Recently, countries in Asia Pacific were hit with massive typhoons that caused widespread flooding and left thousands dead or homeless. I’m closely following this story because as some of you may already know, I am originally from the Philippines, which is one of the countries severely affected by the tropical storms. None of my immediate family was hurt by the devastation, and only a few friends and extended family members of mine reported home and property damage. But many are not so fortunate.
A situation report by the UN’s Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs revealed that almost 1 million Filipino families were affected and displaced by three consecutive strong typhoons, are faced with serious health and sanitation problems, and need immediate aid. If you’re interested in helping, please visit my personal blog, The Living Rice, and click the “Donate” link located on the top right side of the page to donate via PayPal. Your donations will be received and distributed by Pagasa Lambat Ministries, a Christian worldview ministry in the Philippines.
Donations will go toward the following:
1. Replenishing emergency food bags. 2. Helping local churches replace small equipment they lost in the flood, including guitars, chairs, teaching materials, and the like. 3. Helping relocated families by providing school uniforms, shoes and school supplies for their children. 4. Helping relocated families cope with social and economic pressures by conducting parenting and container gardening seminars. 5. Helping pastors and teachers who lost their capability to generate supplemental income due to the storm and flooding by providing small-scale financial assistance for a month.
Please visit the ministry’s website for photos of their relief efforts. And thank you for your help.
Daily roundup
By: Gina Dalfonzo|Published: March 18, 2010 5:12 PM
Many are working to bring the disparity in sentencing between cocaine and crack to an end. Pharmacologically they are almost the exact same substance. Personally, I think the disparity should be reduced a bit, but I also think that community-based treatment for non-violent offenders should be used on a much larger scale.
William Saletan of Slate observes that we're in a "war between the worlds": the world of reality and the world of virtual reality. The frightening thing is that some of the casualties in this war are not virtual casualties. They're real ones.
The compromise [Uganda] had accepted, which the president [Yoweri Museveni] presented as reconciliation, was actually something more complex and less sturdy. It was as if, having found themselves unable to forgive, his people had concentrated on forgetting, and when they’d failed at forgetting, they’d chosen to believe what they wanted to believe. So long as nothing disturbed their conception of the past or exposed them to scrutiny, the nation could continue its halting procession along Museveni’s chosen path. To the president’s way of thinking, therefore, justice was a threat to progress, not because it promised verdicts and punishments, but because it forced people to remember.
