A question, regarding the floods in Pakistan.

[Miss Z]

Thanks for the responses. Perhaps after taking in some of the attitudes from other threads, I jumped the gun on this topic.

I can understand donor fatigue, and the 'charity begins at home' philosophy. Still rather sad at the donor to non-donor ratio of the poll, but it is right for people to follow their principles with regards to their finances.

I've always believed that the best charity is action rather than hand-outs, and if opportunity allowed I'd be straight out to Pakistan helping with the aid efforts. Charitable fatigue is never an issue when you become directly involved, I have found. But of course when direct involvement is not possible, the only help we can often give is through money, and I can affirm it is not nearly as gratifying.

There was a speaker for the DEC on television a couple of days back who described the disaster as 'on the scale of Haiti and the 2004 tsunami, but with the complexity of the Middle East.' I'm still pondering what entirely she meant by that.

Freedom and Laura's Babies, the publicity issue is very interesting. So many celebrities jumped on the Haiti bandwagon - who can forget that god-awful rehash of 'Everybody Hurts'? - and for Pakistan? So far I've seen David Suchet in a very typical, Oxfam-style advertisement appeal, and nothing else.

[Lady's Human]

There's a major difference between Haiti and Pakistan.

Pakistan chose to use enormous resources to develop nuclear weapons rather than pull the people in the rural areas out of the 7th century.

Haiti has not had a functional government for decades.