Kids do the darnedest things...

Kids are funny little creatures. They have the ability to speak the truth (see: new clothes, Emperor's) and the wonderful and total belief that nothing is impossible. It's something us old fogies would do better to keep in mind sometimes. My friend Blair sent me the following link to a story on CNN on the amazing Charlie Simpson. The seven year-old British boy wanted to do something for the people of Haiti. He decided to ride his bike five miles around a park near his home with a goal of raising 500 British pounds. Word of his efforts caught the Internet's attention, and he recently passed the $240,000 mark.

The Daily Mail highlighted another seven year-old British boy undeterred by potential limits. Kieron Williamson attracted buyers from as far away as Japan and Canada when his watercolors, oils and pastels went to auction in November. The pictures sold out in under 15 minutes and earned the boy 17,000 British pounds. His mother arrived late to the sale and missed it completely. This after another auction last summer netted him 14,000 BP. Kieron just decided to start painting after a family trip to Devon and Cornwall; he showed no particular interest or aptitude before then.

Finally, the video above, courtesy of YouTube, is just fun. I'm not entirely sure how old the boy is or where he's from, but he exhibits excellent coordination. I've never really seen the appeal of the video game "Dance Dance Revolution" beyond a funny scene in "The Big Bang Theory", but this kid is amazing. I could never do what he does.

In memoriam...

Patrick Swayze, Crystal Lee Sutton and Norman Borlaug are three names which do not have much in common at first glance. Swayze is best known for taking Baby out of the corner, Sutton for agitating for labor rights and Borlaug for keeping millions from starving to death.

However, all three made a significant impact on the world.

Swayze was, by all accounts, one of the few truly decent men in Hollywood. He and his wife married young and stayed together for 34 years. He stayed out of the tabloids until the very end and kept working because that was what he knew how to do. Swayze may have been typecast, but always playing the man who stepped up when others wouldn't isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Los Angeles Times has a very nice article looking back on Swayze's contributions to Hollywood.

Sutton, the inspiration for the movie "Norma Rae," catalyzed the union movement in the North Carolina. Just 17 when she started working at a textile mill in the mid-1950s, she met labor organizer Eli Zifkovitch when he visited her plant after helping organize the coal workers in West Virginia. Sutton was making $2.65 an hour at JP Stevens' plant in 1973 when Zifkovitch inspired her to take up the cause of workers' rights. Later in life she also advocated for women's rights, racial equality, the poor and equal access to medical treatment, according to the Columbia Ledger-Enquirer.

The City Journal has an excellent blog post on all of Borlaug's many contributions to sustainability. He grew up on an Iowa farm during rough times, an experience which propelled him into the study of plants and hybridization. Borlaug's efforts in Mexico in the 1950s helped make Mexican wheat fungus-free and allowed the farmers to not only feed themselves but sell the surplus. He traveled to India next, creating a strain of large-headed short wheat whose high yield reversed the Indian trend toward famine. The 1970 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize continued to train others throughout his life, so his important work could live on.