Tuesday, December 28, 2004

The World Turns II

Whatever form our assistance takes, we need to ensure that this waste of resources is not included. (Via Drudge). I want the U.S. out of the U.N., and the U.N. off our soil. Their hypocrisy of mission is overshadowed only by their incompetence in execution. Enough is enough.

As this tragedy began to unfold I told my wife that if the casualty count came in under 50K I would be surprised. I fear the ultimate cost may be double my first guess. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of communities from village to moderate- city size in the area affected by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. You cannot begin to understand what "population density" really means unless you've been to South Asia. Many of these communities are on islands that rise no more than a few feet above the high tide line. Many of them haven't even been checked out because of the scope of the disaster.

Are they still there?

We haven't heard much from Bangladesh. They have the widest flood plain coastline in the world. A bad (heavy) monsoon year routinely inundates thousands of square miles of land and the already desperately impoverished villages that carpet the area. Bangledesh seems to be where the heel of the iron boot of fate always lands.

I'll be contributing to our local charities like the Red Cross and the LDS Relief Society but I'm always open to suggestions. Mercy Corps has a pretty good rep. Command Post is serving as a clearing house for charity/relief information as well as linking area blogs and communication links for people searching for relatives and friends in the area.

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