2005 - 09-15-05

As of now, the total amount of money
already been donated or pledged to help those victims is
in the untold billions of dollars. Let me tell
you something about hundreds of billions of dollars. That amount of
money, at least in my opinion, does not exist anywhere on
earth in the control of people who are not outright stealing
a lot of it... or... who are spending it stupidly. At the very
least, if they are not stealing it or spending it stupidly...
if there is a gazillion dollars available... the kindest thing
you can say (again this is my opinion) is, much of that
money will be spent in a very ineffective manner.

I don't think more money needs to be
contributed to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. What I
think is really needed, is more people with at least half a
brain working on the problems created by the disaster. I
believe $100 in the hands of a capable, intelligent person
will provide more relief for those victims than $10,000 in
the hands of a corrupt or ineffective organization.
(Like Halliburton.)

But, there is a lot of goodness in the
hearts of the people of the world. A lot of us have a
genuine feeling of an overwhelming need to do something to
help those who have suffered from such a disaster. And, I have an idea I would like to throw out to
all of my readers (if for no other reason) than to give you
something to think about.

Very recently, I was flying back from a short trip to
Costa Rica on American Airlines Flight 972 and I was sitting
in seat 11D. Sitting next to me in seat 10D was a woman named
Bernadette Lewis. Her husband died of cancer at a very early
age. I learned from talking with her a few interesting
things.

First, her father-in-law was Sinclair Lewis
(now deceased of course), the first American writer to win
the Pulitzer Prize. Bernadette is 77 years old. She
had just recently moved from France to New Orleans. After she got
herself set up in an apartment, she decided to take a trip
to Costa Rica to visit her relatives there.