If I ran the zoo

Live and 24/7, you can tune into the Russian invasion in Ukraine at any time day or night and get up-to-date horrifying footage and totally depressing expert analysis of what’s going on right this minute.

Unlike any war in the past, modern technology and streaming television accessibility means whenever we turn on the television we can see updated reports on the devastation that is taking place in real time.

CNN, for example, has taken advantage of this and sent a steady stream of hosts and camera crews with drones to Ukraine and intercut that with interviews with generals and politicians. Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Erin Burnett and several others. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, can be seen in real time throughout the day imploring his allies to please send more troops, more weaponry and a lot more money as things just keep getting worse.

Stark images of dead bodies and destroyed buildings in decimated cities and towns are constant cutaways during news reports.

Russian media is tightly controlled by the government and the Russian people are getting a very different picture and very distorted analysis of what’s actually happening across their border. Several Russian oligarchs and their families were discovered dead recently and there are conflicting reports about whether it was murder-suicides or executions that were the cause of death.

The Polish government has been an incredible lifesaver. About 3 million Ukrainians have fled their country with an estimated 1.8 million crossing the border to Poland, matching the population of Warsaw, Poland’s capital and largest city.

Poland’s central train station has been transformed, with information booths, volunteer translators and free coffee, which would mean a lot to caffeine addicts like myself.

I’ve contacted my rabbi and the president of my synagogue about how we can help. So far, we’ve sent money and if you want to make a donation, you can go online and find a long list of organizations including GlobalGiving Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund and Project Hope and Doctors Without Borders. Donations are still being accepted at La Conner’s WaFd Bank branch.

We landed a man on the moon in 1969, and many of us thought we were becoming a very advanced civilization. Yet we’ve recently had a war in Afghanistan, a surge in rapes and murders throughout the world, gun violence at an all-time high and now something that can eventually be seen as World War III happening before our very eyes.

We can’t change the world, but the least we can do is teach our children well and help people in need here and abroad with donations and prayers.