Scruffy’s Story Captured a Nation and Saved Hundreds of Dogs From Execution (The Tuesday Dog)This is an old story, but I read this book in the last year and enjoyed it. A stray dog has Lassie-like adventures, meeting both good and bad strangers.

Family Who Lost Dog In Superstorm Sandy Gets Huge Surprise At Adoption Shelter A more recent dog story, also true, also wonderful.

Rivers' garbageman named CNN Hero of the Year This guy's cleaning up the Mississippi--and other rivers. He was awarded $250K by CNN. Best part of the article: "During the show, Pregracke pledged to spread some of his Hero of the Year money to the rest of the top 10 Heroes: 'I've met so many great people today, the other Heroes, and I'm really moved by all their stories and all the things they do around the world. ... I'm going to give 10 grand to each of them, because they're awesome.'

Daily TED Talk

Eric Lewis: Chaos and harmony on Piano (5min)  I could joke about not knowing if he's playing wrong notes, but I have a background in music: even any wrong notes would be right for the piece. Listen to the thunderclaps, the rain, the wind!