Yam-Seal

My mom thinks this yam looks like a seal, and excitedly showed us. Now it sits on the kitchen counter as an ornament and proudly surveys all that is cooking.

NPR, "All Things Considered" @ Sichuan Earthquake, updated

The NPR Radio News crew, "All Things Considered" (with familiar names like Robert Siegel, Melissa Block, Andrea Hsu, etc.) were already at Chengdu (near the epicenter) producing a series for next week about the lives of everyday life in mainland China when the 7.9 Richter Earthquake hit. For a first account of the earthquake, check out their Chengdu blog page. Includes an interview interrupt by the earthquake. By looking at earlier entries in the blog, it looked like a very good series that will be pre-empted by disaster.

NPR Chengdu Blog

Update May/16/2008: A heartbreaking story filed by Melissa Block, the audio is even more heartbreaking.

Where to Donate, see network for good for the latest update.

• AmeriCares
• Direct Relief International
• Doctors Without Borders
• International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent
• Save the Children
• UNICEF
• New charities involved in China, 5/16/2008 (not a comprehensive list, for that, see here and here)
  
• Tzu Chi
  
• International Orthodox Christian Charities
• World Vision
• U.S. Fund for UNICEF
• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

It looks like from New York Times that China is allowing certain foreign relief teams to directly participate in relief operations. The article mentions Tzu Chi, certain Russian, South Korean, and Japanese teams. I'm personally familar with Tzu Chi's volunteer work here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and relief work overseas. Its Taiwanese manufacturing/business/organizational energy transformed to compassionate relief work is pretty impressive (these guys make fleece blankets out of recycled plastic bottles). Good luck to all volunteers of all NGOs out there!

A battle of wits between Man and Crow in Japan

Crows can be pretty be smart. Japan is currently wrestling with an burgeoning crow population, who have been increasingly causing blackouts by shorting out transmission wires with their nests.

Still, the crows have proven clever at foiling human efforts to control them. In Kagoshima, they are even trying to outsmart the Crow Patrol. The birds have begun building dummy nests as decoys to draw patrol members away from their real nests.

.... “Japanese react to crows because we fear them,” said Michio Matsuda, a board member of the Wild Bird Society of Japan and author of books on crows. “We are not sure sometimes who is smarter, us or the crows.”

Unfortunately, because of their inability to control the population, cities have been turning to lethal means of control.

source

Hundreds of thousands need help in Burma

Reports are now trickling in about the degree of devastation in Burma caused by a Super Cyclone, Nargis.

With more than 40,000 still missing and as many as 1 million possibly left homeless, the international community was struggling to deliver aid in the military-ruled country, which normally seeks to shut out foreign officials and restricts their access inside the country.

If you want to help, you can donate to World Vision here to provide family survival kits.

Update (May 7, 08):
Other Aid organizations working in Burma (source nytimes.com)

• Americares
  
• American Jewish World Service
• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
• CARE
• Catholic Relief Services
• International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent
• International Orthodox Christian Charities
• Save The Children
• U.N. High Commission for Refugees (US site)
• U.S. Fund for UNICEF
• World Food Program
• World Vision