Shortly after my last blog post, I was pleased to see that Haiti is now indeed fashionable. A new relief effort called “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief,” spearheaded by a group of celebrities (including George Clooney), has raised over $61 million to date.
We can only hope Haiti remains fashionable in the future.
In another year, on another blog…
I had blogged about my daughter’s trip to Haiti, and how it seems Haiti doesn’t get the attention it needs and deserves. Here, in part, is what I wrote:
You see, it seems some underprivileged countries have highly visible spokespersons to make them “fashionable.” Everyone knows Darfur needs help; we have George Clooney to keep their plight in our awareness. Other African countries, as well as Asian countries, have celebrities appearing on People magazine covers with their adopted children—Brad and Angelina and Madonna, to name a few. Even Eastern Europe has made the news lately when Americans have adopted their orphaned children.
What about Haiti? Are there any celebrities out there who’d like to speak for Haiti? We really need only one….
Now, with the devastating earthquake, perhaps—in a weird way—Haiti will finally get that attention. So many lives lost. So many people who, having nearly nothing before, have even less now. So many newly orphaned children. So many beautiful buildings forever destroyed.
Is it fashionable to help Haiti now?
It sounds like a cliché, but it’s often true. Something happens on TV or in a book or movie, and next thing you know, it’s being done in real life.
Sometimes this is a bad thing. A crime or other bad deed forms the plot of a TV show, and in no time “copycat” perpetrators are making the news.
But it’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes a screenwriter or other creative type will think of something that a scientific type hadn’t thought of, or had assumed was impossible. The creative type perhaps didn’t pause to think it might not be possible, or figured it would be believable enough for entertainment purposes.
Sooner or later, someone is asking, Hey, why not? Someone else responds, Indeed, why not? So some creative thinkers get together with some scientific thinkers and they create some great new thing.
Wouldn’t the thought-processing external voice box I talked about in my last post (like the ones in the movie Up) be a great invention to develop? People with speech problems, people who have trouble verbalizing their feelings, people taking a lie detector test…I see lots of applications for such a device. Yes, maybe even pets.
Anybody out there want to tackle this?