This is horrible. As when the tsunami hit, and Katrina, my heart just hit a wall, trying to grasp that number: 15,000 dead, and the suffering, exacerbated by that Chinese-backed dictatorship.

Update:

Oh God, I can finally back a Bush in something. Bravo, Laura. I just hope this doesn't become like the brutality in Tibet -- make gestures of support and shut up when the Chinese government hisses about not letting the West shill its wares in China nor have at Chinese sweatshops and contaminated drug labs. What happened to the great culture that gave us Lao Tzu and Confucius and so much art, knowledge, beauty?

And this is why I find it harder and harder to read or watch the news. It gets harder and harder to watch it, especially, because it's easy to avoid clicking on videos of suffering online. And last year I decided to cancel TV signal from my cable service. And I don't miss it. There were very few shows I enjoyed and I can buy the DVDs of those when they come out and even see some online. More than anything else I resented paying for mostly commercials and channels that parroted Fox News rightwing mob-mentality, dumbed-down swill.

OK, it's very late and I need sleep, and to meditate and send whatever ragged good energy I have left to Myanmar. But again, I feel so helpless to do anything besides send money and send my pleadings, my prayers, as I sit to breathe in silence, or chant. I need to do something, send money, yes, I hope I can do more, but what? Like with the tsunami and Katrina, here the question it burns it hurts.