Well, TexMex here. And here is where I promote ShelterBox International and our USA effort in ShelterBox USA.
http://www.shelterboxusa.org/
I won't report anything about the Japanese earthquake as other will do that better than me.
But I am writing this diary as a reminder that in our darkest times there are those who step up. There are people like your local fireman, who run in as people are running out.
ShelterBox is just such an organization. Let's support them in the coming days as we discover the devastation and the tragedy unfolds.
ShelterBox news over the fold.
I write this so I can tweet it and you can spread it around. Everyday people doing extraordinary things as we support them financially. Money matters.
Reposting the details directly from their website. Why not just post a link on open thread?
Because the Daily Kos ShelterBox supporters need a place to post their comments, concerns and ........ DONATIONS in the comments.
Do it for yourself, do it for your health.
A ShelterBox Response Team (SRT) is mobilising after a massive earthquake struck Japan earlier today. The earthquake, measuring 8.9 in magnitude, triggered a tsunami that’s caused extensive damage.
The latest reports coming out of Japan have shown cars, ships and buildings being swept away with waves of up to 10 meters high slamming into the coast. Areas across the Pacific Basin have been put on tsunami alert including Russia, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Hawaii.
SRT members Lasse Petersen (AU), Mark Pearson (UK) and John Diksa (FR) are ready to head to Japan and begin ShelterBox’s international response.
‘The scenes we’re seeing are catastrophic,’ said Lasse. ‘Whole homes are being washed away and our thoughts go out to all the families who are facing this disaster. The epicentre was in Japan so our first team are mobilising to head there but we continue to watch very closely the path of the tsunami. We’re very aware the worst may not be over.’
According to U.S. Geological Survey the earthquake was magnitude 8.9 at a depth of 20 miles with the epicentre 250 miles away from Japan’s capital Tokyo.
The tsunami warning was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and they say the wave could even reach as far as Chile.
Tom Henderson, ShelterBox Founder and CEO, added: ‘At present the scale of the disaster is difficult to measure. What we do know is that the combination of such a large earthquake followed by the tsunami has the potential to cause significant damage across the Pacific Rim.
‘We have aid pre-positioned locally and a member of the ShelterBox Response Team stationed in the Philippines enabling an immediate response.’
a post from my facebook friend Steve brought my attention to this bit of information. It makes sense to me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
And research at the University of California at Berkeley, led by Dacher Keltner, has found that people who are most compassionate tend to have high vagal tone. And the contrary is also true. People with the highest vagal tone seem to be very compassionate.
If this is anything to go by, it would mean that practicing compassion can slow inflammation by increasing the fitness of the vagus nerve and, by extension, it might even mean that compassion could slow the aging process.
The anti-inflammatory properties of compassion have now begun to be studied. In a 2009 study, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine, trained 33 people in a Tibetan Buddhist compassion meditation, which involved the structured generation of feelings of compassion, and compared them with a group of 28 people who didn't do the meditation. After six weeks those who did the most compassion meditation had much lower levels of inflammation than those who did the least or none at all. And if the theory that inflammation is related to aging is correct, then this research certainly tells us that compassion could slow the aging process.
Ha, who knew being good is good for you!