Bob Weiss in China: the story is told

Longtime Madison Park resident and former Sonics coach Bob Weiss has a starring role in a major book published earlier this month by Knopf.  Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jim Yardley, Brave Dragons tells the story of the eponymous professional basketball team in the Chinese province of Shanxi during the period after the team hired Weiss at its coach.

The book gets a glowing review in today's New York Times Book Review, the reviewer noting that "Weiss and the rotating cast of American players the team brings on as hired guns make a collection of lively characters."  Perhaps even more lively, however, are the Chinese participants in this East-meets-West story, including the Club's owner, Boss Wang, who, according to the publisher's book synopsis "promised that Weiss would be allowed to Americanize his players by teaching them advanced basketball culture. That promise that would be broken from the moment Weiss landed in China."

According to the The Times, the resulting culture clash, as deftly chronicled by Yardley, provides a story that is much bigger than simply an account of an American coach and his oddball basketball team.

Brave Dragons, which has only been out two weeks, has also had positive reviews from both Booklist  and Kirkus, which called the tale "fantastically implausible."

Finding a life after grief

Kathleen O'Connor, a Madison Park activist, author, journalist and blogger, has just published a very personal memoir of a tragic time in her life and the path she chose in order to recover from her loss. Having suffered the worst experience a parent can endure, the death of a child, O'Connor eventually learned to cope with her grief and to find ways to help others through the tragedies of their lives.

The story of her "before" and "after" lives are chronicled in her latest book, Embracing Two Lives: A Journey of Love, Loss and Healing, which is also a celebration of the life of her son, Remi Miles.  It includes some of her own poignant poetry and that of her son. The story of the book and how it came about is the subject of a front-page article in this month's edition of the Madison Park Times, on the streets today and available on line here.  The book is available at Madison Park Hardware and here at Amazon.

[Photo by Sean Beighton, courtesy of the Madison Park Times.]

It starts with a smile…

Like many of us who pay attention to what’s going in the world around us, Washington Park resident Ginny Hutchinson and her longtime friend Cathy Haffner, both former Fortune 100 Company executives, found themselves increasingly disillusioned with the tide of negative news that inundates us on a daily basis. But unlike most of us who recognize the corrosive impact of this barrage of negativity, Hutchinson and Heffner decided to do something about it. They quit their jobs, started a “positive media” company, and wrote a book, Better Because of You, to get the word out. Their message is simple and straightforward: each of us can create the positive change we’d like to see.

The book is designed to show people how to make things better, beginning with their own thinking. It is divided into easily read and digested sections (health, wealth, work, play, for example), and includes many tips from people who have learned lessons about improving their lives using simple strategies. Their motto, and the ultimate goal for their readers, is “be the person your dog thinks you are.”

Better Because of You is part inspirational and part practical, but the focus is clearly on what the individual can do to counter the negativity that pervades our society. In a world where such websites as fmylife.com draw millions of visitors, Hutchinson and Heffner decided that there needed to be a counter movement. They believe that simple daily acts of positiveness by individuals will multiply outward, creating an irresistible momentum for making the world a better place. Hence the concept of “better because..." (you fill in the blank). For example, “better because… I smiled at someone today and it made both of us happier.”

Smiling is, in fact, a good starting point for what Hutchinson and Heffner are trying to accomplish. According to a long-term study by Harvard Professor Nicholas Christakis, who has endorsed Better Because of You, “emotions can pass among a network of people up to three degrees of separation away; so your joy may, to a larger extent than you realize, be determined by how cheerful your friends’ friends’ friends are, even if some of the people in this chain are total strangers to you.” So smiling may be a way of putting some positive energy out there to people you may not even know. Playing this idea forward, Hutchinson and Heffner have the goal of gathering smiles from each of the world’s 192 countries by year’s end, collecting them on their website, BetterBecause.com. Readers are also encouraged to add their personal stories to the website of the ways they are doing big or small things to make their lives (and the lives of those around them) better.

Better Because of You, which is available through Amazon.com and at Elliott Bay Books, includes a giant section of inspirational quotes on a variety of subjects. Here’s one of my favorites:

“The mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's open” (Anon.)

(You can also check out Better Because’s fan page on Facebook)