Politics and Problems Getting Aid to Myanmar - Burma

Amazing animation of Nargis hitting land and please note the tremendous amounts of moisture being pulled up into areas where mudslides may have wiped out whole towns... much the way Hurricane Mitch killed so many people in small towns.

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/marti/gallery/galleryNargis1.html

Again.. amazing how a small storm can do so much damage... a story of how Central America lucked out last year when a small, strong storm hit a low populated area vs the very densely populated delta region where this storm hit..

There was little warning, nothing like the massive notifications people here in the States complain about as "trying to alarm us" when in fact the NHC does one bang up job of keeping us abreast of what is going on in the tropics that could hurt us... and go bump in the night...

It is a very repressive regime, unfriendly to the outside world and we can only hope and pray they will open their country up a little for the help that is so badly needed.

We take mass evacuations for granted. We take warnings, advisories and nonstop around the clock live hurricane updates on television for granted. We should take a moment to realize how blessed we are to be living here and not there.

They were supposed to have elections soon... not sure what will happen politically but this is a situation that could get worse as the aftermath of a storm... disease runs rampant, contaminated drinking water, an unstable economy and a break down of structure. Even with the government just allowing in a few flights from Thailand or other countries aid too late insures the death toll climbs higher and higher as help is needed NOW.. not later.

Beautiful image of a spinning storm... that wrought utter havoc to many who were not warned or prepared.

And, a big thank you to Laura Bush for bringing the conditions in Burma and the area politically out into the open. A woman who despite her title as First Lady rarely makes big public appearances or press conferences but for this.. a private cause of hers for some time (conditions there) she spoke out today.. kudos... thank you and she is indeed a First LADY to be proud of...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/06/2236366.htm?section=world

Lastly.. unrelated... 3 students on the March of the Living from South America were held hostage in a hotel in Warsaw today before being released and the man responsible from Kuwait taken captive. My kids have been on the March of the Living.. the security is HUGE, massive... yet again, bad things happen.. thankfully this time it wasn't a tragedy. Just a "crazy person" ... what a world we live in... the world is so small that we worry on events on the other side of the globe and we learn to appreciate all we have in America.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/980901.html