There are a number of blogs that I read regularly. I use Google Reader to keep track of them. Google Reader was a watershed moment for me . . . you know, like BC/AD, or before cell phones and after cell phones, or before TiVo and after TiVo.

There was reading blogs before Google Reader.

That was troublesome and irritating. It was hit or miss. Do I remember the addresses of the blogs I like to read? Do I remember to check them regularly? Do I find it irritating when I check them every few days, but the person hasn’t posted?

And then there is reading blogs after discovering Google Reader.

This is organized and structured. It is smooth and on my timing. Blog posts are there for me . . . whenever I want them to be. I don’t have to look for them. They are just magically: there.

I may occasionally, on this blog, draw your attention to blogs that I read. Today, here is one.

As you might imagine, I enjoy computers quite a bit. I like what they do for me. I like what they allow me to do. I like to work on them. I like to tinker with them. I even like to build them and re-format them. I especially like to help people work with computers. My favorite thing to do is to work with people who aren’t comfortable with computers and help them harness this tool and make it useful for them.

While computers have added to our lives and our culture in countless ways, their presence in our lives have also brought about subtle, gradual changes that are, at their core, losses. One such loss is letter-writing.

Tell me, seriously, when is the last time you wrote a letter? I mean, hand-wrote a letter. Not just a thank-you note, but a real, honest-to-goodness, newsy letter. It’s been quite a while for me, I know. Why pen when I can type, I figure.

Shaun Usher is a blogger who knows the value of a letter, especially a hand-written letter. His blog, Letters of Note, usually offers a letter each day, purely for your enjoyment, education, and pondering. Many of the letters are to or from people you know. Some are about important, historic events. Some are thought-provoking. Some are just sweet and lovely and worthy of your consideration solely for the content. This one is a bit of these last two.

Do you remember Kimba Wood? Judicially, she is best known for being the judge who sentenced Michael Milken to ten years in prison. While she was also President Bill Clinton’s second failed attempt at a Supreme Court nomination, as far as I know, she continues to serve as federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In the midst of one of her many cases in 2010, Judge Wood received a request from an attorney on one case. While requests from attorneys aren’t unusual, this one was quite unusual, as was Judge Wood’s reply. Be sure to read her hand-written response at the end. As a woman, a mother of a daughter, and a person who loves liturgy, feasts, and celebrations, I was amused and touched by both the letter and her ruling:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/03/court-would-like-to-balance-scales.html