Thursday, January 14, 2010

A Word on Haiti

According to news at the IMDB, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have donated $1 million to Haiti quake relief.... that's about 1/5th of what one of them gets for *one* movie, eh?

On the other hand, according to news I read yesterday, China donated *$1 million* also. Well, China doesn't have much money, unless they force the US to start paying back the debt we owe them (they've bought up all our debt).

Other actors and actresses yesterday have urged their fans to make donations... I'm thinking all of their fans together could not donate as much as these actors and actresses could... yet its the little people who must donate?

It's not only the United States government that is sendng material and men to Haiti to help out, other governmets are also helping (some hopefully more generously than China...but on the other hand $1 mil is still a lot of money, obviously).

The question is... two years from now will Haiti still look like New Orleans, or will it look like a modern country at last....thanks to the money and building skills of other countries.

I'm surprised that there hasn't yet been a backlash on Pat Robertson - at least not that I've seen - for his comment that Haiti is so poor (80% of its people live below the poverty line, and that's before the earthquake and the destruction of their one city) because they "made a pact with the devil" 200 years ago... presumably when the slaves threw off the yoke with the help of the French?

He also said that the quake might turn out to be a blessing in disguise because the country would now be rebuilt and probably be better than it was before - that's undoubtedly true...but there will be no lasting improvement until their current government is ousted and one that actually cares about its people is put in its place. How's that going to happen, I wonder?

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