Tidal wave

Every report I see, every newspaper article I read, makes me realize this was a bigger disaster than I was capable of imagining.

Here, courtesy of the AP, is a large and ecumenical list of aid agencies working to assist victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tidal wave. Help is desperately needed. So is cash.

(The agencies listed — a variety of denominational and secular groups — are members of InterAction, a coalition of aid groups that maintains decent ethical standards, so you can be confident that donations to any of these groups will be put to good and effective use.)

The United States has pledged $35 million to aid countries affected by this disaster. That works out to the cost of about 5 hours of the daily cost of the war in Iraq. So in addition to making a donation yourself, you may want to try to leverage additional assistance by shaming our government into committing further aid — perhaps even as much as $177 million, the approximate cost of a single day of the Iraq war.