haiti

The events surrounding the earthquake in Haiti have given me a lot to think about lately. A few of those thoughts are below.

I have heard wildly varying figures on the number of people who have died, but even the most conservative numbers are breath-taking. Even if a low-ball number of 35,000 people is used that is still ten times the number of people who died in 9/11. Given the toll on those who survived as well it is impossible for me to fathom the human toll this earthquake has taken. It is hard to imagine a worse place on dry land that a major earthquake could have struck.

While pretty much everyone is moved by the humanity of the situation in Haiti, I think that most people are trained to value people of their own nationality a bit more than people of other nationalities. I am always reminded of this when some tragedy occurs on foreign soil and one of the first questions people have is how many Americans were impacted. I am sure that this sort of thing is not unique to Americans, but since I live in the U.S. that is what I notice.

One of the most moving stories I heard was of a two-year-old boy who was rescued after two days under the rubble. NJ is currently three and CD is currently one. I cannot imagine having either stuck for any extended time in a situation like that. It must have been pure torture not only for him, but for his parents as well. I don't want to think of all of those two-year-olds for whom the ending wasn't so happy.

A lot of hay has been made about cruise ships docking on Haiti ports after the devastation and continuing to provide use of private beaches. While on the face of it this sounds horrible, if this is something that locals rely on for income to survive, then it would seem like stopping the ships from docking would be more cruel than carrying on as they have been doing. I certainly do not know the whole story, though.

Having watched my share of The 700 Club as a kid, I am not surprised with the comments that Pat Robertson made about Haiti or why he would not have thought them so inflammatory before he spoke them. That does not change how stupid the comments were, though, or excuse the lack of an apology. Unless he had a direct word from God somehow to support what he said, which he is not claiming he did, then he is essentially filling the role of Job's friends in implying that this happened because the people of Haiti got on God's bad side. I really wish that Robertson was not one of the modern voices of Christianity. How does he keep getting an audience? His main role in life right now appears to be to drive people away from God.

Finally, because I don't want to end with a discussion of Pat Robertson, I would like to conclude with the question of how can we have such a destitute country so geographically close to our own country and do so little about it? I know neither Cuba nor Mexico, which are both closer, are rich, but my understanding is that Haiti is in a completely different league from the other poor countries in this region. The U.S. has also arguably had more opportunity to influence Haiti than most of its other neighbors as well. Maybe we are just concerned that we would turn it into a Somalia or something like that if we offered too much aid? Haiti doesn't appear to have the same tribal issues as Somalia, though, so it's a mystery to me.

relational politics

Through the years I never really understood how people from different political parties came to the conclusion that it was a good idea to get married. Even more confusing to me were the high-profile relationships where people had, and still have, a vested interest in furthering the principles of their chosen party. As examples, the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Maria Shriver marriage and the James Carville/Mary Matalin marriage struck me as odd, though I certainly have never had enough information to know the dynamics of those relationships. In recent years I have modified my thinking about this.

Golden and I both have some strong political views about some topics, but I am amazed at how little we actually discuss political issues. If and when there are issues about which we disagree we may not even know what the other person thinks about the issue, let alone care about whether we are in agreement about the topic. I think I expected that marriage entailed a lot of discussion about politics because of the vast amount of conversational time that the married couple has to fill. I did not think of this as a good or bad thing, but I did figure it was inevitable.

While I do now understand how politics can be almost completely irrelevant to a married relationship, I do still think that there are some specific political issues that would be difficult to reconcile in a complicated situation. For example, differences on how the individuals feel about abortion could be the most major of issues in the event of a surprise pregnancy. For most issues, though, there are not an abundance of scenarios where a difference in viewpoints should affect my relationship with Golden. As a modern hypothetical example, if one of us supported the Democrats' healthcare reform plans and the other opposed it that would not really make any difference in our relationship. Our viewpoints on the issue will not change any major family decision that we could make and we very truly have little influence on the outcome of the issue anyway.

All of this is really quite academic because Golden and I most frequently agree when we even know each other's political views. It is nice to know that this is not something that is likely to hamper our relationship when we disagree, however. Having the freedom to focus on our important relational situations rather than getting bogged down in the things over which we have no control anyway is the absolute ideal.

ten-year goals

Since my birthday that ends in a zero occurs a few months before the new decade^* this provides me a double opportunity to review my last ten years and consider what I want to do with my next ten years. When I consider the last ten years, I am confronted by a lot of competing thoughts about how long and short the time has been. Ten years is a lot of time for things to happen, but it is also a short enough time to procrastinate on a lot of things that I thought I would have accomplished.

It certainly helps in my view of the last decade that about half was without kids and just under half comprises the time after we found out that we would have NJ. Life without kids is so much different from life with kids that I almost think of the past ten years as two separate decades. I am sure I am not the only person who has ever had that observation, though.

Ten years ago I was just completing college and did not really know what to expect from the ten years I had ahead of me. If I had to guess ten years ago what my next decade would include, I would have probably been selfish with my expectations. Few people want to talk about the responsibilities that they will take on more than the benefits for those responsibilities.

Interestingly, I am not much clearer on what my next ten years holds now than I was ten years ago. I know there are certain things that I would like to happen in the next ten years, but I always have a bit of trepidation about focusing too much on those. Sometimes those things that I would like to happen are just not possible or ideal and I don't want to be stuck ten years from now measuring the past decade by a standard that turned out to be unrealistic.

With all of that being said, I do have some generic goals for the coming decade. The problem is that they are not the types of goals that are easy to list. Very little is specific and measurable, some of it is private, and a lot of it is selfish. As an example of a selfish one, a goal of mine is to make more time to read and play video games. Some people would think playing more video games is a horrendous goal, but as someone who is highly strung and has had other priorities in the recent past I think the end result of doing this would be that I would be an easier person to deal with. It also represents a way for me to connect with NJ (I do have goals about connecting more with Golden and CD as well). Another goal is to, at some point, take the family to Florida to either Disney, or MGM, or Epcot, or something of that nature. If the finances for that do not work out, though, it may be better that that does not happen.

Something that I try to keep in mind with my goals is that something is only a worthwhile goal if I am willing to make a sacrifice to complete it. Graduating from a degree program qualifies as a goal because doing so requires a time and money sacrifice. Playing more video games only qualifies as a goal if I am giving up something else that I like in order to reach that goal.

Does anyone else have goals for the upcoming decade that are either the same as what has happened over the past decade or are a complete departure? I would love to hear about them.

* I understand that 2011 actually starts the decade, but does anyone really think in those terms? It is just a technicality based on the fact that there was no year zero.