Haiti

For the last few days, I have been watching the stuff coming out of Haiti, a monumental catastrophy, and fascinating at the same time. I have known Haitians, when I was living in NY, I met a pretty remarkable fellow named Jacque. He used moxie and grit to form a Judo team which ran itself out of Brooklyn and Queens. He had no money, and was always looking for ways to finance it. He always needed space to practice, he needed money for meals for his athletes, he needed money for a week at a rural summer camp in which his athletes could intensely focus on their sport. He made friends with much more affluent clubs, who all rallied around him. He got doctors, like me, to donate my time to provide medical services at the judo tournaments. The tournaments were very competitive, the different clubs vying for the wins for their clubs. But, along with the competition was an obvious communal sort of energy, used in helping young people focus on an activity which was an alternative to street violence and drugs. A couple of his athletes got to represent the United States in the Olympics. One of the most enjoyable experiences I have ever had was when he invited me to a Sunday Mass at his church. He invited me to recognise my contribution to his endeavor, my few hours of volunteering at a tourniment was a cause in his mind for recognition. If you ever get a chance to attend a Haitian Mass, go, it is incredibly enjoyable. They sing their hymns to Sousa march music, it is incredibly uplifting and fun. The energy of the singing, translates into a service which from start to finish is focused and a great tribute to God and fun. I don't speak French, and I am not Catholic, but fun is fun, and for about five minutes, this wonderful person, made me the center of attention in a church with about three thousand worshippers as he thanked me for my work with his kids. What is fascinating about the response to this catastrophy in Haiti, is that it is taking roughly the same amount of time of this president to respond as it took for Bush to respond to New Orleans. Perhaps, there are more diplomatic hurdles, however, the experience that Bush was dealing with was also novel, in that a major US city was destroyed in a few hours. Bush had to also deal with politicians with agendas, who did not consult him as quickly as perhaps they should have. In addition, Bush had an experience of national disasters in the US which were corrected by the individual states which experienced them, with belated help from the national government. All of these things resulted in a poor response. However, why did Mr. Obama take a day to figure this out? What are his excuses? His reaction, as was Bush's, is, we are doing everything we can. One wonders.