Monday, September 12, 2005

NEW LOOK FOR FALL...PLUS BELATED KATRINA RAMBLINGS

Hello again. Well, you can really tall it's beginning to look a lot like autumn in America: School is back in sesson; the falling leaves having us break out our rakes a few more times before the snow flies; the NFL is back and raring to go; a new crop of shows to go along with the old favorites will be busting right through our TVs; and as you've already noticed...the Allen Blog has a whole new look.

But of course, even though they overestimated the death toll by about tens of thousands, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina still remains the hot topic. And for the last week, everybody's been helping from celebrities to the American Red Cross to various other relief organizations around the world...while at the same time, bitching about the lack of federal aid and whether or not the Bush administration and FEMA dropped the ball.

Rapper Kanye West fired the ultimate salvo during NBC's hurricane benefit telethon the other day, saying that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Those seven words immediately set off heated debates about the race factor playing a big part in the disaster.

New Orleans remained Katrina's Ground Zero, while the Mississippi coast is slowly but surely starting to get back on its feet. But not everything was all gone; the neighborhood in Gulfport where Aunt Bobbie resides received minimal if not some damage. Looking at the digital photos Cousin Anthony took, her house and several others barely survived the brunt of the storm. Boy, they sure are lucky souls alright.

As we saw on Friday, all the major broadcast networks as well as TNT, Superstation WGN, Lifetime, FX, Game Show Network, Speed Channel, Bravo, Showtime, CNBC, anc MSNBC on the cable side plus CTV and CBC in Canada and Sky One in Britain ran the hour-long "Shelter from the Storm" telethon to raise even more funds for the Katrina victims.

And just like we saw on the last two telethons after 9/11 and the Asian tsunamis, some of entertainment's biggest names were on hand; among them Jennifer Aniston, newlyweds Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, Jack Nicholson, Julia Roberts, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, James Woods, Danny DeVito, Ray Romano, Ellen DeGeneres, and my girl (and two-time Sexiest Woman winner) Sarah Michelle Gellar...who always looks great even in brunette. Even though it was only for a hour it seemed hard recognizing those people on the phone bank. That's why we have TiVos and good ol' VCRs.

Anyway, that's my playing catch-up on all the post-Katrina happenings. Till next time, stay strong.

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