Your life doesn't suck

[Soundmanred]

This story, along with watching Jerry Springer once a month, keep my outlook on life in the positive...

 

[Saint Nick]

mud cookies

 

[venkman]

Damn....my consumption of calories could feed like a quarter of Hati.

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
Am I supposed to feel sorry for the people there? They choose to make their country a corrupt, never ending warzone.

You're right, because you did establish classical liberalism, you did found this republic, you did lead us to our position as the global hegemon.. yes, you were a fundamental player on this winning team. Or, you were just a pawn, as those starving Haitians are, living the consequences of the actions of those who came before you.

 

[ManyBeers]

Life just isn't that precious to me where i would be willing to eat dirt to stay alive. Doesn't he have a breaking point? Where do you draw the line and say No.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Welcome to 3 months ago.

 

[Slew Foot]

Maybe they're all iron deficient?

"Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.

"I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," she said. "I know it's not good for me.""

If you didnt have seven kids, it wouldn't be so hard to feed yourself.

 

[Cattlegod]

Originally posted by: Zim Hosein

Yolen Jeunky, 45, collects dried mud cookies to sell in Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince on Nov. 29, 2007. Rising prices and food shortages threaten the nation's fragile stability, and the mud cookies are one of very few options the poorest people have to stave off hunger.

WTF doesn't the UN offer aid? :|

There are about 4 billion people this poor in the world IIRC.

 

[KillerCharlie]

So here we all are, feeling sorry for these people. It makes us feel better about our position - but what good is that? What are you going to DO to help these people? Feeling better about yourself doesn't do squat.

 

[Saint Michael]

Originally posted by: KillerCharlie
So here we all are, feeling sorry for these people. It makes us feel better about our position - but what good is that? What are you going to DO to help these people? Feeling better about yourself doesn't do squat.

Um, feeling better about yourself is its own accomplishment.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: KillerCharlie
So here we all are, feeling sorry for these people. It makes us feel better about our position - but what good is that? What are you going to DO to help these people? Feeling better about yourself doesn't do squat.

The problem is though, what can be done about it? Some of these places have corrupt dictators in power, so getting aid in is difficult or impossible. And what kind of aid? The best kind of aid would be providing the means to let them become self-sufficient, but accomplishing that would take considerable time, money, and government cooperation, not to mention a willingness of the populace to accept possibly significant changes to their lifestyle. How do you help people who are already really deep in the hole, and their only way of getting themselves out seems to be to dig deeper?

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
Am I supposed to feel sorry for the people there? They choose to make their country a corrupt, never ending warzone.

That's a pretty big generalization...I think that most people are good people, but there are a lot of people in power who are corrupt and are making life hard on the rest of the people. Do you seriously think that the guy making, selling, and eating mud cookies is sitting there thinking "gosh, I feel like being corrupt today and making my country a warzone!" ?

Finally some real sense in this thread. The big problem is the people in power. They control everything basically. Though the people have the ultimate power but few see that.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: Saint Michael

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: S Freud
Wow. That is truly sad.

Kinda erases the complaints you have about your own life, huh?

Not really. Their problems are their problems, my problems are my problems.

This

I would help them if I could, but you cant compare it

Just the same way I can look at a rich guy living in a private island and see how much my life sucks, works both ways

Point is, no matter how your life is, its always "normal" for you, thats why you go in ups and downs all the time, you get happy, it becomes normal, you get sad, it becomes normal, and on and on... To us it seems like eating mud cookies is just "wow", but to him its probably normal already

Though at some point, if you try to look down and you cant imagine being even worse, then I guess you really hit bottom

 

[NikolaeVarius]

The fact that we are sitting here lamenting the poorness of these people leads to compassion fatigue. We just keep hearing about these people, are sad, but ultimately, doesn't affect us.

Hell, technically, we're being sort of elitist because we classify them as a suffering people.

its impossible to give effective foreign aid, which is why I think that the Govt should stop sending billions to corrupt leaders.

The UN can't do anything either, weak as all hell.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Originally posted by: Ktulu
I'd probably resort to eating bugs and other animals like in Man vs. Wild before I started eating mud cookies.

Not an option. When I was in the Dominican, there were no birds because the locals had killed them all for food. I bet it's the same way in Haiti. The only animals I saw were domesticated. There weren't even that many bugs, for whatever reason - did see a tarantula though.

 

[Chiropteran]

This article doesn't make me sad. I'm sorry if that make me callous or mean or evil, but I just find it hard to feel sorry for people who are in bad situations when I really don't know why they are in such a bad situation. For example, I don't understand why people would live in a place where they can't even grow basic foods.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Originally posted by: Chiropteran
This article doesn't make me sad. I'm sorry if that make me callous or mean or evil, but I just find it hard to feel sorry for people who are in bad situations when I really don't know why they are in such a bad situation. For example, I don't understand why people would live in a place where they can't even grow basic foods.

Because they don't have a choice? It's hard to emigrate to another country when you can't even afford rice.

 

[conehead433]

Sucks for them. We're so well off we turn food into ethanol so we can ride around in our cars and live the high life.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: conehead433
Sucks for them. We're so well off we turn food into ethanol so we can ride around in our cars and live the high life.

"We" do have so much food and I think the fact that bothers me the most if the amount of food we waste/discard on a daily basis. I wonder if a study has ever been done on that?

 

[conehead433]

Originally posted by: Zim Hosein

Originally posted by: conehead433
Sucks for them. We're so well off we turn food into ethanol so we can ride around in our cars and live the high life.

"We" do have so much food and I think the fact that bothers me the most if the amount of food we waste/discard on a daily basis. I wonder if a study has ever been done on that?

What really bothers me is that we convert food into ethanol while part of the world starves.

 

[raildogg]

Originally posted by: conehead433

Originally posted by: Zim Hosein

Originally posted by: conehead433
Sucks for them. We're so well off we turn food into ethanol so we can ride around in our cars and live the high life.

"We" do have so much food and I think the fact that bothers me the most if the amount of food we waste/discard on a daily basis. I wonder if a study has ever been done on that?

What really bothers me is that we convert food into ethanol while part of the world starves.

Something has to pay for our thousands of planes and millions of SUVs. I am now starting to believe that more money is making people greedier. One materialistic thing isn't enough, you need more and more.

 

[raildogg]

Our priorities are probably not in the best places. Mankind has spent trillions on weapons to kill each other but in the year 2008, we are still having problems feeding people. If we start to follow people like Ghandi, Buddha and Christ maybe we will see that treating others well should be one of our top priorities.

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante

Because they don't have a choice? It's hard to emigrate to another country when you can't even afford rice.

They can have seven kids, but they can't travel to another country?

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: raildogg
Our priorities are probably not in the best places. Mankind has spent trillions on weapons to kill each other but in the year 2008, we are still having problems feeding people. If we start to follow people like Ghandi, Buddha and Christ maybe we will see that treating others well should be one of our top priorities.

Obviously we aren't getting enough use out of our weapons. If we got our money's worth, we would have killed enough people that the remainder could be fed cheaply.