Short night

Short night in both senses, actually. Short in that I'm going to cut this short, short in that there doesn't seem to be enough sleep going on around here. I'm tired, frustrated, and a little discouraged with the world at large. I expect you've noticed that I describe myself as an "ordinary individual struggling to keep hope alive." Sometimes it's more of a struggle than other times.

I guess the immediate cause was reading that the death toll in Haiti as a result of Jeanne has passed 1,000 - and 1,200 more people are still missing.

Relief workers fear that many more bodies will be found, as waters recede near the stricken city of Gonaives. ...

The BBC's Jeremy Cooke, who visited Gonaives on Wednesday, says the main street is like a river, flowing with filthy, brown water.

Survivors wade through the mud - sometimes waist-deep - trying to salvage furniture or find food. ...

Many residents have been forced to take shelter on rooftops, as bloated bodies float along the streets. ...

Later on Wednesday trucks dumped dozens of unidentified bodies into a mass grave in Gonaives.

Kofi Annan has called on the international community for help. And oh, yes, we will help. After some discussions and consultations - after all, we certainly don't want to do more than our share, you know - we will put in some amount, patting ourselves on the back for our generosity the whole time, while begrudging the victims a single extra dollar. Meanwhile, we have spent something approaching 140 billion in Iraq, almost all of it for war, very little of it for reconstruction - and even a good portion of that would be to undo the damage we did.

I still, after all this time, after all the years, after all the arguments and psychological studies and philosophies, I still have trouble getting my mind around the fact that we can find seemingly unlimited funds for war, an open spigot spewing out cash for death and destruction, for blood and bombing, for murder and mayhem and madness - but when it comes to undoing pain rather than causing it, we suddenly find virtue in frugality while still sounding a trumpet before us when we give anything so that everyone will notice (what we imagine to be) our selfless devotion to the needs of the poor.

I suppose it just hasn't been a good night.

It's odd: In one way I should be a little encouraged: I still have a very low traffic site here but this month already has been my biggest yet both in total hits and in return hits. Thank you. And I know that there are some of you who read this on a regular basis - and who, I assume, find something of value here. Thank especially you. So I'll keep on keeping on for the foreseeable future - and I know that if I ever took a break that, like Hesiod, "they" would suck me back in with their evil inanities. So I guess that means we're stuck with each other.

For now, just a couple of short things and then pack it in until tomorrow.