Posted on 01/23/2010 10:59:39 AM PST by topfile
The parents of Britney Gengel, the college student from Rutland still missing after the Jan. 12 eathquake in Haiti, returned home yesterday from a nine-day vigil at her Florida campus after hearing from the US State Department that the mission has shifted from rescue to recovery, leaving slim chances of finding any survivors.
“They will start pulling the building apart layer by layer,’’ Leonard Gengel read from a statement yesterday at Logan International Airport, referring to the hotel where his 20-year-old daughter had been staying when the 7.0 earthquake hit.
His voice breaking, he said, “We are asking our government to guarantee that every American dead or alive [in the hotel rubble] be accounted for and brought home in a dignified way.’’
The State Department did not immediately return a call yesterday.
-snip-
Leonard Gengel made an emotional appeal to President Obama last week, urging him to do more to aid the rescue effort.
Gengel told reporters yesterday that he never imagined he would be begging the federal government to bring his daughter home, dead or alive.
“It’s just unimaginable and unthinkable,’’ he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I think the frustration is that the US has launched many rescue operations spending millions of dollars yet we've acted so slowly in this case.....
I can’t help but get snippy about it.
I’m just so tired of the latest trend on FR to post without even reading the articles.
...you can generalize if you want to, or you can graciously accept my apology.
You must be mistaken, my original reply was not to you.
The Hotel Montana is on a hill, surrounded by a fence and accessible only via a gated entrance. For Haiti, it IS safe(r).
What gets me about the girls on that trip was that they come from an expensive private college in Boca Raton. This trip was a five day wintersession program to "help po' folks."
That's it. FIVE DAYS to be humanitarians! They went to Haiti for FIVE DAYS, and they stayed at an expensive, secluded hotel!
I've nothing against missionairies and the like who want to devote themselves to working with the congenitally poor. But why even bother going at all if it's only for five freaking days??
The school's website says that they were going to pick up trash on the beach, help feed "po' chillrin," and help build a house. Uh huh.
All those able-bodied Haitian men who sit on their butts all day can't go down and pick up trash on the beach? How about hammering a nail into a piece of wood?
What is this for the Lynn University kids, Dilettante Philanthropy 101?
How much did it cost Mums and Daddums to send their earnest college kids to "help" in Haiti for five breathtaking days (vacation included, since the kids who did survive did so because they weren't in their rooms but were lounging at the hotel's POOL!)
Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to just SEND a charitable organization the money they wasted on their Haitian adventure? They know what to do with it much better than drive-by collegians looking to tell everyone about their adventure among the po' folk in exotic locales!
If these kids were that devoted, why didn't they take a train to Newark, NJ or Detroit, MI? there are lots of poor black babies in those cities, and a host of others, right HERE who could've used the help (or at the least, it would've been cheaper and the Lynn collegians would be alive.)
That being said...Obama is a monster to not help the well meaning but dimwitted parents get their kids OUT. The surviving kids knew where the rooms were where the missing Lynn kids were staying, at the back left of the hotel. The parents had gotten together a rescue team, as did Lynn University, to go to the Hotel Montana and work on getting the kids out. They were NOT allowed into the country, which is beyond bizarre. i mean, what would they do? Kill somebody?? Why not let them TRY? It wasn't on Obama's dime (i.e., our dime), or the Haitians' dime (i.e., our dime.)
Haiti was and is a soup sandwich. A complete and total insoluble disaster. The well meaning but hopeless naive parents risked their kids' lives by sending them to one of the worst third world hellholes on earth for a five day "feel good about yourself" trip.
All you can do is hope that other parents with too much awe of their kids' "brilliance" and way too much money on their hands will think twice before they give their kids the money to slum and play philanthropist for five days during college break!
What a freaking WASTE all around.
and yet we hear no outcries about what a horrible job he and his administration are doing...
Dead on. Really good rant in general.
I see this all over the Caribbean, BTW. Hordes of welfare feeders sitting on their dead butts, doing nothing, out in front of some concrete crap-hole corroding in the humid air.
A ton of money comes into those places to "help them". It's a total waste. Half the money goes into the pocket of the local Thug Daddy and the other half pays for crap construction. And then they move in, and the aforementioned sitting begins, punctuated only by the occasionaly foray to rob or assault someone. The more enterprising usually go into that business full time, with a vengeance.
And a few co-eds on a little feel good adventure weren't ever going to accomplish anything except impress on them why they need to stay in the clubs in Boca.
I appreciate your post. I am amazed at the ignorance about Haiti. Thank you for your post.
Thanks.
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