Here's a commentary worth reading, on the subject of the Haitian earthquake on the website http://www.commondreams.org/ . I reproduce it here in full, it's not very long and it makes cogent points. Already we have started to see pictures of big, butch, well equipped white people carrying dusty dark skinned people out of piles of rubble. This commentary provides a little balance to the pictures, I think.Published on Thursday, January 14, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
What You're Not Hearing about Haiti (But Should Be)
by Carl Lindskoog
In the hours following Haiti's devastating earthquake, CNN, the New York Times and other major news sources adopted a common interpretation for the severe destruction: the 7.0 earthquake was so devastating because it struck an urban area that was extremely over-populated and extremely poor. Houses "built on top of each other" and constructed by the poor people themselves made for a fragile city. And the country's many years of underdevelopment and political turmoil made the Haitian government ill-prepared to respond to such a disaster.
True enough. But that's not the whole story. What's missing is any explanation of why there are so many Haitians living in and around Port-au-Prince and why so many of them are forced to survive on so little. Indeed, even when an explanation is ventured, it is often outrageously false such as a former U.S. diplomat's testimony on CNN that Port-au-Prince's overpopulation was due to the fact that Haitians, like most Third World people, know nothing of birth control.
It may startle news-hungry Americans to learn that these conditions the American media correctly attributes to magnifying the impact of this tremendous disaster were largely the product of American policies and an American-led development model.
From 1957-1971 Haitians lived under the dark shadow of "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a brutal dictator who enjoyed U.S. backing because he was seen by Americans as a reliable anti-Communist. After his death, Duvalier's son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" became President-for-life at the age of 19 and he ruled Haiti until he was finally overthrown in 1986. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that Baby Doc and the United States government and business community worked together to put Haiti and Haiti's capitol city on track to become what it was on January 12, 2010.
After the coronation of Baby Doc, American planners inside and outside the U.S. government initiated their plan to transform Haiti into the "Taiwan of the Caribbean." This small, poor country situated conveniently close to the United States was instructed to abandon its agricultural past and develop a robust, export-oriented manufacturing sector. This, Duvalier and his allies were told, was the way toward modernization and economic development.
From the standpoint of the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Haiti was the perfect candidate for this neoliberal facelift. The entrenched poverty of the Haitian masses could be used to force them into low-paying jobs sewing baseballs and assembling other products.
But USAID had plans for the countryside too. Not only were Haiti's cities to become exporting bases but so was the countryside, with Haitian agriculture also reshaped along the lines of export-oriented, market-based production. To accomplish this USAID, along with urban industrialists and large landholders, worked to create agro-processing facilities, even while they increased their practice of dumping surplus agricultural products from the U.S. on the Haitian people.
This "aid" from the Americans, along with the structural changes in the countryside predictably forced Haitian peasants who could no longer survive to migrate to the cities, especially Port-au-Prince where the new manufacturing jobs were supposed to be. However, when they got there they found there weren't nearly enough manufacturing jobs go around. The city became more and more crowded. Slum areas expanded. And to meet the housing needs of the displaced peasants, quickly and cheaply constructed housing was put up, sometimes placing houses right "on top of each other."
Before too long, however, American planners and Haitian elites decided that perhaps their development model didn't work so well in Haiti and they abandoned it. The consequences of these American-led changes remain, however.
When on the afternoon and evening of January 12, 2010 Haiti experienced that horrible earthquake and round after round of aftershock the destruction was, no doubt, greatly worsened by the very real over-crowding and poverty of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas. But shocked Americans can do more than shake their heads and, with pity, make a donation. They can confront their own country's responsibility for the conditions in Port-au-Prince that magnified the earthquake's impact, and they can acknowledge America's role in keeping Haiti from achieving meaningful development. To accept the incomplete story of Haiti offered by CNN and the New York Times is to blame Haitians for being the victims of a scheme that was not of their own making. As John Milton wrote, "they who have put out the people's eyes, reproach them of their blindness."
Carl Lindskoog is a New York City-based activist and historian completing a doctoral degree at the City University of New York. You can contact him at cskoog79@yahoo.com
The 900 block of Southard Street has two well known book-ends, and because this is Key West, the book-ends have to be either a place to drink or a place to eat. In the picture above the white overhang marks Mangia Mangia, a sort of Italian restaurant, and in the picture below the white square behind the Bonneville (yes, it's my motorcycle, no comments from the peanut gallery please), is the Cuban Deli known as Five Brothers.
And in between there are the usual examples of fine Conch architecture:
In this picture below you can a clear example of how Conchs (native Key Westers) used to enlarge their modest homes as they were able. The individual sections were often added one at a time and frequently the roofing materials on each section look slightly different. This example looks modern and quite possibly added on with the use of a spirit level as all the sections match. 
This pink charmer is for sale at a breath takingly reduced price of $974,000 dollars (about 15 new Yuan) so if you feel the need to escape the snow you know where you can land:
I have long admired this next house, and not just because the garden is so perfectly maintained:
It is vaguely in the bungalow style of homes I lived among in Santa Cruz, California, andt there were a few examples of this faux adobe style surrounded by heavily manicured plant life.Perhaps the cool damp of a perfect winter day in Key West reminded me of the cool damp of a perfect summer day in coastal California. Pehrhaps had it been a hot dry day it might have reminded me of Santa Fe. 
I don't think it has off street parking and it is located on a busy street but I really like the look of that house. A busy street? Everything's relative but Southard (pronounced "suth-'ard") Street is the main artery to Duval from White Street where Fleming Street is the parallel one way street leading away from Duval. And there are hardly any stop signs on Southard so it can be more convenient than taking Truman or Eaton streets:
The Cuban Grocery is popular with locals but it is also on the tourist charts and it is one of the places indicated if you want an "authentic" (I hate that word!) Key West experience:
I like the food very much, as high as it is in calories. One takes one's meal and sits outside on the benches and watches tourists wobbling by on bicycles and roosters pecking desultorily in the gutters. I recommend the papas rellenas, Cuba's answer to a Scotch Egg or the bollos which are Cuba's answer to falafel. I feel the need to go and photograph some (and eat them) purely for research you understand:
The blessing of off street parking:
I delivered furniture to Southard Square once and discovered it is a collection of impossibly small and expensive designer condos grouped around a bunch of banana palms and a pool. It is exquisite:
You could choose to study marine biology in Washington state's frigid waters or you could knuckle under and read law at an ivy league school. Or you could hang with the big dogs on the waterfront in Key West. If you do, this would be your uniform:
An eyebrow home, mentioned previously, inevitably, in this blog. The overhang was designed to allow upstairs windows to stay open in inclement weather but all the overhang actually does is hold in the hot air rising...Pretty nonetheless and the disadvantages are overcome by air conditioning.
J Wills Burke tells us, on page 57 of his superb book The Streets of Key West that Samuel L Southard (1787-1842) was a governor and senator from the State of New Jersey and he also worked in the Federal Government as secretary of War and of the Treasury. Who knew? The question is, why did he get a Key West street, and a big one at that, named after him? He had a falling out with president Jackson over giving him credit for the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 but Wills Burke suggests that his connection to New Jersey, from whence hailed Whitehead, may be the reason he is remembered in Key West. Which makes no sense to me but there we are, I guess friendship can get you a street name if you are influential enough.
And this is where I get to stick my neck out. I am not a fan of Mangia Mangia, and I never have been. I am alone in this as everyone I have ever met loves the place so ignore me and continue to flock here. God knows it's cute enough: 
And packed (I took this shot when I walked past later at night) because like I said it is very very popular with locals and visitors:
I am a hearty eater, and after a decade spent in English boarding schools my taste buds have been mangled badly enough that I even like tapioca pudding- a lot. I have never been a great fan of Italian-American restaurants, as I find the practice of spending good money to pay eat pasta and drink wine is a waist; even I, the world's worst cook can pull off a meal of pasta and wine, at home, and considerably cheaper. Besides, Mangia Mangia has an odd menu that mixes flavors that just don't seem to appeal to me. But like I say everyone else loves the place. 
Having made an ass of myself perhaps I should move on. More innocuous architecture: 
And a last look at the Bonneville, upon which machine I enjoyed a fine commute to work:
Suffice it to say that Cheyenne didn't talk to me for ten minutes after I arrived home in the morning. She's going to have to get used to it as I enjoyed the motorcycle commute as much as ever, if not more.
There's this place a stone's throw from the Bat Tower and it's easy to pass it by but if you have a dog to walk, nothing much will pass you by that might possibly be of interest. 
There's a canal dug into the north shore of Sugarloaf Key, and it looks pretty much like any other proposed development that didn't quite become a subdivision. There are lots of these cuts that were created when dynamiting mangroves and lime stone was permitted.
I am not alone in my appreciation of undiscovered back waters, judging by this chair: 
There is a structure, slowly melting back into the vegetation:
And there is a sign in fading paint overlooking the canal:
Nowadays swimming with dolphin is advertised as therapy for wounded humans and a way to study wild animals, mammals said to have similar brain capacity to us. The Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary was designed with another purpose in mind. It achieved a certain measure of notoriety when the man who had trained the animal used for that most captive of mammalian circuses- television's Flipper -tried to prepare Navy trained dolphins for release from here in 1994. It seems the end of the Cold War was reason enough for the US Navy to end a rather expense program of training dolphins in the martial arts of submarine nuclear warfare and Ric O'Barry, the trainer turned activist prepared two Navy dolphins for a life back in the wild.
It seems it didn't go well, everyone got fined for the releases and the dolphins returned (or were returned, depending on whose version you believe) to captivity and the sanctuary has been working on dissolving itself back into it's own natural surroundings.
Human crap lies everywhere of course. The concept of packing your trash is not commonly understood around these parts. 
The fact that I had Cheyenne on the leash to test out her crowd skills didn't help. She was overcome by too many smells in too many directions, she attracted attention and I couldn't sneak pictures. The afternoon was not a success. I saw Robert representing the National Marine Sanctuary, busy educating the public:
The lobsters are plastic samples (I think. I can say they weren't moving):
Dinner plans agreed for next Monday (Japanese seafood perhaps) we moved on. For once I wished I were a kid:
Call me grumpy but there is something decidedly daft about standing in a humongous long line to eat fresh seafood. It's not like the stuff is a rarity in Key West:
I was attracted to the hot dog stand at Centennial Bank (the former Marine Bank who are always busy doing charitable events in Key West). We were in town to celebrate my wife's recent birthday so we were doing whatever she wanted and hot dogs are not one her favorite foods. Sigh. So I took a picture of this eager wiener eater instead: 
Mayor Cates was busy glad handing. His big public headache at the moment is trying to figure out what to about rebuilding city hall. He says $18 million is too much. That's the easy calculation; the hard one is how to do it for less. Happily I don't live in the city so it's one political tussle I can watch from the sidelines.
If you stood in line to get a plate of cracked conch or conch fritters (pronounced "konk" not "konsch" please) you had the rare delight of eating standing up in the middle of a swirling crowd with your food perched on an upended crate.
Or you could use the occasion to meet friends and watch people eat seafood they had stood in line to get. I caught Nan with her lovely blue eyes closed, I blame Cheyenne for that:
Beer on the grass is another longstanding Key West tradition. Beer in the park on any other non festival day is a no-no, so one takes advantage when one can.
No Bonnevilles in wood, though these Harleys are really quite divine. Irondad would like the tank:
An impromptu bicycle parking lot. Cycling in Key West is more than a hobby, it is sensible transportation. I wish when tourists go home they woul take the lessons of scooters and bikes with them. These aren't toys, they are a great way to get around:
Full of fish and shopping, these were the intended target of the festival planners:
And I stopped her ravaging these bags of recyclables, er trash. Oh what's the difference, we don't differentiate much in Key West. 
Now this is my idea of Key West seafood, and happily it was my wife's too. The sun was out, pale but visible, the Straits of Florida were only slightly agitated and my Anchor Steam beer tasted better than it ever did under the cloudy drizzly skies of San Francisco. And it tasted a lot better than Big Brand Name Light on the grass at Bayview Park.