Lax codes, no steel reinforcements, likely plenty of seawater was used in cement mixing, has very seldom experienced any earthquake activity, it rains there everyday... meaning the dirt roads passing as main roads, the floor of the communities is mud, all the time, everyday. The scent of rotten mangoes permeates the atmosphere. In every home and small "whatever is being served regardless of the menu its fried rice" cafe hangs a poster portrait of Baby Doc. Probably illegal, but that doesn't mean much. Now, this place is not like anywhere else in the world. Obiah, dirty hands runs through the streams where water used to flow. After hours the donkeys scream over the walls. Ever heard a donkey scream? The winds rise, the seas roll, moorings slip free, things happen with no logical explanation. You'd have to be accustomed to Voodoo audio to get a night's sleep.
There are so many of more of them then Haitian Barack Obamas. Although there are people from everywhere camping out until something else somewhere else beckons. Jacmel - which is a town just over the mountain, a day's jitney to Port Au Prince (beautifully creative artworks with wheels and seats you share, sound systems tuned with high bass, squeeze your white person body in between boxes for suitcases wrapped with twine) is known for the damage done by Hurricane David. My friends there happen to be a Belgian couple (there is always a European couple in these places that have lived there seemingly forever) whose original reason for travel was a sail around the world. Their craft lies beached, keel even with the horizon, a 50 ft. rusting hulk of ribs, a memory of David and the reason they linger in Jacmel. I would tell you they are amazing people, but the last time I saw them it looked like they were well on their way into alcoholism. Harmless, genteel, soulful people in a very long drawn out painless suicide, after all, what future would they have in Jacmel in their condition. I have much love for them. Everyone they ever knew before the yacht was trashed must have been to visit them by now. Perhaps they have achieved a certain kind of fame, I wouldn't know, but I have met people in the US that know them and stayed with them. Not a coincidence. They have enough money to live richly in the poorest section of a decrepit and decadent slaveholder's town Papa Doc is reported to having said "would be forgotten" while visiting Jacmel to dedicate the new concrete dock because an onlooker spat on him. The people came to learn there was truth to those words as medical and dental services, eventually, all services passed them by, repeatedly. It may or may not be true, but it was explained to me by various people as if it were common knowledge. Undoubtedly, Jacmel is now in more serious trouble. I cannot imagine the horror unfolding, I know it is beyond our capacity to understand unless maybe you were caught under the rubble of the WTC. Think of an entire destitute country, clawed apart by big ag and panties manufacturers, women and children eating mud cookies, galvanized shacks abutting more galvanized separated by curtains of colored plastic strips, squatting because chairs are too precious, chickens and sick dogs roaming about the dwellings, potties spilled and broken, think of ground zero in Manhattan spread across French terraced mountains from the Caribbean to the Bay of Gonaives rippling out to Santo Domingo, to Kingston, to Havana, to the Grenadines, a 7.0 may well have been felt very far away. The aftershocks, 24 at this count, are registering 5.0 mag.
What are we going to do about it? Oh, the usual despite the adjective catastrophic proceeding disaster. Our grave media delivery men are vying for selection to do an on-location. We'll probably see Xe over there with AK47's and various microwave weaponry to maintain (maintain?) order because there is no order and there was so little, if any, to begin with. The victims will accidentally be referred to as insurgents by Harry Reid. Haiti will be observed to be comparable to a war zone. The missionaries have already landed.
You cannot say this is worse than Katrina. In the same way you wouldn't compare Banda Aceh with Pompeii, if you were not present at all of them.
They say the buildings that house the officials that would normally be in contact with the US State Department are lying in ruins. Rubble and dust. What could possibly lie ahead for Haiti now? How do people rebuild from nothing? Everyone living in daily catastrophic disaster before this morning will now live in the decaying rubble of catastrophic disaster for the remainder of their lives. They are a highly emotional people in general, they hold nothing back, if they cry, they wail, if they are happy, they dance in the muddy streets. Surely there are human cries tonight, swimming in fact in a vast sea of tears and for everyone, wretched conditions totally unimaginable to most Americans, from today forward.
The Americans will want to do something, they will be told to donate to the cause. There will be disaster relief movements and there will be carpetbaggers. If we were smart, instead of public relations celebrities, we would refrain from handling this disaster in the typical fashion. We should get food and medical supplies and experienced search and rescue workers over there. We should use Predator drones with thermal imaging to find the people under the rubble. We should get earth-moving equipment sent in now on C-130s. But already Hillary says its too difficult. Well, why Hillary? We do it for war, don't we? We made the world's largest luxury embassy city in Iraq and its too difficult to hop on down to Haiti? Our idle freighters can't spare a convoy? What is it, the fuel expense? If you are going to keep up appearances, you'd better reserve a little extra fuel for disaster aid.
It isn't cash this place needs now. I fear the corrupted will inhale any money appearing as aid and the Haitians will be left with debt in the quadrillions, possibly well into infinity. We must not put ANY restrictions on anything we should be giving freely as one people to another, no abortion restrictions, no medical trials on the desperate, no political fomenting dependent on aid. Give the gift of help without strings attached, is that possible? We need to stop this phony holier than thou superstar boss act now. This is the perfect time to put aside political posturing and do something good for someone else without taking back. However, the world being what it is, operating as it does, a lot of people will make a lot of money because disaster always brings the cockroaches out of hiding. This situation isn't an American situation, its a CARICOM situation, but the US has to meddle because as you will hear at any moment now, its the Christian thing to do. What about the real thing to do? That is a question you won't hear.
For the Haitians, if they are not deluged with more corruption than they already live amidst, they are used to working hard, inventive and imaginative and capable of evolving into a stronger country provided the corporatists of the econo-agro-ocracy back off.
At this moment a TV newscaster is saying Haiti is not capable of dealing with a disaster on this scale. We'll hear a lot about that in the coming weeks. I ask you, what did the early inhabitants of Planet Earth do when disaster struck? And what did the early peoples in faraway locations do? And we are still here, I think.
Now I'm going to relight the fire in the fireplace and sit on the hearth and send healing thoughts far south. Tonight I will sleep in a bed in a house while Haitians have nowhere at all to sleep or pee or gather their thoughts or just take a break. What else do we have they don't? We have a cowardice they lack. They do not hesitate to speak up and they speak from their hearts. They will go on because they have always gone on, all of life has always been unbearable suffering and its a hard, raw lifestyle that claws its living out of nothing yet lives. In comparison, we are marshmallows talking about survival. It is to weep.
61 comments:
Why do these large-scale natural disasters seem to always target the poor or very poor? Haiti?!?
It makes no sense. None of this does anymore, if it ever did.
Z
Yes Nina. Now the Cubans, Americans and etc can work together selflessly to rescue and assist the rebuilding. I still dream too.
Some people were holding hands and singing hymns.
No sense at all Zoner. Wish the rest of us could hold hands and give thanks, just to be here in this mysterious fragile Paradise together for a time.
turey.
Z, turey, it is strange, I agree, but perhaps living on the fault lines is less expensive, or more conducive to supporting life than living in safer zones? You have to ask why didn't this happen in the ocean or somewhere other than a population center? I don't know. So many questions, so little understanding. Why a population center? Is it because humans generate heat which causes shifts in the Tectonic Plates ? This is something that has an answer, I just don't know it right now. Maybe the geologists can explain...
Recall, the tsunami hit about the same time of year, December 26.
BTW, I just heard there air traffic control in Port au Prince is gone. This is what happens when the devil comes to town. A situation beyond control is exacerbated further - and further.
I fear for Haiti, and not for its recovery. Something has a plan for this place and we can't see it yet. They have always been kept a vulnerable nation. Rasta, you may very well be onto something with your comment re: Cuban American relations. When disater is natural, no one has to explain.
Apologies for typos.
Yeah, it was their pact with the
devil. Pat Robertson just opened his arse and said so, so it must be true!
WV: (h)ablar
Old Pat should go among the Haitians and witness their ways to clean heart, respect for Spirit, the spirits of the ancestors and of the creation.
Vodoo/Vudou is not black magic any more than is Wicca. Another bad rap by the ignorant. That side exists everywhere; in different flavours and is used more as a weapon than an advantage over others.
And the people wail, pray and chant while using bare hands to help. Drums are going to beat and the spirits summoned.
Read Zora Neale Hurston for insight into Haiti and Ja roots.
You caught the spirit of runnings in lady with the screw face on the recliner Nina.
turey.
'boldime'..That time fer sure.
nice stuff nina.
neil
Help Haiti: The Unforgiven Country Cries Out Chris Floyd's Empire Burlesque again, definitely worth your time.
Thank you Neil, thank you turey.
Now, after digesting Chris Floyd's entry today shall we revisit the question of WHY POPULATION CENTERS?
this post is so beautiful it broke my heart...i was shaky already as i looked at the pictures....i will try so hard to not complain about my petty hardships. like, losing my garden job already. poor haiti. i always hear it in jacques cousteau's voice: high eeee teee.
thank you chickory, that is the highest compliment I've ever received.
You lost the job? Oh no. I am so very sorry, I know it was going to be perfect, c'est la vie. We are artists and like it or not, that is the bottom line. Things will always work back around to prove it, although on the surface it never appears that way, but in retrospect, someday, you might agree.
I'm completely absorbed with Haiti's misery. I have some well-connected (thankfully) friends I am working with to send goods immediately. Soap, neosporin, gauze, clothes, baby items, baby foods, diapers and pins, blankets and canned goods, buckets for washing, like giant care packages ... that kind of thing. We're going to try to work through Wyclef Jean since he is not a formal aid agency. If there are any hassles, we'll just do it on our own because the need is so great and it is needed now.
If anyone would like to join in, my email is on my profile. I welcome any helpful ideas too. We are not sending money because it will never get to the person who needs it.
Bill Clinton said on CNN this afternoon they will be sending earth moving equipment via a C-130 asap. AWWWRITE! Now, let's bring in those drones with the thermal imaging, fellas.
Spirit of the Runnings - I love it.
Su is back.
Wikipedia reports the nominal GDP of Haiti at $6.94bn in 2008 -- this probably just represents the figures from the outsourced sweatshops. So one can tote up the bonuses at Wall St. and the City of London -- what was it just for Goldman Sacks - $29bn? -- and see how many multiples of the Haitian GDP the den of thieves pockets. Yes, these disasters seem to bring out 'that crowd' from under their rocks - the Clintons, Gordon Brown, portly UN burrocrats, Ted Turner, the evangelical Xtians, they're all on the screen now. Just a new form of slavery, the NWO global plantation as bad or worse than it was on the cane plantations. We're all headed there.
82nd Airborne troops headed to Haiti for quake aid
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100114/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_haiti_troops
This is strange, they could send any division there why this combat hardened one?
the grocery clerks and errand boys pick up the slack ...
And 100 million isn't enough. 100 million is show aid. They pulled that one during the tsunami and had to raise the figure when everybody else was sending more. Seriously, it doesn't make sense to throw 700 billion at perfectly healthy people obviously not lying under rubble and 100 million at people who are not allowed to recover from the boot in their face. It appears that 100 million may barely open the sweat shop door, but certainly not heal the gash, bring about order, fill bellies and bury the dead. What, for example, does it cost to build air traffic control? Hospitals? What was the price tag on the Iraq embassy-city? Maybe this has to be expected, maybe this is another situation misrepresented and handled in the backwards tradition as is the case with health reform or Copenhagen Nobel. As they are fond of saying, its a fluid situation, therefore I expect a huge increase aside from sending in the 82nd airborn and musing about beds at Guantanamo, but they'd better move FAST if they plan on reviving sweat labor.
Nina, very well said as always--your description of the European couple was spot-on, I can imagine them in Thailand, too, and elsewhere....I can smell the scent of the fallen mangoes.
People are generous at times like this and I suppose the Red Cross will buy real things to give away with our donations. At least I hope so.
Increase the size of the Army Corps of Engineers dramatically. Win hearts and minds by recruiting and training youth in appropriate and low tech solutions for service during emergencies and for design and rebuilding of systems where needed. A technical Peace Corps. The training facilities and systems are already in place.
The need for arms may decrease if many are shown techniques that improve quality of living. No more shock'n'awe. The arms dealers can sell photovotaics and water catchment systems instead of death.
These services will certainly be needed at home for the great redesign of the American infrastructure.
Our fallen mangoes didn't smell Charles, the dogs and us ate all with relish. Juiced if soft. We all had had yellow skins all summer from the excess carotene. We had a jaundice scare until we found out.
Time for the encouragement of 'Fruit Walks', esp in Haiti. A driveway lined with fruit trees of all kinds and free fruit for all.
Takes 7 years or so.
I dream on.
turey.
Thanks Charles, might I return the compliment, your essay today on the implosion of entitlements was excellent. I am enjoying my book btw, I read chapters before sleeping every night and it is almost as if every page was written just for me. Heh, your style is something almost magical, I hesitate to say that but honestly, it will be hard to pass this one on even though I will. As usual, it is me that is in your debt.
On Haiti, a situation requiring our close inspections because the collapse scenario is very close to home. Turey, your ideas are just what is needed, absolutely timely and logical, but will it happen? We could be heros, but the plantation masters have other plans. We have come to count on travesty continuing rather than logic.
I know Sis. I figure some may take seed and I keep on dreaming.
turey.
Dear Rasta, Let me encourage you to do that. We never know who may see your ideas and we never know if they had those ideas themselves too or if they saw your's and realized their importance. Either way, some could benefit greatly and it doesn't matter who owned the ideas to begin with.
I am in complete agreement with your plans for Haiti. I am especially taken with the technical peace corps plan. These services will certainly be needed at home for the great redesign of the American infrastructure.
In fact, all the lessons are being shown to us now in a horrible way no one could have imagined. If we do not learn now, we too will wander dazed with nowhere to go, bleeding, homeless, life-less, beaten down, mystified, overwhelmed. If we are not living on top of a fault line, we are subject to something else. And these are especially unpredictable times. Dreamers are valuable people.
Thanks Nina, encouragement is the finest food, for the soul.
Pangolin, re seaweed shake. Collect the sea plant/s in clean sea water or buy packaged. I'm not sure if only one species is used. Wash in fresh water, pick clean and boil with enough water until jellylike. Strain and add milkind of choice, brown sugar and nutmeg/cinnamon to taste. Most use condensed milk, a Ja staple. A tot of brown rum is super.
The Haitians must know the virtues of this and more.
The bush teas are never ending. Bro G keeps telling me of things his great grandmother told him about. How and when to pick. What is good for what and the dose and preparation method. The Flowering Plants of Jamaica by CD Adams is my guide to such things when the bush doctors are not around.
turey.
One positive possibility is that when devastation is this widespread, it may give them the chance to radically change the pattern of life there. For instance, focusing on sustainable villages and permaculture. If they were just provided decent tents to live in temporarily until more permanent structures could be built from the rubble of the buildings, they could circle maybe 40 at a time, plant community gardens in the middle, surround them with coconut and fruit trees. Coconuts provide "coconut water" which is high in electrolytes and nutrients, so in hard times nobody would have to be desperate for bottled water.
I'd wish for a restructuring of land rights - so that a healthy prototype could be created. Perhaps the hopes of the world could be focused on Haiti and something wonderful could be established that would encourage the rest of us. That would be my dream for them.
The reality, of course, is that the overseers will re-establish the sweatshops and plantations, enforced by however much military might it takes to get back to exploitation-as-usual.
But, still, I think I will be sending them seeds.
Nina, thank you for the kind words about my book--it is surely a cure for insomnia :-) You have the knack for turning the perfect phrase that is wondrous indeed... I am a mere plodder but luckily there is a place at the table for us plodders...
Turey I love mangoes (lived in hawaii for 18 years) and wish i could have that "jaundice"--what abundance you enjoyed.
Nina, the weird thing about this Haiti tragedy is that the developed world was pleased to let Haiti rot all these decades and now, suddenyl, it's on the radar screen. Maybe some good will come of this in the sense that an infrastructure which never existed before will finally be put in place.
The crime here is we spent $3 trillion (or is it $13T? Nobody seems to really know--I have seen $23T bandied about) bailing out bankers and Wall Street. What good could that sum have bought? A lot, especially in places like Haiti.
Hi All,
Nina, that painting says it all. Here's an email I sent to Les a few days back. I think the situation is a lot more involved but the bottom line seems to be natural disasters for fun and profit. Bastards....
Here's some curious points about the quakes in Haiti. All of them were at 10 km in depth. Haiti has a huge reservior of oil which was drilled and verified quite a few years back.
"The Haitian OIL as well as other layers were to be kept as reserves for 21st when the means-Eastern gold mine would have been depleted. That is exactly what is happening. The wells of Knappen-Tippen- Abbet were numbered, carefully padlocked, or sealed with cement and one forgot them
These reports were not supposed to be made public to the Haitians. It shows that the superpowers do not want Haiti to become a powerful nation. The exploitation of these Oil Reservoirs could have easily removed Haiti in the poorest Nations list in the Western hemisphere."
Here's the link to the article http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/31612-drill-then-pump-oil-haiti-4-oil-companies-request-oil-drilling-permits.html
ZS Livingston since 2006 has been documenting quakes which he claims are set off by nukes, These are for oil exploration. It makes the oil more accessable. Some of these are in seismically inactive spots such as the middle of the gulf of Mexico in Dec 2006 as an example. Odd thing are all those quakes are at that key 10 km depth.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php link to the latest quakes. This is all conjecture on my part. 2 + 2 might only equal 3 in this case but it's a possibility.
Best Regards,
Phil R
Really, I should not have the news on at all. While the giddy self-representatives talk about the troops landing, a running video shows exactly what we saw in Katrina, the hired guns of the Shock Doctrine. Unfortunately - this give plausibility to conjecture. Is this all we can do? Flood a country with hired guns? Move outta the way, no other flights permitted, the troops are landing. They already had hired guns for cryin' out loud. One by one they are going down the list ensuring Haiti will never be free of chains.
Let's look at the most common phrase of these past 4 days, War Zone. This is not a true war zone, it is a disaster zone. But to nations who foment disaster as a preplanned and possessive recipe for conquer, any disaster that comes across the radar gets the moniker War Zone. Is subliminal conquer and possess all they can come up with? I'm afraid so.
We seriously underestimate the potential of technology through programmed ignorance. Conjecture is a natural consequence when authentic information is withheld and public relations is worthless when the obvious is taking place. When you think of the trillions filling fascist piggy banks and the paltry show aid paraded around, they could radically expand the figures and still not begin to make a dent in the ongoing profit machine. Delivering the 82nd airborn is not creating a model community. All the opportunities to live up to our public relations are being ignored. In between the on-site sound bites, there are lavish advertising spots for Caribbean resorts, white people in fashionable swim attire, laughing, drinking champagne, cloistered far from the victims of catastrophic disaster and hired guns, a faux Green Zone by the glistening beaches. Crass, indeed, but what are they doing? They blow it with these propaganda spots and we accept it because its the only normalty, that old appearance of BAU, we receive.
Any people, anywhere, caught in disaster have the survival instinct to rebuild, that IS what humans do, its in our DNA, but we get told repeatedly THESE people can't do it themselves. This is outrageous unacceptable racism, and for Haiti, that is the ugly boot they have not been able to remove. When you hear they can't do anything by themselves, ask yourself if you are capable of doing anything by yourself? In this lifetime, anything we have we have achieved by ourselves. How dare anyone suggest otherwise.
In the interim, take notice of what else is happening on the fringes while our attentions are rivited on Haiti's plight. There you will find that old BAU.
Important contributions freeacre, Charles, Phil. Thank you. This event is taking us to a new level of awareness and even for a mere onlooker its painfully wrenching in it brazen lesson. Maybe this time it hurts so much we will finally get it? I don't count on it.
Strange how they dont blanch to show the bodies bulldozed into pits, the amputations, the screams, in Haiti (CNN: 'Warning: These images are graphic.') when they censor all such images from Iraq or Afghanistan. You see it all coming -- Ag sec Villsack promising GMO agriculture as in Iraq and Afghan., Obama's czars, and here comes Bill and Hillary Clinton.
All more of the same thing that ruined Haiti in the first place. Not too many abortuaries though, we need enough folks to man the sweatshops. WV: crit(t)er
Beautifully expressed Nina.
Why is it always the poor.
Such a tenuous existence without the earth challenges.
Appreciating all you are doing in sending help.
Yesterday there was a solar eclipse that lasted for 11 minutes and 8 seconds.
That adds up to a 9.
The number of endings.
Within a few days a huge storm will blow into California.
I am afraid we are going to be seeing much death and destruction from now on.
It is not going to be man as the destroyer right now - as you said Nina, earth is hatching.
Anyone else think HARP might have played a role?
Neptune: Why would they send a hardened combat unit?
They probably all are at this stage.
Nina as far as suggestions of what to send : number one on my list would be a herb called Golden Seal - a god send for infection.
I refused to watch any of it on television or even look at images on the net. I can imagine well enough what it must be like.
I take time out in the garden and breathe in the peace and send it out again, hoping the intention someone will experience it even for a second.
Whilst eating, the intention is that those hungry can share the wholesomeness of the food.
Whilst laughing, the intention is that someone will pick up on a trace of joy.
Whilst hugging Iona, I am hugging all the frightened children that there are and singing and rocking them till they sleep peacefully.
Let us not buy into this horror.
It is what feeds the machine.
Let us slip into the spirit of human resilience and wish that the miracle of transformation appears.
Golden Seal. What is in it? I've heard you and others praise it for a long time now. You remind me to include matches for cooking so whatever healing magic grows in the bush can be boiled down, as turey mentions in his sea moss recipe. All the most important medicines can be broken down to their natural ingredients. Healing grows for the taking in the West Indian backyard courtesy Mother Nature, boiled down to oils, jellies, salves and tea. Healing of wounds and gashes also comes about from sea water soaks. Feels good too, but these are miracles that actually work and only because we were born into a big pharma generation do we often overlook the benefits. I think we all know this already, but to really concentrate puts together a more effective response.
Golden Seal, matches, seeds, trowels, small pans, small reusable bottles. How 'bout needles and thread while we're at it?
I wonder if I can part with my new tea tree oil? Considering how Colloidal Silver has worked for us, that's going too. The criteria I use is gathering together what we already possess and passing it along to where the need is greater.
Last night Hillary announced a sole drone had been diverted from Afghanistan and had taken 1,400 images of the Haitian land. All well and good, but do them a favor and plug in the thermal imaging please. You can set up monitors in landed planes where you are planning to stay anyway. Thermal can see through rubble.
Apologize for rambling, all of us may freely use this space to collect our thoughts. I am very glad to see you Su and heartened to hear you are going about the business of your life in heightened compassion. You do know, another person would languish in blame.
Hi Su, glad you're well.
Best, turey.
I better stick to the old Native building design, the Canaye. A tipi of hardwood and palm leaves; I'll use metal sheeting topped with solar cells with guttering for catchment. The next fault west of the 7 in Haiti passes S of Kingston and may end up close to my land.
turey.
Hi turey,
Nina like what you have together so far. I would add fishing line and string to that cornucopia if you have any around.
What a gift of love you are putting together.
And the amazing thing is the remarkable people who will benefit from it in hitherto unimagined ways.
You know how we always have exactly what we need - and the being that needs the tea tree oil is going to get it.
There is a disaster, and yet there is a divine intelligence at work.
And the beauty is you are that divine intelligence.
Namaste.
Namaste to you my friend. Fishing line, string, brilliant! I've seen them doing that, over and over, and you know, I can certainly spare some brushes and paints too. A lot.
Rasta, the Canaye, just right and for here too. Publius, come in, come in....
We are moving past the marshmellow phase... whew!
I'm thinking Pangolin has something important to say, may his Mac breathe anew.
I just want to add I saw tents last night and hope they are everywhere because according to West Indian tradition, humans are not supposed to be outside getting wet from dew in the darkness, which manifests in a "lyming cold" ie: pnemonia. In addition to all the carnage currently existing, a huge burst of sickness of all sorts could take out many of the original survivors. You recall the worst off of the victims are lying in a makeshift ER in a parking lot.
The good news is portable (inflatable) hospitals have arrived, you would have seen them in Iraq documentaries, but the bad news is they are small and I fear, far too few.
Yes, Su, golden seal and echinacea.
When I went to Rehab #Infinity, that was where I got sober b/c they didn't prescribe drugs. Seventh Day Adventists. It was BHHEC (Black Hills Health and Education Center) an Adventist enterprise. I had an infection when I got there, and Dr. Mary Ann rx'd golden seal and echinacea. I got over it. They took "scholarships" there, Lakota who could not pay. They were all suffering from horrible diabetes with their junk res diet. As a rule they got them golden seal and echinacea when they came in, with infections. Ira Blue Coat would go out and get yucca roots with his knife and apply to his various lesions. When the Lakota left, I can testify: their black feet and toes were rosy pink.
I saw so many miracles there. They took a number of Lakota on gratis who had terminal diabetes with the black feet, etc., and I watched it turned around. No advert but you can google them. That was rehab #ZZZ and the Adventists were the only ones to get me off booze and drugs for a year. Zero toleration. Six miles of walks a day. Two meals a day, vegan. Dirt roads out. Ten miles to the nearest city. It worked.
I guess everyone else sees the Irony of Obummer appointing two war criminals to chaperone the Haitian war effort? If you/they are wise enough not to watch the j news, thats Bill Clinton and Dumbya.
WV: Billy !!!
You can publish this or not, I dont know if it is relevant to topic or not, but considering, I guess it is.
I had been turned away from four rehab centers (who were used to me- this includes Betty Ford Center)
when as a last resort I was directed by Adventist and Mormon neighbors (I lived in rural N. Idaho at the time)
to: bhhec.org.
It's an SDA health center at about one fifth the cost of Betty Ford. The current MD head is a black man that looks spookingly like Obama (I hope he doesnt share the politics)
And they make you work. Large organic farm, you walk five miles a day, two meals only, vegan. No religion imposed, they are multi whatever. But they provide buses into Rapid City for religious services. The best vegan restaurant in the world was there when I was there, Veggies, in Rapid City. We were bussed to Hot Springs, SD weekly for the waters... an olympic sized swimming pool and the water is high in lithium! I always felt like a million dollars afterwards.
Eight miles from the ugly sculpt/rape of Washington et al., but not that much further from the one they are working on on Crazy Horse. They take you to the Crazy Horse in buses......
Why should you publish this? Because so many people have seen these horrible videos of Haitian suffering, subliminally to teach them that "there but for the grace of god you go", and they still have an outlet.
Amazing synchronicity Tex. I must have said this to myself twenty times this afternoon. There but for the grace of God go you or I. Reminds me of Phil Ochs, there but for Fortune.
I said earlier it is fine with me if we feel like rambling, if there was ever a time to ramble, it is now. You never know who is reading that you may have inspired to turn away from the abyss. Thanks.
Lyrics: There but for Fortune
Show me a prison, show me a jail
Show me a pris'ner whose face has grown pale
And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me an alley, show me a train
Show me a hobo who sleeps out in the rain
And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me the whiskey stains on the floor
Show me a drunk as he stumbles out the door
And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me a country where the bombs had to fall
Show me the ruins of buildings so tall
And I'll show you a young land
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
You or I
Also, Tex, you have touched on something almost never discussed which is an overall ignorant attitude about Haiti and Haitians. We heard it in passing somewhere, we heard in 2004 when Ariside was forceably exiled in darkest Africa and we hear it now, it is that these backyard neighbors of the US have done it to themselves. That they are bent on living in pigstys and behave so criminally, they will never get anyhwere, (what exactly is "anywhere, anyway"?) backed up with they never got anywhere to begin with because they are too stubborn and too corrupt. The idea is that Haitians are savages and should not in any way be connected to US citizens - cut 'em off, etc.
You know what this is, it is illiterate/ignorant racism from voices who have no idea of Haiti's history and what the past and present administrations of the corporate econo-agro-ocracy foists upon them for an always available pool of cheap labor, including but not limited to lowering the already impossible minimum wage. Disgusting. And yet all the while as we watch the rescue op we see outsiders making unforgivable mistakes and the Haitians having to workaround them as if they had nothing better to do. To think they will be "helped" by people harboring prejudicial mindsets means they will be treated disrespectfully extending exponentially the already crushing suffering.
See? Rambling is important.
OK I dont know how you know I am Tex, but Tex I am.
Yes I have been to 20 plus rehabs but let us say I am now a reconteur and I can say they are meaningful.
As such I would recommend bhhec.org. Sadly, I learned my doctor was deceased -- 92yo. When I was there, he was jumping off the high board at the olympic swimmming pool size fueled by the olympic swimming pool.......
I learned a lot by figuring out swps...... we had to produce out daily meal by that. Dont worry... lots of acreage. And then we had to work with it w/ all... if you ever needed a guru, there is Elizabeth Hopkins..... I'd go to her and say, "Elizabeth! What?" And then by telekenesis, she'd say," This" and show me. Don't worry.
I just love them bhhec.org.
You are the only nameless person who comments like they are a regular on this blog, for one. Two, you have a distinct style. A long time ago I wondered who this anonymous regular was and saw on my site meter you came in from Midland, Texas.
Now, don't freak, these things are ridiculously inaccurate, for all I know you are coming in from Riceboro, Georgia or the North Pole.
Third, any friend of the diggers is a friend of mine.
peace and good fortune to all of you...
I finally allowed myself to look at Haiti pictures today. Way too scary. I haven't seen much video and am glad to be spared.
My imaginary Haiti relief kit:
Honey best wound treatment available. Look it up.
Duct tape duct tape honey and any semi-clean wad of cloth is a bandage.
Ceramic water filters. Quit trucking water in when they can filter what's available.
Tyvek housewrap. This is very light and can be used for shade, hammocks, shrouds, water collection tarps, blankets, etc. Superlight backpackers swear by the stuff.
Bamboo poles 1 inch. By the container load. Everything from carry poles, stretchers, travois, tents, scaffold, spears, the locals will know what to do with them.
Stoves. The rocket stoves that Apravecho produces will be needed to allow people to boil water and cook food without using every scrap of wood and plastic they can find.
Flip flops. Foot injuries are going to be a real problem.
Five gallon buckets w/lids. Use for everything from water to food stores.
Garbanzo beans. Make everything from soup to patties to sprouts.
Cooking oil
Salt
Tea
Sugar
Flour
Fly Traps
eye hoe and handle
gloves
construction hatchet
The list goes on and on but wound treatment, clean water, quick shelter, a stove, basic food and basic tools should dominate until everybody has these.
Ten km depth is geologist speak for "we don't know how deep the damn earthquake was."
Who the hell is stupid enough to let G.W. Bush anywhere near Haiti after he kidnapped Aristide. Throwing this bone to the wingnuts isn't worth the insult.
I grew up less than 3 miles from the San Andreas fault in Daly City CA and school field trips to the old missions always included the bit about the cracks caused by the 1906 quake. There but for the grace of god.... Actually, without family support I would be sitting in the rain right now.
It's a sad world.
Catching up. Am I the only one who gets pissed off by news crews making a big deal of locals "looting" big box stores and warehouses during this kind of emergency? Does anybody remember the Katrina clips of the white refugees "foraging" while the black refugees were said to be "looting."
If you are a corporation that owns a supermarket in a devastated city your stock just got converted to "relief supplies." The fact that there is nobody in a shiny uniform to give you a hand-out should not force anyone to dehydrate, starve, go without medicine, bandages or shelter.
The word "looting" should only apply to property removed during human produced chaos like riots or war. When God smacks everybody down your 'private property' is now 'what you can carry' or 'what your neighbors allow you to keep.' Pulling food from an earthquake destroyed building isn't a crime in my book.
Indeed Pangolin. A hungry man is an angry man said the old Scots and Bob Marley.
If most westerners were in such a situation, imagine what would happen after the first missed meal.
Katrina was lazy black people with no self control...right? It takes superb self control to miss meals on a regular basis and put up with disrespect and worst for a lifetime. Yes some loose it as we all do sometimes.
That laziness enabled the industrial revolution; sugar and free labour for the English. Yea rum too.
turey.
'irea-wy'. Yes WPG, why should we be Irie in such circumstances?
No other sensible path.
Okay, these new additions are going out today, Pangolin's was exactly what I'd been hoping for, better than I hoped for. We're halfway there. The first half was done on day one. Thanks Pangolin.
Publius, as a father of a young son, I know you will have something important to include we overlooked. I hope you saw turey's canaye comment.
Bush, the man who failed the Creoles in 2005 which btw, extends into today and far into the distant future. What's next, Paulson's personal relief emergency bailout for the Plantation Masters? And how soon do the Darth Vaders show up on the scene, or are they already there ...
When has Bush ever been a victim of catastrophic disaster? Is he fluent in Creole? Can he wrap a wound? Comfort the dying? Now, I fear we will see all disasters of the apocalypse envelop the planet leading the downtrodden, the un-consumer, into oblivion. He cheerleads a more "modern" Haiti, translated the resort development corps already let contracts and sweatshop ops are first priority. No doubt, Condi in vixenwear will surface soon, maybe bring a piano.
If the Heritage Foundation had scoured the world for a more aggravating force, they could not have found one comparable to Bush.
Indeed it is a sad world.
That laziness built the White House. How many whips cracked over the backs of hostages?
Forget the past some say. Agreed, keep it as a store of memories and lessons.
But; is the attitude that created the West India Trade, the Royal African Company, the Asiento and others, still alive and well, thriving?
Seems so. One should not forget that.
Whips are not needed again, most enjoy the offered trances and dreams and give their time and attention as payment.
Now to keep myself from becoming enchanted. At every step.
turey.
For relief packages, one should include some treats for the children. It may seem like a luxury, but some kind of candy/sugary sweet that will survive without melting or disintegrating would bring a real smile to distressed children.
That's all I can add to the excellent suggestions from Pangolin and others.
The cheer the candy would bring would be very welcome, and provide some relief for the distressed parents, too...
Putting Bush in charge of this is a grave insult that will not go unpunished by the laws of Karma. Even if it's just a ceremonial position. Our nation is quite degraded to give such honors to the dishonorable. But honor has never been such a big value in the USA.
For the record. I have had the privilege to know honourable Americans, here for one. From my perspective it is easier to spot vampires and vultures apart from angels. The ones with sweet messages and deeds, not wings.
There is joy for the Haitians in being with blancs that demonstrate their kindness as happening now.
Same in Ja, to find someone that has not taken advantage of their class or colour privileges and are honourable, touches us deeply.
Yea, I know that unkindness is in all countries and races. Some do seem to have maintained dignity and said honour as important parts of their cultures.
Best to All, turey.
Thank you Publius! Animal crackers in the little circus box and chocolate coins in tiny mesh bags, how's that?
I was blown away to see that more troops and UN peacekeepers will be landing over the next few days.
As this horror unfolds, I keep getting bogged down with overwhelming sadness. The fireteacher is convinced this was not an anthropogenic event having been through the Northridge Quake in the early 90's during which his house was literally smashed in half. But friends, it almost doesn't matter if it was or was not anthropogenic in origin because it is being forceably molded anthropogenically. One might speculate the resort developers have more lobbyists passing dough around than the sweat shops.
I used to be able to shut it off, to hang out on a higher plane but this one, with the nursing home frail and elderly, abandoned, lying in the mud streets awaiting death, receiving no assistance, the homeless children being shipped out to the US (Manifest Destiny?), no room left in any of their cemeteries meaning mass graves, as Pangolin noted: Katrina-style White foraging vs. Black looting and now, lightning and sirens - BUSH resurrected, (he never went away) makes it very hard. I keep chanting, its not about us, but it is about us too. This is what is to come and we need to apply ourselves compassionately while learning the lessons. It may not come within our lifetimes, or it may come tomorrow. Whatever comes to pass, we can see very clearly how it is going to be handled. On Steve's blog, The Washington Note , there is a startling headline today, Obama's Health Care Effort Looks A Lot Like Afghanistan Mess. ...The health care battle is beginning to look a lot like Afghanistan -- a pit into which America pours a never ending stream of rationalizations, compromises, resources and effort, looking paralyzed and neutralized in the process -- generating consequent weakness, inattention and impotence on virtually every other policy front.
Here's another piece from Steve's blog: George W. Bush: Just Send Your Cash, a comment I have permission to reprint here:
Over a million dead in Iraq, and now Bush is going to con anyone into thinking he cares about the fate of the Haitians?
Note this paragraph from the Heritage Foundation's essay about what we should "remember" to do in Haiti....
"The U.S. government response should be bold and decisive. It must mobilize U.S. civilian and military capabilities for short-term rescue and relief and long-term recovery and reform. President Obama should tap high-level, bipartisan leadership. Clearly former President Clinton, who was already named as the U.N. envoy on Haiti, is a logical choice. President Obama should also reach out to a senior Republican figure, perhaps former President George W. Bush, to lead the bipartisan effort for the Republicans"
When is this piece of cowardly paper mache, Barack Obama, going to stop doing the far right's bidding?
Bush deserves to be in prison. He certainly is not going to redeem himself for the deaths and mayhem he inflicted on the Iraqi people by posturing charitably over this tragedy in Haiti. The man is a fucking treasonous scumball, who lied this nation into a costly and deadly debacle that will take generations to pay for. He is no example of the kind of person we should place in the forefront of our efforts to restore our nation's credibility or moral standing.
The entire world knows what a feckless and petty thug this maggot Bush is. Who does Obama think he is fooling?
Rasta asks: But; is the attitude that created the West India Trade, the Royal African Company, the Asiento and others, still alive and well, thriving?
Yes. "Uppity" Haiti won that scourge 200 years ago, but they will never be safe because of it. It can't be called a win, because vulnerability to incessant abuse is total loss. But 200 years is only the period of time from Haiti's freedom movement, the attitude you speak of is at least five century's old. It never for a minute left small men's busy minds. It is an inbred gene. Truthfully turey, I see no end in sight. The attitude lies in wait for opportunity. The tragedy of the hour is Bush promotes such opportunity. That is his calling and he has fabricated an entire lifestyle based upon successfully justifying the illusion.
Btw, was George Wallace buried with his wheelchair?
Stone Walls and Steel Bars: America's War on its Own Keeps Raging
A peek: ... With approximately 2.3 million people in prison or jail, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world—by far. Our per capita rate is six times greater than Canada's, eight times greater than France's, and twelve times greater than Japan's. Here, at least, we are an undisputed world leader; we have a 40 percent lead on our closest competitors—Russia and Belarus.
...For one group in particular, however, these figures have concrete and deep-rooted implications—African-Americans, especially young black men, and especially poor young black men. African-Americans are 13 percent of the general population, but over 50 percent of the prison population. Blacks are incarcerated at a rate eight times higher than that of whites—a disparity that dwarfs other racial disparities. (Black–white disparities in unemployment, for example, are 2–1; in nonmarital childbirth, 3–1; in infant mortality, 2–1; and in net worth, 1–5)...
and today's entry: Fractured Narrative: Haitian Calm, American Cynicism
Another peek: One can almost feel the disappointment amongst Western media mavens that earthquake-stricken Haitians have not, in fact, degenerated into packs of feral animals tearing each other to pieces. Day after day, every single possible isolated incident of panic, anger, "looting" (as the removal of provisions from ruined stores by starving people is called) and vigilantism has been highlighted -- and often headlined -- by the most "respectable" news sources...
If you run into anybody that criticizes the Haitians remind them of the New Madrid Fault. It CAN happen where you live too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_New_Madrid_earthquake
That fault has been quiet for almost 200 years exactly also. If such a quake had hit two weeks ago the overnight death toll would have been almost complete.
As if it can't get any more surreal, Huffington Post has a picture of a Caribbean Cruise ship off the coast of Haiti, sixty miles from the devastated capital. Tourists are swimming in the waters and having BBQ's on the beach!! Where are those drone bombs when we need them? MY GOD. Then they go back and partake of their sumptuous buffet tables and comfortable quarters. If they had a speck of humanity, they'd be off loading food, supplies, their own extra clothing, and perhaps taking on some wounded to be fed and cared for. But, no, they are working on their tans. They deserve to be eaten on the beach.
Saw that Freeacre. Seems the cruise ship people had already put a few million $ into the area and decided on business as usual. Most of Haiti did not suffer structural damage as far as I know. Yes, they could have anchored nearby and sent relief to the area. Time is money eh? How did they down their burgers without gagging? Pina colada with extra rum tranquilizers?
When the fault near Kingston slipped in 1907 and caused similar destruction, I just found out that country people came loaded with foodstuff for the Kingstonians. 100+ years and I was touched. I'm a Kingstonian, we still talk about 1907, the circus lion loose in downtown, the sleeping in the park and who lost family or limbs.
Later, turey
A good article on Haiti and Voodoo by a westerner that lived there a while.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/121.html
turey.
... Sorry. I was somewhat harsh in my criticism of the insensitive tourists in my last comment. I had just finished reading "The Road."
BTW, tury, I lived in Kingston in 1984 for a year and spent '85 in Montego Bay. Husband worked for Project HOPE. Always curious about the Maroon area. Loved that parrot fish and breadfruit cooked on a campfire. The country folk probably are not able to help those from Port -au-[Prince much because they were driven off and into the city as I understand it. Big stupid commercial mono-cropping there now.
I don't really blame the passengers for insensitivity as much as the Cruise line, who should have changed the itinerary. They offloaded 40 palletes of aid, meaning this was preplanned before casting off.
Imagine the scene?
Since these consumers purchased the Haiti cruise, we can only make it proper in the eyes of our consuming public to bring aid, besides its impossible at this late date to change the itinerary.
A better scene would have gone down like this:
We're on for Haiti, anyone who cancels or is a no show provides a cabin for a homeless family and all the food they can eat. We can fill any unbooked cabins in this manner as well. All passengers will be requested to provide whatever aid to the Haitians they can offer in the way of search and rescue, medical attention, rebuilding, planting and any helpful volunteerism including attending the elderly waiting to die on the streets where the nursing homes collapsed. All monies our volunteers spend on passage will be given to Haiti's relief efforts. We'll bring massive relief in the way of goods and services. Instead of a crass monstrosity, we are the ship of Healing Hearts, Body & Soul.
Then they would have gotten some great public relations around the world instead of a sound thrashing from the shocked and horrified public.
But they did not do that, in fact they are lucky they were not turned away or capsized in aftershocks.
They paid an extremely shabby price for a ticket to anchor in my opinion. Measley. Another chapter in Fascist "show-aid."
We recall during Katrina Carnival Cruise ships were brief respite hotels for the displaced.
A missed opportunity for the cruise ship industry to shine...fi real, not just PR. That would be automatic.
Anyone calculate the interest payable on the money extracted from the Haitian slaves after they won their freedom from the French?
Payed from early 19th C to the late 40's. I wonder if the whole EU could cover this now? If it had to be repayed.
Another perspective.
http://www.iacenter.org/haiti/impact.htm
I had three young children then and ran an antique store on Hope Road Freeacre. That was when Mr. Seaga let change rattle in the pockets after Mr. Manley's socialism ended. We may have met.
turey.
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