| I was watching the Hope for Haiti Now special on TV | | | | who are unknown celebrities in their own right. |
| Friday night. It was a Live-Aid, Farm-Aid type show to | | | | We do not know them and probably never will. They |
| raise money for Haitian earthquake relief. It was on all | | | | are the doctors who left cushy private practices to |
| the major TV stations, streamed live on the computer | | | | donate a month of their time working in conditions |
| and on some radio stations. It was an amazing feat of | | | | where something as simple as water is a luxury. They |
| organization and cooperation with all the normally | | | | are the search and rescue teams, putting their lives on |
| competitive broadcast stations working together to | | | | the line by crawling into and under precarious blocks of |
| bring it about. | | | | cement to rescue someone they will never know. It is |
| In between the world famous singers like Bruce | | | | the mother who spends 50 hours digging with her own |
| Springsteen, Madonna, Stevie Wonder and numerous | | | | hands to reach her 2 year old child buried under the |
| others, the camera would focus on famous, mostly | | | | rubble. For Haiti, it is all the people who were already |
| Hollywood, celebrities either individually asking us to | | | | working there who either gave their lives in the |
| donate, or sitting behind a huge bank of telephones as | | | | earthquake, or who survived and stayed to help. |
| a group. I found that I could name about 95% of the | | | | You could also say that the amazing vitality of the |
| people as the camera panned on the actors and | | | | Haitian residents make them celebrities in their own |
| singers acting as telephone operators. I also knew all | | | | right. I am not sure that I could have lived through that |
| the live singers and commentators even though the | | | | earthquake where most likely everyone lost |
| show never once named them. | | | | somebody in the rubble, lived out in the open without |
| Between songs and pleas for aid, we were shown | | | | food and water for days, had untreated injures, and still |
| shots of the devastation of Haiti, the sick and | | | | be singing and smiling. Sure there are some people |
| wounded, remarkable rescues and numerous | | | | complaining, but when you watch the pictures, there |
| unknowns helping where they can. What really struck | | | | does not seem to be much unrest despite the |
| me was that I could name all those people behind the | | | | incredible conditions. That speaks to an underlying |
| phones or in front of the microphones, but I could not | | | | fortitude that certainly would raise them, as an entire |
| name one of those people pulling out survivors from | | | | nation, to celebrity status. |
| the buildings, carrying supplies, or operating on the | | | | I came to the conclusion, whether digging with your |
| injured in circumstances worse than any battlefield. | | | | bare hands to rescue a child, or being dressed in your |
| At first that bothered me. Why should I know all those | | | | finest, singing in front of a microphone, or just |
| famous celebrities and not the other people doing | | | | contributing a dollar to a cause, we all have our ways |
| good in Haiti? How about all those people who do | | | | of contributing to the betterment of humankind. And |
| good around the world, when it is not a crisis? So that | | | | that makes us all celebrities. Maybe not recognizable |
| got me wondering about all the people in this world | | | | on TV, but celebrities none the less. |
