Although the story was the front-page right lead in Sunday's New York Times, it's likely that many people missed it, because it was about Haiti. People become accustomed to bad news out of Haiti so they skip each new chapter chronicling the continuing degradation of the already wiped-out country. The story was an investigation into what happened when Haitian police invaded a prison after an abortive effort at a prison break. It's likely that they killed more than 25 prisoners, many of whom they had long wanted to murder, and then buried them in a common pit.
My long-time colleague, Maury Geiger, was in town yesterday and told me more about the story. He is quoted in it--he has personally been trying to improve conditions, especially with respect to justice in Haiti, for many years. It turns out that he was at least part of the inspiration for the coverage by bringing the situation to the attention of the Times reporters.
Last autumn, I spent some time working with him in Port-au-Prince, where I witnessed the conditions at the National Penitentiary, which were sordid. It was some kind of blessing when after the earthquake wrecked the place, everybody took off. Haiti still has a system where people are arrested and there's no bail or pretrial release system so they stay in jail until trial which may follow years later.
The reason this situation persists is that (1) people with connections "arrange" to have relatives who are arrested released at the police station and (2) the people with influence in the society--judges, ministers, successful lawyers, academics--care less about the situation of those less well off, who constitute most of the population, than is true anywhere else I've ever been.
In working on court system improvement, you learn that complex procedures mean that everything takes longer and there is greater opportunity for corruption. We used to have a complicated pleading system in U.S. courts, but simplified it many years ago--by the mid-20th century. Things can still get hung up procedurally here but it's better than it had been.
The long history of attempts to assist Haiti through foreign aid also includes many episodes of corruption. Maury Geiger went on 60 Minutes some years ago with Mike Wallace to spotlight how crooked American contractors were stealing funds intended to improve the Haitian judicial system. But now we are face to face with the real problem: yes, France is always a villain because they managed to make Haiti--poorest country in the hemisphere--pay the French reparations for freedom since 1804. And the U.S. has tried hard but not had much success in improving anything there.
No, the real problem is the Haitian government and underlying it--forget all the dictators and their stooges--is the upper crust of Haitian society, the people who live at the top of the hill above Port-au-Prince. These are the lawyers and judges and ministers whom I heard discuss the problems and explain why nothing can be changed. We have had ugly corporate types in the U.S. both in the 19th century and right now who exploited everyone, especially workers, but would plead ignorance or whatever when confronted. But in Haiti, these makers and movers of the justice system just don't care. And for so long as they are in control, nothing will change.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Post From Portsmouth
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is one of those nicely-surviving old towns that you always mean to visit and spend a few days touring but usually don't. Lots of the old town stands as original buildings befitting one of our northern-most seaports. Some years ago when I was doing some work in New Hampshire, Eileen and I visited a large restored area called Strawbery Banke, accent on the peculiarities of spelling, a la shoppe. It was fun and perhaps even better than going to its more famous relative, Williamsburg, where we will be next weekend (and are unlikely to spend any time touring the tourist area).
I did drive through downtown today and enjoyed an early season farmers' market even if they ran out of lobster rolls by the time I arrived, so I had to have one at Bob's, the stand amidst the outlets across the bridge in Kittery, Maine. My raison de visite was the annual convention of the Horatio Alger Society, of which I have in my declining years become a more regular attendee. As with other such groups, the average age of members is rising and the number in attendance falling in direct proportion.
I've belonged to the society longer than almost all active members but have been an irregular attendee at the conventions owing to my travel schedule and conflicts. I enjoy knowing a number of the members all of whom I never would have known through any other likely way of meeting. Ive not hosted the convention--usually when I actually volunteer to do that it means I will somehow leave the group and be unable to deliver, sometimes causing hard feelings: I couldn't host the National Conference of Appellate Court Clerks because I changed jobs and some people took umbrage. I will try to do it one of these years, though, or risk being the oldest member who hasn't done it.
If you like book collecting, the convention is fun. I like late 19th century juvenile literature because of the Americana it conjures up for me. In an era without tv or movies or radio or Ipods, children read Alger and Oliver Optic and Henty and J. T. Trowbridge and Edward S. Ellis (the last two were American frontier adventure writers). We know that Lincoln enjoyed the rough humor of Artemus Ward. I find it enjoyable to be with people who know an immense amount about things like the third states of first editions, or the broken type on page 46 of another.
Alger wrote mostly in New York City and conveys a very definite picture of the metropolis in the 1870s and 1880s. He had limited ability at setting a plot--basically, he had one which he repeated about 100 times. But his descriptions of New York settings are worth knowing and his values are fine, as appropriate for us as for the Gilded Age inhabitants for whom he wrote.
It seems he gave most of his earnings to good causes such as the Newsboys Lodging House, and it may have been in the form of penance for this quietly defrocked Unitarian minister, who was thrown out of his pulpiy on Cape Cod for undisclosed reasons that are familiar to us as regards clergymen today. He also contributed to the American popular literature in yet another way: his assistant Edward Stratemyer finished six of his novels and them proceeded to invent, write, and eventually oversee a factory-like operation -- the Stratemyer Syndicate -- that produced Tom Swift, the BobbseyTwins, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and several other series for children.
The Society established an official repository for a fine collection of Alger at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, which isnt too far from O'Hare Airport. The retired librarian at NIU now lives in Durham, New Hampshire, and hosted this convention. The high point for me was returning to Newick's restaurant on Dover Point, where you can get the finest fried clams in the world, or at least the only ones I will deign to enjoy, on a level with Faidley's crabcakes in Lexington Market, Baltimore.
I did drive through downtown today and enjoyed an early season farmers' market even if they ran out of lobster rolls by the time I arrived, so I had to have one at Bob's, the stand amidst the outlets across the bridge in Kittery, Maine. My raison de visite was the annual convention of the Horatio Alger Society, of which I have in my declining years become a more regular attendee. As with other such groups, the average age of members is rising and the number in attendance falling in direct proportion.
I've belonged to the society longer than almost all active members but have been an irregular attendee at the conventions owing to my travel schedule and conflicts. I enjoy knowing a number of the members all of whom I never would have known through any other likely way of meeting. Ive not hosted the convention--usually when I actually volunteer to do that it means I will somehow leave the group and be unable to deliver, sometimes causing hard feelings: I couldn't host the National Conference of Appellate Court Clerks because I changed jobs and some people took umbrage. I will try to do it one of these years, though, or risk being the oldest member who hasn't done it.
If you like book collecting, the convention is fun. I like late 19th century juvenile literature because of the Americana it conjures up for me. In an era without tv or movies or radio or Ipods, children read Alger and Oliver Optic and Henty and J. T. Trowbridge and Edward S. Ellis (the last two were American frontier adventure writers). We know that Lincoln enjoyed the rough humor of Artemus Ward. I find it enjoyable to be with people who know an immense amount about things like the third states of first editions, or the broken type on page 46 of another.
Alger wrote mostly in New York City and conveys a very definite picture of the metropolis in the 1870s and 1880s. He had limited ability at setting a plot--basically, he had one which he repeated about 100 times. But his descriptions of New York settings are worth knowing and his values are fine, as appropriate for us as for the Gilded Age inhabitants for whom he wrote.
It seems he gave most of his earnings to good causes such as the Newsboys Lodging House, and it may have been in the form of penance for this quietly defrocked Unitarian minister, who was thrown out of his pulpiy on Cape Cod for undisclosed reasons that are familiar to us as regards clergymen today. He also contributed to the American popular literature in yet another way: his assistant Edward Stratemyer finished six of his novels and them proceeded to invent, write, and eventually oversee a factory-like operation -- the Stratemyer Syndicate -- that produced Tom Swift, the BobbseyTwins, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and several other series for children.
The Society established an official repository for a fine collection of Alger at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, which isnt too far from O'Hare Airport. The retired librarian at NIU now lives in Durham, New Hampshire, and hosted this convention. The high point for me was returning to Newick's restaurant on Dover Point, where you can get the finest fried clams in the world, or at least the only ones I will deign to enjoy, on a level with Faidley's crabcakes in Lexington Market, Baltimore.
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