Stunned


For the past three days or so I’ve been walking around in a kind of zombie state. My mind has been totally preoccupied on the Indian Ocean earthquake which took place four days ago. Julie’s weblog has been an invaluable tool in learning about the situation. Thailand was devastated by the resulting tsunami; she was there just one month ago.
I’ve tried to post a few personal things since Sunday and everything has just come out utterly inconsequential. How can I write about my … well, my anything… when there are things of far greater importance going on? Things which I’m still trying to comprehend. Just yesterday the death toll doubled over what it was the day before. Now it’s at 84,000. Crazy. I was talking with Jeff about it today and he said he wouldn’t be surprised if it reaches 200 thousand. I hope not but I secretly worry he is right. 🙁
My thoughts are with those who have been affected by this tragedy.
Update, 11:32am: The death toll has now reached 116,000, with 80,000 coming from Indonesia alone. Apple has changed their main web page to point to humanitarian aid organizations. I did a quick survey of several other major companies (including Dell, Microsoft, IBM, Starbucks, Yahoo, CNN, and BMW), and Google and Amazon were the only others I found had done this. Kudos to Apple, Google and Amazon for that.
Update #2, 3:19pm: Kirk House at Reasons Unbeknownst has put together a large collection of video clips from the tsunami and has “seeded” it using BitTorrent. If you’re not sure what that is, not to worry, he explains in the entry.
Update #3, 12:47am the next day: Microsoft, Starbucks and Yahoo are now prominently displaying links to relief agencies on their main pages.


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