Are you a grandparent? Here’s a link you may find really helpful.
The Foundation For Grandparenting says:

We are a non-profit organization whose mission is to raise grandparent consciousness, and promote the importance of grandparenting as a role and function that both gives important meaning and empowerment to later life, and benefits all family members. In addition, we promote aspects of “grandparenting” as a role for all elders, whether or not they have biological grandchildren.
We call this “Grandparent Power” – the power to love, care for others, and grow personally by so doing.

We aren’t familiar with these folks, but their web site looks absolutely respectable and their goal seems like an important one.

The third stop in my morning Internet ritual is Comparing Notes , Minnesota Public Radio’s blog about what’s happening on the music scene in the Twin Cities.

Minneapolis / St. Paul is a 900 mile drive from my morning mocha (talk about take out!), so why on earth do I check the MPR site several times a week? Well, of course the main reason is that “Comparing Notes features pianist and composer Paul Cantrell along with MPR classical music hosts.” It’s a sort of morning wave to both my sons; Andy also has a strong hand in the process of building human culture.

But I’d like to think it’s not merely fatherly pride. It’s a way to remember that we humans, in spite of a number of really frightening characteristics, are also capable of ourselves adding to the beauty of the world.

Does it sound like I’m trying to make some big symbolic deal of the sites I happen to check out most mornings? Sure, of course. Did I set it up that way, picking sites to make prerehearsed statements about the human condition? Nah. These are the sites I check. It’s been amusing and instructive to notice that they comment on how we humans are put together – what matters to us and what we create, for better and for worse.

My first morning stop was The Astronomy Picture of the Day
My second stop was The Hunger Site