Ah, back to the grind.

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. I did, very restful. One minor complaint: I have lately been a bit irked by the emphasis everybody puts on preparing and eating large amounts of food at Thanksgiving. Everybody I talked to about the weekend was pretty psyched about how much food they made and ate. I'm all for feasting - there's a lot to be thankful for, and parties & family are both good things. But I couldn't help thinking that it's time now for a compensating increase in our awarness of hunger. 850 million people go to sleep hungry every day, and 24,000 people die every day from hunger related causes. World hunger is on the rise again, and it's not because we don't have enough food in the world. I don't understand the political and economic causes of hunger, certainly, but I know that the only way to change things is for people who have enough to be aware.

So here's your task for today. If you had a great big Thanksgiving meal, donate $5 to help. It's not gonna set you back much, and if nothing else, it'll put you in a spirit of helpfulness. Better, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, to light one small candle than to curse the darkness. Go do it.