Greg, I agree with what you are saying, that education will ultimately alleviate a lot of the problems in Africa...but what about the short term problems like hunger? I know, some people will buy a family a goat, others will send some grain...and some will send laptops depending on their own interest. I tend to give based on my emotional reaction to the charity, and perhaps that is selfish but at least I know that someone is getting helped now because of some little thing I did.

OLPC is getting a lot of media attention, and I worry that perhaps all that attention is taking some well-needed attention away from more traditional charities.