The Rumblings of Planet Earth

The Earth is once again giving us just a minor taste of how insignificant we tiny bags of biologic chemicals and mostly water are in the grand scheme of this planet's evolution.

The earthquake in Chile this morning, though one of the largest ever recorded at magnitude 8.8, didn't cause catastrophic loss of life anywhere near the scale seen in Haiti.  Which might seem odd to some, since the quake itself was 500 times more powerful than the one which ripped through Port Au Prince last month.  Chile is obviously a much more prosperous country than Haiti and its infrastructure has evolved specifically to deal with earthquakes and other natural disasters in mind, which helps limit the damage.  In many ways, Haiti and Chile are on opposite ends of the two extremes in this regard.  Another difference is that the epicenter was 22 miles underground, 70 miles from Concepcion and 200 miles from Santiago (it wasn't a direct strike on a large city).  Still, over a hundred are known dead so far and likely many more before it's said and done.  The direct strike was on the coast, resulting in a massive tsunami whose destruction is spreading far beyond the local region, threatening a good chunk of the pacific (warnings are in place as far away as Hawaii and Australia).  Good thoughts to our brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere and pacific basin while they deal with this crisis.  

This is a good time to remind folks that the people in Haiti are still hurting and will be for a long, long time. Without any sort of lasting infrastructure to help them.  Please give if you can.  The global news cycle and associated throng of media have largely moved on to more recent events as is natural, but that doesn't mean things are all that much better here ...

Perhaps it's too soon for jokes but I've given fair warning that my humor trends toward the dark side.  When I first saw the news this morning on TV and they were showing damage in Santiago, I immediately thought of Something About Mary.  Specifically, the scene in which Pat Healy, pretending to be an architect, slings bullshit at Harvard educated and renowned  British architect Tucker, who he thinks is the real deal (but who later turns out to be a pizza delivery man named Norm from New Jersey).  Hint: neither of them have ever been to Chile.

Tucker: Really? Where would I have seen your work?
Pat Healy: Well, have you been to, uh well, let me see... Santiago, Chile?
Tucker: Twice last year. Which building's yours?
Pat Healy: Oh. Emm ... are you familiar with the soccer stadium?
Tucker: Did you build the Estadio Olimpico?!?

Pat Healy: No, just down the street the Celinto Catayente Towers. It's quite a fine example, in fact!  I recommend that next time you're up that way that you drop in and take a gander at it yourself.

Here's hoping the Celinto Catayente Towers is okay.

And in all seriousness, best wishes to all affected by this tragedy.   Give to the Red Cross, please.  For Chile, Haiti, and all those hurt by Mother Nature's wrath.   The Red Cross is pretty good at getting the cash to those who need it most.

"Talk" to you again maybe next weekend.  My flu's in the rear view mirror and it's time to tackle all things technology again for awhile.  If you're a masochist who finds something interesting on these pages, you can always visit my technology blog as it's more likely that I'll post there during the week.  Of course, I can't guarantee you'll like the subject matter much; often times, I don't either :-).

Sun Drenched Island of Horrors

It's a tropical paradise on the edges, with a poverty-stricken core.  Sadly, this arrangement seems to typify so many of the islands in the Caribbean. With Haiti, though, those glorious edges are especially razor thin and the broken down core practically swallows the nation whole. Corruption and abuse of power runs rampant as is often the case when wealth and educational opportunities for the people are scarce, and that makes the chaos arising in the aftermath of a crisis such as the one they're in now especially dangerous.  Finally, the island's infrastructure - especially in the most financially bereft neighborhoods - is simply not built to withstand a major earthquake and certainly not to enable any subsequent relief efforts, even if most of it hadn't been reduced to rubble.

The Haitian people have in the past held fast to their proud heritage through times of pain, as though they understood that this too shall pass.  After all, they've fought through a long history of tragedy and oppression.  In many ways this history is intertwined with the rich tapestry of the vibrant culture that often serves to document their perseverance.  But this time the hammer might have come down too suddenly and the damage inflicted could be too great. And that in the end is what makes it so heart wrenching.

I've spent the last half hour watching news footage of the dead and dying in Haiti, and in particular of an 11 year old girl who had been half trapped under rubble for two days with her friends and relatives powerless to free her (they contemplated sawing off her one crushed leg, but they had no blood supply to stem the hemmorging sure to follow so that option was abandoned).  They did finally break her free, partly by removing the dead bodies of other family members caught in the same concrete trap.  She died, though, during the subsequent four hour drive to the nearest hospital (likely she would have waited hours or days more in line to retrieve medical attention, so the odds were always long against her survival).  What really slammed me was the close-up of her face, trapped and crying, little black rimmed glasses on and looking like nothing so much as the scared, hurt kid she was; a once happy-go-lucky child caught in a horrifying situation.

When I hear and see these stories, my snotty whining over trivial matters seems so conceited.  Which it is in any case, but it's magnified now in the wake of these horrors.  Of course, nightmares like these unfortunately go on the world over every day. Scenes like this take place in our inner cities regularly. But it's the sheer concentrated scale of the Haiti situation that is overwhelming to me, even far removed physically and emotionally from the carnage, safe and warm on my living room couch. I don't know anyone in Haiti nor am I close with anyone of Haitian ancestry.  And still it's just overwhelming to me.  You'd have to be dead inside or Rush Limbaugh for it not to get to you at least a little.  I can't imagine the intensity of the emotions on the ground there.  Television images don't nearly do it justice, I imagine.  Thank God for that.

I've donated several times to the Red Cross and other like agencies this week, but I don't think this is something that money (or anything) can solve in the right now.  The infrastructure just isn't there and by the time the foundation is properly laid to help the many, a great percentage will be long dead.  It's hard to say, but I just hope the relief workers can get it into place in time to recover the bodies before decease rising from the deceased gives rise to a secondary catastrophe and an unthinkable chain reaction.  Until then, let's be grateful for the many little miracles they perform along the way.

A Batshit Loon, a Vile Buffoon, and a Multitude of Much Better People

Reverend Pat Robertson and his gasbag sidekick Rush Limbaugh are the sociopath's Abbott and Costello.  Or perhaps Huntley and Brinkley for the Sieg Heil aficionados.

Whenever I'm sure that I couldn't possibly think less of these these two wackos, they manage to blurt out something that lowers the bar.  Case in point: their responses to the devastation visited upon Haiti, Robertson citing yet more comeuppance for the Haitian "pact with the devil" and Limbaugh lambasting Obama for commenting on thousands dead and dying in Port-au-Prince faster than he did on the underwear bomb terrorist's failed attack.

I won't even dignify Robertson's comments with a response: he's clearly a Looney 'Toon who happens to have his own television network (no, it's not the Cartoon Network - it's not nearly so entertaining or real).  With the demeanor of a kindly grandfather channeling Hannibal Lecter.  Unfortunately,  Mr. Robertson's neighborhood is a more sizable community than you might think.  Sad commentary on our evolution as a species.  But certainly not the only or even nearly the saddest, which is itself profoundly sad.  We're got a ways to go.  But we're getting there.

A long way to go, indeed ... and thus Rush.  Rush ... ahh, pill-poppin', jack assin' Rush. Well, well, well.  He has an even bigger bully pulpit and a much larger following than Reverend Pat.  Sad becomes suicidal.  Christ, makes one wanna reach for the Oxycodone.  Unlike Pat, he claims no special kinship with the almighty; rather, he believes he is the almighty.  Maybe he's right, but if he is then sign me up for that Haitian unholy pact of yore Robertson was babbling about and fit me for my pitchfork cause clearly down is up.

Limbaugh suggests - fuck, he outright says - Obama is showing favoritism to "dark-skinned foreigners" to "placate his black constituency" rather than show "proper concern for Americans."

Now to be sure, the failed terrorist attack was disturbing on a couple of fronts, exposing the airport security holes we all strongly suspected but didn't want to admit were there, allowing a wingnut with explosive jockey shorts into the sky on a passenger aircraft that was a hair's breath and an alert passenger's action away from being blown to kingdom come, perhaps causing massive damage on the ground in Detroit to boot.

However, all that said, the attack did not succeed, no one was hurt and - much more important - time in the aftermath was not of the essence as it is with the Haiti situation, where tens of thousands more could die if a massive and well coordinated relief effort does not happen RIGHT NOW.  A no-brainer.

Visit the Red Cross or your favorite relief fund and donate what you can - I've done it and will do it again. It helps wash the bad taste out of my psyche after catching these dynamic dodos in action.  And watch some real patriots - patriotic toward humanity - diving into the shit storm that is Haiti in the earthquake's aftermath, helping to reunite families torn apart, provide water/food/shelter to the suddenly-homeless survivors, and find/treat the wounded or at least help bring some answers and closure to their loved ones. And of course get into place at least the minimum of infrastructure necessary to do all this in time for it to matter.

Gimme Shelter takes on a whole new meaning.

But I'm feeling a lot better about the human capacity for good: the heart of just one relief worker drowns out the screeching of a barrel full of Batshit Loons and Vile Buffoons.