Not sure I've ever been so happy it is Friday. This has been the longest week known to man, and I shouldn't be complaining. This won't get to Harry Reid today, sorry. It will also be somewhat short, I think.

I'll start with the most positive words I've heard come out of Haiti this week, from Bill Clinton in Time:

"Before this disaster, Haiti had the best chance in my lifetime to fulfill its potential as a country, to basically escape the chains of the past 200 years. I still believe that if we rally around them now and support them in the right way, the Haitian people can reclaim their destiny.

In case you were wondering, Clinton would know. As part of the Clinton Global Initiative, the former president has spent extensive time in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Clinton gave a speech to LCV where he talked about newer forms of energy that could be produced in Haiti and power 500,000 homes for considerably cheaper. This is a place where many people don't even have power.

Especially after this week. There was a graphic in the Washington Post today, which said that this week, Haiti is the 'epicenter' of the world media coverage. After several disastrous aftershocks, it will be ignored.

I read that right before I saw this picture, the front page of the Washington Express (the free daily of WaPo):
The estimates are between 40-50,000 dead.

--

There are two other stories, both domestic, that I'd like to call your attention to this morning. Not sure if I'd linked to it at all, but you may have heard about the Washington Wizard's Gilbert Arenas, once an absolute superstar in the NBA, with a $111 million contract.

Yesterday, he was charged with felony gun possession. But this wasn't for carrying a gun in his car and doing something stupid with his friends. He put guns into the locker of a teammate, at the Verizon Center (about 3 blocks from my office), as a "joking" threat for an unpaid, five-figure bet. I'll repeat, Arenas has a $111 million contract.

He broke more Washington, D.C. laws than you can count, in one of the nation's murder capitals, all as a "joke".

You'll imagine how sick I was when Michael Wilbon, a man who I admire and respect, wrote that we are taking this too seriously. When you are black, you play sports, you are a role model, you live in Washington, D.C., you don't play with guns. Period. If you're human and you live in Washington, D.C., you don't carry guns, period. We aren't taking this too seriously if he is facing five years in prison.

This can't be taken too seriously. At all. Guns are not toys. They aren't for jokes. They are to "jokingly" intimidate a teammate. Not when players themselves are the victims of gun violence. Not when guns are the prevalent object in the black community and you are a beloved leader of that community in one of the cities where it needs you the most.

Late owner Abe Pollin changed the name of the Wizards in the early '90's, you Sonics fans might remember they used to be called the "Bullets", for the simply reason that a town riddled in bullets did not a team that endorsed that. Someone pointed out to me the other day that the team moved to DC from Baltimore. I read the Baltimore Sun everyday. I've said before that the front page is like a damage report from the night before.

And this guy thinks it's okay for him to play with guns. Cheat on your wife, that's you and your family's problem. Cheat in the game, that's the game's problem. Speed and get a ticket. Play with guns and you endorse the one thing bringing the black community down on itself.

As evidence, I transition into a story that is starting to gain traction in Philadelphia. It was reported more than a year ago now that Marvin Harrison, forever know as one of the greatest - and most well-respected - receivers ever, was part of a shooting in the neighborhood where he grew up. You've probably heard that witnesses in these kinds of cases generally don't say anything. Some in Seattle may recall the shooting outside Garfield high school last year, in a game I was at, that hasn't been solved because no one will say anything. Instead they "take care of it", and the violence continues.

Well, Harrison's day may be coming, courtesy of a report in GQ, one of the most damning stories I've ever read about a situation like this. The story makes it seem as if Harrison was the only shooter and witnesses exist. Harrison is also a millionaire.

Guns don't take bank accounts into account.

--

On more quick thing: Today is the anniversary of the flight that landed in the Hudson river. Does not seem like a year, but it has been. Some incredible skill and some luck saved 155 people that day and today many will ride a boat out to the scene and toast.

The interesting parts of this are obviously the stories of lives after the fact, all of which are different, but all of which are have one thing in common: not one single person on board that flight has sued U.S. Airways. That, is a shock.

Good morning everyone. I am still trying to catch up with the scope of everything that happened yesterday. Some of it devastating, some quite shocking and yet even more somewhat funny.

Apparently Good Morning America opened with an awful comment today, calling the debacle at NBC right now something along the lines of "earth-shaking". The insensitivity of the comment, given the timing, just speaks to some bad writing.

The last quote I saw from a report about the 7.0 earthquake in Haiti is that, "most of Port-au-Prince is destroyed." President Obama called the initial reports, "truly heart-wrenching." In the lead picture on that CNN story, you can see that the presidential palace crumbled. At one point Anderson Cooper reported that there was no working control tower in the country and that his plane almost crashed because of it.

Just after 5 p.m. Tuesday, the 7.0 earthquake struck about 10 miles southwest of the capitol city, initially sparking fears of an even more devastating tsunami. Thankfully that didn't happen, but the quake, which was felt 200 miles away in Cuba, inflicted catastrophic damage on the region.

One quote from the CNN story (don't read if you can't handle a graphic image): "One woman, I could only see her head and the rest of her body was trapped under a block wall," said Jonathan de la Durantaye, who drove through Port-au-Prince after the quake. "I think she was dead. She had blood coming out of her eyes and nose and ears."

Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is home to about nine million people, making it "roughly the size of Maryland." It is devastated on some level by hurricanes seemingly annually.

Many of the organizations here are advertising the "Text "HAITI" to 90999" to donate $10 toward the relief effort. Here is the Red Cross page. Senator Chris Dodd tweeted that if you have family in Haiti, you can call the State Dept: 1-888-407-4747. The Washington Post has a liveblog.

This was the strongest earthquake to hit the Caribbean in 200 years. While this might sound naive, the most frustrating thing when seeing something like this happen is Haiti's complete inability to be prepared. The country can't afford it, so millions die. Yet, just last week, California gets hit by a 6.0 and it's barely a blip on the radar screen.

Anyway, says some prayers and talk to anyone you know that might need help finding someone down there. I know there is a large U.N. peacekeeping group down there and often many from the U.S. already doing relief work.

I'll have more on the other two stories, and probably this one too, a little later.