Mining For Hidden Gems

When my eldest daughter started as a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin, she got a T-shirt that said: What starts here, changes the world.  Today I got to see her recognized for her academic achievements over the past four years, and I can't think of a more apt way of congratulating her:  What you started here, will change the world.  I am so proud that her highest aspiration at this moment is to make this world a better place.  The ceremony today honored the highest achieving students at the University, based only on their GPA.  The honor student selected to address the audience was Kelly Moynihan, Senior in Biomedical Engineering.  She is also the recipient of a $250,000 fellowship from the Hearst Foundation and a $90,000 National Science Foundation Grant to pursue her graduate studies at MIT.  Her speech, however, was about what has been the most meaningful experience of her undergraduate life at UT:  Mentoring. She has been part of ...

I heard the most amazing story the other day.  It turns out that to make foie gras – goose liver – they hold down the poor bird, stick a tube down its throat and force-feed it so that its liver grows to several times its normal size.  Apparently, goose liver is quite a delicacy, not that I have ever tried it.  And now that I know how it is made, I probably never will.  But the story was really about a Spanish farmer who has found a completely humane way to make foie gras.  He has come to learn that geese are programmed by their DNA to gorge themselves in preparation for the cold, winter months.  So he surrounds his geese with delicious varieties of grass and other scrumptious food such as nuts, olives and figs and lets them roam free and feed themselves to their heart’s desire.  The catch is that the geese must truly believe that they are free.  So there are no fences, no loud humans threatening to catch them; just pure freedom, while surrounded ...