Paul Newman’s camp for sick kids turns 25. Ricky and Alfonso breakdancing on “Silver Spoons.” And a Philadelphia Eagle shines off the field, again.

We start this week’s Good News Friday with a story that had me crying at the end of it. The late Paul Newman’s work with so many good causes is well-known, but sometimes we forgot how his legacy lives on, especially with the fantastic Hole in the Wall Camp.
Founded 25 years ago, it’s a place where for one week a year, very sick children can come and play and have fun, and forget for just a few days about how ill they are, and how difficult life can be.
Watch the above story if you can, and realize how special this camp is for so many.
Look at the faces of those kids and try to tell me the world is a cruel, heartless place.

**OK, I may have mentioned this before, but if not here goes: My new favorite thing on the Internet is a regular feature found on Grantland.com called “Rembert Explains the ’80s.” And this is how it works: The editors of Grantland pick a clip from the 1980s every week or so and show it to Rembert Browne, a 25-year-old African-American kid who’s never seen any of this pop-culture ephemera.

Then Rembert watches the clip and writes down his thoughts, and it is beyond freaking hilarious for a Gen Xer like myself to see some of that classic TV or music from a fresh perspective. He’s done breakdowns of Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” video, an episode of “Small Wonder,” and my favorite, the 1985 American Music Awards, when Prince was, well, the coolest man in the planet.

This one was a recent favorite, because it was one of my favorite shows back in the day. Boys and girls, Alfonso Ribiero and Ricky Schroeder, breakdancing. That is all.

**Finally, a story of a Philadelphia Eagles football player once again using his fame for good causes. Desean Jackson, a star wide receiver, occasionally acts like a jerk on the field, showboating and taunting and all that. But they guy has a huge heart.

Last year he befriended a severely bullied teenager named Nadin Khoury, surprising him on “The View” and taking an active role in his life.
Now, Jackson has donated $50,000 to the Wounded Warriors project, a wonderful cause.

“The people in the military put their lives on the line for us every day. I think it’s important to recognize the great service they provide for this country, especially at this time of year,” Jackson said. “I’m excited to meet some of the soldiers and let them know how much I appreciate what they do. They are true heroes.”

Desean Jackson: An athlete who gets it.

A bizarre event of dog-humping. Happy 3rd blog-iversary to me. And WFAN turns 25: How it got here

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The wonderful website Grantland.com has a few words today (OK, more than a few) about WFAN Radio, which turned 25 last week. If you don’t know the FAN, it was the first all-sports radio station in America, debuting in New York City in July of 1987.
Not to overstate the case or anything, but it changed my life. It changed the lives of millions of people in the tri-state area.
Do you know how we got sports news before WFAN? In brief, 2-3 minute bursts every half hour on the news stations. Or on the weekly (I think it was weekly) Art Rust Jr. sports talk show on WABC.
Or by calling SportsPhone, which will sound hilarious to you young people out there. Yes, we actually used to dial a 976 number during the day to get updated sports news. I remember pleading with my father on many occasions, “Dad, can we please call SportsPhone tonight?”

So the idea in 1987 that suddenly, we would be able to listen to sports talk all day long, 24 hours a day, and call up the station and talk Jets, Knicks, Rangers, Yankees, etc. with knowledgeable hosts with strong opinions? It was beyond nirvana for sports junkies.
I remember how excited I was listening on the first day, as a 12-year-old. Over the years, as I moved away from New York, I loved returning home and catching up with old friends, which is what the hosts felt like.

I’d hear Mike Francesa, the man with the biggest ego in America, argue with “Mad Dog” Chris Russo about old baseball players. I’d listen to Steve Somers, schmoozing on the overnights with the insomniacs of New York.

And when living in North Carolina, it brought me faint relief late on Sunday nights during football season, when the FAN signal would come through and I’d hear the desperately passionate fan Joe Benigno would rail about our beloved Jets, making the same points I made to my fellow sufferers hours earlier.

Sports talk radio doesn’t seem so revolutionary now; every city has a station. But then, it was a godsend.
The Grantland article is an excellent oral history that covers the highs and lows of how history was made (the stuff about Don Imus, and Somers, are particularly awesome). I highly recommend it, even if it takes a few sittings to get through.

**Today’s my 3rd blog-iversary over here at Wide World of Stuff. Yep, on July 11, 2009, I gave the world just what it needed: another blog.

If you’ve been reading since Day 1 (I’ve written 985 posts since then, but here was my first one, or you just are discovering this site today, I want to thank you for taking the time to visit. I’ve had 316,698 visitors since I started, which sounds like a lot but really is pretty small. Still, I’m proud of my little corner of the Web.

I know there are a million websites you could be reading, and I’m truly honored you take the time to read mine.

So, thanks.

**And now, in keeping with one of my themes of bringing you the weirdness of our world, I present the 2012 Humpy Awards, honoring the best dog-humpers in all of the land.

God bless America.

A beautiful tribute to the late, great “The National” newspaper. I get bummed at the eye doctor’s office. And a computer repairman with a dirty mind

If you’re too young to remember “The National Sports Daily,” let me try to explain it to you.
Twenty years ago, before the Internet and before there were sportswriters spouting nonsense on TV, there was this idea: A daily newspaper in America, devoted solely to sports. It would come out five days a week, be filled with the best writing on sports in the country, and would have all the info you could possibly want.
The National hired every great sportswriter working in 1990, it seemed: John Feinstein, Mitch Albom, Dave Kindred, Charlie Pierce, Scott Ostler … it was the most amazing collection of sportswriting talent ever seen before or since.

I was in high school during The National’s brief life, and I vividly remember reading it every chance I got. My parents had recently gotten divorced in 1990, and I can still recall going to my Dad’s apartment in Great Neck, N.Y., walking to the newsstand near his place, and buying The National and savoring it.

It was everything I loved and everything I wanted to do, and I dreamed of one day being able to write for such an amazing newspaper.

But, well, there were problems. Distribution was awful, the paper wasted an insane amount of money on travel and salaries, and after a year and a half it folded under a pile of bills.

Why am I telling you all of this now? Because ESPN’s new website, Grantland.com (which is fabulous so far, by the way), did a beautiful two-story piece on The National and its glorious successes and failures. The first part is a hilarious oral history from the men and women who worked there, and the second is a beautiful essay by Charlie Pierce, an ode to the best place he ever worked. I highly recommend checking them out, whether you, like me, miss The National all the time, or if you just want to know what it was like.

**Here’s a little life moment. I went to the eye doctor Friday, and in addition to finding out he grew up in the same town as my cousins in New City, N.Y., I learned something else:
My right eye vision is only 20/30. This bothered me a lot, because nine years ago I had LASIK surgery and they swore to me then that I’d have 20/20 sight.
And as far as I know, I’ve had 20/20 vision since the surgery.
And now I’m down to 20/30.
Maybe I just had a bad day guessing the letters. Maybe the assistant was wrong.
Or maybe, I’m just getting a little bit old.
20/20 was a beautiful thing while it lasted.

**Finally today, here’s a man we all can be proud of. 20-year-old computer repairman Trevor Harwell was arrested after he put spyware on the computers of women that allowed him to take candid photos of them, often in the nude, by having remote access to their machines.

Trevor, sweetheart, there are a lot easier ways to get nude photos of women, pal.

What a sleazebag.