Both of the tabloids try to get a little action out of Mayor Bloomberg’s unfortunate attempt at humor concerning the Irish tendency toward dipsomania. The News goes with “Bloomy’s Blarney,” while the Post has it as “Irish Stew.” (Presumably “Mike’s Micks-Up” was deemed too offensive.) But what was the actual joke in question?

The mayor’s stand-up act fell flat Wednesday night when he told a crowd at the American Irish Historical Society that he’s used to seeing drunks hanging out the windows of its Fifth Avenue headquarters, around the corner from his town house on East 79th Street, the Irish Central Web site reported.

“I live in the neighborhood, right around the corner,” the mayor said. “Normally, when I walk by this building, there are a bunch of people that are totally inebriated hanging out the window. I know that’s a stereotype about the Irish, but nevertheless, we Jews around the corner think this.”

The mayor attempted to clarify his remarks, explaining that he “was talking about a party they have every year on St. Patrick’s Day, where it’s traditional to hang out the window and yell and scream, and it’s all in good fun,” and later issued a flat-out apology in which he expressed remorse and noted that he did not intend to offend anyone. Which is probably the sensible thing to do. We all know how sensitive the Irish get when you bring up the fact that their greatest contribution to world culture is Bushmill’s Single Malt. They get so angry and upset that the only thing that will calm them down is a nice, stiff drink. Or a drink of any kind, really; they’re not picky.

Still, this is one of those occasional moments where we feel for the mayor. Sure, it was a terrible attempt at humor, less hacky than half-formed. It contained none of the eloquence of the three wishes/pint of Guinness bit, or the one about the new pub where they get you laid. But this is Mike Bloomberg we’re talking about here. What exactly did anyone expect? I mean, let’s not forget, this is a guy who probably got beat up by seven different hockey players named Sully during his youth in Medford, Mass. The fact that he even made mention of the Jews should show that his heart, at least, was in the right place. The lesson to take away from this whole thing is that the only group who can make fun of Irish for being drunks is the Irish themselves, a fact that they happily demonstrate by their own actions every day at pretty much every bar in town with a shillelagh on the wall, the Chieftains on the jukebox and a watered-down bottle of Powers Gold Label near the cash register. God, those people really like their booze.

The thugs #AJ keeps reporting at pres palace is group of 30 posh-looking men & women chanting EGYPT. They just want others 2 stop protestingFri Feb 11 13:37:48 via Mobile Web

Nadia El-Awady
NadiaE

• The events of the Egyptian Revolution are often subject to a giant game of telephone. Today it’s: “Thugs at the Presidential Palace!” No wait: “Peaceful friendly protests!” And you saw what happened yesterday. Someone — two someones, really — who worked somewhere in the Egyptian government said “I think Mubarak is going to step down today!” And then nearly everyone went hog wild. One thing that’s important in these times is to ask yourself: How many actual reporters, with actual background in the country and actual Egypt government sources, do you think are in Egypt at this time? I’m going to go with “maybe that one dude from the Guardian, that nice lady from the BBC, and also Al Jazeera, up in Doha.” So you know, I say it with kindness: take it easy on the retweet button, ya know?

• There’s been a ton of conflicting information this morning. The most-conflicted message so far today is: did Mubarak leave Cairo? The Times says he did, “according to a Western official,” or “a Western diplomat.” (There was, irritatingly, no mention given to why a “Western diplomat” was speaking under condition of anonymity! The more paranoid among us might give a wide reading to “diplomat.”) Al-Jazeera says that Agence France-Presse says it’s true. The Guardian credits it to al-Arabiya. Everyone else says Reuters says this: “Mohamed Abdelllah, senior member of ruling party, also said that he had information that Mubarak was heading to Sharm el-Sheikh.” But… that’s still Egypt, by the way, my fellow Westerners — though it’s a short hop to Saudi Arabia from there! The point being… Mubarak is likely still in the country! It doesn’t actually matter that he left Cairo! Think of this as like the American President going to Camp David.

• Pop quiz! Who is “the first European Union leader to call for Mubarak’s resignation”?

The answer is: Lars Rasmussen! The prime minister of… Denmark. Surprise!

• Demonstrations are enormous today. I mean huge! This is an incredible thing!

• Most amusing: “Egypt’s military high council has promised to lift the country’s 30-year state of emergency when the ‘current situation has ended.’” What’s very confusing to us westerners is the notion of the army as an independent decision-making body! This morning, the army’s goals were to back “Mubarak’s process of slow transition” — and they still repeat calls for the protestors to go home. Guess what, that is not ever going to happen.

• As great as they are, even Al-Jazeera runs into American-style cable programming issues. Heh.

Al Jazeera now showing a random beach shot from Sharm al-Sheikhless than a minute ago via Twitter for Mac

Blake Hounshell
blakehounshell

• As a sign of how fast things move: this morning’s paper New York Times headline is Mubarak Won’t Quit, Stoking Revolt’s Fury and Resolve. Now, online? “Mubarak Reportedly Leaves Cairo: Signs Grow of Full Transfer of Power.” So.

Hakkasan is at last coming to New York! The fabled and expensive restaurant, often called the best Chinese restaurant in the world, is opening a fourth outpost in Hell’s Kitchen. (And also a fifth and a sixth: Mumbai and Dubai. Genius? A naked pursuit of money? Fun? Shark-jumping? All of the above?) In any event, oh, what wonders you will see! Let me tell you about the Hakkasan experience. First, you should bring headset telephones, so that you may communicate with your tablemates in a manner other than “gestural.” Also you should bring an inflated sense of self-regard and a small flashlight. (Also, sure, “hunger.”)

But yes, it’s most important to know that the only U.S. outpost of Hakkasan, in Miami Beach, at the insane Fontainebleau complex (home to Scarpetta and Gotham Steak as well), can be the loudest — and angriest — place on earth.

Just last Saturday, we arrived for an 8:30 p.m. reservation. We were informed that we were seven minutes early by the nice woman at the front desk (I mean this literally: she said, “you’re seven minutes early,” which was odd but charming), and we were asked to have a drink at the bar. The bar was mildly crowded (it’s a long thin stretch, and it doubles as the walkway to the seated part of the restaurant). We stood at the far end, near the service bar, as all the seats were full.

One of these drinks was really rather vile and sweet and the excellent bartender cheerily replaced it with another beverage. The Nashi Collins is a good but heavy on the gin! The Chinese Mule is delightful and spicy and cilantro-ey! The non-alcoholic cocktails are quite good.

The wait was brief (three drinks, only two of them alcoholic: $50), and we found it was surprisingly bright at our table — at least, as I was remembering the place from a previous visit as being rather iPhone-light dependent to see menus, food and fellow diners. “Stick around,” our server said: “It gets darker every hour.” Truer words, never spoken! Also the lights dimmed.

The tables are pleasant, lit from above; the seating is comfortable. A carved cut-out wall-panel separates the nearest tables from the bar. There are many optical tricks to the restaurant, lots of scrimmings, and apparently no windows at all, which gives it a nice if somewhat menacing cave-like aspect. Where does it stop? Who knows! In London, the restaurant is similar but a bit more straightforward, with rows of tables across the space.

We were seated down the row from a 60-something man and what seemed to be his 19-year-old bride. As we observed more closely, we found she was probably 45, and had commissioned the most exquisite work upon herself. What is the polite way to ask who one’s surgeon is? There is no polite way, so we did not. He was not drinking, and she had her own bottle of Dom.

The duck salad is enormous and outlandish; the dim sum, sure good, as is the shumai, with a little scallop upon it; the very rich and thick hot and sour soup; the spicy prawn in baby coconut (yes, it’s in a coconut!); black pepper beef tenderloin (exquisite beef); all of the vegetables I’ve tried and rice and noodles and sides, these are all really terrific. The food is just very, very good! Food-wise, it’s a little like Má Pêche, but with a focus on Chinese, obviously, and sturdier, without the intentional weirdness, and also without that restaurant’s smallish portions and the annoying dessert situation.

Service is “family-style” but the dishes are all of different proportions. Some are good for sharing; others less so. The server (very delightful; very competent) said that our food would arrive “sporadically,” which was again, I thought, a strange choice of words, but it really did not. A few things arrived early; then everything else arrived rather all at once. This served to make the eating experience slightly stressful, harried and less complex. It was rather like filling up your plate all at once at a wedding buffet. (It also compressed our total time in the restaurant to 90 minutes; unusual.)

As the next hour went on, the bar filled, and the restaurant became full. The sort of trancey-disco playing became louder. The room gradually darkened, all black and dark blue. People would spill out of the bar and into the dining area, poorly-dressed frat boys having apparently engrossing cellphone conversations. The music became louder again. A terrifying and presumably Ukrainian woman in an ostrich-feather skirt, accompanied by some doughboy, attempted to seize the table next to ours, and was escorted away. (The table was then occupied by what seemed to be two gays, one in plaid and one in a plaid tie, who paid only attention to each other but never once smiled or laughed.)

As this was the Chinese New Year, dinner was then interrupted by a massive clanging. Lions — and several of them, and yes they looked like dragons, but they were lions — began roaming the restaurant; they were followed by security guards and people with drums. This bit of havoc patrolled the restaurant for 15 minutes or so, driving out evil spirits (though not the ones visible), and then servers passed out a coupon good for 20% off one’s next dining experience. (NOT REDEEMABLE FOR CASH. COUPON MUST BE PRESENTED FOR REDEMPTION. OFFER LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON PER VISIT. PHOTOCOPIES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.)

The racket, or the evening, or status not being appropriately recognized, seemed to draw nearly everyone into a state of rage. The trance-house came back on when the lions departed, louder than ever. It was getting quite dark. The surgeoned lady discovered some shrieky gays of her acquaintance through the bar divider. At our table, we could not hear each other speak. A table beyond the next scrim revealed a hefty man with what I still cannot believe but we really are fairly certain was an “I love Asians” tattoo on his arm and a young girl with him, who looked like his daughter but might have been his wife, but really she might have been 12. This girl-woman would stand up from the table, texting on her BlackBerry, then sit in his lap. We refused dessert, in our deafened blindness, and went to leave. (The check seemed suspiciously small, at a hundred dollars a person — tip included, as is the custom in Miami Beach, what with its influx of Germans and Russians who refuse to acknowledge our quaint custom of tipping.)

Making our way out through the scrum at the bar was the single most unnerving, even frightening, experience in recent memory. Towering ostrich-skirt lady was still at the bar, or near it, and she gave me the single most enraged look I have ever received, ever, ever. Everyone else was so tall as well! And so pan-Soviet! It was like the angriest dance club in the world, where everyone had taken a designer drug to make himself as angry as he could be. Every man had his shirt untucked, which only amplified the current fashionable natural schlumpiness among moneyed men; every woman was in enormous heels and you wondered in what month each might have consumed non-alcohol at a restaurant. It was a Neverland of furious Cossacks, and in twenty years, the technology will surely exist so that each may convey in holograms all about herself the markers of her status, so that it may be appropriately recognized. Until such time, I suggest limiting your reservation time to their first seating, which is at 6 p.m.

YUCK RT @yokoono: Remember, in the end, we are all water in the same ocean.less than a minute ago via TweetDeck

Joe MacLeod
JOEMACLEOD666

Every Twitter feed needs one bouncy loon. Baltimore City Paper art director Joe MacLeod (who is also Awl pal Joe MacLeod!) is my loon. Why? Because he’s NUTS!

You know (or at least I do) about how I HATE the comedy. Joe isn’t funny. Or at least he isn’t trying to be funny. He’s just special, and different. And it’s delightful.

Is there a magazine that has all the good Twitters in it?less than a minute ago via TweetDeck

Joe MacLeod
JOEMACLEOD666

@KeithOlbermann Hey man, looking forward to LIVE WITH KEITH & KELLY. No? KATHIE LEE & HODA & KEITH? No? REGIS & KEITH IN THE MORNING? No?less than a minute ago via TweetDeck

Joe MacLeod
JOEMACLEOD666

If Detroit doesn’t want that ROBOCOP statue, could we get it in Baltimore?less than a minute ago via TweetDeck

Joe MacLeod
JOEMACLEOD666

AND A JOB RT @bykowicz: Reporter’s eye view of MD State of the State. I have about 6 inches of space … #mdsots http://plixi.com/p/74516301less than a minute ago via TweetDeck

Joe MacLeod
JOEMACLEOD666

It’ll overwhelm you sometimes. But just ride it out!

Previously:

Britt Julious

Wears the Trousers

DCJourno

Kate Riley

Roger Clark

Emma Gilbey Keller

A reader from North Carolina writes: “This picture was taken fifteen minutes ago [Note: This is now several hours old. Scheduling, she is so difficult! — Ed.] from our back door. Seriously. On any other occasion I’d be a little alarmed for the dog and cat, but today it’s just adding to the pixilation.” And how. What a bear!

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Night Song

Merle Oberon is a vessel of light.
She has the brains to go with the diamonds.

She gives up a jillion dollars and a pretty boyfriend
for the love of music.

When we find what we can’t have,
the whole body hurts, the tongue hurts,

the skull like a teapot.
It starts in the eyes.

If you want to ask something, ask it.
If you want to do something, do it.

Live like that.
My vistas are framed by pine boughs.

Waves on the lake tick like a clock.
I know what I’m entitled to have.

When I am blind, you are blind.
We are two blind people in a city full of eyes.

You take me for walks on the beach.
Stand in smoke and light in front of Carnegie Hall.

The boiled wool of the Great Plains trundles past
our too-big windows on the train.

Light me a torch, will you chum?
I trade boogie-woogie for beer and hamburger.

Music is all I have to live for.
My heart’s an old wastepaper basket.

Merle’s face asleep on a plane,
a child tucked into bed.

The symphony’s over. You can let your hair down
and become human again.

English Poem

Ward Pottery business card holder.
A gray rabbit looks quizzically
at the space where name and title should appear.

People I’ve helped who help me now.
The gap between train and platform,
reality and expectation, time is running

oblique. The Victorians believed
four humors flow through all of us,
an ocean of bile, islands of flesh.

Dresden was an answer to Coventry. If history
is a country we can visit, then Hitler, Roosevelt,
and Churchill are rag dolls in the future’s toy box,

trading cards in the same hologram deck. Julian
of Norwich asked to be bricked in a wall
in order to get to heaven sooner.

Visitors fed her through a gap in the mortar. I believe that evil
belongs together, Mussolini and the Lockerbie bomber
sitting at the same lunchroom cafeteria table,

and that everything that survives deserves our love. Salvation
is on the other side of the world.
I promise that a detour is a diversion

as surely as I know that we will someday fly outside
the atmosphere for faster travel. Today
a team of British scientists discovered

a monster star ten million times brighter than our sun.
Hell falls away the moment when the boaters on the lake
wave to the tourists on the shore.

James Cihlar is the author of Undoing (Little Pear Press) and Metaphysical Bailout (Pudding House Press). His poems, interviews, and reviews appear in American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Painted Bride Quarterly, Western American Literature, Rhino, and Forklift, Ohio.

For more poetry, visit The Poetry Section’s vast archive! You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

This is happening now. The Egyptian president says he will leave eventually, but not just at this moment.

by Abe Sauer

On January 20th, we published the results of an investigation that proved the use of United States Agency for International Development funding in Haiti, in direct violation of executive orders. While we noted considerable evidence of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) chaplains proselytizing at USAID-funded Samaritan’s Purse cholera clinics, USAID dismissed the findings, attributing the abuse to “an individual” and noted that this NGO partner “is working to re-educate their staff about regulations pertaining to religious activities.”

The BGEA itself seems happy to sell this claim as well. A January 24th story about Graham’s organizations in the Charlotte Observer (later picked up by McClatchy Newspapers) noted, “Samaritan’s Purse recently responded to criticism by asking the chaplains to stop preaching at the cholera clinics because the effort is partially funded by government grants.” (That “criticism” was ours, by the way.)

Funny then that a February 4, 2011 dispatch from BGEA Rapid Response Team chaplain Andrew Hawkins should read: “Time spent this morning at the Cite Solielle CTC (Cholera Treatment Centre) was fruitful. We began praying from bed to bed for the women patients and one wanted to receive Christ.”

Yes. Further information reveals systematic misuse of USAID funding in Haiti by Samaritan’s Purse, and no abatement to that activity, even after USAID said otherwise.

Following our first story, both the BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse websites ceased publishing any dispatches from Haiti on the organizations’ works. Except, it appears nobody told their U.K. or Canadian offices.

Reports from the BGEA’s U.K. chapter on the work of “Rapid Response Team” chaplains in Samaritan’s Purse camps continue to pour in, long after their honcho Franklin Graham himself claimed that chaplains had stopped preaching at the cholera clinics. Dispatches from BGEA RRT chaplains Roger Abbott, Nigel Fawcett-Jones, Andrew Hawkins and Johnson Olajide between November 2010 and February 2011 confirm both that the relationship between BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse goes far beyond the USAID-claimed lone “individual” and are ongoing.

(Readers’s Note: “Bercy” CTC and “City Soleil” CTC are cholera treatment clinics run by Samaritan’s Purse in Port-au-Prince and its Bercy suburb.)

The Roger Abbott and Nigel Fawcett-Jones dispatches are here.

The Johnson Olajide and Roger Abbott dispatches are here.

Andrew Hawkins’ dispatches are here.

Left, BGEA Chaplain Nigel Fawcett-Jones administers to an ill Haitian in a USAID-funded Samartian’s Purse clinic.

Chaplain Nigel Fawcett-Jones; Nov. 23: “So far we have spent most of our time at the Cholera Treatment Centre (CTC) in the Port au Prince neighbourhood of Berci [sic]. Here we have been able to pray with many Haitians suffering from cholera…. One of the four Haitians who made a decision for Christ was Wilfred…”

Chaplain Nigel Fawcett-Jones; Nov. 23: “Having been in Haiti for 5 days now, I think that I’m becoming used to the routine… As usual there were around 100 people queuing for medical assistance or fresh water. The queue snakes its way around the outside of the building with the patients sitting on wooden benches. As the head of the queue moves into the building, the whole line shuffles along the bench. It can take a couple of hours to move along the queue and some of the young children become very upset. One such child was two-year-old Niaca, whom it appeared was suffering from an ear infection. Niaca toddled across and climbed onto my knee, and the Lord prompted me to burst into song. A couple of renditions of “My God is so big so strong and so mighty,” complete with the actions, had Niaca smiling. This gave me an opportunity to speak with Niaca’s mother and, through the translator, explain the words of the song to her and pray with her.” [Note: This appears to directly violate USAID rules stating that aid cannot appear contingent on participation in an explicitly religious activity.]

Chaplain Nigel Fawcett-Jones; Nov. 25: “Wednesday afternoon was spent at the Bercy Cholera Clinic. Here I spoke with a 10-year-old boy named Bob Francois who was recovering well from cholera. It was clear that he was totally bored having lain on a bed for several days. I asked if he liked stories and after acknowledging that he did I shared with him the parable of the wise and foolish builders. Bob’s father was with him and both listened intently as I told the story, complete with the actions. I explained the parable to them and asked if they were building their lives on the rock of Jesus or on the sand that the world offers. Both acknowledged that they needed to build their lives on Jesus. Both then accepted the Lord as their Saviour.”

Chaplain Nigel Fawcett-Jones; Nov. 25: “An effective way of reaching adults for Christ here is by entertaining the children. With Roger [Abbott] away, the singing was left solely to me and Gilbert, my long suffering translator. Today we thought that “My God is so big so strong and so mighty….” would entertain the children and give some relief to the parents. The song (and actions) flowed into talking about how strong and faithful our Lord is and that He is mighty to save. Here Zachery (12) and two women, Merville (27) and Monique (27), had been listening in to the song and gave their lives to the Lord. Once more a local pastor was present. He was able to provide them with Bibles… A long session in the afternoon at the Bercy CTC enabled me to pray with several cholera patients.”

Chaplain Roger Abbot; Nov. 26: “On my rounds at a very hot Bercy CTC… there was one patient who was in the throws [sic] of cholera. His relative was a bright Christian lady too, but he was not. So, I asked him a similar question: ‘B, are you ready to die?’ He too said ‘No.’ I related how in the last week, I had seen big, grown men die, and small children, so this was not an inappropriate place to have such a conversation. He knew that only too well, because he had cholera! So, he too said he wanted to receive Christ as his Saviour, and he did.”

Chaplain Nigel Fawcett-Jones; Dec. 2: “I spent this morning comforting a small boy named Stevenson… One of the SP [Samaritan’s Purse] medical volunteers asked if I could keep Stevenson company. Of course it was the very least I could do… Around an hour later a relative of Stevenson arrived at the tent. He explained to me that he was the brother in law of Stevenson’s mother. I told the relative, Constant, that I’d been praying with Stevenson and would he like prayer for anything in his life. Constant explained that he wanted to give his heart to Jesus but he didn’t know how and felt that he needed to get a job and some clothes so he could attend church. After sharing scripture with Constant and explaining that God looks on the state of our hearts, not the sate of our clothes, Constant said he wanted to receive Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. As I began to pray Constant kneeled there and then. I, along with my translator Gilbert did the same. Constant received the Lord kneeling on the floor of a cholera clinic in City Soliel.”

Chaplain Andrew Hawkins; Jan. 23: “Time spent this morning at the Cite Solielle CTC (Cholera Treatment Centre) was fruitful. We began praying from bed to bed for the women patients and one wanted to receive Christ. She had specifically come to the Samaritan’s Purse for cholera treatment knowing that she would also hear about the Lord. John 8:12 was shared with her, knowing that she was a catholic with possible voodoo involvement. In coming to Christ she was told that the darkness must be left behind as she begins to walk in the light. Still wanting to respond, she was led in a salvation prayer. Then the husband of another woman patient requested the same and was led to Christ after further explaining the commitment he was making.”

Chaplain Roger Abbott; Bercy CTC; Jan 30: “I and a nurse asked him if he had yet received Christ as his personal Saviour. After some beating round the bush, it became apparent that he hadn’t, but that he now knew the time to be right to do so. I explained to him about the person and work of Christ, and then invited him to pray. It was so moving to hear this man giving thanks to God for him and his family being spared the fire and the cholera, and then to hear him acknowledge his sinfulness and his desire for Christ to be his Saviour. I then presented him with a NT and Psalms, in which we wrote: “For … on the first day of your new life, Jan. 30th 2011.”

Roger Abbott; Bercy CTC; Jan. 31: “At one point a mum and her sister started to ask if they could discharge their baby so they could move her to see a Voodu priest, as her recovery was so slow. They became quite heated about this. I sat down with them and explained to them what cholera is and how it affects people, and how it would have most surely killed the baby had she not recieved the help of the centre in time. I asked if they believed in God and Jesus Christ. They said “Of course!” So I discussed with them the need for them to be patient and to trust God; but they cannot trust God and in Voodu.”

Chaplain Andrew Hawkins; Feb. 2: “[Traveled] to the Bercy CTC (Cholera Treatment Centre) about ten minutes drive to the north. Assisted by my interpreter, Joel, there I was able to pray with patients in the women’s and children’s areas. There were a few babies under six months old suffering from the cholera and one boy with whom I shared the Gospel using finger actions. Then passing a teenager on site, my interpreter struck up conversation in Haitian Creole and the conversation turned to him asking to receive Christ. I led him through the commitment he was making with reference to Luke 9: 23 and then we prayed for his salvation — Praise the Lord!”

Chaplain Andrew Hawkins; Feb. 3: “But as Chaplains we knew the Lord’s protection over us again today as we journeyed to Bercy CTC (Cholera Treatment Centre) in the morning and Cite Solielle [sic] CTC in the afternoon, ministering to the Samaritan’s Purse medical staff and patients alike. Haitian Creole Bibles were carefully distributed.”

Above, a recently uploaded photo featuring Samaritan’s Purse medical staff with the caption “Chaplain Al New ministers alongside a mobile med team in Haiti during the cholera outbreak.”

And further proving that Samaritan’s Purse has changed nothing, but instead just stopped reporting on the activities of its chaplains, is a note from Andrew Hawkins on February 2, 2011 that mentions “my partner Chaplain from the US, Kelly Burke.”

Reports from Samaritan’s Purse nurse Roseann Dennery demonstrate that the BGEA RRT activity is known to the SP staff. Dennery wrote in December 2010: “Chaplains from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association are working alongside our staff, praying over each patient, providing encouragement, and sharing the Gospel.”

SP nurse Carmen Murray wrote in January 2011, “Knowing the rebuilding effort in Haiti will take many years, Samaritan’s Purse recently signed a lease extension. BGEA chaplains will continue to share the site too, as they minister to staff and volunteers, including many Haitians, and to recipients of Samaritan’s Purse assistance elsewhere, including patients and family in cholera treatment centers.”

In our last report, we pointed out that a USAID Financial Year 2011 budget document “Humanitarian Assistance to Haiti for Cholera” notes Samaritan’s Purse as a grantee for at least $2,869,431 (15% of the total $19,143,098 budgeted). That is in addition to millions of other dollars USAID has budgeted for Samaritan’s Purse.

In the last year, 58 BGEA chaplains have served in Haiti. According to the February 2011 edition of BGEA’s own Decision Magazine, these chaplains have done work “leading 1,500 to salvation.”

Given the preponderance of evidence, there is no reason not to believe that all 58 of those BGEA chaplains have been operating in the USAID-funded Samaritain’s Purse camps and clinics as part of a concerted effort by both organizations. And despite statements, it’s clear this is an ongoing policy that has not been curbed in the slightest. Furthermore, it’s clear that USAID’s original insistence that the Samaritan’s Purse use of federal funds in violation of executive order was limited to an “an individual” is preposterous.

Further suggesting that the BGEA’s actions in USAID-funded Haiti projects are probably not limited to Samaritan’s Purse is a 2010 photo of BGEA chaplain Roger Abbott pastoring to an ill and bedridden Haitian under a UNICEF banner (above). A USAID memo from last year titled “Fact Sheet on Fiscal Year (FY) 2010” outlined nearly $15 million that the agency had budgeted for UNICEF in Haiti.

What’s more, we know that USAID does in fact visit these clinics. A Jan. 14, 2011 memo states that “On January 11, USAID/DART staff visited a CTF managed by grantee Samaritan’s Purse (SP) in the vicinity of Port- au-Prince.”

To fully douse any doubt about the BGEA’s fundamental role in USAID-funded SP sites, we managed to contact a BGEA RRT chaplain currently in Haiti. Andrew Hawkins told us that he is “the only Brit” of “six RRT Chaplains currently serving out here.” Via email he confirmed that he had recently “visited Bercy CTC (Cholera Treatment Centre). It is the slightly busier clinic compared to Cite Solielle, but prayer is being effective and people are receiving Christ.”

We again contacted USAID. Assembling all of the above evidence, we asked the organization again for a statement, including what measures USAID has in place to assure its partners are following through on the promise it made earlier. USAID’s full and completely unedited response:

“Greetings Abe,

USAID takes seriously any allegation of improper use of U.S. taxpayer funding, including allegations of U.S. government funding being used for religious worship, instruction or proselytization.

We are working with our partners to re-emphasize the rules and regulations with regard to use of sites or programs funded by the U.S. government for religious purposes.

As always, thanks for contacting us.

Best regards,
Drew Bailey, USAID Press Officer”

Subsequent follow up questions, including one asking what specific “work” was being done to “re-emphasize the rules and regulations with regard to use of sites or programs funded by the U.S. government,” have gone unanswered. (Also ignored? Attempts to get a comment from Samaritan’s Purse and the BGEA.)

The expectation seems to be that we just need to trust them.

But wait, it gets better. Given Samaritan’s Purse’s flagrant disregard for USAID rules in Haiti, and its refusal to change even after being caught, the organization’s appearance on another recent report is cause for much greater alarm. An October 2010 Office of Inspector General oversight report on USAID activities in Pakistan identified Samaritan’s Purse in a section titled “Review of USAID’s Internally Displaced Persons Programs in Pakistan” as an “implementing partner” for “providing humanitarian assistance to Pakistani internally displaced persons” in refugee camps.

Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer [at] gmail.com.

“A MAN who stabbed his friend to death in a row over a mis-spelt text message has been convicted of manslaughter.” Yes, what a world, etc., but it’s even stranger when you consider this: “Brook told the police he sent Mr Witkowski a text containing the word ‘nutter’, but, because of his predictive text, it came out as “mutter”. Mr Witkowski took offence and after the pair exchanged a series of increasingly abusive and angry text messages, he went round to Brook’s flat.”

by Bob Powers

What would two dozen servers from across the country tell you if they could get away with it? We don’t know, but it seems like a great idea for a popular web story that is sure to pay extra dividends from search traffic, particularly if people are searching for terms like “waiter,” “secrets,” “restaurant secrets,” “list of secrets,” “Valentine’s Day” and “lies.” We don’t go in for that sort of thing at The Awl, so instead we’re going to give you the real, authentic secrets of waiters that restaurants don’t want you to know about food or porn or pornography or hot naked chicks. Get ready for some truth.

15. When I was in middle school, my gym teacher used to pay me ten dollars to sit with him in the locker room and watch him cry.

14. This restaurant isn’t real. You’ve been Inceptioned.

PLUS: The Key to ‘Inception’: It’s a Movie About Making Movies

13. My parents aren’t my real parents. They kidnapped me when I was an infant. I don’t know who my biological parents are. My parents told me all of this when I graduated from college, and they said I could turn them in to the police if I wanted. They said I deserved the right to go and find out who my biological parents are, and they would happily suffer the consequences. “We’re ready to go to jail if that’s what you want,” they said. “Having had the opportunity to raise such a wonderful boy is worth spending the rest of our lives in prison.” I decided not to bother because I’m real busy trying to get some momentum going with my band. Also, we’ve run out of the cuttlefish.

12. I don’t understand why people like “Mad Men” so much.

PLUS: Don Draper Is Definitely Not A Pussy

11. You’re not actually sitting in my station. I asked one of the other waiters if I could take your table because you look exactly like my former roommate, Kim Randolph. In 2007, Kim hanged herself in her bedroom while I was home for Christmas. Waiting on you lets me pretend she’s still alive and there’s still time to reach out to her and offer her some help, so I hope you don’t mind if I touch your shoulder when I tell you about the specials.

10. Every time I ever said, “I love you,” it’s been a lie.

PLUS: Cat Ladies And Love

9. You’re not going to believe this, but before you arrived at the restaurant your friends secreted a birthday cake in the kitchen. After you finish your entrees, I’ve been told to bring the cake to your table, covered in lit candles. The cake says, “Happy Birthday Melanie” on it. We’re going to sing a song to you. All of us, the wait staff, the busboys, your table-mates. We’re all going to sing a song to you, Melanie.

8. Back when Myspace was big, three of my Top 8 had restraining orders against me.

PLUS: Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Your Stalker.

7. I’m a cop.

6. My landlord offered to take $300 off my rent if I’d let him install a closed circuit camera in my bathroom. I’m 80% sure that I can get him up to $400.

PLUS: Things Visible in the Windows of the Apartment Building Across the Way

5. I never texted ten dollars to Haiti.

4. For my first four months at this job, the line cooks refused to call me anything but “Faggot.”

PLUS: The Definitive KFC Double Down Review

3. Every time I ever said, “No I’ve never been to that planetarium,” it’s been a lie.

2. The only time I feel like a good person is when I’m masturbating to porn and I close a window because the scene got too rapey. Like when it’s five-on-one or there’s a lot of gagging. I close the window and I feel really impressed with myself. That’s the closest I ever get to being socially responsible. I’ll see a video of what looks like someone being assaulted and I’ll say, “No, I will not masturbate to that.”

PLUS: Chooching: What You Need To Know

1. I have no idea what’s going on in Egypt right now. An earthquake or something?

Bob Powers is a freelance writer in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter.