One of my daily business reads is Web Worker Daily.  Today they are participating in Blog Action Day (BAD) and their post about their effort is here.  The theme of this year’s Blog Action Day is poverty and the folks at WWD turned their attention to Africa and I thought this excerpt to be very telling:

When it comes to web working, Africa is
one of the last frontiers. In most sub-Saharan African countries,
people tend to use mobile phones more than the Internet for
business-related activities and communications. Factors contributing to
this are high illiteracy rates and linguistic diversity. In addition,
the high cost of bandwidth and lack of infrastructure are a serious
problem. Many African countries also lack workers skilled enough in
information and communication technologies (ICT) for web working to be
a viable option. These factors are obstacles to adoption of the
Internet as a tool for business, but access to computers and the
Internet would contribute greatly to overcoming the obstacles that
hinder their adoption and use in the first place.

Humanitarian and international development
organizations know this, and are making efforts to get the continent
connected with the objective of reducing poverty, as illustrated by
this strategy of the UN Economic Commission for Africa:

Access to Information > Knowledge
and Capacity > Innovation > Productivity > Growth >
Employment > Poverty Reduction

Later in the post the author goes on to describe some initiatives like One Laptop Per Child and Appfrica International that are trying to enable Africans to use IT to better their lives economically.  Very interesting stuff.

According to the BAD site there are over 11,000 sites participating in the initiative.  If you see one that is doing something you think is really interesting let me know in the comments or by email at jon.lowder AT gmail.com.

• How Children Fail: angry lessons from failures to teach – Boing Boing
  A former teacher writes a book about how the education system is failing children. Sounds like it might be a depressing, but important read.
  (tags: education)
• Our hyperlocal experiment and why it works – Lost Remote TV Blog
  A "hyperlocal" news site that's really a simple WordPress blog that has taken off.
  (tags: blogs business citizenjournalism)
• Alan Neff – For a Bailout, Press 'One' . . . – washingtonpost.com
  More humor re. the government's proposed bailout of the greedy bastards, er, Wall Street.
  (tags: economics politics humor)

• Cool Tools: Goodwill Online Auctions
  Like shopping at thrift stores? Like bidding on eBay? Then you'll probably love Goodwill's online auctions.
  (tags: shopping)
• More parents move in with kids – USATODAY.com
  The number of households with parents or adult siblings moving in has grown quite a lot. Leading the way are parents moving in with their kids, up 67% to 3.6 million.
  (tags: economics)
• Hank Paulson's bailout 419 letter – Boing Boing
  A satirical take on Paulson's bailout request written as a Nigerian scam email.
  (tags: funny economy)
• Diamond and Kashyap on the Recent Financial Upheavals – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog
  What all this financial sector meltdown stuff means from the folks at Freakonomics.
  (tags: economics finance politics freakonomics)

• Minimalist Fitness II: Yardwork Workouts, Prisoner Workout and Other Non-traditional Exercises | Zen Habits
  Workouts that don't require a gym. Includes yard work and prisoner workouts.
  (tags: diy health exercise training)
• How to Tax Wealth = Earned vs Found Money « blog maverick
  Liking what Mark Cuban has to offer. I'd read his blog a while back but forgotten about it. Really glad I re-found it. This post is his suggestion on how to tax capital gains above a certain amount, or as he calls it "got lucky" money.
  (tags: money)
• Stock Market Meltdowns – Why they will happen again and again and again « blog maverick
  I like Mark Cuban's take on the risk-reward decoupling in recent American biz history, and how that's contributed to a lot of the companies' failures. His suggestion of not allowing officers and boards of companies to be paid with stock (i.e. paid in cash only) is a good one I think.
  (tags: economics business finance money market)
• Man Successfully Used a $200 bill – NC Wanted
  Attention all counterfeiters: head to Food Lion, or at least the one in Roanoke Rapids. That's where a clerk accepted as payment a $200 bill with George W. Bush's picture on the front and a picture of the White House with lawn signs in front of it on the back. Oh, and you'll get change too.
  (tags: funny)
• BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » In control of health
  Jeff Jarvis does a great job of explaining how his interests and those of his insurance company and health care providers are misaligned, and how things could be so much better for everyone. Of course his argument applies to everyone in the US health care system.
  (tags: health healthcare)

• Are Conservatives Scaredy Cats?
  Citation of some research showing essentially that conservative people are more scared of change than non-conservatives. Makes sense. Then the author ties this fear to the Republicans' political strategy of sowing fear (of communists, gays, liberals, etc.) to keep their folks in bed with them. Then he points to what might be an effective strategy for Democrats: sowing fear of religious nuts, conspiracy nuts, etc. Ain't politics grand?
  (tags: politics)
• House That Survived Ike
  This is cool. It's a story about the only house for miles that survived Hurricane Ike. The house was built back in 2006 after the owners' original home was destroyed on the same site by Hurricane Rita. They asked the contractor to build a house that could withstand a Category-5 storm. As one commenter on the story said, I think the contractor who built it will be very busy over the next few years.
  (tags: coolstuff)

• Micro Persuasion: CNN Twitters Its Way to Direct Audience Engagement
  CNN anchor using Twitter to get real time viewer interaction. Kind of cool, and shocking coming from CNN.
  (tags: web2.0 media twitter)
• It's Time To Open Up The Feeds To Marketers
  Fred Wilson's very interesting take on the future of online advertising.
  (tags: advertising web2.0)
• Freelancing: Legal Resources for Freelancers
  Good stuff for anyone out there on their own in the work jungle.
  (tags: consultant lifehacks)
• Explosive Real Estate: Florida Homes Built Atop WWII Bombing Range – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News
  And you thought being upside down on your mortgage was bad. Try living over a bunch of unexploded ordinance.
  (tags: funny realestate)

• GetSatisfaction API Connects Companies To Customers
  GetSatisfaction is a kind of social media version of customer service. It's described as a neutral ground where people can go there to ask questions, provide feedback or gripe about products and services from various companies and employees of those companies can go to respond.
  (tags: socialmedia web2.0 api)

• Why and how foreign governments are buying America
  Video of an economist explaining the phenomenon of sovereign wealth funds buying US assets.
  (tags: economics)

The Greensboro News & Record had a boo-boo of magnificent proportions today. They had a huge headline on the front page about the government’s $85 billion loan to AIG. I mean huge like “Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor” huge. Problem is that instead of $85 billion the headline said $85 million. To continue with my comparison that would be like them channeling John Belushi and running a headline that said “Germans Bomb Pearl Harbor.”

Their editor John Robinson wants to go back to bed (http://tinyurl.com/6rjqob) and Ed Cone has an image of the page at http://edcone.typepad.com/wordup/2008/09/best-read-in-dr.html Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry