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Marcia Lane, Executive Director, Haiti Nursing Foundation comments to our recent post about Haitians eating dirt cookies to survive.

Articles like this pull at the hearts of well-meaning Americans. But we usually feel frustration that leads quickly to forgetting, since it’s hard to know what to do. For Haiti’s 8+ million people, solutions are critical and the truly effective ones are scarce.

However, there are organizations and programs at work right now in Haiti, and it isn’t difficult to assess which ones hold real hope. One of those far-reaching solutions is the first 4-year baccalaureate nursing program in Haiti, the Faculty of Nursing Science of the Episcopal University of Haiti (FSIL) in Leogane. Built with funds from USAID ASHA (American Schools & Hospitals Abroad) and the Medical Benevolence Foundation of the Presbyterian Church USA, it is a jewel in the midst of desperate conditions. Right now 98 young Haitian men and women attend FSIL, with the first class graduating in January 2009. Already their knowledge and skill are having an impact in their communities.

Most Haitians will die by the age of 50 from such preventable (or treatable) causes as malaria, malnutrition, hypertension, diabetes, cervical cancer, measles…the list goes on. Consider how many of these could be addressed by well-educated nurses who’ve been specially trained to diagnose, problem solve, and treat the particular health issues of their people. We think we have a shortage of nurses; multiply that by 52 times for Haitians.

With 66% unemployment and per capita income averaging $1800, few Haitian families can afford to send a child to FSIL, even though tuition is only about $800/year. The cost for all expenses for one student including tuition, room and board, uniforms, books and supplies, and travel to clinical sites totals $3000 yearly — a small amount by our standards. Nearly every student at FSIL needs financial aid. A U.S. nonprofit, Haiti Nursing Foundation, raises money for these expenses, and hopes to expand the school and similar programs in the future. Here’s where an American family or business or foundation can see their contributions go directly to a long-term solution to the suffering of millions of people in their own hemisphere.

There are other worthy missions and projects working effectively in Haiti. Give us at least a glimpse of these innovative solutions when you present a horrifying situation like people eating dirt cookies 500 miles from the abundance in the U.S. Please.

These trained nurses will unquestionably save lives and relieve suffering. They deserve our financial support.

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Could we be looking at a world without monogrammed silver dog bowls? That’d be the best news I’ve heard in a long time. . .

More seriously, with food and energy costs rising for consumers, stores that sell expensive gadgets to middle America are the first to get impacted.

But how we will get by without $50 electric nose hair trimmers????

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The president who came to office with the most glittering array of experiences had served 10 years in the House of Representatives, then became minister to Russia, then served 10 years in the Senate, then four years as secretary of state (during a war that enlarged the nation by 33 percent), then was minister to Britain. Then, in 1856, James Buchanan was elected president and in just one term secured a strong claim to the rank as America’s worst president.

Abraham Lincoln, the inexperienced former one-term congressman, had an easy act to follow.

In an apparent response, the Clinton campaign issued a statement saying Sen. Clinton’s vast depth of experience enables her to see things in new and refreshing ways which thusly makes her experience simultaneously appear to be inexperience except for yesterday when she said the opposite, which is simply one more measure of her experience except that her experience isn’t being emphasized today even if we just did so.

They also made quite a point of emphasizing that “Barack Hussein Obama Jr.” anagrams into “Marijuana Bar Sobs Heck” but that they certainly did not wish to imply that Obama was a drug dealing threat to national security, although others might be led to believe so.

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There is a stunning ability for the equity markets to shake off bad news after bad news. Meanwhile the underlying credit markets continue to deteriorate. Both cannot be correct. This divergence will end, we just do not know when. The odds are overwhelming that the credit markets have this correct.

From Mish, who has lots more on the subject.

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From Greenpeace UK EfficienCity, a short, silent, informative video on how micro hydro works.

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The Bank of England has a handbook on deposit insurance. It is written by someone named Ronald MacDonald.

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In a scene likely to be played out in states and municipalities nationwide, things are starting to implode in California at the state level, the county level, and the city level.

The state has ordered mandatory, major cutbacks, with more coming, to deal with the projected $16bn budget deficit. The deficit was just revised upwards from $14.5bn, which virtually wiped out gains made from previous emergency spending cuts. Ouch.

The crumbling real estate market and high energy prices are expected to cause continued revenue shortfalls too. So much revenue, both directly (property taxes and fees when a property is sold) and indirectly (remodeling, real estate agents, appraisers, etc.) depended on real estate, and now those revenue streams are in free fall.

The State of California will have to massively chop budgets and also raise taxes. It’s not like they have much choice, do they? Given the high interest rates and shaky financial markets, maybe even issuing new bonds wouldn’t be much of an answer.

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