Throughout my life, there has been no galvanizing force, no emotional punch in the face, no dose of true reality on the level of a tragedy. Growing up in the 1980’s and 90’s, the largest tragedy we had was Pearl Harbor. My grandparent’s generation would all remember what they were doing that day. The same can be said for the assassination of president Kennedy. Every teacher I had from grade school up to professors in college could tell you what they were doing the day that Kennedy was shot.

Our generation hasn’t been so lucky…

The past decade has had, what it seems to me at least, a heaping dose of epic tragedies. From 9-11, the Tsunami in the South Pacific, Hurricane Katrina, and now the earthquakes in Haiti, the past ten years have had their fill of tragedy. And please believe me when I say this is by no means an exhaustive and definitive list of the tragedies we have faced as a world, but they are some of the ones which had the largest effect in recent time.

I will never forget where I was on 9-11. I was driving up I-93 to Andover listening to the radio when Howard Stern got a call about it. I made the mistake of switching to a news station thinking that they would have more information, when it turns out Howard stayed on the air and had callers giving eye witness testimony for the rest of the morning. When I got to work, some co-workers had found a TV and I was able to see exactly what was happening. I had, unsuccessfully, been trying to get a hold of my sister Laura who lived and worked in Manhattan.

As we know now, cell phone towers were well beyond the saturation point and communication in and out of New York City was patchy at best. When I was able to get in touch with my mother, she told me she had talked with my Sister and she was fine. I remember vividly crying on this call, both for the relief that my sister was alright, and for the grief that I knew thousands of other people and families were feeling at that very moment. Thinking of this moment to this day can well up tears in my eyes.

The Good

My original statements talked about how humanity rallies around tragedy to overcome the adversity it presents. Shortly after 9-11 the Red Cross announced that they were at capacity for blood donations. Just this morning the Red Cross announced that it has raised over $8 million via its text message campaign. (When I started writing this, the total was at $3 million UPDATE: This is now over $10 million) During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina donations were also significant:

The American Red Cross, Southern Baptist Convention, Salvation Army, Oxfam, Common Ground Collective, Emergency Communities, Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities, Service International, “A River of Hope” and many other charitable organizations provided help to the victims of the storm. They were not allowed into New Orleans proper by the National Guard for several days after the storm because of safety concerns. These organizations raised US$4.25 billion in donations by the public, with the Red Cross receiving over half of the donations.

In the case of both these tragedies, hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians volunteered to help their fellow man. It was much more than money that the firefighters and policemen from all over the United States gave in their efforts to aid the victims of these tragedies. It was every day people volunteering their time, their energy, their own piece of humanity to another piece of humanity that was in need.

The Bad

Sadly, many of these donations are not sustained. I can understand that financially many people cannot donate $10 every single week to the Red Cross. And even so that would not cover every charity or cause that depends on donations in order to continue to operate. But there are ways that people can contribute as part of their every day lives at little to no cost. For example, donating blood only costs someone a small amount of time. And to be honest, I am behind on my donating. My excuse of being busy doesn’t hold water, for me nor anyone else. The final reminder I needed came from my friend JW Buckley:

If you don’t donate blood you are a selfish coward.

Clothes can also be donated to Goodwill and it only costs the time it takes to drive over to a local donation spot.

Beyond a lack of sustained donations, these times bring out the real internals of people. Their true soul, their true beliefs, and often times it isn’t pretty. As is increasingly the case these days, I first heard of the earthquakes in Haiti via twitter when someone re-tweeted a Wyclef post giving out information on how to donate via text message similar to this one. I went to Google news and searched for Haiti. As I consumed the headlines and excerpts of the stories the details started to sink in. Not only had their been one major 7.0 quake, but many aftershocks that compiled all of this damage. And then I saw this headline:

Earthquake in Haiti believed to leave at least 2 Americans trapped in wreckage

The story was written by the AP, and has since had the headline changed to the more benign:

US husband saves wife trapped in Haiti rubble

I literally couldn’t believe my eyes that with hundreds of dead people, even more injured, and even more than that left with damaged homes and businesses, that an entire story was dedicated to TWO people who happened to be American. Is this country, and more importantly our media, so focused on itself that two of our citizens are more valuable than all of the other victims in Haiti?

It’s debatable whether or not this actually belongs in the next section…

The Ugly

With the good always comes the bad. And then there is the ugly. I have focused on the human reaction to tragedy up until this point. Both as individuals, and as larger groups of donators and volunteers, people have responded to these tragedies en masse. But what about our government? I think my friend Ian Larrabee put it best in regards to Hurricane Katrina:

The saddest and lowest point in American history and a true knockout blow to American exceptionalism. This was, and remains, a complete and utterly disgraceful failure of all levels of government and citizenry to provide fellow Americans with basic protection, support and comfort from relentless ecological, socio-economic, political, corruptive and malicious assaults.

We all know “Brownie did a heck of a job.”

The chapter on government response to the earthquakes in Haiti is still being written. I hope that we can look back on this as an example of how to respond to such a natural disaster. For now that remains to be seen, but we can at least be optimistic that the administration has learned from its previous mistakes. We shall see.

Secondly, there is Pat Robertson. His statements as seen here are appalling. As I have done throughout this message, I will let the words of my friend, Kenn, put it best:

Can we please move past superstitions and fairy tales. People are suffering in real life.

Do something. Repeat.

There are many businesses and people who are currently offering to donate money to Haiti in exchange for their product in services. Think of this as a means of pulling teeth from people who aren’t humane enough to donate, but will buy something on a day where sales will be donated. I will list the ones that I have come across below and would be happy to add more if they are submitted in the comments or via email, twitter, etc

The point I am trying to make is that not only should you do something now. You should continue to do something. We shouldn’t be tracking how much money the Red Cross can raise at times like this compared to the previous tragedy. We should be tracking how EVERY non-profit organization received more money this year than last year and had enough to operate and expand. Pick a cause that you can identify with, if it is what it takes to motivate you. The Red Cross, The Breast Cancer Society, or the ASPCA. It doesn’t matter which one you choose, because they are all doing valuable work for humanity and society, and they all don’t have enough money to operate unless you contribute.

• Seasonality
• The OmniGroup
• IndieRelief
• Doctors without borders
• Red Cross via iTunes

What to avoid

This is a short list.

• Scams
• Apathy

Special thanks to Jonah for helping me edit this.