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Wednesday, 29 December 04 :: tsunami relief.

i noticed that amazon is collecting donations for tsunami relief. i don't know if amazon is the best place to donate.. you can also donate to the red cross / red crescent. there is also a donation site at unicef. as far as locally, i don't know. contact the church of your choice, see what they recommend. i think there might be something being organized here in eugene, if i hear anything about it, i'll post it here.

i just want to say that, at count, over 88,000 people are dead or missing in this thing. we as americans should be asking more than just the internet what we can do; we should be begging for information from our media outlets, we should be talking to our neighbours, we should be asking ourselves what it is that we can do to help the helpless. if this had been over 88,000 american lives the world would be coming to our aid, it would be making serious headlines, no one would be paying attention to what happened to a celebrity, they would be paying attention to the everyperson.

the lives of the people in the countries devastated by this natural disaster are no less than our own lives, just because they have less money than we do, just because they don't have the bombing power that we do, just because they are half a world away from us does not diminish their importance in our world, in our lives. i hope that the american people will turn out like they did for the 2,000 people & families that were killed and affected by the world trade center. just because one was an act of human violence and the other an unstoppable act of mother nature does not make one tragedy more important than another. just because one occured on american soil and the other did not does not make its importance for americans any less.

we americans, in this moment, have the chance to show again to the world that we *do* care, that we aren't just interested in oil and profits, that the lives of innocent people a half a world away are as important as our own.

please do the right thing, go find out what you can do, donate as much as you can spare, even if its only a quarter, a dollar, 5 dollars, or if you have it, give more. do what you can. show the world that we are better than the bombs over iraq and afghanistan, show the world that we can use our wealth for good and not bad.

posted by brooke at December 29, 2004 01:11 PM

comments

hi sweets. I gave to Mercy Corps and put a challenge on my website for friends to match. As you know, my religion is Quaker/Friends so I also gave to their internation relief organization.

Link for Mercy Corps

Link for American Friends Service Committee

posted by: Lisa at December 29, 2004 06:47 PM

about
i'm brooke, born in '73. i am currently a phd student in instructional technology. this is the blog where i capture all the neurotic, and the few non-neurotic, moments that seem to come with being a phd student (if you want to read less neuroses and more professionalism go to: oer's, dl's, reuse and culture: it's about a phd student researching digital resources in a multicultural world). i have been from eugene, oregon for a long time.. 8 years specifically (its my home now, but i grew up in southwestern virginia), but now i'm here in logan, utah at utah state university. after finding my roots in eugene i never could have expected that i would leave that liberal oasis and head to utah. but i did and there are days when its a blessing and days when i'm tempted to go back to oregon and beg the folks at lost valley educational center to let me move in. but i won't leave because there are days when this process is better than any kind of high i could ever imagine. what else? i collect things, i have 2 cats, 2 kayaks, 2 laptops (i'm a geek - one mac, one pc). i can be emailed at brookesblog@rivervision.com.