A cemetery is usually a place we associate with the end of life, not the beginning of it, but a Pennsylvania cemetery has flipped that script entirely with a sweet 2-minute video.The Historic Easton Cemetery in the small town of Easton, Pennsylvania, has built a huge fan base with its viral footage of two bluebirds building a nest and raising a family over the course a month and a half. The cemetery shared that it had installed a birdhouse equipped with a solar-powered camera in the spring, and soon a bluebird couple showed up to check it out. Clearly deciding that the house had good bones, the couple began building a nest, bringing in twigs and arranging them in a circular pattern, with the female creating a round spot to lay her eggs. On Day 13, she laid her first egg, then another, then another and another. On Day 30, the eggs began to hatch, and for the next couple of weeks we see the mom and dad take turns bringing the babies food. It's so simple, yet completely engaging to see the nesting cycle in its entirety—48 days edited down to just a few minutes. Watch: See on Instagram The reel cut off due to time, so the cemetery posted the Part 2 video showing the fledglings leaving the nest as well: See on Instagram The birdhouse was the brainchild of Mike Pearsall, whose grandmother loved bluebirds and had birdhouses. She's buried in Historic Easton Cemetery and he built the camera-enabled birdhouse in her honor. He told WFMZ that he assumed sparrows would primarily use it, so he was thrilled when the bluebird pair showed up and claimed the house first. People can't get enough of the bluebirds and their little familyBluebirds tend to mate for life, which makes seeing this pair setting up house and caring for their babies extra special. The first day, it's almost as if they were genuinely house hunting—you could almost hear the, "What do you think, hon? Should we get it?" And then to see them working together to build their nest and feed their young was truly heartwarming.People found the videos delightfully riveting. "Thank you for sharing. This is heart happiness right here! ??""I didn't realize how fast the eggs hatch! Neat :) Beautiful birds.""How sweet they work together ??""Thank you for your beautiful reel… made me smile. I feed my cardinals and jays everyday. Never thought to do anything like this.""It’s just amazing how animals/birds instinctively know how to care for their babies." See on Instagram "I never knew they laid 1 egg each consecutive day like that… idk why but I thought it would be an all at once scenario??""I love that new life is being born in a cemetery."Birds are surprisingly fascinating to watchThere's a reason birdwatching is a thing. Humans have always found birds intriguing (they can FLY, for the love), but when the birdwatching bug gets you it can take you by surprise. The world saw a big birdwatching boom during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing gave us the time and the desire for such outdoor activity. People who always wondered how "watching birds" could possibly be considered a hobby found out why people who do it love it so much. In fact, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 35% of Americans age 16 and older now identify as birdwatchers. @wbupalospark #springmigration2023 #wbupalospark #birdnerd But you don't even have to be an avid birder to appreciate seeing the natural cycle of a bird family. Bird's nests are usually built where it's hard for humans to see them, and even if we can, none of us have the time to sit and watch for a month and a half to see how the nest gets built, the eggs get hatched and the babies get taken care of. Stationary cameras like the one in the top of the birdhouse allow us to observe bird behavior without disturbing their habitat. Similar cameras are sometimes set up near hawk or eagle nests to help facilitate wildlife research and conservation as well as to educate the public. The more connection we have with nature, the more we understand the importance of protecting the environment and the more responsibility we tend to take to care for the Earth. Connection with nature might look like hiking through the woods, getting to know the squirrels in your backyard or witnessing the nesting cycle of bluebirds at a cemetery in Pennsylvania, but it all leads to the same place—an appreciation of the beauty and wonder of the natural world and an urge to see it thrive. You can follow Historic Easton Cemetery on Instagram.

Everybody wants to see themselves in a positive light. That’s the key to understanding Jonah Berger’s simple tactic that makes people 30% more likely to do what you ask. Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the bestselling author of “Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way.”Berger explained the technique using a Stanford University study involving preschoolers. The researchers messed up a classroom and made two similar requests to groups of 5-year-olds to help clean up.One group was asked, "Can you help clean?" The other was asked, “Can you be a helper and clean up?" The kids who were asked if they wanted to be a “helper” were 30% more likely to want to clean the classroom. The children weren’t interested in cleaning but wanted to be known as “helpers.”Berger calls the reframing of the question as turning actions into identities."It comes down to the difference between actions and identities. We all want to see ourselves as smart and competent and intelligent in a variety of different things,” Berger told Big Think. “But rather than describing someone as hardworking, describing them as a hard worker will make that trait seem more persistent and more likely to last. Rather than asking people to lead more, tell them, 'Can you be a leader?' Rather than asking them to innovate, can you ask them to 'Be an innovator'? By turning actions into identities, you can make people a lot more likely to engage in those desired actions.”Berger says that learning to reframe requests to appeal to people’s identities will make you more persuasive.“Framing actions as opportunities to claim desired identities will make people more likely to do them,” Berger tells CNBC Make It. “If voting becomes an opportunity to show myself and others that I am a voter, I’m more likely to do it.”This technique doesn’t just work because people want to see themselves in a positive light. It also works for the opposite. People also want to avoid seeing themselves being portrayed negatively.“Cheating is bad, but being a cheater is worse. Losing is bad, being a loser is worse,” Berger says.The same tactic can also be used to persuade ourselves to change our self-concept. Saying you like to cook is one thing, but calling yourself a chef is an identity. “I’m a runner. I’m a straight-A student. We tell little kids, ‘You don’t just read, you’re a reader,’” Berger says. “You do these things because that’s the identity you hold.”Berger’s work shows how important it is to hone our communication skills. By simply changing one word, we can get people to comply with our requests more effectively. But, as Berger says, words are magic and we have to use thgem skillfully. “We think individual words don’t really matter that much. That’s a mistake,” says Berger. “You could have excellent ideas, but excellent ideas aren’t necessarily going to get people to listen to you.”This article originally appeared on 2.11.24

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Israel and the entire Middle East continue to witness rising escalation, as Iran has managed to push the region closer to cataclysm.  Early Tuesday morning, Iran launched around 200 ballistic missiles from Iranian territory into Israel. The attack was carried out by the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps. Using more sophisticated ballistic missiles, the Iranians managed to hit areas in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Fortunately, and despite the triumphalist attitude from the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps and Iranian media, few missiles hit their targets. The Israel Defense Forces stated that many of the missiles were successfully intercepted thanks to Israel’s Iron Dome and other missile defense systems, as well as the assistance of the U.S. Navy.  As pretext for this attack, Iran is citing Israel’s recent operations in Southern Lebanon against Iran’s proxy terrorist group Hezbollah, especially the Israeli airstrike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and IRGC commander Abbas Nilforoushan.  Iran’s Mission to the United Nations released a statement on X confirming Iran’s responsibility for the assault on Tuesday. Iran stated that the attack was a “legal, rational, and legitimate response to the terrorist acts of the Zionist regime.” Tehran warned: “Should the Zionist regime dare to respond or commit further acts of malevolence, a subsequent and crushing response will ensue.”  Besides Iran’s direct missile barrage aimed at Israel, Iran’s leadership celebrated the news of a terrorist attack carried out by two men in the Jaffa area of Tel Aviv moments before Iran’s attack. The two gunmen shot innocent civilians coming off a tram as well as other bystanders, resulting in the death of eight people and injuries to nine more. Their assault finally ended once Israeli security forces managed to take down both men. In a post on X, Iran’s Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei congratulated the killers, calling them martyrs, as well as giving his condolences to their families. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel’s intention to engage in some kind of retaliatory operation against Iran for the attack. Following a political-security meeting, Netanyahu said that, “Iran made a big mistake tonight, and it will pay for it.” He vowed: “Those who attack us; we attack them.”  While the Biden administration has expressed support for Israel in the wake of Iran’s attack, the question of how dependable the United States will be as an ally remains to be seen. It’s no secret that the Biden administration’s policies toward Iran have done nothing more than embolden the Mullahs in Tehran, especially after the administration gave more than $100 billion in frozen Iranian assets back to Iran and restarted negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ flirtation with pro-Hamas protesters as well as efforts to force Israel into a ceasefire with Hamas have undermined Israel’s capacity to defend itself. Their actions have also damaged America’s own national security by undercutting our capacity to confront Iran and its proxy forces in the region.  To be an ally or not to be an ally? Well, that is the question, and one that Biden and Harris seem unwilling to answer at all. Their lack of resolve could have catastrophic consequences for Israel, the United States, and the entire Middle Eastern region. As the prospects of a wider war in the Middle East inch closer to becoming a nightmarish reality, the future of Israel and the region now hangs in the balance, and in the hands of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The post Iran Pushes the Middle East Closer to Catastrophe appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.