Haiti: Update

Haiti is the skid row of our Hemisphere. A truly desperate place where the phrase "hell in a handbasket" sounds apt. Hurricane Jeane's blow killed 2,000 and left 200,000 homeless last month, the country's best hopes are in prison and in recent weeks pro-Aristide rallies have turned violent in the capital.

It's "liberation" (to Bush Admin. Officals and unscupulous businessmen) last year has brought nothing but more bloodshed, more corruption (#3 says yesterdays news), bottom of the UN's Human Development Index, and no authority nor services.

The liberators (US, Canada, France) are scrambling to get elections (and thereby democratic governance) going by the promised date of Feb 7th. The problem is the lack of a candidate list, which is reported to disallow Aristide's Lavalas Party's top leaders.

Speaking of skid row, check out Steve Lopez's amazing front-page 7-part LA Times week of living on downtown LA's skid row. There's a profile on the "broken-down brigade" - the legions of disabled in wheelchairs living on the streets of LA.