Jimbo will be helping the homeless by attending martini parties in San Francisco now.

Gotta love the Comments, too.

Not sure if they'll post mine:

I'm not sure I catch your drift. Are you trying to tell me that putting up a Wiki is not the solution to all man's ills? I think I'll have to lie down and ponder that one. It's a lot to take in.

It is ironic that there are some kinds of Wikis (no, not WP type of Wikis) which could make a big difference in Haiti. They obviously needed one is a central "known survivor" and "known deceased" list, with details and photos. A central site with many inputs.

And there needs to be a complimentary "Looking for person X" list, also with photos and details (basically a missing person list).

A big problem is that a lot of bodies have to be buried quickly, for public health reasons. I saw video the other day of rotting bodies being carried by a bulldozer loader, which put me in mind of Dachau, or at least that scene from Soylent Green (which probably came from the Dachau film, too). That kind of no-documentary body disposal is going to cause MAJOR problems later, as they'll all have to be dug up again and DNA-typed, like victims of some genocidical operation, to figure out who is who.

Everybody who goes into a mass grave should have a face photo (if not too gross) first, and be body searched for ID. It would be nice if they could take a tissue sample and put it in alcohol, too. It doesn't have to be big. Even pulling some hair would do. Faces would perhaps not be posted publically, but ID found on bodies should be (face photos to be privately available to families who come forward).

Anybody alive in the affected areas who survived should get their photo, name, and as many personal details as they're comfortable with, uploaded. The same with "missing persons" and "persons sought".

This is face-booky, but these Wikis must have only inputs only from controlled points (we can't have vandalism on this). Citizens can upload, but it will take at least one layer of vetting and editing before it's posted to be publicly accessable. So far as I can tell, it hasn't been set up, yet. Of course it will be (just as with 9/11) but the longer it takes, the less useful it is.

Lists from it can be printed out and posted in various central places, for the use of those without computers.

Milton, you seem to be describing what ought to happen if a natural disaster struck Sweden or perhaps Massachusetts. This is Haiti on a nice day, before the earthquake. Are you aware of the priority of needs at this time? You don't dick around with hair samples and vials of alcohol as living survivors are starting to go thirsty for want of clean water, or can't move to a place of shelter because their ankle is shattered and there are no crutches around.

You really should just self-delete your post, and then hopefully a moderator will delete mine so that the evidence is gone.

Your reply would be valid if everybody capable of help was capable of helping medically and with food, and were already doing so. That's so far from true as to be laughable. Water, food, and medical care not getting in, and the average person with net access can do very little about this.

There are a fair number of people with computer access who can't contribute to the triage of keeping people alive. They can, however, deal with the terrible problem of reconnecting shattered families, which ITSELF is disrupting everything else.

So I am actually thinking clearly about this. It is you whose thinking is fucked up.

I think you both have a point - plus it's very emotional ground, because the scale of the disaster.

I, like most folk probably, am just chucking in what I can afford to local fundraising - I can see that a well run wiki that Milton describes would also help greatly.

I should have put it more baldly: there are a lot more people with cameras and camera cell phones who could be photographing bodies about to be buried, and/or searching them, than there are people with trucks and gas who could be hauling water and food from the airport, or who have the medical experience to be useful at a hospital.

They used the CNN truck to haul an injured person found in the rubble to the hospital the other night, since there wasn't another available. I watched them try and try and fail to start an IV in a dehydrated child close to death-- these doofuses didn't even know about clysis, where saline is administered under the skin of the back or other convenient place, there to be rapidly absorbed-- no vein needed.

So how many Hatians know about clysis, or can do it? Apparently not many. But the average Haitian with a camera surely doesn't, and can be doing other useful documentary things with that camera, which cannot wait.

Ah, shit. Greg has no idea how much I know about medical disaster planning. But I assure you, it's more than he does.