After an entire month of nothingness, I decided to fully expose myself to all kind of opportunities by all means in diversifying my homogenous lifestyle.
Kickoff- Chomsky’s discussion forum on the post-catastrophe reconstruction of Haiti, the poorest nation in the hemisphere.
Around 10% of people will say “wow, lucky you, so you must have attend Noam Chomsky’s lecture” after knowing I went to MIT..shamefully I did not.
And if you have no idea how revered he is, there is a tribute music concert for him to celebrate his life tonight. Side-note, I never know there could be ‘tribute to xxx’ event if xxx is not dead yet..well at least not until recently I noticed there is a ‘Tribute to Prof Kao’ in the Science Museum. You know, its usually “Tribute to Michael Jackson” or “Tribute to xxx on his 150th birthday”, something like this. Its cool that a living person ‘s achievement could be widely honored in this way …not like poor Van Gogh whose artwork was only recognized and became famous after his death.
Anyway, here are the key points that I remember, well, if you are interested:
- give grants, not loans. The aid should go directly to some proper Haitian activist groups, local government if it still function, but not inefficient contractors, the wealthy, or NGOs.
- open your pocket, but also open your mind. a perfect shameful example is NYT Brook’s provocative editorial pontificating about Haitian poverty on the nature of its society and culture change.
- How the Obama adminstration handled this is ‘sickening’.The US has denied many seriously injured victims visa to be transferred to Florida for medical treatment –as the medical school put it, the situation is “beyond insane”. Homeless Haitians are strictly told not to come to the US. The US donated 100 million, but the EU donated 5 times more. The situation has only relaxed a bit under pressure.
- The ugliness of Obama’s administration in “supporting the wealthy and powerful” is also statistically reflected in the Massachusetts Senate election. Coakley, representing the Democrats, got most of her votes and donations from high-income areas and wealthy suburbs. Scott Brown, as a rarely-known Republican, won significantly in the relatively low-income downtown areas. This blue-to-red victory is mainly due to the public’s obvious opposition/distrust of the Obama government.
- Chomsky also discussed on the Supreme Court shocking decision in allowing coperations to spend directly on political campaigns again after 1907. When coperations are no longer restricted by this century-long law, its influence will directly give rise to corruptions and other dangerous issues. This severe blow of decmocracy could only be reversed by another constitution amendment, which is highly unlikely.
After the forum a good-looking guy (my perspective) came forward and said “Good talk?” and I just ceased the conversation with a cold “yea” and walked away. Grrrrrr.
