In between my alternating bouts of rage and despair at our breath-takeningly incompetent or criminally negligent Administration, I've been wondering what I can do to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina beyond
sending a big ol' check.
Well, I've found it, a volunteer program that can turn us all into the 102nd Keyboarder's Brigade (as I'm sure wouldn't want to joing the 101st unit). You give what time you can, typically an hour, at your computer. You read some message board postings, you enter the important information into a big database. Combining a bunch of isolated messages/pleas/inquiries/status messages into one big database will help many people find their scattered families faster.
So help the effort if you can't be there in person. (And we've seen too many cases of what happens when FEMA runs into people who actually want to do something useful.)