Watch clips of college students on break, standing next to Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter or Brad Pitt or Leo DiCaprio and many un-famous others – framing homes in New Orleans. Look for that Animal Planet documentary on Humane Society volunteers wading through toxic storm waters to rescue starving animals and family pets that the lucky ones (people who finally got rescued) were forbidden to bring with them to evac centers. Reunions between survivor bi-peds and rescued four-paws – 1000s of miles from home – melts the hardest heart of the meanest “You’re On Your Own” true believer. (You lookin’ at ME, Ayn Rand? You lookin’ at ME, punk?? Apologies to both Robert DeNiro and Clint Eastwood on that one.) 

Help Right Now and Also Tomorrow.  So, where is this call to our better instincts going, anyway? Americans in the path and wake of natural disasters need our help right now: Food, Shelter, Medicine, Clothing and Nursing Care. Plus Money, Time, Volunteer Warm Bodies, Supplies. Listed below are safe places to donate money or clothing or supplies, and volunteer to help … both general charity sites and specialized donor groups that talk to helpers interested in rebuilding houses or keeping a community (of artists, musicians, chefs, animals or simply neighbors) together and whole.  

There will be another crisis; the need for future help and donations will rise again, like the sun. We’re only on H for Hurricane Hanna right now. Below the Help Right Now list are some web sites, groups and ideas that think waaay past current crises. If you are the type of person or company who can think on two levels – Current Crisis and Change the Future – scan the Change Tomorrow list, too.

Help Right Now

Forget the phrase “dodged a bullet.” Hurricane Gustav blew west of New Orleans and, though it didn’t wreak the catastrophe of Katrina and Rita three years ago, it did force evacuation of over 2,000,000 people. Worse, charity and community orgs got slammed by a “donations gap” – a high number of U.S. disasters in 2008 put all charities in the red. They’re working on borrowed money after depleting donation coffers on wildfires in California, tornadoes across the South, and flooding in the Midwest. Donations depressed by the economy and false perception that “Gustav wasn’t that bad” mean charities can’t pay off loans that are now their daily ops budgets. 

F.Y.I. — Places like Houma Parish suffered massive damage; 100s of 1000s evacuated from Gustav’s path are returning home to no water, no food and, for some, no electricity until OCTOBER. Plus, Hanna, Ike and Josephine are racking up over the ocean as you read this. Your much needed and much appreciated donations to help right now can go to:  

· National Red Cross:  Go to the American Red Cross secure donation site > https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation < to donate money or volunteer supplies and your own time. The Red Cross home page tells you where your donations are working. For example: 5 blankets in an emergency shelter cost $25; Food/Shelter for 25 victims for one day costs $350; and running one Emergency Rescue Vehicle for the duration of a hurricane alert totals $2,500. 

Yes, Virginia, cyber scum live, even in disaster zones. The Red Cross has issued a Fraudulent Email Alert to potential donors: Currently, a fraudulent email posing as the American Red Cross is soliciting members of the public. The email describes the sender as “Madelyn Cox no-reply@redcrossaidinfo.us”. This is NOT a legitimate email. Do not give your personal information. Any doubts? Contact your local Red Cross Chapter or the national site to check suspect pleaders. ·       

· Check Up on Good Guys and Bad: Before continuing on with specialized charities, this might be the time to ensure that your generosity is not cancelled by scam artists. Go to a Charity Checker at > http://www.charitynavigator.org < first and see if that needy charity is legitimate.

· Suffer the Little Critters: Humane Society of Louisiana’s animal shelter was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. They relocated to a temporary site from which they’ve operated statewide rescue ops; they even unveiled a National Katrina Animal Memorial statue at the New Orleans City Council just last Friday, August 29. Then Gustav visited. To support animal victims (some still in exile after Katrina), Humane Society of Louisiana is urgently requesting: 

LOCAL: Transport vehicles and volunteers to work with animal control and shelters;
NATIONAL: Animal carriers, folding crates, pet food, medical supplies, gas and gift cards;
BEST: Money Donations to be directed to neediest animals and areas. 

HSL updates its needs list at > www.HumaneLA.org <. Send donations to Humane Society of Louisiana, P.O. Box 740321, New Orleans, LA 70174. Supplies can be shipped to HSL’s hopefully “temporary” emergency shelter at 115 Obed Magee Road, in Tylertown, MS 39667. 

·  Save the Children:  Save the Children (Gustav Relief) has spent more than $100,000 on diapers, cots and bassinets at shelters … but has raised only $35,000. Make a donation at their secure site >https://secure.ga4.org/01/web_e_gustav_08?qp_source=hp%5fpb%5fGustav08 <. For alternative ways to donate – such as thru PayPal or Google Checkout – go to this Save the Children web site: > http://www.savethechildren.org/get-involved/fundraising-challenges/alt-ways-to-give-hurricane-gustav-fund-0808.html <. 

Wholesalers of Children’s and Baby Apparel, Toys, Stuffed Animals:  Donations of baby diapers, furniture and children’s clothes are needed to prep for the next three hurricanes in the pipeline. Toys and stuffed animals help comfort small children whose families have been evacuated to strange surroundings, and don’t know what they’ll find when allowed back home. Check with www.savethechildren.org for needs and shipping addresses.

·  Close the Donations Gap on Two More Needy Charities:  The Salvation Army has spent over $1 million on departed Hurricane Gustav; but it has only raised $30,000 to cover it. Donate at Salvation Army USA’s Hurricane Season 2008 site at >https://secure.salvationarmy.org/donations.nsf/donate?openform&projectid=USS-hseason2008-3<.

“When people return, they’re not going to have gas, hospitals, and electricity,” said Robert Gorman, director of Catholic Social Services for the diocese of Houma-Thibodaux that was hard hit by Gustav. “Many people spent
all their money on hotels and when they get back, I wonder how they’ll pay for groceries.”

To donate to Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans (which, by the way, helps anyone in need), go to > http://www.ccano.org <. To direct a donation to Catholic Charities USA to a specific state, search at > http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=292 <. 

·  Ongoing Volunteer Sites: Donations and volunteers to rebuild New Orleans and revitalize housing is at Help Rebuild New Orleans > www.RTNO.org < .

Top charities, measured by visitor support, and organized by area of charitable interest, are accessible at Network for Good > www.networkforgood.org/topics/ < .

US/Habitat for Humanity International — a hands-on work charity with the mission of eliminating homelessness and making decent shelter a matter of conscience and action — builds shelter for homeless families. Habitat boasts high-profile laborers-avec-philanthropists (former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn). Habitat welcomes volunteers (no construction experience needed) – for specific Habitat for Humanity projects (see www.habitat.org) or thru AmeriCorps/VISTA Volunteers in Service to America (see www.habitat.org/cncs/).

Habitat needs building and construction materials, tools, food and housing for free laborers. Always welcome: Donations to keep Habitat hammering and sawing. To help families affected by Hurricane Gustav – either time or donation – contact a Local Habitat Group Affected by Gustav  >http://www.habitat.org/giving/appeals/affiliates_gustav.aspx <. For General Donations to Habitat for Humanity see < http://www.habitat.org/cd/giving/donate.aspx?link=1&r=bt > .

Change Tomorrow

   This is what the Dutch dreamed back in the 16^th Century to keep the North Sea out of their below-sea-level lives. Windmills are a nifty image for tulip travel post cards. But that old Netherlander collective dream became a workhorse in the Real World. The Dutch dreamed it. Then they built it to protect the common weal with the common’s collected monies and will.

   This is what the Dutch and the British dreamed “back” in the 20^th Century for flood control.

These futuristic windmills are at work present time to keep storm surges out of homes and farms. Nothing mysterious about it: First you dream it. Then you build it. (If you’ve got the collective chops!)

Jon Stewart, “fake news” anchor on The Daily Show, noted: “Levee walls around New Orleans look like something I’d play handball on … something gangs spray graffiti on. Is this the best we can do??” The answer to Stewart’s question is Yes and No, depending on our collective dream.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dreamed of at least reinforcing and heightening critical levees around New Orleans to prepare for a Category 4 or 5 storm. But the Corps was rudely awakened by budget cuts in each of three proposed budget years preceding Hurricane Katrina in 2005. (Deciders in the current administration of the Federal Government said there was not enough money to fund that “dream,” certainly not with two wars underway.) 

Americans who think we need a new dream on infrastructure in the U.S. are getting louder.  

The U.S. has become “the only major industrial society that is not renewing and expanding its public infrastructure” (A New New Deal http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/221239/a_new_new_deal) which includes maintaining and upgrading bridges, roads, levees, ports, water and sewage treatment plants. And they’re not talking only about NOLA or hurricanes; they’re talking about a focus on infrastructure across the entire United States.

Some Americans “get it” – Like Christopher Hayes who posted at The Nation, “Volunteers and fundraising isn’t the solution for the Gulf; competent government is…” Like Senator Jim Webb who told the L.A. Times: “If we’re putting all of this money into Iraq and ignoring New Orleans, then we’re doing something wrong.” (Senator Webb was referring to the $10 Billion per month that flows into warfare. And, that’s only for one war, on Iraq.)  

Others who “get it” include U.S. senators and reps who pressed for a Congressional Commission on Disaster Preparedness Before Katrina; Sought to allow 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane; Proposed supplemental emergency funding, including $28 Billion for hurricane relief; Introduced legislation to streamline the hurricane reconstruction process; and pressured the Federal Coordinator on Gulf Coast Rebuilding to direct more resources to severe mental health impacts of Hurricane Katrina on children of the Gulf Coast. (All the preceding initiatives came from one side of the U.S. Congress.)

Some Americans don’t “get it” – Like the Executive Branch administrators who currently run FEMA and have demanded over 5,000,000 forms from officials in Louisiana to get reconstruction money that still has not arrived. Like the Senator who warned against “over-spending in support of Katrina victims,” voted against the Katrina Response Commission cited above, voted down unemployment benefits for people affected by hurricane and opposed hurricane relief funding. This was the very same U.S. Senator who visited New Orleans in April 2008 and said he “Wasn’t sure whether the Lower 9^th Ward should be rebuilt” at all. He proposed talking about maybe tearing it all down.  

It’s the Americans who don’t “get it” who prompted a v. smart economist, Paul Krugman, to describe “an ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good” in an eight-year stretch of MIA (Missing In Action) … at the end of which the ideological hostiles claimed a single fundraiser shows that they “put America first.”  

If you have an engineering head and want to start changing the dream to concrete (and steel and public works) realities, start with American Society of Civil Engineers at The Infrastructure Crisis

> http://pubs.asce.org/magazines/CEMag/2008/Issue_01-08/article1.htm < and

Levee Leader  > http://pubs.asce.org/magazines/CEMag/2007/Issue_04-07/article1.htm < .

Government and Grover’s Bathtub. First responders (from fire fighters to rescue teams to the privately funded Red Cross) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) people are boots on the ground after a hurricane or wild fire or flood. These are tough, dedicated and giving people. If we can not volunteer as first responders or FEMA personnel, the least We The People can do is support these everyday heroes.

Alas, the case file gets deeper every year on serious morale problems, resignations and firings, especially after the historically non-partisan boots at FEMA were kicked into U.S. Homeland Security. (Veterans of FEMA believed they were helping people displaced by catastrophe; Homeland Security said they’re fighting a domestic war on terror.) Time for a bath?? 

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin said in September 2008 as another hurricane named Gustav approached his city: “I feel a little nervous about the storm, exactly where it’s going to end up, but I also feel real good about the resources. Man, if we have resources, we can move mountains.“ 

Back in 1994, a political strategist named Grover Norquist, along with Republican Senator Newt Gingrich, said: “We’re going to shrink government till it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub.” 

All the above – NOLA Mayor Nagin, Government-Can’t-Do-Anything-Right strategist Norquist and his fellow Republican Gingrich – were around for Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Back then, Ray Nagin pleaded for help for his drowning city; Norquist and Gingrich argued behind closed Federal doors to withhold help. All three are still kicking today.  

Only difference is that, since 2005, half a dozen rebuilding and assistance plans for Americans living across the U.S. Gulf Coast have been proposed in Congress. But — excluding NOLA Mayor Nagin — the other two politicians above, along with certain politicos who get a lot of news coverage these days, all killed those help proposals. They don’t believe that helping U.S. citizens after a catastrophe is an “appropriate” use of government (taxpayer) resources.  

Dear Doubting Thomases: All the above is factual and documented. As baseball great Casey Stengel said: You could look it up.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. We can change the dream (daymare??) at the ballot box in November, and in our own neighborhoods, kitchens and employee break rooms. Of course, if we talk about or dream about drowning our government in a bathtub, then we might get exactly what we ask for!! Wouldn’t that drown first responders, dedicated FEMA workers, volunteer nurses and house framers, donators of money and sweat after the next disaster?  

Doesn’t that “dream” put all of us under water?  

Let’s smash Grover’s bathtub! Donate money and time and goods to help those in need; then let’s change everything. But, first we have to dream it; just ask the Dutch. (Pssst. Hans Brinker, who saved the city by plugging up the dyke, is only a story. A fable. A collective dream. Very, very important.)