Lazy Saturday

We're having an extremely restful Saturday, thanks in part to One having this weekend off in football. Husband is surfing and listening to music, Two is inventing something upstairs, One is doing this:

and I am sitting here typing away. Just a few links. That's all.

You have to read what is far and away the best piece I've read on Steve Jobs this week. Technology, religion, hope. It's all there.

NY Times Health section has a series of articles called Small Fixes, which I love. They all feature low tech, inexpensive solutions to health problems in the developing world. Here is the one on clean drinking water; look down the side bar for a dozen more, all of which are encouraging and interesting.

John Hinderaker at Power Line on the Occupy Wall Street crowd. What he said. Squared.

Heather Hendricks wrote a beautiful piece this week on her family's work in Haiti. Page down to the part of the story about Marie Lourdes for the hardest (and best) bit. Awe-inspiring quote: "six kids who could have been dropped off at an orphanage in the weeks to come will hopefully be raised by their mother because people are beginning to open their minds wide to what orphan care can look like. Doesn't it make sense that one of the best ways to fight the orphan crisis is to prevent children from becoming orphans?" Amen. Amen. Amen.

One of the downsides of "unschooling" can be seen here. And before you ask, no, I don't think filling out forms is an end in itself - and certainly not the goal of education in general - but come on, life skills, people. Kids need them. And they also need us to teach them to do the hard stuff now, even if they find a job someday that has nothing to do at all with that hard stuff. We need to be by their side while they work on those skills; if we don't challenge them to do what's scary, where are they going to learn how to challenge themselves to do it? I could go on for pages on this subject, but let's leave it at that for now.

And last - something I'm sure I've linked to before but love, so I'm permanently excused from bringing up again. Lt. Thomas Meehan's last letter to his wife, before he died on the way to the Normandy invasion. It came up today when I was talking to Two about fighting with his brother, and as I told Two, this is one of those things that describes what it means to be a man. My little one is not there yet, but we'll get him there, he'll get himself there - it's what the journey is about right now. "... strong as hell and as kind as Christ." Indeed.