PostWatch

Accounts on Both Sides of the Ledger

On the existence of the Creator, two propositions.

One is the following citation by Rick Brookheiser at NRO:

This is one of those times that makes us believe, with essayist Jim Holt, in a god who is 100 percent malign but only 80 percent effective.

Another is the list of charities over at Instapundit. Easily 90% of what's listed tonight is faith-based--Catholic Charities, United Jewish Charities, LDS Humanitarian Services, Methodist this, Lutheran that. In my original post on the Hurricane Katrina/Flood Aid blog burst, I was going to add a line about there being several fine secular charities but the only one I saw was the American Red Cross.

We report, you decide.

Hurricane Katrina/Flood Aid Blog Burst

Glenn Reynolds has a superb roundup of charities to choose from as part of the blogosphere's effort to contribute aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, both in New Orleans and other communities along the Gulf Coast that are receiving less attention.

My recommendation is Catholic Charities USA, where donations can be made both online and with a check via postal mail to:

Catholic Charities USA
2005 Hurricane Relief Fund
PO Box 25168
Alexandria, VA 22313-9788

or

Call:
(800) 919-9338

An excerpt from Catholic Charities' Katrina page:

While local agencies along the Gulf Coast anticipate that they will be provide some type of emergency assistance in their communities, Catholic Charities' niche in disaster relief is to provide long-term recovery work. In fact, Catholic Charities agencies in Florida are still providing services to help people recover from last year's devastating hurricanes.

Based on past disasters, possible long-term services that Catholic Charities may provide include temporary and permanent housing, direct assistance beyond food and water to get people back into their homes, job placement counseling, and medical and prescription drug assistance.

Recovery work is underway in Dade County, FL, where Katrina caused extensive flooding when it stuck there last week. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami has already distributed a large load of baby items, food, and other supplies to victims. Other aid that they will be providing includes assistance with food, shelter, rent, medicine, utilities, and mental health counseling.

To help communities recover from the damage brought on by Hurricane Katrina, Catholic Charities USA is collecting financial donations that will fund agencies' emergency and long-term disaster recovery efforts.

Catholic Charities USA is unable to accept contributions of food, clothing, blankets and other relief supplies. Its federal ID number is 53-0196620.

There are many others listed at Glenn's Instapundit, including the American Red Cross.

God bless the citizens of the Gulf Coast.

New Orleans Update

In addition to its live broadcast stream,  WWL has a bullet-point blog under way. One recent item:

5:43 P.M. - WWL-TV: An Army Corps of Engineers spokesman said       they are beginning to drop sandbags and into the levee breach, and will       drive metal sheet pilings to seal off the canal in order to fully repair       the breach.

The Corner Goes Beserk

They can plead temporary insanity later, and I'll accept the plea, for their attack on President Bush's brief statement today. "Lousy speech"... "The continued viability of his presidency now depends on his response in the next week"..." "It will take nothing for the 'Bush doesn't care" ' meme to circulate through the culture"... Well sure, if you help pump such nonsense yourselves.

Apparently I'm not the only Corner fan to think so, and the gang--right now Kathryn Lopez--has printed some comments. For example:

You know what we all dislike? People who worry about how things look when the most important thing is what is getting done. This is unprecedented natural disaster and we will do what we can and save everyone we can. We will make mistakes but we will also tackle this. But listening to the posts at The Corner on how this a looks politically is as pleasant as reading Kos rant about how this looks politically. This we can totally do without.

Honestly, y'all, you can save yourself the time and just outsource it to the left. They'll be happy to oblige.

Rich Lowry wonders why Bush didn't say that 10,000 National Guardsmen have been sent to the scene. Check that, 10,000 more. The AP dispatch he quotes says the 28,000 that are being sent may be the largest response ever to a national disaster. A third of this deployment, representing significantly more than a full Army division  will be devoted to security and public order.

I don't know why Bush didn't mention it, but I'd rather have a president who ordered it, and it turns out that's what we have. The continued viability of the rest of Bush presidency relies partly on level-headed supporters more interested in action than in weeping.

UPDATE:

Rich Lowryan emailer to Rich Lowry writes about feeling "outrage and shame" over what he believes is a lack of action (and lack of Bush's emoting, judging from the rest of his post). Lowry:

The scenes I'm seeing on Fox are things you'd think you'd only see in Somalia or Bangladesh. This is the United States of America. We can't get a single truck full of water to these people? We can't get a single helicopter to fly over and drop supplies? A cop car and a military truck roll up from the distance, giving the suffering people hope. Do they stop as the desperate wave? No. They drive through. They can't even stop to tell them where they should go to get any life-saving water or food.

Because they don't know themselves. I think many of the Cornerites don't have a clear idea of the relative sizes of this catastrophe and the resources available to confront it. Unknown thousands of residents were unwilling or unable to flee an entire city that is now underwater. This is unprecedented in modern American history. Even the unprecedented response being mounted is something like a man trying to empty Pontchartrain with a spoon.

And by the way, I just saw footage on Fox of an Army helicopter somewhere in the rubble of New Orleans rapidly being unloaded by a human chain of guardsmen. This is a time--one of many times--where manual labor is more important than punditry.

 

 

Flood Aid Update

One-stop shopping for charities at Instapundit as ripped off below. My own choice is Catholic Charities USA but they all look good to me:

FLOOD AID UPDATE: Here are some places you can donate to hurricane Katrina relief: (Bumped to top -- scroll down for current posts.)

American Red Cross

Catholic Charities is involved, and probably has lots of resources to draw on in the heavily Catholic New Orleans area.

Austin Bay is recommending Episcopal Relief and Development.

Liz at Rightalk suggests that animal lovers donate to the Humane Society.

Here's a link to Mennonite Disaster Services.  The Sanity Inspector says they're highly efficient.

Reader Peter Viditto recommends The Mercy Corps

Here's the link for Methodist Relief.

Lisa Larkin recommends Operation Blessing.

The Salvation Army does good work.  (WalMart just gave them a million dollars, but that's just the barest beginning of what's needed.)

Hugh Hewitt recommends Samaritan's Purse

Scott Ott recommends Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.

I'll keep updating this as I get new suggestions.

Jay Allen has a further suggestion:

I would suggest people donate through their companies whenever possible. Most major corporations offer matching funds to the dollar for charitable donations. Find who's collecting money for relief efforts, then file for a match through your employer instead of sending to the agency directly.

Not bad -- if your employer is supporting this.

Chuck Simmins is tracking corporate donations.

Here's the link for N.Z. Bear's Katrina relief aggregator page.

Here's FEMA's list of recommended charities.

More charitable links at Little Green Footballs.

UPDATE: The plan for tomorrow's flood-aid blogburst: I'd like each blogger participating to put up a post recommending a charity, or other action to help, and linking back to this post where I'll keep a comprehensive list of both bloggers and charities. Basically, a Carnival of Hurricane Relief. That way readers of any blog will have ready access to recommendations on all the blogs. If anyone has a better idea, let me know.

Glenn adds some info about how to follow his lead on the blog burst tomorrow.

Technorati tags: flood aid, hurricane katrina.

Bush Briefing On Hurricane Disaster

Under way.

"This recovery will take a long time. This recovery will take years...."

I'll be taking part in the blogosphere's appeal for aid to Gulf Coast vicitms, led by people including Glenn Reynolds and N.Z. Bear. My traffic is relatively small most days, but every little bit helps. More anon.

A link to Bush's remarks is available right now, 5:15 pm Eastern, at whitehouse.gov. TypePad is taking so abysmally long to post entries today, I can't say if he'll still be speaking by the time you see this note.

Technorati partners with Washingtonpost.com

Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler stopped answering my emails and Howard Kurtz never has, but on the bright side I got an announcement from post.com PR chief Eric Easter:

[Arlington VA – August 31, 2005] -- washingtonpost.com today announced 
that it has partnered with blog search company Technorati to offer its 
readers the opportunity to view comments and opinions about 
washingtonpost.com articles and editorials from around the blogosphere.

The service will search millions of blogs for postings and feature links 
to the most blogged about articles and the liveliest web discussions on 
washingtonpost.com content.

“This partnership is part of our ongoing initiative to embrace and 
respond to the many dynamic ways that users consume and participate in 
news and information over the Internet,” said Caroline Little, publisher 
and CEO of washingtonpost.com.

washingtonpost.com executive editor, Jim Brady, said. “News is not 
static. With the help of the web, interesting stories immediately become 
part of a broader national conversation. This partnership with 
Technorati lets the users in on that conversation by delivering the most 
interesting and lively discussions about washingtonpost.com content from 
some of the best and most popular blogs on the web. “

David L. Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati, said “ We’re pleased to 
be working with washingtonpost.com in leading the way toward expanding 
the interaction between the public and those who make and report the 
news. We salute them for recognizing the potential of blogs as a 
valuable contribution to the public discourse.”...

Eric tells me the announcement is being sent to bloggers first, a nice touch. As an old boss of mine once said, flattery will get you everywhere. He adds the info will be distributed through the usual PR channels soon, and Technorati will post it on its own site tomorrow.

Uh, Yeah Rod, He Knows

Rod Dreher at NRO:

FRENCH QUARTER ON FIRE [Rod Dreher]
Live on CNN right now, report that a Foot Locker is on fire at the corner of Bourbon and Canal, in the Quarter. How can fire trucks get there? The French Quarter could burn down for lack of fire trucks. Did looters, who've been going through the store, start this fire? Good grief, Mr. President, send in the federal troops to restore order. For pity's sake, this is America!

Yes, and Bush is cruelly holding back the thousands of hovercraft fire engines for which the U.S. Navy is renowned.

Order does need to be restored, and every federal agency that can help has been directed to do so. New Orleans and other areas not getting the cable coverage are pockets of hell on earth, but as local authorites will tell you it's not possible to flip a switch and instantly recover from a massive disaster that may be unprecedented in modern American history.

Not in the Post Watch: Liberals Downshift on Sheehan

At least publicly. From the Washington Times, Liberals drop public Sheehan role by Bill Sammon:

Powerful liberal advocacy groups such as MoveOn.org are taking a less active role in Cindy Sheehan's anti-war activities in the wake of criticism that they may have muddied her message.
    The groups, which played a major role in Mrs. Sheehan's monthlong vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, are scaling back their involvement as Mrs. Sheehan prepares to leave Texas today on a bus tour to Washington.
    Critics had said it appeared that Mrs. Sheehan had morphed from a mother grieving the loss of her son in Iraq into a pawn of liberal advocacy groups.
    "The vigil started as a very grass-roots thing and then grew because groups like MoveOn were drawn to what Cindy was doing and wanted to offer their support," said Wade Fletcher of Mintwood Media Collective, a Washington-based public-relations group advising the Sheehan demonstrators.
    "Now we're kind of bringing it back to the original grass roots," he added.
    For example, the protesters will no longer receive strategic and political advice from Fenton Communications, a large, left-wing public-relations firm. That role reverts to Mintwood, a small operation that helped Mrs. Sheehan early on.
    Also taking a lesser role will be MoveOn.org, which spent August running anti-Bush TV and newspaper ads featuring Mrs. Sheehan...

Iraq's Untold Story: Iraqis Push Crime Down In Najaf

From Azzaman.com, Crime rate takes sharp drop in Najaf as city’s security passes to Iraqi troops by Ahmad al-Zuwaini:

Crime rate dropped by 90% in the holy city of Najaf in June and August compared with the same months last year, Najaf’s governor, Asaad Abukalal said.

The dramatic decline in crime in Najaf, one of Iraq’s holiest sites for Muslim Shiites all over the world, comes as U.S. occupation troops are said to have handed over the security file in the city to the nascent Iraqi forces.

“We have received the security file from the Multi-national forces who have evacuated their military base north of Najaf,” said Abukalal.

Najaf, 160 km south of Baghdad, is a city of about 600,000 people. It is the capital of Najaf Province and the center of Shiite political power in the country.

The return of peace and stability to Najaf, if sustained, is bound to boomerang across at least nine other provinces in the south mainly inhabited by Shiites.

But only last week several people were killed in the city in clashes between rival Shiite militias.

The city was scene of heavy fighting last year when militias of the powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr staged an uprising against U.S. occupation troops.

But Abukalal said he now could muster enough police officers and military personnel to quickly restore stability in case of any disturbances....