Our say: Tsunami relief brings out some of our best impulses

HOW CAN you tell that you're living in a community? For one thing, people in a community help each other when there's a disaster. The outpouring of aid for the south Asian nations hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami is an argument that there really is such a thing as a "global community" - one of the best arguments that has come along for some time.

Much of this aid is being provided by governments, including our own. But much of it is a spontaneous outpouring from people who saw the images on television and read the stories in the newspapers and decided that they just had to do something.

Globalism doesn't just mean that your shirt is...