Debt Prison for American Red Cross
I’ve decided to do an Ebay auction with all proceeds going to the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chapter of the American Red Cross. You can track the progress of the auction by clicking here. This Ebay auction will end on Sunday, April 27th at 9:34 p.m. central standard time. Since I work on electric power right-of-ways I became quite used to seeing damaged parts of the utility infrastructure lying on the ground, broken and forgotten in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In their haste, the power crews which were desperately seeking to restore electricity to home owners, often left damaged parts behind without disposing of them properly. Hence various damaged parts could be found and many land owners picked them up and disposed of them. However, I still find a few of these from time to time.
This is a high voltage insulator that is used to keep the electricity in the power lines from jumping down on the pole, and thus grounding. These little flying saucer like objects actually keep the pole from catching on fire. Normally, when they aren’t damaged you will see them in places like this.
Although the ones shown in this picture are lower voltage (they are a little smaller than the one I have), this is where you could expect to see these insulators. The insulator I picked up was found just east of Quitman, MS on HWY 18. It was a few feet from where the new pole (installed in 2005 thanks to Katrina) was placed.
Normally I don’t pick this type of stuff up because I don’t see the need. But while I was standing there this idea came to me and thus here we are with the auction. You see, after Katrina came through, the American Red Cross was here (Hattiesburg, MS) in abundance handing out ice (the power was out EVERYWHERE for days and it was upper 90’s to 100’s) and they also handed out $600.00 checks to any needy citizen. Needless to say they handed out a lot of checks. I think all they required was a social security card and they wrote the check, seems like that’s how they handled it.
Since I’m a firm believer in free market economics and libertarian ideals, it warms my heart to see private charity in action. By that, I mean money that is given to people in need from the hands of private individual citizens, rather than by forced taxation and redistribution as the government sees fit. As such, it is with good faith and hope that I offer this item for auction so that I may donate all proceeds to the American Red Cross. If you have any questions just drop me a line in the comment box below.
Barry Broome
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