GTA IV vs. Myanmar
According to the Associated Press Grand Theft Auto IV has sales in excess of 500 x 10^6 dollars in the first week. Impressive to be sure, and from what I hear, it’s pretty cool. I’m interested to see how personal aid donations for Myanmar will stack up, if at all - this will likely be a long term comparison though since aid workers are apparently being denied visas by the bright folks in Myanmar immigration and it may take some time to gather steam. Tally as of May 7th GTA IV - 500 million Myanmar aid - Canada has pledged 2 million dollars (side note: apparently Stephen Harper’s diggs at 24 Sussex are in need of roughly 10 million dollars in renovations). You can donate at the Red Cross by going here.
7 May 2008 at 10:29 am
Thanks for the link - the donation is made. Hopefully the junta doesn’t put up too many barriers to aid.
Side note: interesting to read up on “Burma” versus “Myanmar” naming here.
7 May 2008 at 11:37 am
I’ll donate you buddy. I gave them some $ too, but then I felt guilty for not donating to the poor easterners who are getting their flood on. Then I realized they’re Canadians and they’re not going to starve to death surrounded by the rotten corpses of animals and people. Not feeling guilty anymore.
7 May 2008 at 12:52 pm
I’ve been reading quite a bit of news (read: something vs. my usual nothing) in regards to this latest natural catastrophe. The fact that I’ve visited this military state has obviously peaked my interest in regards to the whole affair.
Calling the first aid-related article that I read underwhelming would be akin to labeling a hobbit short or the Canucks underachieving. The US donated less than a million (I believe this has since been boosted) and many European nations including those cheese-eating surrender monkeys had yet to make any kind of contribution. My initial thought was to compare aid from Katrina or The Tsunami to aid the aid for provided for the swath of destruction that Nagris carved in Myanmar (the locals paradoxically prefer Burma despite it’s colonial connotations) but I got lazy.
Now, I do understand the apprehension with handing over free money to a government with a human rights record approaching Tiger Woods’ aggregate lifetime golf score. There is no doubt in my mind that most of the funds provided would be misappropriated as I’m sure the government would simply be content to cordon off the affected parts of the country and leave them for dead were it not for a controversial oil pipeline extending from the southern part of the country. Appointing an external committee or agency to appropriate funds definitely wouldn’t fly either given the junta’s xenophobia. So the Golden land is stuck in a pretty gloomy situation to say the least.
Having had the privilege of navigating the infrastructure (or lack thereof) in this country I can safely say that it pales in comparison to that of Thailand translating into an epic recovery that will set this country back even further in time (it’s currently barely approaching Woodstock). This owing to the monumental task of rebuilding driven by the fact that, by the sounds of it, many more thousands of buildings have been damaged/destroyed/whisked away to Oz versus Katrina (though the number is likely inflated as corrugated aluminum precariously balanced on milk crates technically constitutes a building in this country).
But I digress….we can expect the GTA IV sales to remain safely higher than aid (at least in the short term) because for the most part people can’t even spell Myanmar let alone want to donate to it’s rebuilding…maybe I’m just being pessimistic…now I’m going to go return my new Fluevog’s so I can donate to the Red Cross….
7 May 2008 at 3:59 pm
Just dropped my dad off at the airport. He was saying he’d heard that the cyclone was actually having a crazy impact on the price of lentils. Only thing I’ve been able to find online so far is here.
Does this mean that the cyclone will actually result in increased profits for some prairie farmers?