Our Hearts Go Out To Haiti

The scene in Haiti is horrific.

What Haiti is experiencing right now is so enormous in scale that our strongest descriptive words like horrific and insurmountable and tragedy and incomprehensible – seem meager and unqualified to describe it.

Like the recent catastrophe in China was. As was the catastrophe in Pakistan.

But the plates that comprise our planet earth are held together by only their sheer weight and the gravity of the earth spinning on its axis.

When a poor population has to make shelters and structures, they do not have the luxury of using state of the art engineering principles to survive the incredible force of a quaking earth.

Haiti just fought off two hurricanes – those structures withstood them.

The 7.0 earthquake's epicenter was only 25 kilometers away from the Port-au-Prince.

Cement structures crumbled and fell down on top of those who occupy them. With in an instant a huge portion of the population were expired. It will be sometime until we find out how many.

The majority of the remaining population is now homeless, without shelter or facilities or services.

The structures fall down and cover the roads the roads impeding the ability to get into the most densely destroyed area.

Earthquakes don't kill people – poorly constructed structures that crumble in earthquakes kill people.

Such an overwhelming catastrophe.

And as typically happens – humankind shows its best side.

I'm impressed with how hard the Americans are trying to help.

I'm impressed with how quickly the U.N forces pulled together to jump right in to do … something.

My God, where do you start?

I am impressed with the Haitian people who managed not to be crushed immediately getting to work to find those that were.

Impressed is not a grand enough term.

Right now it's a horrific exercise in rubble removal to look for survivors – and the sorrowful task of recovering the bodies. And the insurmountably urgent task of determining what to do with those bodies. Bodies of fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and friends and loved ones – not just bodies – but the bodies of those that you love.

The heartbreak.

Tons and tons of debris must be removed to find those trapped underneath. But how do you move such mass quickly? Where do you put it after you remove it? How do you get machinery in there to move it? And how do you move it so gently as to not crush anyone who might somehow still be alive in there?

But also - as such tragedies unfold – you not only see the greatness of the human spirit, but also the despicable.

The looting has started. Chaos is looming like a finely balanced tight rope walker on a windy day. The dark side of humankind arises as well.

It's not constrained to only the Haitian's. The worst comes from the lands looking on.

The "elite" news journalists covering this event, and then I only mean the elite faces – who are taking this opportunity to be videoed holding the hand of a screaming boy in agony because his body is crushed and his parents are killed – only to add this to their portfolio of events covered to qualify for the elite status of journalists – then off to the next opportunity for advantageous video.

The Katie Courics and the Cooper Andersons. They should be banned from ever going such places. They add no further insight by their presence.

Ego. The side of the fifth estate that is journalism that I despise.

Then there are the political winds that swirl up from such catastrophes are as well despicable. Pat Robertson – the evangelist politico wannabe inferring the Haitians deserve this tragedy as their payment to a deal made with the devil. Or Rush Limbaugh declaring the democratic right and specifically Obama – using this event for political positioning.

If there was ever a pot calling a kettle black …

No help – just political posturing. Yes, I believe Robertson is more a political opportunist than a man of the holy word. The proof spews out in his words of contempt.

As well, we now must also be aware of the scammers trying to fool the rest of the world into giving money to phony aid programs.

But why is such a place as Haiti – so geographically positioned and so culturally rich – so poverty stricken to begin with?

History unveils the facts that Haiti's poverty is the result of the French forcing the re-payment of 70 million francs - a bill that in today's dollars would have been over twenty one billion dollars – as the remaining debt owed by Haitian freed slaves after succeeding in their battle for independence. The same era of time during the years of America's Deal with the French for the Louisiana Purchase.

In those days – Haiti was an incredibly rich and profitable nation as a shipping hub and exporter of tropical goods. But the high price of this bill allowed little left over to build a proper infrastructure. This problem further accentuated by multiple reigns of ruthless and greedy dictators – scraping the profits remaining to build palaces and fund their extravagant lifestyles.

But that is history. Those people are no longer around to blame or to hold accountable.

The task ahead of Haiti is enormous. They cannot solve this problem alone. They need to world to help.

What can we do?

What can we – people like me – people most likely like you – the common person in the landscape of the world – do?

We can give money.

We can't go to Haiti and start removing rubble. We can't go to Haiti and start performing medical aid. We can't go to Haiti and cook meals in person. We can't go there to physically assist in this disaster.

We would be in the way.

So we can give money.

As you sit this moment and read my words on your monitor or LCD screen or cell phone – please think about how incredibly lucky that you are that you are not going through this horrific tragedy. And think about how you would feel if it was you, or someone you loved deeply, trapped under rubble still – alive or dead – and how helpless you would feel not being able to do anything.

Then do something.

Do what you can do.

Send money.

Send a thousand dollars, or a hundred dollars, or ten dollars.

Anything will help.

Please visit http://www.redcross.org/ today and determine how best you can assist.

My biggest regret in writing this post is that I wrote it five days too late.

Ringing Out The Oh-Ohs

Let the countdown to the end of 2009 begin.

I for one will not be sorry to see this sorry excuse of a year come to a close. And "don't let the door knob hit you where the good lord split you" on your way out 2K9.

Good riddance to this last decade as well.

Whatever it was called.

After a decade of this new millennium now, we still don't have a common easy way to refer to this last ten years. In my life time, we had the 60s, the 70's, the 80's and the 90's. But what do we call this first ten years of this new millennium?

I would suggest we call this last decade the "Oh-Ohs".

More bad than good came of this last decade.

That's an understatement.

The millennium opened with the American election and inauguration of the Dub-ya administration ruling the U.S. after a twisted electoral vote dispute over hanging chads in the state of Florida – governed at the time by Dub-ya's brother Jeb. A short nine months later we witnessed the event that changed the western world - the 911 attacks.

This led to chasing down Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan that somehow was deferred to invading Iraq.

Fear gripped the world – most noticeably in the United States. Homeland Security became the most powerful branch of law enforcement in the lower forty-eight, highlighted by its designer security threat color codes.

I forget now how threatening fuchsia was.

As well, gas prices soared through the roof, while Iran started threatening with nuclear missile development.

China rose to the forefront of economic power – while North America watched it's jobs leave the west and move into the eastern lands of China and India.

And then came Katrina – which showed us just how Mother Nature could take advantage of a neglected city like New Orleans and turn it into a soup bowl over night. Having spent a good deal of time in New Orleans in the early eighties, this incident really disturbed me in how badly the aftermath played out.

Then there was a tsunami that devastated the populations of the Malaysian coastal areas.

And earthquakes devastating areas in China and Pakistan.

And all the while the Africans kept killing each other in a battle of the genocides.

Last year the financial meltdown as big as the great depression of the 1930's threw many in financial disparity.

Business failed.

Jobs lost.

Homes foreclosed on.

Banks failed and major financial institutions came close to folding – caused by years of corporate executive greed with multimillion dollar bonuses being paid to those very executives who put in place the practices that caused the meltdown.

The American banks received trillions of dollars in American Bailout monies. Other nations like Great Britain followed suit.

And General Motors – the company that once gauged the prosperity of North America went into bankruptcy proceedings and had to be floated by billion dollar bailout package to restructure and be overseen by a government appointed Automotive Czar.

As well, Al Gore – the very presidential candidate that lost to Dub-ya in the election of 2000 by a hanging chad – has spent the last ten years growing beards and shaving them off as he shows the world his power point presentation about the irreversible effects of global warming – and chanting "I told you so" every time we see an odd weather pattern appear.

Ten years into the millenium and we sit in a tough situation – high debt owed to China – skilled professional jobs outsourced to underdeveloped nations abroad – wars on two fronts – and some say the worse is yet to come.

And Osama Bin Laden is still nowhere to be found.

The Oh-Ohs indeed.

The western world is far worse for wear that it was a decade ago.

And many actually believe the ending of the Mayan calendar in 2012 means the end of the world.

Thanks Nostradamus. Great timing.

Let's usher this decade out with all the grief we can muster, and usher in the next decade of the Teens with all the celebration, pomp and ceremony that we possibly can.

Because while I would like to tell you that it can't get much worse – it certainly can.

But we can't dwell on how bad it might be.

We need to knuckle down now to do our best to ensure this next decade unfolds much better.

An awakening.

A resurrection.

We need to find an alternative to fossil fuels to not only stem the tide of pollutants in our environment, but more importantly (in my personal opinion) to neutralize the power and influence of the oil barons and the dastardly (bastardly) destruction the lust for oil has created.

We need to find ways to use this new technology we spent the last decade building other than to download movies and music illegally to really bring cultures together to find common grounds – lowest common denominators of understanding – to work together.

To understand each other.

We need to do something different.

If we are moving into a global shift of power – from North America to Asian and Persia – we need to understand the causes of that shift – and what our new roles will likely be. And how we can perhaps shift that balance back to a more equal level.

I believe this next decade will be ten years of the greatest opportunities mankind has yet to encounter. And how we embrace these challenges will determine our ability to grasp these opportunities to benefit of all of us.

Or maybe the Mayans are right?

If we don't start the awakening soon, the Mayan's may as well be right.

Join with me now as we kiss the "Oh-Ohs" good bye- and lets join hands and celebrate what can be. What should be.

On New Year's Eve 2009, have the one you love by your side – take their hand – and make the commitment together to embrace this next decade with all the optimism and spirit of community you can muster.

Happy New Year everybody. And raise your glass high to a happy new decade.

And next year - this next decade- may we all win.

Whatever we call it.