Braised Lambchop
a nurse trying to work while suffering with chronic pain - she rambles a bit

I lost a nice, long post about my visit last week to Mayo Clinic due to trackback spammers. Well, maybe it wasn't the trackback spammers, but I'm going to blame them anyway. I'll get to the content of that post in a moment.

I'm happy to see that the city of New Orleans hasn't been completely destroyed and left uninhabitable for months. If the eye of Katrina had come ashore west of the city instead of east, nobody could have lived in New Orleans for the foreseeable future.

UPDATE:I spoke too soon about New Orleans being spared. Overnight, a 200 foot section of the levee holding back Lake Pontchartrain broke, and now 80% of that beautiful city is underwater. Flickr is a good place to see photos of Katrina damage. CNN is airing a FEMA news conference in Baton Rouge where Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, said the remaining residents of New Orleans, including those in rescue centers such as the Superdome, must be evacuated now also. The situation in the Superdome is deteriorating quickly now, because it's surrounded by water and its generators are down and unable to ventilate the building. Please donate what you can to the charity of your choice - and keep in mind what I say below about the Red Cross.

Disaster relief is a worthy cause, and deserves our hearty support. Unfortunately, the American Red Cross isn't the place to send your hard-earned money.

Take a look at the ARC's online donation form. Do you see a way to specifically donate to Hurricane Katrina victims? You can't see a way to do that because it's not there, and you won't ever see it, either - because the ARC doesn't want you to donate to hurricane victims. The ARC wants you to donate to their general disaster fund, so they can use the money however they see fit.

After September 11, the ARC received hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from Americans and others who intended to specifically donate to victims of the World Trade Center collapse and the Pentagon fire. Instead of using that money to help those victims, the Red Cross used it to purchase (among other things) a $60 million telephone system.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Unless you specifically direct the American Red Cross to use your money in a specific way at the time of your donation, they will use your money however they see fit,

Please read the story I wrote on the ARC last year before you donate one cent to the Red Cross. The ARC is wasteful, arrogant, and deeply corrupt. Money sent to them is, in my view, essentially thrown away because there's no way of ensuring the funds are used for the intended purpose.

I second Matt's suggestion and urge donation to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance or The Salvation Army's Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. Both groups allow you to direct your donation to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

I agree with Matt's observation that these two religious groups are more upfront about their directed donation efforts than the secular Red Cross. And neither the PCUSA or the Salvation Army has been embroiled in scandal, either. The ARC seems determined to avoid all impartial means of oversight and apparently has no intention of changing its ways. That's too bad, because until they submit to audits and start telling people what their money will actually be used to purchase they won't get a cent of our money.

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About the Mayo Clinic visit: I lost my Sunday night post about my recent return to Mayo Clinic. I'll rewrite it later this week, and I'm finally free to talk about my asinine Tulsa doctors as well. I don't want to call attention to myself when so many others need so much, so I'll wait until the end of the week or next week before I whine about my inconsequential problems.

Now go and give some money to the PCUSA or the Salvation Army. Go on. Go.