Can anyone tell me how much assistance of any kind was offered to New Orleans by the junta in Myanmar after the Katrina disaster? If there was any at all, I must have been blinking at that instant, because I missed it.

That aside, the fact is that people in Burma, or Myanmar, or whatever it’s being called this month, are suffering even more than usual after the terrible ordeal they’ve been through, and the “leaders” over there, preoccupied with a sham referendum today, don’t seem to be in any great rush to ensure that badly needed assistance reaches their own people as quickly as possible. Packages and boxes of relief materials have been seen with the names of top brass Myanmar military officials painted on them. Gee, I wonder whose tables those potatoes will be on tonight.

In some cases, relief agencies like the World Food Program are negotiating to be allowed to bring in human resources and materials. NEGOTIATING to help!

So while the valuable time and money of a major relief effort is being wasted sitting on tarmacs and waiting for the junta to open its doors and accept help, perhaps there’s a more useful place for those funds to be put to work.

To all the countries and charitable relief organizations that are meeting resistance trying to help Myanmar, I guarantee that any shipment, small or large, of diabetic supplies -- pumps, CGMs, test strips, meters, insulin, alcohol preps, reservoirs, syringes, infusion sets -- delivered to my front door will be accepted immediately, cheerfully and with undying gratitude, and used to the fullest effect for improving my diabetic condition.

Maybe I’m overstepping my authority, but I think I can speak for the diabetic community when I say that we diabetics would be more than thankful to accept the “major relief effort” that the junta in Myanmar is equally willing to thumb its nose at.