Short version: Tasmania rules.

For now, though, there are only two sights I want to share, both tsunami-related.  The first: the generosity of the Australian people.  Telethons, volunteers, private contributions... really impressive.  This was typical: in Hobart, Red Cross volunteers at the annual Taste of Tasmania festival made bins available to collect donations... and very shortly had to go get more bins, because there simply were too many donations to hold.

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It's surely good to learn that US federal aid has risen by a factor of ten.  Too bad it's still only about one dollar per citizen.  Truth is, as a percentage of GDP, American contributions, public and private combined, are still less than one-fifth of what Australia is giving, a quarter of Canada's aid, a tenth of Sweden's, and about a twentieth of what those darn Norwegians are chipping in.

Some might say (I've heard this several times, actually) that this is understandable: America is, after all, on the other side of the world from the tsunami-affected areas.

Hmm.  Right.  Because we all know that Scandanavia borders on Sri Lanka, and that Canada's not only closer to the southern hemisphere than the U.S., but just dripping with excess wealth to throw around.

Just saying.

I'd like to think (if just for vanity) that readers of this site have already chipped in considerably, and I'm only preaching to the converted at this point.  If so, swell.  Bear with me.  Here's the second thing:

Less than 24 hours ago I was in the Melbourne airport, killing time in a gift shop, chatting with a clerk... and there was a sharp, rhythmic, human sound coming from behind me sounding very much like laughter.  I didn't think much of it, but it got louder... and louder... so I turned around and glanced...

And it wasn't laughter.

It was a woman about my mother's age.  Crying.  The sort of full-body convulsive cry you make when there's more pain than you can even try to understand, and the sadness just seizes you entirely.  She wasn't covering her face or trying to negotiate with the pain or doing any of the little social niceties we all do when we're sad but still conscious of other people and able to be touched lightly by the graces of friendship and comfort.

This was a woman about my mother's age who had just arrived from one of the places you're reading about in the paper or seeing on TV.  And she was still being broken by the tragedy, right before my eyes.

Two solidly-built men about my age, whom I took to be her sons, were walking with her.  They were trying to be strong, but their own hands were shaking even as they reached around the woman's shoulders or took her by the hand.  Her loss, whatever it was, was theirs, too.  The larger man was crying almost as hard as she was, but silently, trying not to let his mother hear.

I watched the three of them walk away.  Someday I may think of something I could have said or done right then.  I didn't, and I haven't yet.

Ten feet away, another family was walking together slowly -- this time, in a little knot of five people exchanging flowers and kisses and hugs, all more tender and grateful and careful than the usual airport affections.  Someone here -- maybe everyone here -- had survived.

There was no real difference between these two families that I could see, other than random chance.

I'd suggest there's also no real difference between either of those familes and my own.  Or, maybe, yours.  If it all seems far away... I promise you, it's not.

I tell you all this because I'm giving more today to the relief efforts than I did the other day.  I don't know how much is enough.  Nothing is or can be.  I don't know what's appropriate.  But I'm giving more than I did.  I don't know if there is an appropriate, measured response to one of the greatest tragedies in human history.

I only know that right this minute, there are millions of people still in danger -- people who still need clean water and shelter and medical supplies and somebody's god only knows what else.  And giving more is all I really know how to do.

If you haven't given anything yet, maybe you'll want to.  If you have, maybe you'll want to give more.

So that's the second thing.

Bob Harris, currently on a working vacation with his partner Jane, is a regular writer for CoffeeCrew.Com and maintains a gripping BLOG called BobHarris.Com out of West Hollywood, California.