Techological generosity

From the American Red Cross:

In addition, several hundred thousand people have chosen to make a mobile donation. Donors can text "Haiti" to 90999 on their cell phone to send a $10 donation to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. The mobile giving effort raised more than $3 million by Thursday morning, and all money raised goes to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

An interview this afternoon mentioned this. They were really pleased by the ability to raise so much money in so little time by taking advantage of the marvels of modern technology. Telephones are nothing compared to this.


That said,

I strongly urge anyone who can to donate blood. Go find someone to do it for you, if you can't. The lines outside the Red Cross office in Lansing stretched around the block on the evening of September 11, 2001. I was there for 5 hours (well, first donating & then helping). This is a much, much, much greater disaster.

And, sure, donate money. Directions are above. This is assuredly the most pressing item. But, if the ARC is going to send blood & blood products to Haiti, they need to replace them here.

The president of Haiti is homeless; I can't imagine anyone ever saying that here. Here there's always a few more miles to go before getting out of a disaster zone. Haiti is about the size of New Jersey.

The sheer poverty of the country beggars the imagination. And that was before Tuesday. I'm left wondering how much money will be dedicated to relief efforts. I am then left wondering why it couldn't have been sent there some time over the past 20 years. No different than the bottom of New Orleans: sure, we can spend a billion dollars to do a half-assed repair job after a hurricane, but we sure couldn't possibly be bothered to have spent anything before Katrina, to have minimized the disaster.

It's so soul crushing to look at the sheer waste of human life resulting from humanity's unwillingness to engage in anything preventative.

The immediate disaster is going to be horrible, yes. But there's no water; and certainly no clean water. After the acute care, disease is going to set in. TB is rampant in the country already; so is AIDS. They can soon expect everything else water borne to set in - typhoid, malaria, dysentery, etc.

The bill in the long run is going to be in the trillions. Jee, if the GDCSMF bankers hadn't tanked our economy, maybe we could have spent a few billion dollars on our neighbors rather than even further padding the GDCSMF's self-righteous nest eggs.

&

Pat Robertson is evil.