News that makes us laugh, cry, or both

[Psychic Robot]

Laugh plus cry.

NBA players were outraged Wednesday by anti-Haitian statements issued by former league player Paul Shirley.

"I haven't donated a cent to the Haitian relief effort. And I probably will not," said Shirley, who was a seldom-used reserve forward in 2004-05 on Mike D'Antoni's Phoenix Suns team. "I don't think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.

"... Shouldn't much of the responsibility for the disaster lie with the victims of that disaster?"

Shirley also penned a sarcastic letter of thanks to the Haitian people that read, in part: "Kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure and birth control should be applauded."

ESPN Wednesday fired Shirley from his gig as a freelance commentator. The network released a brief statement saying that Shirley's views "do not at all reflect our company's views on the Haiti relief efforts. He will no longer contribute to ESPN."

Shirley's heartless statement stunned Chris Duhon.

"That just speaks about who he is as a person," said the Knicks' point guard. "We've come so far in this world in terms of racism and stereotypes and things like that. And for a guy who has played in the league, to say something like that, that reflects badly on us, as well.

"We're going to let people know that we're not like that," Duhon added. "The NBA is not like that. We do a lot in the communities, especially with our NBA Cares program. This is not just for a public image. It's because guys really want to do it. It's a shame that one guy can kind of tarnish that for you."

Shirley, 32, played at Iowa State and spent one NBA season each with Chicago, Atlanta and Phoenix before heading to Europe. The last NBA team the 6-10 forward tried to catch on with was Minnesota.

D'Antoni seemed surprised by his statements.

"I can't comment because I have no idea the context he said it in," he said. "I just know for us, when we were in Phoenix, Paul was a good guy and an extremely bright person. I remember that he wrote a book and a screenplay and he did some blogs. So I don't know what happened."

Shirley's anti-Haitian stance is in opposition to that of many of his former peers. Almost 50 NBA players have pledged to donate a minimum total of $500,000 to the Clinton Bush Haiti fund. Ten players donated $1,000 per point in games played last Friday, including the Lakers' Pau Gasol, who contributed $20,000 via his 20-point game against the Knicks at the Garden.

The fund-raising effort was announced at halftime, with former president Clinton delivering an emotional talk during a live interview. He detailed what he saw in Haiti during his recent visit to the earthquake-ravaged country.

Among those who chose to donate was the Knicks' Danilo Gallinari.

"I think it's so important for the NBA and for me to do this," Gallinari said. "I live a different life from all the people there. They cannot live the life I'm living. I'm lucky. So I felt I had to help them and that's what I did. I hope that help can really help those people."

[Lago PARANOIA]

Ah, the hypocrisy of someone laughing at someone's cold-heartedness when in a thread on the very same day they were laughing at someone's worry about not getting health care.

[Username17]

Ah, the hypocrisy of someone laughing at someone's cold-heartedness when in a thread on the very same day they were laughing at someone's worry about not getting health care.

Look, it's very simple:

• 100,000 people dying of entirely preventable causes in a nearby country is a tragedy.
• 45,000 people dying of entirely preventable causes in your own country every year is comedy.

Yeah. I don't get it either.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I'm not convinced all died of preventable causes in Haiti.

It was a very strong earthquake in a low-lying island centered on a capitol and port. Things were going to fall down, and there wasn't going to be any unaffected emergency response that could come in and help immediately because of the location of the quake.

The closest we've had to that in mainland US is the Northridge quake, and even then the population density fans out very quickly in LA. Add to that it had major metropolis areas unaffected but connected while in Haiti there are no metropolises unaffected or connected.

Which in the shorter, the preventable deaths due to lack of care in the US should be a worse tragedy. Preventable vs not as much.

-Crissa

[Username17]

Oh please. I personally lived through a bigger Earthquake when I was 10. And it was bad. And I was homeless for a while, and 63 people died. Had there been building codes like we have in California, the death toll would have been in the dozens instead of "over 150,000" like it is now.

Stuff is going to fall over, but the fact that so many things came down and killed people is bad management.

-Username17

[Crissa]

Except the epicenter of the quake you're referring to was in a rural area, not an urban area. The makeup of the Bay Area is such that the shaking is not amplified - in the areas it was amplified, things fell down and people died.

Yes, fewer people would have died. But when an earthquake hits a Carib isle, it does more damage and there is less emergency response available. Earthquakes in that exact area have reduced towns to below sea level.

Think about it, and then remember the epicenter was in the urban area, which is similar to the baylands in which the heaviest damage took place in the quake you're referring to - except those baylands were fifty miles from the epicenter instead of directly on it. Filled land and solid sedimentary rock perform poorly in quakes: One wiggles like jello and the other rings like a bell. Santa Cruz sits upon composites and broken sedimentary layers which do not ring.

So some portion of the deaths were unavoidable. And even if they had building codes, how are they to build to them? They cannot afford metal or wood structures which survive quakes better. There isn't steel or wood produced in the country; it just isn't there to be made. People there literally eat dirt rather than starve because their cash crops cannot be sold readily to the world due to external politics, and the locals actually don't own the land on which they live and farm. The US has had embargos and high tariffs on stuff to and from Haiti for your entire life. And does, today.

-Crissa

[Nicklance]

I'm not very up to date about this currently. Is Haiti's earthquake worse than Szechuan's recent disaster?

[Username17]

I'm not very up to date about this currently. Is Haiti's earthquake worse than Szechuan's recent disaster?

It's a full point of surface wave magnitude smaller, but the death toll is 2 to 3 times larger because more stuff collapsed and Haiti is much poorer and less competent than China.

Edit: Fuck you Crissa. The Haiti Earthquake is terrible. It was just 25 kilometers from Port Au Prince. The Loma Prieta earthquake was just 16 kilometers from my house. I am telling you as someone who has lived the better part of his life in a house in a sea level swamp in the middle of earthquake country, that if you have competent and interested zoning commissions that you can take 7 point earthquakes without thousands, let alone hundreds of thousands of people of people dying.

The Sichuan Earthquake is a whole different deal. An 8 point Earthquake will liquefy some surprising things. So when Chengdu (a metropolitan area of 11 million people) loses over 68,000 people in a magnitude eight earthquake, I can't really make any harsh indictments about zoning and building codes.

Remember: our biggest casualties were in a single freeway collapse in Oakland, some 90 kilometers away. The death toll in Aptos, which was walking distance away and totally coastal, was minuscule. A 7 point earthquake is going to cause thousands of injuries. And it's going to kill dozens of people. But anything past that is engineering failure. An actual crime perpetrated upon the victims.

-Username17

[Nicklance]

If I hear correctly, there's also the debt problem that seems to compound this disaster.

[Psychic Robot]

Ah, the hypocrisy of someone laughing at someone's cold-heartedness when in a thread on the very same day they were laughing at someone's worry about not getting health care.

You are incorrect on both counts.

[RobbyPants]

Ah, the hypocrisy of someone laughing at someone's cold-heartedness when in a thread on the very same day they were laughing at someone's worry about not getting health care.

You are incorrect on both counts.

Really?

I'd like to thank the people of Massachusetts for electing a Republican to the Senate and effectively dooming any chance at health care reform in the United States during this administration. Good job, guys! I for one can't wait to go into bankruptcy or have my coverage dropped as soon as I come down with a major illness, and I'm sure you'll all be equally thrilled once you acquire an equally life-threatening condition.

Thy tears are sweet.

[shadzar]

WotC has elected not to renew its Star Wars license.

I wonder if it was a WotC choice as much as Paizo had the choice to continue publishing Dragon and Dungeon magazines....

But either way it makes me laugh to think BBEG in the gaming industry would give up something so powerful in the world of geekdom. It means even HASBRO wouldn't/couldn't keep Star Wars for gaming purposes.

[Crissa]

16 kilometers from your house, in an area not as densely populated, and not on an island.

I'm just saying that like there's a reason you can insure against preventable disasters like fire more easily than it's to insure against unpreventable disasters like earthquakes.

This one basically was centered on the capitol. In a poor, but densely populated area, on an island, in an area known for both earthquakes and poor soils which compound the problems of building, and in a country that does not produce the materials needed to resist earthquakes!

Which seems to me I'm saying that there isn't anyone to blame for this while in the US and China you have definite people who profit by making a situation where people died.

-Crissa

PS: Which also means my position of abating Haitians from any wrongdoing is weak, but based upon real situations. We could blame Dole (the corporation) which lobbies for the restrictions on trade with with Haiti because they'd be a competitor.

[Username17]

No. It was not "practically on top of the capital" it was 25 kilometers away from the capital. That is more than the bigger earthquake that was four kilometers from Aptos. Yes, there are more people in Port au Prince than in Aptos. But ten percent of the population died. An equivalent would have been thousands dead in Santa Cruz - a city that was closer to a larger earthquake.

If a 7.0 earthquake goes off 25 kilometers from a city you expect some dead. You expect dozens of dead if it's a big city. You do not expect dozens of thousands unless there has been decades of neglect and corruption in the building industry. Which of course, in Haiti, there has.

The fact that there are over 150,000 dead from an earthquake that size in that area is not surprising, but it's still a crime.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

Haiti is a bureaucratic kleptocracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of ... corruption

The country is heavily corrupt. Every year much of the humanitarian aid is pocketed by officials.

According to a World Bank report in 2006, "In Haiti, the process of business regulations is complex and customs procedures are lengthy."[4] On average, opening a business took 204 days. For comparison, the average was 73.3 days in Latin America and 16.3 days in OECD countries.[4] It took estimated 5 years and 65 bureaucratic procedures for a private person to buy land from the state.[4] It took 683 days to register a property.[4] All Latin American and Caribbean countries except Cuba and Venezuela enjoyed much more economic freedom than Haiti on the Index of Economic Freedom of 2006.[4]

The political elite is also involved in various criminal businesses. Beaudoin Ketant, a notorious international drug trafficker, Jean-Bertrand Aristide's close partner, and his daughter's godfather, confessed that Aristide "turned the country into a narco-country; it's a one-man show; you either pay (Aristide) or you die".[5] According to the BBC, pyramid schemes "were only real economic initiative of the Aristide years." Estimated $200 million was lost in these scams.[6]

[shadzar]

So did the US organized aid effort really do any good during its tenure in Haiti?

[CatharzGodfoot]

So did the US organized aid effort really do any good during its tenure in Haiti?

Yes.

[shadzar]

So did the US organized aid effort really do any good during its tenure in Haiti?

Yes.

Well, I mean in the organization and preventing of chaos...I know the food and finding people went a long way....I just haven't been paying attention if we are still there, because I put blind faith in this silly country to do things right, and maybe finish something they start....but now here of looting and whatnot. I would hope on that front the US is not overstepping its bounds to give aid and trying to institute some martial law type thing for areas where it is not providing food/water/etc.

Or is the lack of an organized presence causing this in other areas of Haiti since some were saying US should not have been armed, but was them being armed as SOP, what helped the areas they were in not become a looting spree?

[Psychic Robot]

Really?

Really. My post was showing contempt at his tone and stereotypical "evil Republicans" content, not at his fears that he would lose his health insurance. My amusement at the article I quoted involves the statements themselves--that I found them humorous, not that I found them cold-hearted.

[RobbyPants]

Lack of tone of voice and context makes internet communication fun!

[Lich-Loved]

My post was showing contempt at his tone and stereotypical "evil Republicans" content, not at his fears that he would lose his health insurance. My amusement at the article I quoted involves the statements themselves--that I found them humorous, not that I found them cold-hearted.

I wouldn't worry overmuch about it, PR. This section of the den works far better if you treat it as a web comic. Doing so has improved my enjoyment of it immensely. We have cute characters, awkward situations and of course plenty of angsty punchlines. I read it right after XKCD and right before Basic Instructions. I find these quality comics bracket it nicely.

[Maxus]

Side note, someone keep and eye on YouTube for when Obama's live Q&A with the Republicans is sectioned up and posted.

I caught some of it at the end of work today, and it was...very interesting. Obama actually broke the script some and mentioned how the Republican rhetoric doesn't match up with reality.

[Maxus]

Here's the transcript.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/29 ... e-retreat/

I understand CNN broadcast it live and uninterrupted.

So did MSNBC, and afterwards they did their usual, "Look at the Conservatives get pwned stuff," (with some justification in some places.)

Fox News? Broadcast it live, and interrupted it with live criticism of Obama from their commentators.

Apparently, it ran to around 90 minutes straight, so it's a long transcript.

[Vnonymous]

If you actually read the article that Shirley posted, it makes a hell of a lot of sense.
http://www.flipcollective.com/2010/01/2 ... l-shirley/

Before the reader reaches for his or her blood pressure medication, he should allow me to explain. I don’t mean in any way that the Haitians deserved their collective fate. And I understand that it is difficult to plan for the aftermath of an earthquake. However, it is not outside the realm of imagination to think that the citizens of a country might be able to: A) avoid putting themselves into a situation that might result in such catastrophic loss of life. And B) provide for their own aid, in the event of such a catastrophe.

Giving people in Haiti money so the government can take 75 percent of it and the rest can build even more flimsy, ramshackle shacks and have more babies is about as responsible as feeding the starving ethiopians.

[Cielingcat]

Wow, that guy is a colossal douchebag. Seriously, that was like the very essence of "I am an overentitled white American douchebag."

I mean seriously, he even did the whole "the poor are breeding!!!1!" thing. It's like he read a book on how to be an asshole in the face of tragedy, and then did everything the book told him to do.