Quote:
Originally posted by RougeUnderoos@Jan 4 2005, 10:41 PM
It may not be great on a per-capita basis but the Yanks have all told pledged more than half a billion dollars. Not to shabby.
Other "Not Just American" stuff... I heard today that Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontiers has actually asked people to stop donating to their Asia relief fund. They have enough money to cover their programs over there. One report said "stop sending money to them" but another said "donate to their general fund" so I think the message is "don't stop donating to Doctors Without Borders even though they have tsunami relief covered!"
I can't find the link now but earlier today BBC.com had a story about how a lot of $$ was pledged to Iran from everyone last year after the earthquake but not much of it ever showed up. Once the cameras leave and another story happens... you get the gist. Don't know how that will apply here as this story is getting, for whatever reasons, probably 100 times the coverage that earthquake got.
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It does seem like this disaster for whatever reason has captured north america's attention a lot more than others in poorer parts of the world. It seems to be a bit of a fallout from the Iraq war/september 11 that the Americans are desperate to show they don't just care about themselves. I've been to a lot of the places that were hit, so it kind of hits home for me. Maybe enough people have been there, that there is a little bit of a personal connection, unlike Rwanda or Iran.
It does get kind of icky though when you see cnn having hour long programs on the politics of the Tsunami. It can't be anything but a good thing that so much money was donated from whatever phenomenom is happening. It seems that whatever money can fix over there will be fixed now. But there are a lot of other disasters going on in the world that could probably use as much attention as well.