Daniel mentioned to me the fact that a French minister, as well as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, had made remarks about the U.S. military “occupying” Haiti. He had an interesting theory as to the motivation behind the remarks in question. It bothered me that the French government in particular would say such a thing, but I couldn’t immediately put my finger on why. Then I remembered my world history and the answer became quite clear.

Haiti, as one commentator put it, is a country with a last name, “The Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere”. When people talk about why the country is so poor, mostly it is in terms of wasted natural resources and government corruption. Both of those things clearly play a role, but in at least so far as the former is concerned, the deforestation that has taken place in Haiti is largely the responsibility of France. When the French were sending ships full of African slaves to their colony, on the return trip the ships were full of timber.

France’s responsibility for the economic struggles of Haiti do not end there though. France refused to acknowledge Haiti as a sovereign nation until 1825 and only then in return for a payment of 90 millions gold francs as restitution for the colonialists’ “lost property” (by that, of course, they meant slaves). The government of Haiti agreed so that an embargo in place by France, Great Britain and, sadly, the United States would be lifted. The Haitian people were stuck paying off that debt until 1947.

My point is that the effects of the hurricane would not have been as devastating if the country had a better infrastructure and the infrastructure would have been much much better if the Haitian people didn’t have to spend more than 120 years paying off the French government. I don’t really care if Chavez wants to criticize the U.S. military’s involvement in Haiti. He’s so busy destroying the economy of his own country, that we’ll in all likelihood be there too when the time comes to clean up after a major catastrophe. But France doesn’t get to say word one about our involvement in Haiti. I wonder what the interest on 90 million francs would be. I wonder if that amount would be enough to rebuild Port-au-Prince, I suspect it would go a long way.

The above subject line is from an e-mail I received from a friend of mine regarding her performance, but it sums up nicely my thoughts on my own. (She had far better excuses for any shortcomings than I did.)

I knew going in that tonight was going to be a rough night at the tables. I was prepared for confusion as a result of our revamped defense and I was prepared to make lots of mistakes defensively. I was not prepared for the fact that I would also bid like a moron. The one highlight of the evening was a small slam which I was alone in bidding and making, but most of the rest of it was a disaster.

I am consoling myself by kicking some butt in an online poker tournament. Bridge is endlessly more difficult than poker, still it makes me feel better to be able to play competently at something. As I said before, I still have years ahead of me of needing to raise the bar every time I feel comfortable with the level of bridge I’m playing so there are many nights like this to look forward to.

I got an e-mail last night from a mailing list that I’m on for one of my favorite comedians, Lewis Black. The e-mail was announcing an “Emergency Benefit Concert for Haiti” the event comprised several evenings featuring many different artists all performing at the City Winery in New York in the coming week. My first reaction was very positive, I was impressed that such a series of events could be put together on such short notice. A short way down in the finer print I spotted that the proceeds were going to Wyclef Jean’s YELE. That was distressing considering the allegations being made against that particular charity (see here and here). I sent out some e-mails to those involved asking that they carefully consider where they want to donate the money. I really doubt that it will make a difference, but I also felt like I had to say something. There are few things worse than a shady charity.

Addendum 20 January 2010:

More information here regarding the allegations against the YELE Haiti Foundation including Wyclef Jean’s brief statement in which he refused to address the payments made to him by the foundation.

Mark Twain and I have something in common.

This morning I cashed in most of the coins in my Maneki Neko. I say most because not every coin in the bank was intended to be spent, most notably a half dollar my brother gave me in change when I visited him at a restaurant where he was working. That half dollar, appropriately enough, is actually too large to be extracted from the intact cat. The total came to over 120 USD. The clerk, who was the quintessential grandmother type, told me I was a “good little saver”. It’s distressing how nice that blatant untruth was to hear from this complete stranger. I wish I didn’t want approval as much as I do. It’s as if whenever someone says something nice to me I feel this gaping need inside of me, I immediately want them to say more nice things. My desire to please is sickening at times.

Speaking of which, my regular partner and I are overhauling our convention card once again. This time it is mostly for defense, most notably we’re abandoning the gray area of “standard” discards. At tournaments one is often asked by the opponents what sort of discards the partnership is using. Our answer up until now has been, “Standard,” which really doesn’t mean much as it boils down to a nebulous mix of attitude and suit preference signals. It was an unsatisfactory answer for the opponents (except insomuch as they could rest assured there wasn’t all that much information being transmitted). As for me, I spent a lot of time on defense trying to decipher which kind of signal I was receiving (let alone the message). It was apparent we needed a new system; now we have one and my job just got exponentially more difficult because now I have no excuse for missing a signal and in the meantime I have to make sure I’m sending the right messages to my partner with every card on every hand.

In bridge advancement is a halting series of struggles to attain a certain level of competency only to remain there just long enough to see how much further one has to go. I have years and years of this process to look forward to, lucky me. Of course, once in awhile, someone says something nice to me and that makes it all worthwhile … well, maybe not, but I do love the challenge and it serves to feed my competitive streak.

On Tuesday night a couple of friends and I went to see the Body World 2 exhibit at the Franklin Institute. Beforehand one of my companions put me on the phone with his Catholic girlfriend who expressed how distasteful she found the entire concept. I admitted that when I first heard about it, I had had doubts, but that after thinking it over I decided that such an exhibit was not simply gratuitous spectacle, but educational and in a way that could not be readily duplicated with anatomical models. Given that, I have no objections to the bodies being displayed in poses that have artistic merit.

Her objection centered around the “sacredness” of the human body after death. Knowing that I’m an atheist she chose to deny that this position had anything to do with her beliefs, and noted that the human body after death was also held to be sacred by the pagan Greeks and ancient Egyptians. It was interesting and telling that even when trying to think outside of her own religious beliefs, she still defaulted to some form of religion. Recognizing that it would be hard to argue the issue with someone who couldn’t zero out belief in the supernatural, I chose not to pursue the matter and essentially agreed to disagree. She said that she didn’t want to ruin the exhibit for me, which left me thinking that she felt she had won a point in this debate, but I chose to avoid conflict rather than pointedly saying that she hadn’t said anything to ruin it because the argument that a corpse is sacred in other religions too does not address a nonreligious point of view.

She then asked, twice, if it was just out of curiosity that I wanted to attend such an exhibition. This made me think that my friend was laying more responsibility on me than was strictly accurate for this outing, but perhaps he did not want to argue the matter with a scandalized Catholic any more than I did. She was giving me an out, but the fact is to take the out of “mere curiosity” would bring me back into conflict with some of my previous apprehensions about this show in the first place. I again said that it was educational and then repeated myself the second time. I was then able to steer the conversation onto other topics.

It should be noted that if I had any doubts about the consent of the donors or the origins of the bodies, I would strongly object to such an exhibit. As it is, no substantiated allegations have been made against Dr. von Hagens.

So what would have happened if William Shakespeare had written the script for, “The Big Lebowski”?

Well, something like this actually:

I like to think of myself as frugal, which is to say, I’m willing to spend money on certain important items. Hand cream is important … so are bubble baths.

Still the two most luxurious moments of my life were both free and simply the result of the thoughtfulness of others. The first came while I was in a hotel shower thinking murderous thoughts after a night of being kept both awake and captive by my parents sleeping in the next bed. My mother rapped on the bathroom door and while I was adding the indignity of sharing a bathroom to my list of complaints, she put a cup of hot, black coffee on the counter for me. Stepping out of the shower and being able to sip coffee while toweling off was totally luxurious.

Last night the dispatcher I was scheduled to relieve called to say she needed to leave early because she wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t feeling particularly well either, but as I thought I would go in last night I opted to go ahead and do so early. I did manage to keep my coughing to one rather brutal fit this morning. I was dreading cleaning the snow off my car as I was sure the combination of the cold air and the exertion would bring on another such attack. A few minutes before I was scheduled to leave, a co-worker appeared in the dispatch area and asked if I had a spare key to my car. He told me he had already cleaned my car off for me and if I produced the spare key, he would go out and start it for me. Being able to walk out of the department and settle into a toasty warm vehicle for the drive home was also quite a luxury. Unbidden acts of kindness make life much more livable, just like expensive hand cream and ridiculously priced handmade soap.

The first week of the New Year finds me battling some sort of mutant killer death cold. It started in my chest, now it has taken up residence in my ears and sinuses as well. When I cough it hurts so bad I see stars. This afternoon I awoke with a fever. At the moment I am waiting for my hair to dry so I can venture out into the frigid air to buy some NyQuil® and at least one more box of tissue. In the past few days my nose has deforested several hundred acres. Chances are this is viral so I see little point in going to my doctor for an antibiotic, but I may have to go see him just to get a note for work. At this point a cough that results in a mouthful of warm blood really wouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Even the Beet Weasel seems to have realized I am not feeling well, because he’s being nice to me. I want my mommy.

I’ve just come home from a small game at the club. It was a very satisfying way to spend the last evening of 2009. The single most significant development in my life in the past year year was taking up bridge. It is kind of hard to believe that a year ago I had not even the foggiest idea of how the game was played, especially at the moment when I’m coming off a week in which I spent over forty hours at the table (the truly frightening thing is that I can’t yet say that I’ve found my limit, though I suspect I’m close).

And so, to paraphrase a friend of mine, in the coming year may all your trumps split evenly and may all your missing honors be onside.

Since I am obligated to appear at my place of employment tonight, I regretfully returned home today. It was a short trip, but well worth it even with the unfortunate incident with the car.

Last night while my grandmother and I were watching television she noticed some movement outside of the window. The movement was caused by the twitching of a set of ears and the ears belonged to a deer whose nose was a scant few inches from the window. It appeared to be staring in at us. We could see the face pretty well thanks to an electric candle illuminating the windowsill. The deer remained there for at least a minute. My grandmother commented that it must be like going to the zoo for the deer.

My drive back home was not eventful. There were signs on I-95 north of Baltimore advising of “Major Delays” ahead. Having experience with the sort of delays that do not warrant such a warning, I opted to take Highway 40 through the rest of Maryland and into Delaware. The lower speed limit and traffic lights seemed like the lesser of two evils. It too became congested, but only in and around the shopping areas.

I myself intend to descend into the heart of darkness that is the suburban shopping center on Christmas Eve. I need to go to the grocery store since there is very little in the way of food (with the exception of Christmas cookies) in the apartment at the moment and there won’t be much open tomorrow. Though I suppose I could always get some Chinese take-out to take to work with me tomorrow night.

Speaking of the apartment, I received a letter and a copy of my new lease from the management. I noted a particular turn of phrase in the former, “We thank you for continuing your stay …” While this doesn’t bother me on a personal level, I really do think that some people who think of this place as their home would be offended by the implication that it was only temporary — a very poor choice of words public relations wise.