(This article was published for the first time on Squidoo.com, on August 28, 2008. You may see the original posting here.)
The Headlines
How about the thousands of foreigners (Americans, Canadians, French and others) who call Haiti home? What are they eating? Are they also partaking of this staple diet?
The Infamous Links
- The Independent (Feb. 2005)
- The mud biscuits sold in the markets and stacked high by the street vendors in the most desperate parts of Port-au-Prince are made in a part of the city known as Fort-Dimanche.
- National Geographic News (Jan. 2008)
- Faced with skyrocketing food prices, Haiti’s poor have turned to “mud cookies”: salt, vegetable oil, and dirt to stave off their hunger.
- The Guardian (Jul. 2008)
- With little cash and import prices rocketing half the population faces starvation
Where is the help?
What is a Staple Diet?
Nobody, anywhere on this planet, sits in front of a bowl of mud, at dinnertime. Nobody! That is what the phrase “eating mud” entails, doesn’t it? Anybody who writes this has to have further motives. It is clearly a Smear Campaign against Haitians. Nibbling on a piece of chalk or clay, is NOT the same thing as eating mud!
Geophagy links
- Geophagy – Eating Dirt
- Geophagy is a traditional practice which does provide nutrients to the body by eating dirt or clay.
- GEOPHAGY
- The practice of eating earthy and non-food materials
- GEOPHAGY
- The practice of eating earthy and non-food materials
- Definition and Much More from Answers.com
- The eating of earthy substances, such as clay or chalk, practiced among various peoples as a custom or for dietary or subsistence.
Journalists? NOT! You people are dangerous
Why does every “so called” or “self-proclaimed” journalist just go on repeating what has been said too many times already? Can’t you get your own stories? How many times am I going to hear the same old tired lines: “Two-thirds of the population of Haiti is living on less than two dollars a day”. Drop this line already, it has been said a gazillion times before. “China and Cuba need to improve their human right records”. So, is it better here? I am not going to waste a response on this. I will just say: Do you Google?
Haitians In the Public Eye
- blackgivesback
- Wyclef Jean, one of the Top Ten Black Celebrity Philanthropists of 2007
- Pikliz.com
- Mr. Kwame Raoul (D-Illinois)
- Edwidge Danticat
- Edwidge Danticat, Author. National Book Award finalist, American Book Award winner.
You could be one of these helping hands
Entities really helping the Haitian people
- HaitiChildren.com
- Giving hope and dignity to Haiti’s children
- Yéle Haiti
- Organization established by musician Wyclef Jean to assist his native land of Haiti
- Helping in Haiti
- A story of hope, charity & faith
- B.C. Barns
- God’s Little Children provides you the opportunity to make an eternal difference in a child’s life by showing that you care.
- Help Haiti
- Here is a more complete list of Countries, Organizations, Individuals and other Entities really helping the Haitian People in their time of need (This is a work in progress… )
Drugs and Guns vs. Books and Medicine
Everyone with access to a microphone, is having a field day telling us how low the literacy rate is in Haiti. Why don’t you send a few millions books there, like some helpful souls have done and are still doing? Here are a couple of links, go ahead and help someone! Try The International Book Projet or The Directory of Book Donation Programs.
Nowadays, almost every Black or Hispanic celebrity and other concerned minority thinkers, are coming out with a version of the following phrase. But, I heard it first from the lips of Mario Van Peebles in “In the line of duty”: “How come the guns and the drugs always get there, but the books never get there?” Won’t you please answer this question for us, Mister Senior Political Analyst or Prize-winning News Correspondent?
Something different, please!
I mean, the same headshot! I think we could do all right with one channel. But, to their credit, I must say they do try and vary it a bit, by making some lame comments along with the speaker’s speech. News Anchors are always trying to explain what everyone has heard countless times, in every country in the world, from the same conmen. You know the kind: Kings, Queens, Prime Ministers, Presidents, Dictators, etc. It is always the same story: “Everything is fine, we are making progress, bla bla bla…”
Survival
How can you be sitting there
Telling me that you care -
That you care?
When every time I look around,
The people suffer in the suffering
In everyway, in everywhere.
Robert “Bob” Nesta Marley
The Best in the World? ROTFLMAO. I mean off!!!
I am going to tell you who is the best. No one! I said it, there is not a single Journalist in the United States (you can fill in your country here) worth anything! They are sell-outs, all of them. Anyone who can read and write can be a journalist, because all you have to do is read or write what your master orders you to read or write. Period.
Put up or Shut up!
Please, prove me wrong, I beg you!
It is easy to pick on Haiti, but let me see any of you, posers, say anything good about Fidel Castro. God knows there is a lot to be said about his accomplishments. Among other things, they have a much better and equitable healthcare system than the U.S. by comparison. Oh, by the way, the United States of America is number 37 on the list. Thirty Seventh! See it here.
For a poor country under a 40-year embargo, their literacy rate is virtually equal to that of the U.S. Literacy in Cuba (From the CIA World factbook): 99.8% of people age 15 and over can read and write (male: 99.8%, female: 99.8%) (2002 census)
Not too many people know about the various Exchange Programs between a few major American Universities and their Cuban counterparts. Don’t you think, as a journalist, you should pass this information along? I believe this is front page news, don’t you?
Something worth knowing
- Latin American School of Medicine (Cuba) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Latin American School of Medicine (Cuba) Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (ELAM)
- Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute – Tulane University
- Tulane University in recent years has had a greater presence of faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students in Cuba than any other American university.
Make your mama proud
Leave Haiti and the other striving countries alone. If you really feel the urge, write about the inhumane treatment of immigrants, the covert slavery, the weapons and the drugs being pushed on the minorities and the poor. There is a wealth of material here, no matter where you live. I bet you are a grad from a top ten university, you can find and give an interesting slant to the story. Can’t you? Go ahead, make your mama proud!
Haitians helping the U.S.
They don’t want you to know that
- Haitian Americans Helping Katrina victims
- Katrina Moves Haitian Americans to Help on Gulf Coast
- GovTrack.us
- Haitians fighting for America
In every country, there is a line you cannot cross
Stand Up and Be Counted!
Have you seen those newspeople or celebrities apologizing at length, for days, and weeks sometimes, after some innocent comment or a slip of the tongue. Oh, it is pitiful! Liberty of Press my foot!
So, you have it: in order to graduate from my School of Journalism, you must write an Essay pointing out at least 10 Positive Facts about the Leader of The Nation of Islam. Of course, you must be available for discussions and comments. Go ahead, I double dare you!
And please, remember, Haitians do not eat mud. No one in the world does. Do not repeat that, it is not fair!
Every little bit helps
Something to do while thinking on your assignment
- Lambi Fund of Haiti
- The Lambi Fund provides financial resources, training and technical assistance to peasant-led community organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the Haitian people.
- FATEM
- Rebuilding and developing a common hope for a brighter, revitalized Mirebalais!
- International Action
- An organization dedicated to providing clean water in Haiti.
Please, drop us a line if you find any dead links, mistakes, mispelled words, etc. If you like this blog as a whole, or just this article, kindly share it with your friends, would you?
Blog post by Tatán
Please, don’t forget to visit Lakay Graphics where you can browse through our Haitian Designs and Products.
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