Haitian disaster. We should thank our lucky stars.

So much of what befalls us in life is just down to luck, fate, being in the right place at the right time, even being born in one place rather than another; and we can thank our lucky stars that we are not poor Haitians right now. As the awful horror of the earthquake become apparent we can only wonder how much more misery these people can endure. With a history of almost unbelievable colonial cruelty, independence was to bring only crippling debt, poverty, superstition, environmental degradation and one natural disaster after another. Add to this a brutal, greedy and corrupt elite (is there a more obscene image in the media than the collapsing National Palace?) and we should truly count our blessings. Send what we can afford ( I have opted for Merlin but there is no shortage of other options) and hope that the future will bring a marginally better life to these unlucky people.