Old-Fashioned Reading
America in the 1800s saw a boom in magazine start-ups. In 1855 there were 700 periodicals. By 1865, there were 3,300. The Daily Graphic was the first daily newspaper to introduce political cartoons in 1873.
Source: an exhibit on cartoons at The New York Historical Society.
A Man of Color
In prison, he explained, almost everything was gray: the stone buildings, the sand and crushed seashells, the dull khaki uniforms.
"Then came freedom and the lifting of the dark hood from my eyes," he said of his release from prison. "I could not get enough of this looking at, feeling, and touching this recovery of the experience of color."
"I've not been allowed to retire because they say I was loafing for 27 years," said Nelson Mandela, 84, during a speech on Robin Island, South Africa. He then went on to talk about one of his new roles -- as an artist -- and his lifelong romance with color.
--Rachel l. Swarns.
Waging War in Iraq -- Against Polio
Health workers fanned out across Iraq in February to immunize more than 4 million Iraqi children against polio. The effort is an extension of ongoing immunization programs led by the Iraqi Ministry of Health and supported by UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Red Crescent. Although Iraq suffered a major outbreak of polio in 1999, increased assistance from UNICEF and WHO has led to zero cases since January 2000.
A Moooving Way to Help Hungry People
Heifer Project International (HPI) provides income-producing animals to people in nearly 40 countries. Shoppers "buy" an animal in honor of a friend or relative and send the recipient an attractive card describing the gift of hope being given in his or her name.
Gifts of animals, such as chicks, goats, sheep, rabbits, pigs, fish, bees and heifers, along with training in their care, are given to low-income families around the world. Gift-givers can provide egg-bearing chickens for hungry kids in Kenya, or a milk-producing goat for a family in Peru.
The prices are reasonable. For example, chicks are only $20, and a heifer is $500.
Every family who receives your gift will give one or more of its animal's offspring to another family in need.
Walter Cronkite is greatly impressed by the work of Heifer International and sees it as part of a global solution to world strife.
For more information: www.heifer.org
It's a great feeling to give an animal to someone who needs it -- for survival.
