Hurricane Katrina Aid

Dusan Petricic, Toronto Star, Sept. 5th 2005. 

I was pretty disgusted in the first few days after Hurricane Katrina struck the southeastern USA, when a lot of quotes from the Canadian public indicated there was no interest in helping people who had been devastated by the storm.
I could understand the sentiments that were expressed but at the same time I was deeply ashamed that people vocalized it loudly and proudly. Some people say that it is ironic that a lot of Southern states voted for George Bush so this is the payback they get, but on the other hand I am also pretty sure that a lot of citizens of New Orleans didn't vote for Bush, so why are they being punished by this ridiculous justification?
Even leading up to this inevitable storm, financial resources used to build up the levee system around the city were filtered away from "Homeland Security" (I hate that phrase but I guess protecting yourself from a storm that devastates in the manner of sophisticated nuclear weapons is reasonably categorized into this) and sent with the Federal Reserves to Iraq. Honestly, it is shameful that one of the wealthiest nations on earth cannot help their own people before they 'help' others, but when your president drops $6 billion a month on an illegal war, what's to be done?
There are many points to this issue that people can use to justify aid or not, but this isn't meant to be a debate, just an observation that it bothered me that a lot of Canadians weren't considering helping people, people in extreme need, just because they have the word 'American' labelling themselves on a passport. For fuck's sakes, who's holding a prejudice now?
I hope that a lot of people are now realizing that their early reactions were a bit unjust and that help is desperately needed for a situation that is bringing about some brutal "survival of the fittest" behaviour. Life isn't ever going to be the same for hundreds of thousands of people (much like those hundreds of thousands who suffered in the Tsunami of December 2004) and I think that even a little bit of change dropped into a Red Cross collection box is an honourable thing to do. I know I would like to treat others as I would want to be treated in a similar situation, whether I live in a wealthy country or not.

In this entry I didn't mean to be New Orleans-centric because other cities along the Gulf were also hit quite hard, particularly Biloxi, Miss. where the full strength of Katrina manifested itself/herself. I imagine that New Orleans is getting a majority of the press because of tragic circumstances that occurred after the storm and the loss of culture and history. However, if you read about New Orleans on Wikipedia, you will discover that Biloxi was originally the capital of Louisiana, so I think there is an entire loss of cultural history along the entire region. Anyhow, I have digressed.

Depressing site of the Day: New Orleans Craigslist 'Missing People' Category

If you want to help bring quicker aid and supplies to Hurricane victims, you can donate at the following sites or call the phone numbers to the side:

Canadian Red Cross - 1-800-418-1111
World Vision Canada - 1-800-268-5528
Mennonite Disaster Service - 1-866-261-1274 (this service is sending in teams who will help clean up and rebuild
Sharelife (Catholic Agency) - 1-416-934-3400
B'Nai Brith Canada (Jewish Agency) - 416-633-6224 ext. 108 (this is an organized Clothing drive)

If you live in Ontario, all the major banks and the LCBO are collecting money at branches that will be filtered towards the Canadian Red Cross.