If you want a local angle on the hurricane, here it is. Normally Red Cross has about $56 million on hand this time of year. This week the Red Cross said, "On June 30, 2003, the Disaster Relief Fund reached its lowest point in 11 years with a cash balance of only $1.5 million." This is the lowest cash reserve since the days after Hurricane Andrew.
The charity's website included these quotes:
|
E-MAIL NEWSLETTER |
Sign up to receive Al's Morning Meeting by e-mail:
* Click here (sent Monday-Friday at 7 a.m.)
| |
"If you think about the Disaster Relief Fund as a tank of gas, we are literally running on fumes," said Marsha Evans, President and CEO of the American Red Cross.
"'Hurricane season has just begun and the height of wildfire season is approaching,' said Terry Sicilia, Executive Vice President of Disaster Services for the American Red Cross. 'Those are both major disaster threats. Last year, the Red Cross spent $15.8 million responding to Hurricane Lili and Tropical Storm Isidore and $8.1 million on the western wildfires. Those were just a few of the high visibility disasters that people heard about. Disasters happen every day that don't make national headlines, but the Red Cross always responds with the same urgency.'"
Hundreds of Millions in Unclaimed Lottery Winnings
It happens hundreds of times a year in Michigan, where a record $44 million in lottery winnings went uncollected in fiscal 2002 alone. Here is a story from The Lansing State Journal.
In Minnesota, $7.3 million went unclaimed last year. In Florida, one $50 million dollar prize went unclaimed. It is true in the U.K., too. Millions go unclaimed.
How much is still waiting to be collected in your state? What happens to the money that goes unclaimed? In 2002, the Amarillo (TX) Globe-News reported, "During the past two years, $57.2 million in Texas Lottery winnings went unclaimed. Some hospitals in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains regions will get a share of that money.
"The Texas Department of Health is distributing the unclaimed winnings.
"In 1999, the Texas Legislature directed the health department to give the money to Texas hospitals that provide uncompensated care to patients from outside their designated service areas."
Kids and Gambling
Newsday has a chilling story on the rise of gambling among kids. The story says, "'This is the first generation of kids growing up when gambling is legal and available virtually nationwide,' said George Meldrum of the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems. 'Casinos, racetracks -- they take it for granted.'"
Click here for a state-by-state listing of councils on gambling.
Newsday says: "Nationwide statistics on youth gambling are scarce, but regional surveys suggest more than 30 percent of all high school students gamble periodically.
"Middle-schoolers are following suit, as evidenced by the uncovering of a sports-betting ring at a Glenview, Ill., middle school last year. In Delaware, Meldrum's agency recently conducted one of the largest-ever surveys of student gambling; nearly one-third of 6,753 participating eighth-graders said they had gambled in 2002."
The Newsday story also reports, "Such trends are the focus of research at the International Center for Youth Gambling Problems, based at McGill University in Montreal. The center's co-director, Jeffrey Dervensky, said studies indicate that compulsive gambling problems afflict up to 8 percent of young gamblers, compared with up to 3 percent of adult gamblers."
Lawyers Who Give Services Away
Washington State's Supreme Court is considering a requirement that all lawyers give away 30 hours of free work a year. It is an interesting hook on which to hang a story about lawyers who do free work all the time. We do stories about doctors who travel to other countries and others who do work with the poor, but we seldom see stories about lawyers who give away their time. I suspect there are some good stories in this. Here is a profile of one such good guy from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Convert Just about Anything
Steve Schroeder of KOTV (Tulsa) spotted this dandy site that lets you convert just about anything. It lets you configure a room, figuring out how many tables of a certain size would fit; it tells you the distance between cities of the world. You can just click and calculate. My favorite calculator on the site is one that lets you put in how much you drank and it will calculate how drunk you are. Imagine the fun you will have checking the accuracy of this one.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, story excerpts, and other materials from a variety of websites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed, and a link will be provided, whenever possible.
