The Last Word on Stinginess (er, for now at least...)

Kristof has a good column up that highlights what tugging at our emotional heartstrings can do to our pursestrings... and that also highlights the power that the media has in helping such aid.

Unfortunately, they have often done a poor job of doing so (save folks like Kristof). One of the big examples I am surprised he didn't mention since he wrote so many columns on it was Darfur... he was the only one carrying that flag, and I honestly didn't see a ton of coverage (especially of the visual/visceral kind) by other sources. Yet the tragedy and death there is in the same ballpark as with the current tsunami estimates.

A relative few drops in the bucket for AIDS and other diseases/problems will go a long, long way for the world and will pay large dividends for this country... it's too bad we as a nation are often too short-sighted to be able to see that.