I voted for five and figured that was enough. Here they are in the order I voted for them:

THRONGZ

FelonResources

Uppity Wisconsin

Reversed Rural Electrification

HungerMaps

 

Ethan Zuckerman blogs about the future of advocacy.  He demonstrates a shift from programmatic "representation" to the "pointing and contextualizing" of the blog world.  This amplifies an important lesson regarding "tolerance."  Just as it is embarassingly presumptuous to emphasize "tolerance" as a value (who am I to presume to tolerate you!?), so also is the tendency idealistically to adopt-a-cause and represent the less fortunate who come along with the ideal.

Lester, my Acadian friend sent this letter. I'm not sure how it fits into the hunnerd dollah laptops for po' folks model of world changing intentions, but it's poignant and it resolves one of my questions regarding the recent bad weather. Avery Island survived with little damage...
fp

Dear Friends,

A few years ago my wife and I, my son Lucas, and her daughter Jody, spent part of our vacation in Holly Beach, Louisiana. It's fondly known in south Louisiana as the Cajun Riviera, and to reach it one drives south from Lake Charles across miles and miles of marshland populated by waterfowl, nutria, and alligators. There wasn't much to it--a few rows of houses and cabins raised up off the beach on on pilings made of telephone poles, a few trailers, a little store and gift shop, a seafood wholesaler, the water tower. The year-round population was only about 175. The beach was a rather dark-colored sand and the Gulf waters were far from clear--they were sort of muddy, actually. But that didn't keep us from enjoying the beach and the surf. Lucas, who is blind, was bothered a bit. It was hard to get him out of it. We stayed overnight in a "resort"--a few trailers owned by a family who lived in one of them, and a couple of mature fig trees with delicious fresh figs ripening on them. One of the children had a chronic illness, and my general impression of the family was that they had a hard time making ends meet.