Sickening

Last night I overheard someone talking about the earthquake in Haiti.

"You know it's terrible, but that's nature's way of weeding out the weak. I mean there are just too many people . . ."

I was so sickened that I stopped listening.

I am always shocked by this brutal logic.

To say such a sadistic thing when babies are dead, parents have lost children, entire families are dead, people here who were in the stages of adopting babies from Haiti are now desperate to find out what has happened to their children is disgusting and less than human.

Of course, at the heart of this is hypocrisy.

Had this happened in MN or close to home, his tune would be quite different. It wouldn't be nature weeding out the weak or controlling the population. It would have been a tragedy and no laughing matter.

This reminds me of what one of my former colleagues at TRF told me after the flood of 1997.

He heard a lot of cattle farmers in ND criticizing flood and hurricane victims in the south about how the always screamed for government aid and welfare and they should just help themselves, like we do up here when a blizzard hits.

Well, as my colleague noted, those same people were singing a different tune after the flood hit. Then the government aid and welfare and donations couldn't get here fast enough.

I just wondered how quick this person last night would have changed their tune had they known someone from Haiti who died or if they relatives visiting and their hotel collapsed.