Have's and Have Not's

This is so messed up. Everywhere you go these days there are reminders to contribute to the relief effort for Katrina victims, and rightly so. The help is very much needed. What gets me is that the middle to low end scale people are being asked to open their wallets while the filthy rich could clean this up in one shot. I mean, I don’t want to take away from the stars that are contributing millions, but when I read that the New York Yankees – baseball’s richest team – contribute (I think) 2.5 million, I just have to shake my head. Their payroll alone for one season has got to be close to $150 million. If you can sign one baseball player to a 9 or 10 million dollar a season contract to play a game, doesn’t 2.5 million for the dying, hungry and homeless seem like a drop in the bucket? For instance, if you took the top 5 salaries in NBA basketball for the 04-05 season, you would have about $93.5 million dollars. That went to FIVE people! Almost a hundred million dollars split between five people. Just imagine what that kind of money could do to help those in need, and not just in New Orleans. Or take for instance one NASCAR race. I can only imagine the cost of fuel alone (not to mention the fact it’s being wasted) would be a nice dent in the relief costs. Let’s not forget too that they spend a race going in circles, while it took four days to transport help to New Orleans. And that doesn’t even count the movie industry. If a film has a $100 million budget and then makes $300 million, that’s $400 million for just one flick. Do we really need Pirates of the Caribbean 3 or food for the hungry? I’m just saying that it makes you stop and think how quickly this disaster could be put right if priorities were anywhere close to being in the right order. I know there’s a lot of charity giving we don’t hear of, but it makes me shake my head when celebrities hold a benefit concert or sign a guitar to auction off expecting us working Joe’s to open our wallets to help those in need when half of what one celebrity makes in a year or spends on their wardrobe would do far greater good. We all need to do what we can to help, that’s true, but those with far more than one person needs to live should be helping those who just desperately want a bottle of water to survive. Priorities are so far out of whack that I can’t help asking – what is this basket we’re all in and why is it getting so warm?