Sixth Annual CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program Launched in Boston

[loco]

Published on 27/01/2011 @ 5:49 pm In the section COMMON THREADS

[1]CITGO Petroleum Corporation has announced the start of the sixth consecutive year of the CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program, which helps approximately 500,000 individuals every winter, including those in more than 250 tribal communities and 234 homeless shelters across 25 states and the District of Columbia. (For more info on the program, click here [2].)

CITGO President and CEO Alejandro Granado and the chairman of Citizens Energy Corporation, Joseph P. Kennedy II, were joined by a CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program recipient to officially launch this year’s program with a home heating oil delivery to a family in the Boston area.

“CITGO is very proud to mark the sixth anniversary of our Heating Oil Program, our flagship social development initiative, which is in alignment with the humanitarian and solidarity principles endorsed by the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela through its national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A (PDVSA),” said CITGO President and CEO Alejandro Granado. “Since its beginning in 2005, this program has been fully supported by President Hugo Chávez and it has been maintained over time thanks to the solidarity that exists between the people of Venezuela and the United States. It is without doubt one of the most important and long-lasting social development initiatives implemented by any large energy corporation in the U.S. and around the world.”

Mr. Granado pointed out that according to official figures, eight million U.S. households are forced to choose between heating their homes and covering other vital necessities. “What would each one of us choose if we could only afford one or the other? Would you warm your home or feed your family? Those are decisions no one should have to make,” he said. “Although at CITGO we cannot help eight million households in need, we believe that every home that we do get to warm alleviates the need, and makes a difference, one home at a time,” he added.

CITGO has partnered with Citizens Energy Corporation, a non-profit organization created by Joseph P. Kennedy II, a Boston native, to help implement the program. Citizens Energy Corporation works across the country to support families in need of home heating oil assistance and ensure that the CITGO-Venezuela heating oil donations reach the people that need help the most. Since 2005, 170 million gallons of home heating oil have been donated to needy families across the United States to help them stay warm through the winter months.

“Every year, we hear from families who struggle each and every day to put food on the table and heat their homes,” said Joseph P. Kennedy II, President of Citizens Energy Corporation. “We are deeply grateful to CITGO and the people of Venezuela for their generosity to those who need help keeping their families warm. Every year, we ask major oil companies and oil-producing nations to help our senior citizens and the poor make it through winter, and only one company, CITGO, and one country, Venezuela, has responded to our appeals.”

The CITGO and Citizens Energy presidents delivered heating oil to the South Boston home of Diane Clark, who is raising her three adopted grandchildren, ages 2, 4, and 8, while caring for her 63-year-old brother, who has cerebral palsy. “I really appreciate the help from CITGO and Citizens Energy,” said Clark, who works part-time at the U.S. Post Office. “I work, but it’s a real struggle taking care of the kids and my brother.”

The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program began in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Thousands of low-income people in the United States called for assistance as they struggled with the high price of heating oil that resulted from the hurricanes’ destruction. This plea triggered an open letter on Oct. 27, 2005 from 12 U.S. Senators, including Senators John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Harry Reid. They requested that oil companies step forward to help low-income families affected by the high prices of heating oil. As the senators stated in their letter, “American families need economic relief from high energy prices.”

Families struggling to pay for home heating oil can call Citizens Energy Corporation at 1-877-JOE-4-OIL (1-877-563-4645) or apply online at www.citizensenergy.com to see if they are eligible for heating oil assistance. If approved, the household will receive an authorization letter from Citizens Energy Corporation and details on how to arrange delivery with an approved heating oil dealer.

For a downloadable fact sheet on the CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program, click here [2].

About CITGO

CITGO, based in Houston, is a refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products. The company is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

For more information visit www.citgo.com [3]

About Citizens Energy

Beginning in 1979 with oil-trading ventures in Latin America and Africa, Citizens Energy has used revenues from commercial enterprises to channel millions of dollars into charitable programs in the U.S. and abroad. Whether heating the homes of the elderly and the poor, lowering the cost of prescription drugs for millions of Americans, or starting solar heating projects in Jamaica and Venezuela, Citizens creates social ventures as innovative as the businesses that finance them.

For more information, visit www.citizensenergy.com [4]

CITGO/January 27, 2011

http://venezuela-us.org/2011/01/27/sixth-annual-citgo-venezuela-heating-oil-program-launched/

[dario73]

Venezuela should worry more about its own people.

Chávez tackles housing crisis by urging poor to squat wealthy parts of CaracasMove to exploit 'unused' land in capital rattles Venezuela's middle class, as troops also take over 'unproductive' farms

Rory Carroll in Caracas guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 January 2011 19.43 GMT Article history


Venezuelans left homeless after December's torrential rains gather in the wealthy Caracas neighbourhood of La Castellana. Photograph: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

Hugo Chávez has sent out troops to take over farms and urged the poor to occupy "unused" land in wealthy areas of Caracas, prompting a wave of squats that is rattling Venezuela's middle class.

The move by Venezuela's president to step up the campaign to "recover" land and other property follows a housing crisis that has left millions of people in shabby conditions and affected his popularity in the run-up to next year's election.

Squatters wearing red T-shirts from Chávez's socialist party seized 20 spaces in a co-ordinated strike in the well-off Caracas municipality of Chacao last weekend, a move which shocked even some government supporters. Additional groups have targeted other cities.

Chávez has also announced a series of laws and deals with China, Russia, Belarus, Iran and Turkey, among others, in a breakneck effort to build 350,000 housing units in Venezuela in the next two years.

"The fundamental goal of socialism is to satisfy human needs … the needs of all, equally, without privilege," Chávez said in a television broadcast yesterday.

Opponents claim the government has failed to build enough houses over the past decade and has been offering "empty promises". Previous house-building deals with foreign allies reportedly produced just 10% of the promised number.

Emilio Grateron, mayor of Chacao, described Chávez's exhortation to seize supposedly unoccupied land as demagogic, and a move that would kill what little private investment remained. "There is irresponsible rhetoric without heed of the consequences. This is a very dangerous game."

The government has stepped up rural expropriations by deploying 1,600 troops at 47 farms in the western states of Merida and Zulia, claiming the farms were unproductive. The state has taken control of 2.5m hectares since Chávez gained power in 1999.

The government is now looking at cities in response to the housing crisis and to its fading support in the slums, once Chávista heartlands, which have voted for opposition mayors and governors.

Floods last year ruined hillside slums and displaced thousands of families, highlighting the shortage of 2m or so housing units. Residents have had to erect shacks on top of shacks on precarious slopes.

Under Chávez the government has built fewer than 40,000 units a year – some say only 24,000 – in contrast to previous governments, which averaged 70,000. The president admits to problems but rejects accusations of incompetence and corruption. He has said that the rich keep all the best land, especially in the capital, but often leave it idle. The government has closed six golf courses and recently had its eye on the Caracas Country Club, saying thousands of poor families could be settled on its greens.

Such a move would take several years, however, and the presidential election calendar requires speedier results. This month Chávez said the government would take over unoccupied spaces and any incomplete structures. Last weekend he urged the poor to join in, and hours later, at 4am, militant supporters laid claim to 20 areas of Chacao. Police expelled them but the "invasions" caused uproar, with even pro-government newspapers such as Ultimas Noticias voicing concern.

Chávez decided the squatters had gone too far, saying "the middle-class cannot be an enemy of this democratic revolution". However, the government made clear the squatting would continue, saying the correct term was "occupation".

Even hotels have become skittish since being asked to host those displaced by the floods. They have obliged, but some proprietors now worry they will be the next industry to be nationalised.

Chacao's five-star Marriott hotel is hosting about 60 displaced families on its third and fourth floors. It has replaced doors with curtains and removed TVs, lamps and other fittings, but Maria Patino, 52, and her sister Blanca, 55, had no complaints. "We're supposed to use the service entrance and not go near the lobby, but we get treated well. Three meals a day, everything free," said Maria.

"It [was] like being in the desert, and then you get to an oasis."

[dario73]

made of wood scraps and corrugated zinc dominate a slum of Caracas, Venezuela, but the government says it has halved the country’s poverty rate. (Associated Press)

[tonymctones]

made of wood scraps and corrugated zinc dominate a slum of Caracas, Venezuela, but the government says it has halved the country’s poverty rate. (Associated Press)

LOL if thats halving the poverty rate, i would hate to see it before hand

[SAMSON123]

LOL if thats halving the poverty rate, i would hate to see it before hand

Look at the trailer parks in america to see what it looked like before

[tonymctones]

Look at the trailer parks in america to see what it looked like before

never seen a trailer park that big

[blacken700]

LOL if thats halving the poverty rate, i would hate to see it before hand

wow ,no kidding that looks like a mud slide

[Hugo Chavez]

you guys know I agree with you on a lot of shit, but you're taking a lot of stuff out of context and embelishing to make your point.  Are you considering all the factors?  Are you considering what the picture was before Hugo as compared to now or just looking at now?  Are you considering what the opposition and really opposition from outsides sources are and have done to hinder things there?  There's a lot of shit to look at past what Fox and CNN will tell you...

[George Whorewell]

you guys know I agree with you on a lot of shit, but you're taking a lot of stuff out of context and embelishing to make your point.  Are you considering all the factors?  Are you considering what the picture was before Hugo as compared to now or just looking at now?  Are you considering what the opposition and really opposition from outsides sources are and have done to hinder things there?  There's a lot of shit to look at past what Fox and CNN will tell you...

 

Do you know anything about Hugo Chavez or Venezuala? Chavez is insane- point blank. He murders and opresses all who oppose him, destroys his own country's food supply, has a necophiliac obsession with the dead body of Simon Bolivar and he presides over one of the poorest countries on earth with the highest murder rate. How the fuck could it have been worse before he took over? Less tin houses, less murder, more food ?

He is a murderous thug dictator that supports narco terrorists across South America and spends most of his time bashing America and seizing the private property of his own people.  The country is a pathetic disaster. I don't need Fox or CNN to explain that to me.

[Dos Equis]

Do you know anything about Hugo Chavez or Venezuala? Chavez is insane- point blank. He murders and opresses all who oppose him, destroys his own country's food supply, has a necophiliac obsession with the dead body of Simon Bolivar and he presides over one of the poorest countries on earth with the highest murder rate. How the fuck could it have been worse before he took over? Less tin houses, less murder, more food ?

He is a murderous thug dictator that supports narco terrorists across South America and spends most of his time bashing America and seizing the private property of his own people.  The country is a pathetic disaster. I don't need Fox or CNN to explain that to me.

In addition to that, someone who actually lives there (loco) has the same opinion about Chavez. 

[Hugo Chavez]

Do you know anything about Hugo Chavez or Venezuala?

no, actually I don't know anything about it... I haven't spent almost the last 10 years researching what's going on.  I was just shooting my mouth off about a subject I know nothing about lol... haha..

Sorry about not replying to the rest of your post, I couldn't possibly bring myself to read past, Hugo being a necophiliac 

[Hugo Chavez]

In addition to that, someone who actually lives there (loco) has the same opinion about Chavez. 

OHHHHHHH... wow...  impressive... someone who posts here that lives there doesn't like Hugo...  Case closed lol...


No offense to Loco who is a cool dude.  I'd rather talk to him about this stuff lol....

[240 is Back]

never seen a trailer park that big

fema city in port charlotte, fl, following hurricane charlie was at least that big.  hundreds of trailers, fenced in, for all the new homeless people.  It was clean and didn't look that bad to be honest. 

[George Whorewell]

no, actually I don't know anything about it... I haven't spent almost the last 10 years researching what's going on.  I was just shooting my mouth off about a subject I know nothing about lol... haha..

Sorry about not replying to the rest of your post, I couldn't possibly bring myself to read past, Hugo being a necophiliac 

If I repost the article that I had on this board about five months ago (written by an ultra liberal btw) outlining Hugo's sick obsession with Simon Bolivars corpse, will you change your user name? As i recall Christopher Hitchens wrote it and I took it from the NY POST. Put your money where your mouth is for once. Since heaven knows you never shoot off at the mouth about something you are clueless on. 

[George Whorewell]

http://www.slate.com/id/2262520/


Oh. And apology accepted dickface.

Hugo Boss
What I learned about Hugo Chávez's mental health when I visited Venezuela with Sean Penn.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 2, 2010, at 11:11 AM ET

Recent accounts of Hugo Chávez's politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement. In the early hours of July 16—just at the midnight hour, to be precise—Venezuela's capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón Bolívar, leader of Latin America's rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830. According to a vividly written article by Thor Halvorssen in the July 25 Washington Post, the skeleton was picked apart—even as Chávez tweeted the proceedings for his audience—and some teeth and bone fragments were taken away for testing. The residual pieces were placed in a coffin stamped with the Chávez government's seal. In one of the rather free-associating speeches for which he has become celebrated, Chávez appealed to Jesus Christ to restage the raising of Lazarus and reanimate Bolívar's constituent parts. He went on: I had some doubts, but after seeing his remains, my heart said, "Yes, it is me." Father, is that you, or who are you? The answer: "It is me, but I awaken every hundred years when the people awaken."

As if "channeling" this none-too-subtle identification of Chávez with the national hero, Venezuelan television was compelled to run images of Bolívar, followed by footage of the remains, and then pictures of the boss. The national anthem provided the soundtrack. Not since North Korean media declared Kim Jong-il to be the reincarnation of Kim Il Sung has there been such a blatant attempt to create a necrocracy, or perhaps mausolocracy, in which a living claimant assumes the fleshly mantle of the departed.


Simón Bolívar's cadaver is like any other cadaver, but his legacy is a great deal more worth stealing than that of Kim Il Sung. Gabriel García Márquez's novel The General in His Labyrinth is one place to begin, if you want to understand the combination of heroic and tragic qualities that keep his memory alive to this day. (In New York, his equestrian statue still dominates the intersection of the Avenue of the Americas and Central Park South.) The idea of a United States of South America will always be a tenuous dream, but in his bloody struggle for its realization, Bolívar cut a considerable figure, as he did in his other capacities as double-dealer, war criminal, and serial fornicator, also lovingly portrayed by Márquez.

In the fall of 2008, I went to Venezuela as a guest of Sean Penn's, whose friendship with Chávez is warm. The third member of our party was the excellent historian Douglas Brinkley, and we spent some quality time flying around the country on Chávez's presidential jet and bouncing with him from rally to rally at ground level, as well. The boss loves to talk and has clocked up speeches of Castro-like length. Bolívar is the theme of which he never tires. His early uniformed movement of mutineers—which failed to bring off a military coup in 1992—was named for Bolívar. Turning belatedly but successfully to electoral politics, he called his followers the Bolivarian Movement. Since he became president, the country's official name has been the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. (Chávez must sometimes wish that he had been born in Bolivia in the first place.) At Cabinet meetings, he has been known to leave an empty chair, in case the shade of Bolívar might choose to attend the otherwise rather Chávez-dominated proceedings.

It did not take long for this hero-obsession to disclose itself in bizarre forms. One evening, as we were jetting through the skies, Brinkley mildly asked whether Chávez's large purchases of Russian warships might not be interpreted by Washington as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. The boss's response was impressively immediate. He did not know for sure, he said, but he very much hoped so. "The United States was born with an imperialist impulse. There has been a long confrontation between Monroe and Bolívar. … It is necessary that the Monroe Doctrine be broken." As his tirade against evil America mounted, Penn broke in to say that surely Chávez would be happy to see the arrest of Osama Bin Laden.

I was hugely impressed by the way that the boss scorned this overture. He essentially doubted the existence of al-Qaida, let alone reports of its attacks on the enemy to the north. "I don't know anything about Osama Bin Laden that doesn't come to me through the filter of the West and its propaganda." To this, Penn replied that surely Bin Laden had provided quite a number of his very own broadcasts and videos. I was again impressed by the way that Chávez rejected this proffered lucid-interval lifeline. All of this so-called evidence, too, was a mere product of imperialist television. After all, "there is film of the Americans landing on the moon," he scoffed. "Does that mean the moon shot really happened? In the film, the Yanqui flag is flying straight out. So, is there wind on the moon?" As Chávez beamed with triumph at this logic, an awkwardness descended on my comrades, and on the conversation.

Chávez, in other words, is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap. Even his macabre foraging in the coffin of Simón Bolívar was initially prompted by his theory that an autopsy would prove that The Liberator had been poisoned—most probably by dastardly Colombians. This would perhaps provide a posthumous license for Venezuela's continuing hospitality to the narco-criminal gang FARC, a cross-border activity that does little to foster regional brotherhood.

Many people laughed when Chávez appeared at the podium of the United Nations in September 2006 and declared that he smelled sulfur from the devil himself because of the presence of George W. Bush. But the evidence is that he does have an idiotic weakness for spells and incantations, as well as many of the symptoms of paranoia and megalomania. After the failure of Bolívar's attempted Gran Colombia federation—which briefly united Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and other nations—the U.S. minister in Bogotá, future president William Henry Harrison, said of him that "nder the mask of patriotism and attachment to liberty, he has really been preparing the means of investing himself with arbitrary power." The first time was tragedy; this time is also tragedy but mixed with a strong element of farce.

Like Slate on Facebook. Follow Slate and the Slate Foreign Desk on Twitter.

[Hugo Chavez]

If I repost the article that I had on this board about five months ago (written by an ultra liberal btw) outlining Hugo's sick obsession with Simon Bolivars corpse, will you change your user name? As i recall Christopher Hitchens wrote it and I took it from the NY POST. Put your money where your mouth is for once. Since heaven knows you never shoot off at the mouth about something you are clueless on.  

no, I'm not reading anything that talks about Hugo having a sexual fetish for dead corpses  Sorry, take it the National Enquirer but don't pester me with that crap

[tonymctones]

fema city in port charlotte, fl, following hurricane charlie was at least that big.  hundreds of trailers, fenced in, for all the new homeless people.  It was clean and didn't look that bad to be honest. 

lol temporary ones dont count genius

look at that pic and tell me that looks like a temporary set up...

we could say the same thing about wood stock and tents...i swear you dont think

[240 is Back]

lol temporary ones dont count genius

look at that pic and tell me that looks like a temporary set up...

we could say the same thing about wood stock and tents...i swear you dont think

They didn't go anywhere, hombre.  After the people had lived in them for 2 years, they were given the option to buy them dirt cheap.  Then the rest were put on the market.  A few were moved to houston later for katrina.

And you can't possibly think i'm defending the way ppl live in shitload 3rd world countries - I could care less.

[George Whorewell]

no, I'm not reading anything that talks about Hugo having a sexual fetish for dead corpses  Sorry, take it the National Enquirer but don't pester me with that crap

Christopher Hitchens and Slate magazine are now equated with the National Enquirer? Notice that you used the term dead corpses. I referenced Simon Bolivar. If you take the time to read the article (written by a liberal with a pro Chavez agenda BTW) it's difficult to fathom how you can defend your heros behavior. If the real Hugo Chavez did like to fuck dead bodies, would you emulate him by doing the same?

[Hugo Chavez]

Christopher Hitchens and Slate magazine are now equated with the National Enquirer? Notice that you used the term dead corpses. I referenced Simon Bolivar. If you take the time to read the article (written by a liberal with a pro Chavez agenda BTW) it's difficult to fathom how you can defend your heros behavior. If the real Hugo Chavez did like to fuck dead bodies, would you emulate him by doing the same?

hey, you're the one that brought up the "necophiliac obsession." You lost me with that. And yea, if Hitchens and Slate are talking about that, yea, I'm going to equate them to NE.  I doubt either of them did but if they did, what a joke....

[George Whorewell]

hey, you're the one that brought up the "necophiliac obsession." You lost me with that. And yea, if Hitchens and Slate are talking about that, yea, I'm going to equate them to NE.  I doubt either of them did but if they did, what a joke....

Read the article above moron- I reposted the entire thing along with the link. You can decide for yourself. Hitchens wrote the article and it was published in Slate. I know it must hurt to hear such "mean" things about your hero, but closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears won't make it go away.

[Hugo Chavez]

Read the article above moron- I reposted the entire thing along with the link. You can decide for yourself. Hitchens wrote the article and it was published in Slate. I know it must hurt to hear such "mean" things about your hero, but closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears won't make it go away.

If it has to do with necophiliac obsessions, I'm not reading jack fucking shit. 

[George Whorewell]

If it has to do with necophiliac obsessions, I'm not reading jack fucking shit. 

Meltdown. An immature one at that. Why do you care so much about his personal tastes? Are you related to him or something?