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New Orleans
by acdickson
AC can't get his mind around what happened in and around New Orleans. It's awful and his heart goes out to any and all who've been affected by the devastation. I had a lot on my mind about the situation, but I'm going to keep it to that.
Any of you fellow eBay sellers out there can get involved in the fundraising efforts by donating a portion of your winnings to the Red Cross or a nonprofit of your choice. First you need to register as a seller with the non-profit partner site Mission Fish. Then you let mission fish know which charities you'd like to be set up to donate with. Finally, go ahead and sell something as you normally would, but on the page with minimum bid and the photo there is a function where you choose a charity and decide the percentage of on the final price you want to donate. I think it's got to be a minimum of $10. Also, if you donate 90% to 100% of the winnings to the Katrina relief efforts, eBay will donate your listing and final value fees as well.
Beyond that, if you're looking for any handmade gifts, my wife Susan and many other artisans have donated their work to Crafters United. This is one of what I imagine are dozens of on-line sites where you buy something and all the money goes to the relief effort. Writing a check is well and fine, but as I suspect much of AC's readership is living month to month, it may be easier to open the wallet when you're getting something cool as well.
I also have some thoughts on craigslist, the now global community website you may or may not know is partially owned by and conceptual cousin to eBay. Just as the storm was ravaging the south I wondered if New Orleans craigslist might have simply been shut down. After all, few there had or have access to the internet much less anything else. But I took a look about a week ago (when I meant to post this) and was pretty blown away. Most of you have had your 'power of the Internet' moment, and then and there I had mine.
If you want to experience the misery of what's it like to be personally involved in this tragedy, look at the missing people board where relatives hope to hear from loved ones. It's the closest I've come to realizing the scope of this thing and ultimately very sad and depressing.
If you want to feel good about your fellow American, check the housing and jobs sites. People all over the country are offering up their vacation homes, offering up garages, even offering to share their homes with flood victims. Some are for a few months, others are long term and detail the school situation in their area. There are jobs being offered for victims, often with a place to stay attached. These are coming from DC, Seattle, Tucson, all over. And most of these generous people are even offering to help with travel. AC isn't an emotional guy, but he admits to getting a little chocked up seeing pages of pages of offers.
Would I have stopped there. Instead I had to check out the Katrina discussion board. I'm not going to link to it. You can find it if you want to feel pure anger. While there are plenty of good souls posting there, we also have many examples of the ugly American. People from other parts of the country posting some of the most offensive, insensitive, racist, ignorant and cruel things I've ever read. Hopefully, by now, they've been run off. But I doubt it. That they are anonymous and writing from the comfort of shelter outfitted with electricity, food, and communication makes it even harder to imagine. It really blows me away.
It's good to know that most Americans are coming together and doing their part, but it's a shame to see some taking advantage of the situation to promote a hateful if ignorant agenda. That they start on something as cool as craigslist and go straight up the ladder to the Oval Office and the current occupant's mother is really nothing new, just a further reminder of why AC prefers to think about global unity through the power of eBay rather then national politics.
