“Live simply that others may simply live” is a popular saying, originally said by Mahatma Gandhi. Now simply living is in doubt for a significant number of people in Haiti. We can help, a little or a lot.

Partners in Health, an organization founded by Paul Farmer, an American doctor who began working in Haiti when he was in med school, has long inspired me.

I had read a book by Tracy Kidder about Paul Farmer and his activities, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World (Random House Reader’s Circle) and I had become a huge fan of the health care work that he and others have been doing in a part of Haiti some distance from where the earthquake struck.

So when some friends mentioned that they had donated to this organization, my husband and I did too. Read the rest >>>

Maybe you’ve already listened to Steve Jobs’ talk at the Stanford graduation in 2005. I had heard of it but didn’t get around to watching it till this week. I really like how he talks about not seeing till afterwords some of the benefits of things we’ve done. In his case, that included dropping out of college and later getting fired from Apple, which he had been a founder of.

So I had this in mind to blog about, and just now I wandered over to my husband’s desk and said, “Whatcha doing?” He was reading a really good commencement address by Paul Hawken, given earlier this month at the University of Portland. You Are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring is the title of his talk, on the organicconsumers.org website, which is well worth a browse, or many browses.

Here’s a bit of it:

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection…

Why do global warming, Cordwainer Smith, and the study of prehistory end up in the same title? Because my husband and I use the latter two topics to cope with the stress of thinking about global climate change and its effects on our earth.

Chances are you have never heard of Cordwainer Smith. He was a science fiction writer who died over 40 years ago. He had a bizarre and visionary way of writing which has influenced the direction of science fiction in several ways. He was also my father.

Read the rest >>>