unnatural disasters

I am saddened and stunned by the magnitude of the Haitian earthquake disaster. Port-au-Prince is in near shambles and some 300,000 of its residents are displaced. I'm not sure what role global warming plays in all of this, but I like to think the entire world is slowly ending and we are all bearing witness, standing dumbly by.

Ushahidi is doing great coverage, and I've been following some live tweets from the ground. Some are really horrifying. I try to stay away from raw video or news reports, still get shivers from the vids I saw of the Ninth Ward and the tsunami, bloated corpses floating in the water.

It's clear that hundreds and thousands of people are buried under piles of rubble. I give thanks for relief workers because it takes a special person to look devastation in the eye and soldier on--I'm simply not that strong.

Just learned that you can donate relief money to Haiti at the Whole Foods checkout counter. I'm not entirely sure what AmeriCares does, but I was so excited to give my $5 that I barely paused to ask whether or not the money will simply pad some administrator's pocket. Wyclef is also taking money through his Yele foundation. If you have some other great relief links, feel free to post.

There are several hoaxes floating around online, namely that JetBlue and American Airlines are flying nurses free to Haiti--which is NOT true, however AA is reportedly flying Red Cross relief workers free of charge to nearby DR. I don't know what social underbelly creates hoaxes around natural disasters. Humanity.