Benchwarmers Tavern and Grill opened about a month ago in my Centennial, Colorado neighborhood then just yesterday the restaurant, which was an anchor of the retail complex at Arapahoe and Peoria, closed down. Apparently they stiffed all their employees as they shut the door. I heard about it on 9News. It’s all very puzzling but I wonder if something I witnessed might have been part of the reason they ran out of money. When the restaurant opened I took my 12 year old son to eat there. Immediately I saw it was kind of a Hooters of sports bars. The waitresses wore short shorts that climbed up their butts and tight referee tops that were cut low so you could see their red push up bras. You understood right away what kind of a crowd they were going after. What really offended me though was that I sat at an adjacent table while the 50 something male manager was doing a job interview. A lovely young woman came in looking for a waitress job. She apparently was being mistreated by the boss she was working for and was looking for something else. The Benchwarmers manager spoke to her and the only thing they discussed (besides her woes at her job) was how she needed to go to see this group of women that would make her model the uniform and see how she looked in it. Then if they approved of her she could get hired. I mentioned that I overheard this to the manager. He kind of shrugged it off then returned to the table a few minutes later to reassure me he talks to them more in depth when they return after their audition. He also told me it was like he had 30 daughters. I immediately decided that I did not want my money to flow through Benchwarmers and I would not be returning. I am not a prude by any means but I felt the restaurant was exploiting women and was not appropriate for a family neighborhood. I don’t think my high school aged son or husband agree but as a mom I found the place distasteful. I wonder if other women had the same reaction and that is why Benchwarmers is failing. My heart bleeds for the young women that were not only exploited but also screwed. Shame on you, Benchwarmers!
For more information on Vicky Collins visit http://teletrendstv.com.
Never underestimate a beauty queen. Washington Nationals pitcher Miguel Batista found that out when he didn’t choose his words well. The two meet on the mound tonight.
http://qctimes.com/news/local/article_770612c6-9b8c-11df-a2fb-001cc4c002e0.html
For more information on Vicky Collins visit http://teletrendstv.com
I finally got to the Gulf coast to work on a story about the oil spill for the PBS Newshour. I didn’t see any oil but what I saw was a a boat load of fear. Correspondent Tom Bearden and I visited Bayou La Batre, Alabama to attend a town hall meeting with Ken Feinberg, the Massachusetts lawyer who must decide how to allocate BP’s 20 billion dollar compensation fund. He has done this kind of work previously for victims of 9/11 and Virginia Tech. Feinberg was mostly reassuring people that help was on the way and was listening to the concerns among the folks who packed city hall at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning. What struck me was how far reaching this catastrophe is on the people who live in towns that dot the Gulf coast. Bayou La Batre bills itself as the “Seafood Capital of Alabama.” The oil spill has rippled through the whole community disrupting the entire seafood chain. Obviously the fishermen have lost the season, then there are the people who store and process the seafood like brothers Bruce and Delane Seaman who had to shut down their oyster shucking plant putting about 40 people out of work. They don’t expect to ever reopen. Their customers have gone elsewhere. Then there are folks like Patrick and Lillie Kraver who own Kraver’s restaurant in Daphne, on the other side of Mobile Bay, that sells the seafood and have seen business tumble by about 40%. When Tom asked them if they could survive they said “God would provide.” These are people whose families have worked in the seafood industry for generations. And then there are the more indirect losses. The man who has a candy and gift store on the beach and has seen his tourist traffic dry up, another man who has watched his real estate property values tank, even the local minister who has seen his offerings cut almost in half. He reminded Ken Feinberg that when everyone leaves the area it will be the churches and faith based organizations that care for fragile residents. People came from as far away as Pensacola, Florida. Everyone had a story of loss and hardship and a sense of skepticism deep as the Gulf about whether help was really coming or whether this was more PR. Most have felt jerked around by British Petroleum and are hoping Ken Feinberg is really here to help make them at least partially whole. He says he has received claims from 48 states so he has a huge task trying to decide who will be eligible to receive money and who doesn’t qualify. Unlike a hurricane which comes and goes this catastrophe and its impacts could crush the community for years and everyone needs help to weather the storm and stay afloat.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec10/compensation_07-27.html
For more information on Vicky Collins visit http://teletrendstv.com.
A fascinating story out of the UK. A Nigerian couple residing in Britain gives birth to white baby with an amazing head full of blonde hair. Ben and Angela Ihegboro are overwhelmed and overjoyed and are welcoming their newest child, Nmachi, whose name means “Beauty of God” with awe and love. The genetics of this are mindboggling but what a beautiful family. Great comment after the article by Sean99. He writes “God is the greatest artist of all time.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3060907/Black-parents-give-birth-to-white-baby.html
For more information on Vicky Collins visit http://teletrendstv.com.
Middle school and high school students are taught to never plagiarize. When you turn your paper in it better be your work. My then tweenage son forgot the rules and got a big fat zero once. Apparently Colorado GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis missed class that day. Or maybe he thinks politicians should be held to a lesser standard. He is being accused of virtually lifting word for word essays on water policy, speeches to Congress and various and sundry columns. He never attributed anything to The Washington Post or now-Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs who actually were the authors of his work. He even had the temerity to blame it on his researcher Rolly Fischer. The Hasan Family Foundation which paid him the handsome stipend of $300,000 for his “original” work on water issues is demanding their money back and the heat is on for McInnis to get out of the gubernatorial race. When asked by Adam Schrager of 9News about the controversy he said unapologetically “voters don’t really care about this issue. They care about jobs, getting back to work.” Hello? Are you kidding me? Of course we care about jobs but we also want our politicians to be honorable. Hearing our politicians lie and cheat is usually something that comes out after they are elected to office. Why would we put this guy in the statehouse when he already has this kind of baggage and bad judgement. His opponent Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said the reports of plagiarism “create a cloud” over McInnis. That’s a politically correct way of putting it. Talk about the understatement of the year. I really don’t know much about McInnis as a public servant and there are much bigger problems that we face then plagiarism but at this point I think it would be difficult for him to have the kind of credibility and good sense Coloradans deserve from their governor. And you can quote me on that. Just put it in quotes.
For more information on Vicky Collins visit http://teletrendstv.com
I had hardly stopped fist pumping in the air over Spain’s victory in the World Cup when I heard the news about the simultaneous bombings in Kampala, Uganda. What caught my eye immediately, besides the death toll in the senseless attack, was that one of the locations of carnage was the Ethiopian Village restaurant in Kabalagala. When we were in Uganda in June we stayed on the hill right above this district and would walk down to Kabalagala to eat and use the internet. The Ethiopian Village had an enormous TV in the main room and people would crowd in to watch the World Cup. We were in Uganda when African teams were still in the hunt so people would spill onto the street. You would often see enthusiastic fans packed 100 deep on the street looking into some bar with a tiny TV just to get a glimpse of the action.
When I heard about the bombings, I immediately worried about my friend, Matt Anderson. He’s a student from the University of Colorado, on his first trip to Africa, who is helping BeadforLife with its inventory this summer. He was staying in the same guest house where we were and it would have been completely logical for him to have walked down the street to the Ethiopian Village for a Nile Special and the finals between Spain and the Netherlands. Ethiopian Village has great food and my colleague, Paul, and I took Matt there one night after we all were done surfing the net across the street at The Lion’s Den. My instincts were right. Matt was in the bombing. I received an email shortly after the attack from Devin Hibbard, our host and one of the founders of BeadforLife, that yes, Matt had been there but he was alright. Thank God. This morning I received this email:
Vicky,
I’m OK. I was at the Ethiopian Village when the bomb went off. Thankfully, I was in a side room watching a smaller TV, not the large projector screen, so there was a wall between me and the blast. I wasn’t hurt at all by the blast but helped some Americans who got shrapnel in their legs – everyone’s instinct was to rush out as fast as possible but these people were on the ground and couldn’t move, I had to do something. Eventually, people kicked me out saying it wasn’t safe even though these Americans were still inside and injured. I didn’t know what to do until someone yelled at me to call my embassy. Thankfully I had the number in the Uganda phone Devin gave me. I called the embassy and shortly afterward greeted an agent who arrived on the scene. This is all very scary and unfortunately put a damper on the whole trip. I don’t know how much longer I will be staying but friends at BeadforLife say that there will be political unrest for a while… we’ll see. Thanks for the email. I’ll keep you posted. Matt
A Somali group called Al-Shabab, which has ties to Al-Qaeda, is taking credit for this massacre. A leader for the militants said “Whatever makes Uganda cry, makes us happy.” The group has a beef with Uganda because they have peacekeepers in Somalia and have ties to Ethiopia. There are worries that there will continue to be instability leading up to next year’s Presidential election. According to news accounts, the bombings at the Ethiopian Village and at the Rugby Club killed at least 74 people. This is unthinkable. This is so senseless. During my visits there I have always been amazed by how safe I feel in Kampala. It is such a shame that radicals would disrupt and disorganize the place like this. And it is such a shame that my friend Matt, who was so overjoyed by the opportunity to do good in Uganda, had to witness such evil. I hope he doesn’t lose heart. Please pray for the people of Uganda and most of all please pray for peace.
For more information on Vicky Collins visit http://teletrendstv.com.
Ndagire Sarah walked the red dirt carpet in her perky hairdo and a beautiful blue and white gown. She carried herself like a rich lady in a gomesi, the formal dress of women in Uganda. When I saw her I was overcome with tears of joy. I had met Sarah in 2006 when she was so sick with HIV/AIDS that she could hardly breathe. She lived in a slum in Kampala and was poor beyond belief, a widow who could not afford to feed her family or send her children to school, one of the hundreds of millions of women who live around the world in extreme poverty. But that was then. Today, just four years later, Sarah was being honored, with 21 other women for an incredible achievement. She had paid off a home that she built for herself in the village of Mukono, and was being awarded the title to the land she sat on. Sarah, who just a few years ago thought she would die and leave her children with nothing, was now a homeowner and one of the very small percentage of women around the world with land in her own name.
Ndagire Sarah in 2006
Sarah’s transcendent moment came because of her partnership with BeadforLife. For many months she rolled beads out of recycled paper and saved her money for a down payment. Beads became bricks and a ladder out of poverty. She didn’t eat the profits, worked hard, and became an entrepreneur who also raised poultry. Sarah was the pioneer in Friendship Village. She built the very first of 130 homes, even though the men who helped her thought she would not live long enough to sleep in it. Today she is the proud owner of a brick house with a tin roof. She has a lawn, a garden and 1000 neighbors. The women roll beads to pay off their mortgages and not a single one defaults. On this festival day, Sarah and 21 others call themselves brides, and they march from home to home. Each woman is given a certificate and dances with it on the porch she dreamed about. ”This is really a day of glory for each of you,” BeadforLife founder, Devin Hibbard, proclaims. She tells Sarah and the others to close their eyes. ”Think about where you were and think about where you are now and my challenge to you is to create your next dream as you become homeowners today. What do you want to accomplish in the next three or four or five years? Can you picture yourself and where you will be if you accomplish your next big goal? Because this is not the end of the path. This is only the beginning for you.”
Ndagire Sarah in 2010
In November another 60 women will become homeowners and receive the titles to their land, and in March the last deeds will be given out. The women will sing and ululate and shout “BeadforLife Oye” as they parade through the village. They will celebrate with their neighbors and dance until midnight. They will never fear that they will be thrown out of their home again. They will never worry that they will die and have nothing for their children. They will have an asset they can sell or carry from generation to generation, and a garden so they can feed their family. For when you have a home you are never poor. ”Being a homeowner means the pride, the success, the light in your eyes, knowing you have worked hard and you have accomplished great things,” Devin reminds them. ”Being a homeowner means the confidence and pride to carry yourself like a big woman.” Today Sarah is a leader in the village. ”Because of BeadforLife I’m so happy and so proud. Sometimes when I sleep in my bed I say every person never lose hope. Let me be the woman determined to win. Because of BeadforLife I have my own house.”
For more information on BeadforLife visit http://beadforlife.org.
For more information on Vicky Collins visit http://teletrendstv.com.
