I saw that Afghanistan gave $100,000 for hurricane relief. This is sort of why I'm kind of disturbed by the acceptance of foreign aid for Katrina. I know it's kind of small to reject such aid on nationalist grounds - it would put us in the same inferiority-complex category of overproud India, who rejected tsunami aid last December - but it's still kind of futile to take a couple hundred thousand from a country which we're supporting to the tune of a billion or so.

I can't help but wish that the ambassador would just drop the money back into the Afghan development general fund when the cameras and Afghanis leave, kind of like when my great-aunt insisted on pressing a twenty on me for doing something minor around the house, and I tried to sneak it back into her purse when she wasn't watching. I suck at subterfuge - she caught me doing it. I got a pretty good talking-to, and she watched me like a hawk until I left the house to make sure I didn't sneak it into a bowl or something on the way out.