Color me Ba…err…Pleased
January 9, 2005 | 3:51 pmI have to admit…America has surprised me. I already had the mindset that the US really wouldn’t care much about the tsunami victims.
They’re half a world way. They’re not true “first-world” countries like us. Hell, not only are none of the countries Christian, but the one that lost the most people is a Muslim nation. Tens of thousands of people have died in earthquakes (or hundreds of thousands have died due to genocide or starvation) before and no one seemed to give a damn. Add in the fact that the US has always had a larger than average self-centric attitude, and I have to admit that I didn’t expect much. Boy was I wrong…
The corporations are donating money at levels that rival 9/11. The public donations are building up so much that they’ll probably overtake what the government has vowed to send. Organizations like the American Red Cross have received more donations since the disaster than they had all last year. Even the company I work for offered to match 100% of any employee’s donation. It’s good to see…
(I’ll refrain from mentioning how the government got shamed into uping their amount of help…or how the companies will take advantage of their donations to whip more industry into the effected areas…Oh wait…)
And on the flip side, there’s even surprise from the ravaged areas. Thailand recently declined Japan’s offer of $20 million in tsunami aid, stating that they’ve already got the situation in hand and that the money would be better sent to the areas that have more of a need. They could have taken the money for themselves and no one would have been the wiser. Damn…it keeps getting better. :)
Keep it up folks! Now if someone would just start paying attention to our own tsunami danger…
