Posted on: Tuesday, September 18, 2001

Editorial
'What can I do to help?' The answers are many

Surely everyone who has watched the events of the past tragic week unfold has asked himself or herself this question: "What can I do?"

For those of us a continent and an ocean away, the sense of futility is perhaps emphasized by distance. But the same question haunts almost everyone.

Few can make it to New York or Washington to help firsthand. And indeed, authorities there say that for the moment they have all the volunteers they need, all the help they can handle.

So we do what we can.

We donate blood, in record numbers and in record amounts. We are at a point where the blood is no longer critically needed on the East Coast. But it is always needed somewhere. And every pint donated is, in effect, a small memorial to those who were killed and injured last week.

We display flags and we wear our patriotism on our sleeves. Not in a jingoistic, "America-love-it-or-leave-it" spirit, but in a true spirit of national unity and resolve.

We reach out to our Muslim and Arab neighbors and friends to tell them we appreciate their pain and understand their uncertainty or even fear. We tell them and we remind ourselves that our anger today is focused not at them or the religion many might follow, but rather at the deranged people who believe that terror will accomplish their aims.

And we give money. Enormous amounts of it, in the form of donations to the Red Cross, to various relief funds and to the support agencies that have suddenly become so important.

The giving is not over, nor should it be, for a long time to come. There are many ways to continue. Consider, perhaps, that the next birthday, anniversary, wedding or other gift-giving opportunity. Wouldn't the celebrants be pleased if instead of a gift a check in their name was made out to those now so desperately in need?

Or what about those tax refund checks that we have all received (or soon will receive). One impulse might be to simply send it back to Uncle Sam with instructions to spend it wisely.

But why not create a modern, Sept. 11, 2001, war bonds program, similar to the war bonds we issued during World War II? Convert that tax refund check to a bond for peace, loan it to your government with repayment to come once peace has been restored.

There is much more, of course. The point is that at this bleak moment, we can do far, far more than simply curse the darkness.