Pictures from Haiti are online here. Only six pages this time, for a total of 164 shots. I’m trying to organize my thoughts into a travelogue … but as usual there are just too many thoughts and not enough time.
Here’s a picture of a group of charcoal burners. These folks are at the very bottom of the Haitian social stack, and are therefore probably some of the most impoverished, downtrodden people on earth.
I found out from one of the young men who runs the guest house where we stayed in Port Au Prince that three members of Haiti’s most popular rap / hip-hop group, Barikad Crew, had just died in a horrible car accident. They were driving between gigs, and a high tension electrical wire touched their car (circumstances are murky), and three of them were burned beyond recognition. That happened on Saturday night, the night before we arrived in country.
The following Saturday my group was returning from the countryside in a big open truck. Fourteen Americans piled into an open truck. I was clinging to the top of the cab, taking pictures of the approach into town. As we came into the city, I saw a mob walking in the street ahead of us … perhaps a couple of thousand young Haitians all wearing red bandannas and matching white and red shirts.
My first thought was “oh crap.” I’ve got a thing about large groups of upset people. I had never really been on the receiving end of thousands of people visibly, obviously not the same race or nationality as me … staring at me. The fact that they were all wearing matching bandannas was the really freaky part to me. This wasn’t random … it was organized. I was very much reminded that we were in their country … and I started giving mental odds that we were about to become a story on CNN.
Then I remembered that the funeral for the rappers was supposed to be that day. I looked closer and saw things like “RIP” and pictures of three men on the t-shirts.
Some of them gave us the finger as we passed, others gave us the peace sign … just like you might get from any crowd of young people. We encountered similar groups throughout the city for the rest of the ride back to the guest house.
Posting from the Miami International Airport. I’ve been in Haiti for a week with many adventures, but no internet access whatsoever at any of the places that we stayed. All the locations usually have satellite links, but for one reason or another all of them were offline. I mention this for the benefit of those of you who think I’m insane for going to Haiti at all and may have been worried. All is well.
This was my third trip, and it was quite different and yet very much the same as the others. Haiti still has incredible poverty, and the conspicuous consumption and gluttony in the airport has me a bit dazzled.
I have perhaps 800 pictures to sort through, and another airplane ride before I get home. The OLPC doesn’t really support my camera, so I’ll have to wait until then to sort them.
–UPDATE–
My flight to Boston was supposed to leave at 4:15. The board now says “5:00”, but the man at the podium is predicting more like “9:00”.
They so can’t scare me with this crap right now. I am so totally comfortable just having this here patch of floor, and the air conditioning on. What, only a four hour wait? I’ve had worse today. I woke up at 5am in HAITI for god’s sake.
— UPDATE TWO MINUTES LATER —
Okay, fine. We’re boarding now.
Could be worse, I suppose.
Made it back early from the trip, early enough to make it to Judo practice. I’m glad I did. I’m glad to be back on the mat. I hope I don’t hurt myself again too soon.
I know people by name and face who are at the Olympic trials this week.
I read Rain Fall by Barry Eisler, in which there is some high test judo at the Kodokan.
I leave for Haiti on Sunday. There may or may not be judo in Haiti, but I will not be playing. I will be the muscle for a team of physicians doing Good Work down there. By “muscle,” I mean “I’m probably loading the truck.”
Okay, first off, the F-22’s were doing triple formations this morning over the base. I actually had to pause my phone conversation to say “holy SHIT! F-22 just strafed me!” on the way to work. That rules.
Second, I’m being paid pretty darn well to do some damn hard engineering. 1.2PB of hot disk storage, about 230 CPUs split across two architectures. Gotta work, gotta work on the first try. I LIVE for this stuff.
Finally, tremble in fear:
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73 As a 1930s husband, I am |
I really can’t say enough good things about Art Weekend. As I make my way through the thoroughly ordinary trials and stresses of a thoroughly ordinary week … I find myself relaxed and happy, and contemplating breaking out the Japanese brush painting kit for, perhaps, an attempt at a more still life.
Once again, the artists statement for The Pain speaks for me:
“Now I’ll Eat Anything” makes a pretty good motto for the American presidential campaign in general. It’s gotten to be that time, when both candidates will eat absolutely anything they have to to win. A nice metaphor for every humiliating pose they have to strike, every dumb hat they have to wear, every fanatical or unrealistic position they have to espouse if they want to be president. Yes–I will nuke Tehran! I unconditionally support Israel no matter what atrocity or affront to human rights it perpetrates. America has no greater friend than Israel. America has no greater friend than Ireland. America has no greater friend than Poland. There is no greater threat to our national security than Cuba. Statehood for Puerto Rico! My pappy took me hunting every week when I was a kid. Bring me a deer–I will shoot it! I love the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart. Bring me a pancake that looks like Jesus–I will worship it. Bring me your ugly squalling baby, its face slimy with mucus—I will kiss it. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe Creationism deserves equal footing with Evolution. I will certainly look into your concerns RE 9-11/ the Disclosure Project/ Stephen King’s connection to the assassination of John Lennon. I feel more strongly about the issue of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain than about the threat of al Qaeda, the national health care crisis, and the tanking economy combined. I will make oil prices come back down. I will never raise taxes under any circumstances. I will deport all the illegal Mexicans. I’ll deport the Arabs! Shit, I’ll line up all the dirty Irish and shoot ‘em, just for sweet fuck’s sake please vote for me.
I’m finally starting to see some solid numbers on the overall size and shape of the US’s current economic woes. According to the Economist, banks have written off about $335B dollars, of an estimated $500B of actual bad debt. This is the money that is actually, really, seriously gone from the economy. Mortgages were written, giving that half trillion to people who wouldn’t be able to pay it back.
Once this money is written off, we can settle down a bit. Until then, we’ll keep seeing large-ish financial houses suddenly crumble as their balance sheets settle out $50B lower than they expected, leaving them unable to make payroll or fulfill their obligations. I’m pretty confident that will happen over the summer and sort of wrap up by fall. Banks are pretty damn good with numbers.
— Update — Go ahead and read these slides. They do a good job explaining the mortgage crisis.
Sadly, we’re only starting to see the really bad side of it: Housing values have fallen about 10% nationwide. They are gonna fall a *lot* more. Property should be valued at “what people can afford to pay for it.” The historical data indicates that’s about 2 to 3 times your annual income. If you make $50k a year, you can probably afford the mortgage on a house in the $100k to $150k range. Renting *ought* to be more expensive than buying, since renters have more freedom to pick up and move, and because landlords should be able to optimize their finances and make a profit, even while figuring in damage done by tenants who don’t fix things themselves. Instead, renting vs. buying is out of whack by about a factor of 2 or 3 to 1. That means that if you intend to spend N dollars per month on housing, the place that you can rent for that money is about three times as expensive as the one you can buy.
Looking at the graphs, and at those numbers, the housing market has another 40% to 60% to fall before house prices are “real” again. An existing middle class house “should” (market wise) cost about what a middle class family can afford. You can do the math on this one.
What does that mean? Well, people who used their houses as investment accounts instead of saving are SOL. That extra $150k you thought you had, just for owning a house for 5 years? You don’t. People who ran up large lines of credit against the imaginary value of their houses? You’re in debt now. Realistically, you should default and go rent for a few years while saving like a banshee. The other possibility is to accept that your house is not a financial investment, but a lifestyle investment.
Also, this summer is gonna see the economic crunch really get rolling: A large number of chain stores are going out of business (as, once again, they can’t get the loans they need to cover payroll or to buy inventory this week). This is going to make it very rough on retail employees and (in particular) on young people looking for seasonal work over the summer. Coupled with high gas prices, that’s gonna really sock it to the idea of getting a job to cover the road trip.
It’s also expected to be spectacularly hot.
So expect hordes of unemployed young people roaming the night, on foot, while their drunken parents fight over when to default on the house loan and go rent an apartment.
Yeah. we’re screwed.
There’s a good side though: In theory, all of this should fight inflation. If there are less dollars in the system, then each dollar is worth more, right? Unfortunately, the fed keeps handing out dollars to keep the system bloatedly afloat.
To quote Gandalf: “Fly, you fools!”