NEW YORK: Beyonce, Blake Shelton, Barbra Streisand and Oprah Winfrey will headline a one-hour telethon to benefit Hurricane Harvey victims that will be simulcast next week on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CMT.
The event will be telecast live at 8 p.m. Eastern on Sept. 12, and on tape delay at 8 p.m. on the West Coast, and streamed live on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Houston rap artist Bun B and Scooter Braun, a Hollywood talent manager and founder of SB Projects, are the organizers.
Bun B, a Houston native and lecturer at Rice University, said he was trying to organize a local event through his contacts and recognized that Harvey was a broader tragedy.
“One morning it just hit me — this is a national disaster,” he said. “It is personal for me because it is home to me, it s in my city, but it is a national disaster.”
He enlisted the help of Braun, who has worked with Usher, Ariana Grande, Kanye West, Justin Bieber and others, to tap into his Hollywood contacts. Within 48 hours of trying, they reached agreements with the television networks to carry the event.
Braun said he hoped the telethon could be a unifying event for a country that has seen so much division. The organizers said they were inspired by television reports of volunteers who formed a human chain to help rescue one Houston victim from the flood.
“People want a sense of unity,” Braun said.
George Clooney, Drake, Matthew McConaughey, Dennis Quaid, Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Ryan Seacrest, Michael Strahan, Kelly Rowland, George Strait, Reese Witherspoon and others will also participate with taped or live messages or staffing phone banks. Journalists Matt Lauer and Norah O’Donnell will also participate. More celebrities are expected.
Several organizations will benefit, including United Way of Greater Houston, Habitat for Humanity, Save the Children, Direct Relief, Feeding Texas and The Mayor’s Fund for Hurricane Harvey Relief.
Other entertainment figures have already stepped up to help flood victims in the past week. The ABC networks held a “day of giving” that has raised more than $15 million, and singers Paul Simon and Edie Brickell pledged $1 million.
While the telethon will be helping Harvey’s victims, “by Tuesday we might be helping more than them,” Braun said, a reference to powerful Hurricane Irma in the Atlantic Ocean, which may threaten Florida and the southern US this weekend.
The telethon will air from Los Angeles, but there will be stages in New York and Nashville, Tennessee. A performance from George Strait’s San Antonio benefit concert for Harvey will also be shown.
“The telethon is going to be good,” Braun said. “We are going to put on a great show. The reason we want people to tune is because we want people to show who we are. That is our goal — to bring the idea that people care about each other back.”
Beyonce, Streisand to headline Harvey relief telethon
Beyonce, Streisand to headline Harvey relief telethon
Some Warren Buffett wisdom on his last day leading Berkshire Hathaway
OMAHA, Nebraska: The advice that legendary investor Warren Buffett offered on investing and life over the years helped earn him legions of followers who eagerly read his annual letters and filled an arena in Omaha every year to listen to him at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meetings.
Buffett’s last day as CEO is Wednesday after six decades of building up the Berkshire conglomerate. He’ll remain chairman, but Greg Abel will take over leadership.
Here’s a collection of some of Buffett’s most famous quotes from over the years:
___
“Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”
That’s how Buffett summed up his investing approach of buying out-of-favor stocks and companies when they were selling for less than he estimated they were worth.
He also urged investors to stick with industries they understand that fall within their “circle of competence” and offered this classic maxim: “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1.”
___
“After they first obey all rules, I then want employees to ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next day on the front page of their local paper to be read by their spouses, children and friends with the reporting done by an informed and critical reporter.
“If they follow this test, they need not fear my other message to them: Lose money for the firm and I will be understanding; lose a shred of reputation for the firm and I will be ruthless.”
That’s the ethical standard Buffett explained to a Congressional committee in 1991 that he would apply as he cleaned up the Wall Street investment firm Salomon Brothers. He has reiterated the newspaper test many times since over the years.
___
“You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.”
Many companies might do well when times are good and the economy is growing, but Buffett told investors that a crisis always reveals whether businesses are making sound decisions.
___
“Who you associate with is just enormously important. Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that. But you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.”
Buffett always told young people that they should try to hang out with people who they feel are better than them because that will help improve their lives. He said that’s especially true when choosing a spouse, which might be the most important decision in life.
___
“Our unwavering conclusion: never bet against America.”
Buffett has always remained steadfast in his belief in the American capitalist system. He wrote in 2021 that “there has been no incubator for unleashing human potential like America. Despite some severe interruptions, our country’s economic progress has been breathtaking.”
