Red Cross Money Management

Or rather, the lack thereof. After reading this story from the Washington Post, the Red Cross has received the last charitable contribution from me.

I understand the need for advertising, but $500,000 spent on wooing Hollywood celebrities? The money would have been more wisely spent on decent accountants.

Charitable Spendthrifts?

According to the Washington Post, two-thirds of Katrina donations have been exhausted, begging the question, what happened with all that money?

According to the story:

Two-thirds of the $3.27 billion raised by private nonprofit organizations and tracked by The Post went to help evacuees and other Katrina victims with immediate needs -- cash, food and temporary shelter, medical care, tarps for damaged homes and school supplies for displaced children. Fine, but the other factiods make me question the efficacy of groups like the Red Cross:

The American Red Cross, which was criticized for slow distribution of donations after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has given out 84 percent of its Katrina and Rita donations.

50 cents of each donated dollar went out in cash to victims.

snip

56 percent of remaining donations are controlled by faith-based organizations. They include such well-known institutions as Catholic Charities USA and the Salvation Army but also such lower-profile groups as the United Methodist Committee on Relief and United Jewish Communities.

While charities have done fabulous work helping storm ravaged communities I question the effectiveness of cash donations. At the same time, I question the manner in which charities manage their contributed funds.

The story is quite long and very informative.

Crawling Out of the Cave

I just finished my bar exam exactly 35 minutes ago!!!

I am looking forward to returning to regular blogging, just as soon as I catch up on what has been happening in the world.

Good to be back.

Bar Exam Hell

I will not be blogging much over the next two weeks or so as the bar exam approaches. For all the blawgers out there who have experienced this delicious little torture, wish me luck. For everyone else, I could use your good wishes as well.

Just so long as I am not in the minority who fails, all will be well in the world on July 28.

Powell In Asia

Outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell is visiting the areas damaged by the tsunami and noted "an outpouring of U.S. aid for tsunami-stricken countries could begin to reverse the rise of anti-Americanism in the region by demonstrating that "America is not an anti-Islamic, anti-Muslim nation." " Quite true Mr. Secretary, but I would like to bring another point.

For the past couple of years, we have heard nothing from the Muslim community that would indicate that America is welcome, until the feces hit the fan. In good times, America is the land of the infidel, of hatred, of ignorance and of "economic colonialism." But when times are bad, who is the first nation that war-torn or naturally ravaged nations turn--yep, you guessed it, the good old U.S.A.

The natural generousity, the innate kindness to fellow man and the ability to lend a helping hand when needed, even after our nation is trashed, thrashed and called every name in the book reveals the very greatness of our country and our way of life. America and Americans have proven themselves the bigger nation by putting aside politics and providing millions of dollars in relief. Now here is the funny thing, delivering over $352 million in relief will probably cost the U.S. $3 billion or more in resources--costs that will never be repaid. If that is not generosity, I don't know what is.

When the tsunami struck, my first thought was of sadness and heartache for all those who died. My second thought was, how are we going to help those people and my third thought was, after blasting us for years, these countries are going to hold their hand out to us.

Had I been less charitable a person, I probably would have thought, "F you and the horse you rode in on. You only want help from America when you need otherwise, you would prefer to demean the most capable and helpful country in the world. So if you want our help, shut the hell up in good times." But in the end, I did what I could and provided what I could, wishing I had the ability and time to do more.

Powell Pledges Continued Support to Asia (washingtonpost.com)