Why I'm generally hopeful, even when sucky things happen in the world.

See, I teach kids at the Hebrew school.

And, this past Sunday, I was chatting with one of my students, who's nine. He was telling me that one of his friends' parents have this really big yard that they just can't do anything with.

So they turned it over to the neighborhood kids.

And they've built camps there. With forts. The camp that he and his friends have has a fort in it. And a fire pit. With a "What's that word for the thing where you put meat on it and it spins around?" "A spit?" "Yeah -- a spit." And a catapult that they built.

And they were digging holes the other day, and discovered a gold mine. No, better than gold. They discovered CLAY. And they've been trading clay with the other camps. They're trying to work out making pots and then trading the pots to the other camps. He's also got this rock that he's managed to bash into being a pointy rock, and is trying to work out how to make it into a spear.

This is why I can't feel too disheartened about the world. I work with nine-year-olds who, for fun, teach themselves stone-knapping, pottery, and catapult-building. And fort-building. No matter what else happens, if a world has nine-year-olds like that, it's got a chance.