The Gulf Coast
The scale of destruction from Katrina is simply staggering. The Red Cross, and other good organizations could use your help. I do wonder if Pompeii isn’t a better analogy than others being brought up, such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami or Hiroshima.
As an aside, I expect there will be fake charity sites set up, and email campaigns to try to draw you to those sites. Use your favorite search engine, or a bookmark, to find the organizations you’d like to contribute to.
Fake charities: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/31/watch_out_for_phony_.html
Doing a whois shows that the subhuman scum registered the domains August 28, before the rain had stopped. I’m afraid I don’t have time to take apart the site looking to see where they are trying to send the info–anyone else want to help out?
Also, doesn’t paypal check to see from whence certain pages are being called? Why would a third party be allowed to call the paypal privacy policy?
I have family and friends in Louisiana, so agree about donating. Here are some good tools for finding a good charity:
# GuideStar.org: National database of nonprofit organizations
# Give.org: The Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance – including advice on telephone solicitations
# CharityNavigator.org: An independent charity evaluator, including lists by various topics.
# CharityWatch.org: From the American Institute of Philanthropy, a national charity watchdog service.
Thanks for your comment.
To be frank, I’m conflicted about removing it. I have no idea if any of those organizations are for real. I continue to suggest giving to organizations you know.
To be a bit more clear: I give to (roughly) the same charities each year. They tend to be small and focused on something that matters deeply to me, so I’ve never needed to go and look at a charity evaluation site. People who I trust have said good things about charitynavigator.org.