Scanning the headlines during lunch, it is looking like Haiti is going through armageddon- think Katrina times a couple hundred. This would be a good place to amass reliable reports and links to agencies who need help providing assistance. Days like this make you really fortunate to be an American.
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Incertus
I’ve got a link roundup going at The Rumpus including places to donate. I’m updating it as new links come in as well.
booferama
Salon has a good updated roundup with links and info:
http://salon.com/news/haiti/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/01/13/haiti_roundup
Frank Chow
Mother Jones has a link to donate to Partners in Health, https://donate.pih.org/page/contribute/haiti_earthquake
The Moar You Know
Haiti was already Armageddon before this.
Heard a good interview with a relief guy on the radio on the way home last night; they don’t need the food in your pantry, it will cost them more to ship it than it is worth. They need money, and lots of it, because Haiti needs EVERYTHING, and lots of it. Water purification tablets and doctors are the first priority. One is easy to come by, one is harder.
Los Angeles’ Search and Rescue team – the largest in the nation – left for Haiti this morning to try to help with digging out survivors.
I don’t know if Remote Area Medical is working in Haiti, but you should give them money anyway for the work they do here in the US.
Médecins Sans Frontières IS working in Haiti and could use your money as well.
valdivia
Sulli has been rounding up web posts from blogs and twitter which are pretty good. The WH (yes) has a bunch of links of where to donate, Pika in the previous thread linked to Hope Haiti which is run by a friend of hers and is reliable.
I am so so heartbroken but as I said in a previous thread also epically angry at the corruption and mismanagement that made the utter armagedonness of this possible. There should be a special place in hell for the Haiti elites that squandered their talent and position on savaging their own country.
Trinity
There’s a diary at the top of the rec list at The GOS with some great links for relief efforts.
Palooza
“The U.S. State Department Operations Center set up the following number for Americans seeking information about relatives in Haiti: (888) 407-4747. The department cautioned that because of heavy volume, some callers may hear a recording. The State Department said those interested in helping immediately may text ‘HAITI’ to ‘90999’ and a donation of $10 will be made automatically to the Red Cross for relief efforts. The donation will be charged to your cellphone bill. The department also suggested contacting agencies such as the Red Cross or Mercy Corps to help with relief efforts.” (via Atrios)
West of the Cascades
I hope that the Navy at Guantanamo is mobilizing to help — it’s got to be the closest concentration of trained personnel and ships to P-a-P (unless there’s a Cuban base farther east). In a perfect world, the US would be cooperating with Cuba to rapidly transport Cuban doctors and supplies from all over on US naval ships to Haiti to help in the relief efforts.
Incertus
@valdivia:
Throw in a heaping helping of past administrations (dating back over a hundred years) deliberately effing with Haiti to keep them corrupt and mismanaged and you’ve got a recipe for what we see happening right now.
The Populist
Putting politics aside, we are blessed to live in a country that has building standards (regardless of what the right do to weaken them). I see Haiti and I want to cry for the poor folks who are trapped in buildings that have collapsed and nothing anybody can do to get them out fast enough.
Time to give. It’s the least any of us can do to ease the suffering.
Phoebe
Here’s a list:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100113/cm_huffpost/421014
I pick Oxfam.
Max
For the Red Cross:
Give $10 by txting HAITI to 90999 (Red Cross)
If you are on Twitter, there are lots of people to follow, using the hastag #haiti.
Also, Rev Al Sharpton is in contact with Wyclef, who has just crossed into Haiti via the Dominican. Wyclef’s uncle is the Haitian ambassador to the US, so Wyclef is good to follow also.
It’s times like this when Twitter is excellent. Imagine what Katrina could have been like if Twitter was around.
Comrade Mary
The CBC has a good list of agencies here.
I cannot recommend Partners in Health highly enough. They’ve been on the ground in Haiti for years and do awesome work.
K. Grant
Two very, very good relief agencies are Catholic Relief Services and Lutheran World Relief. Both agencies are very good at getting the money on the ground in a hurry. (On an editorial note – these two groups actually do the things Christians actually say they are about. Two very good groups who work damn hard to help people all around the globe.)
valdivia
@Incertus:
Don’t even get me started on that (see previous Haiti thread for some of my thoughts on the history). But I still burn in anger at the people from the country who raped it for their own gain, without them the US, UK, France would not have gotten as far as they did. I just want to punch someone in the neck. and today it ain’t the DFHs.
Comrade Mary
@The Populist: I heard on MSNBC last night (an American relief worker interviewed by Rachel) that most housing in Port au Prince is made of concrete blocks. Including the roofs.
Jesus.
Brachiator
As a semi-positive aside, the wife of a local Los Angeles area newscaster works with a Haitian relief organization. Since phone lines were down there she was unable to get information from the country.
But thanks to Twitter and Facebook, some basic information was able to get out and widely distributed to others here in the US and elsewhere.
A small thing, but helpful.
valdivia
Also there are calls for blood from the Red Cross so if you can donate please do. They need O neg and B neg and plasma.
Face
7.0 shaker + insanely poorly constructed “homes” = disaster of Hollywood-like magnitude.
Those peeps are in serious shit. But since it all sounds so French-ish, I’m sure our Republicans will find a way to laugh it off.
dadanarchist
I second the Partners in Health linky. It’s Dr. Paul Farmer’s organization and Haiti has had no better friend in the US than Farmer.
They’ll know what to do with the money, there will be low overhead and it will go to those who need it most.
ET
Someone directed me to UN dispatch – the UN Peacekeepers, many from Brazil, took a hit.
On top of the quake being only 14 miles from Port au Prince, someone told me the quake was shallow and that was something that added to the severity.
gwangung
And the elite in this country will totally ignore the lesson.
dadanarchist
Amen. It is the responsibility of the world, and France and the US above all, to rebuild Haiti. We owe them that, at the very least, for hundreds of years of exploitation and meddling.
A good place to start would be for France to fork over the $21 billion (adjusted to 2003 dollars) that they made Haiti pay in restitution in from 1829 to 1947 in “compensation” for the slaveowners’ “lost property.”
bemused
@Max:
To me,Twitter seemed to be just another time gobbler in an already too short day. I don’t text either. I have to agree that in situations like this Twitter is much more than an amusing pastime.
Fergus Wooster
@Face:
Already there. From Salon:
PanAmerican
@Face:
No kidding. Even last night, with those basic facts, I knew it was fucking horrible beyond comprehension.
valdivia
@gwangung:
I agree. And yet as bad as American elites are and can be they have nothing, really nothing, on the level of predation that goes on in some developing countries and in Latin America in general. I have some stories that would make your hair stand on air if not make you a committed contract killer.
@dadanarchist:
Not holding my breath for Sarko to do this. But yes, exactly what I mean. Also the Haitian expats living of their predation in some fancy arrondissement in Paris. Pay up bitchez! (note I am not saying *all* expats but those who left to enjoy the fruits of their corruption)
Maude
@valdivia: Do you think it is possible that the US won’t abandon the people of Hatti as before? Maybe the elites were buried under the rubble. Not nice of me but…
yellowdog
I gave this morning to Doctors Without Borders and Mercy Corps. I prefer to donate to secular organizations. Both are highly rated in the efficient use of their donations.
Last night on CNN someone said that Bill Clinton’s organization has been involved in Haiti for a while. Does anyone know anything about that?
Re Gitmo: Fox is saying that refugees may be housed at a Gitmo; it isn’t that far from Haiti.
Mike in NC
Gitmo is primarily a training facility and the Navy has few — if any — permanent assets based there. There is an airport at Gitmo, as well as the former air station at Roosevelt Roads, on the southern shore of Puerto Rico.
Why not blame it on the voodoo? Who’ll be the first wingnut to demand to see Obama’s Haitian birth certificate?
slag
Before Katrina, I would have been in unqualified agreement with this sentiment. And I don’t mean to draw a direct comparison between the two situations, for obvious reasons, but I will say that I never before thought I would see what happened during Katrina in these United States of America. It was just a stark reminder of how limiting a factor wealth can be when we don’t have a functioning, engaged government to accompany it.
asiangrrlMN
@Fergus Wooster: If this is true, may Pat Robertson burn forever in the hellfires of his rotten, putrid, corrupt soul.
I donated to Hope Haiti and Doctors Without Borders. It was the very least I could do. This is so heartbreaking.
@valdivia: Thank you for the primer on Haiti. I am shamefully lacking in my historical knowledge of it.
Ryan S.
The science behind the quake
The Moar You Know
@Fergus Wooster: And yet, somehow, Pat Robertson is not slowly dying under a pile of rubble that used to be his house.
Proof positive there is no God.
valdivia
@Maude:
I think there is a difference between actively dictating what kind of govt they should have and who and how they run it and what has happened in the last few years. While the US can do a lot, I don’t think we should interfere in actual running of the country. The time to not abandon Haitians was in the 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s. Now we need to fix the immigration issue (thank you crazy cubans for your discrimination towards refugees from other countries in Lat Am) and make sure everyone, not just the US, helps here. Beyond that I think a big part is on the Haitian elites to also do their job and give back to their country some not just exploit it as a political pinata.
gopher2b
I just tried to post a bunch of links but I think it this site ate my post. I’m just posting this to see if it works.
gopher2b
@gopher2b:
WTF. I cannot get my link post to stick.
pika
I posted this on the earlier thread, but a colleague of mine here in Western NY runs http://www.hopehaiti.org. Reputable, local, grassroots, and informed. One of the founders wrote this brief history in light of 2008’s floods: http://www.hopehaiti.org/news/index.php?art=39 As with Katrina, anyone who thinks that this all won’t come back to haunt everyone in some form is sorely mistaken. Pity sees no relationship between self and the object of pity; empathy sees that helping so-called ‘others’ is indeed helping ourselves.
Comrade Kevin
@gopher2b: There is a limit to the number of links you can put in a single comment, either 2 or 3.
Incertus
@The Moar You Know: Video of Robertson at my place now. Fuck him in his stupid face.
gopher2b
Have you seen the youtube video with the cloud of dust rising up from the city….catastrophic.
I have a good friend with connections to Haiti. He recommended donations be directed to:
International Red Cross
American Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Unicef
Oxfam
*Keep in mind that your donation to these agencies could be diverted to other worthy causes that receive less attention. Just an FYI.
He also noted “Save the Children.” I mentioned them specifically because CNN’s entire coverage last night was with its representatives there on the island. Apparently the had satellite internet and Skype. Anyway, they are clearly there and involved in the recovery and will probably get less attention than the above agencies.
gopher2b
@Comrade Kevin:
Thanks
dadanarchist
For those asking for book recommendations, let me humbly offer a few (I do teach Caribbean history now and again):
– Laurent Dubois, “Avengers of the New World: the Story of the Haitian Revolution
– CLR James, “The Black Jacobins”
– Joan Dayan, “Haiti, History and the Gods”
– Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “Silencing the Past”
– Paul Farmer, “The Uses of Haiti”
– Tracy Kidder, “Mountains Beyond Mountains” (about Paul Farmer)
– Peter Hallward, “Damning the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment”
– Alfred Metraux, “Voodoo in Haiti”
– Jean-Price Mars, “So Spoke the Uncle” (out of print but available at many libraries)
and some novels:
– Jacques Roumain, “Masters of the Dew”
– Alejo Carpentier, “Kingdom of this World”
– Jacques Stephan Alexis, “General Sun, My Brother”
– Edwidge Danticat, “Farming of Bones”
El Tiburon
This is good news for John McCain.
licensed to kill time
@Fergus Wooster:
That shriveled soul of Pat Robertson will get the shock of its existence when it falls into the lake of fire. If there is indeed a lake of fire. Which I hope, in his case, there is. A very special, personalized lake of really really hot fire ringed with all the people (in special insulated suits and for a limited time only) he has persecuted and condemned over his miserable career taunting him from the edges, just out of reach.
becca
thirding.
Robin G.
@The Moar You Know: I figured out that there was surely no interventionist God, at least not on the small scale issues, when he didn’t strike Ann Coulter’s lying tongue from her mouth.
This is absolutely catastrophic. I admit, I’ll be interested to see how this administration responds in comparison with the last administration; that is, how much help will we actually provide, and how much will be lip service. Because it’s been so long since the government actually bothered to really try to help following a disaster, I’m curious as to what our capacity for assistance truly is.
I’m also wondering how long the country will care. I mean, certainly, right now, they need doctors and people to shift the rubble and dogs to find the buried victims; but after the dramatic CNN video of dust-covered babies is done, will there be any real effort to help rebuild? My guess is no, but I certainly hope my cynicism is proven wrong.
twiffer
not surprising. a 7.0 is pretty fucking destructive. people forget the richter scale is logarithmic. this page has, in addition to the detailed discription of the scale, a nifty chart giving the equivalent energy released in tons of TNT (scroll to the bottom).
asiangrrlMN
@Robin G.: I would love for your cynicism to be proven wrong. The fact that Obama is president actually makes me think that maybe, our country will care for more than the next two news cycles about this story. However, I still have a dim view of most of humanity, so I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if this story gets supplanted by whatever Simon Cowell is doing next.
Brachiator
@dadanarchist:
And let me add a few more, repeating from an earlier thread:
One of the better recent books is The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier, by Amy Wilentz.
One of the better historical surveys is The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, by CLR James. (You mentioned this one, but I just wanted to give the full title and echo the recommendation)
An excellent, but heartbreaking DVD documentary is 2002’s The Agronomist, produced and directed by filmmaker Jonathan Demme, profiling journalist and radio pioneer Jean Dominique.
All available through Amazon and other sources.
Fergus Wooster
@licensed to kill time:
One can hope. Perhaps victims of his diamond and gold trading operations will get to come down and baste him from time to time.
@asiangrrl – I’m thinking doctors without borders as well.
@The Moar You Know – proof positive of the nonexistence of god was established with the death of Bill Hicks and thriving, and procreation, of Billy Ray Cyrus. We were warned.
valdivia
@Brachiator:
cosign. all excellent.
The Populist
Isn’t Haiti in the ring of fire? First Eureka now this. I have wonder when the San Andreas will start acting up…argh.
Ash Can
Whoa. I would not want to have Pat Robertson’s karma. Yow.
The Populist
I may also add to John’s comment on why we are fortunate to be Americans:
7.0 in Haiti = Armageddon.
6.5 in Eureka = buildings pretty much still standing outside of a few that fell off their foundations and stores that have to contend with items in the aisles and broken windows.
asiangrrlMN
American Refugee Committee (ARC) is a local charity who does really good work. They are organizing an emergency team to send to Haiti. You can donate here. I just did.
Cat
@licensed to kill time:
If there really is a man in the clouds who loves all his creations there isn’t a hell, but some one on one talk therapy. I have faith the FSM can reform even the darkest souls given the FSM has eternity to try.
kay
@Robin G.:
I’ll be watching. Obama better come through, quickly and competently. It’s all on him if it doesn’t happen.
licensed to kill time
@Cat:
I don’t believe in hell but I was having fun imagining it for Pat. I read this book once about reincarnation that posited we essentially go to this huge library in the sky where we study our past life in big books with the help of a wiser, more evolved soul. We choose our next incarnation based on what we learned or did not learn and there is even a kind of “time-out” place where your soul can rest if your last life was too traumatic. I found this all very comforting.
(I found this book in a surf/adventure resort in Mexico and really enjoyed reading it. I have no idea how the “info” was collected and verified.)
Michael
Um, that 7.0 in Haiti is 5 times more powerful than the 6.5 in Eureka.
Northridge was devastating, and it wasn’t even a 7.
Fergus Wooster
@asiangrrlMN:
Just donated to ARC. Thanks for the recommendation.
dr. luba
@The Moar You Know: Do you know of any organizations that can use physician volunteers? I was planning to go on holiday next month, but would gladly spend the time in Haiti instead, if I can be of help.
Robin G.
@asiangrrlMN: I give it 3 days before it’s back to American Idol. After all, they’re just third world black people, right? How long are we really supposed to care?
@kay: I agree, though in fairness, we must also be realistic. All the government buildings have collapsed and a large number of officials are dead, and it’s not like they were that competent to begin with. The UN representative is dead and the peacekeepers are in shambles. Even the Archbishop is dead, so you can’t use the church. I want to see Obama send a great deal of aid… but I won’t be surprised if, through no fault of his own, that aid turns out to be largely ineffectual. Aside from sending doctors and medical supplies, where do you even begin? I hope someone smarter and better informed than me is making that decision.
gopher2b
@Michael:
Science people: does the depth of an earthquake affect magnitude? For example, is 7.0 at 20 miles depth weaker than a 7.0 at 3 miles depth or are they the same?
Cat
@licensed to kill time:
This sounds like a variation of Buddhist views on reincarnation.
Brachiator
@Michael:
Yep. The Richter scale is a logarithmic scale.
Some rough comparisons:
6.5 = 5.6 megatons of TNT
7.0 = 32 megatons of TNT
7.1 = 50 megatons – Energy released is equivalent to that of Tsar Bomba, the largest thermonuclear weapon ever tested.
Yep. Depth and direction of movement are important.
Cat
@gopher2b:
A shallowly centered quake just has the ability to do more damage to the surface. The amount of energy released into the earth is the same.
PeakVT
There have been 14 aftershocks of 5.0 or over since the main quake.
Brachiator
@dr. luba:
You might find something appropriate from the organizations in this recent CBS story with links.
I also know that National Nurses United was looking for RN volunteers, but I don’t know if they have links to sites for other medical personnel.
Shell
First time I’ve had so much trouble trying to donate a few bucks. ‘Hope’s paypal link doesn’t work. And I tried going to the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders and both websites don’t load. I’m hoping that’s a good thing, i.e., they’re busy with people accessing them.
Barbara
dr. luba, you can contact any of the major relief organizations, but I would start with MSF (Doctors without Borders). My cousin worked for them in Rwanda, and I think they have expertise in deploying medical personnel available only for short periods of time. Also, they might actually have too many volunteers in the short run, but not enough over time.
Bostondreams
@Fergus Wooster:
My god. The moron even got his history wrong. Napoleon the Third? A few decades off there, Pat.
And um, Pat, you know they WERE enslaved, correct?
I donated to the Red Cross through the 90999 text. (send ‘Haiti’ to that number). It is a start. My wife and I will give more later.
pika
@Shell:
@valdivia: I will see what I can find out about Hope Haiti’s paypal link–it worked this a.m., so maybe it is as you said that the sites are overwhelmed. Thanks to you both and all, no matter what you do or give.
twiffer
@gopher2b: magnitude is magnitude is magnitude. a 7.0 is the seismic energy release. as to the effects, that is not magnitude but intensity.
for example, a 4.5 quake in NYC would likely be vastly more devastating than a 5.5 in LA.
anyway, short answer is yes, depth of epicenter, location, surrounding geology, building codes and so on factor into the intesity of a quake. a lower magnitude quake can be more intense, and thus more damaging, depending on the where, depth & etc..
gopher2b
@twiffer:
So comparing earthquakes is really a useless exercise unless you also consider other factors, like depth and epicenter, right?
yellowdog
@Brachiator:
Doctors Without Borders uses MD volunteers. A very, very good organization; they won the Nobel Peace Price several years back. They rank highly on the assessment of the percentage of donations that go directly to aid.
scarshapedstar
In a geographical sense, sure. I offer this addition:
If this quake had hit New Orleans during Bush’s reign of error, it would have been just as nightmarish.
If you think I’m exaggerating then I’m guessing you weren’t sitting in Louisiana for a week wondering “where the fuck are the cargo planes?”
Comrade Mary
@Shell: I was able to donate to Partners in Health with no problems. They’re less well-known, so they aren’t getting slammed.
ruemara
We are very fortunate to be in America. Unfortunately, if we don’t start fixing our infrastructure, we’re looking at our future 3rd world status right there. Haiti has been needing help for a long time.
& Pat Robertson is an evil douchebag. Along with Rush.
Punchy
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me
Shorter: Haiti is Obama’s Katrina. Cuz, ya know, both are American cities within American territory under control of American governments, laws, alongside American citizens.
Stunned.
kay
@Robin G.:
I expect a lot. We spend a lot on disaster preparedness and we should be able to offer real help when it’s needed, particularly because Haiti is not really far away. I think we should be really good at this, and I don’t think that’s unrealistic. I felt the same way about Katrina. If we’re not competent at getting things and people from point A to point B with such a big and prosperous country we have going here we may as well just hang it up.
I think it’s one of the fundamental jobs of government. I’ll donate and I am glad there are non-profits and individual relief agencies but I actually expect my government to function, when they’re called to respond.
We’ll see how they do :)
Molly
Many of you may work for companies that match charitable contributions up to a certain dollar amount. Be sure not to leave that money on the table, take them up on it.
The charity I spend my time, energy, and love on is Doctors Without Borders. My company matched my donation.
valdivia
@Punchy:
but but I was told a few months ago that Obama already had his Katrina with swine flu and cash for clunkers and tons of other stuff. also 9/11. Too.
WaterGirl
@Comrade Mary: On your recommendation, I just donated $50 to Partners in Health. Then I saw a BooMan post about donations to Haiti and I was on my way over here to let you know that you should post something about PIH there, but it looks like you already did.
theylivebynight
It’s only mid-January and already Pat Robertson has jumped out to an insurmountable lead as biggest douchebag of the year. Must be some kind of record.
Wannabe Speechwriter
Can we please put Reihan Salam under a pile of rubble?
http://agenda.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGI4ODEzZTY1MjhiMzI5ZGE3YTY3ZTk4MmZmOTllNTU=
Listen, I’m all in favor of liberalizing our immigration laws and allowing more immigrants to come in but “the number of people who die in these calamities pales in significance to the number who die because of broken institutions and the resulting absence of the kind of dynamic capitalist economy that we take for granted”? Jesus! Because we all know Western Europe is a death trap!
So, if you say more people die because of lack of health care than terrorist attacks, you’re not taking terrorism seriously. However, if you use a catastrophic earthquake to espouse the virtues of capitalism, you’re a serious thinker. Am I overreacting?
gnomedad
@Punchy:
Expect to see the President doing his fucking job and not whining about how it’s “hard work”.
The Populist
@Fergus Wooster:
I’d love for these right wing tools who are all up in arms over Reid’s dumb yet innocent comment to criticize ol’ Patty for something clearly and without a doubt racist.
pika
@Wannabe Speechwriter: Sully just linked to Reihan. Unclear what went into his linking, but I shudder to think.
Beeb
I can report that the Partners in Health website is not clogged and the donation page is easy to use. Thanks for the tip.
Robin G.
Can I say, by the way, that I love the commenters around here. I just learned more about earthquakes in one thread than I did in high school geology.
inkadu
@dadanarchist: What about Graham Greene’s The Comedians and that non-fiction voodoo book Serpent and the Rainbow and a few chapters in Jared Diamon’s Collapse?. That’s about everything I know about Haiti — none of it encouraging.
The best thing I read was actually in the Serpent and the Rainbow, when he pointed out the best times for Haiti was when they nothing was happening according to historians — people were growing food for themselves and trading. Haiti only became some place important after sugar plantations moved in making money for some and impoverishering everyone else. It’s an important point that I think Big Important Countries should pay attention to; being important often comes at serious costs to citizenry.
Also, stay away from the blowfish sushi.
maody
http://www.haitiaction.net/About/HERF/1_12_10.html
grassroots outfit that will be on the ground long after the media frenzy ends with another round of “I fucked Tiger Woods.”
inkadu
@kay: And to be completely self-interested: Haiti is a great opportunity to test and develop our emergency response system that had deteriorated during “the previous eight years.”
Michael
That’s what pisses fuckwits like him off. The fact that they tossed off their enslavers.
God, I hate the fucking South most of the time, and that’s sad, because I live here. White people here suck serious ass about 85% of the time.
Shell
I thought it was HCR. Or was that his Waterloo or….
On Michael Medved’s radio show, I heard him complaining, I kid you not, not about the administration’s response, but how they’re wording it. Paraphrasing Medved, ” why does Obama have to always make it so personal? Bush would have said, ‘the American people, the White House is going to….’ but with Obama it’s ‘my team, my people…my administration…”
Sweet Jesus. What a bunch of whingy, petty whiners these people are!
BigSwami
Wait wait wait. I’m not sure how the news from Haiti is relevant to me. Is there some kind of Jay or Conan connection?
Leelee for Obama
@Michael:
I have often thought that this is the exact reason Haiti has been so tortured by the Big Important Countries. It was the greatest fear of the slave-holders here in the US that the slaves would revolt and kill them in their beds-odd, since they also said the slaves liked their lives and were not intelligent enough to take care of themselves. I actually remember Pat Buchanan saying, recently, that the African Americans should be grateful their ancestors were transported here as slaves, since they are so much better off here than their African relatives.
Boggled, I am, and will remain, I guess. How anyone can make an argument for that premise just makes me nauseous.
SiubhanDuinne
@Punchy:
I’m pretty stunned that that piece of crap came from Howard Fineman. I’ve always enjoyed him (not that I read Newsweek much any more, but he’s usually pretty good on Countdown) but he must have been off his feed today. That piece is not worthy of him and I want to believe it’s an aberration.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I had read the piece of crap article but I had missed that it was by Howard Fineman. I agree with your general take on him, but if memory serves me correction this is not his first crappy piece lately. (sorry, no link, just a general memory)
Unrelated… I want to thank you for your kind comment yesterday about the loss of my sweet boy. I really appreciated it.
PurpleGirl
I read Graham Greene’s The Comedians many years ago. I was once at a party with a number of upper middle class women whose families had had economic interests in Haiti and to a person they believed the country was safer and better off under Papa Doc and Junior. (Well, the elites were safer, I guess.) I had to hold my tongue because I did not agree at all. They also didn’t think that the US owed Haiti very much because of our various interventions there. I later stopped the charity work I did with these women.
MSF just got a donation; unemployed or not Haiti needs the help. I wonder if any damage has occurred in the Dominican Republic from this quake.
Pat Robertson should die a death of a million cuts for what he said.
monkeyboy
Warning
Do not visit any Haiti discussions on right wing sites or sites that even allow comments from right wingers or racists. I’ve seen glee along the line of how Katrina was good because it cleaned some of the scum out of New Orleans. A common opinion is that Haiti has too many poor people and the poor people are the reason Haiti has been a hell hole and wiping out a large number of them is one step in the right direction. I was reading this thread at Fark and was appalled at the number of comments along this line, but then the admins stepped in and removed about 1/3 to 1/2 of the comments.
Limbaugh doesn’t explicitly applaud the earthquake but he does call Haiti a worthless place entirely dependent on foreign aid.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
One of the — maybe THE — nicest things about Balloon Juice is that we’re always there for each other. We rejoice in each others’ good fortune, we grieve and sympathize and condole when someone is scared or sick or suffers a loss, we give lots of advice (some of it even good advice), we puncture pomposity, we encourage, we yell and curse at each other, we tease and tickle and pull each others’ pigtails and stick out our tongues at each other and call each other bad names, we vote and make phone calls and write letters and give money to causes we believe in. And as the Helicopter is my Witness, we laugh ourselves into helpless little puddles of mirth. This site in many ways is dearer to me than my own family, and I can’t imagine life without it.
Extremely long-winded way of saying thank you, and I know you would do the same for me or anyone else.
Angela
In Haiti, we will continue our distinct approach to responding to humanitarian crises. As we did after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, AFSC will work with partners where our capacity to help is greatest. While tending to the immediate crisis, AFSC is always committed to strengthening local capacity to rebuild, recover and heal after times of crisis and devastation.
I will keep you updated as our work evolves and the situation becomes clearer.
From American Friends Service Committee
To help, please go to http://www.afsc.org.
Brachiator
@Leelee for Obama:
Not much different from this:
What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.
— Barbara Bush on Katrina victims, September 5, 2005
Mnemosyne
@Shell:
I bet Obama said it that way to emphasize that he will not be sending the same fuckwits who “helped” during Katrina — he’s sending his team, not Bush’s.
At least, I hope so. I’m waiting for a check to clear and then I can donate. Probably to MSF (Doctors without Borders).
Mnemosyne
@Michael:
It was devastating to structures and freeways, but there were fewer than 100 deaths total out of a population of 9 million. And that was a 6.7 magnitude.
If it hadn’t been a holiday, there would have been a much larger loss of life because the freeways would have been full even at 4 am, but we were fortunate in that regard.
Our hospitals were damaged but didn’t collapse and kill everyone inside. A minority of apartment buildings had catastrophic failures, but most remained stable enough for people to escape. Most people were able to walk away unharmed. That’s because of the difference in how we build our structures, not because Northridge was somehow not a bad earthquake.
Leelee for Obama
@Brachiator: Well, considering that Barbara Bush is at least partially responsible for the debacle that is and was GWB, this comment came as no surprise. It is a similar and a very IGMFU, privileged-life thing to say. That being said, I would gladly do time for the privilege of punching that bitch right in the face.
I think what Buchanan said was worse though, because being told to be grateful for slavery is just disgusting. The victims of Katrina could have told the the hospitable people to go fuck themselves. The slaves didn’t have that luxury.
kay
@Punchy:
The US response (so far looks) appropriately big. It’s what I would expect.
If the Katrina response had looked like this we wouldn’t be talking about Katrina. It would have been a horrible event, but only people in NO and environs would remember the name of the storm.
All I ask is some earnest, serious effort. Had conservatives shown some effort re: Katrina I would have given them credit. Instead they started blathering about personal responsibility, and comparing red state response to blue state response, all of which was beside the point.
They were delivering those sanctimonious lectures they love instead of taking people off the roof. It’s like enduring their stupid lecture is the price of getting some help.
Brachiator
@Leelee for Obama:
I’d gladly pay your bail.
Pat Buchanan is part Irish. I wonder if he thinks the Potato Famine was good because it encouraged the Irish to come to America.
Leelee for Obama
@Brachiator: Thanks! I’ll keep you in mind if the opportunity ever presents itself. Mrs. Poppie Bush is a sore spot with me going way back.
I think Pat does kinda think that. He probably envisions Bay and himself ( very Irish ) with cobweb lace curtains and having to move the dishes in the kitchen sink before pissing in it. That would be just tooooo shanty for the likes of the illustrious Buchanan clan.
The Populist
@Mnemosyne:
Medved wrote a fucking book talking about how great “free markets” work in this country. When Jack Welch talks he always spoke of HIS TEAM. When any CEO talks they talk in the possessive because, frankly, the people THEY HIRED work for THEM at the end of the day.
No ego. No intentional slights. Seems to me Obama is fucked if he talks like a CEO and he’s fucked if he doesn’t. C’est la vie.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
Pretty much, yeah. That’s why they hate the idea of government programs and love the idea of private charity: because then they can make the little people bow and scrape as they thank them for their generous donation. If people don’t know who they’re supposed to be grateful to, then they won’t be properly deferential when they’re serving you in a restaurant or helping you in a department store.
ScottRock
@gopher2b: Earthquakes consist of several types of waves; the most destructive ones–known as “Love waves,” after a person–travel on the surface, so their strength is inversely proportional to the depth beneath the surface.
Sense of motion matters, as well. Haiti lies on top of a strike-slip fault system (two blocks sliding horizontally beside each other, a la California), where there is little to no vertical crustal displacement from shallow earthquakes. This means no tsunamis.
Members of my research group did work in Pakistani Kashmir immediately following the 2005 earthquake, and what i’m seeing so far in Haiti is staggeringly similar–lots of unreinforced concrete and flat rooftops, hence lots of pancaked houses. That one killed 80,000, and wasn’t centered under the capital.
There is no such thing as a “natural” disaster.