Scott Anonymous

Did they wear helmets?

10 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Billusa99 Anonymous

Hey Chad... have you BEEN THERE?

First of all, please get the facts straight... "...Saturday the 13th marks its final day." is not correct and is easily verifiable (yo, Chad, investigative journalist?!) via their website. It ends at 5:30PM Sunday the 14th.

Secondly, if you want to mimic D, the Cosmetic Surgery Mag, in snark, then pick your poison a little better, please.

To caption a pic *"Of course, your average camp is not this lush"* when the purpose of the place is a serious attempt at letting you hoi poloi and everyone else here who has NEVER experienced the CHALLENGE OF NEED know what the needs of refugees and displaced people are all about is an ignorant, O'Reilly-type cheap shot... period, full stop.

I expect much better of Pegasus news staff and hope this is the last we see of this type of cheap shot at an outsanding humanitarian organization.

This camp should be seen by everyone who cares about society more than where they will get their next burger. It is escorted, in groups, by staff who have lived and breathed them in Somalia and Sudan and Sierra Leone and Haiti and Columbia and Iraq.

And Rick Yost... if you don't get it and have not been there, then we don't get it why you even care to comment. Go there, then come back here.

Some people's kids.......

10 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

interestedcitizen Anonymous

I didn't see the exhibit and don't plan to see it, but I do think it challenges us to think. Do we really need 100 gallons of water per day? Do we need 5 or 10 minute showers? Could we not use a quart of water in the lavatory and a wash cloth for the wash cycle and another quart for the rinse cycle? Could we not reuse the grey water for outdoor plants instead of sending it down the sewer? Do we need 5,000 square foot homes for four people? Whatever happened to bunk beds or trundle beds? Do kids need computers, televisions and video games in their bedrooms? Do we need a bathroom for every bedroom and another half bath for guests? Do kids need so much stuff? Why shouldn't they sit in the living room with laptops?

In a world where people are having their houses foreclosed because their salaries are not keeping pace with the lifestyle they demand, we need to seriously reconsider whether we need what we think we need. This exhibit challenges us to think.

I'm sure part of the exhibit's purpose is to stimulate us to empathize with refugees and open our hearts and our pocketbooks. That is a good motive and it will probably have that effect. However, it isn't the ultimate solution. We can't solve the ultimate problem. The ultimate problem is both spiritual and political. The root problem is always spiritual. The oppressor always has a spiritual problem. The oppressed class often lack courage because they have an inadequate view of God and thus are afraid to risk challenging an evil authority over them. There are things worse than death, and slavery is one of them. If I had land and cattle in the Sudan, I wouldn't flee. I'd die fighting before I'd submit to Islamic terrorists. As for my wife and children, I would teach them the virtue of defending land, liberty, and property. I would teach them to value death over domination by Islamic radicals. That doesn't mean suicide. It means active resistance, like the French and the Poles in WWII. If Christians would defend themselves, there would be no refugees. They would either be dead or they would be the victors.

10 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

interestedcitizen Anonymous

You're right. People in Zimbabwe are being killed because they aren't socialists. There is ethnic cleansing going on all around the world that sometimes pits Muslim against Muslim. The greatest purges in this century were by Communists against those who held to the idea of private property. It is ideological, but ideology is still, to a large extent, rooted in our concept of who God is. Communism, for example, is overtly atheist. It must be, because Communism asserts that the basic problem of man is the unequal distribution of wealth. It is materialist based.

10 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Billusa99 Anonymous

Rick Yost... yes, I am upset.

Fort example: "I don't think I need to see how they pitch their tents." "... how this will make anyone here in America understand the political, and economic causes for the refugee problem world-wide any better. Americans seeing clean, and sanitized tents won't do anything for the refugees in need."

These are not clean, white sanitized tents. These are the same tents used in tropical areas, they are just devoid of dust. These are the same tents that 12 people live in, for years and years. The cookware out front is the exact stuff they made. The toys out front, made from tin cans and insecticide barrels, came from various places. The mats too.

I would posit to you that you DO need to see them from the inside. And the cholera tent. And the latrines, that they have to be taught to use because they have never seen one before.

It's called empathy through direct observation. That's the fist thing they are trying to accomplish. The second is to get you to think about how the first can be resolved, and how it came about to begin with. That's why it's valuable seeing the tent or the shack or the toys or the sandals made from old tires -- because it's real, not words.

And Chad, I stand by my comments about the picture comment. The camp is not lush because it has grass or trees. Grass or trees make it LUSH? Quite a STRETCH! You are making a value judgment here -- do you think that all camps are dust and dirt and flatland? So this must be lush? It's uncalled for and takes away from the purpose of the exhibit. I am sure the refugees in Thailand, near the Laotian border, will be happy to know that they live in lush, jungle surroundings. Ditto for those in Columbia. Ditto for Sierra Leone. I live a block from Flagpole Hill -- I'd hardly call it lush.

(And, BTW, good pics. Too bad you missed the cholera quarantine tent and the child care clinic and the water treatment facility and the taps that hundreds per day line up at for hours simply to get their 5 liters.)

10 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

kirk Anonymous

Billusa: Wear a helmet.

10 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

DC Anonymous

There are few commitments one can make more serious than putting down for MSF - after doing your MD, PharmD or whatever, you do not less than 6 months time (with some exceptions for surgeons) and make a $1300 / month stipend with a significant risk of contracting any number of diseases or trauma to help.

If "God and country" were doing enough, we wouldn't need MSF.

10 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )