Devastation and Hope in Myanmar
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/05/19/art.myanmarsmile.jpg caption="Victims of Cyclone Nargis smile as they receive donated goods from a local donor at a monastery outside the capital of Yangon, Myanmar on Monday May 19, 2008."]
Editor's note: Save the Children is the leading independent organization creating lasting change for children in need in the United States and around the world. Scott McGill works for the organization and is currently helping with aid for the victims of Myanmar. He shares his experiences here:
Scott McGill
SavetheChildren.org
Asia Regional HIV/AIDS Adviser
Working in a disaster, you need to recalibrate your expectations and loosen up your locus of control — and do it fast if you are to healthily adapt to existing within certain limitations, including handling quite a few "no's". But these past few days it has been much harder.
Managing the frustration of dealing with obstacles, tolerating the helplessness, telling yourself you are doing as much as you can while being painfully aware that there is so much more to be done. I see it in the faces of my colleagues every day. When I told some of them what my blog would be about this evening, they nodded in understanding and with similar tired but encouraging smiles.
Then as I sat down to write, I felt that it was much more pressing for me to talk about the people here facing even greater obstacles and challenge and somehow ingeniously rising above them. For absolutely certain, this catastrophe is a very tall order in resilience and recovery. Cyclone Nargis has eviscerated a densely populated part of the country and left barely told horror, vast swathes of misery and a depressingly long trajectory for recovery, which we are all in the development and aid community are only just beginning to come to grips with.
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Filed under: Aid to Myanmar • Aid workers • Cyclone • Myanmar |
Morning Buzz
Good morning folks...
It is the eve of what could be Hillary’s last stand…it looks like she will win Kentucky handily, but can she pull off an upset in Oregon? The odds are against her…but NEVER count her out. She may lose the battle in Oregon, but the war in her eyes is s far from over…Candy Crowley will be in Lexington, Kentucky with Hillary Clinton, who is spending the entire day in Kentucky...Suzanne Malveaux will be covering Barack Obama who has moved beyond Kentucky and Oregon and will spend the day in Montana. John King will be in the studio at his smart board, bringing us up to speed on the votes, the delegates, the superdelegates and what the outcomes in Oregon and Kentucky will mean. Anderson will be joined tonight by Former Presidential adviser David Gergen, TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin, Republican strategist Ed Rollins and the rest 0f the Best Political Team on TV....
Gary Tuchman will be reporting from Kentucky's Poorest County. The poorest county east of the Mississippi River is in Kentucky. What are the people of Clay County looking for in a President? As they go the polls on Tuesday in their state's primary, do they have faith that there is a candidate who can make their lives better?
Politics seems to be dominating the newspaper headlines this am.... The Washington Post asks: Can Hillary Clinton notch a second colossal blowout in eight days against Barack Obama? Introducing the New York senator recently in Kentucky, Clinton's state chairman Jerry Lundergan – also the former Kentucky Democratic Party chairman – called for a victory that was "bigger than West Virginia."
The NY Times looks at Oregon: Oregon is well known for the sharp divide between its more liberal and populated west and its rural east. That tension has often made statewide races close. Yet while the farmers who once dominated this part of Oregon still own much of the land, they no longer own most of the vote. Urbanites arrived long ago, promoting preservation of all this beauty, but bringing change, too. Michael Dukakis won Hood River County in 1988 by 18 votes out of 6,968 ballots cast, and Democrats have been gaiing ground ever since.
AND the Wall Street Journal looks at the endgame: With the finish line of this historic Democratic primary race clearly in view, Barack Obama is hoping a strong showing in Oregon's Tuesday primary will finally slam the door on Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidential nomination.
Today is also the first day the more than 400 FLDS kids will appear in court in San Angelo, Texas. Can the state lay out enought evidence to keep them ALL in foster care? David Mattingly reports LIVE from south Texas...
ALL for now...but it is still early so who knows other news the day will bring...
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Filed under: The Buzz |
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