100 COUNTRIES?

It's nice to see another telethon romping out to raise money for those caught up in Katrina - because, heaven knows, after two weeks of watching kids who've lost their parents, old people dying in the streets, houses being smashed open by troops, people wading through a toxic soup of piss, shit, chemicals and oil to grab a box of lasagne, crying, pleading and human misery, it wouldn't be until Ellen DeGeneres tells a couple of jokes that I'd think "Hang on... maybe i should make a donation, here."

We're raising a curious eyebrow at the claim that viewers in 100 countries" could have watched the programme - we're pretty certain that it didn't air here in the UK, but maybe it did on some wilder shore of the Sky Digibox than we're accustomed to watching (hey, we were surprised to discover that Gems TV has a sister station now) - although we did see a couple of seconds on one of the US News Networks, so we don't know if that counted or not.

Kanye West appeared, but was made to stick to singing - his microphone was "broken" for a couple of moments at the start of his song; we guess that was someone testing the panic button a little too late. Having said which, producer Joe Gallen had pledged that anyone taking part who said something political would be left unbleeped:

"I think people know that politicizing will certainly not be a smart thing to do as far as inspiring people who want to call in and rally around this cause, which all of us in America are doing, not just the entertainment industry," Gallen said.

"If anybody has those kinds of feelings or are tempted to do it, I believe that's where they are going to channel their feelings, to inspire people to donate and leave the politicizing at home."

Of course, telling people that they'd be better off not speaking their mind, and leaning on them to suggest that there needs to be a massive charitable injection into a rescue effort in the richest nation on Earth, rather than, say, lobbying your senator to insist the plans to abolish estate tax be dropped and the money raised by doing that be used to rebuild Louisianan lives could, in itself, be thought as politicising things.

The Dixie Chicks were there, mind, singing their little hearts out. So, not entirely a politically neutered affair - because nobody ever sees the Dixie Chicks without thinking about Natalie Maines claiming to be embarrassed about coming from the same state. And, of course, when they did their Barbara Sawyer "clarification" interview, there was this:

SAWYER: Are you ashamed that the President is from your state?

MAINES: No.. I'm not truly embarrassed that you know President Bush is from my state, that's not really what I care about. It was the wrong wording with genuine emotion and questions and concern behind it…

MAGUIRE: I felt like there was a lack of compassion every time I saw Bush talking about this. I honestly felt a lack of compassion. And I realized ...

SAWYER: For whom? For ... ?

MAGUIRE: …for me…for people that are questioning this, for the people that are about to die for this on both sides…

Oh, yes. There's no way that having the Dixie Chicks on a telethon in this week could not be viewed as a gentle, political act.

Over on BET, a separate telethon was taking place (we're not entirely sure why black viewers had to have a separate fund raiser; perhaps there's a good reason we just can't think of - Diddy described it as "these are our people"), and another implied criticism of Bush:

Former President Bill Clinton called in to the BET telethon to express support and was asked by co-host Steve Harvey what his administration would have done differently if it were in power during the hurricane. Clinton refrained from criticizing Bush, but talked about the importance he placed on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"We always thought faster was better than slower," Clinton said.

If that's refraining from criticizing Bush, we look forward to when he's free to really speak his mind.

Meanwhile, Kanye's comments continue to... well, not ruin his career. With Bush's approval rating dropping to 39% and people still scooping up armfulls of West's new albums, it's not altogether surprising that Pepsi are more than happy to keep their commercial relationship with him going. The fact that one of the touchiest companies in the US is happy to carry on using him as a spokesperson (remember how quickly the dropped Madonna?) would suggest that they're finding that Kanye's chiming with the majority view, rather than dropping an enormous clanger.

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