Friday morning roundup

I'm not suggesting that people not donate to the Haiti relief effort, but I'll agree that there is legitimate rationale to opt not to do so. That rationale is emphatically not that articulated by Rush Limbaugh.

Now, him aside, you could donate or not donate to Haiti. I probably will. So will millions of other people, so if you are working with a very fixed donation budget, it is reasonable to allocate your donations to organizations that might get short shrift because other people are sending their money to Haiti. There are still people dying elsewhere in the world. It doesn't look like money is the issue right now (the issue is logistics). Which is why I don't recommend that you hop on a plane with your church group to try to help.

But money will become an issue, so, as I said, I'm not arguing against donating. I don't give to the Red Cross, but that's just me. I'd give money to Oxfam, Unicef, or International Rescue Committee. Mercy Corps does great work but I personally don't support them because their fundraising is intrusive and annoying, so if you can give without getting on their phone list, go for it.

And when I said there was a legitimate rationale not to donate, I meant that places like Haiti need help all the time, even if that particular place needs a lot more help now. An outpouring of relief funds is great. Continuous investment that might, for example, help build a more earthquake-resilient infrastructure, is even better, and it appears that there couldn't be a better USAID administrator for the job.

As for the politicization of the tragedy, Keith Olbermann's comment was unnecessary but not clueless or offensive. The analogy in that article--that Senator Kennedy's passing was "exploited" to pass health care reform--is disingenuous, since health care reform was such a core of the Senator's work over the decades. But let's all stop bloviating; of all the pundits, Fox's Shepard Smith got it right.

***
Part of me things, "be afraid," but at the same time, I understand that having to actually govern has a way of grounding people in reality.

Steve Pearlstein says it's time to put down the pitchfork and move on.

Meet the eight-year-old on the terrorist watch list.

Russians are most likely to blame their weight on genes.

Is 'y'all' becoming a political liability in Virginia?