I’ve been listening to this today:
Which seems appropriate, what with what’s happening in Japan. I guess most of you heard of the bloggers’ day of silence on Friday, which I guess I kept, but it only really makes sense if you normally post every day (which I’m nowhere near doing). However, I would, naturally, suggest that we all pitch in with what we can. My favourite charities for this kind of thing would be:
or
Leger uten grenser – Médecins Sans Frontières
Whichever charity you choose, though, I suggest you make a general donation rather than one earmarked relief for Japan. Not that I don’t think Japan needs relief, by all means, they do, but the charities will route money that way anyway. The problem with earmarking is that if, for one reason or another, they are not able to use the money for the earmarked course, the earmarking means they can’t use it elsewhere. Say the political situation makes it impossible (not so likely in this case) or logistics means they can’t get the right sort of help there (more likely) or they get more money in the earmarked fund than they actually need (it happens, you know) then the charities are not legally allowed to use it elsewhere. Which means they can end up with a big sack of funds and thousands of worthwhile projects (clean water wells in Africa, starving kids in Pakistan, homeless people in New York) and no way of routing the money where needed. I know this happened in some cases after the tsunami in 2004.
Just my penny’s worth for today.