Last night was American Idol Gives Back, a fundraising show for poor people in Africa and the U.S. I was anticipating a snoozefest, and oh boy was I right. What I want to know is, how much money did the Fox network make in advertising revenue for this show? I'm betting that it is as much, if not more, than was raised for charity, because it seemed like there was 10 minutes of commercials for every two minutes of show.
And oh dear Lord, did that show stink. About an hour in, I started calling my friends to see if I was the only one who thought it was a total suckfest, and it turned out I was not alone. The last 45 minutes of the show I spent shooting the breeze with my sister Texas, with the TV on mute. I un-muted only long enough to discover that ........ no one's going home. WTF? I wasted two hours of my life only to find out that they're all safe? Grrrr.
Oh, and thank you very much Ellen Degeneres, for letting us know you are donating 100G. Why not take out some billboards too, in case somebody missed the show? And Jack Black - Get this man the fuck out of my eyesight. If I never see Jack Black again it will be too soon. Ben Stiller? Ditto.
Here is what annoys me the most about these fundraising shows. After 9/11, there were all kinds of fundraisers, and Americans donated millions for the victims (well, ok, the widows/survivors of the victims). Where did that money go? I know the federal government compensated these people, but where did all the donated money go? And again, after Katrina, more fundraisers, more money raised, and the money went ..... where? I don't know. On the Idol show last night, they were showing people still displaced by Katrina two years later - why? Where did the donated money go? I want to know exactly where it went. I want to know that $45,495.33 went to Case #125786, who is a woman with three children, so she could rebuild her home. I want to know that $395.68 went to Case #245981, a twenty-three year old man, so he could take the bus back and forth from his temporary housing to his job. Is this information out there, and I am just not finding it? Because until I do, until I know exactly where the money is going, I am not donating one stinking red cent to another one of these fundraisers.
There. Whew! I feel better now.
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If you Google the Final Report from the Special Master of the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund, you can find out exactly how $7 billion dollars was (eventually, and with much angst) distributed to 5,560 claimants.
The 2, 280 claimant- survivors of those killed received two standard lump-sum awards were $250,000 for domestic partners/spouses/fiancees and $100k for dependents (mostly kids and spouses, but in some cases elderly parents etc). The bigger parts of their awards came from wrongful death settlements. The total cash awarded them was just shy of 6 billion dollars, with the Price Waterhouse survivors picking up about 64% of that money. Firemen’s widows got the next largest cut (around 10%) Restaurant workers’ families got about 2%.
There were also 2680 injuries/disability claimants (half of those for respiratory diseases that came from working on the Ground Zero site. These people received $1.03 billion dollars.
The costs of administering and distrbuting thewas nearly $87 million in and of itself. $76 million of that went to Price Waterhouse.
6 fraudulent cases were filed. 5 people were jailed for fraud, but considering the amount of money in play, I think that this was remarkably free from malfeasance on the part of claimants.
Well, the last I heard of Katrina money was here:
http://monosyllabic-pedantry.blogspot.com/2006/12/billion-minutes-ago-jesus-was-alive.html
A Billion dollars in FRAUD alone.
Thanks for the info, guys!
Oh, now come on. Did you ever think you'd get to see Elvis sing a duet with Celine?!
For me, it was entertainingly sad. Very, very sad.
And do you think anybody took Ellen's challenge to donate like she did? What do the rich people do with their money, anyway?
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