Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

People of Japan make generous contributions for Katrina relief

San Francisco Chronicle:

Prominent musicians are giving benefit concerts. The Chiba Lotte Marines professional baseball team is raising money from fans. Local mayors are bringing in donations.

While big help from a close ally like Japan was to be expected, American diplomats say they're astonished at the extraordinary scope of contributions from ordinary Japanese citizens, local governments and businesses for Hurricane Katrina relief.

Without intending to, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo has become a giant donation box.

The most surprising contributor perhaps was a businessman who walked in with $1 million in his personal funds, explaining he had seen a TV report about a mother and child separated by floodwaters in New Orleans and couldn't sleep, embassy officials said. The donor, Takashi Endo, was said to be shy and could not be reached for comment.

"We saw the TV coverage of New Orleans," said Michiko Mitarai, who visited the embassy Thursday with a contribution of 500,000 yen (about $4,525) from Kusa no Kai, a volunteer organization of Japanese women. "Our board thought we have to do something to help those people. Our heart goes out to them."

The contributions have been "very heartfelt," the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, told The Chronicle on Friday. "This is what has touched me more than anything else. Japanese after Japanese have come to the embassy to say they want to help repay the help America has given them in the past."

...

"We have been stunned by an amazing and perhaps unprecedented grassroots outpouring of condolences and donations from Japanese of all walks of life," an embassy official said. "From the Toyota Corp. ($5 million) to schoolchildren sending in 100 yen (about 91 cents), there has been a remarkable wave of donations pouring into the embassy and outside charities."

U.S. State Department officials told the Tokyo embassy this week that it was reporting more donor activity than any other U.S. embassy in the world, the official said.

...

Corporate donors include not just Toyota and Honda (also $5 million) but nearly all the Japanese brand names familiar in the United States: Canon, Nissan, Toshiba, Hitachi, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Japan Air Lines and many more. Much of the corporate giving is going directly to the American Red Cross and other relief agencies in the United States.

Japan has been one of our best allies over the last four years. The generosity of the people should be long remembered.