How to help, instead of feeling helpless

How to help, instead of feeling helpless

Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, September 14, 2006

I really wanted to write something light and bright and funny this week. I really did. But while you may read this on September 14, I’m writing it on September 7th and the airwaves and WWWeb are as saturated now with stories about September 11 as they were about Katrina when I wrote last week’s column.

Don’t worry, I promise not to wax political and point a finger of blame or just sit here and complain. No, after last week, I felt a little like a muckraker. So I wanted to write something more positive this week.
You know what a muckraker is. Best case scenario, it’s a journalist who wants to expose or oppose error, corruption, neglect and injustice. Worst case scenario, it’s someone who just rakes the muck.

Teddy Roosevelt compared social crusading writers to people who rake-up manure instead of shoveling it. They draw your attention to problems, but they don’t help clean it up.
Well, now that you’ve been either depressed or angered for two weeks straight by all the talk you’ve been seeing, hearing and reading about September 11 and the so-called War on Terror, I’d like to present you with ways that you can help.

I believe the best way to help fellow Americans is to give blood. The American Red Cross always needs blood donors, They aslo accept donations of money and goods as well as volunteers. Their website is http://www.redcross.org/ or you can call them at 1-800-REDCROSS (1-800-733-2767)

Everybody thinks about the Salvation Army between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but people need help year round. When they’r enot wearing red and ringging a bell at the mall, you can find them at http://www.salvationarmyusa.org or by calling their Midwest headquarters in Chicago at 1-888-574-2587

The September 11th Families’ Association supports victims of terrorism. You can make donations to the 9/11 Families Association to help with ongoing counselling and medical services as well as for scholarships for the children of 9/11 victoms. Their website is http://www.911wvfa.org/

The New York City Police Foundation is one of the most reputible chairities on the internet at http://www.nycpolicefoundation.org

No matter how you feel about whether we should’ve invaded Iraq, or how you think that war has been managed, we all want to support our troops and their vamilies. Here are three great organizations for doing that:

The USO has a website- http://www.uso.org/

The VFW’s Military Assistance Program (MAP) is a quality of life initiative that focuses on easing the financial emergencies of deploying service members and supporting them and their family through the hardships of deployment. Their website is http://www.vfw.org/ or you can call their MAP office at (816) 756-3390, ext. 211

Soldier Angels is a way to “adopt” a soldier, write them letters, send care packages, and find out more about how to help them & their families at http://www.soldiersangels.com/ or call (615) 676-0239 and leave a voice mail.

You can always ask you local Police and Fire Departments how you can help them. In rural areas like ours you can volunteer and I’m sure they’d accept donations that they could use toward equipment and training.

This may have nothing to do with 9/11, but the annual Farm Aid Concert is being held in Camden New Jersey this year September 30.

If you would like to find out how you can help family farmers, volunteer or make a donation you might want to get in touch with Farm Aid.

You may want to get in touch with them if you’re a farmer in need of assistance like natural disaster relief, legal advocates, suicide prevention or referral to local and regional organizations which can help you assess you options, stay on their land and continue farming.
Their toll free hotline at 800-FARM-AID (800-327-6243) from 9am to 5pm eastern time. Their website is http://www.farmaid.org

If you don’t have any time, talents, possessions, or money to donate, we can all pray. Pray for the families of 9/11 victims, for our soldier and their families, and obviously for the wisdom our leaders and agents and officials in the military, intelligence and law enforcement communities.

While you’re at it, why not pray that God would turn the hearts of our enemies too.

Two Tragic Anniversaries

Two Tragic Anniversaries

Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, September 7, 2006

As I write this column, the airwaves are saturated with documentaries and analysis of last year's hurricane Katrina. When you receive your copy of this paper, next Tuesday will be the fifth annual observation of "Patriot's Day."

Katrina left at least 1,605 fatalities, directly effected 5 states, and cost something in the neighborhood of $75 billion in damage.

Military, law enforcement and medical workers agree that there were about 30,000 evacuees at the New Orleans Superdome and somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 at the city's Convention Center.

America hasn't seen a natural disaster of such scale. When the levees broke, flood waters poured into the soup-bowl of a city- much of which is ten feet below sea level. Disease, starvation and exposure probably wreaked as much havoc as the storm itself.

It revealed much about America, both our strengths and our sin. Thousands of volunteers left the comfort of their homes all over the country to help. The city of Houston Texas, much to its credit stepped-up to offer refuge, shelter, and jobs to displaced Gulf citizens.

Katrina spurred some of the greatest demonstrations of love, compassion and sacrifice America has ever seen. There are still volunteers scooping trash and black mold out of houses and helping rebuild.

Needless to say, Katrina also revealed some huge faults in our country. Negligence and failure of leadership to plan and to act decisively and effectively were exposed on city, state, and Federal levels.

According to one report on National Public Radio, to date, 17,000 households from Biloxi Mississippi have applied for help in rebuilding, but a year later, the state of Mississippi have issued only 41 checks.

Like it or not, it did reveal our tacit, institutional racism. We wanted to believe that it hasn't been a problem since the 1960's, but while it may not be hot, angry and overt, it is still very real and very hurtful. Had those tens of thousands at the Superdome and Convention Center been middle class whites instead of poor blacks, there would've been busses, helicopters, doctors, fresh water and everything they needed.

But instead, lets face it, we middle class, comfortable, complacent, supposedly "compassionate-conservatives" look at Katrina as a form of welfare reform and urban renewal. The lower 9th Ward won't be rebuilt, but condos, resorts, and casinos are already being built. If you can't see Katrina as shedding light on racism, you can't escape that is tore the facade off of our indifference toward and aversion to poor people.

It would be too easy to level blame on agencies or administrations. When we lost our apartment in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, we had nothing but good experience with FEMA. Many have speculated that their problems came when they were placed under the auspices of Homeland Security or from incompetent political appointees.

I for one think that the City of New Orleans, Louisiana and Mississippi, and the Bush administration could all learn from what FDR did to help us out of the Great Depression, in the middle of major drought. Three simple steps; Relief, Recovery, and Reform.

FDR's New Deal took courage and risks, but it did so with intelligence and pragmatism. What worked kept working, what didn't was scrapped and replaced by something else. Either way, at least SOMETHING was being tried.

An estimated 3,000 people were killed in the World Trade Center attacks. If Katrina kicked America in our soft underbelly, 9/11 was like a surprise blow to the back of the head.
On that sapphire blue sky day in September, the world was shocked with us, grieved for us and wanted to come to our aid. Five years later, we have never been so feared, resented or loathed.

Maybe that's because, like a school kid who wants to get even on the playground, we lashed out spastically, indiscriminately, and frantically. Instead of carefully, patiently, and systematically.

Best case scenario, our leaders had the best intentions of "taking the war on terror to the terrorists," but their efforts were poorly planned and severely mismanaged. Worst case scenario, the tragedy of 9/11 was cynically exploited to advance some other agenda. Either way both Republicans and Democrats are frustrated with the results.

Worst of all, we are divided against ourselves as we haven't been since Vietnam. Rather than standing united as we did on September 12, 2001, our anger and partisanship and fear have begun to tear us apart.

We need to remember that patriotism is not when we say, "My Country, right or wrong, love it or leave it." True patriotism is when if we see our country and believe that it is wrong, we dare to speak up and help to make it right again.

Some think we should listen to the pleas of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 and make the reforms called for in the 9/11 Commission's Report. Others believe nothing is so important as supporting our troops in Iraq, still others believe the best thing to do is to bring them home. Somehow we need to listen to each other even when we disagree.

As Lincoln once said, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

If we don't the terrorists win.

Katrina Relief

Still grieving 9/11, America suffers another blow

This Sunday will mark the fourth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on the domestic United States. Three years ago we decided to commemorate the nearly 3,000 Americans, both innocent victims as well as police, fire and emergency rescue workers lost in the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center by renaming September 11, “Patriot Day.”

Unfortunately, when we should be beginning to heal, our grief as a Nation has been exacerbated, first by a difficult and divisive war, and no by the worst natural disaster in our Nation’s history. Her name, was Katrina.

New Orleans already had a staggering poverty rate of 28%. That’s more than twice the national rate. The poorest parts of the city were worst hit. Their homes were at the lowest elevation and were the least structurally sound. It was harder for poor people to evacuate. They don't own cars, can't afford to rent a car. Sometimes they can't even afford a tank of gas - especially lately. They can't afford a plane, train, or bus ticket. People in poverty can't afford to pay for motel or hotel rooms, and don’t always have credit cards.

We will be coping with the aftermath of Katrina for perhaps years to come. New Orleans had a population of around a half million. Imagine 500,000 people suddenly homeless and unemployed. Of course, the death toll will probably be in the thousands as well.

Commentators spoke in the wake of 9/11 about the end of America’s innocence. It is an awkward situation for us to be in to be the richest, most powerful country in the world, and to have scores of national governments offering us aid the same way we did for victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean last winter. The proud, independent Uncle Sam, receiving charity.

Perhaps, like a stubborn adolescent, we are suffering through growing pains. Perhaps we will do well to develop a humble sense of interdependence. Perhaps we need to recognize the five stages of our grief.

Stage ONE: Denial and Isolation. At first, we tend to deny the loss has taken place, and may withdraw from our usual social contacts.

I remember being dumbfounded on September 11, 2001. Surely it didn’t happen, this can’t be real, I thought. No doubt residents of the Gulf Coast can barely believe what they’re living through. Even today, four years later, there are conspiracy theorists who claim that our own government staged the September 11th attacks.

Stage TWO: Anger. This is when you become furious at the person who inflicted the hurt , or at the God, or world, for letting it happen. You might even get angry with yourself for letting something happen, even if, nothing could have stopped it.

Last week New Orleanians were outraged that emergency relief had not arrived yet. Many people want to blame under-funding of the Army Corps of Engineers for levy failures and global warming for the severity of the huricaine. Others blame New Orleans for being such a sinful place.

Toby Kieth made a fortune on his angry country-rock anthem “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” after 9/11. Many justify the war in Iraq as “taking the war to the terrorists” even though Iraq had nothing to do with Bin Ladin, Al Queda, or 9/11. When you’re angry, you desperately want to take it out on someone.

Stage THREE: Bargaining. Eventually, the grieving person tries to make deals with God, asking, "If I do this, will you take away the pain?" What do I have to do to change things? This is also the questioning stage, as it “why did this have to happen?” WHY ME? When will it end? What did I/we do to deserve this? What did they do to deserve this? As if it was anyone’s fault.

Stage FOUR: Depression. This is when you feel numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath. Watching the news coverage of the Katrina aftermath is certainly depressing, mostly because it makes me feel like there’s nothing I can do to help. Fortunately, there are ways we can help. I’ve listed a few of them at the end of this column.

Stage FIVE: Acceptance. This is when the anger, sadness and mourning finally taper off. You just accept the reality of the loss. You don’t ever “get over it,” you’re never “better.” In fact, you’re probably never the same, but you are finally able to move on and the pain is finally not so intense or acute.

Will we ever get over 9/11? How long will it take to get over Katrina? Will there ever be a New Orleans again, and what will it be like? We can’t know, but we have to believe that eventually we will accept what has happened to us and how it has changed us.

In the early stages of the hurricane clean-up the best ways to help are by donating blood or money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a website with a list of agencies you can contact to find out how to help:

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease_print.fema?id=18473

You might also get in touch with these organizations:

American Red Cross
1-800-HELP NOW (435-7669)

Salvation Army
1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)