Wednesday, September 07, 2005

late afternoon

The September Giveway Winner Is…

Laurie, my hairdresser.  So, congrats Laurie, and we’ll see you on Friday for our appointments.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

early evening

We Have Tickets To See Debbie Reynolds…And You Don’t!

One of the benefits of living in Las Vegas is the ability to see stars of yesteryear for not a whole lot of money.  And in this case, the tickets were free because the Coast Casinos love my mom and give her free show tickets.  Oh wait, maybe these were 2 for 1?  If so, Dad let me know and we’ll give you some cash.  Anyway, we’re seeing Debbie Reynolds at the Suncoast.  Debbie Reynolds is one of the old-time stars I love.  I remember when she was on one of the Tracey Ullman shows and she was hilarious.  Plus, I’m quite fond of her daughter, Carrie Fisher.  I’m into the sarcasm, I am.  I’m not interested in seeing most of the oldtimers that the Coast Casinos book, but every so often they get a gem.  Several years ago we went with Leigh-Ann’s family to see The Smothers Brothers.  After all these years, they’re still funny.  We also saw Gordon Lightfoot - his music was great, but he’s quite the boring showman.  The most exciting part of his concert, other than the music, were his gold tennis shoes.

Next month, we have one more fairly cheap show scheduled - The Bangles at The House of Blues.  Neither one of us has ever seen them, so I hope they’re good.  And if not, I hope the opening band is good and we discover someone new.  If not, there’s a really cool little bookstore (The Reading Room) plus The Chocolate Swan next door.  We’re easy to please.  If you can’t give us a great concert, we’ll make do with a night out at a bookstore that has fabulous chocolate next door.

We finally had the birthday party last night.  A night of Applebee’s riblets, Pepsi and chocolate cake.  The highlight of gifties - a Landshut Cannibals hockey jersey, an Underdog t-shirt (the exact one I almost bought for myself last week) and a Starbucks giftcard.  Mmm, free Starbucks.  Alas, birth month is now over.  I think this is the longest my birthday has ever lasted, and I can’t say that I minded it at all.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

early afternoon

Idiot of the Day - George W. Bush (yes, AGAIN)

Dutch viewer Frank Tiggelaar writes:

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president’s visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of ‘news people’ had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

-------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
09/03/2005

Landrieu Implores President to “Relieve Unmitigated Suffering;” End FEMA’s “Abject Failures”

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement this afternoon regarding her call yesterday for President Bush to appoint a cabinet-level official to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts within 24 hours.

Sen. Landrieu said:

“Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.

“I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims—far more efficiently than buses—FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast—black and white, rich and poor, young and old—deserve far better from their national government.

“Mr. President, I’m imploring you once again to get a cabinet-level official stood up as soon as possible to get this entire operation moving forward regionwide with all the resources—military and otherwise—necessary to relieve the unmitigated suffering and economic damage that is unfolding.”

Today’s aerial tour of the 17th Street levee will be featured tomorrow on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Later, Sen. Landrieu will also appear on CBS’s 60 Minutes. 

Saturday, September 03, 2005

late morning

The Real World - New Orleans (Hurricane Katrina Edition)

The lack of help is just unconscionable.  I’m embarrassed for the country.  This is the true story of dozens of reporters, picked to live in a national disaster and have their lives taped, and find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting REAL. The Real World! After you read that, watch this video with Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith, from Fox News.  Yes, I’m actually telling you to watch a clip from Fox News.  You’ll be disgusted by what you see.  No, not in the normal Fox News way, but in the way the truth is coming from Geraldo and Shepard Smith, who are living in the situation.  They’re not taking any crap from Hannity & Colmes, who are sitting in their cushy studio, asking for “perspective”.

Friday, September 02, 2005

late evening

Where Is Our Money Going - Should We Really Donate To The Red Cross?

How Much Is Too Much? by Richard Walden from http://www.huffingtonpost.com

As of noon on Friday, September 2, The American Red Cross was reporting it had already raised $73 million in private funds for Hurricane Katrina victims. At the same time, the authoritative journal, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, which monitors nonprofit fund raising, stated that $108 million had been raised by all private charities willing to report.

That means about 70% of the public’s compassion has flowed to The Red Cross.

[This percentage was no doubt bloated by FEMA’s mystifying screw-up when it released the names of only certain faith-based charities—like Pat Robertson’s wholly-owned nonprofit Operation Blessing—rather than the wider group of established relief agencies.]

This skewed giving to Red Cross would be fine if the Red Cross were paying for the cost of the 80,000 people they are expertly sheltering in 240 designated shelter sites; but FEMA and the 4 affected state governments (including Texas which will shelter up to 75,000 people) are reimbursing the Red Cross under pre-existing contracts for emergency shelter and other related services. The existence of these contracts is no secret to anyone but the donating public. The Red Cross carefully says it exists by the grace of the American people—yeah...and “people” includes the US government, 50 state governments and thousands of county governments, too.

What we’ve come to expect from a major disaster is a media blitz—paid and unpaid—by the American Red Cross’ expert fund-raising staff. Last year, the Red Cross reports it spent $125 million on fund-raising; and if you surf the net or watch TV or listen to radio, you can’t escape the faux Red Cross news breaks warning of Armageddon if you don’t call in a credit card number or send a check or donate blood (which it resells to the tune of over $1.5 billion annually out of its $3 billion in income). In Los Angeles, we’re currently going through the spectacle of “drive-by” drop offs of bags of money at public places like Pasadena’s Rose Bowl all promoted by local media. Hollywood studios and Hollywood stars compete to make 6 and 7 figure donations to the Red Cross almost robotically. The Red Cross brand is platinum.

No one asks what The Red Cross actually does, what it does not do, and whether it has another primary source of funding for those rapid responses it claims to do so well and so comprehensively.

Not wanting to dwell on the present Hurricane disaster while it’s in progress, let’s look at September 11th. The Red Cross collected over $1 billion, a record in philanthropic fund raising after a disaster. But the Red Cross had very few things it could do in the 9/11 disaster—a modest amount of tracing missing persons, a handful of people in the few shelters that were opened, some comfort food for the fire, police, paramedics and excavation crews, but little else. When NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer asked for documentation of expenditures and income, the Red Cross’ response was that it is federally chartered and not answerable to state governments. The crescendo rose, however, when the unusual conjunction of the New York Times and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly began dissecting the Red Cross’ activities in the 9/11 aftermath. This resulted in the firing of the Red Cross CEO, Dr. Bernardine Healey, by its largely GOP-dominated board and the appointment of ex-US Sen. George Mitchell (D-NH) to clean up the Red Cross’ image. Funds were then literally pushed out the door—$30 million to limousine drivers who “attested” that they lost income when the World Trade Center fell; many millions to randomly chosen residents of lower Manhattan to help pay their utility bills; and, tens of millions to various powerful Red Cross chapters around the country who wanted their share of the largess. [sounds like “The Godfather IV”?]

These problems were predictable. In fact an earlier Red Cross CEO was fired after the San Francisco Bay Area earthquake when it was revealed that Red Cross only spent $16 million of the $54 million it had collected. The problem was that the 4 major Bay Area cities’ mayors shilled for the Red Cross and only the Red Cross, much like President Bush, the media and Hollywood are doing now. When they found out about the surplus funds they insisted that they be spent on Bay Area housing, homeless shelters and health clinics—not things the Red Cross normally does through non-Red Cross agencies.

Since then, the American Red Cross uses slippery language about “national disaster accounts” so it has post-9/11 deniability if questioned about why funds designated or donated for one purpose were used for another.

This saga goes on but here’s one man’s prediction: Red Cross will have between $1 and $2 billion before Hurricane Katrina giving subsides. If they take care of 80,000 people as they are at present, that works out to between $12,500-$25,000 per victim. I can’t believe each victim of Katrina will see much more than coffee and a doughnut, a cot, a blanket, a social service interviewer and perhaps receive a box of clothing or some new pots and pans.

I hope I’m wrong about the Red Cross but I predicted as much on September 11th in a NY TV studio run by the local Fox station.