I know it's an idea that would kind of... eat itself, were it reality. And maybe this is some shitty first-world take and I'm an asshole for thinking it or whatever. It's even a pretty unfair idea, really. But every time I read these sorts of human interest stories I wish there were a "send them some money" button. Again, an idea that would ruin itself immediately. I know. But failing that I'd rather not have them reported at all. This case is different, sure, because it's not targeted at an English-speaking audience at all, but we get them in our media, too.

Some of those Yazidis in northern Iraq a few years back? Some of the people trying to get into Greece who got interviewed? Man I wished, as soon as they were someone halfway stable, I could have dropped them some cash. An amount I wouldn't have missed that much would have made a difference. This is an utterly dumb "take", I know, for so very many reasons not least of which is that I could be doing more locally and that's something I actually could do, but it's still all I can think about when I see these kinds of stories. How much help even $100 would be some of these places, if only it could get there. And then my next though is how dumb that is. And that I wish these stories would just go away if I can't do anything about them.