Relief Money
Miss Congeniality Sandra Bullock just donated $1 million dollars to the American Red Cross to help out Tsunami victims in Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. Apparently, this is not the first time she has poured out a large sum of money for charity.
She also gave out a $1 million dollars on September 11. Other celebrities have also made contributions, even William Hung of American idol has raised $6.2 million.
We hope all that money goes directly to the victims and their families and the reconstruction of their towns and villages. I remember the scandal the last time around on September 11 when people complained about outrageous salaries of administrators of several of these charity organizations.
There were also complaints of donations not going directly to where it was intended to go. I was shocked to hear when UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland called rich nations “stingy.” It might have been a reaction by several countries from the UN inability to handle funds properly.
Why should I trust the UN after the oil for food scandal. There were other factors as well. News of the devastation have been slow. Most of these affected areas were completely cutoff from journalists. The scale of devastation was not known until several days later. I remembered authorities estimated 2,000 people died the first day and the numbers eerily kept going up everyday.
I think it was ludicrous to say that Kofi Annan, George Bush, Tony Blair and several world leaders were slow to react to the disaster. Give me a break. The extent of the damage the number of casualties were not known until several days later.
In fact, the number of dead is still climbing. We may never know the exact numbers, let alone identify the dead. I always get a chuckle when others politicised just about anything.
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