sue nahmi

the havoc wreaked by that crazy tsunami seems to have touched an unyielding collective nerve. canadians have doled out up to $150 million already.

that's the total before tonight’s canada for asia special on the cbc, a tele-cornucopia of northern celebs - one big mega version of tears are not enough. this endless lineup of tele-thonners reeks of that truly canadian cologne of humility and reverence. and just like that 1985 bryan adams led fundraising exercise for africa, tonight’s is an austere display of canuck talent: no frills, just a good, clean, earnest attempt to raise money. sure, it’s a hodge podge of mismatched talent (sam roberts (yum) followed keshia chante who followed margaret atwood who followed murray mclaughlin who followed rick mercer who followed gord downey who followed paul martin who followed dahmnait doyle, and so on). yet the whole thing is utterly void of pretense. musical performances are being interspersed with weepy words from the likes of astronaut julie payette and cynthia dale, a woman who’s only famous for having once been sorta famous. i just watched rush perform the classic closer to the heart with barenaked's ed and the unremarkable bubbles, the oddest-looking of those trailer park boys. it's a beautiful outpouring of solidarity by our wee modest entertainment industry. i'm fucking moved.

ok, so what am i trying to say here. hmm... well, aid organizations are experiencing contribution levels never before seen, despite the fact that as critical relief and rebuilding efforts are being carried out in locations all over the planet, and have been for a long fucking time. more lives have been lost in darfur, sudan, than in the tsunami attack. some say this kind of generosity is a natural response to a natural disaster, that carnage and devastation resulting from civil (or uncivil) wars is too political to attract this level of compassion from the global audience. maybe. but decades of suffering have been caused by wave after wave of tsunamis of our own doing - it seems to me that the tragedies left in the wake of those too-political disasters warrant the more special reaction from the world. shouldn't it be easier to write a cheque when the finger of blame has a clear target? after all, the world is entirely capable of adjusting itself so as to prevent so many unnatural tsunamis from sweeping so many innocents off to their death. our death.

but we'll never fucking see 200 canadian stars assemble to televise canada for peace, or canada for a stronger UN, or canada for global equality.