Disaster Overload
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head and heart around the disasters in Myanmar and China. The ones wrought by nature, killing thousands of people in a few minutes, were awful enough, but they are compounded in Myanmar by the refusal to allow aid workers in to help. No country, no matter how resourceful and prepared, can deal with something that catastrophic without help - and lots of it.
Myanmar is barely allowing single planes of aid supplies to land, and there’s no guarantee that those that do arrive will actually get to the people who are hurting. In fact, there are reports that the military is stealing supplies meant for the destitute. China, on the other hand, is responding to its earthquake disaster in a fast, efficient way. In both countries, though, the death tolls continue to climb.
Of course the brain goes immediately to remembering how badly we bungled the situation in New Orleans before, during, and after Katrina, and how it still hasn’t come back. Much of it will never be the same, nor will the people whose lives were so disrupted. But the numbers there were so much lower than those already known dead in Asia. It’s terribly sad.
Want to contribute something to help? Here’s a NY Times list of agencies planning to provide relief for Myanmar; my guess is that they will also help with aid for China. Please be generous.
Filed under: Social Issues & Politics | Tagged: china, disaster, myanmar, relief | 1 Comment »
My parents (and brother and sister-in-law, for that matter) are right-wing Texas Republicans and I am a liberal New England Democrat. We usually avoid discussing politics because I usually feel outnumbered and attacked, and out-gunned in the argument department. Well, my brother is a lawyer and they can be hard to argue with because they just like to argue.
I love my mom. But I hate Mothers Day. I’m also not a big fan of Fathers Day, either. I hate that there is a day set aside to make a big fuss over people just because they had children. I always send cards and call my parents, being too far away for a visit and dinner out. But I don’t need a special day to remember them; I do it all the time.
The first five minutes of
“Okay, we like reading about these snippets of your life, but really, how’s the food going? What about your body? Why aren’t you posting recipes and talking about exercise and dieting the way you used to? That’s what we want to read about.” How do I know this? From my blog stats. When I post about things dealing with food, exercise, body, and diet, the numbers go up. When I write about life things, it’s pretty flat.
Along with warmer weather comes the chance to open the sliding door to let in the outside air, and the kitty is loving the chance to get the scents and sounds of the outdoors. She hangs out staring at the yard, waiting for Something To Happen. Tonight that Something was a visiting Other Kitty, the big black one that’s been by before and gone nose to nose through the glass with Tessie (see photo). Being able to smell each other was something quite different.

