My New York Times Project- Day 1

First, I learned what I already knew:

If Haiti gets money and donations, they won't know what to do with it.
( I knew this days ago. )

I am a big asshole for saying this, but rich people are rich for a reason because they handle money well when they get it, hold onto it and make more. And they will silently murder many to keep it.

That has nothing to do with Haiti.. OR DOES IT? They had a big earthquake and immediately a few things I read (online) drew a parallel between Haiti's earthquake and New Orleans' Katrina hurricane. Yes. It's EVEN more fucked up when a catastrophe hits an already incredibly impoverished area. The whole world feels so bad... but if cameras were there a week prior, the world might feel just as bad. Do I even know the history of Haiti? Only a little, but it is (wince... cringe) what I once read, by definition, a 'slave community'.

But, really no one cared until this week how fucked up things were in Haiti. And Haiti is still effected by the psychological trauma of slavery carried through its culture. So there. Don't even get me started. I could write a book on it, but it's kind of none of my business because I'm not rich and never was, I'm just sayin'.

Next, I read an article about a guy who made it only to the base camp of mountain K-2. I didn't know it before, but now I know the mountain is in Pakistan. Neat. About twenty people died on the mountain while he was there. And he wrote about dead bodies just buried under avalanches of snow with parts sticking out, decaying. He also wrote about North Face equipment, and Germans and an Italian guy who wanted to ski down the mountain, but he died while the writer was at the base camp along with all the others. Interesting, but I don't remember the writer's name because I am a big jerk.

Speaking of big jerks, the most moving article I read was about a little kid in New York who got grounded, but was still allowed to use the Internet. So, she started a facebook 'cause' for no important reason at all other than to get herself out of punishment.
The interjections and inner dialog I had with myself and my computer while reading this article were why it was so emotionally moving for me.
My first instinct was to find her facebook page and comment, " Hey kid, since you have so much energy, why not try to get universal health care? " ( you selfish, selfish human creature with more resources than you know what to do with????)
My god.
Really. Sigh.
When I got to the page, which only took me about three seconds, I saw that I was one of MANY who had the same instinct. When I say many, I mean, hundreds.
Instead of writing my original thoughts, I commented, "This is a waste of everyone's time."

It made me tired just reading the comments.
I don't know what made me more sick:
Was it the article?
Was it the self-involved kid?
Was it the pack of grown adults berating a child for doing what comes naturally to a child?
Or was it the power of the Internet and how much we waste that power every single day for hours on end fulfilling our own whims instead of going out into the world and doing something really *crazy with that power?

Someone suggested that I would find a better job if I read the New York Times every day.
And since I am a college graduate now, I am looking for a job.

It starts today.

*crazy-
amazingly good, delightful, godlike, devilish, mojo, creative, loving, intuitive, communal, and all combinations of words for soul-unity between human beings that the English language doesn't seem to have a word for so I call it crazy for lack of a better word.