CVS announced today that they will stop selling cigarettes at all of their stores by October 1st. Not only will they no longer be carrying the cancer sticks, starting this spring they will launch programs that will help people who want to kick the disgusting habit.
This will cost the pharmaceutical billions of dollars and they are OK with that. CVS Caremark CEO, Larry Merlo, explained his decision CBS Morning News why he is putting health before financial gain, “Well we generate about $2 billion in tobacco and related sales, but at the same time, we believe this is the right decision for our company. It positions us for future growth and the opportunity to play a greater role in our evolving healthcare system.”
As a former smoker, I applaud their decision. I hope other companies will follow suit because we need to get rid of smoking. The only reason why tobacco is still being sold because of all the money it generates. Should we put money ahead of human lives? I think not. Plus the world will smell so much better if it doesn’t smell like smokers.
The patients and staff at Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock took Katy Perry’s song Roar and recorded a really positive video to it. Not until I saw these kids, who are beating the odds, lip-syncing to the hit did I realize the powerful meaning behind this song.
Read these lyrics and don’t tell me it isn’t perfect for these children, who aren’t going to let their ailments keep them down. And it is also perfect for the staff who bring smiles to their little faces every day as the ask the little ones to endure the shots, tests and medicines to make them better.
You held me down, but I got up (HEY!)
Already brushing off the dus
You hear my voice, you hear that sound
Like thunder gonna shake the ground
You held me down, but I got up (HEY!)
Get ready cause I’ve had enough
I see it all, I see it now
I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire
Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar
Louder, louder than a lion
Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar
Seriously this video brought inspirational tears to my eyes because I love looking into their eyes of the tiger. It’s hard not stare at them and want to donate to the hospital and help these kids out. So that is what I am going to do and you should do the same.
via Country Weekly
Kevin Smith has spoken out on the schmucks at Westboro Baptist Church, who have protested his shows and movies, by talking about them during his one man tour and even did a movie about them called Red State. As of yet, I don’t remember ever seeing Silent Bob confront them head on.
Well Vince Gill on the other has. On Sunday, a small group of them (because there really aren’t that many of them, thankfully) were protesting his show in Kansas City claiming he is an adulterer because both his wife, Amy Grant, and him were married before they got together. When the Country singer heard they were out there, he decided he wanted “to see what hate looked like.” But he didn’t stop there, when they called him an adulterer in the name of Jesus Christ, he responded by saying “He said a lot of stuff, about forgiveness, grace. You guys don’t have any of that.” Amen Vince Gill.
I get that the first amendment grants us Freedom of Speech, but I think this group does not deserve that right when they preach what I perceive as hate at funerals for innocent victims.
I am proud that Vince Gill took a peaceful stand against them and I hope more celebrities in his position will do the same. If they have the right, then so do we.
I normally don’t post on them because I don’t want to give them publicity, but I wanted to give Gill the publicity for how he handled them. Seriously my hat is off to him!
80 year old Barbara Garcia survived the tornado in Moore, OK yesterday, but her house did not and she didn’t know the fate of her little dog who she was holding at the time of the twister.
While she was being interviewed by CBS News describing the horrible ordeal she went through, when one of the members of the crew saw the dog buried under some rubble. Garcia ran to her dog trying to free him from under a piece of her house. Finally when someone from the CBS News crew helped her lift up the unidentifiable object off of her schnauzer, the woman was reunited with her best friend. Garcia then declared “I thought God had answered one of my prayers to let me be OK, but he answered both of them because this was my second prayer.†Gd bless her and her little dog. Hopefully they will find a new house together soon. And hopefully there are many more happy stories like this one that come out of yesterday’s horrific tragedy.
Now as feel good as this story is, I would be remissed if I didn’t go off on the fact that the CBS News crew did not help an 80 year old woman who just survived a tornado, in order to get the video of the woman rescuing her dog. Shame on you Anna Werner. How dare you stand there and instruct the other people in your crew to help without going over there to help her yourself. That is inexcusable as a human being. Were you not camera ready and that is why you didn’t go to help her? I am sorry but there is no excuse. An elderly woman, who was just thrown around in a massive tornado, should not be lifting any heavy objects, while you just stand there. You should all be embarrassed and pulled from the story immediately. You should be reporting on stories that don’t involve humans like NYSE updates because you don’t have the compassion to work with humans. Lastly Werner you have the interviewing skills of someone in market 121 and not that of someone who works for a national news organization. Seriously did you really ask her “Are you able to comprehend yet what happened here?” Her street was leveled, I think she can comprehend that. Werner were you able to comprehend that she needed help to rescue her dog? I don’t think you were.
Joshua Jones is a 19 year old kid who is battling terminal cancer, and doctors have given him less than 90 days to live since he stopped taking chemotherapy. So his friends and family raised enough money to get him front row tickets to see his favorite baseball team The Dodgers and his favorite player Matt Kemp play one more game on Saturday. While at the game the Dodgers’ third base coach, Tim Wallach, noticed Joshua, his dad and Tommy Schultz in blue at Giants Stadium, and went over to say hi and give them a baseball. It was then that Joshua’s dad asked if there was any way that Matt Kemp could come over and say hi and Tim Wallach said he would ask.
Well after the game Kemp came over and signed the baseball Wallach gave the boy. But it didn’t stop there, Kemp then gave him his cap, his shirt and cleats. While Joshua doesn’t seem to be showing much emotion, partially it is shock and partially because the tumors on his spine have made it difficult for him move his limbs. But what Kemp did, I am sure touched him more than anything.
And Kemp didn’t do this for publicity because the baseball player didn’t even know that Joshua’s friend was recording the encounter. It wasn’t until the next day when his phone was ringing off the hook that he found out what happened. #27 told the LA Times, “I didn’t plan on taking the jersey off, but it’s something I felt would probably cheer him up a little bit … and that was my first time taking my shoes off in front of the fans,†Then he added, “But life is so much bigger than baseball.â€
Then Kemp said something that athletes forget, “I don’t think some athletes understand how big it is to be an athlete, what they can do with just a simple gesture of shaking a kid’s hand. It can make a fan’s day. It can make a fan’s life.†Then he added he was the one touched by the situation and concluded his interview by saying, “Sometimes I forget how much people look at you as their hero. I forget that.†And that is the attitude all athletes should have, but sadly they don’t.
BTW I have been nonstop crying since I saw the video on GMA because what Matt Kemp did was just so admirable and touching. It really reaffirms my faith in people.
When it comes to Joshua Jones, I pray that his pain is minimized and this memory will get him through it all and his family too.
