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Laura Vecsey
Seattle People ExaminerLaura Vecsey is a former sports columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Baltimore Sun. She has lived in Seattle since 1994, which does not qualify her as a resident, according to unwritten rules of local citizenship. She lives in Magnolia, studies at the University of Washington and is the Local Content Director in Seattle for Examiner.com.
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Gates, Pickens, Bloomberg: Big Ideas and Money to Get Things Done
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by Laura Vecsey, Seattle People Examiner
pirit of philanthropy, ingenuity and, yes, hope are about to grip our crippled little nation. That's what comes to mind this morning with news that Bill & Melinda Gates are putting up $125 million alongside $250 million from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to fight smoking worldwide.Hmmm. Gates left his day job at Microsoft less than a month ago and already he's out making public appearances on behalf of causes that we can all champion.
No wonder there was hopeful talk about Bill Gates as Dream Ticket Vice Presidential choice ... for McCain?
And then there's an op-ed piece today by Seattle-based New York Times writer Tim Egan about T. Boone Pickens. Egan, a National Book Award winner who has written extensively about issues in the Pacific Northwest and western U.S., wrote about how Pickens, the Texas oilman, is leading a $58 million campaign to kick start wind and alternative energy efforts. Egan writes about Pickens and The Pickens Plan:
"There he is, the sound of money in a wizened Texas drawl, the tired realist looking a bit like the John Huston character from “Chinatown” as he warns in national television ads that we should just listen here and do as he says.
And what the 80-year-old T. Boone Pickens says, in a $58 million campaign, is that we can’t drill our way to lower gas prices. By implication, anybody who tells you otherwise — including the fellow Texan he helped put in the White House — is a fraud. "
Amazing how difficult it is for our country's wealthiest philanthropists and game-changers NOT to politicize these issues. McCain and Barack Obama are duking it out for the presidency, but there is a mighty sub-strata of billionaires eager to champion causes We The People no longer want to ignore.
Topics: Gates , Bloomberg , Pickens , Egan
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