MY MISSION TO HAITI

I head for Haiti tomorrow morning. I have a 9 AM flight out of JFK. It lands in Port-au-Prince at 12:30. I can write it and I can say it easily, without any gut-feeling telling me I am doing anything other than exactly what I’m supposed to do. Hours after the earthquake I felt compelled to go. But every time I attempted to make plans, I got anxious or The Universe would put a big road block in front of me. Over the past few days, my nervousness has disappeared and the road blocks have been replaced by confidence in knowing it is where I'm suppose to be. That’s all I needed to get my ticket and pack my backpack (a backpack…I know..ca-ra-zy!). THAT and this email:

Things have been very sad here. The rain storm this week washed away our school tent, medical tent and supplies. We were up to 350 kid enrollment, and planning to expand...the school tent is at the Petionville club, where there is an IDP camp of over 45,000 refugees :(

Good news is that yesterday I was able to replace the school (and medical clinic) tents and even scrounge $4,500 worth of flooring wood! I was told flat out that it was impossible to get these things, but I prayed and went back an hour later to the same people and we ended up with twice what we asked for. We salvaged the desks and chairs and some supplies...but basically everything else was destroyed or looted. The rain here caused an absolute desperate chaos, and the desperation has shifted to a pure empty feeling...nowhere to turn, nowhere to hide, no one coming to help...the people are finally accepting the reality that they will be in these tarp and stick shacks (if they are lucky to have a tarp) for the rest of the rainy season and hurricane season....possibly next year and beyond as well. All of our fighting and endless days and sleepless nights trying to help these people has been reduced to us just standing under leaky tarps and sheets all night long just to help hold up babies and sick people over the mud. Arms shaking and weak we stand and sing while we pass babies around so that they don't touch the ground. That's it, that's all we can do now.

This is a dangerous time, the people seem to go a bit mad when the rain drags on for hours...one woman tried to poison her baby (who was delivered at our clinic) with soap and bleach to save her the agony of this life, luckily we got to her in time and the baby is stable...it is only a matter of time before some turn on us. I will be here and fight alongside them even then.

We need school supplies, everything from A to Z. I don’t even know now how to get it here; I guess you'd have to raise money to ship. I can't, not from here. We have nothing left, and I just spent my last $4 on gas for my motorcycle. We need medicines too. I can get you a list.

This needs to be seen as a war now. Maybe the enemy is not human and maybe we are going into battle.., but the weather and earth has strategically attacked P-au-P exactly how the military would if they were trying to take down a country. Destroy the infrastructure/economy, disarm the police and military, freeze finances of the government, turn the people against the leader, cut off food water and medicine, destroy the ports, and displace the people....test faith. We are at war, and we will lose. The worst has yet to come. The last food drop has been made, no more distribution, no more tarps, nothing really coming in anymore. Within 2 weeks the people will be back to square one like after the quake, starving and rioting in the streets, but this time no airport filled with rescue team’s food water and hope....Haiti has been abandoned.

It is becoming longer and longer between electricity and internet availability. Please let me know soon if you are still able to help round up school supplies and medicines, and the means to ship.
Thank You
SB

I was trying to figure out how to edit the letter - to make it shorter and less graphic - but why? It is what it is. I’ve sent tons of medications and medical supplies. Miraculously (and with lots of Holy intervention), everything I sent got into the right hands. 'Thank You' to everybody who made that possible . Now, I am going there to help out. I’m not sure what that means, but you will be the first to know. I’ll keep you all posted. If you want to know why I am going, it’s simple: because I can. Haiti is hurting and it needs all the help it can get. Pray for everybody and pray for the rain to hold off!
I love you all very much.

Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon

We all have dragons to train. Isn’t that the truth? It doesn’t matter if you are born into a mainstream family or a family of Vikings, we all want to control our dragons. Well, I do anyway. Dreamworks banked on that idea clicking with moviegoers, and believe me, it does. How To Train Your Dragon (HTTYD) is directed by Dean DeBois and Chris Sanders, the same team that brought us the very underrated and undervalued, Lilo and Stitch. The source material is an eight book series by Cressida Cowell and she, along with DeBois, are responsible for the very clever and original screenplay. The film is set on the Viking Island of Berk where all is well except for one small problem: every once in a while they are attacked by fire breathing dragons. The Vikings are big and strong and very aggressive by nature so attacks are met with hard-fought battles leading to plenty of serious injuries. But not for young Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel in his best performance since he played Danger in Million Dollar Baby); he is not a natural born dragon slayer like the rest of his family and friends. He is cerebral and scrawny but by facing his fears he learns the secret of conquering and ultimately finding the solution to the local dragon problem. Hiccup’s father Stoick (the pitch perfect Gerard Butler with his roaring 300 voice accompanied by a big Scottish brogue) is very over-the-top but never reduced to the simplicity of a cartoon character. Although initially disappointed in his son, his love for him is always apparent. HTTYD is a visually spectacular piece of animation making incredible use of 3-D technology to give the audience the feeling of flight. It is heartwarming and poignant. It teaches us one of life's greatest lessons: If we meet the enemy head on, we will be very surprised at what we can accomplish, and at the same time discover who we really are. Do not miss it!

Movie Review: Repo Men

I went to see Repo Men on opening day with my 20 year old son. We both had the exact same reaction when we walked out of the theater; “such a great concept, what a bummer it didn’t work”. It has all the trappings of a good sci-fi movie: dystopian setting, a comedic tone, the big bad corporation terrorizing the public. But this adaptation of Eric Garcia’s novel, “Repossession Mambo”, is messy and disjointed. It never develops this very nifty idea into anything more than a sci-fi equivalent of a dirty movie. In-other-words, you’ve seen it all before. Remy (played by the forever gorgeous - Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) are “repo men” for “The Union"; a company that supplies the sick and dying with artificial organs, "artiforgs,", only to come and surgically reclaim them if you can’t make your payments (a new liver will run you about $750,000.00). Their version of Miranda Rights: “You have the right to an ambulance”. Funny. And I think there is a political message here: There must be a public option! Liev Schreiber does a great job as Frank, the ruthless head of the company. It is directed by Miguel Sapochnik (he’s British by the way). It is his first full length feature film and it shows. It is big and bold but it’s sloppy and lacks heart. Surprising because Sapochnik is responsible for the very clever and engrossing, The Dreamer; a fifteen minute short/thriller about a military clone who is heading for execution and escapes. It’s an inspiring and intelligent look at human emotion. It works because we care deeply about this clone. It’s amazing what can be accomplished in fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the 111 minute, Repo Men. Carice van Houten is interesting as Remy’s wife Carol, who is fed up with her husband’s barbaric line of work. Alice Braga (I Am Legend) steps in to take her place. Loaded with mechanical transplants, freeing her from the “reclaim system” provides one of the more noteworthy scenes in the movie. If you're a big Jude Law fan, see it when it comes out On Demand. If you’re not, skip it. You won’t be missing much.

Movie Review: Green Zone

Matt Damon is Roy Miller, a U. S. Army warrant officer in charge of finding weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) in Iraq. We all know the United States declared war based on some very questionable “intelligence”. Miller, frantic and frustrated by his failed searches, is one of the few people in the movie who actually cares whether this so called intelligence is true or not. Green Zone is based on the bestselling nonfiction book by Rajiv Chandrasekara, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone". The book is a tension filled page turner that I assume accurately depicts the horrifying confusion that characterized the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The movie is directed by Paul Greengrass who also directed (and wrote) the riveting, United 93. This is an excellent example of how two movies with known storylines and outcomes can succeed or fail at generating tension. United 93 was almost unwatchable because of its realism and the palpable anxiety created by Greengrass and the small group of relatively unknown actors (Khalid Abdalla is in both – he is Freddy, the one legged man in GZ and a terrorist in United). I never felt tension in the Green Zone even though a tremendous amount of effort went into attempting to create it. Maybe I’m just a little tired of the shaky-camera technique used instead of a good screenplay and good acting to create intensity. As an educational piece, Green Zone succeeds. We learn about the possible and probable, ins and outs of this charade carried out by the Bush administration to fool the world into believing Iraq was hiding WMD’s. What else is new? The movie looks real. Production started in Spain, was moved to Morocco and the filming was finished up in the UK. Kudos to the set designers and cinematographers for making this film look authentic. Damon is not at his best and the character is too close to Jason Bourne to let us forget it. Greg Kinnear is good as the sleazy Pentagon Intelligence Officer and orchestrator of this scam. If you want a visual for how this country got into the Iraq war, then the Green Zone will work for you. If you have read and heard enough, skip it.

p.s. The real Green Zone is the heavily guarded diplomatic/government area of closed-off streets in central Baghdad where U.S. occupation authorities live and work. It includes the main palaces of former President Saddam Hussein. The area houses the civilian ruling authority run by the Americans and British and the offices of major U.S. consulting companies.

A Prayer by Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace - that where there is hatred, I may bring love -that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness - that where there is discord, I may bring harmony - that where there is error, I may bring truth - that where there is doubt, I may bring faith - that where there is despair, I may bring hope - that where there are shadows, I may bring light - that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted - to understand, than to be understood - to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds it. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen

Movie Review: She's Out Of My League

Not a good movie. For starters, it’s a comedy and there are very few laughs. Unlike Superbad and Knocked Up, (movies it will be compared to), She’s Out of My League is strictly a one-joke movie and there are too many times when the one joke is not funny. Molly (Alice Eve), “a solid 10”, get’s romantically involved with Kirk (Jay Baruchel)," a solid 5". That’s the joke. The problem (other than it’s not that funny), she’s not a 10. She’s a 7. And we all have images of 10’s in our minds: Megan Fox, Halle Berry, Rachael Taylor, to name a few. You can see how this would present a problem. We overlook it if the movie is good. There are scenes where you will actually cringe because the script is so lame and the acting is so bad. Enough. Skip it.

p.s. Whoever came up with the term “moodle”, a man-poodle; very clever. But you see that bit in the trailer. By the way, I was very disappointed because I thought it had the potential to be cute. Baruchel, who appears to be rather one dimensional, can be funny and adorable in a 'Woody Allen' kind of way. But he needs better material. Woody is always working with supperior material.

The Academy Awards

The best picture won Best Picture: The Hurt Locker. I love when that happens.

To be continued.......