The New York Times | Arts | Frank Rich: Washington’s New Year War Cry: Party On!
Washington’s next celebration will be the inauguration. Roosevelt decreed that the usual gaiety be set aside at his wartime inaugural in January 1945. There will be no such restraint in the $40 million, four-day extravaganza planned this time, with its top ticket package priced at $250,000. The official theme of the show is “Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service.” That’s no guarantee that the troops in Iraq will get armor, but Washington will, at least, give home-front military personnel free admission to one of the nine inaugural balls and let them eat cake.
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New York Times | Editorial | Are We Stingy? Yes
The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush’s turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent.
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Anyone still wondering why there’s this big portion of the world that doesn’t think much of the US?
What *would* Jesus do?
Obviously, he’d go on vacation, ignore the problem for three days, make self-aggrandizing pronouncements, and then finally throw the biggest party he could for his closest friends.
Duh.