Posted on 01/01/2005 7:23:40 AM PST by Prospero
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If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank and in your wallet, and you have some spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If you woke this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million who will not survive the week.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harrassment, arrest, torture or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in this world.
If you can read these words, you are blessed because two billion people in the world cannot read at all.
If you can hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because the majority of Americans can, but do not.
I have seen the coastal towns of Indonesia and Sumatra. I've watched the little brown skinned kids running and playing in the water.
I've talked to the people, ate with the people and laughed with the people. They wouldn't know Osama bin Laden if you showed them his picture. All they're trying to do is survive day by day.
They've never been to Jakarta or Bangkok or Khuala Lumpur. They couldn't care less if they're controlled by Muslims, Christians or Buddhists. They're concerned about getting enough food to eat one more day.
These are the people to whom we are making donations.
These are the people who perished. I didn't know them, but I know they were there, and now they're gone.
I mourn for them.
God has watched over this land and it's people since our founding. Our strength lies in His blessing, and He blesses our benevolence.
I don't know whether it's Constitutional for the President to allocate money for relief aid. I'm not a Constitutional scholar.
What I do know is that our Founding Fathers depended a lot on their feelings of what is the right thing to do.
Like redrock said, this is the right thing to do.
534 posted on 01/02/2005 4:04:03 PM CST by TexasCowboy (Texan by birth, citizen of Jesusland by the Grace of God)
Posted by permission from another thread..It says it all.
This morming (Sunday Jan 2), a BBC commentator on NPR was discussing the South Asia tsunami disaster. They mentioned their popular wisdom that President Bush had been slow to acknowledge the disaster and commit American assistance, but not a word about how Kofi Annan, also on vacation, had not been available to state the UN’s support until a day after Bush’s announcement. Then the BBC reporter got going on a tangent of what the US response ought to be, specifically that of using our military assets in the area. He could have started out by crediting us for having the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln already on the scene, dispatching aid with its helicopters and preparing to process and deliver potable water from its on-board purifying plants. These are facts and a good newsman might want to start with some good factual information. But no, he and the NPR host had a conversation which involved musing about the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which went something like this:
Q: Doesn’t the US have an airbase on Diego Garcia?
A: Yes, they (the US) used it in support of the Afghan war against the Taliban.
Q: Was it damaged by a tsunami after the earthquake?
A: There haven’t been any reports of any damage, we don’t know at this time.
Q: Well if the US base is intact wouldn’t it have excavating and earthmoving equipment, bulldozers and such that might be useful in clearing debris and restoring roads in the flooded areas?
A: Well yes it probably does have such equipment.
Q: Well, why isn’t the US moving this equipment to the disaster areas now to begin helping out?
A: Well yes that’s something the US definitely could be doing etc.
The conversation went on in this vain but I lost it and flipped off the radio. I cannot endure the presumption of these self-righteous a**holes sitting in their studios pontificating how and if the US who has the means to help (which they don’t) are going to help, and that they can tell the US exactly how its assets should be committed. Right now it’s the Aussies and us with men and women on the ground, in the flood zones, spearheading the relief effort. Meanwhile the BBC, NPR, and their ilk are already shifting from their spiel that the US is stingy, to complaining that the US is forming its own coalition and not cooperating fully with the UN. Well yes we are. We are organizing, as we should, with like-minded capable people, from Australia and Japan who act now and make speeches later, and we are not letting the UN take over and mishandle corrupt the relief effort, in the name of PC, which happens whenever the UN is in charge. We cannot let the likes of NPR, BBC , and the UN lobby control this debate.
The Blue Beanies can play games but Banda Aceh's destruction has given us an opportunity and victory in the War on Terror... The U.N. can suck a bug.
Beyond the PR war with the U.N., with Djakarta perhaps more dubious about the presence of Yanks and Aussies in it's most contentious province than ancient Aceh itself... this situation may swell into a problem quicker than the situation in Iraq, especially after the elections there.
Happy New Year... we'll see how long it takes the LSM to get a clue. And NPR? Forgetaboutit!
Blessed indeed, and may God take whatsoever there is of my gratitude and make it sufficient unto His praise, through the finished work of Christ on the Cross.
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This link: http://tv.reuters.com/ifr_main.jsp?st=1104611591746&rf=bm&mp=WMP&wmp=1&rm=1&cpf=true&fr=110704_045639_17d5d2ax10014b24db2xw68ba&rdm=659780.1373135487
Didn't work meg. What was there?
That link is loaded with video clips. {It works for me)..Reuters news..I think that time it featured flooding in the featured clip..Many times it has raw footage..no voiceover..
Right now it features a haughty voice speaking of the "slow start" to the relief by Bush...I haven't had enough coffee to endure the Reuters real fantasy UN version of the the real stingy Americans.
UPDATE: More on "The UNcredibles": WFP (World Food Program) has "arrived" in the capital with an "assessment and coordination team." The following is no joke; no Diplomad attempt to be funny or clever: The team has spent the day and will likely spend a few more setting up their "coordination and opcenter" at a local five-star hotel. And their number one concern, even before phones, fax and copy machines? Arranging for the hotel to provide 24hr catering service. USAID folks already are cracking jokes about "The UN Sheraton." Meanwhile, our military and civilians, working with the super Aussies, continue to keep the C-130 air bridge of supplies flowing and the choppers flying, and keep on saving lives -- and without 24hr catering services from any five-star hotel . . . . The contrast grows more stark every minute.
http://diplomadic.blogspot.com/
Rather a stupid and bigoted statement.
Excellent point.
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I have read the Quran, at least twice in my life - both times with an Open Mind. Thanks for the recommendation, although I'm not at all certain just what your point was with regard to the posting.
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