There’s 30 seconds of raw video of the moment the earthquake struck in Haiti. The first thirteen seconds show a perfectly normal scene. Jaywalkers running across a two lane highway beyond which a two storey concrete building can be seen. A car is in the process of making a right turn. There is traffic on the road. Then on the fourteenth second, there’s the first shock coming straight up from the ground followed by a rhythmic 1.5 Hz pile driver of destruction kicking directly up from the center of the earth. There are 23 shocks in the next 16 seconds. The building in the background begins to disintegrate by the 24 second mark in the 30 second video.
It’s still disintegating when the video gives out. Sixteen seconds was all it took to wreck the city though doubtless it continued for a while longer. The technical details of the event can be found at the USGS page on the Haiti Earthquake. Here’s a link to a graphic summarizing most of the data of interest. But from a human perspective the most fascinating aspect of this earthquake was the almost razor sharp dividing line between normal life and catastrophe.
GeoEye was kind enough to provide the Belmont Club with satellite images of Port Au Prince before and after the quake. Some of these are shown on TV but .5 meter resolution coverage of the central part of the city following the quake is shown after the “Read More”. A good visual reference point is “the Haitian National Palace located just to the right of the center of the image. It looks like a white inverted letter ‘E’, as Jim Davis of GeoEye explained.
There was some uncertainty over whether the image would be available at all. Jim Davis explained that weather over Port au Prince was predicted to be “‘partly cloudy’ so that could be an issue and may affect our ability to see the ground.” In the event the image came through.
Some Belmont Club commenters, some of whom have experience in photo-analysis, may be chiming in over the next few hours on comments, or if they wish, I can prepare a new post to highlight their analysis. One way to understand the image below, which expands if you click on it (warning 4MB in size) is to match it up against Google Earth’s image. The national palace (the white ‘E’) is at 72°20’20.05″W, 18°32’35.23″N. You can look up hotels and landmarks and orient yourself against the white palace and examine for yourself the state that area is in.
While human tragedy cannot be captured in a satellite image, the overhead may provide some way to assess the extent and degree of damage.
Port Au Prince Jan 13 GeoEye Satellite Image
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I popped the coordinates into Google Map (I don’t have Google Earth). At the upper left quadrant of the photo there is a building top that looks like a chocolate bar. It seemed totally intact until I realized by at the map that it used to be two identical buildings. The Google map also seems like there are more people out in the streets. The destruction is truly staggering. It boggles the mind. There is a church just north of Rue Pavee that you can see through to the floor now. The destruction appears to go well beyond this frame.
My god. No reaction time at all. While the camera arc moment may not really represent the actual waveform, it seems evident that a person trapped in such a concrete structure would not have sufficient time to evacuate or decide much of anything … No time here to look into eyes and sort out leaders from panickers and act.
I suspect Port-Au-Prince is largely built on alluvium, filled wetland, and beach sand, thus greatly magnifying the 6.0 damages. Like Montserrat, (sp?), it looks like Haiti has been erased from the map. I fear for these people in the short run, but I suspect it won’t take long for the traitor class to see an opportunity to purchase millions of newly minted Haitian voters brought to these shores, voodoo, Santaria, congenital backwardness notwithstanding…. Never let a catastrophe go to waste. Obama was on this like white on rice.
The destruction appears to go well beyond this frame.
Well I’m sure that it does. Port Au Prince, if you read the USGS survey, was not at the actual epicenter, though with the greatest population density, it is probably at the core of the human disaster.
So there’s probably a lot of landslides up in the boonies, subsidence in all kinds of places. Earthquakes change the landscape. But I only have a sample image, so I trust the relief professionals are even now poring over the complete strip. Interestingly, by some quirk of orbital mechanics and focal length the Port Au Prince area appears to lie right at the junction of two satellite imaging strips. (I am looking at the GeoEye cover letter) So it will require two passes to take the whole picture in.
My first thought is that there are many more buildings standing than some of the reports led me to believe.
In the photo above the National Palace apparently a catherdral’s roof caved.
It seems we still don’t have a handle on how many are dead, but disease doesn’t wait for the count.
Any guesses as to how long it will be before they (and BTW, who is in charge down there to give anyone any permission to do anything?)
Where are the French aid workers and ships steaming to POP with supplies?
The world isn’t worried. They know the US taxpayer will pay with the ever devaluing dollars they print like confetti.
As I have mentioned before I’m a doer (well, all of my life, not so much now) and fixer.
Looking at this image I can see that the only way to fix this is to bulldoze everything into tractor trailers and load on barges and take out to the deep and dump it all.
Then from all of the worlds port cities have container ships bring all of their excess containers (of which there are estimated to be well over a million) and arrange them as houses on streets and bring in welders and cutters and convert to container homes.
Oh well, just thinking out loud but much of anything less will cost billions upon billions and would still be prone to earthquakes and hurricanes. ISO Containers are just about indestructible and can be tied down much like mobile homes are.
In the short term, massive tent cities are about all you can do, after first clearing away enough surface to build them.
Papa Ray
#7
????????
La France envoie 400 membres de la Sécurité civile
Paris a dépêché d’Istres un Airbus A310 avec à bord une soixantaine de membres de la Sécurité civile. Trois avions de transport militaire emportant une cinquantaine de personnes et du 12 tonnes de matériel humanitaire sont arrivés de Martinique. Le dispositif va être complété avec l’envoi d’un hôpital de campagne, d’une soixantaine d’infirmiers, de 400 membres de la Sécurité civile et deux navires militaires, qui apporteront des équipements de terrassement et des hélicoptères Puma.
It seems we still don’t have a handle on how many are dead, but disease doesn’t wait for the count.
Neither does the darker side of human nature; gunfire reported in Port-au-Prince some hours ago.
Thanks for posting the link to the USGS page on the Haiti earthquake. I had wondered why all the damage/loss of life seemed to be contained to Haiti with virtually no problems (reported anyway) in the Dominican Republic. However, by looking at the ‘Shake Map’ on the USGS site, I can see why the damage seems to be limited to POP and the immediate environs.
9 Sherab
Tell them thanks and to keep sending equipment and manpower. This is going to take years.
Papa Ray
On Fox News this afternoon they showed a soccer field that is being turned into an encampment by relief forces. I was surprised to see the surrounding buildings looked to be in good shape.
I lived in the southern/central Calif coast areas for 10 years and concluded that the best earthquake-resistant structure would be a mobile home – house trailer as it is known in the southeast – intrinsically separate from the ground and a self supporting structure in its own right. It gets shook, you just prop it back up the concrete blocks and go on, with no more than broken pipe or two to contend with. Ironically, I understand that it is not legal to buy a hunk of land and put a house trailer on it in LA County – the local building trades unions made sure that they would not get any competition from that sector.
In Oklahoma, where they have no earthquakes to speak of but instead are faced with tornadoes, high winds and cold weather, there are plenty of house trailers in use. In LA there are none except in a few trailer parks.
A French wag recently commented at this site that “we [the French] civilised much more persons in our long history life than you can ever dream of for your own sake, lot of them revendicated independance with the freedom motto too”
I look at places like Haiti, New Orleans, Montreal, the Congo or Cote d’Ivorie, Vietnam, Guiana, Algeria, Benin, Niger, Chad, Sudan, or Mali and marvel at the “revendicated independance with the freedom motto too”.
La mission civilitrice. Mostly mission sans la civilitrice…
LOL.
Perhaps Obama could turn Gitmo into a refugee camp and offer deluxe accommodations ( by Haitian standards)to some people in need of a temporary helping hand.
I was in St. Croix after Hugo leveled it years ago and there was a desperate need for law enforcement . It took some time to get the airport functioning and that seemed to be the biggest bottleneck.
La mission civilitrice. Mostly mission sans la civilitrice… LOL.
Just you wait Morton, until Marie Claude gets here and reads that. Then this comment thread is going to look like the Apocalypse came through it — twice. She’s going to civilitrice us something awful.
I couldn’t resist. SORRY.
As Jack Straw said, in the UN circa 2002, “My country too has an old civilization, established long ago … by France.”
Have to love the Drudge headline, “Anarchy: Who’s Running Haiti?”
Baron Samedi, same as for the last four hundred years.
Here are a few photos of this disaster.
Papa Ray
Just from a quick glance, it looks like many of the smaller very humble structures away from the city center (a.k.a. slums) survived mostly intact. I guess that’s to be expected. A single level tin roofed or tarpaper shack is much less likely to collapse than poorly designed and built heavy concrete or brick homes, offices, hospitals, and other structures.
The really sad part of all this is that it appears Haiti may have lost their most educated and hardest working folks in disproportionate numbers.
If you were an office worker, factory worker, doctor, or for that matter what passes for a middle class housewife, you were much more likely to be inside one of those concrete buildings that collapsed than a member of the unemployed underclass who may have been outdoors when the quake struck, and whose shanties were less likely collapse to begin with.
Millions of dollars for aid, medicine and rebuilding! Who am I kidding; this will cost US taxpayers tens or hundreds of billions before it’s over.
Zero for relocation to the United States!
Let’s help the Haitians where they are instead of adding several million more consumers of social services to U.S. rolls. I already have far more competition than I would like in the unemployment line.
BTW, RWE, I think you might have it slightly backwards, but there’s something to your theory. The action of coming unhooked from the foundation accelerates the shear forces and causes such structures to fail catastrophically. That is why modern codes require abundant steel ties which link the superstructure to the foundation. This actually minimizes the effects of shaking considerably. Your theory is sound only if the structure above the foundation can be isolated from the shaking, simply falling off the foundation would not accomplish this. That is why many retrofits, such as that conducted on the classic City Hall building in downtown Los Angeles places dozens of teflon footings underneath the building. This amazing engineering solution, when coupled with very fascinating damping structures at strategic vertical locations, allows the building to remain in place while the earth slides horizontally underneath. Also, the surrounding infrastructure connected to the building including entrances and sidewalks, are designed to serve as crumple zones akin to modern automobile frames.
now dig-
On the late local news last night, after the story about the terrible Haitian earthquake, the reporterette mentioned that a Haitian group in our community is asking for…cash donations that will be ¨¨put to good use. ¨¨
It took me a little while longer to fall asleep because I was still amped up from laughing.
think if this happened in Peru the Black Moses would be jiving up and down the tube…naaaa.
hey i´m behind SHAQ, DIDDY, MIKE JORDAN, WANDA SIKES, 50 CENTS, ET AL ON THE DONATION LINE. ERR…SEEMS A BIT LONELY ON LINE.
Safely housing so many displaced in the rapidly approaching hurricane season is going to be near on impossible. Wagers on how many Haitians Obama “takes in”? Miami tent cities underneath I-95 in Overtown anyone?
There’s always the risk that hucksters will try to horn in on the relief. And if you won’t mind me saying the biggest source of manpower and relief right now is the Haitians themselves, given proper leadership and incentive.
Troops working in coordination with the Haitian authorities can hire gangs of men, equip them with crowbars — shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows, carts, anything — and get them to clearing rubble, rounding up the injured, etc. This not only pumps money into the local economy, it is probably astoundingly cheap. You could hire a two hundred strong Haitian men for the cost of importing one relief worker from Europe. Plus, they know the language and where things are.
Most of the immediate resource needs can probably be met from local supplies until relief gets there. First thing is to post up sentries or police at the warehouses.
Above all this approach will create an atmosphere of orderly rescue, recovery and reconstruction that will set the tone for the rest. Remember the story I told about my experience in an earthquake? I think most people are waiting for someone to follow. If the cool heads establish a kind of firm but gentle authority from the get go, they’ll lead. If they don’t take the lead, the looters will.
Morton #21:
I am not enough of a redneck to have had the pleasure of helping my richest relative take the wheels off his new home, but trailer houses are structurally sound enough to be able to be hauled down the road at speeds of 60MPH or more. They have sizeable steel beams running under the floors. Now, if you prop one up on concrete blocks and the ground starts shaking it may fall off the blocks but in that case I can’t see how the shaking can be enough to transfer a lot of loads to the pretty sturdy box structure. I think of it like a cardboard box sitting in the bed of a pickup truck. It may bounce all over the place but it does not come apart. Regular homes are not like that.
Admittedly, there are now codes in some areas requiring such structures to be tied down quite robustly to minimize wind damage and that may transfer loads to the structure that come from the ground.
I am not sure this idea applies to premanufactured housing, which tends to sit on a foundation more like a regular house.
Ideally if it is something like an Airstream trailer, it is a pretty strong monocoque structure and will not be too badly troubled with a few bumps – assuming the severed water and sewer lines don’t ruin it and the severed gas and power lines don’t burn it down.
Trouble is, Haiti is Hurricane Country and you don’t want to be in one of those in a trailer.
Wretchard,
I understand that the US State Dept/Agency for International Development has already told the various US State national guard airlift units that no planes (C-130) on State Active Duty are to fly to Haiti. Only planes controlled by the US Military TRANSCOM and on a State Dept. authorized mission are allowed in.
The issue here is one of “Airfield MOG” (MOG – Maximum On Ground). The airport configuration (number of runways, refueling facilities, airport parking, available material handling equipment, immediately available warehouses) determines how many planes it can handle. Then there are subsets “working MOG,” “Contingency MOG” etc.
In short, airports can be operated in different ways depending the damage to the airport, what the military needs to do, and what the military needs to bring in to do it. That is determines airport through put over time.
The current number I am hearing is 13-14 aircraft maximum can be on the ground and that Port-Au-Prince airport cannot take C-5 or 747 sized planes.
There needs to be combat air controllers and tactical tower to replace earthquake damaged Haitian facilities at a minimum. I understand from NPR that US Air force air traffic control assets are now managing Haitian airspace.
Even with that, there are limitations to air movement.
The problem with an aerial port relief team is all they can do is pile relief supplies up at the airport.
There needs to be a way to get the stuff out to the country side. That will require helicopters, trucks and civil engineering equipment (think bulldozers, backhoes, cranes and dump trucks) to clear/repair roads. Those have to come by sea.
It is best to get ships moving with those mobility assets and use airlift as a bandage on the “worse of the most reachable” areas near Port Au Prince. Then start moving big volumes of relief supplies and first responders by sea.
Like in the aftermath of the Indonesian Tsunami, vessels off shore can offer havens for first responders without having to build armed camps on shore.
The real issue is that the US military — via SOUTHCOM — and the State Department are going to have to deal with the security situation caused by hordes of well meaning but often clueless incoming American NGOs volunteers moving into an uncertain security and civil environment.
Defense Contract Management Agency folks I knew — who did contingency contracting in support of the 10th Mountain Division’s 1990′s intervention in Haiti — say it has no real civil society infrastructure/social trust to speak of.
There is nothing even approaching the tribal systems seen in Afghanistan or Iraq.Extended Family/Clan blood ties is about as high as it seems to go and even that is chancy.
Rich American NGO volunteers — and trust me, compared to an average Haitian, they are all rich — will seem a prime target for theft and worse.
Since I am also hearing calls by Catholic NGOs in North Texas — via Dallas catholic radio — to parishioners for money or volunteers to assist sister Haitian Catholic parishes. This will be a real issue in starting in 5-7 days, and reaching a head in a couple of weeks, as the NGO’s show up in Port Au Prince via smaller chartered boats & ships with lots of valuable relief supplies and no civil order to dispense the supplies.
Real US Military sealift is going to take time.
NPR also just reported that the large container unloading cranes in Port-au-prince harbor have all toppled.
The associated ship births will be filled with wreckage that must be moved if large container ships are to be docked.
Fox News says a US Army brigade combat team (BCT) and USMC Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) are alerted, and the super carrier USS Vinson is en route to Haiti. The Vinson is picking up helicopters in Jacksonville.
Aerial refueling tankers from MacDill AFB are going to be refueling C130’s and C-17’s flying to Haiti to avoid the need to use local earthquake damaged airport infrastructure.
There will be some impact on the on-going Afghan surge unless money is found from somewhere outside the current Defense budget.
They need to rebuild with Monolithic Domes reinforced for earthquakes and hurricanes.
http://www.monolithic.com/
Real Solid construction… Inexpensive…
What about the Dominican Republic? Last I checked it shared the same land mass as Haiti. One would think they felt the effects of the earthquake also.
DR border is 100 miles away, they may have felt it, but shouldn’t have suffered significant damage.
On the airport business, two thoughts. First, that perhaps this would be a good time to have the Army Corps of Engineers drop in and build one big enough for transports, as an exercise. Shovel ready, indeed. Might improve the roads from DR about the same time. Second, that it’s not like Haiti is thousands of miles from other civilized territories, and I hope mass quantities of whatever can move by ship as well.
I certainly like wretchard’s idea of organizing local labor there to improve their own situation – and yet, wonder just what local labor is capable of, educated for, accustomed to.
Many years ago I went through Photo Intelligence training and joined the Order of the Cyclops. Looking at this photo I would be hard pressed to find a target. Even the buildings that haven’t collapsed ca not be considered safe. My first assumption is that there is now no source of clean water available. Anything else can be worked around but no water means no human life. It would be helpful if one of the physicians that regularly comment here could offer an opinion on how long can we expect before a Typhus epidemic begins? Anyone who can move should have already evacuated that city. In the case of Katrina an ultimately manageable number of sometimes unmanageable people were ill provided for for several days but the numbers who were not rescued and moved to a location where basic sanitation and a civilized infrastructure were available proved to be far smaller then the hyperventilating press first claimed. In the case of Haiti things are far worse because there are no alternative infrastructures available that can support the survivors. Also we can not assume that they can respond effectively to their own needs and create solutions. Think of what happened with Katrina. The storm landed between New Orleans and Mobile. That meant that the most dangerous area that faced the greatest destruction was to the East. However we heard almost nothing from that region. The people there absorbed the damage and went about repairing what they could and assisting each other when possible. To the West the population panicked and their chosen politicians proved entirely incapable of responding appropriately. Thousands of them are still looking for outside support without any expectation that they should perform useful work. In Haiti we unfortunately face a place much more like New Orleans. They are ill prepared, ill lead and ill equipped to recover. Unfortunately in such a situation that means that many will die, quite possibly many more then were killed by the initial earthquake.
a tradegy. It seems the ones hurt the most have the least.
I understand we have poured million into the country. Where did it go? Obviously not to the people and living conditions.
Our prayers are with the people. There are a lot of places to donate $ to help with the comfort they need after this disaster.
I am sure Obama inherited this disaster in Haiti from Bush, and bush caused the earthquake… blahblahblah
***************
ALSO
wonder just what local labor is capable of, educated for, accustomed to.
To some degree it doesn’t matter if you hired them to move sand around the beach. It will keep them busy, out of trouble, create a sense of order, put food on the table. You’ll create a database of persons, etc.
Of course you shouldn’t use them for moving sand around. If they just did stuff like taking rubble off the streets or set to work digging for survivors, with wooden boards or their bare hands if need be, then it would be something. The most worrisome thing I saw in all the video right after the earthquake was that single burning tire. What was that supposed to mean? Well we know. So it’s best to keep the tire burners shifting rocks around purposefully or not to keep things under control.
I can’t figure out from this if you are an evil patronizing neo-colonialist or a golden-hearted post-partisan community organizer of shovel-ready stimuli.
Re: #26
Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the procedure can help me with this-even if NG aircraft are not allowed to land, how hard would it be to carve out a rudimentary reception area for LAPES operations? Is this still done?
I certainly like wretchard’s idea of organizing local labor there to improve their own situation – and yet, wonder just what local labor is capable of, educated for, accustomed to.
Right now all they need is a lot of people working in concert. No real need for educated people, heck, even if one person can only work one hour at a crack there are probably enough people to backfill his slot when resting up.Give ‘em so much $/day, food, water, some security and they’ll be there.
In fact, one report I heard is where gasoline is available then backhoes, bulldozers, etc are being applied, where there is no gasoline then people are doing the work. I reckon the former is a rare situation. Even if gasoline were plentiful there would not be enough heavy equipment and as we all know heavy equipment is probably not called for in most situations lest a living person get ripped apart.
In the Emirates despite the ability for the local firms to purchase or otherwise procure heavy equipment to dig ditches and the like they often relied on teams of young and strong men to do that work (usually Pakistanis). They had lots of ‘em in the country and better have them digging ditches than sitting around making zip guns & AK47 knockoffs in some hole in the wall shop in Sanaiya.
I think what can be done is being done. More help is available than can be put on the ground. The ‘rest of us’ are frustrated because there is such limited availability on the existing pipeline.
I think everyone is doing their best right now. The human spirit knows this:
“And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a).)
Perhaps after this Haiti can be rebuilt in a better way. That does not matter now and I dont know.
Spindok
In the Emirates despite the ability for the local firms to purchase or otherwise procure heavy equipment to dig ditches and the like they often relied on teams of young and strong men to do that work (usually Pakistanis). They had lots of ‘em in the country and better have them digging ditches than sitting around making zip guns & AK47 knockoffs in some hole in the wall shop in Sanaiya.
Will the Emirates want to sub-contract them to Haiti?
#25 RWE — yet a quick internet search shows that mobile homes regularly get destroyed in earthquakes per my supposition above: For example:
http://geology.com/earthquake/california.shtml
Re: Coalinga Earthquake
Magnitude 6.4
May 2, 1983
“A disaster assessment by the American Red Cross listed the following statistics on damage in the area: almost destroyed-309 single-family houses and 33 apartment buildings; major damage-55B single-family houses, 94 mobile homes, and 39 apartment buildings; and minor damage-Bll single-family houses, 22 mobile homes, and 70 apartment buildings. Most public buildings, including the City Hall, hospital, schools, fire house, post office, and police station, sustained only minor damage.”
The Loma Prieta Earthquake,
Magnitude 6.9
October 1989
“Effects in San Francisco and Oakland … 414 single-family homes destroyed, 104 mobile homes destroyed…
Now I don’t know if these were bolted, but since Loma Prieta, codes have radically changed in CA and stressed the importance of tying structures to foundations. I am quite certain that the shear forces of earthquakes can easily exceed 1G laterally, which I doubt most mobile homes can endure. In addition, not to beat a dead horse, a sheared building will expose gas mains at a much higher rate, despite cutoff valves — and as we all know, fires go hand in hand with earthquakes, often destroying that which the earthquake left standing.
In the comment I made on the last thread I forgot to mention the water situation. There is a severe lack of water all over, let alone clean water. One of the construction projects we did when we were there in 2002 was to re-plumb the output line for a pump they had on a well. It was being used to irrigate a bean field they used to produce food for the church. I asked them why they needed to irrigate and they said that it really didn’t rain enough to support the “farm”. I was shocked – this is the tropics after all isn’t it.
I found out that most of the trees had been cut down some time ago for cooking fires. That deforestation has created desert like conditions for big areas of the country. Cactus and thorny scrub brush were common in the surrounding countryside.
The churches we were helping each had a water well that supplied drinking and wash water for the church and surrounding community. At one church they showed me the “creek” that they had previously used as their water source. Your city waste-water treatment plant would have looked and smelled better than that creek. Needless to say their general health had improved greatly after the well came in.
The Mennonites had a pretty big mission that was drilling the wells at no charge to the locals. It is amazing what a difference such a small seeming thing can make.
I don’t know if the fact that a large part of the populace is already used to bad water will make a difference in how much worse the disease situation will get from what it already is? Maybe one of the Docs. here can tell us.
The earthquake didn’t kill anybody. Their buildings did. Sorry to politicize this, but Third World cinder block continues its bloody trail from China, Iran and Haiti. The Communist standard of living doesn’t destroy quality of life, it destroys life.
Here is a Babel Fish translation of #9
France sends 400 members of the Civil security Paris dispatched of Istres a A310 Airbus with on board an about sixty members of the Civil security. Three transport aircraft military carrying about fifty people and the 12 tons of material humanitarian arrived from Martinique. The device will be supplemented with the sending of a hospital of countryside, an about sixty male nurses, 400 members of the Civil security and two military ships, which will bring equipment of earthwork and Puma helicopters.
Bob Martin is reporting a quake in Davao: Having a fairly good sized earthquake in Davao right now. I don’t expect damage, but this is the biggest I’ve felt for many years here.
organization is lacking in an unorganized country, and will lead to problems.
Someone here/there needs to account for all the money we have sent to this country over the years..
For all the $ the country has received from the US, this should be a paradise with well cared for people…what happened??? Where is it?..
Sallie #43:
The same could be said for the whole of Africa. P.J. O’Rourkr pointed out in his book “Eat the Rich” that for Tangyangnika, or whatever they call it now, enough money had been sent to buy every family in the country a nice plot in the area with the best farmland. But there was no evidence of that.
Pressing #39:
In Florida, and I assume the rest of the tropics, if you don’t irrigate you don’t grow. Tropical storm season and the normal summer thunderstorm season bring abundant moisture – usually. But the rest of the year, about 6 months, it is pretty dry. No irrigation system, no pretty lawn. I thnk that every tropical island down there has water problems.
Question for all relative to the photo: I assume that unreinforced concrete block or similar masonry is the norm for construction in that area, is it not?
Quality of Haitian labor. I’m with our host. Besides, the Egyptians seem to have been able to usefully employ this type of labor force for years on end.
I read that the cranes used for handling containers had all fallen into the harbor. It may take days to remove them using tugs, before the big supply ships can get close.
In a former life I spent some time in Port Au Prince working in the National Palace. How poor was Haiti? The National Palace didn’t have air conditioning. The President of the country did not have air conditioning in his home. They had not repaired pockmarks on the building from gunfire resulting from a political dispute months before. Members of parliament sat in plastic chairs like you would find in a school cafeteria in a building of bare concrete block. City streets disappeared overnight as people built ramshackle homes and stores in the middle of them. No one knew how many people actually lived in the city.
We will never know how many people died in that quake. God rest their souls.
@ 43. Sallie:
For all the $ the country has received from the US, this should be a paradise with well cared for people…what happened??? Where is it?..
Lawrence Harrison has written some good books on the topic of why some cultures progress and some do not: “Underdevelopment is a State of Mind” and “Culture Matters: How Value Shape Human Progress” are two of them.
Hmnn, looks as if Haiti is at the crossroads.
Annoy Mouse — thanks for the translation. Look — I’m not wanting to gainsay any help the insufferable French are giving to these desperate people right now — we all need to do something to help them, but the French are so hopelessly arrogant and congenitally obnoxious, I just have to call them on this. The translation you provide is a perfect example — notice the way they puff up the real number of personnel they’re sending to this unmitigated catastrophe: they repeat the 400 number twice, perhaps to convey the sense that, if added up, the total number is nearer 1000. Do we add the first 400, then the “about 60″ personnel, then the “sixty male nurses”, then the 400 again? I’m sure not. Maybe it’s lost in translation, but I’m pretty sure the French are sending, according to this article, about 400 personnel. Perhaps this is their first installment, but the cowardly nation which is spearheading the formation of the EU neo-Soviet Empire, which aspires to be the other polarity in the world AGAINST America, is of little use at all in the world, and the architect of much of what is wrong in the world. It would be refreshing to hear a frog admit it once in a while, and climb off their eternal high-horse as exemplified by a certain poster who shall soon, no doubt, attempt to cause a tremor in this thread the charming malapropism cum smiley faces.
Haiti is a nation which truly indicts French colonialism. I usually reject this threadbare (usually Leftist) accusation about the badness of colonialization by European powers, but not in the case of the French. Almost everywhere they have placed their historic and rapine jackboot they have left wastelands, horrors, and devastating corruption. They spread it like a disease. It is one reason I label France “the Latter Day Whore of Babylon”. (if I knew how to post a little emoticon, I’d do a pimp smiley face…)
Anyway, compare France’s totally lacking contribution (12 tons of humanitarian aid — ARE THEY KIDDING!?!?!?) to this, and from Reuters, no less:
FACTBOX-U.S. military mobilizes thousands for Haiti relief
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14193646.htm
Source: Reuters
Jan 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. military is mobilizing thousands of soldiers, sailors and Marines along with members of the Air Force and Coast Guard for relief efforts in Haiti.
In addition to this, thousands of other Americans are flocking to the island from the 40 states, as they always do in every catastrophe — both NGOs and GOs alike. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the contigent from any small state in the Union outshines France’s contribution by a country mile. Not France-bashing – just telling it like it is.
Given the country’s previous condition and the magnitude of this disaster I would expect that Haiti has effectively ceased to exist as a functioning state. Sometimes a patient becomes so sick he is unable to participate in his own treatment. We take him to the ICU, intubate him, connect the monitors and administer meds/perform procedures until he recovers or dies. Haiti will recover, but will likely be unable to effectively care for itself for a long, long time.
Ooops –Obama is getting to me – 50 states, right? Check.
Morton & Rwe as I said earlier in this thread, container homes would be the cheapest and fastest way to house the general population.
They can be tied down or bolted to foundations. It is practically impossible for weather to destroy an ISO Container.
Even if the wind picked it up and tossed it several yards.
Teach a few hundred locals how to use a cutting torch and simple welding and bring in the containers and convert them.
Where these surplus containers are a couple of thousand dollars apiece, most likely if you bought thousands of them, you could get them for half that or even less.
Add a couple of windows, a door, toilet and a sink and a vented cook stove. Insulate the roof against the sun by spraying on the same thing they use on trailers and some roofs and you have an instant house.
You couldn’t build a one room house for anywhere near the price and in the first hurricane or earthquake it would be a pile of broken lumber.
Papa Ray
The Red Cross now estimates that 40-50,000 people died in Haiti, that’s bad but not the 500,000 tossed out there by Drudge yesterday. There’s still a country there.
Morton Doodslag: In addition, not to beat a dead horse, a sheared building will expose gas mains at a much higher rate, despite cutoff valves — and as we all know, fires go hand in hand with earthquakes, often destroying that which the earthquake left standing.
Looking at that image, it’s almost identical to a Google Earth shot of Manila. If the Presidential Palace doesn’t even have air conditioning, then it’s a sure bet most buildings don’t have central heating. In tropical countries you wash yourself with water from the tap, or a pipe, or a hose snaking through the neighborhood, not a hot water heater. You cook with bits of scrap plywood.
Haiti and Gitmo
Haiti, Cuba, PR, Jamaica not to mention DR.
Comparing the GeoEye 0.5 meter image with the Google Earth 3 meter image (acquired March 4, 2008) is a bit deceptive. A lot of the clutter in the more recent image is people and their stuff. But, the visible damage is breathtaking. The cathedral 600 meters north of the “E building” looks as though it has been bombed. One intersection at 18 32’28.71N, 72 20’35.10W is amazing. A several story building has collapsed sidewise. It looks as though the more substantial structures suffered the most damage.
Fox news is reporting that relief supplies are piling up at the airport and not making it out into the city. This is going to be very bad. It will be necessary to provide security before aid workers will be able to get to work. I’m afraid that we will have to occupy Port au Prince in order to provide any relief. Thank God Haiti is not, er, uh, mohammedan. This could Somalia all over again …
How do you guys and frogs post emoticons?
Based on a review of the aerial provided in the post, there doesn’t appear to be too much damage, certainly not “totally destroyed” as has been hyped in the news. Sure there were pockets of damage, and destruction of large buildings, but overall looks livable, at least to Haiti standards. Hopefully the Haitians can pull of survival without the US having to rebuild the entire country to US standards.
With my keyboard.
I helped out in Mexico City after the 1985 8.3 mag quake. The pictures flowing from Haiti bring back lots of memories.
If things go as I would expect, there will be a huge inflow of relief workers that will go on for many weeks. Initially there will be focus on rescuing trapped survivors. After that, the problems will be water, food and shelter, and of course, disease. There will also have to be a lot of security – Mexico sent in squads of marines to the central city in 1985.
In Mexico City, the Cruz Roja, Salvation Army, the Catholic Church, the US Embassy and military, the Southern Baptist Conference (with pre-supplied disaster relief semi-trailer trucks), and many specialist groups (such as demolition folks) were on the scene rapidly and did great work. In the face of a huge disaster, it is heart warming to see such groups at work. I’m sure this is going on right now in Haiti.
BTW, for those curious about what structures survive best… the answer is Biblical – those built on stone. The reason is that a solid rock foundation will transmit the earthquake waves with minimal displacement. Another good rule is to not have building built by corrupt governments – in Mexico City, much of the worst damage was to government buildings (such as all of the hospitals, public housing where tens of thousands died, etc).
In Mex City, the US Embassy, built downtown in the former lake bed, had a unitary construction, where the whole thing was designed like a huge concrete boat (this wasn’t visible). It sustained zero damage in the quake.
MD, just type ‘em in –the site converts ‘em.
(oops, it didn’t convert the middle one)
:-O
@>:(> (Kurt Westergaardesque…)
52/Papa Ray. Containers can be upscale, too. There’s a container-based mansion in Redondo Beach. Logical Homes is typical of the genre. I like Atelier Workshop’s Port-A-Bach. I’ve lived in a one-room log cabin where 1/6th the room was for the wood stove, hauling water in a bucket and using “outdoor facilities” for a period of many years. A p-a-b is alien it’s so luxurious.
If you set up a central container with showers, another with a kitchen, it could become the core of a village. You’d need either serious security or a sense of community ownership to keep things nailed down — my guess is that at this point having bunk houses would work best. Similar concept to a Scout camp.
former vice president uncle joey biden-kennedy announced that all members of congress have pledged their federally mandated botox allowances be donated to the haitian relief effort.
During the Botox Hiatus, congress has mandated that anyone with a camera within 100′ of any elected federal official will be shot on sight, their property transferred to TARP and their family enrolled at Harvard.
They are going to have to get the port open. Apparently it’s totally shut down. Planes aren’t going to bring enough supplies in to supply even the rescue. Ships can hold thousands of times more than a plane.
Priority one is rescue, two is logistics. That means ships, ports, roads.
Sylvia — they’re putting the finishing touches on a Atelier Workshop module not far from me. It’s very cool — I want to take a tour of the interior to see if it’s as cool as the exterior. It’s being built by a couple from the US State Department — I may have mentioned their Religion of Peace story in this blog before. Stationed in Indonesia for years (and loving it, apparently) until Jihad started all all over the area they were stationed. I don’t know where that was exactly, but I’ll try to remember to ask if I see them. Anyway, not too long ago, a Muslim throng chased some poor guy into the culvert under the entrance to their compound, whereupon he was literally butchered into little pieces. I guess it clued them in to the sitch, and then they decided to build their dream house back stateside…
I really like the container idea — and there is a huge surplus apparently. Just this morning I was looking at pricing in anticipation of my move from California, and even a tricked out 40X8X8 with hardwood floor and plywood walls, waterproof, with a couple roll doors at either end runs between mid $2K (used) to a little over $5K new. I need one to move my stuff, but like the idea of keeping it and perhaps converting it into a cabin as you describe.
Heathen at # 50:
Agree with your general idea, but I think your euphemistic “previous condition” doesn’t add much to the discussion.
What exactly are you talking about?
When you become aware that a Haitian can be scared to death and stop functioning just because of a threat of a voodoo spell, and with millions following this self-defeating cult, what else is there to wonder about? It’s called “culture.”
The country has almost no practicing professionals, but has hundreds, if not thousands, of voodoo priests, priestesses, and entire congregations/villages who get high on grass and other stupid-making drugs and blood-shedding in savage rituals, on a regular basis.
There are so many testimonies about this despicable cult. Check out this one:
http://www.wehaitians.com/haitian%20voodoo.html
I captured an image from Google Earth before the quake to compare and contrast from the Palace and a church.
http://blog.keithdmilby.com/2010/01/14/haiti-after-the-quake/
68 — MD. I had a friend (husband in oil) who lived in Indonesia for a few years. They sent their daughter to a boarding school in Switzerland and bought a huge dog for their son. Nobody would get near their dog, which was the goal, but it meant they had to import guards and all the other help for the compound. They did. My friend was absolutely miserable and they came back to the States as soon as they could.
For your new place, if septic/plumbing isn’t already there, consider a self-composting toilet. Envy your leaving our Golden State. I’d go back to the farm in Montana if I could, but employment and family are here.
Wouldn’t it be easiest to unload & organize men and materials in DR and convoy in to Haiti from there?
Convoy protection troups could meet the convoys at the border as necessary, the DR airport probably is 100x better than anything in Haiti anyway.
As if on cue, PJM links to this article by Tunku Varadarajan which states the case against France better than I can.
Why Haiti’s Earthquake Is France’s Problem
When it came to Haiti, France was first a brutal colonizer, and then a usurious bully. Tunku Varadarajan on why it’s time for reparations.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-14/why-haitis-earthquake-is-frances-problem/?cid=tag:all1
Where is that gauling gorgon anyway…?
http://www.haitisolidarity.net/article.php?id=327
The list of essays located on the left side of the page contain in short form pretty much the operating case (as opposed to meditations on root causes) against Haiti’s management to date.
Normally this material would be considered leftish agitprop but jeez louise as such it sure ain’t –as the sort is usually –delegitimized by the past or present successes of the objects of the criticism.
This isn’t the time for change, and this is the time for change. Once we sort out DC we really have to do something about the UN, which while levitating in the legitimate push & pull of left & right, consumes the small poor nations that it cultivates for the purpose.
The shame of Drudge’s headline is that is was almost as applicable before the earthquake.
Not a photo-recon specialist, but I am a radiologist who reads mammograms — it’s close!
This city is toast. South and east of the Presidential Palace there are multi-story buildings in heaps. A stereo pair would be somewhat better, but this is horrific. The church north of the palace is down to the columns. The buildings behind the Palace are rubble. Across the street is a hospital that doesn’t look too bad, but the lack of depth is limiting. Look for the piles of building floors, like a stack of slightly twirled pieces of paper or napkins. This is going to take years to clean up, assuming there is plenty of heavy equipment on the way and it can stay long enough to finish the job..
This may go down in the Mexico City-Lisbon-San Francisco category for earthquake-induced destruction of a city.
For whoever asked, typhoid has an incubation period of about a week. Cholera is 1-5 days. Viral gastroenteritis is probably 2-3 days. With everybody sleeping outside, yellow fever, dengue and malaria all come into play as well. Hopefully the desalination plant on the Vinson will help, the Seabees can string power from the carrier into the city for critical functions and the existing water system repaired. If not, things are going to be even more hellish in a couple of weeks.
And yes, hurricane season will be extra-terrifying this year without concrete buildings. If we’re going to relocate them, Detroit has some open land.
The other problem is that this earthquake may well have taken a huge bite out of the Haitian equivalent of the middle class and professionals. Hard to start over again with mostly peasants and government functionaries. It’s like the Golgafrincham fleet, only worse.
It is time to let Haiti go. The corruption is beyond epidemic. The laziness and lack of dedication is transparent.
Adios folks.
I have nothing substantive to offer on this latest proof of the fact that God is a mean guy, except I will jump in on bugging MC Frenchie:
hen it came to Haiti, France was first a brutal colonizer, and then a usurious bully. Tunku Varadarajan on why it’s time for reparations.
Say a prayer and send money, one will work.
Haiti,
Site of the only successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere. Beacon of wealth and prosperity, known for it’s progressive and forward looking leaders such as Doc and Baby Doc Du Valier.
The Western Hemisphere’s rival of Liberia, where freed slaves returned to find wealth and prosperity, once liberated from the iron fist of the racist western oppressors.
That such a calamity should happen is truly a tragedy.
But now that it has, where will the funds and manpower to rebuild come from? No doubt such fountainheads of freedom and industry as China, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South America, East Asia, and the benevolent North American nations of Canada and Mexico.
The Great Satan, the USA? No doubt we will sit back and scheme on how to further our exploitation of the less fortunate, manifest our destiny, and enhance our oppressive hold on the weak and unfortunate of the world.
Indeed, give it a week, the world, the people of Haiti, Barack Obama, the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the world press, will hate us, (even more), for not having the population of Haiti lifted to upper middle class standards.
And about that time, expect Al and Jessy to show up and grab a headline or two, why? Because we haven’t cut the check to cover it all yet.
15. WRJonas:
I was in St. Croix before, during, and after hurricane Hugo as well.
It was quite an experience. One I will never forget. I’ve been prep-minded ever since.
Even as most all of the infrastructure was destroyed, what wasn’t destroyed outright immediately collapsed. The vacuum of authority was complete. It was so hard for relief workers to even begin operations that several that I spoke with said it was a good model for a nuclear war. They were in the same place as everyone else. If they didn’t bring it with them they didn’t have it. Water, Food, Shelter, Comm, Electricity…Everything.
Strait up the Haitian population needs heavy-duty imported security ASAP!
Then they are going to need to set up desal medical, and food distribution right quick.
The S is fixing to hit the fan over there…As if the actual quake wasn’t bad enough.
Wish we could use this disaster as a way to move the UN Headquarters to Haiti.
Willing hands they can find. The issue is no leadership.
The only thing I’ve heard from the President is he can’t get back into his palace or his house.
They need leaders, bullhorns, and ham radio operators – phones are probably all out.
Current situation:
Air Force Special Ops secured PaP airport last night after 8 pm. When security was assured they began air traffic control activities. The electric is on and the airport is operating 24 hrs a day. It has 1 runway of 9000 feet.
At one point today, there were 44 planes on the ground. Unloading is a bottleneck as are other support services. PaP had 2 tow bars and two fuel trucks. The AF is asking inbound planes to carry enough fuel to depart, to ease that bottleneck.
The runway should be long enough for the C-5. I am assured it can handle C-17′s and the C-130′s are lined up to land.
Mobility Command is bringing in a whole bunch of goodies to make the airport run better this evening. More people, more everything.
The first paras ought to be on the ground as I write this. The Marines are on their way. USS Vinson should arrive tomorrow. 2-4 Coast Guard cutters are offshore and so is the USS Higgins.
AF Special Ops pararescuemen are operating in PaP as an urban search and rescue team. 7 rescues on 01-14-2010.
Port is trashed. B/c of the quake, it will probably need to be surveyed in detail, since channels may be gone or blocked with wreckage.
22 MEU’s arrival will allow a large number of amphib vehicles to be used if a survey can find some spots for them to land. For a bit, there may be some offloading onto the amphibs to move supplies to shore.
@41
That would be “field hospital” rather than “hospital of countryside.”
Underway or there: the USN has LSD’s (landing ship dock)Carter Hall & Ft McHenry, Cruiser Normandy, Carrier Carl Vinson, hospital ship USNS Comfort and others. Carl Vinson took on at least two helo squadrons from Jacksonville yesterday and there are many Navy logistics planes ready to resupply Carl Vinson without the need of an airport on land. I’ve read that USAF has a special ops ATC team on the ground. POP international airport is a one runway cow pasture strip, hence the logistics difficulties. The choppers and LSD’s are going to be the saviors, if anything.
Ned
I think France should be pressured to pay them back for the blood money they extorted. This money should be placed in a fund and a MONTHLY accounting of it should take place until it has been spent or turned over to Haiti. At the very least they should be given a vast infusion of what is owed them to start again and start it right. After that they should be left to sink or swim. You can’t keep pouring money down a hole for generations without concluding it is wasteful and futile.
Uncle Sam has sent nearly $100 Million dollars a year for the last 20 years, with nothing to show for it.
after the current flurry of activity ends, Haiti will still be Haiti.
Why Foreign Aid to Haiti Failed
http://www.napawash.org/haiti_final.pdf
I glanced over a list of the aid pledged by all the “great” nations of the world. Of course, the aid pledged by the US exceeds all of the aid pledged by all of the other great nations of the world combined. My own country Canada has pledged 5 million and our Governor General was born in Haiti.
The US sent 500 million in aid over the past three years. Where on earth did it go? Apparently not for roads, schools, hospitals, or law and order. Dysfunctional countries should not get aid without big strings attached to it.
From the study Visitor cited:
If the number of failed or failing states multiply, Haiti may be the future of foreign relations. There’s no easy way for a UN-recognized state to die. They exist, as a husk almost like a Haitian zombie long after real life has left it.
Failed states are like patients with an impaired immune system. They chug along for a while until something — a hurricane, earthquake, civil war, disease or other catastrophe — comes along blows the whole shebang over in a heap. There is something deeply flawed in the current international model. The UN/development assistant/world bank/NGO model can’t hack it.
Maybe the only real development assistance is that which helps genuine democratic and accountable governance to emerge. Without governance, not all the money in the world helps. Venezuela has devalued five times. There are rolling blackouts in Caracas. The Congo is a far greater tragedy than Haiti. It’s all-Africa war has killed 5.4 million people. It’s mankind’s greatest war since World War 2. But while everyone has heard of Vietnam, Korea or Iraq, who the heck has heard about the Congo?
They used to talk about the “invisible men” of 1940s Hollywood. Well who were the invisible men of the late 20th century and who were the media producers of the era but the very people who swore they were color blind? Blind maybe, but let’s leave the colors out of it.
And so it goes. All these places can’t be fixed with aid or NGOs. These places have got to be helped to remake themselves. The earthquake may be a good metaphor for the state of international development theory. It is so at odds with reality that like a tectonic plate struggling against the plate of reality, the tensions will grow until one day they snap in an earthquake and we wake to find that we’ve been trying to open the door the wrong way.
Sylvia — I loved your story about living off the grid, I wish I had the moxxy. But I require (functioning) electric outlets, hot water, flushing non-resricted-waterflow toilets*, and HDTV! And you shouldn’t feel too jealous for my leaving CA… I think I’m moving to Michigan (insert rim shot)– I’m from there originally. It’s really very nice if you know where not to go. Still, it’s a far cry from swank digs in the mythic Hollywood Hills, and some days I do question my sanity… but there are some things I can’t overlook any more, and flyover country looks better and better by the minute.
I’m disgusted and fatigued at the cesspit CA is becoming, refuse to pay 10% sales tax any longer, refuse any longer to pay what LA demands in annual property tax to subsidize la Reconquista. BTW my next-door neighbor is pitcher Randy Wolf lately of Dodgers semi-fame. His house, (previously inhabited by none other than “SLASH” — seriously!) generates a largish pile of lucre in property tax for LA — my house is not so grand, but the city is too broke to render essential services like clearing rockslides so we can get through. Oddly they still have plenty left (no pun) to indoctrinate hundreds of thousands of non-American students taught in non-English about Freda Kahlo, Fidel, Che, ‘Aztlan’, la Raza, la MeCHa, el Chicanos, y Cesar Chavezzz, but Ben Franklin? John Adams? ¿Que? ¿Who dey? ¿Who dat?
Anyway the radical turn viz. Obama, the collective insanity of the American electorate, all of it is making that little voice in my head a little more convincing when it says Get the Hell Outta Dodge while the Gettins Good. Michigan is my version of off the grid. I only hope the nukes don’t go off near me there. Not likely unless some butterfingered Imam in Dearborn does something crazy during a trans-shipment. But those guys are pretty good at what they do.
Wow! That building in the video disintegrated way too fast.
Morton suggested Port Au Prince is built on alluvium. If that’s true, the combination of heavy concrete buildings without the proper foundation built for soft alluvium, a high water table, and a vertical thrust fault quake where the shaking action is a vertical pounding like action, not the more usual lateral/side to side kind, could induce liquefaction where the foundation support crumbles and sinks into the alluvium goo and everything above it just disintegrates. That ‘s what the video looks like. A special foundation system would be needed to withstand that, and even a well built conventional foundation wouldn’t help much. If your foundation goes, you’re usually toast. In the much, much bigger Anchorage quake of 64, a monster 9.4 vertical thrust type quake, there was vertical ground displacement in areas of several feet. There’s not much you can do when that happens.
Sometimes that’s just the way things happen. If memory serves, in the Mexico City quake in the 80′s, the epicenter was offshore off Acapulco, and quake was over 8.0. Acapulco was not severely damaged, but the new, thought to be well built steel frame high rises built over Mexico City’s filled in lake bed many, many miles inland, were. The harmonic frequency of the quake coincided with innate frequency of the steel moment frame high rises and the steel buildings as a result disintegrated. Older, poorly built multistory masonry structures stood with little damage right next to modern steel buildings that collapsed.
They are a hopeless, worthless lot. They deserve to be left alone to shift for themselves, and the land itself there deserves cleansing “in the deep bosom of the ocean, buried.”
What are the odds an island get a direct hit from a Quake with no tremors? Natural quakes ALWAYS have tremors because that is how Plate Tectonics work.
Cross-blogged at http://www.repubx.com .. first in news and home to IntelliFETCH .. check it out!
W,
Lack of good governance is certainly one of Haiti’s biggest problems. It seems that it would be impossible to fix a place like that without infringing on their sovereignty. And even then it might not be possible. It’s the culture there. It’s like helping an alcoholic, they have to want to change.
Your mention of Congo and Africa I think are related. I’m certainly no expert on Haiti but I expect that the culture is similar to that from Africa so the problems of poor governance are related.
Have any failed states ever been saved, or do they just get a little better and a little worse over time?
Here’s a link to an article written in September 2009. Haiti has received over 4 billion in aid between 1990 and 2003. But read the only comment to this article written just two days ago which is right on the money…
http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/59877/2009/08/28-173441-1.htm
They are a hopeless, worthless lot. They deserve to be left alone to shift for themselves, and the land itself there deserves cleansing “in the deep bosom of the ocean, buried.”
I wouldn’t go so far. The kids are surely blameless. Many of us had the great fortune to be born into workable cultures or acquired it subsequently by hard work or good luck. To have been born into a family with values or a culture with values is to win the lottery of life.
The only thing we can really pass on to our kids is the right way of thinking, the correct value of things. Money, goods — these last only a short time. It is the habits of heart and habits of mind that truly endure. This fleeting thing is our only treasure.
It’s interesting that a lot of people have remarked that this tragedy proves that “God does not exist”; but to what does that refer? The rocks and stones have always been part of the unfeeling stage; the boards beneath the feet. The real punchlines of the universe are delivered by those parts of that think. It is for us, not the rocks to act. By virtue of the fact that we cogito, ergo we are the posse, God’s agent upon the earth.
But to pin on the tin star, we have to accept the charge under which we act. Because to tell you the truth, unless we think there’s a good and bad, it’s really a matter of indifference between whether you join the fray as a medico or a bandido. Which road you choose at an intersection only matters if you’ve got someplace to go.
For the Haitians the questions are same ones all people face. Is it worthwhile going on when your wife and child lie dead under a heap of rubble and you stand there with only the bag of potato chips you were bringing home to them as a treat in your hand? Quo vadis, Pierre? Or do you pick yourself up and don your tin star and help your neighbor dig up his kids who are still alive and give him the potato chips to keep him going? Corpus Christi et Domine non sum dignus. Do your intentions count? Do you labor in the fields of the lord? You don’t believe that God exists? Well let me introduce you to the devil. That’s an easier sell.
Personally, I never expected to be alive. It was like finding myself in a show with a ticket I didn’t pay for. More than halfway through the drama now, and I still don’t know what the story is about. But I’m here with the ticket in my hand and I like to think it was put there for a reason.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And no, I don’t think it’s pointless.
Wow! That building in the video disintegrated way too fast.
Yes, it’s obvious to all non-sheeple that George W. Bush planted explosives in that building. Then he triggered the earthquake via satellite to provide some plausible cover for his actions, which were clearly orchestrated so that Halliburton could muscle in on the Haitian banana trade. [/sarc]
The only purpose of the above sarcasm was to illustrate how events like this earthquake have a way of revealing just stupid much of what many Americans believe is. 9/11 should have been our wake up call. The fact that it was not – that it was almost instantly hypostasized into a piece of paranoid political theater by the progressives – does not bode well for us. America, despite her wealth and prestige, does not seem imbued with much more native vitality than Haiti possesses. What will happen when even the rescuer nation par excellence can no longer help itself? Western civilization is apparently passing into some sort of fellaheen state. We can expect many more of these unmanageable disasters in the future.
wretchard @ 91:
“And so it goes.” Are you channeling Billy Pilgrim in “Slaughterhouse-Five”?
Kim Du Toit much the same of Africa. We have poured billions upon billions of every varied type of currency into Africa and still it remains a pit except for small areas of light. Much as many hated South Africa for it’s policies, it was the most functional of the many nations and remains so to this day even after shedding it’s apartheid past. Kim said, “Let Africa sink.” He says that not meanly but as you say, any dysfunctional nation or society can only right itself.
All that being said, it is the Christian’s and/or righteous man’s duty to come to the aid of Haiti in this time. It ain’t their souls, it is your own. Pray for them.
Morton @ 92:
….does not have to mean living in a cave in this modern world. It is quite possible to live very comfortably but it does require quite a bit of that filthy lucre as an up-front investment. The lucre is ‘repaid’ in time in lower maintenance operating outlays.
David R. – Not much to be said about your type of ‘human’. David R. Graham. Meet. Kettle. See that mirror?
God most assuredly does exist. The earthquake is no proof against that, nor is this the time for amateur theodicy. Our only possible response right now is to call upon Him and get to work picking up the pieces. Ora et labora.
Something truly terrible is beginning. We cannot assume that we are above the tidewaters, for I have a feeling that similar disasters will reach our own doorstep before all is done. If there is any good to come out of the Haitian earthquake (and I’m not being glib about this) it will be if we take the warning and prepare ourselves. What the Haitians need from us right now is our own uncomplaining labor, charity, and trust in the Lord’s providence. This also happens to be the condition we should aspire to at all times, earthquake or none. Let us be like the shrewd steward and use this misfortune for whatever good it can do us, because we’re going to need all the help we can get.
As far as foreign aid goes America needs to start looking more inward and become more isolationist. Yes people are suffering in Haiti and every other 3rd world country but every country has human suffering. America is no exception. My neighbors child was turned into a human vegetable thanks to a drunk driver and they can’t get the funding they need to pay for a proper daycare program. Millions of other people in America have similar problems. Yet we have the nerve to send trillions of American tax dollars to foreigners before looking after our own citizens? Even though we know that most of this money is being stolen or spent pointlessly? And since when did it become our responsibility to treat the entire world like a giant American orphanage? We need to start putting Americans first again when it comes to humanitarian aid.
Perhaps I romanticize her descriptions, but Sylvia’s depictio wasn’t cavelike at all, quite wonderful seeming, more 19th century or early 20th century rural. Simpler life. Fetching water, carding her own wool. No TV. I think a simpler life like that is probably better for a soul, but I think I lack the fiber to live it.
To mention one thing, I’m allergic to everything out of doors, plants, bugs, dirt, animals. I need plastics, asthma inhalers, antihistamines. Ibuprofen. AC and air purifiers. So I guess I mean off the grid in a different sense, psychological, spiritual. I meant off the carousel, off the whirring machine without missing what is needed from the machine. Maybe it’s more a psychological grid than anything mechanical that I’m talking about.
TV coverage of the earthquake is looking much like Katrina in one respect.
Reporters keep saying that while the aid seems to be pouring in, none of it yet is getting to the people in the street.
habu : where are the French
http://videos.tf1.fr/jt-20h/haiti-l-aeroport-operationnel-malgre-le-desordre-5640504.html
Americans French Chineses are the most important contingent coming over
Saussisson
A French wag recently commented at this site that “we [the French] civilised much more persons in our long history life than you can ever dream of for your own sake, lot of them revendicated independance with the freedom motto too”
I look at places like Haiti, New Orleans, Montreal, the Congo or Cote d’Ivorie, Vietnam, Guiana, Algeria, Benin, Niger, Chad, Sudan, or Mali and marvel at the “revendicated independance with the freedom motto too”.
La mission civilitrice. Mostly mission sans la civilitrice…
uh can you tell me where you have done better than us ?
Mogadischio ? Vietnam ? Cambodge ? Irak ? Afghanistan ? Lebanon ?
Wretchard
“She’s going to civilitrice us something awful”.
civilisation in bar cat fights, uh, I’m not “surrendering”
wretchard
“You could hire a two hundred strong Haitian men for the cost of importing one relief worker from Europe. Plus, they know the language and where things are.”
except that these 200 would likely be the looters, cuz most of the people that died under building were the wealthiests
But it will be anyway useful to hire them to clean the ruins, with an american (?) frame, I heard that 2000 marines are on the ground, and that lootings have started, so american patrols are going to be necessary
just saw on TV a french woman pilot that was forbidden to land on Port au Prince airport (by the Americans, cuz there is a concurrence of “helps” now)forcing the deny and managing to land (uh, say, french women have some strong character
)
Matt Beck: God most assuredly does exist. The earthquake is no proof against that, nor is this the time for amateur theodicy. Our only possible response right now is to call upon Him and get to work picking up the pieces. Ora et labora.
Whether or not God exists, this quake could be a blessing in disguise, but not in the way Pat Robertson was thinking. So corrupt is Haiti that many European benefactors were on the cusp of leaving for good and washing their hands of the whole country. Before the quake they had issued an ultimatum to this effect. Now they will be shamed by the overwhelming response of the United States (government and private citizens) and can’t walk away. I’m not saying God triggered the earthquake, but the tragedy’s net effect on Haiti could be positive when all is said and done. Of course, with the UN and France, et al., more will be said than done.
Haiti is a nation which truly indicts French colonialism.
uh since independance occured 200 years ago sure !
Theresita, tell me, “Doctors without borders”, is it an american organisation ?
French were and are on every catastrophe, not only doctors, rescue men, with dogs… check the last 50 years infos !
now Saussisson, I’m sure that your delicatessen is to read some anglo-saxon scum about us, and these sure improve your brightness, too bad that truth is beneath your feet
Tony, Saussisson, and alikes, great, blame the earthquake on the French ! you’re really easy to solve world problems, we saw the good results in actualities since 50 years !
Weird that in that horribly poor country, they have such well kept parks (click the image). What’s up with that?
uh can you tell me where you have done better than us ?
Mogadischio ? Vietnam ? Cambodge ? Irak ? Afghanistan ? Lebanon ?
Jeez, froggie, give it up. We were trying to feed people in Mogadishu and their so-called warlords were stealing the food.
We were cleaning up your mess in Vietnam.
Iraq is not far better now than it was under Saddam?
Afghanistan is a work in progress.
Lebanon is part of France’s mess.
And we did not colonize any of those places.
Where have we done better than France? Ummmm, try Germany and Japan, lady.:)
And saving your collective butts from the neighbours you appeased before and after they conquered your candy asses.
Wretchard: How is Haiti a “strategic state”?
One could scarcely think of a state less strategic. Problematic, yes, given it proximity to the USA, but strategic?
Beyond this, the fact of the matter is that Haiti, and “failed states” like it, will never be right. They were really never properly “states” to begin with–as polities they are more the residue of colonialism than anything else. This is just the prattle of an over-educated elites and policy mavens. We can alleviate, for a time, the sufferings of these people in this crisis, as so we should, and it is all well and good that we do so, but we will never change this nation’s fate. It was written long ago. If this is to change, such matters are in their hands, not ours. Money or “support for good governance” surely will not help them a bit. This is how we got here in the first place. This road, famously, was paved with good intentions. A different path needs to be found, though one doubts, of course, that this will actually happen.
As to the situation here being a “model” for some coming wave of collapsed states, well, if history is any guide, the model will be war, conquest and some sort of quasi-colonial absorption, perhaps on a local scale, perhaps on a regional one, perhaps, where real resources and real strategic points obtain, on an international one. Here China’s behavior in Africa comes to mind, as does the tug of war there during the Cold War. One thing seems fairly certain: The bizarre post war, post-colonial tap-dancing with these sort of nations where we pretend that the colonial configurations and arrangements had any larger historical or cultural strengths, meanings or durabilities outside of the colonial eras will wither away or violently be thrown off. We will presently be back to the sort of international, spheres of influence, “Great Game” that characterized the age of the European “Great Powers” to prior to WW1. Only the players–and the stakes–will have changed.
All that being said, on the home front care must be taken as to not allow the Left to use this tragedy as cover to cram down their various agendas, most particularly ObamaCare.
They would have the same sort of corruption, bad governance and failure to be a common feature here. One need not look farther than Katrina to see this.
Bob
“We were cleaning up your mess in Vietnam”
uh, no, you were trying to push back communists influence from China, as we did before !
“Lebanon is part of France’s mess”
uh no, Lebanon mess is the result of British’s policy in Palestine, and Americans’ Policy in Iran when you remove Shah
and my question was “since 50 years” when you were on your own will to manage the world
Not knowing anything about Haiti, do they not have an army or any special forces like a National Guard to step in and help? Why are the Haitians waiting for others to save them? They have already started looting and resorting to violence. When/where is the president coming out to issue calm and order?
Danny Glover in Haiti said:
at least he didn’t blame Bush.
WHAT A MORONIC ASSH@LE !
The mess in Vietnam was caused by the failure of the Vichy French to protect the Vietnamese from the Japs, or even to try to.
Ummmm, how much time did Ho spend in the US compared with the time he spent in France, MC?
We whupped the Japs but Mountbatten was in charge of the CBI theatre because the British wanted to reimpose colonial rule. The Brits used the Japs to put down Ho until the Royal Navy transported French soldiers to try to reimpose colonial rule which didn’t work too well, did it Marie Claude? Not surprising given the effectiveness of the French Army.
And if it wasn’t for the Anglosphere your candy asses would now be communist which would be a more honest fate for your poxy culture and country.
Kevin/114; a paranoid cynic, or just someone who has been reading hairy search results, would say that the drug-trade money-launderers in the UN build those nice structures –as part of the rationale for maintaining that all-important UN diplomat credential, which then gives them privilege to cross any border anywhere in the world (with closed diplomatic pouch) and meet openly with anybody anywhere –in this case to ‘confer about the problems of Haiti’. Principals can meet face to face to discuss humanitarian ideas and make deals with each other, it’s all about helping the poor Haitians.
There’s so much hair-raising stuff on the web –enter Haiti with almost any nefarious name or substance or activity you can think of. NYT has some articles (Barry McCaffery’s from 1998 notably), Salon, Slate, Canada Free Press, Boston Globe, WSJ, etcetera –IOW the info is not off Joe’s Blog.
Read one of the Maurice Strong bio entries –he’s the pioneer of using the UN (he was undersecretary –or deputy –when he started up the IPCC in 1988) as a front to subvert small country status quos –and he had his Haiti run, too. Currently of course Bill Clinton is the local godfather. Forgive me for sounding like a crazy person, but a few hours reading and it starts to dawn that the place is so poor because it’s being kept that way so that nobody can or will throw the bums out, and why the billions in aid are unaccounted for.
Frankly it appears to be a variant of the Palestinian or South Ossetian model –international crime open-shop –and the UN is what enables it, if not runs it. in fact the UN does officially run its ‘security’, with an armed peacekeeping force in place since the 2004 street violence related to exiling Aristede.
Aristede was Clinton’s man, and when another faction –possibly reformers tho i can’t tell yet –ran him off, Clinton showed ‘em who was boss by coming back in as UN Special Envoy.
Listen, just what you can find on the web alone is literally mind-boggling –it actually stuns you into yawning and forgetting about the whole thing –it’s just too much to comprehend.
The mess in Vietnam was caused by the failure of the Vichy French to protect the Vietnamese from the Japs, or even to try to.
the Vichy France had no army anymore, remember since 1940, what remained of soliers after the Dunkeerke retreat was going war prisonners into Germany, and the rest of the french army was dismobilised as stipulated by the armistice
Anyways, Vietnameses would still prefer a french occupation than the Japanese’s
But hadn’t your government not supplied the french army in Vietnam, then, either Vietnam would have been independant, but more likely to fall quicker into communist hands
Ol right the Anglosaxon sphere is the world savior’s
but not many wanted to be ruled by them too !
118. Toronto Girl
Looting likely started upon the realization that the accustomed order had crumbled into piles of rubble.
In a catastrophic disaster such as what the urban Hatians have suffered, it is assured that any authority that had existed -whether street tribal or national- is a bit preoccupied digging the corpses of their friends and family out of the rubble and seeing to the immediate needs of those that have survived. Dig out-Medically treat-Shelter-Water-Food.
Looting generally begins in the effort of people to secure and fulfill those immediate needs whereupon it more widely transitions into the commonly recognized manifestation of material theft the news-volk love so much.
How widespread the looting becomes relates directly to the general attitude of the population’s have-nots towards the haves with regard to the social contentment and sense of civil fairness. The element of the population that feels that they’ve not gotten a fair shake at life (whether actually true or not) will loot. It sucks but that’s just how it is. This dynamic can be seen in the post Katrina contrast between NoLa and the actions of the devastated across the Pontchartrain.
Unless commanding authority imposes itself upon everyone (think curfew, checkpoints, and firepower) and is able to first reassure and then demonstrate to the population that the aforementioned dire needs will be fulfilled, society will reorder itself starting from family, transitioning to neighborhood, and then to whatever [tribal] group has the actual physical power to impose order, and the logistical power to at least improve upon the new status quo of nothing. At this point the Hatian national authority can be considered non-existent…Because it essentially is.
112 Marie Claude
“French were and are on every catastrophe, not only doctors, rescue men, with dogs… check the last 50 years infos !”
Some yes, some not so much. But all of us are wasting our [your] national pride and time in comparing such. It is a wasted and thankless effort.
Just as an arguing point…If I am a billionaire, I might give more than the one that only has millions. It does not prove who cares more than the other. If I sometimes put my people above others, it does not prove I am cruel or uncaring toward others than my own.
Just Leave it…
The real problem in the world, including America is corruption. Not only of governments, government officials but the corruption of the soul of the people. This does not just include the enslaved to the neglected ruled by tyrants, but also those of democratic nations including the U.S. that are losing their rights, freedoms and liberties more and more each year. And for far too many, losing their souls…
That is the fight and the fight that almost half of Americans do not even understand or relize that they are in a fight, or what they are losing.
On the other hand Islam is a cult and corruption, not only of the soul, but of the reality of living under it, which brings only destruction of/to the Muslims, but the murder and torture of those that are not “true belivers” of Islam.
Fascism and Markism and such are little different except of course they don’t hide behind religion. But they kill and destroy as many as Islam has and in the past have destroyed even more.
The Christian “Ten Commandments” can (or could be) incorporated into every Nation’s Constitutions. Why? Not because they are a religious belief but because they are everlasting and logical truisms and envision and want the protection of the spirit and life of the every man, woman and child on this good green earth.
Those commandments can be seen and understood independent of religion, no matter what belief or non-belief you may have.
Children are our only real treasure, we wish them better than we had but have to give them the foundation to build on.
We are failing them at every turn. This has to stop, this has to be reversed.
The American Constitution and the American Bill of Rights lay out the truths and the American Citizens responsibilities to adhere/protect and preserve these rights and conditions.
These rights and responsibilities and the true American History must be passed on to our Children. for the last fifty years it has not been and it is getting worse every year.
American children are being raised to be ashamed of their Nation. Ashamed and believing that they owe the world, owe the minorities, owe the environment, have caused and abetted slavery, destroyed the poor, conquered and raped other countries and stole the resources of the world.
We have lost several generations of Americans to these lies, misconceptions, and half truths. It is up to us and our children to not only deny this but to correct it.
Papa Ray
This article has some descriptions from people on the ground in Haiti
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1263147896811&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Mongoose,
I think Haiti is strategic in the sense that how the world reacts to it will set the tone for how it reacts to other nations in catastrophic conditions. Keep funneling aid in to the corrupt leadership (which includes teh U.N.), thus strengthening their hold and making the long-term situation worse? Or will they at least try and “reset” the leadership?
>At this point the Hatian national authority
>can be considered non-existent…Because it
>essentially is.
Yep.
And many of the people in Pot-Au-Prince, Haiti have the sense of entitlement to demand international aid like Western Welfare addicts demanding a check:
>THIS DOESN’T SEEM VERY BRIGHT: “Angry
>Haitians set up roadblocks with corpses in
>Port-au-Prince to protest at the delay in
>emergency aid reaching them after a
>devastating earthquake, an eyewitness said,”
>Protesting delays, with roadblocks? That’s
>like protesting fire with gasoline. But, you
>know, as with Katrina, getting aid into a
>disaster-devastated region where ports,
>roads and airports are in poor condition
>isn’t something that happens overnight. But
>perhaps it’s a sign of progress in the
>modern world, when even Haitians expect
>disaster aid to be like pizza from Domino’s
>or something.
>
>Posted at 9:01 am by Glenn Reynolds
This is not the kind of “social capital” that can rebuild a shattered society.
It is the kind that leads to it’s disolution.
Apart from the logistics problems, the question has already been raised – who will assume leadership amidst the rubble?
To ask the question is to answer it. My sincere hope for the people of Haiti -> when the world is falling apart, no sight is more welcome than the arrival of the United States Marine Corps.
Papa Ray
God bless you, you are a wise man
Wretchard,
This is from a military affairs e-mail list I subscribe too.
The reading is grim. Haiti seems to be an emerging disater relief version of Vietnam.
> Back in the Pleistocene, I did an area study of Haiti for the 95th Civil
> Affairs group at Fort Gordon.
>
> Papa Doc Duvalier was still the HNIC then and my research involved a trip
> to DC to speak to and look at documents at the Puzzle Palace, the CIA and
> State. I also spoke to Haitians who had drafted into the Army.
>
> At that time (1968) there was one paved road running from Port au Prince
> to Cap Hatian, one real airport and essentially no civil infrastructure.
>
> I don’t expect it has changed much. And now what there is busted. Expect
> mass starvation and epidemics.
As for this:
>The only thing we can really pass on to our
>kids is the right way of thinking, the
>correct value of things. Money, goods —
>these last only a short time. It is the
>habits of heart and habits of mind that
>truly endure. This fleeting thing is our
>only treasure.
The only way to make the plight Haitian kids better is to colonize Haiti and America is no longer in the colonial business. It costs too much for too little gain, even during the Cold War.
The lesson of Vietnam was we cannot save a people from themselves.
Besides, if America cannot save Detriot or New Orleans from self inflicted social collapse in a deep recession, how can we save Haiti?
127. Trent Telenko:
Agreed.
W, I am honored that you took notice of my meager contirbution.
poverty & in Haiti
http://www.daytondailynews.com/project/content/project/haiti/daily/0803haiti.html
Hagan is a priest who runs a school in the slums of Porte au Prince:
“Hagan downplays the dangers — “I think I’m fine” — but admits to the loneliness. He made the commitment to move to Haiti shortly after his mother died in 1995. “I stick it out every day,” he said. “I don’t love Haiti. It’s like your relationship with your dentist — you don’t want to go, but you have to. I can’t romanticize poverty. There’s so much dishonesty, and education is such a big need.”
to borrow from Wretchard – He pinned on the star
103/Mort. I love the concept of getting off the psychological grid.
It wasn’t romantic, but I made the best of a bad situation. I moved to Montana because I was dying and my aunt offered me hospice on her ranch. Turns out I’m allergic to chlorine and the moment I was drinking well/creek water I started to heal. As soon as I had the funds I added a room and a loft to that one-room log cabin, then designed and built a real house with amenities, got the farm up and running, etc. Having never been adept at the victim mentality, I prefer to solve problems.
W et al, is the Haitian culture actually adverse to putting forth the effort to solve its own problems? When my daughter tries the “I’m overwhelmed” excuse I tell her to get over it and she does. Immediately. Perhaps Haiti needs a *benevolent* dictator to kick-start the psyche, though it’s probably too late to create anything beyond a nanny state. I have such difficulty letting go of my belief in man’s intrinsic desire to succeed. Are we looking at generations of reprogramming, starting with the latest crop of children and somehow, some way, penetrating the hive mind to give them cup half full attitudes? Does voodoo preclude positive growth?
130 Trent
“Besides, if America cannot save Detriot or New Orleans from self inflicted social collapse in a deep recession, how can we save Haiti?”
That may be a true statement…as far as it goes, and what it entails.
But consider this. The inhabitants of new Orleans and Detroit not only depend on welfare but want nothing other. The inhabitants of Haiti, have never received any help to speak of, the money given to their domicile has been siphoned off and stolen by others.
Maybe, just maybe if they were not only given the fish but taught to fish they might be able to care for themselves and thier children.
If we don’t really try and correct the many mistakes and find a way, can we live with ourselves. We tried to help those in New Orleans and they threw it back in our faces, saying it was not enough.
I don’t think the Haitians will do or say the same. I may be wrong, but I would like the chance to be so.
Papa Ray
a survey in 2008 said that a earthquake was expected soon in this aera
http://www.lafayette-online.com/science-technology/2010/01/researchers-haitian-fault-potential-quake/
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-fault-responsible-Haiti-earthquake-011510.aspx?xmlmenuid=51
Port au Prince was already destroyed by earthquakes in 1751 and 1770
Exheo: I would say that what you mean is “emblematic” and not “strategic”.
“We tried to help those in New Orleans and they threw it back in our faces, saying it was not enough.”
In defense of New Orleans and it’s more stable residents, that’s not really true. Most of New Orleans is recovering quite nicely, and the parts that aren’t probably shouldn’t have ever been built in the first place. I don’t live there but have several friends and relatives that do. The parts where people could finance their own rebuilding (about 80% of the city) have recovered very nicely and are thriving again.
I’ll tell you something else – most of the current residents are pretty happy that 100,000 bums with no jobs got kicked out of the city and don’t have anyplace to return to, but they know it isn’t very pc for anyone to say that openly. So they just quietly keep rebuilding and do what they can to guarantee that there’s always a reason that the big public housing units never get repaired or rebuilt. It isn’t just incompetence, although that always plays a part; there’s a good bit of purpose at work here.
‘The inhabitants of Haiti, have never received any help to speak of’.
What? Half of Haiti’s budget is financed by the U.S., Canada and France. While 30% of the country’s income is due to agriculture.
While the situation is bleak, please don’t spin the facts of the matter.
Though Haiti is an awfully poor country and ranks high in worldwide corruption statistics, their fertility rate is the highest in the Western Hemisphere. A horrible combination for the children in this situation..
Wretchard @98:
‘But to pin on the tin star, we have to accept the charge under which we act. Because to tell you the truth, unless we think there’s a good and bad, it’s really a matter of indifference between whether you join the fray as a medico or a bandido. Which road you choose at an intersection only matters if you’ve got someplace to go.
For the Haitians the questions are same ones all people face. Is it worthwhile going on when your wife and child lie dead under a heap of rubble and you stand there with only the bag of potato chips you were bringing home to them as a treat in your hand? Quo vadis, Pierre? Or do you pick yourself up and don your tin star and help your neighbor dig up his kids who are still alive and give him the potato chips to keep him going? Corpus Christi et Domine non sum dignus. Do your intentions count? Do you labor in the fields of the lord? You don’t believe that God exists? Well let me introduce you to the devil. That’s an easier sell.
Personally, I never expected to be alive. It was like finding myself in a show with a ticket I didn’t pay for. More than halfway through the drama now, and I still don’t know what the story is about. But I’m here with the ticket in my hand and I like to think it was put there for a reason.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And no, I don’t think it’s pointless.’
Absolutely profound insights. Thank you Sir.
When I place ourselves in their situation, a sense of good fortune and gratitude overwhelms.
Also, that sixteen seconds between ‘normal’ life and disaster is worth pondering on. What regrets would flash before my eyes if those dreadful 16 seconds of doom suddenly dropped upon myself?
Suddenly, the choice for virtue that each moment of human life offers seems more precious.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
>But consider this. The inhabitants of new
>Orleans and Detroit not only depend on
>welfare but want nothing other. The
>inhabitants of Haiti, have never received
>any help to speak of, the money given to
>their domicile has been siphoned off and
>stolen by others.
Papa Ray, the biggest exploiter of Hatians are other Hatians.
Defacto slavery is practiced there.
Disfunctional Culture is not destiny for individuals who can trancend it.
However, those individuals can only do so by leaving that culture behind and blending into other cultures.
Though Haiti is an awfully poor country and ranks high in worldwide corruption statistics, their fertility rate is the highest in the Western Hemisphere
Why is it that poor people usually breed like tribbles?
is the Haitian culture actually adverse to putting forth the effort to solve its own problems?
A thoughtful article that addresses the cultural role in poverty:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html?ref=opinion
Unsk writes:
This is mostly true, although I know of no steel frame high rises that sustained serious damage (caveat: I don’t have hard data, just the results of a personal survey of downtown). Lots of buildings were concrete, and failed in one of two modes:
1) Floors shifted relative to each other, because the rebar in the posts was not adequately tied to the floors.
2) Concrete disintegrated. Many buildings collapsed into nothing but piles of dust and small chunks of concrete (fist size). I was told this was from using substandard concrete.
There was a clear resonance effect, with buildings around 10-12 stories high most commonly damaged.
See my link for pictures I took there – you can see the damage patterns, and other effects (such as the result of a seismic fountain popping through a brick sidewalk):
http://www.tinyvital.com/images/mexcity1985/index.html
BTW, experienced a 5.5 (or so) aftershock while there. I was in a residence up on a (rock) hill, and we felt nothing at all. We only knew we were in an aftershock because a member of the family was on the phone with someone in a non-rock area, who started shouting “Seismo!”. That aftershock that we didn’t feel killed folks just a few miles away, and the epicenter was 180 or so miles away (as described above)
in this link in french, it is said that the underground infiltrations of water might have played a role in distorbing the elasticity of the soils
also a more detailed description of all the Haiti earthquakes, and that Haitians have a short memory
http://tinyurl.com/yzatsr5
Although floods are of weather-and earthquake, geophysical origin, it seems that there is a link between these two natural phenomena. The role of fluids in triggering the seismic process is now a topic of great interest among American and European scientists. It has indeed been demonstrated in a geological environment characterized by the presence of seismic faults, sedimentary basins deep enough and well-developed karst network, that is to say an environment marked by limestone dissolution holes, caves and cavities from chemical reactions between rainwater responsible for carbon dioxide and calcium carbonate (limestone), small earthquakes of low magnitude (M <4) may arise at a very shallow depth at a weather event marked by exceptional floods likely to meet the karst reservoirs. Three mechanisms are responsible for this process
the exceptionnal meteorological event happened with the tropical tempest “Fay” (15/08-17/08), the ouragan “Gustav” (24/08-27/08), the tropical tempest “Hanna” and the ouragan “Ike” (6/09-8/09) when rainings reached 300 mm on the west department, equal to 1200 mm of water only in one month while this amount is given for the average of a year
141. Toady:
Though Haiti is an awfully poor country and ranks high in worldwide corruption statistics, their fertility rate is the highest in the Western Hemisphere
Why is it that poor people usually breed like tribbles?
Sarcastic answer: cause there is no good late night television in the 3rd world.
less sarcastic: no TV, no Radio, no electric light to read by… what else are you going to do when the sun goes down.
not enough money for food, zero money for birth control.
WHY HAS AID TO HAITI BEEN LARGELY INEFFECTIVE?
“A combination of factors has made it difficult to distribute aid effectively to Haiti, including poor governance, political turmoil and widespread corruption.
Haiti’s political system is unstable and plagued with infighting. Since 2004, a 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force has been on the ground.
Haiti is the third most corrupt country in the world, according to corruption watchdog Transparency International, compounding the difficulties agencies face in delivering aid in an accountable and transparent way.
Power lies in the hands of a few elite, leaving ministries unable to implement policies and divert funds to the local level. Haiti’s civil service is poorly trained and lacks the expertise to manage aid.
Donors have failed to address such weaknesses in Haitian politics when planning their aid efforts, according to U.S. government reports.
In 2002, the World Bank rated its aid efforts to Haiti as “unsatisfactory, if not highly so” and its impact on institutional development “negligible”.
Some aid agencies have bypassed the government and local businesses, adding to the climate of mistrust between the donor community and the government.
Critics of the international aid effort say too much aid has been channeled through non-governmental organization (NGOs), leaving the government and civil society groups feeling indifferent, and with little say or control over how aid is spent.
In addition, aid agencies face logistical problems in distributing emergency aid. Many of Haiti’s roads and bridges swept away by floods have not been rebuilt.
Corruption at Haiti’s ports is notorious, with aid going missing and then re-sold at local markets.”
CHRONOLOGY-Haiti’s turbulent times
24 Feb 2004
“LONDON (Reuters) – Here is a chronology of recent events in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.
April 21, 1971 — Dr Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier dies and is replaced by his son Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc) as president for life.
Feb 7, 1986 — Duvalier forced into exile by an uprising, ending 29-year family dictatorship. Army chief Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy is named to oversee two-year transition to democracy.
Nov 29, 1987 — Gunmen linked to Duvalier government and the army halt civilian-run elections, killing at least 34.
Jan 17, 1988 — Political scientist Leslie Manigat elected president in army-run elections. Manigat overthrown by Namphy three days later.
Sept 17, 1988 — Namphy overthrown by Presidential Guard, replaced by Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril, a former Duvalier aide who promises elections and civilian rule.
March 10, 1990 — Avril resigns. Supreme Court Justice Ertha Trouillot sworn in as acting president on March 13.
Dec 16, 1990 — Populist priest Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide is landslide winner in presidential elections, Haiti’s first free and peaceful polls.
Sept 30, 1991 — Aristide overthrown by the military.
Oct 8, 1991 — Military installs Supreme Court Justice Joseph Nerette as provisional president.
July 3, 1993 — Aristide and military coup leader, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, sign U.N.-brokered agreement in New York. Pact calls for Aristide to return, Cedras to resign.
September, 1994 — About 20,000 U.S. troops arrive in Haiti to restore democracy.
Oct 15, 1994 — Aristide returns to office as president.
March 31, 1995 — U.N. peacekeeping force replaces multinational troops.
Dec 17, 1995 — Former Prime Minister Rene Preval, from Aristide’s Lavalas party, is overwhelmingly elected president to replace Aristide.
Nov 30, 1997 — U.N. peacekeeping force ends armed mission.
May 21, 2000 — Haiti holds parliamentary and local elections after numerous postponements.
Nov 25, 2000 – Haiti holds presidential election, boycotted by main opposition parties because of dispute over parliamentary elections. Aristide wins overwhelmingly.
- Haiti’s political opposition proclaims a provisional government. The 15-party opposition alliance Democratic Convergence chooses Gerard Gourgue as “parallel president”.
Feb 7, 2001 – Aristide succeeds Preval.
Dec 17, 2001 – Gunmen storm Haiti’s National Palace in apparent coup attempt but foiled after shoot-out with security forces.
Dec 18, 2003 – Reversing earlier government resistance, Aristide endorses a Roman Catholic Church proposal for halting the nation’s descent into political violence.
2004:
Jan 11 – Thousands march against Aristide, at odds with opponents over the 2000 elections.
Feb 8 – Armed revolt spreads to more cities in Haiti.
Feb 13 – U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell warns Haiti’s opposition against ousting Aristide.
Feb 18 – Right-wing militia leader Louis Jodel Chamblain, arrives in Haiti from his exile to reinforce revolt.
Feb 19 – The U.S. says it is open to Aristide stepping down, acknowledging his departure could be a way out of crisis.
Feb 23 – The U.S. sends about 50 Marines to Haiti to protect U.S. facilities and presses opposition politicians to accept a power-sharing plan.
____________________
As I said earlier: “The inhabitants of Haiti, have never received any help to speak of, the money given to their domicile has been siphoned off and stolen by others.”
Between widespread corruption even in the police forces, the Army, the U.N. “Peacekeeping” and administration forces plus the rampant criminal gangs the “inhabitants”, the average person in the population has not benefited from the billions of dollars of aid that has been siphoned off.
As someone said earlier, where did all the money go?
Papa Ray
Sarcastic answer: cause there is no good late night television in the 3rd world.
Not really that sarcastic. A few years ago, a politician in India wanted to get community TVs into villages to give people something else to do at night.
Interesting. I’ve been largely off-line for two days tending to Real Life Duties. I kept hearing about Haiti with various voices pleading for donations and uttering dire predictions if we didn’t immediately all leap in and offer our hands out in help.
And I kept thinking to myself, “I don’t think so.” That we’ve been funding this, that and the other thing in Haiti for decades and they rae *still* poorpoorpoor, so this Tsunami-like funding effort strikes me as being just a new way for the money-grubbers at the top of the Haitian food chain to dip into the American taxpayer’s pocket.
Not to mention that somehow the funding pleas seem to have a hint of the same sort of politically correct “we must all help our black brothers” that EVERYthing that comes out of Obama’s White House seems to have.
So I wasn’t eager to leap to the front nor to dig out my credit card to see an dollars winging off to Haiti. Nor am I thrilled to hear that our military’s *top* priority is now the aid effort in Haiti — can we make Haiti our military’s second priority and keep America itself the military’s TOP priority?
And now I dip into Belmont Club and find that I am not alone in my skepticism and reluctance, and that, indeed, BC-ers are ten steps ahead of me (as usual) and making comparisons to Katrina that hadn’t occurred to me but are doubtless part and parcel of the disinterest and disgust I myself have been feeling about the whole Haitian guilt trip.
My bottom line question is, “how many of these people would be dead in a few months any way, with or without earthquakes, dollars for assistance, or the American military’s expertise?”
PapaRay
Haiti is a revolution mascaurading as a republic. (somone historic said that)
In 1915 The US intervined after the President of Haiti was hacked to death on the street in Port au Prince by “rebels”.
2,000 marines and sailors took control of the country and occupied it for nearly 20 years.
The entire history of Haiti reads like the 40 yr summary you provided.
http://tinyurl.com/yjrro8c
Northrop Grumman Will Provide Up to $1 Million to Support Earthquake Relief in Haiti
Wretchard,
Go use the search term “OPERATION RESTORE DEMOCRACY” as a search term for Haiti.
Much good information can be found.
See:
———————–
Haiti: A Case Study in Post-Cold War Peacekeeping.
Available at: http://sfswww.georgetown.edu/sfs/programs/isd/files/haiti.htm
Offers a nine page report made by Ambassador James F. Dobbins, Special Advisor on Haiti, U.S. Dept. of State in September 1995 at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Conference.
Haiti Maps.
Available at: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/haiti.html
Offers nine maps of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, and Cap-Haitien from the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Road to U.S. Intervention in Haiti.
Available at: http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/802/
Provides the transcript of a program produced by the Center for Defense Information and televised on September 25, 1994. Offered commentary by Elliott Abrams (former Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs), Harriet Babbitt (U.S. Ambassador to the OAS), Jean-Claude Martineau (spokesman for President Aristide), and others.
I would like to thank everybody here, especially Trent, Chuck Simmins, Papa Ray and many others for making this thread a really great resource. I believe many of the ideas here actually affect, directly or indirectly, the general discourse and I am deeply grateful to you all.
Yes, I suppose this does project a faint whiff of mild indifference.
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-relief-cfs-operation-hestia.html
http://www.google.ca/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=ctv+haiti&meta=&btnG=Google+Search
Now that we have explored the after, why not consider the whyfore of it.
A whimsical, yet topical, Poll for those interested ….or just mearlly bored.
http://www.soonerfriends.com/showthread.php?t=6171
I have a recollection that in the aftermath of the Indonesia Tsunami, there was a rivalry among nations for who would pledge the most – and that later there was a huge discrepancy between pledge and collection/payment (before we even get to distribution).
If I’ve been listening correctly, Pres. Obama has committed $100 million as a down payment – who will monitor where the money goes and to whom?
While I am in favor of immediate assistance as outlined above, including Papa Ray’s solution of containers… isn’t this what our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are housed in (CHUs)?
Then again, maybe we can finally use all those cruise ships we had lined up for Katrina? In reality, that was a good idea except that very few would accept it as a billing.
Whatever we spend.. including services of our forces. We should use a obama like “claw back”. Which is to say we should reduce our dues to the UN until we recover all our funds.
It is not our problem.
Over on Matt Armstrong’s blog, he highlights a key point on getting credit for aid (dates back to 1/14)- http://mountainrunner.us/2010/01/china_air.html#more
I’m surprised that no one has noted that the subject of the “White folks’ greed runs a world in need” sermon – which electrified “Obama” so much that he decided to become a politician – was Haiti.
Bet they’re glad to see some white folks now.
Bet “Obama”, or whatever his real name is, still doesn’t get it.
US out of UN NOW.
Those maggots and perverts have been much more of a CAUSE and ENABLER of human misery than a CURE.
seans/156; THAT’s the picture alright –all ya can do is shake yer head avert your eyes and take a deep breath. w/153; the thanks go to you –w/o a soapbox it’s no soap.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/europe/France-Calls-for-Cancellation-of-Haitis-Debt-81710787.html
France’s Economy Minister Christine Lagarde says she has contacted other members of the Paris Club to accelerate the cancellation of Haiti’s debt of nearly $78 million.
so many gifts are floading onto Haiti
France also Thursday said it is suspending deportations of illegal Haitian immigrants
hey, we aren’t savages !
Somewhat useful report from CNN’s Susan Candiotti on the state of Port au Prince’s cargo handling facilities. Unfortunately, CNN doesn’t provide a link to individual videos; scroll down a bit:
http://www.cnn.com/video/
Eaglespeak suggests a way the Navy might overcome this problem:
http://www.eaglespeak.us/2010/01/aid-to-haiti-port-broken-jlots-could.html
hey Morton douchebag
It took quite a while to reply to your pleasant link, and, in return,I provided a few interesting links to educate the author, a researcher in toilet papers apparently, I recommend you to check tomorrow, might be some pleasant responses will appear, if I’m not censured
I have two impressions of people from Haiti. One is the crime-incubator neighborhoods of Haitian immigrants in Florida, regularly producing swarms of criminal, dumb, hopelessly dysfunctional young men who are the bane of law enforcement in Florida.
The other is Yvronce – a delightful youngish matriarch from Haiti who chose our very ordinary Methodist church as soon as she got to Austin from Haiti several years ago. She quickly won us all over with her charm and cheery vigor, volunteering to help with the children, singing in the choir. Her whole middle-class family came here, with children who were a credit to their parents. Soon we came to search at pot-luck church dinners for the tasty Haitian dishes she brought. All in all, she gave us a very positive impression of Haitians. No one could know Yvronce and her family without appreciating them greatly and probably loving them too.
More recently, we prayed her through breast cancer. Now tonight, comes a church email asking prayers for her as she grieves the death of her sister in the earthquake in Port Au Prince.
Haiti truly qualifies as a horrifying place. The marvel is that even a pest-hole like Haiti can also produce people like Yvronce and her family. She is a bright token that we can still hope, even in such a place, that good may yet come out of it somehow.
There was a time, after all, when our ancestors painted their faces blue and practiced human sacrifice. May it not take the Haitians as long to make the big change as it did us.
Frenchy shakes off the punch and comes back in low shooting jabs and winding up the big right when the bell rings and both fighters head back to their corners
Buddy
OK boss, becuz it’s you
MC, i grew up among les Francaise in SW Louisiana –they’re different from us Zangleez –but delightful –and loyal to a fault IF they like you (and if they don’t you WILL know it!).
Fantom @157:
Bravo!
I like your idea. Yes, a lot of the very loudest mouths on the international stage pledged a great deal and then didn’t come through. The exceptions were Western Europe, Japan, R.O.K., Taiwan, Singapore and the Anglosphere who all coughed up what was pledged and spent billions more, collectively, on military operations to help after the Tsunami.
Yes, let’s have the CBO keep a running cost total of what all parts of the FedGov spend on Haiti relief efforts, and the US will just cut off all payments to the UN until our past dues equal that amount.
It’s about time all those ungrateful turdworld government / UN apparatchiks who fly 1st class everywhere wearing tailored suits, bypass customs & airport security, and then are whisked away to government penthouses in the embassy Mercedes are reminded about how UN funds should be spent; instead of wasting it on pretending they are 21st Century nobility while many of the citizens in the nations they claim to represent struggle day to day in abject poverty.
That may have been my new personal record for a run on sentence!
The UN, as it is currently composed and operates makes me sick.
We need to let it die and form a new organization of like allies, first world nations who respect the rule of law, individual liberty, and who have real honest to God representative government.
Perhaps the U.S. would even qualify to join after 2012?
From the “good read” praised by Deuce:
French is the official language of the country. All state business is carried on in French, the schools educate mainly in French. Social prestige is related to the ability to speak French. Yet only about 10% of the people can even get along in French, with less than 5% knowing the language fluently. Creole is the language of the masses. 100% of the Haitians speak and understand Creole as their mother tongue.
The road to social, economic and intellectual development is reserved to the speakers of French, while the masses are kept in their misery because their language is not recognized nor allowed as an official language.
Now view that in light of these comments:
Whit: The great bulk of the damage seems to be in Port-au-Prince which is in ruins and without infrastructure.
Conclusion: If it was the palaces and mansions and “high places” that were brought low, there’s a good chance there will be a revolution in Haiti, and the new government will be one that speaks Creole, and conducts business in Creole, and illiteracy in Haiti will fall from 90% to 0% overnight.
T/170; –they need to get in there NOW and burn the deeds.
Teresita wrote:
[if Creole became the official and business language of Haiti] ‘illiteracy in Haiti will fall from 90% to 0% overnight.’
Teresita, is Creole reading and writing taught in Haitian school?
Best regards, Peter Warner.
In a way, democracy is the problem, especially when you have uneducated masses as your voters. How could they tell one crook from another? How would they know if the policies promised are going to help?
The only reason why democracy seemed important is because it enabled accountability, but only if the voters deigned to hold politicians accountable, and were willing to forgo short-term gains for long term ones.
Haiti just doesn’t have the necessary conditions for that. A colonial solution is needed. Change the culture from the ground up.
BTW, my country Singapore gave peanuts, a mere 50,000 US dollars from the government. Considering the size of our government budget, I figure there’s a message there.
Teresita, the whole Antilles archipelago speacks creole and a part of the Louisianeses too, so is Creole the official language in anglosphere ?
Re Creole in Louisiana –it’s called ‘patois’ (“pah twah”) or ‘patois negre’, and tho a lot of the older folks can speak it they rarely do, and i’m afraid it’s dying out, steamrollered by the television set.
The whole Antilles archipelago does not speak creole any more than you do Ms. Claude.
Buddy, I got a few CD of Zydeco musics, how would you label him ?
Thanks.
That pretty much says it all Ms. Claude
monkeyfan, the elders still do, like in our provinces the elders still speak their patois
uh do you know Stanley Beckford ? doesn’t he talk a bit creole ?
http://stanley_beckford.mondomix.com/fr/video1863.htm
I had the pleasure to host him and his orchestra
I’ve been away from the computer for the past week but wanted to offer this thought. Haiti used to be a prosperous place. The slave rebellion of the 1790′s ended up creating Africa in the Caribbean. They are thus culturally and in terms of civil society perhaps the least Western Hemisphere country in the region.
There is something deeply flawed in the current international model. The UN/development assistant/world bank/NGO model can’t hack it.
Well, first off, the everyday, prevailing mindset of the majority of the organization’s workers/members is going to have a LOT to do with the outcomes that organization produces.
Public education in the United States has become a jobs scheme for bureaucrats, not a system for actually educating children. The bureaucrats have detached themselves from accountability. Although our L3 (who would know) once remarked something to the effect that a good education is expensive, a lot of public school districts demonstrate that a terrible education can be really expensive, too … and not just on the front end, but in the expenses that that failure to educate produces in the life of the child who drops out or may, perchance, still graduate, but only with a joke of a diploma. For $100K+ each, we have produced an army of barbarians, for at least two generations and counting.
This is because the prevailing mindset of the public education bureaucracy is the welfare of the bureaucrats, not the welfare of children or the welfare of society at large.
Reading the writings of Claudia Rosett and others on the UN does not give me the impression that the everyday, prevailing mindset of the majority of that organization’s workers is the welfare and improvement of the poor countries of the world. That being the case, you are NEVER going to get sustainable postive outcomes from the UN development model. An organization infested with thieves and drones is going to thieve and drone; it cannot do otherwise.
As far as what the money does when it hits the ground in these poor countries (the small percentage that remains after the thieves and drones have eaten away at it, at any rate), it seems to me that bureaucrats, esp. those from developed nations, operate in a kind of default money-bomb mode: Mo money, mo money, mo money. Instead of cutting a program that doesn’t work, just increase the funding to that program.
Are liberals *ever* going to acknowledge that money-bombing people can be as spiritually, morally, and psychologically destructive to the bombees as a bomb-bomb is physically destructive? Phat chance. The moral self-satisfaction of today’s liberal is inextricably tied to the habit of money-bombing … i.e., “the more money I can show being spent, the more I care, the better I am as a person.”
IOW we are back to the driving motivation of the development model: It turns out to be what’s good for the bureaucrat (or the pol, but I repeat myself somewhat), not necessarily what’s good for the recipient of the largesse.
On Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint program, they just yesterday ran a story about an American church that was sending regular shipments of medical supplies, food, clothing, and money to a sister church in the Ukraine. After a while, the Ukranian pastor told them that all that charity was having a *negative* long-term effect:
Instead of Ukranian Christians giving sacrificially to their neighbors as needs arose, they came to expect another shipment from the Americans. Even worse, the pastor feared his church growing increasingly dependent on outside resources and losing its own motivation for ingenuity and industry.
Human nature. People tend not to appreciate that which they don’t work for themselves. In the long term, dependency, a sense of entitlement, and resentment set in.
The Breakpoint commentary gets this anecdote from a book, “The Poor Will Be Glad,” by Peter Greer and Phil Smith. The authors propose a different approach to aiding poor communities and countries:
The authors particularly focus on microloans and creating opportunities for savings. In the United States we have grown accustomed to the availability of credit and to the fact that there are safe places to save our money.
In many third-world countries, there are no such options. Loans and credit are unavailable or come with insufferable interest rates. And mud-walled huts with only a bench for furniture provide little safety for long-term savings.
Authors Greer and Smith explain basic concepts such as creating local savings and credit associations, which can help communities to begin digging themselves out of poverty. Additionally, the authors explain how MFI’s, or microfinance institutions, can make small loans available to the needy.
The microloan approach has at least a couple things going for it: (1) It appears to be consistent with human nature, attracting and rewarding the motivated and industrious, (2) It does not money-bomb the poor but works with them incrementally, starting out with small loans of say $50 or $100 and, when that is paid back, gradually increasing the amounts that the person can take out, and (3) It factors in outcomes as the primary driver of sustainment, i.e., if someone doesn’t pay back a loan, they don’t get another one, thus winnowing out the scammers and the inept.
Of course the very existence of savings & loan institutions for the poor in a poor country must get around the huge obstacle of political corruption and crime. Prosperity for the masses can’t exist without private property rights, and private property rights can’t exist without rule of law. And so we are back to the problem of a culture of corruption.
I guess that the “indispensable man” in a nation’s history is the incorruptible man. America was very, very blessed to have such a man at the helm right at our nation’s founding. Corrupt leadership, when it’s not just an anomaly but institutionalized, is terribly demoralizing to the average folks. I worked in a department at a well-known large private corporation (not to be named, but its mascot is a mouse) where lack of good leadership pretty much killed the healthy functioning of the department and turned the place into a virtual war of all against all. Honest people flee that kind of environment, or are ground under pretty early, until only the thieves and drones remain. There is NO incentive, other than a hero/martyr complex, to stick around as a little guy in those circumstances. And if you are going to put on a tin star, you damn well better be carrying a gun.
#178
doesn’t happen to you to make some vocabular errors ? him-> it
or Zarico if you prefer !
Zydeco it be a whole class of music –like Blues or Jazz. It used to be called just “Cajun music” (“kay-JAHN moo-ZEEK” the real Frenchies pronounced it) but somewhere back in the late 70s or early 80s we started hearing that word. It’s as hard to write about music as it to dance about architecture, but if it’s uptempo country with accordian and fiddle and lots of long wailin’ –and from sout loozyana –it MAY be Zydeco!