12.29.2004

Happy Holidays & Relief

I had a great time visiting the homeland (i.e., southern Indiana) the past few days, and got back to Beantown just in time to miss a wee snowstorm. I didn't do a whole heck-of-a-lot over the holiday, but then that was part of what made it so nice. If you have any exciting or otherwise interesting tales, by all means share.

In contrast, the past couple days have been horrible for pretty much every country bordering the Indian Ocean. These pictures tell a lot of the story, but having heard the death toll rise from 20 to 50 and now 100 thousand (I haven't seen this one confirmed, but it seems believeable enough), I'm still absolutely stunned.

Amazon is taking donations on behalf of the American Red Cross and they are looking to make a serious difference. Yesterday when I first checked in $115,000 had been donated, this afternoon they're up to 1.8 million. Instapundit points out that it can be fairly mesmirizing to keep refreshing the donation page while looking at the number of people donating and the amount given (I concur, the amount went up $200,000 in the time it took to write this entry). Glenn also notes, "What interested me most about the Amazon phenomenon was how quickly and dramatically it worked, raising lots of money without a lot of overhead." I just donated a few bucks and encourage the rest of you out there to do the same.

P.S. If you'd prefer not to donate to the American Red Cross for whatever reason, but would still like to give something, look through relief funds on the right side of The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog.

UPDATE: There's some hullabaloo floating around regarding the U.S. and stinginess with aid money. That is, whether we are more or less stingy than other assortments of generous folk. I find the assertion to be pretty weak on it's face, and inflamitory besides. But if that inspires people to generosity, so be it. I don't see a loser if that's the game. Dan Drezner offers a reasoned, well-linked post thus.