What do you know about Haiti?

So my request for 500,000 views and comments got me 6 views and no comments ... folks, if this relationship is going to work you are going to have to put some effort in it, i mean if you got me 200,000 views and 50,000 comments at least i could feel like you were trying. No, seriously, thank you to the 6 of you for checking it out. If you leave comments though i can; 1) know that you were here and 2) help me shape the posts around what you want to talk about. The entire global warming post came from a comment in the previous post, so let me know what you think or ask questions and i will research them for you.


1. That being said, today is all about Haiti. On Tuesday there was a 7.0 earth quake right outside the capital and it caused massive destruction ... right now the phone lines are down so no one is completely sure what is going on. Buildings collapsed and fell down the sides of mountains in the immediate aftermath. It struck me as i read about this that i don't know a whole lot about Haiti, and one of my good friends is from there. So i did some reading.

The Republic of Haiti was the first independent country in all of Latin America, and it gained its independence from France by means of a slave revolt (how cool is that?). It was the first independent nation in the modern world that was lead by black people, again, very cool. Their entire history has been marred by foreign military invasion and occupation. Early in their history (1792 and 1803 and 1825) the French tried to retake the republic as it was extremely profitable, in fact the most profitable colony in the world. Also in the 1800's they were invaded by the British, Spain, Germany and the United States, leaders were kidnaped and murdered by foreign governments and then in 1915 the United States invaded to "protect the Haitian people" and occupied the country until 1934. Since that time there was 50 years of King-like tyranny and then 25 years of chaos. Elections are held and winners declared, coup-d’etat and another election, Presidents live in exile and corrupt leaders bleed the country dry. Which brings us to yesterday. Yesterday a massive earth quake rocked the small island nation and brought buildings down upon the heads of their occupants, the news today is saying that as many as 100,000 people may be dead and that they are having a very difficult time getting basic needs met; food, water, shelter, first aid. There are bodies in the streets and the effort to excavate the living from the rubble is going around the clock. Russia is sending help, the United States is sending help, China is sending help ... you know how in your family when someone gets sick or dies all the people who don’t like each other get along and help out and work together for a little while, I guess the world works that way too. President Clinton is heading up the UN relief efforts and has set up a system where-by you can text in a donation ... technology rocks! My heart bleeds for the people there and I pray that God will be with them and comfort them and meet their needs, furthermore I pray that the people of the world don’t forget Haiti when the crisis is averted.

In other Haitian news Pat Robertson is about as out of touch with reality as a human being can be without LSD. Another quick history lesson; Christianity is the worship of Jesus Christ as God incarnate and following in His teachings. While on earth Jesus taught things like humility, acceptance of the rejected, putting others above self, the virtues of poverty, longsuffering, meekness, ministering to the needs of widows, prisoners, the sick and often missed is his rejection of all religious hierarchy or man made rules pertaining to God. Any way, Pat Robertson is a hateful old man who has become rich saying stupid things that excite the fears of well meaning people who have been tricked into believing that Robertson is some kind of teacher, tricked into believing that he is legitimate. I’m not a close follower of his but as far as I can tell he hates gays and democrats and believes that every natural disaster is the result of God’s wrath at the sinfulness of certain people ... not him. Katrina was God killing bad people, the tsunami in Asia was God killing bad people, and now the earthquake in Haiti is God’s wrath against the Haitian people. Are they bad now? No. Pat has it on good authority that the slaves who revolted against the French did so with the assistance of one Lucifer ... that’s right the devil helped the brutalized and exploited slaves of western Hispaniola win their freedom and God has decided in his ever loving mercy to kill their decedents 200 years later . The Bible is full of examples of God doing things like that ... oh, it’s not? God doesn’t do that? Pat Robertson is a psycho who teaches false doctrine and brings the wrath of God on himself? You don’t say. I just hope that in Pat’s case that God doesn’t wait 200 years.

So it was brought to my attention by lovely reader #3 that I can’t spell. I read it in the comments section. No, I don’t read it there because she waited to tell me in person. So here’s how the comments section works. You read the post and then write a comment about it, for example, “I think you are a bad writer.” “You can’t spell.” “Your opinions are stupid.” etc and then I can respond with my next post.

Love you guys!