<HTML><BODY STYLE="font:10pt verdana; border:none;"><DIV>Thanks to Nick for posting the tsunami images. They're horrifying, and we are indeed very privileged in this country (and on this list) to be far from this disaster. 117,000 are now believed dead. And that reminds me, re: a point Mo made in her post about the parsimoniousness of US aid to the victims of this tragedy -- she said that she didn't have the time to look up and verify the source of her information. As I'm really just a time-wasting, internet-surfing, boring old sod, I did. The results are pasted below. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>BTW, if anyone is interested in donating some aid/dollars of their own, MSN had an exhaustive list of certified aid agencies on its home page this morning, <A href="http://msn.com">http://msn.com</A>. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Posted today on Salon.com:</DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"><B><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt"></SPAN></B></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"><B><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt">No aid for </SPAN></B><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><st1:place><B><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt">America</SPAN></B></st1:place></st1:country-region><B><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt">'s bad image</SPAN></B><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>By lying low in the wake of the Asian tsunami, and then surfacing to pledge the relatively small amount of $35 million in relief aid, has President Bush squandered an opportunity to mend America's image abroad? It's a provocative question posed by David Sanger in the </FONT><A href="http://wwwnytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30prexy.html" target=_blank lid="New York Times" el="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/international/worldspecial4/30prexy.html"><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>New York Times </FONT></A><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">Thursday, in which he quotes Morton Abramowitz, who served as American ambassador to Thailand a quarter century ago and went on to become one of the founders of the International Crisis Group, which helps prepare governments to respond to unexpected shocks. "It's a tragedy but it is also an opportunity to demonstrate that terrorism doesn't drive out everything else," Abramowitz said. "It's a chance for him to show what kind of country we are." <o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></P> <P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>On its </FONT><A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/opinion/30thu2.html?hp%22" target=_blank lid="op-ed page," el='http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/opinion/30thu2.html?hp"'><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>op-ed page,</FONT></A><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"> the Times strikes a harsh chord about what kind of country we are showing the world just now: "We hope Secretary of State Colin Powell was privately embarrassed when, two days into a catastrophic disaster that hit 12 of the world's poorer countries and will cost billions of dollars to meliorate, he held a press conference to say that America, the world's richest nation, would contribute $15 million. That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities" The editorial continues: "The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the <st1:country-region><st1:place>United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the <st1:country-region><st1:place>United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent." <o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></P><B><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; COLOR: #666666; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">-- Kevin Berger</SPAN></B></DIV> <DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML><br clear=all><hr>Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : <a href='http://explorer.msn.com'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p>