Setting the context properly

The NYT's in-house Third-World development advocate, Nicholas Kristof, writes a good piece about the mere pennies that the US actually sends abroad in aid each year.

Without talking one way or the other about the amount or efficacy of US foreign aid, I think Kristoff deserves some kudos for his argumentation. With only a very few words (<800) and no heavy math, he puts the casualty numbers from the recent tsunami in context with other world health issues. While relating some very accessible -- and very meaningful -- statistics on foreign aid donations, he actually manages a back-handed complement for Bush (who grew per capita donations vs Clinton) while making his broader point that the US is, relative to the rest of the developed world, very stingy about giving out aid money.

To humanize the story, he moves well from a very powerful macro-health discussion to a very, very micro discussion about people he's met in Cambodia and the Congo. I think it's a bit cliched to pull in the grandmother-and-small-children sob stories, but the macro/micro treatment is very effective.

I'd like to see a steadier stream of such politically-neutral, issue-oriented opinion writing, but it's rare enough to come across it at all. Kristoff (and the rest of the NYT oped panel) are as guilty as anyone else of putting on political blinders before they type away, but when they're in form it's clear why they have the best column space in the world.

k.