Oprah's $40 million African school

There's been lots of commentary recently on Oprah Winfrey's funding of a $40 million prep school for girls in South Africa, in both the media and online. And online, and online, and online....it's hard to decide how to feel about what she's done, on balance. For example buried deep in most media coverage was her comment about American inner-city kids, she basically did a Cosby on them by way of explanation for building her school overseas rather than here. Was that fair? Accurate? Smart? I dunno.

Easily the most-interesting and most inspirational blog post I've seen in this context comes courtesy of a pointer from Harold Henderson ("World's First Blogger"). Cal Skinner, a former Republican state legislator in Illinois, posted a long well-illustrated account of school-building by an American Christian non-profit called RISE International. I'm not a member of their congregation either literally or politically but that's got nothing to do with forming an opinion about what they're doing and how they're doing it, as I bet a lot of desparately-poor folks in Angola would agree.

Oprah's big giveaway

No doubt you read about Oprah's show yesterday, she gave every member of the audience $1,000 with instructions to donate it to the charity of their choice.

It's a fun idea, which she probably got from a movement she had previously talked about on her show that was started by an evangelical church in California. The minister one day in 2000 simply handed every member of the congregation $100 cash with instructions to use it for charity and then come back and relate what they decided on. They've published a couple of small books on it and taken it national, which given the sad history of such things has to make one ask whether it's some sort of scam...if so I'm not spotting it. The books are priced so cheaply that any profit there seems unlikely. If somebody can spot a catch, do speak up.