I feel doubly bad for Chile

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

It's bad enough getting hit with a huge earthquake.

Adding insult to injury, some news anchors were talking about Chile as if it were a failed-state backwater nobody had even heard of before the quake.

I heard one guy wondering whether they have "those mud buildings" in Concepción.

I heard another interviewer ask a guest (introduced as someone who had once been to Chile) whether Concepción had hospitals and civil infrastructure like a police force and firemen.

The question was not whether Concepción had a civil infrastructure in the quake aftermath, but whether they had those institutions in general.

Looking at this picture, what would your guess be?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concepci%C3%B3n,_Chile

[Bicoastal]

1. Spanish-speaking non-whites live there...

...so what do you THINK our media's reaction is going to be?

[Cleita]

8. When I lived there, there were colonies of British and Americans who spoke

English and in the south of Chile, you'd better speak German because that's what you will hear on the streets.

[XemaSab]

13. They're pretty pale down there

It comes from living in caves. :P

[Gormy Cuss]

2. I'll bet they even have the internets there.

Yet again, we are treated to "news" talking heads who don't have even a passing knowledge of the subject matter, even with all the resources of a newsroom.
:banghead:

[demosincebirth]

28. And still, most of the "talking heads" call it Chilli!

[Gormy Cuss]

30. They probably think that the quake ruined a favorite lunch spot.

[demosincebirth]

35. Good one!

[Cleita]

32. Reminds me of when I was a kid and my mother and I were on a ship going

to Chile. The ambassador from Chile to the USA was returning home on the same ship. He struck up a friendship with me because he thought I was so cute cause I spoke both English and Spanish with equal ease back then. One day he asked me if I knew where I was going and I answered, "Chile con carne" as a stupid kid joke. He got so upset he upbraided my mother for allowing me to think such things and that she should be teaching me to be respectful of her country. :rofl: My poor mom was so embarrassed.

[demosincebirth]

33. Yup, it was the wrong thing to say to the wrong person.

[Juneboarder]

3. No RWP involved so nobody cares...

Rich White Penis

[Winterblues]

We just put out such a large humanitarian effort for Haiti, it will be hard to do so for Chile

So yes I feel bad for them as well but they are no where near as poor as Haiti, and their government was not nearly destroyed..

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. fortunately, the need in Chile will be less, despite the greater magnitude

because they already have the infrastructure and they've been building for quakes for decades. That's why they have casualties in the hundreds while Haiti has casualties in the hundreds of thousands.

[Cleita]

15. It's been reported to be 170,000 at least.

http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/01/16/kff-poll-on-health-reform/

[Cleita]

14. Actually, Chile is very prosperous since President Allende kicked out all

the foreign companies who were siphoning all the profits from the resources out of the country. They have used the money to build a great infrastructure from what I could see in pictures of the earthquake from the time I was there. Americans should take note. All our wealth is going to China and other countries who have taken over our manufacturing.

[dana_b]

4. omg - and these people get PAID for their ignorance! n/t

[Duer 157099]

5. I think that there are too many Americans who honestly believe

that the rest of the world, outside of Europe, is completely uncivilized.

I really think that they believe it's the exception to see electricity and running water in some place other than America/Europe.

It's how they can continue the chant "We're Number One!" without ever thinking that it might not be so.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. "The wogs begin at Calais"

I don't remember who said it. (Might have even been Churchill.)

[Cleita]

7. We have those mud buildings here in the west of the USA.

They are called adobe. Also, all Chile's citizens have access to hospitals because they have universal health care. So which country really is the backwater?

[Lyric]

9. I really don't think that Chile cares.

They don't need American understanding or approval to know their own value. It's more OUR problem than theirs. In regard to what you said, I don't pity Chile--I pity *us*.

[Cleita]

10. Also, Chileans are used to it. Americans think that every country south

of the Rio Grande is like Mexico. In fact each country is very different. My mother, who was Chilean, used to roll her eyes every time some well meaning American tried to feed her an enchilada because they thought that is what she ate.

[Warpy]

20. Hiccup

[Warpy]

21. Most Americans think the world ends 10 miles below the border

if they think about any of it, at all. They don't have a clue where Chile is unless the news people say "South America," and then most of them think it has a border with Mexico. 10 miles below our border.

Never mind most people don't realize most countries around the globe have at least one modern city they could relate to.

Beyond here there be dragons.

[demosincebirth]

29. Are you sayin' we're not too smart up here?

[leftstreet]

23. +1

[malaise]

34. LOL

:rofl:

[Xithras]

11. Yes, I've seen this a bit.

I was having a conversation with someone yesterday about the fact that the death toll will be so much lower in Chile, because it's a modern country with modern buildings and building codes. The guy I was talking to laughed and said, "I don't know where you heard that. I don't think they even have electricity. It's part of South America, and it's very backward."

I didn't know what to say, and really couldn't tell if he was being malicious or if he was actually that stupid and uneducated.

One thing that hasn't been discussed yet is the potential impact of this quake on our own food supply. Chile is a HUGE food exporter, sending large amounts of summer crops to the U.S. during our northern hemisphere winter. They're also the worlds second largest seafood exporter. This quake hit right in the center of their major agricultural areas. While the crops may be unharmed, the airports and seaports used to export that food are going to be jammed with aircraft ferrying relief workers and supplies for some time, so the export market will be cut off.

Americans are going to learn just how important Chile is to the U.S. as they visit the grocery stores over the next few weeks and see fresh food prices climb.

[lapislzi]

16. Chile has some of the strictest building codes in the world

This could have been much, much worse.

Aside: Chile was on my and my BFF's shortlist of places to flee should the shit hit the fan (more so than it already has, I mean).

[Cleita]

17. If an 8.8 hits here in California we are toast in spite of the fact that our

building codes are much stricter than in most of the country. Our local nuke plant up the road is built to withstand up to a 7.5 earthquake and it sits on two earthquake faults. I believe there are other nuke plants in the state too, well one more that I know of.

[lapislzi]

26. Hell, when you're up against an 8.8, there's not much you can do

Although I daresay strict building codes helped save lives. That being said, my heart goes out to the good people of Chile who have lost loved ones and property.

On the other hand...building nuke plants on fault lines...maybe not so smart.

[Cleita]

27. The destruction of the plant is not the issue but the radiation that would be

released that would make this area uninhabitable for man and beast for millenniums.

[lapislzi]

31. I'm in shouting distance of Indian Point

That place just gives me the creeps. In metro NY, there's nowhere to hide.

[Dappleganger]

18. They don't need us, just donations probably.

The biggest help they probably need are the search-and-rescue specialty teams until there aren't anymore survivors, that's probably it. Their government is well-organized and very responsive to the needs of their people.

[pampango]

19. Chile's per capita income is about the same as Mexico (way above the world average)

per the World Bank. The IMF has Chile about 10% higher than Mexico. The GINI coefficient is 54 in Chile and 46 in Mexico, so income in wealth are more unequally distributed in Chile. (It's 45 in the US, while Europe and Canada are in the 30-32 range, Japan-25, China-46, Australia-35, India-36..)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico

Chileans are better off than most people in the world.

[Cleita]

22. This is because of a class system brought over there by the Spaniards.

It's changing and there always has been a bigger middle class in Chile than in other SA countries. Pick up the book "The House of Spirits" by Isabel Allende. She beautifully writes what the society was like before and after the coup that killed, I believe her uncle, President Salvadore Allende.

[Jennicut]

24. Chile seems to be doing pretty good.

Currently, Chile is one of South America's most stable and prosperous nations. It leads Latin American nations in human development, competitiveness, quality of life, political stability, globalization, economic freedom, low perception of corruption and comparatively low poverty rates. It also ranks high regionally in freedom of the press and democratic development. However, it has a high income inequality, as measured by the Gini index. In December 2009 Chile became the first South American country to be invited to join the OECD. Chile is also a founding member of both the United Nations and the Union of South American Nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile

Seems pretty modern to me.

[shraby]

25. I noticed in some of the pics on huffpost that a lot of

buildings had those small satellite dishes on the top of them.

[rabs]

36. CNN ratface Rick Sanchez

today was making a big deal about "looting" in Concepcion. The scumbag did not let viewers know that the footage he was showing was from Saturday and that police and army troops had already taken measures to halt pillaging for food, milk, diapers and other essentials.

He also did not mention that Bachelet met with supermarket owners on Saturday afternoon and an agreement was reached whereby supermarkets would dispense food, milk and other items for FREE, to prevent more disorder.

I happened to be watching Chilean TV online on Sunday and saw footage of people taking goods out of a LIDER supermarket in Concepcion. The LIDER chain is owned by none other than Walmart.

---------------------
We acquired a majority stake in Distribución y Servicio D&S S.A., Chile's leading food retailer, in January 2009. With 2007 net revenues in excess of US$3.8 billion, D&S has more than 180 stores, 10 shopping centers and 85 PRESTO financial services branches.

D&S began as a family-owned operation led by Manuel Ibáñez Ojeda in 1957 with its first supermarket, Almac. The current President and CEO of D&S is Enrique Ostale. With headquarters in Santiago, D&S has more than 34,500 associates and operates under a number of different formats, including hypermarkets Hiper de LIDER, supermarkets Express de LIDER, Super Bodega Acuenta and Ekono convenience stores.

http://walmartstores.com/AboutUs/8935.aspx

[4_TN_TITANS]

37. I was instant messaging a coworker there

up until late Friday afternoon. He hasn't been accounted for yet.