Re-post (with alterations for clarity) from my vaping blog, Vapor Muse. I apologize for the extended absence. I have been considering my role here. But today I have something important to say.
(ed. note: if you follow the link to Cassie's blog, you can see a video of her talking about helping out)
It is easy, when tragedy strikes far away, to simply say, "poor them" and go about your day.
It is easy to not feel for others, when they are not standing right in front of you.
So please allow me to put this in front of you.
Please look at these images from Japan, and tell me you feel nothing.
This is the state of Japan. Look. (No gore or anything - just absolute destruction.)
Tell me these pictures don't reek of death and suffering.
There is precious little any of us can do. The earth will do what it wants, and whatever man-made structures we have that try to get in its way, like nuclear power plants, are laughable in the face of what a tectonic plate is capable of.
Staring at these images, it is easy for me to feel utterly powerless, and overwhelmed by the magnitude of all the suffering that is happening on this small but ingenious island nation, which I have never even been to.
It is easy to forget I am one of many. And while I may be powerless on my own, one very small dot on this rattling blue globe, there are billions of others.
I am small, and I am not a millionaire, and I am sitting here on a Wednesday morning ready to pull my hair out at the futility of it all.
The only thing I do have, is a little bit of spare change, and a megaphone.
My megaphone is not very big - I am still very much anonymous in the grand scheme of things - but I do have one. In the alternate reality of the internet, I have my little tiny megaphone clutched to my chest like a mouse with a grain of cheese, and today I have a reason to use my megaphone.
If you have spare change, if you have a megaphone, if you have an apple pie or a door nail or anything at all you can lend to help these people who have been struck by a cascading onslaught of disaster, please, please, please, find it in your heart to give it.
This is all I can do. I feel very small, and very useless. But if you will do something small and useless with me, together we can make it mean something. Even if we just save one person stranded on their roof. Feed one child. Save one old man who misses his wife from dying of a treatable wound before he gets to see her again.
So let's get together, and do something useless.
Please post the link with pictures above, and the links below, anywhere you can. I know some of you have a bigger megaphone than me; use it.
Donate through the Red Cross; $10 minimum.
Choose your fund through Global Giving.
Or, there is one more way to help out. I normally try not to talk about my work here, but I will make an acception. Thank you David, for letting me run with my bleeding heart idea.
For those of you who don't know, I work for a company that sells electronic cigarette liquid and supplies. It's called "vaping." Yeah, really. So if you're one of the few people on my friend's list who vapes, or if you smoke and want to try an alternative to smoking, this is for you.
FreedomSmokeUSA will be running a 20% of sale on all pre-mixed juices. And a further 10% of that money will go to the Red Cross relief efforts in Japan. We will post the total raised.
The code for 20% off juice is "helpjapan" which will go until Saturday at noon. Whatever you help us raise, we will match it, penny for penny. Our goal is to raise $500, and send $1,000.
Please help us make a difference. We are all very small on our own, but we can be greater than the sum of our parts.
Ok, I'll get down off my soap box now. Have a good day, and try to help each other.
Love, Cassie .
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