Ggids

There’s a contest going on in the UK: Choosing a tree of the year. I’m sharing that this contest is happening because the idea is rather magnetic and I believe we ought to imitate it and have our own.  From 40 trees ten have made the short list and people will vote on which one ought to be tree of the year. The trees are as different as can be. One is small and skinny, a couple are twisted and more wide than tall, some have beautiful trunks, for others it is the foliage that stand out, whether in shape or size or both. The Woodland Trust sponsors this contest yearly; it is national and the trees on the list come from different parts of the UK.

 I Love trees and in that am far from unique and join numerous others. We owe so much to trees and take them for granted. This contest reminds us of what they contribute and stand for. And that’s exactly what the Woodland Trust aims to do, to help us appreciate how vital trees are to our landscape and to our lives.

Anyone who owns a pet already knows the advantages. Yet it seems there’s one more they may not have realized. Could having a pet improve our immune system? So far, all the studies point to that.  People who are around animals may not be prone to conditions such as eczema, asthma and other allergies. The benefit has to do with being exposed to the microbiome of animals. Their germs and microbes apparently stay on our skin and penetrate inside us in a way that helps create an immunity. Pets could now be called a new probiotic. 

It began when researchers became aware that there are certain diseases the Amish are not prone to. Of course, they live still in a pre-industrial society and their air is cleaner than ours, but the main factor is that they live with animals. Studies have now been done by other scientists studying the microbiome of pets and their owners, which showed a similarity that can explain why being around animals, certainly having a pet, can help our immune system and more easily resist certain germs.

 This new advantage to having pets seem to open us to question a downside of living in germ phobic societies

You might have noticed a break in the postings on the GGID-Giving Good Its Due page. It is due in part that I, as many others, had difficulty in finding items that would qualify as good. The field of reporting has been taken over by the events of the current US administration. As a citizen and a human being, I consume news of the administration, but politics is not a topic my work focuses on, so finding pieces about something I could call good became a challenge.  

I predictably kept on reading, watching, listening to what is going on, things that do not fit within my value system, things that go against what I believe would be a needed direction for the country as well as for humanity. Like many I was downhearted. And still I kept reading, watching and listening.

 After a while I became more and more impressed by some of the articles and pieces I encountered, by the clarity of some of the journalists, thinkers, others. Their understanding of what is going on, their knowledge, their perceptions enriched my own. And I realized something that we too often forget, that to be able to know what is going on is a good thing, a very good thing.  

A good thing as we know doesn’t have to feel good, it just has to advance us in some way, in this case our comprehension. I also realized that by better comprehending what is going on, I can better cope. And I hope that’s true for you as well.