Haiti: WTF?

I heard on NPR tonight a group of doctors from the University of Miami flew a charter plane into Haiti and set up a field hospital in the hangar at the Port Au Prince airport (? I thought the airport was out of action, so that geog. detail might be mistaken). They're making splints out of magazines and anything they can find.

Compare that to hearing the meeting that Bloomberg set up in Brooklyn with Haitain locals saying, well we can't do anything yet becaase we have to wait, etc etc... and I'm like...well, those doctors didn't wait and they seem to be helping.

And they talked to a local priest who knew the archbishop that died in the quake...he said they're already suffering with the destruction, and to know that we have lost our father makes it something else entirely. So fucking sad.

I could understand the need to wait. Organization, coordination, providing the RIGHT kind of aid and making sure it gets to the people who need it most all takes some time to figure out, I'm sure.

^Put another way, using finite resources in inefficient ways is not a good idea.

xxxpost:
(AP) — BALTIMORE - The Navy says a hospital ship based in Baltimore, the USNS Comfort, is being activated in case it's needed to support humanitarian operations in earthquake-stricken Haiti.

The Defense Department's U.S. Southern Command hasn't officially said the ship will sail.

But the Navy's Military Sealift Command says the Comfort is starting to "crew up" for a trip. Sealift Command spokeswoman Laura Seal says the ship could be ready by Monday.

A spokeswoman for Democratic Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland says that's when the Maryland Port Administration expects the ship to leave.

First, however, the Navy must bring the crew up from about 70 to nearly 800-mostly doctors, nurses and technicians from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.
© 2010 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

am just heartbroken.

last year I worked with a missionary's daughter who grew up in Haiti. her family's alright but many of her friends are still mia and unaccounted for. this is terrible.

Author Ned Sublette who has written about Haiti (in his book on Cuban music) has been e-mailing about the situation. He recommends

>During this period, if you or anyone you know are planning to make a
>donation to assist those in need, please consider the Haiti Emergency
>Relief Fund. Donations will be forwarded to our partners on the ground to
>help them rebuild what has been destroyed. There are two ways to donate:
>By Pay Pal at: <http://www.haitiaction.net/About/HERF/1_12_10.html>; or
>Mail check made out to: "Haiti Emergency Relief Fund/EBSC" donations tax
>deductible - send mail to: East Bay Sanctuary Covenant / 2362 Bancroft Way
>/ Berkeley, CA 94704 // EBSC is a non-profit 502(c)(3) organization tax
>ID#94-3249753

Richard Morse, a Haitian-American who founded the Haitian band Ram, has been tweeting from Haiti-

http://twitter.com/RAMhaiti

Fox News headline this morning: "Anti-American Countries urge aid for Haiti."

Rush Limbaugh was pushing his own take yesterday as well regarding Haitians being more important to Obama than stopping the underwear bomber.

Also, Pat Robertson still scheduled to be special guest of incoming Virginia governor McDonnell at his inauguration.

Update | 10:21 a.m. Reuters reports that the “United States was sending 3,500 soldiers and 300 medical personnel to help with disaster relief and security in the devastated Caribbean capital, with the first of those scheduled to arrive on Thursday. The Pentagon was also sending an aircraft carrier and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines.”

oh & re: aid contributions:
Update | 10:12 a.m. The Associated Press reports that President Obama announced on Thursday that the United States government is making an initial $115 million in relief aid available to Haiti.

On Wednesday, The A.P. published a list of the aid already pledged to Haiti.

alright Bam that's a good start

am i a bad person for hoping that the silver lining from this might be a functioning public health infrastructure in Haiti, courtesy of Western donors?

or am i just delusional

i've been thinking the same thing, but even talking about it feels like a jinx.

one of my good friends works at a hospital and knows a lot of haitian guys, including one that i've chilled with a couple times. i asked him how they were doing. none of them had heard anything from the island. i can't even imagine that feeling....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP_z2hpjXJ8&feature=player_embedded

from 0:20 the buildings starts to collapse

a good friend of mine from hs has family in haiti. he said theres a number at the state dept that you can call and they can try and check records, give you any news, but theres still so much to be done and so many people missing that its difficult to get hard news one way or the other.

am i a bad person for hoping that the silver lining from this might be a functioning public health infrastructure in Haiti, courtesy of Western donors?

or am i just delusional

more the latter. there'll be a big burst of aid, but it will peter out pretty quickly, and it won't even be enough to replace what's been destroyed, much less build something better. i don't think there's a silver lining in sight here. it's pretty clear the rest of the world, starting with the u.s., will tolerate just about any kind of horrible conditions in haiti. we get briefly interested every 4 or 5 years, when there's a disaster or a government collapses, but "doing" anything significant would require the kind of longterm focus and investment that we're just not going to make in a country of 9 million poor black people.

yeah :(

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDBZYTZlSDBMN2ZuNTk5cU40V3NKa3c6MA

my friend B3th and i just begged everyone in class today to give (funds will be matched), and it was really tough for her. when i asked her what she's heard she said "some good, some bad, but mostly we don't know anything"

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-imagery-layer-now-available.html

Donated 20 bucks via Red Cross, certainly wish I could do more, but unemployment doesn't really allow that.

you done good man. this is just really hitting me hard for some reason.

If every person in the world who is able donated 20 bucks...

All the $10 and $20 Red Cross donations so far have added up to more than $3 million just from mobile users, so good on you. My wife and I gave $10 each.

can everyone plz ignore Pat Robertson unless you're going to kill him

Interesting: % of Red Cross mobile donations by state

http://mgive.com/HaitiGraphs/PercentDonations.html

this is just really hitting me hard for some reason.

― call all destroyer, Thursday, January 14, 2010 11:42 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah ditto

academic q, but: wonder if MN will see an influx of haitian refugees. we usually receive an influx after every major conflict/disaster

kinda depends on what names the state dept draws out of a hat, right? i thought that's how it worked. maybe cities with a lot of haitians will get more, but MN does have a good track record.

just off the top of the dome, a lot of MN's refugee populations are those where there was no prior community before, right? but i rly don't know what i'm talkin about

hey pancakes i see nothing when i go to that graph....what states donated the largest %?

CA, Ny, Fl, TX, (1,2,3,4)

this is just really hitting me hard for some reason.

― call all destroyer, Thursday, January 14, 2010 11:42 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah ditto
--everybody's into weirdness right now (gbx)

Same here

I'd like to see that chart broken down by per-capita donations, it's no shock that the states with the largest populations have contributed the most.

yeah i was curious cause i always heard that boston is like the 3rd-largest haitian population center or something so i was wondering how we were doing.

kinda depends on what names the state dept draws out of a hat, right? i thought that's how it worked. maybe cities with a lot of haitians will get more, but MN does have a good track record.

just off the top of the dome, a lot of MN's refugee populations are those where there was no prior community before, right? but i rly don't know what i'm talkin about

― chartres (goole), Thursday, January 14, 2010 12:10 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i used to think it was random, but no: MN has the first or second largest per capita refugee population almost entirely because of charitable (mostly lutheran) organizations that arrange jobs/housing/etc for disastered populations. which is also why i'd like to see a per capita giving for that graph. Cali's population is seven times that of MN, but they're giving 11x more. Then again, I'm guessing that there's a much higher percentage of honkingly large personal or institutional donations coming from CA than there are from MN, which I bet is fielding mostly small personal donations

just wanted to rep for DWB:

http://doctorswithoutborders.org/

honestly this is when i want the full fucking weight of the us military brought to bear---aid cannot get into the country rapidly without functional airstrips, and everything i'm hearing is that there just aren't enough. let's go SeaBees, do yr thing

I think I am gonna sell some shit and then send the $$$ to Partners in health.

raised $350 in donations from classmates this morning, iirc

wtg man!!!

gonna be matched by an ~anonymous donor~ as well

granted, all i did was go up w/beth and say: there are donation cups by the door. also, at least three students (one of which was beth) did most of the heavy lifting, but still.

still wanna organize SOMEthing in the next couple of weeks, but school is busy ;_;

this is not charitable dick-waving, btw, just saying that it's possible to get cash from ppl pretty quickly and easily!

Finally you acknowledge that by stating your charitable deeds on earth you lose your rewards in the afterlife. (<---big concern for me at age five)

it's definitely not dick-waving! i don't think anyone here would take it as such.

Finally you acknowledge that by stating your charitable deeds on earth you lose your rewards in the afterlife. (<---big concern for me at age five)

― sedentary lacrimation (Abbott), Thursday, January 14, 2010 1:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u____u

tbh I don't actually believe that

and you're an awesome dude

one of the awesomest

just wanted to rep for DWB:

Unnecessary levity: I first read this as "just wanted to rep for DMB" and I was like WTF?

I emailed our HR rep to find out if they'd do donation matching like we did for Tsunami...and if not, asked her to at least spread the word about texting $10 donations to Redcross. The more people the better!