Ain't Complicated

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Imagine this!

You’re not going to believe this one: We were out to dinner seated at a table adjacent to a family of five and not a one of them was working a Blackberry, e-mailing or texting. And they didn’t have ear buds jammed in their ears.

It was such a flashback of days gone by, we expected to see Norman Rockwell in the corner with an easel and canvas painting the scene for a cover of The Saturday Evening Post.

And now comes something even more unbelievable — they sat there like that for an hour and a half. That’s right, 90 minutes. Who knew families could still sit together that long and not be parked in front of a television?

But wait — there’s more.

(Might be good for you to read the rest of the article.)

Guard your family time from technology!

Haiti: More Updates

Young survivor in Haiti enjoys a meal

First, I want you to know that Christian Aid Ministries has updated their Haiti quake page.

Now, what follow are excerpts from and links to two news stories featuring CAM’s relief efforts in Haiti.

From Assist News, this:

The following accounts are all told from the first-hand experience of Christian Aid Mission (CAM) staff member, Joanna Seibel.

A dazed young survivor enjoys a meal With all of the atrocities that have been reported since the fateful 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Tuesday afternoon, January 12, 2010, so many personal stories have gone unheard. Joanna Seibel’s first-hand dramatic account gives a more detailed picture of the tragedy that has taken place within the last three and a half days.

In Titanyen, Haiti, a village not far from the Haitian capital, Christian Aid Mission staff members found themselves suddenly startled by massive and violent shakings. Joanna Seibel was among them. As she instantly realizes that this was to be a dangerous earthquake, she runs to the next room to grab the baby Kiana, before escaping from the crumbling house.

Source: This Is My Story

And from the News Democrat, this:

A local man is helping coordinate aid efforts in Haiti through the national Mennonite organization, Christian Aid Ministries. Paul Weaver, CAM assistant director, has been organizing response teams and fund raising efforts since the 7.0 earthquake struck the poverty stricken nation in the afternoon of Monday, Jan. 12.

Weaver, who has been to Haiti himself more than 30 times, attends the Mennonite church on West Fork Road outside of Georgetown and has been involved with CAM since it’s founding in 1985. The local church has sent missionaries to Haiti as recently as last year.

CAM has been doing mission work in Titanyen, a village north of the capital Port-Au-Prince, since 1991. When the earthquake struck, Weaver said the mission buildings suffered minor damage in comparison to surrounding structures and no workers were injured. The mission had been providing school children with food and ministering to the largely voodoo worshiping population. They had also been working on several reforestation projects.

Once the shaking stopped Weaver organized a rapid response team of 24 doctors, paramedics, and nurses who were sent in Thursday. The mission workers already on the ground began digging people out of the rubble and organizing shelter. Some were out until 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning trying to free the thousands of trapped people.

The CAM buildings quickly became a triage center the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 12 as hundreds of people began arriving with broken bones and cuts. CAM operates the only health clinic in Titanyen and they have become overwhelmed. Burn victims from a local mill which had caught fire during the quake were some of the first to be treated. Wounds were treated without anesthesia as more and more people lined up for aid.

Source: Chaos in Haiti

In closing, I remind you of the Haiti page I set up for CAM before they got their official page online. 🙂

Corridos are a big part of Mexico’s music. And the narco-corridos apparently are becoming more and more so. I remember hearing them…and being amazed that such kind of glorification was deemed acceptable. So I read this article with great interest:

A new proposal from Mexico’s ruling party could send musicians to prison for performing songs that glorify drug trafficking.

The law would bring prison sentences of up to three years for people who perform or produce songs or movies glamorizing criminals.

“Society sees drug ballads as nice, pleasant, inconsequential and harmless, but they are the opposite,” National Action Party lawmaker Oscar Martin Arce told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The ballads, known as “narcocorridos,” often describe drug trafficking and violence, and are popular among some norteno bands. After some killings, gangs pipe narcocorridos into police radio scanners, along with threatening messages.

Martin said his party’s proposal, presented before Congress on Wednesday, also takes aim at low-budget movies praising drug lords. It was unclear when lawmakers would vote on it.

“We cannot accept it as normal. We cannot exalt these people because they themselves are distributing these materials among youths to lead them into a lifestyle where the bad guy wins,” he said.

Martin said the proposal’s intention is not to limit free expression, but to stop such performances from inciting crimes.

Source: Mexican ruling party proposes banning drug ballads

So…just what are the limits of freedom of speech?

I wonder how far a corrido glorifying rape or racism or “homophobia” would get in the free expression market?

January 20

250 — Emperor Decius begins widespread persecution of Christians in Rome.

1885 — L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster.

1920 — The American Civil Liberties Union is founded.

1937 — Franklin Roosevelt is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. Thanks to the 20th Amendment to the US Constitution, this is the first inauguration scheduled on January 20 (previous inaugurations were scheduled on March 4).

1942 — At Berlin’s Wannsee Conference, senior Nazi German officials decided on the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”, accelerating The Holocaust.

1945 — Hungary agrees to an armistice with the Allies.

1961 — John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the youngest man, and first-ever Roman Catholic, to become elected President of the United States.

1981 — Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as US President, the oldest man to be inaugurated at 69. (Iran releases 52 American hostages twenty minutes later!)

1986 — For the first time, Martin Luther King, Jr. day is celebrated as a federal holiday in the USA.

1991 — Sudan’s government imposes Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south.

2001 — George W. Bush is inaugurated to his first term as the second George Bush to become President of the United States.

2009 — Barack Obama is inaugurated, becoming the United States’ first African-American President.

2010 — Scott Brown begins his first day as Senator-elect (MA), elected to finish out Edward Kennedy’s term of office. Already there’s wonderment if he’s GOP presidential timber for 2012. 🙄

2010 A powerful aftershock (5.9?) adds to the trauma of a nation (Haiti) stunned by an apocalyptic quake eight days ago.

Haiti: To the Least of These

Excerpts from two news stories I scanned/read this morning:

Haitians flee in fear as big aftershock hits

The most powerful aftershock yet struck Haiti on Wednesday, shaking more rubble from damaged buildings and sending screaming people running into the streets eight days after the country’s capital was devastated by an apocalyptic quake.

The extent of additional damage or injuries caused by the magnitude-6.1 temblor was not immediately clear….

[…]

And near midnight Tuesday, a smiling and singing 26-year-old Lozama Hotteline was carried to safety from a collapsed store in the Petionville neighborhood by the French aid group Rescuers Without Borders.

It’s great to read a little good news amid all the dreary!

Christian Aid Ministries staffing a mobile clinic

A week after a 7.0 earthquake decimated Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a local medical relief program continues to treat the injured and works to stop the spread of infections and diseases.

Since the initial quake, medical personnel from Christian Aid Ministries, a Berlin-based missionary organization, have been treating the wounded, said Gloria Miller, a spokeswoman for CAM.

“It has been an intense week, but also rewarding to be able to help others,” said Holmes County nurse and CAM staff member Joanna Miller.

After the quake, Miller, along with Bethanie Burkholder, a nurse practitioner from New York, loaded medical supplies and traveled from CAM’s permanent clinic located at La Source, to Titanyen outside of Port-au-Prince, where they established a mobile clinic.

“We have staff on the ground, and daily receive e-mail updates and pictures from them,” Gloria Miller said. “The news they share is heart-wrenching.”

A mass grave has been dug across from the mobile clinic. On Thursday, Joanna Seibel, one of CAM’s staff members, watched as six dump trucks filled with bodies come to the grave.

[…]

On Sunday, the clinic had 74 patients, many of them children, some whose parents were killed in the quake, according to Seibel.

“A mother was there with three of her children, all four of them needing attention. The worst was her small daughter with a deep hole in her forehead,” Seibel wrote.

When the disaster struck, CAM had medical supplies stored for the mission’s Haiti clinic, Gloria Miller said. But, in the future, more medical personnel and supplies are needed.

“We’re talking about airlifting meds into Haiti and we have different doctors going in,” Gloria Miller said.

In addition to medical aid, CAM supports 40 Haitian schools and provides food aid.

Donate to CAM?

Haiti: Christian Aid Ministries

The folks of Christian Aid Ministries are active in Haiti and in the States as they work hard getting aid to those affected by the earthquake a week ago today.

I encourage you to contribute to their earthquake relief efforts at the page I have set: Haiti 2010 Earthquake Aid. (You can do so with a check via snail mail or online using the PayPal donate button there.)

It is my understanding that over all among all their aid programs, almost 99 cents of every donated dollar goes to their programs. That’s amazing efficiency and stewardship, folks!

Here are two photos from their people on the ground in Haiti:

BethanyB of Christian Aid Ministries
administering aid at a mobile clinic in Haiti

An injured Haitian being transported in a wheelbarrow

Haiti: “It will be up to baby Jesus.”

Jacqueline Thermiti (71) is one of 85 surviving residents of the Port-au-Prince Municipal Nursing Home (barely a mile from the airport, staging ground for the massive international aid effort).

“Of all the wars and revolutions and hurricanes, this quake is the worst thing God has ever sent us,” Thermiti said.

[…]

She predicted that unlike other pensioners, she could still hold out for at least another day.

“Then if the foreigners don’t come (with aid),” she said, “it will be up to baby Jesus.”

Source: Elderly and abandoned, 85 Haitians await death

With limited resources and overwhelming needs all around, will old people like Jacqueline be overlooked in favor of those much younger and with better long-term chances and options?

Or will the aged be honored?

What tough decisions must be made by those “on the ground” over there!