Will The Real Christians Please Stand Up

Some of the comments over the past few days from the "Republican Right" are just shocking. Being a non-party carrying member, I'll make an unbiased, direct comment. It is my personal opinion that the people known as the "Republican Right" are the most non-Christian behaving people that I know. If I remember correctly, Jesus was about love and compassion.

“There goes Obama again – he lives to help the downtrodden. The Haiti earthquake was made to order for Obama. Obama will use Haiti to boost credibility with the light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country.”
Rush Limbaugh, The Big Babbling Buffoon

"They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."
Pat Robertson (one day after the Haitian earthquake)

"The mob will get even more angry. Beware of the angry white American man carrying the Bible. Xenophobia will continue to increase. Muslims and Mexicans will continue to be the easy targets. Which group or culture is next?"
Random Roving - January 1, 2010

A repost from a few months ago:
"The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club." Dave Barry

The Scale of Disaster

I'm just exiting a week in the "geo-cave". Wow, what a disaster in Haiti. Prayers go out to the Haitian people. It's amazing how fragile 3rd world countries are on all fronts....financially, infrastructure, health, security, and socio-economically. A shaking of the ground brings all of their buildings crumbling down.

There's many interesting observations to be made. The most impacting on me is the scale of which disasters occur outside of the United States. The table below illustrates how much smaller on a death toll basis our most recent monumental events have been. The 2004 tsunami, in seconds, took 229,866 lives. Think of the impact that Hurricane Katrina had on our country and the death toll was 1836. Image 229,866 people losing their lives in a matter of seconds. It's hard to fathom. I find watching these foreign disasters on tv somehow does not have the same impact because it seems so foreign and far away. Katrina hit close to home for me (no pun intended). September 11 was not only "on our soil", but it had significant visual impact. In addition, it had major geopolitical and religious impact. I can recall the news coverage for the earthquake in China, but 69,197 people lost their lives. Think of the comparison to the Katrina death toll. Who knew that 146,000 people lost their lives in the 2008 Myanmar cyclone?? Not me. 146,000 people...wow. How about the Pakistan/Kashmir quake...86,000. I don't think that I even remember that. The easy takeaway is that we are blessed to live in the United States. Our natural disasters don't have near the devastating impact. We also are a very generous people.


Who knew that a 6.5 scale earthquake occurred in Eureka, CA last week? Haiti was 7.0. The "0.5" wasn't the difference. It's two different worlds. Twenty two millions dollars of damage in Eureka. I don't even know where Eureka is.

The positives are that many countries are aggressively providing aid. On a "cool" note, I thought that the fundraising of $10 million dollars for Haiti via text messaging was a great use of modern technology. Finally, text messaging does something significant!!

The days ahead for Haiti will be the most challenging. Infection and violence will be the hurdles to overcome. Where do you start on a project like that?