Prime Minister Paul Martin wasted no time today getting in the photo-ops.
It’s part of the job for a PM.
It wasn’t the picture of him sitting on the floor talking to Southeast Asian children, or the little flags the little kids dutifully waved. It wasn’t the voice over, or the soundbites from the press conference.
It was the school staff and parents.

Cedarwoods Public School in Markham, Ontario was chosen for the Prime Ministerial visit.
Teachers are unionized in Canada, and they opened up the school over the holiday. It isn’t in their contract to do so.
Almost every family of most of the students has lost relatives and the school took in the kids for activities so parents could could take time to seach the internet and connect up to look for the lost. I hope Canadian churches, temples and mosques with populations from the 11 hard hit countries did something similar.

Unspace relates a personal story of his work with recovery in an airline crash.
Letters and pictures from school children made a difference for the morgue workers and he makes an appeal.

A third grade class wrote letters to encourage us. The letters wound up posted in the Red Cross tent where we ate. The morgue workers read through every letter on the wall. Some of the letters were photocopied repeatedly and tucked into briefcases, purses, and pockets. The letters made a difference, even among such tough individuals. They helped keep us going.

Is there some way that children you know could draw a picture or write a brief note encouraging the relief workers and victims of the tsunami? A few dozen letters could be tucked into a supply shipment with no problem, and they’d be a treasure for the recipients on the other end.

What Arab-Muslim countries are doing
This New York Times article focuses on Kuwait. The country has pledged 10 million dollars in aid. It is a country that has more Southeast Asian housekeepers and servants than citizens.
The Red Cresent - the Arab branch of the Red Cross isn’t saying what donations have been given in the countries it solicites in.
Saudi Arabia has pledged 10 million, United Arab Emirates 20 million.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas says people are confused about what charities to give to, since many have been shut down since September 2001.

And Muslims are also confused about whether it is appropriate to give aid and assistance to those not of their faith.

In Kuwait, some charities drew fire by advertising that they were collecting money for Muslim victims. Indonesia, the hardest-hit country, is the most populous Muslim nation.

“I don’t know why only Muslims, when disasters do not differentiate between religions in choosing their victims,” Muhammad Mousaed al-Saleh, a columnist, wrote in Al Qabas. The daily paper published a religious ruling, saying donating to non-Muslims is permissible.

The view that wanton behavior provoked the quake was the subject of Friday sermons in Saudi Arabia and of other religious commentaries.

“Asia’s earthquake, which hit the beaches of prostitution, tourism, immorality and nudity,” one commentator said on an Islamist Web site, “is a sign that God is warning mankind from persisting in injustice and immorality before he destroys the ground beneath them.”

Walid Tabtabai, a member of the Kuwaiti Parliament, said the earthquake was a message.

“We believe that what occurs in terms of disasters and afflictions is a test for believers and punishment for the unjust,” he wrote in a column in the newspaper Al Watan.

Mr. Tabtabai belief sounds a great deal like some Western christians who have written and spoken that God is punishing people with the December 26th quake and tsunamis.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

US
I appauld the White House for calling on two former presidents to take a lead encouraging in private fundraising to assist aid and rebuilding in Southeast Asia.

Reuters