that because you did it, I can do it, too." And that is just right.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/16549

Thanks for the thread, kpete.:thumbsup: