Maybe now is not the time

With the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, now is the time to organize aid, donate to relief, and keep news flowing from and to the beleaguered country in an attempt to help. What it isn't the time for is using the crisis as a platform for grinding some ax, attacking efforts to help, acting like a complete asshole, or offering up your truly terrible ideas. We've discussed this at length with El Rushbo and Patty's comments over the past few days, hell the Daily Show even went after those two and added Rachael Maddow into the mix. Fine, fine, good, good.

Still, it seems that people aren't getting the message to either help or just clamp your mouth shut for a few weeks. No, some people even think it's a nice tool to help their candidate advance in the polls for a primary for a Senate race. Namely the communications director for California Republican Senate candidate Chuck DeVore, who has his solution to the crisis.

"Haiti: the best thing the int'l community can do is tend the wounded, bury the dead, and then LEAVE. That includes all UN and charity," wrote Josh Trevino.

Yes, wonderful plan. Dig a few mass graves, slap a few Dora the Explorer Band-Aids on a few gaping head wounds, take a few good pictures of an entirely flattened country with zero working infrastructure or government, and then dust your hands off and say "Well, it's about time we left now. Good luck rebuilding your shattered lives on your own with no money, food, police, leadership, or buildings. By the way: you're welcome." That sounds like the perfect solution, thanks for adding it to the debate we were having about whether we were going to help out or sit back, do nothing, and take bets on which person will emerge from the shattered nation as the de facto warlord of the rubble pile that is Haiti. It was a pitched debate, but I think your sensible argument pushed the consensus into "Fuck 'em" territory.

But it isn't just idiot political campaigns jumping into the fray. Sometimes scientists ought to learn to shut up as well.

Scientists who detected worrisome signs of growing stresses in the fault that unleashed this week's devastating earthquake in Haiti said they warned officials there two years ago that their country was ripe for a major earthquake.

Their sobering findings, presented during a geological conference in March 2008 and at meetings two months later, showed that the fault was capable of causing a 7.2-magnitude earthquake — slightly stronger than Tuesday's 7.0 quake that rocked the impoverished country.

Though Haitian officials listened intently to the research, the nearly two years between the presentation and the devastating quake was not enough time for Haiti to have done much to have prevented the massive destruction.

Yeah. Listen, I know you guys like to point out when you get things right, particularly when you have so much trouble getting people to believe other predictions about natural disasters, but could you not do this the same week that the earthquake happens? Especially when you all freely admit that there wasn't much Haiti could have done given it's resources and the timeframe? It's not like they were flicking the on/off switch on their earthquake machine carelessly and you told them to knock it off or the Haitian President was putting on a miner's hat, going underground, and using his super strength to push the tectonic plates together. Next time, maybe wait two weeks before you put up the "We told you so" banner and give speeches in front of it.

Seriously, next time anyone has a brilliant idea about Haiti, just pause and ask yourself "Is this going to help in any way?" It likely isn't, so just hold your shining nugget of blinding brilliance inside, the world will try to get on without it.