Fox:
Troops were deployed to help people get out and to throw up a security cordon around the stricken area, and residents throughout the city were urged to stay home or with neighbors and conserve water and food.
(…)
During hours of chaos in the city, people dug through rubble with their hands to free people trapped. Firefighters climbed extension ladders to pluck people stranded on roofs to safety. A crane lifted a team of rescuers on a platform to one group of survivors in a high-rise.
(…)
Officials had established relief centers in schools and community halls, where food was being served to thousands of sheltering people and donated blankets were being handed out. In at least one park in the city, people — many of them tourists who had abandoned their hotels — huddled in hastily pitched tents and under plastic sheeting. The Red Cross was working to secure accommodation for them.
Culture matters.
My God. People helping other people. Makes you think that there won’t be corpses lying around in the streets for months after.
Thanks for posting this, Lance. The first thing I did when I heard the news was contact a female friend of mine who is married to a Kiwi. He doesn’t believe anyone in his immediate family is hurt but he’s rushing back there next week to help out.
I posted video & photo links in Reader Tips in case Lance wants to repost them again.
Awaiting for Sean Penn to scream the the US is not doing enough and that it’s all the Republicans fault because they are cutting up the social credit cards…
Lefty test grade for math: F-
That’s why I am such a big fan of white people.
Re: Sean Penn and the myriad of actors/actresses who air their opinions on foreign and domestic policy.
I remember in high school, the students who were involved with the “Dramatic Arts” tended to be academic light-weights. You rarely saw them in a science course (except the one required to graduate) and one would never see them in a calculus, physics or an organic chemistry class (these were all electives in my high-school). So why do we let these intellectual light-weights sway policy and policy makers? They have proven themselves to be really good at one thing…playing “pretend”, which most of us outgrew by the time we were in grade five.
favill
Excellant analysis….from somebody who obviously is grounded in the hard sciences.
re: waiting for sean penn, I for one am waiting for pat robertson, great carissssstian leader he is, to blame it all on the kiwis due to some ‘deal wit’ da debil’.
google it. or better yet, take a gander at this:
3w dot youtube dot com slash watch?v=59NCduEhkBM
See Abe, you mistake colour for culture. That’s a newbie mistake, no?
Re: “Culture matters”
The same could be said about the much more severe Chilean earthquake last year.
No beagle, it was some deal with the Maori deity, goddess of the underworld, “Hine-nui-te-pō” that caused the downfall of various cathedrals…!!
You really need to keep up with the mythology in various places!!
Evil and stupidity have the some common characteristics, such as banality.
You can send your cheque to a reputable relief agency at your leisure…
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Sorry Kate, completely OT but sweet geeeezes you wonder why people are cynical and borderline paranoid about the authorities. Just read this on another site, written by Brian Lilley:
“Reform members in the early 90s, around the time Stephen Harper was running to become MP for Calgary West, claim that CSIS tried to use white supremacists to discredit their party. Those claims were never proven but Reform did expel five party members for being overt racists.
Years later it was discovered that key figure in the white supremacist movement at the time, Grant Bristow, was a CSIS informant paid to infiltrate groups like the Heritage Front and stir up trouble. It turns out that Bristow, the CSIS informant, was a common thread among all five people expelled from Reform.”
Did. Not. Know. This.
I wonder when the relief ships from Iran are going to arrive in Christchurch?
Right on KevinB. Or the ones from Indonesia, China, India, Japan, Russia…
If I remember correctly, the last major earthquake in China was pretty much ignored by the media and the world in general. They were too interested in what was going on in Myanmar at that time.
Re: Sean Penn and the myriad of actors/actresses who air their opinions on foreign and domestic policy.Same goes for musicians (Ireland comes to mind).
They all tell STORIES for a living, for crying out loud. Not deep stuff, and it shows.
They’ve forgotten what its like to scrape out a living.The lucky break they’ve experienced, in their minds, obviously is the model for the rest of mankind.
History, shows the fallicy of this attitude, which of course, they ignore. Great entertainment though, just show ’em a microphone….
When will the red cross and other relief agencies start collecting for the poor Kiwi’s?
“History of the English Speaking Peoples” by Winston Churchill.
Yes, culture matters.
I’d wager there won’t be streets filled with rubble a year from now.
Of course, if they put the UN and Bill Clinton in charge…
Something I’ve said before – that a free, democratic, and prosperous society is not just built on laws and institutions, but the moral fibre of its citizens.
Here is an unbelievable comment from the CBC website on this story.
SecondOpinionstandard2011/02/22
at 3:08 AM ET Harpo’s fault, due to his climate change policies. Vote Liberal.
lance and Larry, exactly, it is the defining feature of our Judeo/Christian culture and rabbit puts the icing on it.
The Kiwis don’t seem to need external assistance.
It’s a good thing to avoid – after all, the UN brought cholera to Haiti;
it being one misery that hitherto had not afflicted them.
Lance,
I suppose you are doing a racist check here?
I am talking about the sort of values we see in Christchurch as being the value of the white western society. Many ‘colored’ folks who live in the ‘culture’ have adopted those values, but many have not (Detroit/New Orleans for EG) and nowadays many white folks are not as caring and helpful and magnanimous as they used to be … (why is that?) such as the unionistas in Madison and the selfish metro types in the urban areas who stand idly by and watch a woman being assaulted … or who are supportive of the encroaching Sharia law type muslim culture into ours … why?
In short I value the idea of people helping out others in a disaster and not indulge in looting and rape and all the things we read about when disaster happens in say …. New Orleans or Haiti.
Who are the first to arrive anywhere on the planet with aid to help those in peril or in disaster? People from the white western society.
And that is why I am a fan of white people … you can usually count on them. You know that!
rroe: “When will the red cross and other relief agencies start collecting for the poor Kiwi’s?”
Right away: redcross.ca/article.asp?id=38056&tid=001
lance: “Culture matters.”
bob c: “My God. People helping other people. Makes you think that there won’t be corpses lying around in the streets for months after.”
John B: “The same could be said about the much more severe Chilean earthquake last year.”
rabbit: “Something I’ve said before – that a free, democratic, and prosperous society is not just built on laws and institutions, but the moral fibre of its citizens.”
Ken (Kulak): “lance and Larry, exactly, it is the defining feature of our Judeo/Christian culture.”
Abe Froman: “In short I value the idea of people helping out others in a disaster and not indulge in looting and rape and all the things we read about when disaster happens in say…New Orleans or Haiti…And that is why I am a fan of white people … you can usually count on them.”
There are of course many, many things different about NZ and, say, Haiti — infrastructure, socioeconomic resources, political stability, corruption, social/political/cultural histories, etc. — but it would be utterly distasteful for one to imply — as many here appear to be doing — that the general humanitarian impulse towards “people helping other people” in times of common crisis is somehow stronger or in greater supply among the people of some countries/”cultures” than those of others.
There are plenty of similar stories of, say, Haitians digging “through rubble with their hands to free people trapped,” just as there were stories of looting and violence in Christchurch back in September 2010. Whether your biases and prejudices allow you to see them, on the other hand, is a different matter.
– dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1242885/Haiti-earthquake-Victims-forced-dig-rubble-bare-hands-free-surivors.html
– tonic.com/article/humanity-rises-up-stories-of-hope-from-haiti
– etc.
“Culture matters.”
Building codes, too. In a non-Western country this could have been even more cataclysmic. Like in Turkey, when earthquake-hit buildings practically “dissolved” — turned out the Turkish builders had been mixing sand into the cement…
I feel for family and friends of the injured and killed.
Kiwi’s have a ‘get-er-done’ attitude. They will be OK.
The difference, Davenport, is not people of like kind helping people of like kind: That usually happens and, if it doesn’t, that culture/society is really screwed.
The difference is when people of another culture or society make sacrifices to be generous to those they don’t know and who don’t share a common culture or faith.
The first-responders to every natural tragedy, e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, famine, are Christian groups and countries whose governments, laws, etc., are based on Judeo-Christian values.
This is not a value judgment but a factual statement based on what actually happens after a natural disaster.
I know what I’m talking about. After a major earthquake I experienced in a Caribbean country, the first responders — and the most generous — were the U.S. army and the local Christian churches, aided and abetted by their partner churches in the U.S. and Canada. FACT.
You can send your cheque to a reputable relief agency at your leisure…
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief”
hi hans.
how much did you give to chuches and charities in 2010? how much is that deduction going to be?
you tell us, I will then do likewise.
Davenport said: “…that the general humanitarian impulse towards “people helping other people” in times of common crisis is somehow stronger or in greater supply among the people of some countries/”cultures” than those of others.”
Just let me know when the relief convoy makes landfall from Iran. Or Indonesia, China, India, Japan, Russia… Java, Burma, Korea… Saudi Arabia…
… what were you saying again?
Say beagle, would ya like my bank account number too? I’m just aching to share my financial details with random malicious trolls!
The beagle barks, so I will take the bite Phantom…
Total Charitable Donations per tax info came in at $5679.02 for the previous year.
PS: I don’t qualify as uber wealthy by any stretch of the imagination.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
You’re a good man Hans. I didn’t donate nuttin’ except to the Canadian Warplane Heritage, I buy their merchandise all the time. Maybe the odd handful of pennies to Timmies Tim Horton fund.
However my tax dollars are flowing to New Zealand even as we speak.
Cue the Saudi aid flotilla to NZ in three, two, one…
Well Beagle ole dog I would tell you how much I have given to charity except for the fact that I have never kept track. I try to practice what Jesus said, “When you give alms don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing”. In taking that to its logical conclusion I can honestly say that I have never asked for a tax deduction for charitable giving or church support. I suppose it could be said that I try to practice a “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar and unto God the things that are God’s.” approach to life.
Many Maoris are Christian and people of good sense.
One can rest assured that the likelihood of there being mass riots, bloodbaths, assaults and accusations of racism will be nil.
I do remember years ago that there was an earthquake in Armenia. A priest wished everyone a happy Christmas despite the enormous carnage and destruction.
Culture DOES matter.
Compare what happened/is happening in Haiti and New Zealand, Jess.
People like this is why the World has hope. Chili did much the same during there moment of testing.
Its strange how the worst has to happen before we see the best in humanity.
JMO
jess The first people into New Orleans were Texan Christian groups. They showed up un-asked with blankets, food and water.
The Governor did not ask for Federal help right away although it was getting ready to move in. The Mayor was screaming for help and I remember how grateful the Mayor was when GW sent a General to get people’s arses in gear. His first remark was ‘Why is everyone standing around?’
The Phantom,
“Just let me know when the relief convoy makes landfall from Iran. Or Indonesia, China, India, Japan, Russia… Java, Burma, Korea… Saudi Arabia…”
You’re really full of it, aren’t you? Java isn’t even a country. Its a part of Indonesia.
You’d be well advised to use the interweb to do some research before firing off inane and unsubstantiated comments. Virtually every country you have named above has offered assistance in one crisis or the other.
For instance – and you won’t like this – the Russians have, IN FACT, offered to send a relief crew and supplies to New Zealand. That New Zealand has neither requested nor accepted it is a whole different issue.
It would be entirely st pid of countries to offer money as aid when New Zealand hasn’t requested any. And they can’t send relief workers in till NZ says it can accomodate them.
But just to put your questionable assertions in perspective, the Haiti earthquake occurred on Tuesday. The Dominican Republic was one of the first countries to respond in that case and it provided assistance on par with Canada. A 50-member Chinese relief team got there early on Thursday. Tiny Qatar (not quite Saudi Arabia) sent a C-17loaded with supplies around the same time. And the Koreans weighed in with relief team that consisted of medical supplies and doctors. All of these were early responders.
Haiti was in our backyard, not China or Koreas. Most nations are typically most active in their own neighborhoods. Sometimes they do go well beyond their neighborhood, depending on requirements and resources available. Russian medics were flown to Chile in the aftermath of the earthquake there. They were also present in Haiti.
Similar examples can be found for all the other countries you have named. Singapore has been active in Indian and Pakistani disasters. India has been active in Indonesian earthquakes. And so on, and so forth. Please don’t make statements when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
“jess The first people into New Orleans were Texan Christian groups.”
They’re in fine company. A quick scan of major disasters shows that the first groups in Pakistan to respond to the Earthquake were extremist groups. In India, the Hindu nationalist groups were the first to mobilize in the aftermath of the the 2001 earthquake. I bet similar examples are available for other countries that have suffered natural disasters.
These groups aren’t particularly Christian – as religious aid organizations, they just tend to have more people available on the ground than most nation’s militaries. They can mobilize their membership long before the military sorts itself out and gets deployed. After all, moving a bunch of religious folks can just board a bus and drive. Militaries, keeping an eye on taxpayer money, have to find the best and most effective way to do things before they can even get onto the bus. As a result, its easier for them to mobilize. Incidentally, some of those groups specialise in killing Christians/other minorities.
Its strange to say that New Zealand’s ability to deploy its military is a cultural thing. New Zealand has no real security threats – its only neighbor is one of its best friends. The situation is radically different for countries like India and Pakistan, and even the US, where the militaries are used for their real purposes.
@jess peters: Indeed. “‘Culture’ matters” — it’s a cute little rhetorical device, isn’t it?
What I particularly like are comments like the 2:01pm one from veteran SDAers like Abe Froman. Not the content per se, which is of course reprehensible (but, revealingly, studiously ignored by most everyone else on this blog). No, I like the effect that I imagine they have, insofar as it reveals for at least some SDA visitors — perhaps not the diehard fanboys and cheerleaders, but the quieter casual readers in the background — the extent to which SDA attracts and provides a safe online harbour for people who espouse, say, white (culture, ahem) supremacist viewpoints. Perhaps they even start to view the SDA Nation in a different light. One can only hope.
@Phantom hunter — Nicely done.
So phantom hunter. Any of them made landfall yet? No? Why are you waking me then?
So what’s your point again? Oh right, I’m a dumb racist that can’t use the interwebs. Wow, I’m so busted…
Say, are there any, like, y’know, Christians in Russia? Maybe you could look that up for me, I cain’t do it myself ‘cuz I cain’t spell “gogle” rite, y’know.
And isn’t the Dominican Republic, like, on the same island as Haiti? Because if it was, they could like just drive over there, eh?
But yore rite, it shore were neighborly fore them nice Chinese fellers to find 50 guys out of their 1.5 billion to send over, what with them bein’ so out of work and all and only having a trade balance of 27 to 1 with us rich racist types over here.
Still ain’t seen nuthin’ from them Ay-rabian fellers though. Too busy strafing their own cities with French-made airplains I guess… maybe they all out pickin’ up daid bodies today…
By the way Davenport, I see you didn’t come back to that other conversation about public sector unions. Too good to talk to the mean racists, or just at a loss for something good to say about public sector unions?
And while we’re talking Haiti vs. New Zealand here, have you heard of any Christchurch natives piling up corpses in the streets to block the aid convoys so they can steal all the food? Because I haven’t head that. How about knocking over field hospitals looking for drugs?
Even in Bahrain they aren’t doing that, just firing on crowds with crew-served machine guns and shooting into occupied buildings with the main gun on their T-72s. Qadaffi’s goblins are the ones strafing and bombing Tripoli.
Culture matters. Water is wet. The sky is blue.
@beagle 11:53 AM
Google “tower of siloam”
Oh, and your snide request to Hans? +4800$, and that is only with the right hand. Anyone else here a “circle of humanity” monthly donor to red cross?
Jess, sorry to say, but you’re being foolish. Oh, sorry, I meant stupid. (And you can quote that).
First, I am Lance. Secondly, Kate isn’t my pal, she’s my wife. Third you have a quotation mark addiction that is demonstrative of your inability to find the correct word. Try reading real books more; the books with the pictures just don’t do justice to the stories.
I’m not going to bother defending my point against the likes of you, you wouldn’t understand it _again_.
I just really wanted to make sure you understood that I am better than you.
Cheers,
lance
impressive hans.
I gave squat to charities last year. oh, except every year I pay the war amps people to keep track of my keys and so far it’s been like an insurance policy. never needed it but nice to have. what they do mail to me is a receipt for about 20 bucks.
otoh in the 2004 tax year which was extended a tad to bring in more donors to the tsunami relief, I gave over 4 grand. the vast majority to that cause.
the reason for the great contrast is because a deacon at the local baptist chuch told me in may of 2006 (quoting now) “you can’t sit there, those seats are saved”. to which I replied to the minister (4th one they had in 5 years) that they could stuff it, and jeepers, I guess I should have read the part about Christ admonishing the crowd not to jump the gun at the wedding but instead wait to be invited to the table for all the big shots and thus avoid the embarrassment of being asked to leave.
only thing was, the meal was winding down at the time I *attempted* to park my arse amongst the baptist elites. didn’t matter, ol’ beagle needed to be shown he was not worthy.
since then numerous times I got a laugh from the crowd about how much money I saved and how much I got done at my place when I didn’t waste all that time attending chuch services.
p.s., the minister actually sympathized with me and lo, in about 2 years, HE TOO was GONE from that congregation. never could find out why.
it was however a win-win situation; they got all the copies of bibles I had sitting around plus a couple carisssssstian CDs.
and joe, I thought left hand’s unawares of right hand’s doings was a bad thing. just in business I guess. Christ sure talked in riddles a lot eh? gotta read between the lines I find.
The Phantom,
I disturb all comatose phantoms. It’s a habit.
It’s clear you don’t know anything about disaster relief. The trick has always been in quality, not quantity. Based on the scale in Christchurch, deploying thousands of aid workers would be overkill. Relief teams also need shelter and food and most (sensible) nations know that in the first days, supplies need to be directed to victims.
As for countries making landfall, unless NZ has requested or accepted their assistance, it amounts to an act of war for foreign personnel to be deployed without permission. So get of your high horse and recognize the realities. Religion and culture have nothing to do with it. Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India routinely provide assistance to each other in these situations – even though they’re at each others throats most of the time.
I ll leave you to sort out the massive hole that revelation has made in your theory. I know knowing about the world is a liability in some parts of North America, but as pointless and unsubstantiated claims go, this one takes the cake. BTW, japan and singapore operate some of the worlds.best equipped disaster relief teams in the world. And the Turkish earthquake response teams that are deployed internationally are some of the best out there.
I m not going to bother responding to any more inanity. When you learn more about this subject, we’ll continue this discussion. I m not holding my breath.
The Phantom: “Still ain’t seen nuthin’ from them Ay-rabian fellers though.”
Not our problem if you insist on remaining blinded by your own prejudices: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_by_national_governments_to_the_2010_Haiti_earthquake#Asia
“And while we’re talking Haiti vs. New Zealand here, have you heard of any Christchurch natives piling up corpses in the streets to block the aid convoys so they can steal all the food?…Culture matters.”
It says a fair bit about you that you consider that isolated incident to be somehow born and indicative of “Haitian culture” writ large rather than one of the more macabre examples of the otherwise and by all accounts (from those who actually worked on the ground) sporadic violence that occurred in the aftermath of the quake.
But please, keep talking. The more that goes on the public record, the better.
Davenport said: “But please, keep talking. The more that goes on the public record, the better.”
Well thanks for the permission to keep expressing my opinion ma’am. You planning on a purge you’ll need evidence for or something? Jail time for racists, or just a quick execution? Should I get a lawyer or is it already too late?
Add this one to the “culture matters” pile: The kiwis will have most of this mess cleared up by next Friday, barring further misadventure. They probably have a lot of the water and power back on now.
Haiti, despite -massive- and continuing inputs of money, stuff and devoted helpers (the vast majority of which, as in more than half, comes from the USA I’m sure you’ll agree), not so much.
Or do you think the comparison unfair because the poor Haitians are only brown people and can’t help being that way? Low expectations much?
Humans don’t differ all that much Davenport. Cultures do. Some cultures are adaptive and respond well to crisis. Some aren’t, and don’t. In other startling and controversial news, two plus two equals four. Every time.
Boy howdy, racism shore is different nowadays from when I were a kid!
The Phantom,
No, they don’t have water or electricity back up yet. I know you don’t like newspapers (evil MSM), but they’re typically quite honest about these situations.
Japan has dispatched a search and rescue team complete with specialists. Pretty large one, I might add.
Not that any of these facts matter. I trust you will continue to enjoy life in your Plato-esque cave. Good to know that two plus two still equals four in there. Hopefully you’ll start applying the same logic elsewhere.
PS- I don’t see Christian countries lining up to provide aid. Where’s Liberia? Or Canada for that matter? Call me when they make landfall.
Well beagle ole dog as a Baptist minister I would like to tell you that we indeed do set aside seats of honour. We use them to seat the handicapped or the homeless or the down and out that need a little love and attention. I suppose you just didn’t qualify to be so honoured.
BTW Jesus wasn’t speaking in riddles and if you put it in context He was telling us to give openly, freely and without seeking reward or recognition. His words are quite straight forward. The first 4 verses of Matthew 6 are quite easy to understand even for people of a limited intellect. I’ll post them for you to save you looking them up.
“Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.