Working a Blue Streak, Microcredit

Yesterday, a Saturday, I got up late. After breakfast and the usual morning things, I mopped the floor with my new mop. I straightened the books on the bookshelf and reshelved many that had migrated to the floor or the bed or the couch. I did all the dishes and cleared off the desk, and then I sat down and worked all day on my dissertation. That's really what I did, and that's about all I did. I didn't leave the house until after dark, and then only to grab a little dinner at a campus cafeteria and copy one page I had missed while copying a longer work. Alas, that is just about all I have to say about the day. The photo is of white sediment settled at the bottom of my blue tea-cup from the drinking water I had just poured in. It makes a pretty photo, but it is an uninspiring sight when you are considering whether to drink it.

My news pick is three different articles about the Nobel Peace prize-winner for this year, Muhammad Yunus, the fellow who invented microcredit (which, given my occupation, I keep accidentally reading as microedit). Is it a good thing? Does it work? Some folks think so. Others are less convinced. Still others are so thoroughly skeptical it comes off sounding like sour grapes. A 55% failure rate is still a 45% success rate, and that sounds pretty good to me, when the goal is to help people out of poverty--a tricky proposition. But the point is well taken that there are certain problems and certain things that could be done better. I guess to me the interesting thing about this issue is that I didn't know anything about it until I read these articles, and I like having a variety of viewpoints to choose from. Yay free press.