Every time I open the newspaper or click open a news feed these days, my heart breaks. Breaks. War, crime, natural disaster: there's always something. And in recent days in particular, with the death toll in Burma climbing while authorities there continue to stymie aid efforts, and now the earthquake in China... I can barely stand to open the newspaper or follow the news links because I know that I'm going to have to hold my breath and press my fists to my eyes to keep from crying.

The situation in China in particular breaks my heart anew every time I see another headline or picture. That earthquake felled a great many buildings, and killed a great many people - the death toll is into the five figures now - but the most devastating collapses occured in schools. Children were killed, in their classrooms, by the hundreds, perhaps now thousands. Too, too many children. Images of mothers convulsed in grief near rubble trapping tiny bodies are images that are going to remain seared into my memory for far longer than I'd like. And I can't even begin to wrap my mind and heart around the many thousands of children who survived the quake only to have lost their parents in its destruction.

There's much discussion on the internets right now about whether those schools were shoddily-constructed and doomed to fall. There's also much discussion about the role of the Internet and of Twitter in particular in getting the news out about the details of the earthquake - getting the news out more quickly than mainstream media, and in greater detail than the Chinese government might have allowed if it had the same control over information flow that it had only a few years ago. But these issues, I think, are of secondary concern to the most pressing issue, which is this: getting aid and support to parents who have lost their children, and children who have lost their parents and - most importantly - to children who barely escaped the destruction of the earthquake with their lives and are in need of medical help. Whether Twittering and blogging got the news out initially is beside the point - our concern right now should be to make sure that Twittering and blogging become a means of maximizing aid to families that need it.

BlogHer, in its partnership with Global Giving, is hoping to drive traffic and dollars to the Half The Sky Earthquake Relief Fund, which will provide direct aid to the thousands of children in welfare
institutions and in the community who are suffering in the wake of
devastating earthquakes in Sichuan Province and Chongqing. PLEASE: go donate.

And then? SPREAD THE WORD. Blog about it, Twitter it. Twitter this post; Twitter the direct link to the Half The Sky donation page; Twitter links to any other organization that is providing aid that you want to support. Blog, Twitter, whatever. Get the word out.

Because breaking news and spreading stories and fostering discussion are only part of what we do. We also HELP. Let's make helping our priority right now.