Haphazard Charity (washingtonpost.com)

Haphazard Charity (washingtonpost.com): "Haphazard Charity
Tuesday, January 4, 2005; Page A14
PRESIDENT BUSH stepped up his response to the tsunami yesterday, announcing that flags would be flown at half-staff in memory of the victims, and enlisting his two immediate predecessors to campaign for private donations to disaster relief groups. After a tragedy that has killed an estimated 150,000 people and left as many as 5 million homeless, this response is welcome, as is the outpouring of international generosity that has generated $2 billion of promised contributions in just over one week. But it's hard to avoid marveling at the haphazard pattern of global empathy. Around the world, disasters that cut short hundreds of thousands of lives unfold constantly -- malaria kills 1 million people a year, AIDS kills about 3 million and the current genocide in Darfur has claimed perhaps 300,000 lives so far. Moreover, the tsunami is not the sort of disaster for which outside help is most crucial. "