“CDC may get funding - Kbsradio.ca” plus 4 more |
- CDC may get funding - Kbsradio.ca
- A Census Campaign That Speaks in Many Tongues - New York Times
- Burning tires illuminate what remains of Haitian town - CNN
- Planners' convention will pay off for Dallas, says visitors bureau ... - Dallas Morning News
- John Georges is a big spender searching for his voice in mayoral race - New Orleans Times-Picayune
| CDC may get funding - Kbsradio.ca Posted: 13 Jan 2010 09:51 AM PST The City of Nelson has agreed in principle, to allot a portion of their funding from the Columbia Basin Trust to the Cultural Development Council. The CDC is a city created group responsible for arts, cultural and heritage projects around the municipality. Next council meeting, the Cultural Development Council will present their full plans and Mayor John Dooley says at this point they'd decide for certain whether they'll proceed. Nedia Vanderelst - KBS News Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | ||||
| A Census Campaign That Speaks in Many Tongues - New York Times Posted: 13 Jan 2010 08:42 PM PST A campaign to encourage participation in the 2010 census reflects many of the major changes since the last census in the population that is to be counted. For one thing, the advertising, marketing and promotional efforts, to be described at a news conference on Thursday, are being produced in 28 languages — the most ever, according to the executives responsible for the census. By comparison, a campaign to encourage Americans to take part in the 2000 census was done in 17 languages. "There's more sensitivity to language subgroups, cultural subgroups," said Robert M. Groves, director of the United States Census Bureau at the Commerce Department. Among the languages being added are Armenian, Farsi, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Urdu and Yiddish, while Chinese is being divided into Cantonese and Mandarin. They will be used in ads along with English, Spanish and tongues like Arabic, Hindi, Korean, Polish, Russian, Thai and Vietnamese. Another big difference from a decade ago is that the campaign will run in many media outlets that did not exist in 2000, among them Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube, along with a blog by Mr. Groves. That is in response to the profound changes in the last 10 years in media usage. The ads in the new media will join ads in traditional media, among them television, radio, magazines, newspapers and billboards. There will also be unconventional elements like a Nascar sponsorship and a cross-country road tour of vehicles containing census exhibits, led by a 46-foot trailer. A third change from the 2000 campaign is evident in the tone of the new initiative. Then, ads carried this theme: "It's your future. Don't leave it blank." By contrast, the new campaign takes a more empowering tack with themes like "It's in your hands" and "We can't move forward until you mail it back." Research among consumers indicated "a fundamental shift in attitude toward government and themselves" in the last decade, said Jeff Tarakajian, executive vice president for client services at the New York office of DraftFCB, a part of the Interpublic Group of Companies and the lead agency on the campaign. Respondents said they now "felt more of a sense of 'I need to be my own master.' " Mr. Tarakajian said. "And what came out of that was the idea that 'It's our census, it's up to me, my community, to make sure the census works.' " Another difference is in the cost of the campaigns. For the 2000 census — the first with a budget for paid ads, rather than relying on the media to donate time and space — the Commerce Department spent an estimated $100 million to $150 million. Ten years later, the budget has grown to $340 million. The bigger budget will help the campaign appear during TV coverage of big events like the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics. "It's important to have broad messaging" to suggest the scope of the census, said Michael Simons, chief creative officer at DraftFCB New York, as well as to run more focused ads. "Some themes run through all the ads," Mr. Simons said, among them "the call to action to take part in the census" and how the form is composed of 10 questions. In other instances, ads are being tailored to resonate with target audiences. For example, a print ad by GlobalHue aimed at African-Americans, which features the former basketball star Dikembe Mutombo, declares: "Better health care, schools and roads are all within our reach. If we each just take 10 minutes to answer 10 simple questions, we can help determine how $400 billion per year in federal funds will be dispersed in our communities." And many ads aimed at Hispanics include children to signal that "it's critical people participate because this will bring our children a better future," said Luciana Gomez, vice president and group account director at the Latino division of GlobalHue. Another change from 2000 is that the census is trying to steer clear of a polarized political climate that has prompted at least one elected official to suggest that respondents should send a message of protest by answering only one of the questions. Staying clear of politics may prove difficult, however, as evidenced by a report about the campaign this week in a new blog from Tucker Carlson, the Daily Caller (dailycaller.com). The headline dismissed the campaign as "$340 million in tote bags, snacks and tailgate parties" and described the road tour as "driving around the country and hanging out with football fans." And there have been complaints about posters, independent of the official census campaign, created and distributed to churches by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. The posters invoked the Gospel of Luke by declaring: "This is how Jesus was born. Joseph and Mary participated in the census." Another organization, the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, deemed the posters blasphemous. "There will always be sensitivity on a number of different issues when there's a request for personal information," said Damien Reid, vice president and account director at GlobalHue. "The best way to combat that is total transparency, to be as clear as possible." To that end, the blog written by Mr. Groves, the census director, includes posts with headlines like "Misinformation About the Census" and "Why Is the Census Mandatory?" Asked about the potential for controversy, Mr. Groves replied: "You can't predict what it will be. That it will happen is certain. Good things may happen, too." In addition to DraftFCB and GlobalHue, there are more than a dozen other agencies working on the campaign. Among them are five others owned by Interpublic, including the IW Group, for ads aimed at Asian-Americans, and Jack Morton Worldwide, for the road tour and other events. Among the independent agencies involved, in addition to GlobalHue, are D Expósito & Partners, for tasks related to the Hispanic effort; and G&G Advertising, for ads aimed at groups like American Indians and Alaska natives. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | ||||
| Burning tires illuminate what remains of Haitian town - CNN Posted: 13 Jan 2010 07:59 PM PST (CNN) -- In Jacmel, Haiti, as light rain fell with the darkness Wednesday, Gwenn Goodale Mangine and a group of 35 people prepared to spend their second night sleeping outside on mattresses and cardboard boxes in her driveway. Everyone is scared to be indoors. It is cold and damp. The people of Jacmel line the streets, setting tires on fire to light up a town that has been reduced to rubble in many parts and is without power, she said. The flames are all that illuminate what remains of this town on the southern coast of Haiti, about 25 miles from the capital Port-au-Prince, Haiti. "No one is wanting to go back into their homes, so they were all on the street. It's still like that," Mangine, 32, told CNN, speaking using a fleeting Internet connection. "Hundreds of people are all hunkered down for the night passing time and burning tires to light up the night." The local airport has now become a refugee camp, she said. Buckets have become toilets. Residents shower using containers filled with water, if they can find it, she said. Mangine and other residents of the town, with a population of about 34,000, spent Wednesday trying to stock up on supplies, while they remained fearful of continuing aftershocks, looked for survivors and tried to gauge the level destruction. The U.S. Geological Survey said the perceived shaking from Tuesday's earthquake near Port-au-Prince would have been very strong in Jacmel, and they would be vulnerable to structural damage. "Schools, homes, churches, businesses, hotels, old historic buildings -- dozens and dozens, gone," Mangine told CNN. "I just kept shaking my head and muttering, 'Oh my word,' over and over." Mangine and her husband Nick have lived in Jacmel since April 2009 working with the organization "Joy in Hope, " and are houseparents at a home for orphaned children. Today, along with others in this town, they frantically searched for loved ones -- a task made harder by the power outages and Internet troubles in the wake of the devastation. In one incident, a staff member's daughter was nowhere to be found after her home collapsed. They feared the worst, but eventually were elated to find out she was OK. Mangine also helped a 24-year-old man named Hughes find his mother. Mangine and Hughes drove towards Hughes' mother's house. From the truck, he spotted her in the distance. "He jumps out of the car as I am still driving and he yells, 'Manman, Manman!' [Mommy, mommy]," Mangine said. "He runs and hugs her and starts sobbing. His mother, Rosemary, is clinging to him, and sobbing too." They embraced tightly for more than five minutes, Mangine said. "Man, it tore my heart out," she said. "I couldn't help but sob myself." Mangine said she has lived through tropical storms and floods that caused landslides and problems -- problems she attributes to poor construction. Haiti was 'catastrophe waiting to happen' At the Hands and Feet Project in Jacmel, Mark Stuart said he believes good construction is what kept their structure largely intact. "I'm very, very thankful for the quality of the construction here," Stuart said. "It gives us a hope that we will make it." Hope is alive in Jacmel, Mangine said, but the earthquake caused destruction she couldn't believe. "This is a whole different scale," she said. "It's the most helpless feeling in the world. We've just heard story after story of people being trapped in piles of rubble -- and there's no way to dig them out. No big machinery. No tools. There's nothing. Nothing." It lies in stark contrast of what it was more than a day ago. Before the quake hit, she had just finished English and Creole lessons with a staff member and went to lie down. When the tremors began, she initially dismissed it as a large truck going by. "But then I realized the house was really shaking. The whole house," she said. "Things began to fall off the wall. The thought going through my head was that our house was collapsing." Her heart began pounding, she said. "I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get out in time since I was on the second floor," she said. "I jumped up quickly and started screaming in English and in Creole for my children to leave the house." They counted their blessings when they realized everyone they knew was okay. Now, Mangine and her group are trying to focus on helping wherever they can. The city is devastated. "[It] looks like Jacmel, just more broken. Jacmel was once a beautiful, thriving city. That's long since passed," she said. "[But] what happened yesterday tore up a big chunk of history, a big chunk of commerce, and a big chunk of the hearts of the Haitian people." Still, as she prepared to sleep outside again with her family, staff and others in the town, Mangine saw a silver lining. "I still feel optimistic that if anyone can rise above this, it is the people of Haiti," she said. "There's a Creole word for when you have to rig something to make do -- degaje. In my opinion the ability to degaje is in part what gives this culture the spirit of resiliency that I so admire." CNN's Steve Almasy contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | ||||
| Planners' convention will pay off for Dallas, says visitors bureau ... - Dallas Morning News Posted: 13 Jan 2010 08:35 PM PST Hosting the annual gathering of a convention planning trade group should bring at least 30 additional revenue-generating meetings to Dallas, says the head of the city's convention and visitors bureau. Phillip Jones said meeting planners with the Professional Convention Management Association made at least 180 site visits to Dallas hotels and other venues during their four-day stay, which ended Wednesday. Based on those visits and conversations he's had with individual planners, Jones said he expects local hotels to sell an additional 250,000 room nights – the number of occupied rooms multiplied by the length of a visitor's stay – over the next several years as a result of the convention. Much of the business will come from planners who previously did not have Dallas on their radar. Jones said he was approached Monday by a meeting planner who was enjoying her first trip to Dallas. "She booked two meetings at the Fairmont [Dallas]," he said. Most new bookings will come in the next six to 12 months, a bureau spokesman said. Jones said the increased exposure and addition of a 1,000-room Omni hotel attached to the Dallas Convention Center in 2012 should help Dallas move up in rankings of the nation's largest convention host cities. Dallas was not among the 12 busiest convention cities in 2008, the most recent full-year data, according to Tradeshow Week magazine. Big D was beat out by locales such as Boston, Anaheim, Calif., and perennial winner Las Vegas. In 2007, Dallas hosted five large shows, putting it in a ninth-place tie with Louisville, Ky., San Diego and Washington, D.C., according to Tradeshow Week. But Dallas has many points in its favor, including affordability, said Thomas Dolan, president of the American College of Healthcare Executives and one of this week's attendees. "It's not cheap to go to some of those other cities," he said. Planners also mentioned the area's central location and the ease of getting to and from town. And while Dallas doesn't have an ocean or casinos, "the city has a lot more to offer than people realize, with the arts center and that whole [downtown] area," said Chicago-based meeting planner Laurie Fitzgerald, who helps plan gatherings as large as 3,000 people. "People don't think of Dallas as having all this cultural stuff," she said, adding that she is "certainly going to pitch Dallas" to her clients. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | ||||
| John Georges is a big spender searching for his voice in mayoral race - New Orleans Times-Picayune Posted: 13 Jan 2010 08:28 PM PST By David Hammer, The Times-PicayuneJanuary 13, 2010, 10:30PM John GeorgesOn Dec. 9, the day he qualified to run for mayor of New Orleans, John Georges was stuck in jury duty. He still found a way to make a splash, though. He bought one of the culinary capital's most iconic restaurants, Galatoire's. He said he completed the purchase, described as "an eight-figure deal" by his partner Todd Trosclair, in an hour. He bought half and Trosclair and five members of the Galatoire family split the other half. Georges said it was all about keeping a New Orleans tradition in the Galatoire family, but he couldn't remember who the family members were. "I don't know; do you know how many deals I make?" he said. Later, he added: "I buy and sell properties like you sell stocks." Then, he caught himself. "Wait. Don't make me look arrogant." When John Georges entered politics after Hurricane Katrina, he was known simply as a rich businessman who made millions distributing groceries and gambling machines, a guy who lives in a mansion on Audubon Place, a guy who will try to buy anything and everything. Ever since then, he has been running campaigns focused on rebranding himself and complaining that nobody really understands him. Georges, 49, enters the homestretch of the 2010 mayoral campaign on the rise, out-fundraising and outspending his opponents and in a legitimate position to make it to a runoff, and yet he continues to do things that cement an image he's trying to change. He poured more than $11 million of his own cash into his 2007 run for governor, and so far he has put $1.5 million into his mayoral campaign -- although this time he is aggressively tapping other people's money as well. To see George's last two financial disclosure reports, see here and here. 'I'm a serious guy' And his attempts to explain who he really is have only added to the sense of mystery. He is a powerfully built, 6-foot-2-inch former jock who also has an accounting degree from Tulane. In 2004, he was a Republican fund-raiser for George W. Bush. Two years ago, he ran for governor as an independent. In September, he became a Democrat expressly to run for mayor. "I'm a serious guy," he glowered. Then, a moment later, he wondered why people don't get it when he tries to be funny. One of Georges' closest friends, Kyle France, said his old pal is indeed serious, but he has had a hard time explaining his motivation to skeptical voters. "He comes across sometimes in many ways as arrogant," said France, who operates the Kehoe-France schools. "He's so much smarter than everyone else, but when you cut to the core of who he really is, he has an incredible heart and a passion for doing what's right and he sees public service as an avenue to give back to the community that's given him so much." Here's how Georges has presented his paradoxical nature in gauzy biographical television ads and stump speeches: He may live on Audubon Place, but he was born on Marengo Street and grew up sweeping floors and delivering newspapers as the son of a Greek immigrant who fought Nazis in World War II. He may be a white guy from Uptown, but he put a black St. Augustine graduate, Wayne Baquet Jr., in charge of one of his companies two decades ago, and half of his employees are African-American. He may be too serious and too into his BlackBerry to pet his dog, but he's willing to make fun of those qualities in a TV commercial and in the end, he pets the dog. But there are harder-to-resolve contradictions that come out when he gets into a frank discussion about himself:
He may consider the rebranding of New Orleans as a "serious" historic city, rather than a party city, one of his top priorities, but he still owns 1,000 video poker machines and has distributed another 5,000 to hundreds of different businesses in Louisiana. He may have snapped up Galatoire's on a whim and sent out a news release to the media to announce it, but he now says he "never wanted people to know." Just like he never wanted several black Baptist churches to know that he anonymously donated $27,000 in 2006 and 2007 to help them recover from Katrina. Except when he wanted them to know. "The other day, one of those ministers was fussing at me and finally I got mad at him and said, 'I gave you all this money!'" he said. Unprompted, Georges added, "I gave $5,000 to St. Augustine Catholic Church. Nobody knows I gave that money." Then, a moment later, he cast himself as a mere bystander in his own philanthropy: "I don't know where those churches are. I didn't meet the pastors. I funneled the money through surrogates in the black community." He said he also has donated $1 million to Metairie Park Country Day School, his wife's alma mater and an exclusive private school where his three teenage children go. But, again, he said he didn't want the credit. "I could have a gym named after me, but I'm more interested in the school being open," he said. 'It's a shocker' At times, he's as confounded by his own image as anyone else. "I'm trusted in the African-American community and I really don't understand it," he said. "Maybe it's because of my roots in faith and care. I don't know. It's a shocker." He gives much of the credit to Sherman Copelin, a former state legislator who once admitted to a federal grand jury that he accepted bribes. Copelin was never convicted of a crime, and he continues to be a key player in eastern New Orleans and in black political circles. Copelin and Georges became friends after Katrina. Copelin, who refuses to accept his reputation as either a kingpin or a lightning rod for controversy, is a big believer in Georges as a unifier. "The day John is sworn in as mayor he'll be able to bring together people who think one side is right, people who think the other side is wrong and vice versa," Copelin said. "For the first time in the history of this city, people will be talking to each other who wouldn't even talk if they were in a foxhole together." But there is something mysterious about the Georges-Copelin nexus. They are both quick to point out that their relationship is personal, not professional or political. Yet Copelin acknowledges he advises Georges on major campaign matters, and e-mail messages obtained by The Times-Picayune suggest they have a business relationship. When the newspaper reported in 2006 that Georges had partnered with Copelin, Georges' lawyer Jack Capella and car dealer Troy Duhon on a project to build affordable modular housing in eastern New Orleans, Georges said he had no involvement in the group and demanded a correction. But two years later, when Copelin's group was negotiating to buy a large tract of land at Crowder Boulevard and Interstate 10 from a national black Baptist convention, Georges did the negotiating by e-mail. In the messages to the convention's negotiator, Georges tried to strike a specific deal and spoke as if his own money were at stake. "I also do not want to put up as much money up front so everyone has a vested interest in the outcome," Georges wrote in an e-mail to Russell Odom of the National Baptist Convention of America. Copelin ended up suing the convention for more than $500,000, and the land, at a key eastern New Orleans intersection, remains undeveloped. Georges said he got involved only to help his friend and employee Capella and said he had no money in the deal. "I intervened on behalf of Jack Capella, and I failed. I'm not proud that I failed," he said. 'The guy is a genius' What's undeniable is that Georges has rarely failed in business, whether it's gaming machines, tugboats or groceries. He built his family's grocery distribution company Imperial Trading from a $29 million business when he took over in 1990 to annual sales of close to $1 billion. That's the business he hopes will define his image, and it's the only one owned by one of several trusts he has established for his children. He wants people to know how he's a proud Greek, and he gives to Hellenist causes around the world. He wanted the story of his father and others in the Greek resistance told, so he commissioned a book. He spent some of his riches buying up tickets to New Orleans Saints home games to help the team after Katrina and to make sure the games weren't blacked out on local TV. In the world of commerce, he is aggressive and sure of himself, and others look up to him. "The guy is a genius," said Trosclair, owner of All Star Electric in LaPlace and Georges' partner in Galatoire's. "I'm a really good businessman; I built a lot of businesses, dealt with people on the stock exchange, but if you'd ever see this guy in a business meeting, it's incredible. This guy is so smart. I hope and pray he wins the mayor's race." But the political and business worlds are very different, and France said that can trip up his friend at times. "I think John is used to steering the ship and being the admiral as opposed to listening to people and understanding where they are," he said. As a kid, Georges looked up to politicians the way other kids idolized athletes, but he never thought he'd become one. "The thing that enamored me a lot were the presidential funerals," he said. Now, he feels he must talk a big game to establish his political bona fides, touting his relationships with Copelin or recovery schools chief Paul Vallas or his former opponent, Gov. Bobby Jindal. He even bragged to a reporter about appearing on the same page as political pundit George Stephanopoulos in a recent edition of the Greek-American culture magazine Neo. And even as he drops names, Georges is, in his own words, "confused and perplexed" by others' interest in his political network, frustrated that they don't simply judge him by "who I am and who my family is." "I have no real dark secrets," Georges wrote in a recent e-mail message. "If anything, what you see is what you get with me. My campaign is not a sound bite from 'Meet the Press,' like my opponent" -- referring to Landrieu, whom he views as his only real competition. "When I talk about health care in New Orleans, I mean it. When I talk about changing our image, it's my idea. I am an authentic candidate."
David Hammer can be reached at dhammer@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3322.
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