Kung Fu Panda is a movie about a panda named Po who wants desperately to learn kung fu. But from the beginning of the film we learn that several obstacles come between Po and his dream—not the least of which are the dreams of Po's father, which include Po's taking over the family's restaurant business. Though Kung Fu Panda is primarily a children's movie, this scene addresses an issue adults ...

Charlie and Agnes are some of the meekest people I've ever known. Charlie is a bright, energetic, hard-working man who could have been successful at just about anything he set out to do. What he set out to do was mission work. He spent his entire career working with some of the lowliest people on earth—alcoholics on skid row. For many years he was director of Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, ...

FTT—my wife first introduced me to those initials. Nancy was a nurse when I first met her. There were many parts of nursing for which she did not care. But she loved diagnosis. To this day there cannot be too many episodes of Grey's Anatomy or ER for her. (Oprah either, but that's another story.) She is constantly telling me her private diagnoses of people—even total strangers—based ...

Years ago I traveled to Ecuador and spent a couple of weeks traveling in the mountains. The Quechua Indian people I met there lived amidst the most mind-numbing squalor. The disease and disfigured bodies were heartbreaking. The bugs and stench were everywhere. People were living in a hole in the ground and calling it a house. They were feeding on rotten food and prizing garbage as possessions. But ...

From his hospital bed on the eve of open heart surgery, Pastor Bruce McIver asked his cardiologist, Dr. Dudley Johnson, "Can you fix my heart?"

The physician, known for being short and to the point, said, "Sure." Then he quickly turned and walked away.

Following the 12-hour surgery, McIver asked Johnson, "In light of the blocked arteries that I had when I checked into the hospital, how much blood supply ...

A nation-wide Harris Poll of 1,010 U.S. adults indicates most people feel jobs that are heroic, helpful, or both, hold the most prestige. The occupations at the top of the list are:

• Firefighter (57 percent)
• Scientist (56 percent)
• Doctor (53 percent)
• Nurse (52 percent)
• Teacher (52 percent)

• Banker (15 percent)
• Accountant (15 percent)
• Actor (15 percent)

In The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe, Lily Tomlin's character says: "I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific."

On my desk I like to display, on a bookstand, the kind of gift books you put on the coffee table—those filled with professional photos of nature or tourist destinations. My current book is called America's Spectacular National Parks (author, Michael Duchemin). For several days I have had the book open to a photo of the Grand Teton Mountains, an extra-wide photo that filled not only the left page, ...

British style writer Neil Boorman has decided to burn every branded thing in his possession. "I am addicted to brands," he confessed in a magazine article:

From an early age, I have been taught that to be accepted, to be loveable, to be cool, one must have the right stuff. At junior school, I tried to make friends with the popular kids, only to be ridiculed for the lack of stripes on my trainers. ...

In January of 2006, Ed Lorenz bowled the third perfect game of his life. A few minutes later, he suffered a heart attack and died.

The 69-year-old retiree had started bowling in 1957, and had recorded his two other 300 games during a 1-week stretch in 2004. His per-game average for his last full season was 223, and in 2005 he was inducted into the Kalamazoo Metro Bowling Association Hall of Fame.

According ...