ck's archive: foreign aid

Sarah linked to a list of the things other countries have offered to help with our hurricane relief. I read down it thinking that it would all be really touching if our leaders weren't turning down so many of the offers. Then I got to this one:

Sri Lanka: The country still recovering from the tsunami offered what it called a "token contribution" of $25,000 through the American Red Cross.

That one made me cry. I'm crying right now, in fact, thinking about it. It's great that Cuba is offering 1,586 doctors and Kuwait's working to send half a billion dollars our way, but something about Sri Lanka saying "we're still fucked, but we really want to help" just gets to me.