No doubt you know this already from many sources, but it is easy to donate money to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina. To donate online to the Red Cross, click here or call 1-800-HELP-NOW. Right now the situation down there continues to deteriorate. I hope “this sort of thing”:http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/30/katrina.neworleans/index.html doesn’t become widespread:
bq. The city had no power, no drinking water, dwindling food supplies, widespread looting, smoke rising on the horizon and the sounds of gunfire. At least one large building was ablaze Tuesday.
My (limited) understanding of the logistics of this thing is that, the Iraq war notwithstanding, the National Guard of Louisiana and Mississippi should in principle still have about 50-60 percent of its manpower available for call-up. It looks like a good chunk of them may well be needed. The more residents they evacuate the better, too. It’s not so much the dead bodies that pose a threat of disease, it’s the waste produced by survivors (and debris) when there’s no clean water to be had.
{ 5 comments }
Non-libertarian 08.31.05 at 1:57 am
By a rough and ready calculation, the victims of Hurricane Katrina are outnumbered by 1000 to 1 by the victims of the Tsunami. They are also outnumbered by the victims of ongoing famine in Mali and elsewhere. Moreover, the Katrina victims have the world’s most powerful state with its awesome taxraising powers and are in the world’s richest country. Why then should anyone even consider donating any money when (a) there are more urgent causes and (b) the means to help these people are already in place??
Jonathan 08.31.05 at 6:47 am
I very much agree with non-libertarian. The dutch 8 o’clock news said that the wrecking caused by Katrina is nearly the damage caused by the tsunami in Asia…
yeah, right.
Tim 09.01.05 at 2:50 pm
I have to take issue with non-libertarian. Part of why we like living in the US is that we’ll take care of each other (perhaps by a different mechanism than taxing). We’ll even take care of people who look different from us, or talk funny, or eat parts of a pig we didn’t even know existed.
If you sign off “non-libertarian”, I’ll sign off “compassionate conservative.”
nancy p b 09.03.05 at 10:22 am
i’m still looking for a katrina shelter in houston that would welcome a volunteer to read aloud to young children.
whitnie douglas 09.03.05 at 8:37 pm
please help me find my aunt carol lynn kind or anderson …please help me she can become very sick she needs shots for dibeties help please please !!!!!!!!!!!!!whitnie doulgas
Comments on this entry are closed.