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Digital Fundraising Booms For Haiti Relief
It seems that a recent digital fundraising drive for Haiti relief has stunned organizers at the Red Cross and White House. As of the last tally on Friday the campaign was at well over $8 million. "Earlier Thursday, when the Red Cross topped $3 million in text and social media donations — it hit nearly $40 million from all sources by late Thursday — spokesman Jonathan Aiken described it as 'a phenomenal number that's never been achieved before. People text up to three times at 10 bucks a pop,' Aiken said. 'You're talking about roughly 300,000 people actually spontaneously deciding, "I can spare $10 for this." And that's remarkable.' As of late Thursday, more than half of all donations to the Red Cross's Haiti relief effort had been received online, according to a news release.
I beg to differ with part of your claim. All parts of the US are not equally prepared for an earthquake. A large earthquake on the New Madrid fault anywhere near St. Louis or Memphis will likely result in mass casualties, in spite of efforts in recent years to improve building standards. Those old, historic and largely brick downtown sections will be most vulnerable. And let's face it, it's not the number of casualties that trigger the charitable response anyway, although that's a contributing factor. It's the ongoing suffering of the survivors. Not that ongoing suffering did much for the hearts of many Americans in light of hurricane Katrina. When I hear the comments of idiots like Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh I have to wonder why the Haiti and New Orleans disasters are different from, say, the Indian Ocean tsunami in how much we're supposed to care or how much as a nation we should give...