Entries in Life

Everyone loves a good apocalypse.

Whether that apocalypse is Y2K, 2012, Financial Collapse, Peak Oil, Global Warming, or the being Left Behind, we love being scared. We can take any problem, and make it seem insurmountable and inevitable.

In our darker moments, we become fatalistic about it. Before we understood anything about genetics, we saw our fate in the stars, the bumps on our heads, the creases on our hands, or the lay of the the cards. Now that we have genetics, we look at that superstitious thinking and laugh. Instead of saying “It's in the stars” we say “It's in my genes.”

This apocalyptic fatalism means the end keeps coming — but it ain't here yet. We live in with visions of impeding doom — What will I do when the oil runs out? when the oceans flood? what if I am left behind? — or we convince ourselves there is nothing to worry about, putting our faith in Man's ingenuity, assuring ourselves that the science is junk, or simply believing our belief makes us immune.

Its a wonder our civilization has kept going for so long — that we haven't all gone mad already. I suppose its the competing visions of apocalypse that keeps us whole. As long as we don't all believe the same thing, we can keep asking “Is the end here yet?”

And the answer will continue to be “Not yet.”

(I went to Haiti in 1987 as a teenager. I've been interested in what's been going on there ever since. My brother asked me what I thought about the most recent disaster. I spent enough time on the reply, that I thought I might share it with a larger audience.)

I haven't really been following what's been going on. Not closely. Following the news out of Haiti is pretty depressing. Following just one man, Aristide, from 1987 onward gives some idea of the what is happening in Haiti.

• 1987 - My missions team had to leave 2-3 weeks early because of the violence. Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest, is told to stop preaching political sermons and is re-assigned.
• Elections stopped in November 1987 because of violence.
• 1990 - Aristide is elected, endorses “necklacing” (i.e. execution) his opponents
• 1991 - Aristide ousted, ends up in the States.
• 1991-1994 - Aristide embezzle's money from Haiti's international telecom revenue.
• 1994-1996 - Aristide leaves the priesthood, marries. With U.S. military help, he is re-instated as president. His term ends in 1996.
• 2000 - Aristide elected with 10% of the populice voting.
• 2004 - Rebellion, Aristide is forced out and ends up in Pretoria, South Africa. (Aristide claims he was kidnapped by the U.S. military although it looks like he would have died had they not shown up.)

Of course, you could easily claim that Aristide is just one corrupt ruler in a line of corrupt rulers. But I think the problem is much deeper than Haiti's corrupt leadership.
Another way to look at Haiti and get an idea of just how bad things were before the earthquake is to look at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
On the west side of the border, where Haiti is, you can see there are fewer trees than on the east side. People in Haiti have been using up the natural resources — in 2007, less than 1% of their forests remained.
Which means they end up finding it very hard to produce anything. Two years ago, stories started popping up about people in Haiti resorting to eating clay “cookies”. (Eating dirt isn't unusual, but making it the primary source of nutrition is.)
For as long as I've been aware of Haiti, it has been on the brink of disaster. The earthquake is just another disaster on top of the countless ones that came before it. Its amazing how much poverty and political violence and unrest continues to exist in a country just an hour and half flight away from Florida.
Of course, this isn't a problem that money is going to solve. If money solved problems, Haiti would be able to bounce back from this and its other problems really quickly. And we wouldn't have ongoing “hostilities” in the Congo or Sudan. There wouldn't be pirates in Somalia. North Korea wouldn't have concentration camps.
So, while the problem in Haiti is systemic, I'd hesitate to over-spiritualize it as, say, Pat Robertson has by claiming this is all because Haiti made a deal with the Devil.
And I'd hesitate to say that this earthquake is going to lead to dramatic change in Haiti. It could, true. But any number of the crises in Haiti's past could have led to dramatic change.
I'm mostly frustrated with disaster voyeurism that we in the States seem to delight in. I applaud people who try to do something with their lives to help others. And we even need, to a certain extent, disaster “tourists” who help out whenever there is a disaster. But I'm still frustrated. And part of that is because I have done so little and there is such a great need all over the world for help.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

This year, we gave our kids their major gifts early: a Wii and a TV after spending most of the year without one. And, other than those two items, we told them this would be a Chrstmas of hand-made gifts.

And this year, since I had been out of work since the beginning of November, it made a lot of sense.

I didn't know what to expect for Christmas morning. The kids dragged me out of bed, we read Luke's narrative of the Nativity, sang a couple of Christmas carols and then headed to the tree to open the gifts our children had given.

Like I said I didn't know what to expect: I had pretty much forgotten that we had told the kids they would be making their own gifts. And, as I found out later, Alexis didn't remind them of their responsibilities.

So it gave me a great deal of pride to see the gifts and their response. Our oldest daughter had knitted a cap for the youngest. The other daughter wrapped up some sugar cookies she had made earlier in the week. My wife wrapped up some Ferrero chocolates that we had bought.

I remember how I would have reacted had this been my Christmas as a child. Barely any gifts under the tree — you could still see the treestand, after all — I think the disappointment would have been only too visible on my face.

So when my son was overjoyed with the chocolates, when my daughter demonstrated the knit cap, I was almost bursting with pride. My children were happy with, even thankful for, practically nothing. (Sure, they had a new Wii and we had a new TV, but these were not the focus of their Christmas morning.)

When I see my children showing more maturity and thankfulness than I remember posessing when I was young, it makes me think that at least this one thing is right.

Last night, I signed up for a three month contract with the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), set to begin in January. I'll be working offsite with Tim Starling as my mentor.

My primary duties will be to “Support MediaWiki Code Review and Release Management process”, something I feel especially well suited for. The WMF has been working to formalize the process (see, for example Special:Code/MediaWiki) and I'll be helping with take it further. I have plenty of ideas, but my first task will be integrating myself into the environment.

I'm pretty excited to have a full-time position on such a high profile piece of Free Software. Last night, I started reading “Shop Class as Soulcraft” and, while my work is not anywhere as tactile as the work Matthew Crawford talks about in his book, I've found that working on Open Source software provides me with a similar sense of accomplishment. It gives me something I can point to and say “I did that” or “I fixed that”. And, with MediaWiki, the thing I can point to becomes something that much more recognisable to others. “You know Wikipedia?” I'll ask, “That's what I work on.”

(Oh, and if you want, you can throw a few in the pot to help pay the rent for the WMF.)

So, the non-profit (which shall henceforth remain anonymous) that had me all excited called today and let me know that they had hired someone local.

Oh well. I'll just have to work on my consulting.