Are You There, World? It's Me, Haiti...

Six months ago, the region around Port-au-Prince, Haiti was rocked by a titanic earthquake, which leveled buildings, cut essential services, crippled the government, and killed over two hundred thousand people, leaving five times that number homeless. Aid and assistance came in from all over the globe, as the plight of the Haitian people touched hearts and minds everywhere. For a brief moment, Haiti was central to the world, not just the Caribbean Sea. Tent cities were erected to house the homeless, food and water were shipped in continuously, and medical staff from everywhere converged on makeshift hospitals and clinics to treat the wounded.

Now it is six months later, and while rubble has been cleared and some semblance of normalcy is slowly returning to everyday life in Haiti, the problems still remain. Infrastructure -- what little of it there was -- is still in bad shape. Tents dot the landscape, as permanent structures have yet to be built. Hospitals are still crowded. Jobs are scarce. The Haitian government still seems afflicted with the same torpor.

The grand promises of the United States and other nations, in the form of aid money and expertise to help get Haiti on its feet again, are not materializing quickly enough, and where groups and organizations want to make inroads on the critical problems of creating proper water supplies, consistent waste management, and adequate housing, the Haitian government seems incapable or unwilling to act. Six months in, and the average Haitian is still struggling to survive, living in refugee conditions in their own country, clinging to hope and not much more.

There is a unique opportunity here, to rebuild Haiti in such a way, as to make it more self-sustaining and prosperous. It as if the earthquake has provided a blank canvas for the world to work on, and here is the chance to put theories to the test. Earthquake and hurricane resistant housing could be built, to minimize damage from catastrophes. Sewer systems and water purification plants could provide clean drinking water and sanitation to everyone. Solar power could be used to provide everyone with clean and cheap electricity. A fiber-optic network could be constructed, to give Port-au-Prince the latest in communications capabilities. Between construction and operation of these systems, jobs would be created, and the tourist industry could be revitalized. Finally, the poorest members of this proud nation might be brought up from the depths of their poverty, to share in the wealth that is available.

Such a revitalization would be a draw for global businesses, bringing badly needed investment and jobs to an island with few natural resources. Proper business and tax law would ensure that Haiti remained attractive to business and commerce, while supplying it with the revenue necessary to maintain and expand on the systems that promote growth. In essence, Haiti could be an incubator for new ideas and concepts in business, infrastructure development, renewable energy generation, and telecommunications. Investment would allow the government to properly fund the school system, assuring future generations the education require to work in the wider global marketplace.

Maybe this is all a pipe dream, but the potential is there, if only someone or some group will seize the reins and drive it. Haiti deserves no less for the depredations it has suffered over the decades. It is time for the world to make good on its promises.

The Blood Of Ages Unknown

It pours out, staining the water, hurtling into the quiescent and fragile sea, like blood from an artery opened by a careless tick of the knife. It threatens everything around it; a malevolent, oozing, capricious flood, seeping into every place it can, mocking us as it floats atop the waves or rolls up onto the sand.

It is oil.

The lifeblood of modern civilization, the "black gold" that drives industry, creates electricity, and allows us to span great distances in eye-blinks. Rich, thick, dark, and oh so valuable, coveted by many and held by few. Like gold or spices in the distant past, a treasure worth fighting and dying for, capable of making the poor man rich and the rich man king. It has played a part in every major war, starting with WWII, when control of oil determined the fate of the Nazi empire and condemned Japan to failure when they could not hold onto it. The Cold War was as much about oil as ideology, for resources were important, and those with adequate supplies of them gained the upper hand. Here, the Middle East was carved up, countries taking sides in a war that only stood to make them rich, as each side vied for the affections of those who held the precious fluid.

With that, lines were drawn, oaths sworn, and the seeds of future wars planted. As Vietnam ground down the resolve of a nation, the OPEC countries began to squeeze it further still, condemning America and its allies for the support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. For the first time, without adequate domestic supplies of oil, Americans felt what it was like to be at the mercy of the oil barons. Gas lines and heating oil shortages were just a taste of the power of nations holding all the cards. After 1973, with the descent of Richard Nixon and the rise of Jimmy Carter, an effort was made to turn back our demand for this tantalizing, addictive, but ultimately ruinous substance. Conservation was key, and for a while America was willing to follow the script, as long as it lead to cheaper oil. With usage plummeting, prices plummeted, and the reign of cheap oil caused an abandonment of conservation for the excess of the SUV and need for speed. We drove ourselves right back into the hands of the oil producing nations willingly, as sheep to the slaughterhouse.

Our short-sightedness has condemned us for decades; with free, renewable, easily-tapped energy flowing all around us on the wind, in the waves, and from the sky, we tied our future to a finite substance, found only in certain areas, which required enormous effort to reach as supplies dwindled, and whose by-products may be upsetting the delicate balance of Earth's planetary ecosystem. Hungry for more and more, heedless of the true cost, only concerned with the impact on our wallets, we were content to look the other way.

Now, our hubris is laid bare in a destroyed oil platform, a growing oil slick, and wetlands and wildlife coated in oil. While every side points fingers, and scrambles to find a solution, more and more oil gushes forth, a geyser of death, and the blood is on our hands. To say that the Gulf oil spill is a disaster is to minimize its impact, for while not as explosive as an atom bomb, or as violent as a volcanic eruption, nor even as mind-wrenching as a tsunami, the slow, inexorable spread of oil is devastating on a scale still untold, for the oil yet may escape and be spread by ocean currents to the far reaches.

That the nation that put men on the Moon cannot muster the technical acumen and resource to stem this deadly flow is testament to the fall from grace of our mighty nation, for a country that has spent so much time preeminent in science and technology, now finds itself hamstrung. The vain attempts to stem the flow show organization akin to consulting a Ouija board, and are inconceivable in their ridiculousness. Do the oil companies so dismiss the chances of such things happening that they are not prepared? Does it not occur to them, especially after some of the epic oil-related disasters of the past, to be prepared, with knowledge and supplies, to combat such a thing? Is the government of the United States that disconnected form reality, that they did not pursue regulation and monitoring with sufficient vigor? These are questions for the future; the question now remains: how do we make it stop?

Ultimately, though blame may be handed out, rightly or wrongly, the blame lies squarely with us, and our rapacious consumerism. The plastics we use, the gasoline we buy, the oil we use to heat our homes, the gas intensive vehicles we drive -- all of this contributes to this moment. When we ask "How could this happen?", we need only look in a mirror to see where it starts. We must curb our energy use, tap the free resources available to us for power generation, demand Congress and the White House stop pandering to the oil companies and bring them to heel, and above all, we must become cognizant that humanity is only as strong as its decides to be, and while humanity ties its fate to oil, we remain sitting at the edge of a precipice, staring into an abyss that may spell our doom as a species.

Death Comes To Haiti

Haiti: a small island nation in the Caribbean Sea, sharing that island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. A former French colony which threw of the yolk of Imperialism to gain independence, and then spent generations struggling to create itself. A poor country, ravaged by poverty, lack of services, political corruption, and hurricanes. And now, it suffers the gross indignity of its position on the boundary of the North American and South American crustal plates, by being shaken by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, leading to death, devastation, and despair on a scale even larger than that left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and possibly worse than the Asian Tsunami of 2004.

This small, struggling, often destitute nation has been an afterthought in a hemisphere of afterthoughts. The Caribbean is more known as the destination of cruise ships and sun seekers, than a collection of small, struggling countries and colonies, dependent on tourism and their meager exports to maintain themselves. Haiti is certainly buried by its larger neighbors to the south, unable to compete with Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina for the attention of the First World. Except of course, when political strife or natural disaster strike.

All disasters before pale in comparison to the fate that befell Haiti at around 5:00 PM local time on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010. At that moment, strain built up by decades of slow grinding of one tectonic plate against another was released in a spasm of energy rivaling the full complement of nuclear weapons on the Earth in power. The shock of the release surges through the crust of the planet, sweeping out in all directions, but the brunt of that energy was borne by the nearby island, specifically near its capitol, Port-au-Prince. In one moment, the earth surged and bucked and swelled, and poorly constructed buildings collapse in great numbers, trapping tens of thousands under tons of rubble, filling the streets with frightened survivors, and crippling an already underdeveloped and overwhelmed country.

This disaster is a combination of the worst parts of 9/11, the Asian Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina, for beyond the death toll is the sheer destruction left in its wake. Power severed, communications cut, water nonexistent, hospitals either collapsed or swamped with the wounded and dying, government crushed under the weight of its own buildings, and even the United Nations forces buried in the rubble. The sole major airport in Port-au-Prince damaged, left without the means to operate properly, the port smashed into wreckage and made unusable.

Given the magnitude of events, the response must be on an even greater scale, but there are serious problems to surmount, and time ticks away. After 72 hours, those trapped in the rubble who remain unrescued or even unfound, will start to die, adding to an already horrific toll. The scenes show thousands of people, with little or nothing left, tearing at bricks, concrete, and steel with bear hands and any implement they can find, desperate to help those who remain pinned beneath the rubble. Aid organizations already in the country have exhausted their supplies, and can only make due with anything they can scrounge until help arrives, help slowed by the destruction of infrastructure and the lack of proper facilities for handling the massive flood of people and material required.

One cannot help but feel their heart break, to see the suffering and misery, and be unable to simply scoop these pour souls up, feed them, house them, and mend their wounds. That we could all simply drop what we are doing and run to the rescue is a dream, but we must do what we can. We must do our human duty, in whatever way we can, whether it be money, supplies, or manpower, and help this nation. We cannot, however, simply help them now and in the coming weeks. If anything good can be said to come of this, it is the idea that not only can we help these people through their time of fear and need, we can actually help to repair and improve and bolster this formerly disregarded nation, to make it better, to give its people a better chance to live a decent life, and to provide them with the means to help themselves in the future. We must not abandon this opportunity when it becomes inconvenient; this disaster is the direct result so many previously missed opportunities. If we are to prevent this from happening again, we must not simply prop Haiti up -- we must help it move forward.

Lest We Forget

8 years.

8 years is a long time, and yet not so long.

8 years since a cool, clear, sunny day in New York City changed every one's lives forever.

For 2,751 people, it was the end of their lives, a fact they would not have contemplated that day.

For hundreds of thousands more, perhaps millions, like myself, we were witness to their death in one fashion or another, and were unprepared for what we saw.

For tens, nay hundreds of millions of people, it was the end of their cherished naiveté and the disruption of their cocoon of ignorance. The world, which was "out there," was suddenly here, on our soil, in our face.

There was death -- raw and uncleansed -- on our television screens.

There was destruction, of a type Hollywood could never have envisioned.

There were emotions on a scale undreamed -- incredulity, sorrow, fear, bravery, helplessness.

And there was loss. Loss of life. Loss of innocence. Loss of hope.

8 years on, and the day is no easier to process for me now, than it was then, and I was in midtown Manhattan, not at the epicenter of the disaster. It was not I, running through the streets, covered in dust, trying to outrun falling debris. It was not I, clambering down endless flights of stairs, in the dark, choking on smoke, trying to get out into the light of day. It was not I, charging into the chaos, attempting to quell the inferno and rescue the wounded. It was not I, standing over the smoking remains, desperate to find survivors.

For me, it was a day indelibly etched on my conscious mind, so clear now, that to close my eyes and focus, brings it back to sharp relief. Television screens in offices, showing the burning towers, then the collapsing towers. Rows of empty cubicles. The first moments, when word spread like wildfire of the first plane's impact. The dread at the impact of the second plane. Being told that a bomb threat had been called into my building, but not leaving because there was really nowhere to go. Looking between two buildings at the far distant towers, wreathed in their funeral pyres, then hearing a TV anchor claim one was collapsing, and looking back to see it gone. Sparrows, normally drowned out by traffic, chirping in empty streets, so loud as to be unbelievable. Standing in an endless line, waiting to board a boat. Riding a Corps of Engineers river dredge across the Hudson, and seeing the column of smoke rising high above the city. A little girl in a stroller, with her mother, standing next to me. A crowded bus, taking us to the trains. Stopping at the liquor store on my way home, to an apartment I had only been in for ten days after separating from my wife. No long distance service, forcing me to call my parents with a calling card. Restless sleep.

I cannot forget. The pain may ease, but the memory must not weaken. This day was a seminal moment in the life of a country which thought itself invincible and invulnerable, which let foolish pride take the place of measured paranoia. For now, the pendulum has swung and we live in a country gripped by forces that would have us surrender our dignity, our morality, and our rights, to fight an ephemeral enemy, one that lurks in shadow, and knows how to stay hidden from view. As years pass, hopefully this will soften, for if it does not, we stand to work ourselves into another disaster of epic proportions: the destruction of American society.

So on this day, let us not forget the innocent lives lost, the bravery of many who tried to save lives, and the despicable acts that brought us together as a nation that day. Let us honor them in our own way, and let us take from this the hope for peace.