Haiti has one hell of a history of getting the short end of the stick from the international community…here’s a good and brief background from Christiane Amanpour:

I’m no foreign policy expert, but if I were Haitian, I’m sure I’d have trouble mustering faith in my country’s ability to pull itself up by its own boot straps. I’d also be busting my hump to provide for my wife and kids…One of the most tangible thoughts running through my head during my week in Port-au-Prince was how amazingly lucky I and my family are…and how distressing it is to realize that w/all we have and our country has that we still have to hear the partisan crap spew out of politician’s mouths day in and day out…blah…

Haiti occupies about 1/3 of the island of Hispaniola:

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Comparing the Haitian population’s per capita income (2008 estimates) to their neighbors, the Dominican Republic (DR), you see the DR doing something right, as a resident of the DR makes about $8,000 USD as the average Haitian who makes about $1300. My family and I spend roughly that amount each year on our Verizon bill…

One person I was speaking with, after I had spouted off about the dire state of the Haitian economy/recovery and how lucky I am/we are and such…(see above) said to me, “Ok, yah…but viscerally, what was the thing that struck you most…” and at the time, I think I pointed to a moment when we were driving through an intersection on the lower end of stretch of Delmas below the airport when the van slowed…and a crowd had formed around a semi w/trailer attached just to our left…turned out it was a food truck…and it was trying hard to pull away…and within about 30 seconds the entire crowd had swarmed the truck…literally climbing up on the back and sides while the driver was trying to move off…it turned out the truck had come to the wrong location to distribute its food.

I certainly remember thinking to myself…”Ok, you’re not in Cape Cod anymore Bouv…” and as the furious crowd pounded our van a bit and we continued on…you realize these people are frustrated by decades of inefficiency, by a huge lack of understanding with regard to their poverty level, by the insanity of western bureaucracy…and without much by way of recourse, on the ground it becomes Darwinian in the most basic sense in a Haitian hurry.

I was reading an article yesterday in this Magazine I’m enthralled with…called Monocle. An aside; I am a periodical/short print format whore…I love magazines/event catalogs/institutional publications…I love the photography, I love the design, I love the paper, I love the writing, I love the formats…IMHO, some of the best work done in print media happens in periodical/short form.

I’ve long since canceled all of my subscriptions, but used to voraciously read Wired, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Details, W, MacWorld and anything else I could get my hands on…now a while back I’ve traded in some miles for subscriptions…which I won’t do again…but I was able to get the long sought after Economist, which was always simply too much cash to justify my infrequent reads…when I do get to read a whole issue, I feel like I’ve had a top flight global policy briefing coupled w/some interesting discussions with a recruiter for aid organizations.

Anyway, this article which is unfortunately available online to subscribers only, was talking about the best teams in the world for disaster recovery…and of course, they all are based in locations where extreme people blow themselves up or where wars are currently raging…the team cited as best in the world is Israeli, permanently based at that country’s main airport…they were on the ground in Haiti inside of 12 hours after the earthquake. Survival rates for those who survive the initial quake are best inside the first 24 hours…so they don’t wait for official sign off, they just find the best aircraft and go…they worry about where the team will sleep later…Made up of elite Israeli forces, there are interdisciplinary members who break out into functions…Medical, logistics, operations, supplies, and they set up in Port-au-Prince what the article referred to as the “Roles Royce of field hospitals.” Apparently they had ER, maternity, radiology, pediatric…they could handle 500 patients at any one time…

You read something like that, and working for a non-profit, you think…”yes, for sure…we could make some improvements…” but in the bigger picture section of the massive pin-up homasote wall that my brain has become, you find that dusty note where all the good human qualities are listed, and photographed and memorialized and say…”Why can’t we get there?”

I’ve had a lot of questions about “scary moments” on the ground in Haiti, and for sure, there were a couple…as I mentioned above…what may be scarier still is the idea that a cherubic caucasian guy like me gets a chance to work in a place like post-disaster Haiti, only to come home, fall back into business as usual consumption and partisan Sarah Palin bashing armchair fluffernutters…oops! I forgot, I have to go to Wal-Mart this afternoon…

This has been an incredibly long road…to see Norm Coleman abandon his pursuit of the seat is a great relief…and I think a wonderful opportunity for Al to put his money where his mouth is. Having the man who wrote and read, “Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them” sit on a senate committee or debate legislation on the floor will, without question, be the highlight of this fall’s C-SPAN programming.

The Young Turks did a nice job on the news, “…I’ve love how he (Coleman) concedes that he’s ‘at peace with it’,…ah, you have the imprint of the (MN) Supreme Court’s foot on your ass” ha ha:

For me, this is the end of the whole shebang…the last of the 2008 holdover…the final victory. And now, we can get down to business. Congrats Al, make us proud.

Market Watch Senior Colmnist Jon Friedman opines in this short video segment on MSNBC’s weekday evening line up, me thinks intentionally omitting the heavy hitter of the hat trick…Mr. Keith Olberman…

Perhaps the most relevant point that Mr. Friedman makes:

When Matthews relaxes and shows off his considerable political knowledge, he is both entertaining and illuminating, a lesson Maddow grasped on day one.

I like Chris Matthews, and I give Mr. Friedman an emphatic Blazing Saddles “Harumph!” for the sentiment. I think the MSNBC evening line up is very strong…if overly partisan…

Full disclosure: I’m currently in 24/7 liberal pundit stream rehab after the country came out of the cave and elected someone who may actually give a damn about a Darwinian rather than a Creationist/Born Again future for the United States.

–JC

Ok, a lot of folks have been asking me about my Shepherd Fairey style “Obama – HOPE” profile pic. Here is the secret in the sauce… The trick is a Macintosh PhotoBooth plug in (for OS X.5 Leopard only) called “Obamafy” created by Dubi Kaufmann. Enjoy!

My good friend Memo sent over his latest contribution to the world, created using a track by his friend Malcom Greenberger…”Saying Goodbye” carries the following disclaimer:

G.W. Bush was a controversial president, so our song and video may have some controversial content. If the people around you lack historical objectivity or a sense of humor, you may wish to wait until later to view this little masterpiece!

OMG, Judd Gregg is in the house!

Ah,…ok folks…here we go…President Obama, in an effort to bring diverse voices to his cabinet, has now placed the management of global commerce in the hands of the former Governor of the great state of New Hampshire…Senator Judd Gregg.

A stoic, handsome choice he may be…I’m concerned he may not be the forward thinking, insightful or fiscally/business model familiar choice we may have all been hoping for. In my experience with Mr. Gregg…which is limited…he’s a partisan, line-towing, keep the boat still kind of thinker…but if it helps the stimulus bill get to the next level…then so be it.

Hold on to your commerce America…we’re in for a ride…

Would You Pay an Artists Tax?

An interesting article in the NYT today…talking about various efforts by hardware/service vendors to pass along the cost of rights licensing via the cost of the hardware or services. The author points to the idea of being unable to put the pirate genie back in the bottle…and so suggests that by trying to cloak the purchase of the rights to steal…this might prove to be a solution for rights holders.

Personally, I think while interesting…the idea needs a change of venue…and should be asked of societies at large…and their citizenry. I would be willing to pay an art tax…say $2-4 a paycheck…or $60 a year…into a fund that provided money to artists to support their work…if we can’t get the governments to fund the arts…let’s find a way to cut out the middle man and fund them ourselves.

I had previously praised the late 2007 effort by Kevin Miller to impose what was being called “Wholesale a la carte”, however Miller later caved, and there were of course strings attached…at the end of the day…I believe Cable/Sat will eventually break up the ridiculous package scheme and delivery channels/programming individually,…but I’d be thrilled to see a progressive FCC Chair simply say to the cable/sat co’s…Do it now…bozos.

Darthmouth Study shows A. Franken May Yet Win N. Coleman's senate seat.

FiveThirtyEight.com posted a Dartmouth College study that while playing down the likelyhood there was any sort of voter fraud involved in the race…in fact, what the researchers are calling “residual votes”, almost 30,000 or so, should prove to lean Al Franken’s way…well one can only hope that they do…this combined w/the recent filing of lawsuits against Coleman aledging he was the direct receipient of $75,000 cash for no apparent reason from a private corporation certainly call his chances into question…