Published: September 28, 2007 05:16 pm            

KISSEL: Contemplate 'good life' at Crop Walk

With hope, Sunday’s Crop Walk at 1 p.m. will be a beautiful day — or for some, run — in Beaver Island State Park.

That’s unlike last year when the Crop Walk coincided with the October Surprise Storm and just a handful of hardy souls showed up to make the approximate six miles walk.

That’s the average distance someone disadvantaged in the developing world has to walk just to get drinking water (usually women who perform this important work).

This year the Rev. Earle King says organizers — including Paul Robinson — are hoping for closer to 100. With the temperature being forecast into the 70s, it may prove to be summer’s last gasp.

No doubt, many of the Island’s enlightened folks will be out to raise money for a worthy cause, food relief around the world. However, 25 percent of the funds will be used locally.

On a related note ... Did you hear about the $200 laptops being built for students in those developing countries?

For about a month, a $400 donation will buy one for a student somewhere and one for yourself. Only 25,000 of these unique laptops will be available, which I believe — if they aren’t duds — will become cult items and highly prized on Ebay.

They’re not available yet for testing, so everything’s conjecture on their performance. But they’re said to be super durable with no moving parts, usable in bright sun, feature very long battery life and do mostly what a $1,000 laptop does.

The lightweight lime-green-and-white machine with its 7.8-inch LCD screen also features a ‘book mode’ that uses extremely little battery power.

If the manufacturing goes well, the price could eventually drop to the originally envisioned $100 price — I think this program could be a huge success and have an everlasting impact on millions of lives all over the world.

Imagine some of the creative ways these kids and their families will use these machines.

No doubt, many of those uses will involve education ... and it very well will be a two-way street.

The laptops will be equipped with cameras and very powerful WiFi receivers ... essentially creating portable TV studios all over the world.

Could the end of invisible genocide be upon us? There’s so many potential impacts here on the modern world it’s staggering.

Despite a fender bender yesterday, I’m still seriously considering ordering the $400 package.

A kid can’t eat this laptop, but the harvest it brings could still be great, indeed.

I’ll certainly have more time to contemplate that and further count my blessings Sunday as I join some others who realize how fortunate they are to be exactly where they are.

E-mail comments to joekissel@roadrunner.com.

        

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