Well I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought that the USA was being stingy with their promise of a whopping $15 million of aid. Unlike poor Jan Egeland of the UN I don't have to do any back-peddling and hastily say I misinterpreted that figure and that it was actually "very generous". No, I can sit back and gloat as Bush back-peddles himself and suddenly forms another of his famous "collations", this time a "coalition of the giving". Obviously someone was listening to world opinion in the White House.

However, I'm lead to wonder why on earth the USA feels the need to form yet another coalition lead by the USA to deal with aid for the affected areas. Why not use this as an opportunity to back the UN and other world aid organizations and let them do what they are designed to do. In a years time I wonder how the world response to this disaster will be judged?

Somehow I'm reminded of 1984 when the worlds people got sick of big governments lack of action over the famine in Ethiopia. It took a bunch of pop stars to get together in the UK and raise 8 million GBP with their Band Aid "Do they know its Christmas?" single, and then globally raise over $100 million with the "Live Aid" concert (most of which came from European donations). It just so happens the "Band Aid 20" anniversary charity single has topped the charts for Christmas in the UK this year.

Maybe this time we shouldn't wait for the pop stars to solicit our donations, and we can all do better than the still stingy $0.10 per person the US government has pledged. I personally just donated 1000 times that amount so how about visiting the NPR tsunami relief donations page (or Network for Good) and selecting a charity of your choice to give some hard earned cash to?

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