Haiti - Can't Know Quite How To Feel

I'm feeling very proud of my Church.  The Humanitarian Center is sending food, help, supplies, whatever is needed, to Haiti.  People are giving additional funds on Sundays to allow whatever is necessary to be purchased to give to those groups, individuals, agencies or whatever who can help or who need.  And I am part of that.  People are heading out to be there.  The Church is mobilizing as individuals and as a body and I can say I am doing something.

I pray for those people, too, and prayer works.  I think about them, worry about them and wish I could do more for them.  I cheer on those who are working with them and read constantly news reports about what is going on.  My hopes lag a little when I hear of subsequent earthquakes hitting them, but again I think about the world and how it is rallying.  I think again of God and of his knowledge and love for them.

But still I wish I could be there.  I long to be of hands-on help.  I wish I had the money, the where-withal and the youth and health to be there, to dig out people, to hand out water and food, to wash people, to find shelters, and to go to outposts and to help what is going on there too.  To comfort children, to find their families, to find families for them.  To do something.  I want to.  

Last week, I was in Arizona where I was enjoying a vacation with my granddaughters enjoying the warm weather, the sun and the easy days, I thought often of those poor desperate people and wondered again what I could do.  I know there is really nothing I can do.  I know that.  And because of that I feel such sorrow, such horror for them and for me, such guilt because of my safety.

What Might Satan Think?

The following letter was published in the Star Tribune from the Minneappolis St. Paul area the other day and I thought it was hilarious.  Definitely not the situation in Haiti, but the letter.  I reprint it here because I did think it did make a good point though I do think that kicking a man while he's down isn't a good idea regardless.  it is funny, though, don't you think?


"Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan"

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

What Whoopi Goldberg ('Not a Rape-Rape'), Harvey Weinstein ('So-Called Crime') et al. Are Saying in Their Outrage Over the Arrest of Roman Polanski

by CALVIN TRILLI

This article appeared in the October 26, 2009 edition of The Nation.

A youthful error? Yes, perhaps.
But he's been punished for this lapse--
For decades exiled from LA
He knows, as he wakes up each day,
He'll miss the movers and the shakers.
He'll never get to see the Lakers.
For just one old and small mischance,
He has to live in Paris, France.
He's suffered slurs and other stuff.
Has he not suffered quite enough?
How can these people get so riled?
He only raped a single child.

Why make him into some Darth Vader

For sodomizing one eighth grader?

This man is brilliant, that's for sure--

Authentically, a film auteur.

He gets awards that are his due.

He knows important people, too--

Important people just like us.

And we know how to make a fuss.

Celebrities would just be fools

To play by little people's rules.

So Roman's banner we unfurl.

He only raped one little girl.

I've got to send this on.  It's too good.  And remember, I love Whoopi.