Tsunami relief efforts

There's not much for a commentator to say about the tsunami relief or the whole Southeast Asian tsunami crisis. This is not a political event, it is an act of G-d situation. It is also not a history-changing epochal occurrence like 9-11-01 because it is a random tragedy that is part of the hazards of living on this planet. Simply stated, it is what it is: a sad event that has harmed millions, killed over 100,000 and destroyed parts of at least four countries.

There are naturally the whack jobs and fools who gripe about "stinginess" or the President not popping in front of the TV cameras to publicly feel the pain of the Indians/Thais/Sri Lankans/Indonesians, etc. Such complaints are the stuff of small minds and petty people. The American public gives 10 times more money to charity than the UN receives in its annual budget. The Diplomad blog (link in title) notes how American and Australian armed forces have done the heavy lifting in providing medical services and food to tsunami-affected people whilst the UN bureaucrats have wandered around holding conferences in five-star hotels with no European or UN "boots on the ground." The EU has not helped in large part because it lacks the military infrastructure to transport the materials needed by the tsunami victims. Other countries have simply failed to do anything -- from Sweden's late response (many Scandinavians vacation in the Thai/Sri Lankan/Indian resorts hit by the tsunami, Denmark, Norway and Scandinavian neighbor Finland all responded by sending relief to their citizens and giving frequent updates on governmental websites on efforts, Sweden failed to do this) to Canada's inability to respond.

Both the Internet and the blogosphere have answered. Amazon.com's portal for the Red Cross has collected (at the time of this posting) more than $14,000,000 from more than 170,000 contributors; not bad, that's more than 14 Sandra Bullocks (who dropped $1,000,000 on the Red Cross and deserves more praise than she'll get). I couldn't get through to Oxfamamerica.org's donation portal because it's overflowing. Cap'n Ed has even set up a blog portal to raise contributions that is exceeding his expectations.