I just spent $2,200 in the blink of an eye...easiest money I ever spent. Check out our BlogHers Act/Global Giving fundraising widget:

On Thursday, May 15, Blogcatalog.com is challenging bloggers to Unite for Human Rights by posting words, pictures and/or videos. While the words might change from country to country and are sometimes taken for granted, human rights represent one of the universally agreed upon ideas — that all people are born with basic rights and freedoms that include life, liberty, and justice. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations.

We can’t help but react to the death and destruction in the wake of Saturday’s cyclone in Myanmar with a sense of personal loss; the journals and photos of travelers who have visited the isolated country are some of IgoUgo’s most indelible.

After reading Denise's BlogHer post last week that the gift of maternal health is the perfect Mother's Day gift, I thought "this really is perfect!" I blogged it and suggested that not only is it a great cause, but it is also a great consumerism/stuff-free gift, something that I feel, in our consumerism-driven society, is so important, but so ofte

Right now, thousands upon thousands of women and children like these (above) who took shelter in a Buddhist temple need our help. This morning, BlogHers Act and GlobalGiving expanded our Mother's Day fundraising initiative to save women's lives to include the tens of thousands of people devastated by Cyclone Nargis. Now, in addition to donating to hand-picked and carefully vetted programs to help women and children in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Darfur, Nepal and South Africa, you can use the BlogHers Act donation widget (see below and the left-hand column on every page of BlogHer.com) to help get water and shelter to thousands of people whose lives are in danger. And we'll help!

We have been given two pieces of communication that have been sent in secret out of Burma at great personal risk to the sender. The first describes the atmosphere in Rangoon. That is printed below. The second is a much larger piece describing the conditions in the new capital city which has been built by the junta in the middle of the jungle, far away from 'the people'.

It is hard to know what is actually going on in Burma. The Burmese government has reportedly shut down all internet access and all cell phones. The Daily Mail reports hundreds, perhaps thousands of jailings and adds:

Imagine a long road lined with spectators. For as far as the eye can see, fill the road with 20,000 monks and nuns in saffron robes, walking, quietly asking for compassion from the military junta of Burma. The further they walk, the more spectators join them. Eventually the crowd is at least 100,000 strong.