Over the past five years, Chicago’s homicide rates have exponentially skyrocketed. Thousands of child soldiers are being integrated into terror groups each day throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Sea levels continue to rise as ice caps melt and climates change. In short, pain and hatred seem to have permeated the news industry, causing many to cancel their newspaper subscriptions and ignore breaking-news broadcasts.
As a writer with a love of journalism, it saddens me to watch as society develops a deep aversion to news and current events. The media has become sensationalist, creating horrifying headlines that receive hesitant clicks from those who wish to keep themselves well-informed on the current affairs of the world. But while it’s important to remain aware of what’s happening in the world, reading or watching the news doesn’t always have to be a disturbing experience. Small gems that can warm your heart and represent the goodness of humanity are hidden throughout the media each day. Let’s take a look at a few feel-good stories from the past week.
11-year-old Mikaila Ulmer received a Whole Foods contract for her lemonade business
The sixth-grader from Austin, Texas created BeeSweet Lemonade (soon to be ‘Me & The Bees’) by using her grandmother’s recipe from the 1940s. The recipe relies upon flaxseed and local honey, an ingredient that Ulmer decided to use when her initial fear of bees compelled her to learn more about the honey industry. After receiving a $60,000 investment from ABC’s Shark Tank, Ulmer has taken another impressive step forward by securing a four-state contract with Whole Foods. The contract will allow the supermarket chain to sell Ulmer’s lemonade in 55 stores throughout Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas; now that’s a deal that’s as sweet as honey.
Christian Louboutin releases nude shoes in seven different skin tones
This past week, the glamorous designer added two new shades to his Nude Collection of women’s shoes: ‘porcelain’ and ‘deep chocolate.’ The revolutionary spectrum of nude shades ensures that all women can find a suitable match to their skin color. The color ‘nude’ is typically considered to be a light beige by most designers, a very particular shade that does not match most women. The unveiling of the Nude Collection was met with praise by consumers across the globe. The collection includes three shoe styles: ballet flats, T-strap pumps, and half d’orsay pumps. Despite their exorbitant cost, ranging from $595 to $875, four styles were sold out by Thursday afternoon. Score one for diversity!
The Hubble Space Telescope captures an incredible photo of the Milky Way
A new image from one of the most famous telescopes in the world serves as a reminder of the vast beauty of our galaxy. Pieced together from nine different images, the above photo contains the densest star cluster in the galaxy, about 27,000 light-years away. The contents of the photo span a distance of fifty light-years, or approximately 300 trillion miles, and includes more than 500,000 stars. Since most of the light cast by the stars is in the form of infrared radiation, scientists with NASA painstakingly translated the photo into visible colors. The concentrated clouds of gas and dust that still remain in the photo indicate areas that were too dense for even the mighty Hubble to capture. What a heavenly sight.
While watching or reading the news may seem like a daunting, agonizing task these days, balance out the somber stories with a few uplifting ones, like the three mentioned above. It can be difficult to not feel overwhelmed by the darker stories, but it’s also important to remain aware of what’s happening across the planet that we all inhabit together. The next time you find yourself weary of the news, search for a few inspirational stories that are sure to warm your heart.
References
http://time.com/4277590/whole-foods-bees-lemonade/?xid=time_socialflow_facebook
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/31/living/nude-shoe-christian-louboutin-feat/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/01/us/milky-way-hubble-feat/index.html