{"id":194,"date":"2009-09-30T10:38:49","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T10:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html"},"modified":"2009-09-30T10:38:49","modified_gmt":"2009-09-30T10:38:49","slug":"earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html","title":{"rendered":"Earthquake, Tsunami Strike American Samoa: Will You Reach Out A Hand To Aid Those Suffering This Faraway Disaster?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

It’s being reported upwardsof a hundred lives may have been lost<\/a> in Samoa and American Samoa, tiny South Pacific islands far, far away from most of us (assuming you’re a continental American reading this). Closer to home, floods inGeorgia<\/a> recently destroyed parts of 17 counties and cost 5 lives. Which disaster caused a greater pang in your heart?<\/span><\/p>\n

Is it harder to care about people suffering at a distance?Does your conscience tell you “I only need to worry about my own family,” or “myown community” or “my own country”? (American Samoa has hosted a U.S. Navalbase since 1899, by the way, and I think it’s been considered a U.S. territorythat long, but please don’t quote me.) Also, at the risk of sounding like I’m taking an anthropological study here, I’ll ask this as well: <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Considering the awful recession affecting most of us today, do you help when times are lean, or only when you’re flush?<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s the moral obligation to our fellows around the world when disaster strikes?<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Here are links to the Red Cross<\/a>, Mercycorps<\/a>, and other disaster relief organizations<\/a>.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

And here’s what the aftermath of the storm looks like in the town of Leone.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s being reported upwardsof a hundred lives may have been lost in Samoa and American Samoa, tiny South Pacific islands far, far away from most of us (assuming you’re a continental American reading this). Closer to home, floods inGeorgia recently destroyed parts of 17 counties and cost 5 lives. Which disaster caused a greater pang…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,44,8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-hillary-fields","category-global-responsibility","category-human-ethics","category-social-ethics"],"yoast_head":"\nEarthquake, Tsunami Strike American Samoa: Will You Reach Out A Hand To Aid Those Suffering This Faraway Disaster? - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Earthquake, Tsunami Strike American Samoa: Will You Reach Out A Hand To Aid Those Suffering This Faraway Disaster? - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s being reported upwardsof a hundred lives may have been lost in Samoa and American Samoa, tiny South Pacific islands far, far away from most of us (assuming you’re a continental American reading this). Closer to home, floods inGeorgia recently destroyed parts of 17 counties and cost 5 lives. Which disaster caused a greater pang…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-30T10:38:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hfields\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Earthquake, Tsunami Strike American Samoa: Will You Reach Out A Hand To Aid Those Suffering This Faraway Disaster? - Everyday Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Earthquake, Tsunami Strike American Samoa: Will You Reach Out A Hand To Aid Those Suffering This Faraway Disaster? - Everyday Ethics","og_description":"It’s being reported upwardsof a hundred lives may have been lost in Samoa and American Samoa, tiny South Pacific islands far, far away from most of us (assuming you’re a continental American reading this). Closer to home, floods inGeorgia recently destroyed parts of 17 counties and cost 5 lives. Which disaster caused a greater pang…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html","og_site_name":"Everyday Ethics","article_published_time":"2009-09-30T10:38:49+00:00","author":"hfields","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html","name":"Earthquake, Tsunami Strike American Samoa: Will You Reach Out A Hand To Aid Those Suffering This Faraway Disaster? - Everyday Ethics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-30T10:38:49+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-30T10:38:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/earthquake-tsunami-strike-american-samoa-will-you-reach-out-a-hand-to-aid-those-suffering-this-faraw.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Earthquake, Tsunami Strike American Samoa: Will You Reach Out A Hand To Aid Those Suffering This Faraway Disaster?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/","name":"Everyday Ethics","description":"Moral Ethics Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f","name":"hfields","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","caption":"hfields"},"description":"Hillary Fields is a born-and-bred New Yorker, brought up on the not-so-mean streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side. She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}