Two Articles

One of the nice things about being Haïti, aside from appreciating everything I took for granted in the States, like daily uninterrupted electricity and regularly maintained roads, is distance from the hyperbolic and tin-foil hat political primaries.

Next time your sitting in traffic cursing life, think about the engineering required to build something like this. Oh wait, you got a BA?  Sorry, just go back to Morning Zoo.

 But today I was pleasantly reminded that not only do reasonable people exist, but they are numerous!  So numerous in fact, a guy who used to sleep on my couch, won the right to author a guest post for the Washington Post on our most underrated President.  You can read it here.  It's brilliant save for the fact that he is wrong.  Everyone knows the most underrated president is James K. Polk, the man with such a insatiable craving for Mexican food he conquered half the country.

Tacos for everyone! (And California!)

Seriously though, the article is well worth checking out.  Not is the analysis spot on, Miller captures the essence of the man's presidency in the last paragraph - courage - and in doing so, challenges the American people to accept the kind of leadership we claim to crave.

The second article I read today was about the forgotten revolutions.  There you can read all about how the Haitian Revolution helped us acquire the Louisiana Purchase (which, in turn, facilitated Polk's great gobble).  I've posted on this topic before, but I think it's worth noting again because it's important for Americans to understand Haiti's importance within the context of our own history as well as its influence on the rest of the world.  It wasn't always a basket case and it does not always need to be.