Speaking about the disaster during his program “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson said that when Haiti was still a French colony its leaders “swore a pact to the devil” to get out from “under the heel of the French.”
“They said, ‘we will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal,’” Robertson claimed, as was recorded and sent around by the liberal group Media Matters.
“But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other,” he continued. “That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle on the one side is Haiti the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts. Haiti is in desperate poverty.”
First of all, I wasn't aware that "The 700 Club" was still on television. Maybe that's why Robertson saw fit to start flapping his gums over the earthquakes in Haiti? Anything to get your name in the media.
I'm also fond of people who use the phrase "true story" when they're telling you something that is difficult for people to believe. He says "true story" and then claims to know what Satan said. That's interesting. How much fun must it be to be able to make up conversations between people and Satan?
ME: Oh man, I'd love a big hunk of that cheesecake.
SATAN: Well, go ahead - it's right there in front of you.
ME: No. I'll eat the whole thing and feel bad about myself later.
SATAN: Not if you make a deal with me, you won't.
ME: What do you want?
SATAN: You could give me that cat you just adopted.
ME: Umm ... I think I'll have some salt-free pretzels.
Sometimes I think we haven't progressed much as a society over the past thousand or so years. When we start talking about superstitions, curses or other supernatural phenomena we show our ignorance to simple facts. Maybe it's because the facts are so simple that we question them?
MIAMI — For years, geologists had been predicting an earthquake in Haiti - possibly as powerful as magnitude 7.2. The problem was they couldn't say when.
"It could have been the next day, it could have been 10 years, it could have been 100," said Miami geophysicist and earthquake expert Dr. Tim Dixon . "This is not an exact science." Dr. Amy Wilentz, a professor of politics at the University of California at Irvine and author of "The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier," agrees.
"A lot of the buildings are made of bricks and cement and tin roofs," she said. "It's hard to envision programs like the ones we have in California to reinforce buildings and do earthquake stabilization, much less projects to make new buildings safe. It's hard enough to put up a building at all; the idea of making it perfect is Kafka-esque."
Asked Susan Purcell, director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami : "This is the poorest country in the hemisphere; what are they supposed to do and with what resources? Most of them are dirt-poor and living in makeshift houses."
I guess that must have been some deal they made with the devil. Poverty, AIDS, makeshift housing, floods, hurricanes and disease; in exchange for being free of the French.
Sounds like an even swap, eh? Somebody needs to explain that to me. Come to think of it, what in Hell is Robertson talking about?
If there was ever a doubt as to the pre-conceived nature of that American Idol program, one need look no further than the latest Internet sensation, General Larry Platt. Somehow (we are supposed to believe) he was allowed through the audition process even though the "rules" prohibit anyone over the age of 28 from being a part of the program. Then he goes and does some ridiculous pantson the ground rant/song and it's the "latest thing."
