Squirrels and Haiti

Where I work, there are a lot of squirrels on the grounds, and I like to go out and feed them peanuts on my breaks if it's not raining. Since squirrels don't hibernate (unlike the chipmunks) this is pretty much a year-round thing.

Some of the squirrels are very used to being fed by humans. They'll come running if you "click" at them or shake a bag of peanuts. There's even one (whom I recognize by his damaged ear) that will take food from my hand, so I make sure to give him a large or three-nut peanut when I see him.

This week, I saw a squirrel with a lump on his face. At first, I thought maybe he was storing some food in his cheek, like chipmunks do. Then I threw him a peanut, and noticed he was eating it very slowly. If you've never watched a squirrel eat a peanut, they will hold the nut with their front paws while they tear half of the shell open with their teeth, then take out the nut and eat it. Then they'll open the other half and eat the other nut. This little guy was having trouble with that. He managed to do so, but very very slowly.

The next day, I saw him again. I threw him a nut (which he took then went up a tree) and he couldn't get through the shell. He kept turning it over and over, and couldn't seem to open his mouth wide enough to get a solid bite on the outer shell. I cracked a few more nuts so he could open them more easily and left them at the base of the tree for him.

Yesterday, I saw him at lunchtime on my way back to work from Subway (when I wasn't carrying peanuts). He was being very sluggish and his breathing was labored. I threw him a piece of bread from my sandwich, and he more or less just rested his nose on it. I went over and squatted beside him, and he didn't run away for at least 15-20 seconds, like he wasn't fully aware of me being too close. (He didn't take the bread.) He ran maybe 10 yards before stopping again.

I don't know what's wrong with the poor little guy. Maybe it's a broken jaw, which makes it hard for him to chew. Maybe it's a tumor, the swelling of which is pinching his mouth shut in addition to whatever the tumor itself is doing.

Point is, this squirrel is clearly not long for the world. I felt really bad for him, and I wished I could help, or, if he's not going to make it (which seems likely), I wanted to find a place to bury him rather than just have the grounds crew pick him up and throw him away. I have to be out of the office today, so he'll probably be gone, either killed by a tumor or of starvation, and I find this incredibly sad.

I do NOT feel this way about Haiti.

Where I live, there are two sports talk stations, an ESPN affiliate, and a FoxSports Radio affiliate. I was doing some shopping two days ago, and the ESPN affiliate was carrying the local broadcast of a college basketball game I didn't care about, so I was limited to the FSR and the INCREDIBLY annoying Petras and Money Show. The segment when I tuned in was Petras, in his high-pitched voice, lambasting this blog post written by former NBA player Paul Shirley. I encourage you to read it.

Petras only read from the italicized core of Mr. Shirley's post, so his initial comments about the Boxing Day Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina were initially lost on me. (Having read the post in full now, I see to what Petras was referring, though I think his spin is wrong.) Petras' take, essentially, was that though he generally liked Mr. Shirley, and acknowledged his freedom of speech, his post was far out of bounds for civil discourse and basically said (paraphrasing here) "If you preface what you say by saying you know your position is an extreme minority position, then you probably shouldn't be saying it." Petras then went on to 1) insinuate that Mr. Shirley was telling people NOT to give anything to Haitian relief, 2) tell us all what a good person he is by donating a princely sum of $10 a day whenever he saw the number on the screen, and 3) equate Mr. Shirley with Rush Limbaugh, whom many on the left view as a raving racist.

(By the way, Petras, freedom of speech exists to protect UNPOPULAR positions, not popular ones that don't need protecting. And every new idea, good and bad, has to start in just one mind, and is as such an extreme minority position. That's why freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas are so important, and telling people to self-censor leads to all of us parroting vapid party lines. Or us chanting along with empty slogans while the state tells us what is acceptable to think.

For the record, Mr. Shirley has paid for this column. He has done freelance work for ESPN in the past, and has now been dropped. That, incidentally is THEIR free market right, not to use their apparatus for speech they disagree with, and is something the defenders of Bill Maher and the Dixie Chicks only acknowledge when they're on the losing side.)

But what was so unacceptable of Mr. Shirley's column? He's not saying "they deserve to die." He didn't insinuate that they CAUSED the earthquake, or that God was punishing them (unlike noted asshole Pat Robertson), or that Mother Gaia was mad at us for not hammering out a global warming deal during an extreme cold snap (unlike noted loon Danny Glover).

He IS saying that, insofar as the suffering in the wake of the earthquake, yeah, the Haitians do have a little something to do with it. Their infrastructure sucks (despite living in an earthquake zone). Their health care system sucks (AIDS epidemic). Their education system sucks (50% illiteracy). Their economy sucks (rampant unemployment). Whose fault is that?

Their intake budget is 40% foreign aid, largely from the US. They've been an independent nation for over 200 years. In 200 years they couldn't stop electing thugs and kleptocrats? Where has the billions the world sent them gone, apart from the pockets of the Duvalier family? Haiti shares an island with the Dominican Republic, which has a per capita income SEVEN TIMES HIGHER than their neighbors. Why is this?

But why is it viewed as inappropriate for Mr. Shirley or anyone to ask these questions? Petras' less execrable, less annoying co-host at least did acknowledge that Haiti, as a nation, is a basket case, although both did intimate that "now is not the time" for examining Haiti's problems.

Rahm Emmanuel (execrable in his own right) had a saying upon the current Administration taking office. "Never let a crisis go to waste." The Haitian earthquake has left a crisis. No one would dispute that. But if NOW is not the time to use some of the global spotlight to illumine persistent corruption and ineptitude of the Haitian government, fix it, and improve life in Haiti, then when?

Instead, if you read some of the comments, Mr. Shirley's critics in many cases have refused to debate him on the merits or on his logic, and have instead resorted to the ad hominem tactic of calling him an asshole or a racist. I don't know about either claim; I don't know Mr. Shirley and I've not read anything else by him, but I see no evidence for the claims HERE. (And I would suspect that life would have been very difficult for a pro basketball player to be a racist.) What Mr. Shirley has done is ask some incisive and legitimate but uncomfortable questions and explain his position with cool, perhaps even bloodless logic. The response has been emotional rather than logical, and hot-blooded and shrieking instead of calm and respectful. It has cost Mr. Shirley some current and future employment, to be sure. And I suspect Mr. Shirley is a bit dismayed, but overall can live with that.

The point, dear reader, is that one should not feel guilty about not giving to a charity when the recipients have shown no inclination to improve their lot in life to begin with. Sure, the images are disquieting, and there has been a drumbeat of "give, give, give or you're a selfish dick" from millionaire actors in Hollywood and preening, smarmy politicians in Washington. And the images of suffering are largely of the Haitians' own making, by virtue of them persistently installing corrupt regimes who loot the treasury -- a treasury partly filled by US taxpayers -- instead of building the nation.

Unlike Hollywood and Washington types, I actually work for a living, and I suspect what readers I have do also. I refuse to be cowed into opening my wallet by the idle rich. The images of suffering in Haiti move me very little. I am FAR more moved by a dying squirrel who can't eat because of a lump on his jaw.


I gave a dollar to Haitian relief last week in church because it's what I had on me when my priest asked it of us. This week, I will spend $3.99 on peanuts for the squirrels, which will last a month or two. In some eyes, this may make me a bad Christian, or it may make some see me a bad person. (My misanthropy will be explored in the future.) I can live with what other people think.

And it will not detract from the attachment I feel for the squirrels.