Some quick links

I've read a few interesting articles on the web the past few days, and thought I would pass them on:

NYT wrote that Haiti has a problem with mother's prematurely stopping breast feeding as they believe their milk is bad.  Naturally this lead to severe problems for the children, who sometimes do not survive.

India, on the other hand, is still having trouble with girls. The caste system requires that girls give dowery to their husband's family, so families seek to get rid of girls out of an inability to pay the dowery. For the rich this means selective abortion (even though disclosure of gender via ultrasound is forbidden in India); for the poor, this means starving girls to death after birth.  It struck me that India is about 20 years behind China with this same problem - which is now starting to erupt with Chinese men finding they cannot find a partner due to the small female population.

Finally, I discovered the list of the most expensive homes in America.  The asking price for these homes would go a long way to ease the first two problems, listed above.  But, why consider that when you could get a china room or a gift wrap room?

I also discovered this week the organization kiva.org  The basic idea is that you can loan $25 to microfinance various projects around the world. The projects range from buying motorbikes for a courier/taxi service to agricultural pursuits to restaurant/food vendors.  Some of the loans are guaranteed, but some are not.  It looks like a nice way to spend $25 bettering the world (and you may even get the money back!).