The kids have been fed breakfast, the younger is now regailing the Playstation 2 Eye Toy and the elder is furiously instant messenging with her school friends, I'm not sure I like her handle of "I'm small but I kick ass".
A very simple question you raise about the aid efforts for victims of a natural disaster before we aid victims of a man-made disaster. When I read your question my thought processes went something like this ...
1. This phenomenon may be due to media coverage
2. Ah, but why does "sensationalist" media coverage of such events sell newspapers?
3. We humans want to hear about such things
4. Why?
5. Maybe it's the same reason we like to see blockbuster movies with special effects
6. Why do we like to watch blockbuster movies?
7. Entertainment
8. Tsunami (an act of God) might somehow be a perverse kind of entertainment and political acts of man (genocide) are not. Perhaps because such acts of man remind us of what awful potential we have? (And therefore we'd rather not think about those?)
I'm reminded of the time that Princess Diana died, back in 1997 the UK was in the grip of some sort of mass hysteria. We humans just love to have a big drama don't we?
The other cause of such united outpouring of emotion could of course be that somehow during times of great global stress, the "souls" of people connect and collectively mourn. Maybe there is something deeper going on perhaps?
Regardless, a tradgedy that claims 300,000 lives is something we lucky folks in the west should do all we can to relieve.
What's your theory?
PS. I hope your cold is not the flu and is getting better
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