I heard about the tsunami (which was 8.9 on the Richter scale) that affected South Asia. Pretty bad, eh?

Pretty bad, yes. The UN has described it as the 'worst humanitarian disaster of the decade.'

maybe too soon for some folks...but i'm sick...so i thought it was worthy of fives..

Thanx, Alvin. It's actually supposed to be sincere, not sick. After watching too much news about the disaster last night - including the appeals for help - I woke up at 4 AM with this going through my head. I thought I'd better get to the computer and try to prick a conscience or two.

By the way, the link in the postscript didn't work. It's supposed to point to the Red Cross's donation form:
https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp
If that doesn't work, this should: http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html

A parody used as a tool for good works...well done. 555

Thank you for adding the Red Cross link at the end.

The death toll at this posting is 55,000. That is about equal to the entire American loss in Vietnam. It is about 18 times the toll of 9/11/01. A huge portion (some say more than half) were children, and many children who survived lost their parents. And the count keeps rising. This is a profound work, Monkeys. Thanks for posting it.

Oops, I forgot to tell you that you did a great job on this! Sorry about that...

Thanx, Kristof, Ash, and Pooch.

I would urge everyone not to sit back and think, oh, my government will take care of funding the recovery efforts. Because that's just not enough. The US gov, for example, has pledged $35 million to date. That is great - I sure wish I could contribute $35 mil - but it is only a small fraction of what is needed.

$35 mil equates to less than 12 cents for every American. If you personally are good for more than 12 cents towards one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our lifetimes, now's your chance to demonstrate that. I put Red Cross links in my previous comment because you can't go wrong with Red Cross contributions, but there are numerous other reliable charities out there. Choose one and make a difference.

At last check, there were 112,000 reasons to vote fives on this. And the worst, the survivors struck by disease, may be yet to come.

Thanx, MP.
It's too late to do anything for the dead, but there are still countless survivors who will NOT be added to the death toll if they can get clean water and meds. That's a big IF, and it all depends on $$$. This is one of those situations where there is a direct correlation between money contributed and lives saved.

Very well done.

Thanx, Mel.

Wow! Just as I was getting ready to rip into A Room Full Of Monkeys for writing a humorous parody song about the tsunami, I read it. All 5s. Perhaps they should change the "How Funny" scale to "How Funny/Clever/Insightful" for parody songs just such as this one.

Jeff: Thank you two years ago.

LOL loved it, 5s