Ugandan children sleeping in shelters to avoid being kidnapped by rebel soldiers. (photo provided by Invisible Children)
If the five year-old child down the block from you appeared in the street dressed in an army uniform you’d think it was cute. If the child aimed a machine gun at your neighbor and shot her dead, What would you think?

Children killing people, and worse, happens daily in Uganda and has through more than a decade of civil war there. But a group of California teenagers - teenagers - created an incredible way to help. Three years ago, three college-age film makers went to Africa in search of a story and found the Invisible Children of Uganda. Children who are invisible because they run and hide, like animals must, to escape human atrocities targeted at them. I just came from a screening of the film and I wish it were required viewing. For everyone.

In the three intervening years, these film makers have garnered support from their peers and from younger students - they all believe they can effect world change. And they can. And they have. And they do - every day. The campaign is growing. The American kids have garnered enough money, $20 bucks at a time, from other American kids, to develop and fund a mentor program in Uganda. The project is spreading virally, without much assistance from adults, through our high schools and colleges.

The program pairs Uganda children with adult mentors who help provide for them. At least 400 children are now safe from the rebel army kidnappers who steal children out of their bush-homes in the night. The abductors immediately begin to desensitize kids by shooting the children’s friend before their eyes. And their brothers. And their sisters. The ones who don’t get shot, become soldiers to survive.

Now, four hundred have become students. With books, mentors, clothing, food, shelter and a future. Because a handful of American kids give a damn. There’s way more to the story and it’s compelling. I’ll tell you more, but for now, I encourage you to take a look at the Web site that is going to help save thousands of kids lives. I truly believe it.

It’s not easy for us women — caregiving. Statistically, caregivers’ mortality is higher than normal, by far. I love this story from our friend Carol Bradley Bursack. She is the penultimate caregiver - no matter what stage of life we’re in, we can learn much from her experiences with frail loved ones.

One day I forgot to go to work. Yep, that’s it. I was only working part-time. It was a job that paid very little, but I took it to look like I was working at a real job, since the feedback I was getting from my then husband was — I didn’t work.

I was doing some freelance writing, but that didn’t pay much. I was caring for two children, one with undiagnosed health problems – more developing by the day. My in-laws’ need for help was ever increasing.

Want to read blogs packed with inspiration or information? How about seeing what other women like you are doing? Is it your turn to open a blog and start world-communication from your point-of-view? It doesn’t matter if you’re a mom fighting frustration, a grandmother doting, a teacher looking to spark creativity or a pipe fitter working on a ship. If you’re a woman, the blogosphere, that cyber world conglomerate of social media, has treasures for you to unearth.

Mr. Franklin…One of America’s first bloggers?
Here’s a six-pack quick list to get you into blogging as a reader or a writer. And the world needs more of each.

1. Subscribe to feeds. Scroll to the bottom of this page, look right, see the links and click one to subscribe to Women Day by Day. Those are Real Simple Syndication (RSS) type subscription services, offering databases of blogs by topic or title. Like a phone book. Visit a page like this RSS how to for a complete introduction. Then visit Google or Yahoo for a list of possibilities. The feeds come to you via a reader or you can put them on your Yahoo or Google home page.
2. Visit Blogher, a directory of blogs written on every topic under the sun, by women. Read, subscibe, or post comments. Blogher is a bit tricky to navigate - they would do well to refine their database and search functions, but it’s a fantrastic site for women. You’ll connect with writers (and readers). See the Ageless Project for blogs by baby boomers - great stuff! Or jump to Google’s directory.
3. Take a preliminary look at Web-based blogging software to start your own social media project. Try Wordpress.org, of course, if you want to control every aspect of your site. Beginners may not like that, unless you have lots of Web savvy. Others - Blogger.com, Blog.com and so forth. Again a search will get you tons of options. The self-contained, or packaged-type blog hosts make it as easy as click, click, click and you’re up and running. No Web hosting companies required, no software needed. A friend of mine who had never blogged a word, got off the phone with me, went to Blogger and had her blog up and running in an hour.
4. Hook up with a social bookmarking site like Delicious, which is spelled del.icio.us, but pronounced like a great dessert. At these sites (technorati is another) you register, collect bookmarks into your account, and share them with the world. This is cool. It starts out feeling weird, but you become part of a search engine put together by people who care about topics, rather than an engine that cares about making money. Your Searches results, in theory, float to the top because readers, surfers, users, like what they see on a site.
5. Set aside 20 minutes a day to read a blog, write a blog entry, or one of each. The world will share and absorb information in the future via what is created right here, right now in the blogosphere. Once a place where bored people wailed on about love-lornity and why they hate their mother, blogs are growing more valuable every day. Surf a bit - search on topics you really sparkle about and add the word “blog” to your search. You’ll be amazed. There’s quality out there from people like you and me. There’s truth in them blogs.
6. Brainstorm ideas for your blog topic or for those you’d like to find. Write like you care, if you write a blog, and share it with others. Join communities of bloggers, get yourself on directories like these (disclaimer - I have nothing to do with this list - it’s fairly accurate, but go carefully, as always). If you read blogs, let others know about the good ones (and the not-good!) by using social bookmarks. Comment to writers who resonate with you - tell them, kindly what you enjoyed or didn’t. Talk about blogs. Encourage others to explore them.

It doesn’t take long to become part of this community of blogging. In a few weeks, you’ll be thinking and talking like a blogger. You’ll find yourself in a world-wide compendium of women who want to make a difference or connect with others or just create a record of the fact that they walked upon this earth. Another friend of mine found her salvation and sanity in blogging when she was suffering from caregiver burn out. It’s all good. Welcome.

Quick post -

I did some research - easy research. The L casei culture, the parent of whatever Dannon has cooked up, is found in lots of dairy products including cottage cheese, yogurts, cream cheese and so forth. It isn’t new, it isn’t a miracle and it isn’t going to change your life. Like the recent discovery that One a Day brand vitamins claims are right on the border line of bogus in some cases, especially the weight loss formula, you may find the Dannon thing only changes your pocket book, not your health.

Here’s their blurb from their Web –

Why is L. casei Immunitas™ unique?

There are many L. casei culture strains, some already present in human intestinal flora. First identified in 1919, L. casei strains are used in a number of dairy products worldwide. The L. casei Immunitas™ culture in DanActive is a proprietary strain that can only be found in Dannon’s DanActive. L. casei Immunitas™ is the “fanciful” trademarked name for the L. casei culture that is only found in DanActive. This strain was selected by Danone Vitapole, Danone’s international research center. The L. casei Immunitas™ culture was chosen for its probiotic characteristics and its beneficial effect. Multiple clinical studies have proven that DanActive with L. casei Immunitas™ can help strengthen your body’s defenses.

Note the use of the word “fanciful” (emphasis is mine). It’s a joke, cooked up by some chemists and marketers. Now check the price per ounce of this stuff, the sugar content, the saturated fat and tell me this is a health food.

A big thump in the head to Dannon.

Education:

• MBA Stanford University Graduate School of Business
• Trinity College graduate, with a degree in Economics

Early Career:

Kathy Yates was hired as publisher’s assistant at (San Jose) Mercury News in 1981, became CFO the following year and general manager six years later. She left there in 1994. Kathy was a VP with Women.com and a founding mother of CareerPath (which became CareerBuilder). She has created or helmed Internet media and other media firms for nearly a quarter century. Kathy works hard to balance marriage and children with her powerful career.

Career Advancement:

In 2001, Kathy was president and CEO for Marketwatch.com, a business news and analysis site now owned by Dow Jones. She was an active player in the 2005 sale of that business to Dow for $529 million. She was named COO of Allbusiness.com in 2005, possibly the only woman on the exec team, where she works for Peter Horan, former CEO of About.com.

Some Recognitions and Affiliations:

• Phi Beta Kappa
• American Leadership Forum Board
• Founded Knight Ridder Digital
• Bellarmine College Prep board of trustees
• Estrella Family Services capital campaign cabinet
• Cupertino Community Service
• Faith in Action Rotating Shelter board of advisors
• Career Action Center’s Woman of Vision Award
• YWCA’s Tribute to Women in Industry award

Quotables:

“You can’t wait until all the pieces are in place. When opportunity comes your way, grab hold and make the most of it.”

“Don’t presume that you will always know what the next best thing is for your career. Allow yourself the pleasure of letting big and little surprises in life help you find your way.”

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Atria Books
ISBN: 0743496701, $26.00 U.S./$36.00 Can., 387 pp.

Jodi Picoult
Image from her Web
Is it possible that hell is inside ourselves, a place where we confront personal truths. In the The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult explores dark places in perfect suburban lives. Her latest novel’s twists and suspense will satisfy the most adrenaline-addicted reader.

Picoult’s writing has matured. In Plain Truth, an early book, she explored the suspicious death of an unwed Amish mother’s baby, nailing the battle between self and culture, but filtering it through a soft lens. An occasional faulty detail pulled us out of the plot. Like this – a character, cruising a Wisconsin highway in early June muses about seeing corn in full tassel. Not going to happen in June, and anyone who knows that snaps right out of the story. There are no such slips in The Tenth Circle.

As the book opens, we get to know Laura, Daniel and Trixie in reminiscences and well-crafted conversations. All looks pretty normal, but a pointed uneasiness lurks. The novel, like a proverbial onion, unfolds in layers. The more we delve, the more Picoult shows us.

Laura and Daniel are role models of perfect middle class family life. She’s a college professor; Daniel is a successful graphic novel artist, a stay-at-home dad who dotes on his daughter. We meet Daniel in a prologue reliving a parent’s horror – his baby daughter is missing. We’re shown that this is only the first time Daniel has to cope with the loss of his child. Trixie, a great kid, good student, pretty-as-a-picture, rebellious, and 15 years-old, will be gone again. Another layer.

Daniel grew up in an Eskimo village where his mother was the only teacher. He was the only white child. For children, different is terrible. For Daniel, the teasing was bad, but his self-inflicted feelings of exclusion from the clan were intolerable. With fists and rage he lashed out against his own demons, but held everyone else at fault. Stealing, drinking, fighting – then committing an unforgivable crime against his best friend, Cane. Daniel runs. From Alaska and from himself.

In Boston, buried in his art of creating graphic novels, he meets Laura, balm for unhealed wounds. She ends up pregnant and intimidated by his dark side. To win her for keeps, he clamps down on his wild streak, blanketing himself in middle-class normalcy like it’s one of those protective bunny suits hazmat teams wear. He never wavers and, for fifteen years, life is uncannily right. Then that layer peels away and Trixie’s tragedy sets fire to Daniel’s fuse again.

“Daddy, he raped me….”

Those words ignite an explosion of action, emotion, confrontation and terror. Nothing is what it seems. Picoult must have set her keyboard on fire as she wrote. The energy and tumble-down acceleration is extraordinary. We follow 15 year-old Trixie on a 4100 mile Odyssey to strip away the final layers for that sense of closure critical to a good read. No lame gimmicks – real truths show the Stone family in sharp, unflinching detail.

Picoult’s chapter transitions are intriguing with frame-by-frame segments of Daniel’s graphic novel as an effective bridging device. Alternating between Picoult’s plot and the graphic novel is fun, a place to catch your breath.

No novel is perfect, but it’s tough to pick at this story’s continuity. I wasn’t aware of misplaced details. Picoult’s complexity put me off at first. She’s fond of omniscient point-of-view and, until I caught the rhythm of switching between her places, times and characters’ thoughts, I felt disoriented. Was I inside Daniel’s head or Laura’s? Was it the present or the past? The author, herself, calls the project a “massive undertaking,” and the research had to have been extreme. It shows with richness and texture. I tripped over minor pacing bumps at the beginning, but in the end, that complexity made the story as engaging as a fine game of cat’s cradle.

READ MORE BOOKS

Chick Lit - some fun choices.

Squidoo - Old Farts, Like Me
You Can Hire Me Here
My Newest Project for Kids with Military Parents
A Resource for People of the Baby Boomer Persuasion or grand parents
St. Pete (FL) Times - where I work - a LOT
Midwest Book Review - I review books here sometimes

Valentines Day is around the corner, as they say. Here’s a really perfect list of gift possibilities I found at Squidoo.com.

Give it a look and drop the hint to your sig or insig other(s). Never know what can come of that.

I’d add:

• All expenses paid visit to a spa for a weekend. Could anything be nicer?
• A visit from Merry Maids or who ever is in your area to do a thorough house cleaning so you don’t have to, if that job typically falls to you.
• HD TV - I’m in love with it
• A weekend at the lodge in a National or State Park. The accomodations can range from awesome to just comfortable. The price is usually right, and the scenery is unreal. There’s one on the Alabama Gulf Coast where the rooms view the Gulf from about 100 feet away, and the pool is on the beach. Don’t go in hurricane season.
• Sleeping in.

There you go. Get busy hinting.