Okay, this is a weird post. I'm basically throwing two bits together that shouldn't really go together, but they have been on my mind, so here it goes:
I am a late bloomer to the wonderfulness of High on Fire and man, I'm totally kicking myself for missing their stop in Toronto late fall with Mastodon, Dethlokk and Converge. What was I thinking? Oh yeah, I'd caught Mastodon in May, caught Dethlokk in '08 and didn't get it, and I hated the venue that they were playing in and didn't want to trek out there. And it was sold out and didn't want to get my, ahem, hustle on to get a ticket. There you go.
But I've been listening to "Frost Hammer" the new track off of High on Fire's new album Snakes of the Divine, which drops February 23rd, and I'm pretty psyched. I've been listening to a lot of Sleep, Matt Pike's old band ( with my latest crush, Al Cisneros), which will be doing at least one date at All Tomorrow's Parties in September, and I absolutely love it.
Next: Haiti.
Like everyone else, I have been following what has been going on and yes, it's horriffic. But what is more horiffic are the continous news reports about the and tonight, there was a report that there were gangs stealing shit and selling it, yada yada yada.
Now of course, looting and stealing is wrong. But my fear is that people will stop donating money if they think that their money is not being used wisely. They might be donating money that they thought was going to food and medical supplies but if they think that the money is not going where it should, they are not going to donate money. And people that really need it aren't going to get it.
So why is the media doing this?
If you haven't guessed already, I am an extremely cynical person. But fair, as in the reason why I question things is because I have had enough experience to see when people do bad things by accident and passive-agressive behaviour. This is passive-agressive behaviour - feeding into ethnic and classic stereotypes. There are hundreds of thousands of people dead, the country was shit poor to begin with, and yet they throw up these images to show the citizens of Haiti as vile, violent creatures who are greedy and because people are donating millions of cash, ungrateful. And there is nothing like ungreatfullness to piss of North Americans - it's the colonist that lies in all of us, I guess.
I haven't donated any money because being old cynical me, I am trying to figure out where my measly dollars would be best suited. Yes, I am one of those people that while not turned off because of the reports of looting, I want to make sure that if I am donating, it goes to help people and not line pockets. Should I do Red Cross? My work has set up a fantastic program where they will match any money we donate, so I'll probably donate money tomorrow. Hell, even Wyclef Jean is being raked over the coals, as his foundation is being investigated for appropriating some of the funds they have raised. Ahh, people. Sometimes I wish I was a rabbit.
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