Those of us with the good fortune to know Ed Morrissey know he is one of those "genuinely good and great human beings" we hear so much about but so infrequently meet. He's the real deal. As is Mrs. Morrissey.

Here's what Ed wrote about Karina Relief blogging:

Regardless of where you decide to contribute, please join the blogosphere tomorrow in getting aid to our brothers and sisters in the disaster area.

UPDATE and BUMP: I'm bumping this to 9/1 to serve as my bleg post for CQ readers to donate what they can to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I want to add a few words to the above post first.

One of the proudest and, ironically, humbling moments as a blogger came at the beginning of the year, after the deadly tsunami killed almost a quarter of a million people throughout Asia. I asked CQ readers to step up and donate what they could to provide relief for the hundreds of thousands of survivors, who had to live through hell while trying to piece their lives and homes together again. I privately hoped to raise $5,000; together, the CQ community donated over $35,000.

This time, we have a different set of circumstances. Instead of our distant cousins of the Indian Ocean, we now watch as our American brothers and sisters suffer through the destruction of perhaps the best-loved hometown in America, New Orleans. The devastation will go on for years. The entire community has disappeared under water -- not just homes, but the businesses that employ the people who live there, the shops that fed and clothed them, the services that give Americans the high standard of living that we enjoy and take for granted.

They have nothing left. It goes beyond homelessness. It goes beyond unemployment. Our brothers and sisters have gone through the looking glass -- and as Americans, we need to step up to bring them back.

This can only be improved upon by Col. Austen Bay:

"There's no America out there except America to respond to it. We've got to do it ourselves."

And Winston Churchill:

"We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy."

Please dig deep and give. Then give again. Then give until you really feel it.

The day of blogging for Katrina relief has begun. Instapundit has many of the first posts onthe subject and will be the workhorse, as always. NZ Bear's list is still open, so please think about signing up. Please visit your favorite bloggers and keep the checkbooks nearby.

Tomorrow's program will be all bloggers all the time after we open with Mark Steyn if we can find him. (I wouldn't be surprised if Steyn was trying to boat his way into the French Quarter.) Mark is suggesting the Mercy Corps as a great place to make a donation.

UPDATE: Mark Daniels has the Lutheran options. HedgehogBlog has the LDS options.

I am pushing Canal Street Presbyterian Church in the heart of New Orleans.

And the Soldiers Angels fund directed specifically to the families of Gulf Coast area soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. And Coast Guard. What heroics we have seen from Coast Guard pilots and crew these past few days.

NZ Bear's list of participating bloggers grows and grows, and has now passed 400.

Thanks to research done by MarkDRoberts, one of the two charities I'll be urging contributions to will be the Canal Street Presbyterian Church, right smack in the center of the city. Roberts knows this church's pastor and his heart for the community. He and his session and congregation will be excellent stewards of gifts to the relief and rebuilding effort. Send checks to Canal Street Presbyterian Church, 4302 Canal St., New Orleans, LA 70119. When the phones are back on, you can call (504) 482-1135, and when the computers come back, e-mail them at contact@cspcno.org.

I will also be sending peopel to SoldiersAngels.com, which is organizing a special effort tohelp the families of Louisiana National Guard who are deployed in Iraq, as well as other soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and Coast Gurad who have seen their families affected by Katrina: Operation Katrina Soldiers Relief Fund. Talk about the greatly deserving of thanks and assisatnce. (HT: Blackfive.)

Professor Bainbridge cautions that Catholic parishes and individuals might want to move slowly to partner with specific parishes in the disaster area for fear of having their contributions attached by lawyers representing plaintiffs in the abuse cases.

I don't dismiss that risk, but surely it is easy enough for a parish to ask its people to send help via money or encouragement directly to an affected parish, or even to individual Catholic to Catholic, though income tax deductability will only apply if the donation is made to a 501(c)(3). But if parishoners in Spokane or any of the other dioceses facing the problem that Professor B. mentions send a check directly to St. Pius X or St. Anthony's parish in New Orleans, for example, that money won't get attached unless there's a judgment against the Diocese of New Orleans, and even if there is such a judgment, my guess is relief money would be spent long before the courts reopen.

I also received an e-mail questioning whether checks sent via snail mail to New Orleans churches will ever get delivered. To which I responded almost certainly yes. The mail will be back up and running soon after the streets are pumped, and probably ahead of most other services.

To both objections and others that seem to favor using the large organizations, I think it is important to keep in mind that it is sometimes too easy just to give money. To establish a relationship with an organization in the city of New Orleans, or Biloxi or Gulfport is a risky thing. The demand on the giver might extend beyond just the contribution. You might end up making a trip down to the region and helping with some rebuilidng. You might commit to finding a new set of choir robes, or serving some time on a work crew helping a particular congregant recover. Church to church, school to school, hospital to hospital partnership isn't the ordinary sort of response, but I suspect those relationships will endure a lot longer than the generous impulse that, while honorable, has been triggered by the images of devastation.

Speaking of St. Pius X parish in New Orleans, some of the family of the former Archbishop of New Orleans Philip Hannan are hoping to get a report on how he did through the storm. The Bishop was evidently at St. Pius X. Please e-mail me at hugh@hughhewitt.com if you have word on this.

UPDATE: At 2:45 Pacific, we heard from Amazon that the company has changed its mind. Some one must have gotten around to asking Jeff Bezos.

One of the most staggeringly insensitive and stupid corporate statements ever made, from Amazon.com, where I used to buy a whole bunch of stuff:

But mainstream Web sites that had jumped to pull in money for the tsunami victims showed no evidence of repeating it here in the U.S. for Katrina's. Amazon.com, which raised more than $14 million for the American Red Cross in January via a donation link on its home page, didn't have one as of mid-day Monday. Nor did Google, Yahoo, MSN, or eBay, all of which hustled earlier in the year to put up donation links on their portals. (Google slapped up an "Information about Hurricane Katrina" link on its Spartan home page, but that led to news sources and stories.)

An Amazon spokesperson said that the online retailer had no plans to post a donation link on its site. "Each case is different," she said. "The Red Cross has essentially given over its entire site to donations. The tsunami came out of the blue, so it was an 'all hands on deck' situation, but the Red Cross has been getting ready for this and getting its message out there for several days."

HT: Instapundit.

This will get a lot of my airtime today. To quote Glenn, let's hope Amazon's execs will "change their minds."

NZ Bear's communiy of Katrina Relief Bloggers participating in tomorrow's group effort has passed the 250 mark.

Terry Teachout has an amazing list of Katrina-related links. Bookmark it.

Pastor Sensing's blog is always a must read, and he's go great stuff today on the miliary's role in a disaster area. And a troubling picture of the USS Alabama.

From Cindy Sheehan's latest post:

Well, George and I are leaving Crawford today. George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego , so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his environmental policies and his killing policies have caused. Recovery would be easier and much quicker if almost ½ of the three states involved National Guard were not in Iraq. All of the National Guard's equipment is in Iraq also. Plus, with the 2 billion dollars a week that the private contractors are siphoning from our treasury, how are we going to pay for helping our own citizens in Louisiana , Mississippi, and Alabama? And, should I dare say "global warming?" and be branded as a "conspiracy theorist" on top of everything else the reich-wingers say about me.

(Emphasis added.)

When will MSM ask senior Democrats to respond to these specific allegations, using specific quotes?

"We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy." --Winston Churchill

The number of blogs that will be spending all or part of tomorrow urging readers to give to disaster relief is growing by leaps and bounds. N.Z. Bear's special page is up and running for sign ups. Instapundit has a great list of organizations if you don't want to search one out. Just a Woman captured an Austen Bay quote from yesterday's interview on the program which sums up the situation pretty well. HedgehogBlog has the info on LDS-related relief efforts.

Given e-mail responses to the idea of churches/parishes/synagogues around the country "adopting" a church/parish/synagogue in the devastated region, I will be asking my readers tomorrow to send a check to the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, 5401 S. Claiborne Ave. New Orleans, La. 70125.

The Church has burned to the ground and rebuilt in 1854, been blown to the ground by a hurricane in 1915, and rebuilt, and has a broad mission in the city. They'll know what to do with checks marked "for the relief of the needy and rebuilding of the community."

Longer term, I hope my own congregation finds a partner church with the idea of staying the rebuilding course with that church, offering much more personal care over the long haul, and that Catholic parishes from far off states do the same for Catholic parishes throughout the region, West LA synagogues for synagogues in the Gulf region hit by the storm, etc etc. The student body president of a Catholic high school wrote me last night to say that his school was hoping to partner with a Catholic high school they had identified but could not contact. From such connections long term commitments will spring.

While their loss isn't physical or financial, I do feel for the high school seniors whose special year has been smashed up in a blink, but whose loss is probably not even polite to mention as folks struggle for their lives and survey lost businesses and homes. It is hard to think about football seasons and championships, homecomings and cheerleading when the devastation is so great, but those smaller losses matter a great deal as well. Though it probably isn't high on anyone's list, I do hope someone is trying to figure out how to put some normalcy into these students lives asap.

Here's one of the church-related e-mails. It would be great if a Catholic parish or two (or three) from across the country thought about teaming up with St. Anthony's:

Hugh,
Ever since I discovered your show here in Houston on 1070AM, I have
enjoyed your wit, wisdom, and rational discourse.
I thank you for organizing some of the aid effort going into the
disaster area. I am from there, with family in New Orleans and
Mississippi deeply affected by the storm and its aftermath.
My brother in law is a priest at St. Anthony's Catholic Church in New
Orleans on Canal St. He stayed behind during the storm, offering shelter
to locals who could not flee. He was so happy on Monday afternoon. The
storm had passed, the Church had suffered only minimal damage. The power
was out, but his cell phone was working. He called very early this
morning with a far different story. The levee breaches had by then
started flooding his area of town, forcing him and a few dedicated souls
to start trying to save what they could by moving things up to the
second floor. I have heard nothing since then, because the cell phone
towers near him seem to have lost their power. The rebuilding, from what
I know of the area and what water damage can be like, is going to be a
national test. But it is a test I believe we will pass. New Orleans has
survived storms, crooked politics, the French, the Spanish, the
Confederacy, war, flood, disease and more. We must not let it go now. I
think your idea for Churches to adopt Churches in the affected region is
brilliant in its simplicity, and can make a huge difference.In New
Orleans, St. Anthony's would be a wonderful recipient of any charity. If
I may, I would also suggest adding one other town to your list of towns
in need: Pascagoula, Miss. It is a lovely little town and from what I
have been able to determine has suffered greatly. There is a wonderful
Presbyterian Church on Pascagoula St., First Presbyterian Church
http://frstpres.org/welcome2.html.They are deeply involved in the local
community and would be worthy stewards of any giving. I mention this
because Pascagoula is not one of the big resort or casino towns, but it
is a gracious, quiet little town and was really whacked hard by Katrina.
They can use all of the help we can get them.
Thanks again for your great words and good works.
Morning Glory and Evening Grace to you,
Ed Nelson

And if you are close by or want to organize a caravan of relief supplies, or can send a check, a mega church in Baton Rouge, Healing Place Church, is getting organized:

With hundreds of thousands of people displaced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Healing Place Church is transforming itself into a relief center to receive and distribute items and services and has already begun to give aid to the people of south Louisiana.

Healing Place Church, in alliance with hundreds of national ministries and organizations including John Maxwell, Joyce Meyer Ministries, and Operation Blessing, is encouraging everyone to join together to help meet the needs of the millions of people whose lives have been devastated by this destructive storm.

The following list of items will be crucial in our efforts to meet the needs of people who will be without homes and income for weeks, possibly months.

Items Needed:
Bottled Water
Clothing
Pillows and Blankets
Diapers
Hygiene Items (deodorant/toothpaste/toothbrushes/etc)
Hand Sanitizer
Toilet Paper
Non-perishable food items
Wheel chairs

If you would like to donate money to help with the effort, you can do so at www.healingplacechurch.org or by calling 225-753-2273. We are asking all who can to support the efforts by bringing any of these items to:

Healing Place Church
19202 Highland Rd.
Baton Rouge, LA 70809

For more information, please contact Healing Place Church at 225-753-CARE (2273) or www.healingplacechurch.org .

Media Contact: Emily Morrow 225-806-5581

Burke's "little platoons" are assembling.

At the time of the Los Angeles riots, I wrote a piece for the May 3, 1992 Los Angeles Times titled "When Television Throws a Riot." It isn't available in the online archives, but the thrust of it was that televsion coverage can and does communicate invitations to lawlessness which are acted on by people who realize that there is no threat of police arriving and arrest.

This same dynamic seems to be taking over in New Orleans right now, and even though very few folks are watching television with the power out, news still travels instantly, and television producers have got to discipline themselves to refuse to broadcast pictures of and locations of looting, especially in the areas outside of New Orleans. The government cannot enforce such a ban, but it is very much in the interest of the people in the devastated region these media outlets purport to serve to downplay civil unrest. The national shows also need to avoid throwing fuel on the fire. If you want more civil unrest, broadcast pictures of civil unrest and the cell phones and blackberries will do the rest.

I am also concerned that Senator Vitter is correct that media reports are adding to an overall sense of panic in New Orleans. Time for the media folks who have been up for 36 or 48 hours to go home and take a shift off, and let cooler, fresher heads make the news calls.

Similarly, moderators at bulletin boards have to be careful to avoid allowing fear mongers to post junk without any sources whatsoever. There's enough dire news as it is. Rumors only add to the worry and fear of families that are out of communication.

I would appreciate any pointers to (1)coast guard bloggers, (2)civil engineering blogs that are discussing the levee breaks, and (3)word on whether the elevators in the many high rises in downtown New Orleans have been checked for trapped people.

I expect that the outpouring of generosity by Americans on behalf of Americans will surprise us all. See Insatpundit for a list of organizations, and N.Z. Bear for a list of bloggers participating in Thursday's Blogs-across-America relief effort.

Bravo to You Big Mouth You for highlighting corporate generosity.

My e-mail is hugh@hughhewitt.com.

Time for the SEALs to accompany the Navy's relief ships into New Orleans:

Children's Hospital under seige

Tuesday, 11:45 p.m.

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.

Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond.

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A beautiful bit of writing from Times Picayune staffer James Varney:

A 20th century symbol, William Faulkner, was first published in The Times-Picayune while he was living in the city and writing his first novel. He called the city, "a courtesan whose hold is strong upon the mature, and to whose charm the young must respond." Now, in the 21st century, the courtesan cries for help. The response from young and old will decide if she lives or dies.

One idea I think should follow the general relief efforts of the next few days. Churches are always excellent conduits to the communities they serve, and can be trusted to be judicious yet generous with the aid they are provided. I will be recommending to my Presbyterian Church session that we offer to "adopt" a sister congregation like, say, The First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, and send aid via that church.

Here's a list of links to churches in New Orleans.

Here'sa list of links to churches in Biloxi.

Here's a link to find churches in Gulfport.

Joshua Sharf has compiled a list of Jewish organizations in the area that can use help.

Institution-to-institution relief will be the long term solution once the short term humanitarian crisis passes.

And, as one New Orleans resident siad to me on air, plan on spending your spring break in the Big Easy which will be ready to charm and entertain again by then. Another fine idea.

Glenn Reynolds is keeping a list of great relief organizations.

CNN's Jack Cafferty blasted George Bush for being on vacation when Katrina hit, and ofr speaking to the troops in San Diego today. Cafferty displays a profound ignorance of how presidents respond to disasters, and failed to note the pre-disaster mobilization that Bush put into effect. The irony of a studio reporter in New York or DC blasting a president for not doing his job is pretty thick, but par for the course for the agenda journalists at CNN. Good thing the left doesn't want to politicize the loss of life and property.

Radioblogger will post the audio of Cafferty for your listening pleasure.

Growing Chocolate has a link to the U.S. passport office, which has a processing office in New Orleans if you are wondering what happened to your passport app.

UPDATE: The Anchoress is full of links. As is Michelle Malkin (who has the latest on the breakdown of civil order stories.

N.Z. Bear is organizing a special page for bloggers participating in the 9/1 coordinated blog for relief.

Please e-mail him (and Glenn) if you are going to blog for relief on 9/1.

Here's the "Breaking News" link to the Times Picayune.

Channel 4, WWWL, has a great udate feature as well.

Glenn's on board and Thursday sounds great.

Architects Without Borders looks like an organization that could provide crucial services in the region, though it hasn't announced any initiative in the area.

Please send suggestions on groups that will be in the region beyond the immediate relief effort.