Kind of just reduces all our problems, concerns, differences of opinions to little more than petty squabbling, huh?

Holy Jesus Christ on a stegosaurus in a creationist museum! How on earth in this day and age of technological wonder and obscene amounts of wealth did we allow this to happen? No, we couldn’t have stopped or even predicted the earthquake but as previous natural disasters like hurricanes and typhoons indicated, Haiti was clearly unprepared to face this kind of catastrophic event. It was a sitting duck. A lamb to the slaughter.

The Loma Prieta earthquake near San Francisco in 1989 was of similar magnitude. It occurred at roughly the same time of day, late afternoon. All told less than 70 people died. While numbers of casualties will be a long time in coming in Haiti, I think it safe to assume the toll will tally.. a-hem..  somewhat higher.

But, but, but, you’ll stammer. Come on! You can’t compare the two events. All earthquakes, regardless of magnitude, are different. And somewhere like California is prepared for earthquakes. They’ve invested in building to proper codes, yaddie, yaddie, yaddie. Which is my point exactly! How did we leave a country so vulnerable to something like this? And I love it when my own circular logic bolsters my argument.

Much has been written and talked about here in Canada since Tuesday of Haiti being the 2nd largest recipient of foreign aid from us after Afghanistan. Not to criticize or question that fact but exactly how much worse could Haiti be without our help? It seems to be a country with the barest minimum of infrastructure in place. What are we doing wrong? Again, that’s not a criticism of the organizations in place down there or our government but clearly shit’s not working.

I’m sure in the days, weeks and months ahead we’re going to be hearing about our complicity in the manufacturing of this disaster. Stories will be revealed about yet another 3rd world country strangled into submission by multinational business interests headquartered up here in the northern portions of this hemisphere. It is, after all, a tale that lies at the heart of the collective histories of the Caribbean, Latin and South America. Nobody’s hands are free of blood in that matter.

Some hands are bloodier than others, mind you:

It is times like these when I wish I were a religious man. I’d saunter up to Pat in our own little corner of hell and laugh and laugh and laugh for all eternity. I think the everlasting pain and anguish would be worth it.

For those of you looking to contribute more concretely to Haitian relief, the CBC has a good page of agencies requesting our donations. Click here.

— submitted by Cityslikr