The Sunday Knight - Short and Seismic

This week I wanted to talk about the health of America’s governing branches.  I wanted to explore the reasons and repercussions of the apparent merging of the legislative and executive branches.  I wanted to examine how this week’s health care summit has displayed the diminishing power of the legislative branch and the increasing power of the executive.  I wanted to focus solely on this reality, yet now after the earthquake in Chile the relationship between the executive and legislative seems less significant.  It still needs examining, but sometimes we need to focus on the reality and not the metaphor.  Washington may be ‘broken’, but there are plenty of places and people who are in much more dire straights.

At the end of the day, we can argue about health care all day long.  The Democrats can want to create government institutions to provide health care for American citizens, and the Republicans can favor completely restructuring the private sector to provide health care for Americans.  The sides will never agree, and the country will remain at an impasse until one side acts and angers the opposition.  At the end of the day one would hope that either side would decide to act based on good intentions instead as a result of negative events.

The destruction from the earthquake in Chile, and additionally from the less forceful yet more destructive earthquake in Haiti, should allow everyone to understand the necessity of supporting others in times of need.  Our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones and watched their worlds crumble around them in these recent earthquakes, yet at some point people need to be able and willing to help others before total destruction has occurred.  Helping others in times of catastrophe is an admirable trait, yet equally as admirable but less celebrated is the act of helping others before the disaster strikes.

The poor infrastructure of Haiti compounded the results of the earthquake.  The mismanaged levees of New Orleans magnified the damage of Hurricane Katrina.  If anything all people should learn that managing problems before they are exacerbated by other events is to the benefit of everyone.  Proper management makes negative events less detrimental, and prevents them from getting worse.  At some point the American government should be able to care and act for the benefit of American citizens before a disaster has occurred, but sadly over the last decade we have show a near incapacity to act in this fashion.  Lets hope this changes in the near future.

Do not forget Haiti or Chile, and we all should acknowledge that destruction of this magnitude can happen to anyone in the blink of an eye.  We should care enough about others and ourselves to act in the right manner not only when disasters occur, but also during all facets of life.

8.8 Earthquake Strikes Chile

An 8.8 magnitude earthquake has struck Chile today resulting in at least 82 deaths and counting.  Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has declared parts of Chile including the capital Santiago as in a "state of catastrophe".

In addition to the destruction that the earthquake has ravaged in Chile it is also the cause of a massive tsunami that has warranted warning is Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Central America, and Pacific island nations.

To put the strength of this earthquake in perspective we need to know that the earthquake that devastated Haiti a little over a month ago was only a category 7.0.  This one is nearly a category 9.0.

For more info on the earthquake visit the BBC.

Update on Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 5:24PM by Barrett Holmes Pitner

The death toll has risen to above 200.

Honduras Has A New President?

Today Honduras has elected Porfirio Lobo to be their next president, yet that is only the start.  President-elect Lobo will be Honduras' first president after Manuel Zelaya who was ousted in a coup d'etat back in June of this year, and now many countries do not recognize Mr. Lobo as the next President of Honduras.  Most Latin American countries including Brazil do not recognize this election since they feel it took place after an unjust coup and therefore is null and void.  The United States on the other hand recognizes Porfirio Lobo since he won through a democratic process.  I can see both sides of this argument, but there is more to this than that.

On the one hand it is hard it makes sense for a country to disapprove of another country's military coup.  Yes, former Honduran President Manuel Zeyala attempted to amend the constitution in ways that many Hondurans disapproved of, he wanted to end the constitutional limitation on presidential term limits, but supporting coups can be risky.  It could foster a support for instability in the government, and could lead their own citizens or military to act in a similar fashion.  Most countries would not approve of this action despite how much the Hondurans wanted it.  However, if you are against coups then you should be for democratic elections.  Most democracies support democratic elections, yet ones that follow coups.  That is different.  However, all that matters is how Honduras feels about their new President.

Hondurans love him, and they love that America approves of him too.  See Honduras is a very poor country who sends most of its exports to the United States.  Additionally, the money sent back to families from the 1 million Hondurans residing in the United States is a valuable source of funds.  No other Latin American country has a comparable influence in Honduras to that of the United States.  Thus their disapproval only matters to them, so I hope that they like it.  America hates coups and loves democratic elections, and Honduras and their President-elect approves.

Go State Department

To learn more about the coup d'etat go HERE.

To learn more about the democratic elections go HERE.

The Visual Decline of Empires & Mozart

This is pretty cool, and educational.  The bubbles grow and explode based on the acquisition and loss of territories.  At the bottom left corner is the date tracker for when these events occurred in history.  Also even though this is cool I felt it needed some music so I added Mozart's "Requiem".  Start the music and then start the video. 

Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.

 Mozart's "Requiem"