Donate to Disaster Relief

We're just beginning to see the incredible damage wrought by hurricane Katrina, and it's going to be much, much worse. Thousands upon thousands of people have lost everything they had, not to mention the loss of life in Louisiana and Mississippi. Estimates are that one million people are without power, and there will be hundreds of thousands temporarily or permanently homeless.

I'd encourage everyone to head to the site above and give what you can to the effort. I've made my donation (and if a grad student in the humanities can help out, most anyone can). I'd also suggest donating online-- the phones are pretty busy.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd take a look at how many of the right-wing blog biggies are following suit and encouraging people to donate to the Red Cross (or anyone). I found one-- Michelle Malkin-- and that's it. Granted, I only checked about nine, but that isn't much of a record. On the other hand, they tend to favor Social Darwinism (for evidence, see this exquisite link). Once again, you've got to hand it to all those bleeding-heart sodomites for bailing out the red states....

UPDATE: The Red Cross' follow-up message to my donation contained the following not-so-fun facts. Read 'em and see if you can't rustle up at least a measly 20 bucks to feed a few people for a day:

Thousands of desperate families are taking refuge from Hurricane Katrina in more than 230 Red Cross shelters in the affected areas.

American Red Cross is launching the largest mobilization of resources for a single natural disaster in our history.

We’re preparing 500,000 hot meals a day to serve to survivors who have no where else to turn.

Several hundred emergency vehicles and thousands of ARC staff and volunteers have been deployed from around the country for immediate emergency assistance.