History

I suppose we never really think of ourselves as living in the midst of historic events, we still have to worry about paying the utility bills.  Still, the last week has been both horrifying and interesting.

It's been 6 days since the shallow 7.0 earthquake struck Port-au-Prince in Haiti.  Estimates this evening are somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people died in the structures which collapsed during that minute long assault.   That country has been a basket case for so long, it's not surprising so many people died.  If you compare the magnitude 7.1 Bay Area Earthquake of 1989 (65 fatalities) with the Haiti quake it rapidly becomes apparent the major difference between the outcome of the two events is the poverty and lack of building codes in Haiti.  In my opinion both of these conditions are driven by the horrible political heritage of that land and the tenuous nature of social stability among its' people.  Satellite views of the area not only show the horrifying devestation of the quake, but also the social partition between Haiti and the Dominican Republic which also shares the island of Hispaniola.  Of course for all of the money spent there, so little has improved for its' people.  Still, this is a humanitarian disaster, so I send my donation and hope it makes some small difference in the lives and deaths of Haiti's people.

In Massachusetts, republican State Senator Scott Brown has come out of nowhere in the past month to challenge democrat Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat.  In Massachusetts alone, that development would be astounding, but Senator Scott Brown would represent a 41st vote for the Republican Senate Caucus and the end of the Senate Democrats fillibuster proof majority.  With the current Health Care Reform bill (pick Harry Reid or Nancy Peliosi's effort) being advanced as a strictly partisan offering which rewards partisan allies, and creates another huge entitlement program under the subterfuge of advancing healthcare for those without coverage, I would prefer an actual bipartisan bill which would look to improve medical insurance coverage without totally revamping the medical care system in this country.  I would expect we'll know by this time tomorrow how things went.  I'm trying to be optimistic, but elections are tough to predict.

On a professional level, my efforts to totally revamp the Risk Management system at M continue with another set of VP level edits.  More details tomorrow.