Save the children!!!

Or, at the very least, save their summer:

Before Katrina, the United Way usually put aside $100,000 to finance 20 summer programs, and NORD and other agencies would pick up the rest, said Mary Ambrose, the United Way's senior vice president.

But this year, the coalition is getting $310,000 less from two foundations and $1.6 million less from the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, a nonprofit group started after Katrina and Hurricane Rita that allocates public money. The Afterschool Partnership, a collaborative of nonprofit, community, faith-based and school-based groups, is contributing $150,000, but the coalition is still short $1.6 million.

Many of the summer programs were required to have a stronger mental health component, Ambrose said, because of traumas related to the storm. Even if the 92 programs are fully financed and reach the 17,000 children in six parishes, the coalition estimates, it may only scratch the surface. Educators say there are about 28,000 schoolchildren in the city and there could be as many as 40,000 before the fall.

Perhaps the "buffoons" from the Winding Goat Path Home Through the Himalayas who sent this guy another congratulatory letter after he got his recovery check can spare some loose change. Or maybe local, state, and national politicos can check out their popularity numbers on the wall and cough up some dough to jerk up some approval ratings.

Oh, and I've been thinking about this fellow's post on Brennan's of Houston all week. Brennan's here and elsewhere is pretty darn good...but the problem is, I can't help thinking about Andy Warhol every time I think of Brennan's.

When I was a young 'un growing up in Houston, we certainly made the rounds among the good and great restaurants of the area, but never Brennan's. The general consensus was that it could never really measure up to the original, but I think the idiotic commercials they got on the Houston boob tubes finally killed any inclinations we might have had to eat there. Who did they get as their spokesman? You guessed it...

The commercial was shot to look as gray as possible, with Warhol wearing these massive glasses over his eyes, staring straight into the camera, and telling everyone in a deadly-dull voice that they ought to go to Brennan's. He looked as though he was going to collapse any second. Hell, no, we were not going to Brennan's on his recommendation.

Alas, the commercial seems to have died along with the artist, because I couldn't find it anyplace. The closest I could find was this 1968 spot for Braniff that also stars Sonny Liston. Liston looks like he wants to beat the hell outta his bewigged neighbor, who only looks slightly more animated than he did fifteen or so years later in the Brennan's ad. A comment accompanying this commercial says it isn't even Warhol's voice on the Braniff ad. Good thing...trust me.