Blog about politics (mideast and pro-Israel, Canadian and local Montreal), world events, and random thoughts.

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The World I Know is updated on a semi-regular basis by segacs.

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1:40 AM
Happy New Year

"It's been a long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last." - Counting Crows

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1:05 AM
80,000 and counting

There are no words to express the horrors of the Tsunami earthquake disaster that so far has claimed over 80,000 lives and completely destroyed millions more. I won't attempt to find them.

But even though I'm on vacation - from work, from the blog, from reading the papers - I, like many other bloggers, felt it would be horribly remiss of me not to at least make mention of what is pretty much the only news story these days that matters.

First of all, to help: pretty much every relief organization in the book is accepting donations. Money is being collected in the biggest disaster relief effort in history - from individuals, from governments, from the whole world. And all this much-needed help is being accepted... with one notable exception. If you do want to help through Jewish channels, the JDC is taking donations. For Canadians, the CJC is collecting on their behalf.

At times like this, though, the thing I always think about is, well, how big a disaster does something have to be to encourage people to help? Until last week, money was pouring in to help the millions in desperate need in Sudan, as the "conflict" that the UN doesn't have the guts to call genocide in the Darfur region rages on. But now, the story that food aid to the region is being suspended because it's too dangerous for aid workers, well, that's lost in the shuffle. After all, only 40,000 people have died in the Sudan crisis. That's nowhere near the staggering 80,000 who have died so far in just a couple of days in Tsunami.

80,000. 40,000. Do these numbers even have meaning anymore? Where do we draw the line? Do we donate only when there are four zeros? Record-high generosity for the Tsunami relief funds is much needed and appreciated, but the cold reality is that disasters mean an influx of cash for some at the expense of others who aren't grabbing as many headlines because their work doesn't have as many zeros.

Of course, we can't help everyone everywhere. We all do what we can in small ways. But sometimes I wonder how much of what we do is all about a numbers game.

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