I will be thinking of you during your long night. I've watched the reports, and frankly, it looks horribly frightening. But what can we do to help from the other side of the planet?

I guess Queensland bothers me because I've been there. I have a best friend living there. I want to go back there. The place resonates with me (as did Victoria). So to me, it's not just *somewhere* a long way away.

Having said that, the people that lost their lives in the Oz floods were not even 10% of those who died in the Brazilian floods. But for some reason, they did not get the worldwide care or coverage. Is it because they were mostly non-white and dirt poor? I suppose you can't lose much if you had fuck-all to start with. But even a corrugated iron shanty hut is a home.  People in poorer nations do seem to accept the shitty end of the stick with a certain weary resignation - be it fire, famine, flood, pestilence or an outrageously despotic leader or brutal government minions. Money talks. And that SUCKS.