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December 27, 2004
Twenty three thousand people... [updated, again]
For anyone living under a rock, a whole lot of people aren't coming home in various parts of Asia hit by a Tsunami caused by a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra.
The US has pledged $15 million, with an "M", dollars in immediate aid - which is about what we spend every hour and fifteen minutes fighting the war in Iraq.
Aren't we humanitarian.
I've been thinking all day about what I do, for a living. It's not terribly relevant in the face of human catastrophies like this. Makes me pretty introspective about life in general - how we spend it, and what we spend it in pursut of.
I guess the best I can do is, as my lovely better half puts it, "strive to be the person your dog thinks you are."
As of this morning's news, the death toll is estimated at 44,000. The US has been chastized by Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian aid chief, for being "stingy" and has said it expects to follow up the initial aid with "billions more dollars."
Fourty-four thousand people. I have trouble getting a handle on numbers that size - sometimes comparisons help. Fourty-four thousand people is the entire population of Palm Springs, or San Louis Obispo, CA
The death toll, as of the 29th, is at 80,000 - that's the entire population of the city of Newport Beach, or Buena Park, CA. It's more than the entire population of Chino Hills, CA - where Dawnise and I lived until recently. It's every second person in the cities of Orange, or Corona, CA.
I'm having a very hard time wrapping my head around the scale of the human loss...
Lots of organizations are collecting donations on behalf of The Red Cross and other disaster relief groups. Do the right thing.
Posted by dberger at December 27, 2004 9:44 PM