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C'mon Let's Be Real
I knew a friend who went to PP island1 for Christmas with his entire family, 11 of them in total including grandparents, sisters and 4 kids. Only one of the grandparents and a sister managed to return home - the rest went missing. There were tens of thousands of families who were not that ‘lucky’. It’s horrific - over 70,000 deaths in a matter of hours.
And we have once again demonstrated our generosity in emergency relief - a global outpouring that totals more than $100 million so far! Even the Secretary of States took no time coming out to rebuke an allegedly mis-interpreted statement from the UN’s chief of emergency relief about ‘stingy’ contribution.
Generous or penny-pinching? Well, with an initial $15 million followed by a renewed promise of another $20 million. And what about contributions from Japan, UK, Australia and China?
$100 million is about half of what the US is spending daily on the war in Iraq (the official number is $177 million a day). $20 million is exactly half of what Bush will spend in his privately funded inauguration next month. $20 million is peanut compared to the money we spent during the Christmas weekend in any mid-size shopping center in UK or the States - and these monies were for things that would end up in the trash bin in the next 6 months or so.
We are generous and we really don’t have to be too hypocritical about it.
fn [1] Phi Phi Island was first made famous as a film set for the James Bond’s “The Man with the Golden Gun” in the 70s. The west of Thailand and Malaysia have remained a very popular spot for tourists ever since. Christmas is the season for tourists after the summer typhoons and rain storms are gone.
Posted on December 29, 2004 01:56 PM
Categories: People
Comments
If only we can tie this catastrophe with terrorism, we should be able to add a couple of zeros for the $20 millions.
Posted by: Mary at December 29, 2004 02:43 PM
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