The American public seems to have charity ADD. Wherever the last natural disaster bomb dropped, that's where the attention is fixed.Drop another one somewhere else, and the last one will quickly be forgotten.
Also, there are rules for which natural disasters we will care about, and which we will ignore.
Rule #1: Disaster must not be a regular occurrence for the nation.
Everyone knows that if you get hit by a typhoon every single year, and every year it kills a few thousand people, that your country is obviously undeserving of aid. I mean, it happens every year, geez get a clue. Maybe don't live on TyphoonDeath Island anymore.
Rule #2: Floods usually don't count.
Sure, they're one of the most frequent and dangerous of natural disasters, but their frequency disqualifies them from receiving American Public Support. You see, we like to send our money to NEW kinds of disasters, and quite frankly, flooding just happens WAYYY too much in the third world for us to really pay attention to it.
Rule #3: Extreme weather also doesn't count.
Extreme heat or extreme cold, while it may cause death, is simply not very exciting. Do not expect help if you're just gonna sit there getting heat exposure or freezing to death. We need something more. Fires, maybe? If the heat can result in a few disastrous fires, then the disaster may be deemed Worthy. Fires are exciting and make for much better news footage. Plus who wants to buy a bracelet that supports sending aid to a Mongolian cold front? Booooring.
Rule #4: Your country's name must have a nice ring to it.*
"Help Haiti" and "Save Darfur". Who doesn't want to do those things? "Save Myanmar". Myan-what? Who lives in Myanwhatyoucallit? Who even knows where the hell that is?
*Disaster name clause: your country may qualify for American charity if you can give a nice name to the disaster itself, like "Katrina". So long as the disaster name sounds good, who cares where the money is going.
Rule #5: No children, no help.
You must provide pictures of children (preferably black children) in order to gain our sympathy. In your pictures, an average child to adult ratio of 10-1 should suffice.
It is crucial that ALL charity giving during a time of disaster be focused on ONE place. We'll be pretty upset if we find our money was diverted to help something unrelated to [insert current charity country du jour]!
5 comments:
I hope for everyone who sent a $10 text message and then patted themselves on the back for it, they in return received a text message from God saying "Thanks, but that's not gonna be enough to save your ass."
You also wonder how many of those sending their $10 Haiti texts even pay their own cell phone bill...
Or, if they realize that THEY are spending an extra $10 on their cell phone bill. I can see many people hearing the request, sending the text, and assuming the money comes out of some pool of cash just waiting for their message to be the guardian angel that takes the $10 from the magical cash pool and carries it all the way to Haiti and drops it from the sky.
Haha, January 2010 cell phone bills will make a lot of sad faces.
I'm sure the customer service reps at the various cell phone companies will be shaking their fists at the Red Cross come February 1st.
This is still one of my favorite posts ever.
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