alright..first off...I read the wonderful little forum thread started to give links for donations and relief...and I am ashamed and pissed at some of you..to turn it into the same kin dof pointless blame game and pass the buck bullshit the local and federal governments have been doing since this disaster hit the gulf coasts makes Me want to just close out and say fuck it if I idnt love deviant art and the joy of working on My artwork so damn much...as some of you know or may not know..I am fron new orleans...I live/lived there as do My parents..and many people I care for...the extent of the damage is beyond what I hope many of you will ever have to endure....I pray that no one will ever have to sit back and watch the place they grew up..the people they know...love and care for..drown..suffer and float away like so much garbage...it is a kind of emotional rape that just doesn't go away....mainly because there is nothing and no one to vent the anger and helplessness you you feel on...you can only carry it with you...one of My closest friends..her father waited on a rooftop for days to be evacuated to an interstate and know that everything he worked for..built up for his family was gone..she manage to escape with her 3 yr old and 1 month old..barely...My husband and My youngest son and I evacuated the night before the storm hit...as of yet we are uncertain of the fully extent of damage to our home..we are not allowed back to the place My son was brought home to..the home he was growing up in...our memories gone..possibly everything we had...and FEMA is bouncing like a childs rubber ball back and forth providing about as much aid as a corner store cashier at solving complex differentials...My parents may have lost everything...friends in Mississippi lost everything....it is only through the kindness and understanding of a friend in missouri that we were able to have a place to stay...and friends online that we have been able to buy clothing..food for My youngest.....as it stands I was only a day ago able to learn the whereabouts of My oldest son as he was with My ex husband...he had not been evacuated...imagine the horror of sitting around for days on end not know if your first born child is dead or not...this is what that thread was supposed to be showing you people..to ask you to help..not wonder who's giving how much...if someone else had donated first...or if deviantart was donating before everyone else...shame on you people...as it stands...I thank every god and goddess I worship for the blessings of My life..My families lives..those I have been able to find..friends..loved ones...and continue to search for...there are members of deviant art here..who are located in new orleans or not so far away from it...who may never post another thing on this site again...who may just simply vanish without anyone giving it a thought because it was not on their minds to question...think about it...not who has or hasn't given money yet....so now..when you look at the TV and watch the safe and distant picture s of the dead floating in the streets...of the children crying in shelters so far away from everything they have ever known in their lives..missing parents..eldery sick and infirm....black and white...asian and hispanic...straight and gay....new orleans and mississippi and alabama....this cultural melting pot..this miasma of torn and disjointed flesh and soul that has been left floating in a sea of buracracy and some of the best local and military aid I have every seen......stop a moment..and ponder is it worth the pissant arguements over who donated what or who did it first?...donate time..money..prayer..hell light a candle...whisper a chant to your deity...take that one shirt that no longer fits and bring it to a salvation army...cry...scream...laugh if it helps..anything but what I witnessed displayed on that forum thread...for the sake of humanity let this not be the way things are becoming for our future...have we become so jaded that we forget to help in the blindness of wondering who is going to help first?