Witness

To be nice to the less fortunate, I give away one percent of what I earn to charity. Yesterday I wanted to send some money to Witness, an non-profit that uses modern technology such as camera phones and video recorders to document human rights abuses. Sort of like us snooping back at governments since they find it so irresistible to spy on us. Great idea.
Unfortunately, I aborted the effort mid-donation. Why? Because the all-techno web site that did the collecting could not fathom that I did not live in one of the 50 united states of North America, had an American zip code and an American phone number. So it was either pretend I live in Alabama and invent a fake phone number, or give my money to Amnesty instead.
Needless to say, Amnesty made some money.
If Americans are asking themselves why the world hates them so much, part of the answer is that they so often pretend like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Pisses me off.