Hurricane Katrina
Helping with Relief Efforts this weekend...NBC is holding it's "
Concert for
Hurricane Relief" right now.
It was going great... They just showed someone, however, standing next to Mike Myers, who said some really misleading things ("George Bush doesn't care about black people," etc...) - I think that may not have been expected, as the others seemed to be thrown off.
Now is not the time to be politicizing this tragedy, by mixing charity relief efforts with the blame game. On this program, they earlier had Governor George Pataki (R-NY), reflecting on how the Red Cross helped his state, in the aftermath of
the 9/11 atrocities, and he handed a check to Governor Blanco (D-LA), to assist with relief efforts. She profoundly thanked him, and they shook hands.
I found out this week that U.S. Congresman
Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has
lost his home,
as has U.S. Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS), as
well as U.S. Senator Trent Lott (R-MS). Tragedies such as this do not discriminate along partisan, ethnic, or class-based lines.
I am going to publish next the e-mail that I sent out last night, about our plans to help out with the local Red Cross relief efforts this weekend.
Please contribute to these efforts if you can.
* Illinois Red Cross *Update (9/3/05): Please see
Smash's entry for some inspiration, and
Prof. Reynolds' entry for some information.
Update (9/9/05): Above, I mention that surprise statement made by someone, who was standing next to Mike Myers. I didn't know if the Blogosphere would pick up on that; as it turns out, they did, and
Kayne West (the person in question) became one of the top search terms a few days ago.
There has been a great deal of debate, online and elsewhere, over who is to blame for the response to this disaster - many arguments have been made on all sides. I'm not going to get into that right now, at this weblog, but, in the spirit of unity, I want to link to
ArchPundit's post that I just came across [
via Charles Kuffner], with our Governor's statement regarding Hurricane Katrina.
We are still working to do what we can here at UIS, to help the victims of this tragedy. (I lived in
suburban New Orleans for a few months in 1984... I just talked to my father last night about that; we have no idea what has happened to the people and places who we knew from then.) Please follow the links above, and contribute whatever you can.