We’ve got a new "Think Again" column called "Blame Gitmo"
My new Nation column is called "What Would Molly Say?" and that’s here.
As I wrote in my previous Altercation this week, devoted to "Game Change," I’m in the Dominican Republic with the ambition of turning 50 in relative privacy. My family and I happen to be staying at the Club Med in Punta Cana, where between 50 and 60 percent of the staff is Haitian. It’s morally complicated enough to come to one of these places in the best of times. Now, obviously, the irony is almost unbearable. I’ve made friends withmy tennis instructor, Elie, a great guy, who heard third hand that his family’s house was destroyed but that his mother and sister were able to get out. He can’t reach them and is understandably desperate to find away to help them. Instead, however he is giving tennis lessons to wealthy Americans and Europeans. This situation is multiplied many times over and I don’t pretend to be able even imagine what it must be like.
I don’t know anything about Haiti beyond what I’ve read in Graham Greene (and Amy Wilenz). A friend wrote to recommend charity in Haiti called Hearts with Haiti. It started 25 years ago as a home for 5 boys – now it has three orphanages including one for handicapped children, one of which was destroyed. You can find out more about them here
Also, since I’m 50 today, a friend on Facebook–one of my few actual friends among my Facebook "friends" Julie Bergman gave me the gift of a bottle of potable water for Haiti by clicking on something there. If we are Facebook "friends" or should be, that’s what I’m asking for. If you have other friends, who’d be touched as I was by Julie, you might want to do the same.
And if you send me more suggestions, I’ll print them up with Pierce tomorrow.
Thanks
The mail.
Name: Cervantes
Postal: Cambridge, Mass.
In re: "The idea that what Harry Reid said is genuinely offensive to anyone is comical. And if you see anyone acting like it is … then you can conclude that that person is purposely full of shit and ignore everything he or she says for the rest of your life."
Or if you had already drawn that conclusion, then you can bask in the confirming glow of the TV screen.
Name: Bill Dunlap
Postal: Lake Oswego, Oregon
Hi, Eric: Maybe African-American should be sub-Sahara-African-American-except-for-white- Afrikaaner -Americans (if any). Also, I remember a Muhammad Ali press conference before a tune-up fight that would precede his rematch with Ken Norton. All the questions were about Norton, not the upcoming fight. Someone finally asked, "What if you lose?" Ali responded: "Lose? Lose? You’re not talking to any ordinary Negro." The fight was with Leon Spinks who beat the hell out of Ali.
Name: Ilene M. Wolf
Postal: Fox Lake, IL
Thank you so much for your last comment about Harry Reid. It is the most "right on" assessment of this made up kerfuffle (have no clue how to spell it!).
