/ Mark Frauenfelder / 11:49 am Fri Mar 11, 2011

How to text $10 to the Red Cross for Japan disaster relief

george-takei.jpg From George Takei's Twitter feed: "Today we are all Japanese. Give $10 to help. Text REDCROSS to 90999, or click here."

35

  1. is anyone aware of other alternatives besides Red Cross for us to send contributions?

    I sent to Doctors Without Borders during the Haiti cris(es).

  2. When a quake comes, light fixtures, or if you’re outside, telephone wires and power cables hint at what’s coming, oscillating freakishly just before the building or street starts lurching about.

    Everything shuts down, office blocks, schools and subways. People are standing or walking on the roads as far away from the buildings as they can safely get as the traffic hunches into the central lanes. Long queues clutching cellphones form outside phone boxes, but the phone network is swamped, even on a land line, getting through to anyone is a lottery.

    As the day stretches into night the roads going anywhere have filled up with cars, the pavements are thronging with people walking home, with huge eddies forming around video and electronics shops, or anywhere with a tv on display, nodding with each other that they’ve never been in a quake so strong. Discount shops are selling bikes as fast as they can wheel them out to the pavement to the foot sore with Â¥20,000 to spare. As time wears on the restaurants and convenience stores have sold out of anything edible, desperate salarymen are buying tubs of miso paste and asking for spoons.

  3. Nothing against Japan, and I hope this doesn’t sound horrible, but if you are moved to donate money, text ‘HAITI’ to 90999 to send $10. They need international aid money a lot more than Japan does. In fact, whenever anything horrible just about anywhere happens that inspires you to charity, send it to Haiti. It’s great to show sympathy and solidarity and all in the moment, but Japan is going to be okay and your $10 isn’t going to save any lives there.

    1. Saying “Don’t forget Haiti, send them $10 too” would be cool.

      “Don’t forget Haiti, send them $10 INSTEAD of Japan” is, yeah, pretty fucking horrible.

    2. Yes, it sounds horrible.

      But since you’ve gone there, in being so callous, I might suggest that it is Haiti where the contributory dollars would be wasted, since the place is a seemingly bottomless morass: no matter what you do, no matter how much you give, the place’ll still be an environmental mess, a human rights mess, a mess all the way around.

      Japan, on the other hand, needs a boost up today, and if we give it to ’em, you’ll be able to see the results on the morrow.

  5. slashdot (yes i know i know) is warning us against Japanese earthquake scams. is there anyway that we can be given confidence that the majority of our donated money goes to helping the cause? (“nope.” “oh, so we just have to have faith that a modern electronically transmitted charity isn’t a scam?” “yep.”)

  6. I’ve no mobile or smart phone but will seek other direct means to send contributions to aid the the people of Japanese Home Islands while making sure the provider isn’t taking anything from my contribution to profit themselves.

    The Japanese people will have my prayers for those that are living and for the spirits of those who have perished.

  7. Fuck the Red Cross. They discriminate against gay men. If you are a male and have had ANY sort of sexual contact with another man since appx 1978, they flag you in their database so that you can never give blood.

    1. “If you are a male and have had ANY sort of sexual contact with another man since appx 1978, they flag you in their database so that you can never give blood.”

      I’m pretty sure they do that because those are the standard (stupid and discriminatory) rules for giving blood in most Western countries, including the US. Even if they accepted the blood, they wouldn’t be allowed to use it without breaking the law.

      That said, my charity of choice is always Caritas Internationalis. They are a Catholic charity but it is one of their points not to discriminate against anyone in giving aid. They’re efficient.

      http://www.caritas.org/activities/emergencies/MassiveEarthquakeHitJapan.html

    2. I don’t know about the American Red Cross but I doubt the Canadian Red Cross would be at this event: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=22052&tid=001 if they discriminated against gays.
      Although I don’t know for sure I imagine any rules surrounding who can and cannot donate blood is a matter of law as rather than a matter of policy.
      Also the Canadian Red Cross takes paypal.

    3. You are correct! Male intercourse, according to the questionaire is noted! But Please, give me a moment here. They try their damnedest to keep the blood supply above reproach. Sub-Saharan Africans (also potential for HIV) and Brits during MadCow are also flagged. I know you can see why. Yet… they allow me every two weeks to donate in the Apheresis program. I am CMV negative. That allows my blood, platelets and plasma to go directly to those whose immune systems are shot! That means Infants in the ICU, HIV/AIDS sufferers, burn victims, cancer patients and organ-transplant recipients are the FIRST in line for my blood donations! AND I WOULDN’T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY! My body makes blood for free. And it is the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, INOVA, and other programs which allow me to help those who are at the greatest risk and incapable of helping themselves. I know you can see the logic. Please Help!
      Randy Causey
      Reston, Virginia

  8. As cold-hearted as it sounds, miglet is probably accurate: Haiti needs your $10 much more than Japan. Japan is highly developed, has a lot of emergency procedures in place, and generally can cope with an influx of homeless via shelters, schools, gymnasiums, and hospitals. Having said all that, however, $10 is just $10, and would go a fair way toward getting some blankets, rations, rice balls, and other coverage for the thousands who are now homeless in Japan.

    Unfortunately, rastronomicals is probably also correct: Haiti is a bottomless pit, and aid money may very well get “wasted” there, but that’s not your problem, that’s their problem– and not giving at all is guaranteed not to help either place.

    I’m not sure why people are looking for alternative paths for donating instead of the Red Cross– that org seems to be the best organized, quickly deployed, and universally humanitarian when it comes to things like this.

    Medicins Sans Frontiers is a great org, but Japan isn’t short of doctors or hospitals, it just got swamped with homeless. Think of it this way: if Los Angeles got hit with a Tsunami, what kind of aid would you give to California? Japan is pretty close to that (in terms of development and needs).

    1. Japan isn’t short of doctors or hospitals

      Wanna bet it is now?

      Japan just got hit with a massive, massive disaster and some people are actually putting forth reasons not to donate towards its relief.

      1. grimc,

        I’m not putting forth reasons _not_ to donate, I am just trying to remind people that Japan isn’t the 3rd world.

        Also, yes, I will take that bet. Japan’s population is actually very flush with medical staff. And we don’t have thousands of thousands of injured from collapsed buildings, we have large areas that were swamped with a tsunami– the injury profile is quite different.

        MSF dropping in with a bunch of doctors is certainly welcome, but it’s not critical to the survival of thousands of people who might otherwise die of dysentery or typhoid fever (because major diseases aren’t going to happen in this case).

    2. “I’m not sure why people are looking for alternative paths for donating instead of the Red Cross-”

      I’ve got a problem with giving money to a charity with execs that make more money than I do: James Hrouda collected $648,000 in 2009; Mary Elcano took $538,000 off the top; Brian Rhoa raked off $400,000; Mary-Alice Frank took home $541,000;

      http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2011/03/14/thoughts-on-japan/

    1. Plus, if Japan doesn’t need the help, they’ll re-route it to people that do.

      Yeah, one of the things I like about the Red Cross, as I understand it: the way it says “Where The Need Is Greatest” at the top of the page.

      It’s not like they spend all their resources on just one place until it’s fixed, and then spend whatever’s left on hookers & blow. Remember how many people were miffed when their Red Cross donations that were earmarked for 9/11 victims would get spent on other, apparently lower-priority (to the donor) victims?

      The Red Cross is doing a lot of heavy lifting and dirty work. Don’t like their methods? You can grab your own hipwaders and shovel if you want to help out. Or you can give to the charity of your choice if you lack the time and resources to get your own hands dirty.

      Japan could use a hand right now, maybe not as desperately as Haiti, but one doesn’t need to wring one’s hands too much about this. I just gave $10 for Japan, $10 for Haiti, and another $10 for whatever luckless locality is next on Mother Nature’s shitlist. I wish I had more to spare, but it’s a tight month.

      One of these days, your roof may fly off in a tornado, or you may find yourself up to your earlobes in cold filthy stormsurge water, or your village may be overwhelmed by rivers of lava, or a meteorite might fall upon your townhouse. Whatever catastrophe clobbers you and yours, it’s a good bet the Red Cross will be there to bail your sorry ass out, whether you’re in Haiti or Japan or Park Slope.

  11. The quake damage was so severe, it looks like one of Japan’s alphabets is irreparable.

    The White House has formed a working group to see if Japan can survive on only two alphabets.

  13. You can avoid proagating the Red Cross’s religious and homophobic agenda by using this links if you wish:

    http://www.directrelief.org/

    Did any else notice the irony of George Takei speaking for the RC..?

    http://www.afterelton.com/archive/elton/people/2005/10/takei.html

    And, yes, it is better to give to the RC than not at all; but giving to the RC is not without its moral implications.

    And, it is totally moronic (sorry) to compare/compete miseries (I wish I could find the link to ST: Insurrection. Picard sums this up quite nicely actually)

    1. OK, if I look reeeally hard I can maybe kinda sorta understand being miffed that the RC doesn’t accept blood donations from gay men. It’d sure be nice if there was a super fast, cost-free mechanism to test for HIV, but until then graciously declining blood donations from the highest-risk groups (that’s right, they don’t single out gay men – they also don’t take blood donations if you’ve ever shared a needle to get high!) might just be the safest way to go, you know?

      Plus, they also don’t let Craig Ferguson or other folk of his horrible British ilk donate blood, the meanies. What’s a little mad cow disease amongst friends . . .

      And the Red Cross has a religious agenda? Seriously? I’ll let you take a moment to google the origin of their logo.

  15. @Anon #20. Written from the perspective of a husband whose wife and young son got shaken pretty badly yesterday north of Tokyo (they were okay 2 hours after the quake but I can’t reach them by mobile any longer), if you actually thought that up that “joke”, you’re a total f*ckwit. If you saw it elsewhere and copied it, just consider yourself a simple douchebag. Just sayin.

  18. bytefyre wrote: I don’t know about the American Red Cross but I doubt the Canadian Red Cross would be at this event: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=22052&tid=001 if they discriminated against gays.”

    The Canadian Red Cross also takes part in a number of annual Gay Pride parades, and they are not involved in blood collection which in Canada is done by a government-run agency. For Canadians texting “ASIA” to 30333 makes a $5 donation. Texting to the American number may never go anywhere since Canadian cell providers may not recognize it.

  19. FYI: the Red Cross doesn’t discriminate against gay men. That’s an FDA policy that they are required by adhere to. They have asked the FDA to change this policy a few times. I think they actually provide benefits to same-sex domestic partnerships for their employees. Don’t see how that’s discriminating.

  20. Kudos To All Boing-Boing Commenters: It is SO refreshing to see such generally civil, albeit sometimes emotional, discourse. It gives one hope for the future. (Check out the 2 “fuck japan” links at the top of boing-boing for an alternative point of view…)

    There is hope!

Comments are closed.