Drum roll please … tonight a little more than $1,200 was sent to theInternational Bird Rescue Center, courtesy ofyou fine people. And the request was made for the following pelican names:

Scout

FYYFF

UncleSamRocks

Ashley

Albert Lambreaux

LaDonna

(There was a tie at press time between Maddow and LaDonna and I figuredafter the week our girl had last week on Treme, she needed the Pelican more.)

I really can’t emphasize enough how hard you all rocked this project. Usually when we do something like this I try to send everybody who donated an e-mail. This time, around the second day it became a positive blizzard of donations, as small as $2, as large as $100, and the e-mail got away from me completely. But know that each of you is a part of this, and a small part of the enormous effort going on to safeguard and clean up the Gulf.

You’re good people. I’m proud to know you.

A.