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CNN Live Today
Thai Volunteers Help Tsunami Survivors; American Expatriate Helping Find Loved Ones; Sister Recalls Adventurer Brother
Aired December 31, 2004 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, HOST: In Buenos Aires, at least 175 people were killed in a crowded nightclub. More than 600 were hurt. That's according to Argentine officials. Witnesses say the Associated Press -- or tell the Associated Press that the blaze was started by a lit flare, that emergency exits were locked as well.
Pledges of emergency aid to tsunami victims now totals $500 million. American aid officials say the $35 million promised by the U.S. is just a preliminary account, while the scope of the tragedy is assessed.
Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush are planning to head to the stricken region Sunday. They'll gauge what aid is needed and where it needs to go. A White House statement explains Governor Bush's experience with numerous hurricanes in Florida makes him uniquely qualified to assess the crisis.
Well, Thailand will be ringing in 2005 at the top of the hour, a subdued celebration marked now by 4,000 tsunami deaths.
CNN's Aneesh Raman reports from the hard hit resort island of Phuket.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy, a moment of remarkable humanity. Eighteen- year-older Tan Tai Wongseri fills out a nametag with the languages he speaks so that he can offer help and comfort to tourists.
Every visitor here has a story.
TAN TAI WONGSERI, TSUNAMI VOLUNTEER: I met people, asked them what did they lose, someone they lose their family. All so sad.
RAMAN: Tan lives inland, far from the shores consumed by tsunami waves. After hearing about the disaster, he felt for the large number of foreigners among the casualties. Their faces surround everyone here as a constant reminder of who was lost. The missing now, by many accounts, presumed dead.
(on camera) There are thousands of volunteers like Tan Tai coming here from all over Thailand, fueling this massive relief effort. This is a country that often finds compassion in crisis.
(voice-over) American Tony Carney has lived in Thailand for well over a decade. The sights he sees now are nothing new.
TONY CARNEY, EXPATRIATE: There's a concept in Thailand, in Thai culture that doesn't even translate into the English language. The word is nantai (ph), which, translating loosely, is an outpouring of the heart. Thai people have a great pride in this concept.
RAMAN: Around this tense city, scores of volunteers, looking to help shocked and stranded tourists wandering a foreign land, not speaking its language, torn from their loved ones.
Tan and many like him are the core of Thailand's relief effort.
WONGSERI: Maybe I think Thai people are Buddhist. Buddhists try to help other people.
RAMAN: Waving above the scene of sadness, Thailand's flag, at half-mast for its own people and the countless travelers who also perished here.
Aneesh Raman, CNN, Phuket, southern Thailand.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Well, now a chance to talk with Denny Bowman. He is an American expat who has lived in Phuket for about the last decade, joining me by telephone now from Phuket.
Denny, hello.
DENNY BOWMAN, AMERICAN EXPATRIATE: Hello. Nice to be with you.
KAGAN: Good to have you in so many ways. As I understand it, you did just fine during this whole crisis?
BOWMAN: Oh, I did absolutely fine. I did fine. My staff did fine. My business, my operation did fine. In fact, I would say most of us in Phuket has done fine. It's been very isolated, what's gone on. Tragic but isolated.
KAGAN: And your business, as I understand it, you run a business directory in advertising local businesses and such.
BOWMAN: I do. It's -- I'll just go ahead and plug it. It's called Phuket Directory, PhuketDir.com. And we've got about a thousand businesses from Phuket, Krabi, the near islands, off islands up in the Khao Lak and Panang area that were also quite severely hit.
We have hotels, guesthouses, car rental agencies, et cetera. Yes, it's a good -- it's a good resource for those who are looking to come here and find out about here.
KAGAN: Right. Also a good resource for people who are looking to get in touch with locals or trying to find loved ones who might be there. So I understand you've kind of been pressed into unofficial service in trying to help people locate loved ones. BOWMAN: Well, that's right. I've been a representative of the -- a representative of the American embassy here in Phuket for about nine years. And that circle of contacts and the visibility of Phuket Directory has put me in a communications link loop that has assisted, I don't know, probably several hundred people at trying to lace together their searches for people and what's here to be found.
KAGAN: Well, there must be some great satisfaction among all this crisis and all the difficult times in helping loved ones here and perhaps across the states get in touch with people that they've been trying to find.
BOWMAN: Oh, certainly. I -- I've spoken to a number of them by e-mail and by telephone. The difficult part is on their end, when they're sitting next to their televisions, watching the news, or sitting next to the computers, waiting for some sort of reply, and they don't have an answer.
Here we have the answers. It's the tsunami came, the tsunami went. We're in heavy cleanup operations right now and a lot of what's going on here is back to normal in a great sense.
But I spend a lot of time at the hospitals and a lot of time in the morgues, trying to lace together these pictures and descriptions of people with the remains of the bodies that are here that are still actually coming in. And many will not be found, I'm sure. We have a lot of missing people.
But there's satisfaction when you can help someone come to closure, whichever direction it is. And some are quite positive. Some of the people who have been looking for lost relatives find that they were traveling up in Chang Mi or off in another part of Thailand and just hadn't checked back in with the family.
Others have been able to be located, only -- only injured or just simply hadn't checked in. And there's the tragic side of the deaths, as well.
KAGAN: I imagine, Denny, you've made this your home because it's a beautiful place. Are you confident that Phuket will be able to come back together, to heal and get the tourism industry back going?
BOWMAN: Oh, 100 percent on that. I tell you, I went down along the beach this afternoon, knowing that I was going to be on this interview this evening and took a look at it. And i8t's absolutely amazing.
In some ways, I would say that the tourists who are thinking about coming here, if they come here, they're going to have a bonus. They're going to see beaches and -- and atmosphere that in some ways hasn't been here for 15 to 20 years.
We don't have -- we don't have beach chairs on the beaches. They're all gone. We don't have vendors out there. They've all been relocated. So in many ways it's a beautiful place to come right now, more beautiful than it was two weeks ago. But the place is rebuilding. I -- it's absolutely amazing what efforts and energies have gone into already clearing away the rubble, which is a couple of hundred meters deep from the beaches, and bringing things right back to normal.
And in fact, if you step away a couple hundred meters from the beach, you would have no idea that anything has gone on. It's -- t his is a holiday destination end point, and it's meant to be that. It's geared up to be that. And we'll be back up to snuff and probably running stronger than ever in the next couple of months.
KAGAN: Well, it sounds like as an American expat, you have great love for your adopted hometown. So we wish you well in Phuket. Great luck and great effort in putting things back.
BOWMAN: I appreciate it. And I appreciate you checking back in. Stop in again sometime.
KAGAN: We -- we would love to. Denny Bowman, expat, coming to us from Phuket, Thailand. Thank you.
We have heard stories this week of tourists caught up in the tsunami. Then there are the free spirits, adventurers who roam the world, such as American Brian King.
CNN's Kimberly Osias has his story from Seattle.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Brian King loved adventure and could navigate rough waters. The 59-year-old commercial fisherman made his livelihood off the Alaskan coast.
JANET NICHOLAS, BRIAN KING'S SISTER: Brian had a zest for life that he wanted to live each day.
OSIAS: King wanted to sea the ocean from a different view, from below. So he traveled to Phuket, Thailand, to learn how to scuba dive.
A week before Christmas, his sister, Janet Nicholas, got an e- mail from him. She didn't know it would be the last.
NICHOLAS: Hi, Janet and Mark, don't worry, I'm fine. I'm at a dive beach resort about 100 kilometers north of Phuket. I'm going to start diving lessons soon.
OSIAS: Ten days later, Janet got a call from Brian's wife, Rita, one she refused to believe.
NICHOLAS: It looks like Brian didn't make it. I can't process that. What does that mean? I mean, he could be in a hospital. He could be, you know, be washed around or on a fishing boat or being picked up by a diving boat. He could be stranded.
OSIAS: Hours later, a second call from a friend King was supposed to dive with.
NICHOLAS: He and his two divers went in there and had to dig through that rubble. Brian has been smashed beyond recognition, but I know it's him.
OSIAS: King may have been sleeping when the tsunami hit early Sunday morning.
NICHOLAS: They found Brian. They said he was still wrapped in a sheet.
OSIAS: Janet believes her brother put in earplugs Christmas night, earplugs that may have blocked out the screaming and crashing waves.
NICHOLAS: My quiet moments, when I wake up in the morning and first open my eyes, I realize it's very real. It's not just a bad nightmare.
OSIAS: Kimberly Osias, CNN, Seattle, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: There's been no shortage of incredible video from the tsunami disaster. Sometimes, though, still photos are able to capture something more. We'll have a photographic essay from Beth Nissen when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: All week long CNN has told the story of the tsunami tragedy with dramatic video images. Still photographs, though, also capture the horror and the story of the moment.
CNN's Beth Nissen put together a poignant collection.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After all the home video of the tsunami, it is startling to see it in a photograph, to see what witnesses meant by a wall of water. To see captured in a frame, what the monstrous waves did to resorts and villages in Thailand southern India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka.
To see what the churning water did to people in these places, only vaguely remembered from high school geography, Tanda Nadu (ph), Nicobar, and Madras, and Sumatra, Colombo.
It all happened so fast, the waves and mud and debris, burying the old and the young, especially the young. Those two small or too weak to hold on to anything as the water surged in or pulled themselves to safety before the receding waves pulled them out to sea.
The still pictures could hardly show the scope of human losses, in their mounting thousands. But they could show the loss, face by face. It all happened so fast, so little time for ceremony, the marking of a life. Officials struggled to keep records of the dead. Volunteers hurried to build coffins, fill them, close them and send the enclosed souls onward.
Even days later, so many souls were still missing. Relatives searched for survivors. Survivors searched for their families. Dazed, battered tourists went home to Sweden and Norway, Germany and New Zealand, South Korea and South Africa. Dazed residents were evacuated by the thousands to higher, drier ground.
Those who could, stayed where they were in what was left of home. Collected water, collected food, stood in line for both and for fuel.
Slowly, rubbled airstrips were cleared. The first of the aid from around the world arrived: emergency water supplies, critical medicines, fat sacks of food, bundles of clothing.
Tent villages were set up for millions of the suddenly homeless. The wounded were treated in hospitals hastily cleared of debris, in open air clinics set up on beaches.
Doctors readied for the next wave of the disaster, disease, with tetanus shots, anti-malarials. There was little anyone could do to prepare survivors for the hardest part yet to come: simply going on.
Millions are still stunned by loss. So much life and hope washed away. So little to hold on to except faith that those so violently wrenched from the world have found peace. Faith that those left behind in the world will again find peace. Somehow. Somewhere. Someday.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TERRY SAVAGE, PERSONAL FINANCE EXPERT: For you as you walk into the office on Monday morning. Sign up to contribute more to your 401(k) plan. The limits go up by $1,000 this year. So walk into the H.R. department and say, "Increase my limit."
Now, everybody's not giving up -- saving the limit but at least up to the point where your company will match you. They take it out of your paycheck, so if you don't see it, you won't spend it. It's a big responsibility to have money taken out. So sign up to have more taken out for the new year.
KAGAN: OK. So that's increase your contribution. But once you have the chunk of money coming out of your paycheck, doesn't it make a big difference about where it goes?
SAVAGE: And that's a big problem for so many people. We're not all stock market experts or care about picking different mutual funds. But who are you going to ask? The person at the desk next to you? That's not a good solution either.
You're spending enough money, putting enough money away. You want to make sure you have it on the right mutual funds and that you're on track to meet your retirement goals.
There are two excellent web sites. They cost a bit of money, but they're well worth it, because they will give you an individualized, personalized look at your portfolio and let you know if you're on track or how you should reallocate. You can find information on that at FinancialEngines.com. It costs a little over $100 a year.
Many companies provide this web site free to their employees that participate in the plan. That's FinancialEngines.com.
The other excellent place is Morningstar.com. If you sign up for their premium service, you can use their asset allocation advice program and it, too, allows you to put in your name, your age, your salary levels, what your retirement goal is and then list all your stocks and mutual funds.
And they will tell you not only if you're on track, but which different funds you should be using to get to where you want to be.
KAGAN: OK. So that's about taking it out and putting it in your retirement fund. What about when to take it out?
SAVAGE: That's going to be a big thing for Baby Boomers and those that precede them. The question is, how much do I have, how should I invest and how much can I withdraw to make sure I don't run out of money before I run out of time?
And that's going to be the subject of my next book, "The Savage Number," which will be out in spring. How much do I need to retire?
And there are advice services for that as well. Because you can't just say, "Well, I'll take X thousand out of month." You don't want to run out of money. So major mutual fund companies, notably Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Vanguard, as well as financial planners, are using a special kind of computerized modeling to give you the range of probabilities so you know, when you reach retirement, how much you can withdraw, and how to invest the balance and when you should take it out.
That's going to be the next focus for the Baby Boom generation.
We hare been given a big responsibility. Social Security won't provide enough, if it provides anything for some. And we need to take responsibility for our own retirement. So start by going in Monday and saying, "I'm going to take more out. I'm going to figure out where to invest it." That's very important right now.
KAGAN: Here, here. Well, it sounds like you're already on your way to a prosperous and productive 2005. We wish you a wonderful and a healthy one, as well.
SAVAGE: Thank you, and the same to all CNN viewers. KAGAN: Thank you. And yes, you come back when the book comes out and we'll figure out our numbers there.
SAVAGE: OK, Daryn.
KAGAN: All right. Thank you, Terry.
Well, speaking of numbers, let's see what Wall Street is looking like on this final day of 2004. David Haffenreffer is there, watching that for us.
Hi, David.
(STOCK REPORT)
KAGAN: Not too bad. David, thank you for that and happy new year to you.
And for the final moments, something a little bit lighter we thought might be in order. Jeanne Moos reviewing the year in mistakes. Her awards for best bungled sound bites when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: In television news we call them sound bites, little snippets of information from speakers. Usually no one really remembers who said what. Usually, but then there is CNN's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We couldn't let the sound bites of 2004 bite the dust without noting the ones that bit back.
(on camera) The "What Did He Just Say? Award" goes to President Bush.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many ob gyns aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country.
MOOS (voice-over): And speaking of practicing love...
(on camera) "Coming Out of the Closet Admission of the Year" goes to New Jersey's governor.
JAMES MCGREEVEY, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: I am a gay American.
MOOS (voice-over): His administration spawned a talking doll.
ROBOTIC VOICE: I am a gay American.
MOOS (on camera): There's so many nominees for "Trash Talk of the Year Award" they're just going to have to share it. (voice-over) From the immortal words of Teresa Heinz Kerry.
TERESA HEINZ KERRY, JOHN KERRY'S WIFE: You said something I didn't say, now shove it.
MOOS: To the male anatomy insult that Jon Stewart fired when he got cross on "CROSSFIRE."
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion.
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": You know what's interesting, though? You're as big of a (expletive deleted) on your show as you are on any show.
MOOS (on camera): Arnold Schwarzenegger is the winner of the "Too Much Information Award."
(voice-over) Arnold was asked if his speech at the Republican convention...
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: Don't be economic girlie men.
MOOS: ... caused his wife, Democrat Maria Shriver, to punish him.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, there was no sex for 40 days.
MOOS: And while we're on the subject of sex...
(on camera) ... we are pleased to present the "Lifetime Falafel Award" to Bill O'Reilly.
(voice-over) In court documents filed by a former FOX News employee alleging sexual harassment, O'Reilly is quoted describing a shower fantasy in which he mixes up the word "loofah" and instead says "falafel," so that the sentence comes out, "I would take the other hand with the falafel thing and I'd just put it" -- never mind where he put it. It's not fit for a falafel.
(on camera) The "Best Darn Expletive Deleted Award" goes to the vice president...
(voice-over) ... for what Mr. Cheney suggested Senator Patrick Leahy do to himself.
(on camera) The "What's She On Award" is a no-brainer.
(voice-over) Anna Nicole Smith gets the award for how she presented an award.
ANNA NICOLE SMITH, FORMER MODEL: And if I ever record an album.
MOOS: "People" magazine picked a few catch phrases of 2004, among them. DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE MOGUL: You're fired.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's just not that into you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who's your daddy?
MOOS (on camera): We have to hand the coveted "Index Finger Award" to President Bush.
(voice-over) W's response when confronted by anti-Bush protesters in Canada...
BUSH: I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave with all five fingers.
MOOS (on camera): Several nominees richly deserve the "Can I Rephrase That? Award."
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have.
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": We go on the air with the comedy we have, not with the comedy we want.
MOOS (voice-over): The moral of the year in sound bites, bite your tongue.
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes!
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: It will be a long time before we forget that one.
Dave Henin keeping an eye on weather for us.
Hey, Dave.
(WEATHER REPORT)
KAGAN: Interesting. Thank you for that. And Dave, happy new year to you.
DAVE HENIN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Same to you, Daryn.
KAGAN: Thank you. And that's going to do it for me, Daryn Kagan. That's it; I'm done for the year. I would say.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 31, 2004 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, HOST: In Buenos Aires, at least 175 people were killed in a crowded nightclub. More than 600 were hurt. That's according to Argentine officials. Witnesses say the Associated Press -- or tell the Associated Press that the blaze was started by a lit flare, that emergency exits were locked as well.
Pledges of emergency aid to tsunami victims now totals $500 million. American aid officials say the $35 million promised by the U.S. is just a preliminary account, while the scope of the tragedy is assessed.
Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush are planning to head to the stricken region Sunday. They'll gauge what aid is needed and where it needs to go. A White House statement explains Governor Bush's experience with numerous hurricanes in Florida makes him uniquely qualified to assess the crisis.
Well, Thailand will be ringing in 2005 at the top of the hour, a subdued celebration marked now by 4,000 tsunami deaths.
CNN's Aneesh Raman reports from the hard hit resort island of Phuket.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy, a moment of remarkable humanity. Eighteen- year-older Tan Tai Wongseri fills out a nametag with the languages he speaks so that he can offer help and comfort to tourists.
Every visitor here has a story.
TAN TAI WONGSERI, TSUNAMI VOLUNTEER: I met people, asked them what did they lose, someone they lose their family. All so sad.
RAMAN: Tan lives inland, far from the shores consumed by tsunami waves. After hearing about the disaster, he felt for the large number of foreigners among the casualties. Their faces surround everyone here as a constant reminder of who was lost. The missing now, by many accounts, presumed dead.
(on camera) There are thousands of volunteers like Tan Tai coming here from all over Thailand, fueling this massive relief effort. This is a country that often finds compassion in crisis.
(voice-over) American Tony Carney has lived in Thailand for well over a decade. The sights he sees now are nothing new.
TONY CARNEY, EXPATRIATE: There's a concept in Thailand, in Thai culture that doesn't even translate into the English language. The word is nantai (ph), which, translating loosely, is an outpouring of the heart. Thai people have a great pride in this concept.
RAMAN: Around this tense city, scores of volunteers, looking to help shocked and stranded tourists wandering a foreign land, not speaking its language, torn from their loved ones.
Tan and many like him are the core of Thailand's relief effort.
WONGSERI: Maybe I think Thai people are Buddhist. Buddhists try to help other people.
RAMAN: Waving above the scene of sadness, Thailand's flag, at half-mast for its own people and the countless travelers who also perished here.
Aneesh Raman, CNN, Phuket, southern Thailand.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Well, now a chance to talk with Denny Bowman. He is an American expat who has lived in Phuket for about the last decade, joining me by telephone now from Phuket.
Denny, hello.
DENNY BOWMAN, AMERICAN EXPATRIATE: Hello. Nice to be with you.
KAGAN: Good to have you in so many ways. As I understand it, you did just fine during this whole crisis?
BOWMAN: Oh, I did absolutely fine. I did fine. My staff did fine. My business, my operation did fine. In fact, I would say most of us in Phuket has done fine. It's been very isolated, what's gone on. Tragic but isolated.
KAGAN: And your business, as I understand it, you run a business directory in advertising local businesses and such.
BOWMAN: I do. It's -- I'll just go ahead and plug it. It's called Phuket Directory, PhuketDir.com. And we've got about a thousand businesses from Phuket, Krabi, the near islands, off islands up in the Khao Lak and Panang area that were also quite severely hit.
We have hotels, guesthouses, car rental agencies, et cetera. Yes, it's a good -- it's a good resource for those who are looking to come here and find out about here.
KAGAN: Right. Also a good resource for people who are looking to get in touch with locals or trying to find loved ones who might be there. So I understand you've kind of been pressed into unofficial service in trying to help people locate loved ones. BOWMAN: Well, that's right. I've been a representative of the -- a representative of the American embassy here in Phuket for about nine years. And that circle of contacts and the visibility of Phuket Directory has put me in a communications link loop that has assisted, I don't know, probably several hundred people at trying to lace together their searches for people and what's here to be found.
KAGAN: Well, there must be some great satisfaction among all this crisis and all the difficult times in helping loved ones here and perhaps across the states get in touch with people that they've been trying to find.
BOWMAN: Oh, certainly. I -- I've spoken to a number of them by e-mail and by telephone. The difficult part is on their end, when they're sitting next to their televisions, watching the news, or sitting next to the computers, waiting for some sort of reply, and they don't have an answer.
Here we have the answers. It's the tsunami came, the tsunami went. We're in heavy cleanup operations right now and a lot of what's going on here is back to normal in a great sense.
But I spend a lot of time at the hospitals and a lot of time in the morgues, trying to lace together these pictures and descriptions of people with the remains of the bodies that are here that are still actually coming in. And many will not be found, I'm sure. We have a lot of missing people.
But there's satisfaction when you can help someone come to closure, whichever direction it is. And some are quite positive. Some of the people who have been looking for lost relatives find that they were traveling up in Chang Mi or off in another part of Thailand and just hadn't checked back in with the family.
Others have been able to be located, only -- only injured or just simply hadn't checked in. And there's the tragic side of the deaths, as well.
KAGAN: I imagine, Denny, you've made this your home because it's a beautiful place. Are you confident that Phuket will be able to come back together, to heal and get the tourism industry back going?
BOWMAN: Oh, 100 percent on that. I tell you, I went down along the beach this afternoon, knowing that I was going to be on this interview this evening and took a look at it. And i8t's absolutely amazing.
In some ways, I would say that the tourists who are thinking about coming here, if they come here, they're going to have a bonus. They're going to see beaches and -- and atmosphere that in some ways hasn't been here for 15 to 20 years.
We don't have -- we don't have beach chairs on the beaches. They're all gone. We don't have vendors out there. They've all been relocated. So in many ways it's a beautiful place to come right now, more beautiful than it was two weeks ago. But the place is rebuilding. I -- it's absolutely amazing what efforts and energies have gone into already clearing away the rubble, which is a couple of hundred meters deep from the beaches, and bringing things right back to normal.
And in fact, if you step away a couple hundred meters from the beach, you would have no idea that anything has gone on. It's -- t his is a holiday destination end point, and it's meant to be that. It's geared up to be that. And we'll be back up to snuff and probably running stronger than ever in the next couple of months.
KAGAN: Well, it sounds like as an American expat, you have great love for your adopted hometown. So we wish you well in Phuket. Great luck and great effort in putting things back.
BOWMAN: I appreciate it. And I appreciate you checking back in. Stop in again sometime.
KAGAN: We -- we would love to. Denny Bowman, expat, coming to us from Phuket, Thailand. Thank you.
We have heard stories this week of tourists caught up in the tsunami. Then there are the free spirits, adventurers who roam the world, such as American Brian King.
CNN's Kimberly Osias has his story from Seattle.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Brian King loved adventure and could navigate rough waters. The 59-year-old commercial fisherman made his livelihood off the Alaskan coast.
JANET NICHOLAS, BRIAN KING'S SISTER: Brian had a zest for life that he wanted to live each day.
OSIAS: King wanted to sea the ocean from a different view, from below. So he traveled to Phuket, Thailand, to learn how to scuba dive.
A week before Christmas, his sister, Janet Nicholas, got an e- mail from him. She didn't know it would be the last.
NICHOLAS: Hi, Janet and Mark, don't worry, I'm fine. I'm at a dive beach resort about 100 kilometers north of Phuket. I'm going to start diving lessons soon.
OSIAS: Ten days later, Janet got a call from Brian's wife, Rita, one she refused to believe.
NICHOLAS: It looks like Brian didn't make it. I can't process that. What does that mean? I mean, he could be in a hospital. He could be, you know, be washed around or on a fishing boat or being picked up by a diving boat. He could be stranded.
OSIAS: Hours later, a second call from a friend King was supposed to dive with.
NICHOLAS: He and his two divers went in there and had to dig through that rubble. Brian has been smashed beyond recognition, but I know it's him.
OSIAS: King may have been sleeping when the tsunami hit early Sunday morning.
NICHOLAS: They found Brian. They said he was still wrapped in a sheet.
OSIAS: Janet believes her brother put in earplugs Christmas night, earplugs that may have blocked out the screaming and crashing waves.
NICHOLAS: My quiet moments, when I wake up in the morning and first open my eyes, I realize it's very real. It's not just a bad nightmare.
OSIAS: Kimberly Osias, CNN, Seattle, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: There's been no shortage of incredible video from the tsunami disaster. Sometimes, though, still photos are able to capture something more. We'll have a photographic essay from Beth Nissen when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: All week long CNN has told the story of the tsunami tragedy with dramatic video images. Still photographs, though, also capture the horror and the story of the moment.
CNN's Beth Nissen put together a poignant collection.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After all the home video of the tsunami, it is startling to see it in a photograph, to see what witnesses meant by a wall of water. To see captured in a frame, what the monstrous waves did to resorts and villages in Thailand southern India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka.
To see what the churning water did to people in these places, only vaguely remembered from high school geography, Tanda Nadu (ph), Nicobar, and Madras, and Sumatra, Colombo.
It all happened so fast, the waves and mud and debris, burying the old and the young, especially the young. Those two small or too weak to hold on to anything as the water surged in or pulled themselves to safety before the receding waves pulled them out to sea.
The still pictures could hardly show the scope of human losses, in their mounting thousands. But they could show the loss, face by face. It all happened so fast, so little time for ceremony, the marking of a life. Officials struggled to keep records of the dead. Volunteers hurried to build coffins, fill them, close them and send the enclosed souls onward.
Even days later, so many souls were still missing. Relatives searched for survivors. Survivors searched for their families. Dazed, battered tourists went home to Sweden and Norway, Germany and New Zealand, South Korea and South Africa. Dazed residents were evacuated by the thousands to higher, drier ground.
Those who could, stayed where they were in what was left of home. Collected water, collected food, stood in line for both and for fuel.
Slowly, rubbled airstrips were cleared. The first of the aid from around the world arrived: emergency water supplies, critical medicines, fat sacks of food, bundles of clothing.
Tent villages were set up for millions of the suddenly homeless. The wounded were treated in hospitals hastily cleared of debris, in open air clinics set up on beaches.
Doctors readied for the next wave of the disaster, disease, with tetanus shots, anti-malarials. There was little anyone could do to prepare survivors for the hardest part yet to come: simply going on.
Millions are still stunned by loss. So much life and hope washed away. So little to hold on to except faith that those so violently wrenched from the world have found peace. Faith that those left behind in the world will again find peace. Somehow. Somewhere. Someday.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TERRY SAVAGE, PERSONAL FINANCE EXPERT: For you as you walk into the office on Monday morning. Sign up to contribute more to your 401(k) plan. The limits go up by $1,000 this year. So walk into the H.R. department and say, "Increase my limit."
Now, everybody's not giving up -- saving the limit but at least up to the point where your company will match you. They take it out of your paycheck, so if you don't see it, you won't spend it. It's a big responsibility to have money taken out. So sign up to have more taken out for the new year.
KAGAN: OK. So that's increase your contribution. But once you have the chunk of money coming out of your paycheck, doesn't it make a big difference about where it goes?
SAVAGE: And that's a big problem for so many people. We're not all stock market experts or care about picking different mutual funds. But who are you going to ask? The person at the desk next to you? That's not a good solution either.
You're spending enough money, putting enough money away. You want to make sure you have it on the right mutual funds and that you're on track to meet your retirement goals.
There are two excellent web sites. They cost a bit of money, but they're well worth it, because they will give you an individualized, personalized look at your portfolio and let you know if you're on track or how you should reallocate. You can find information on that at FinancialEngines.com. It costs a little over $100 a year.
Many companies provide this web site free to their employees that participate in the plan. That's FinancialEngines.com.
The other excellent place is Morningstar.com. If you sign up for their premium service, you can use their asset allocation advice program and it, too, allows you to put in your name, your age, your salary levels, what your retirement goal is and then list all your stocks and mutual funds.
And they will tell you not only if you're on track, but which different funds you should be using to get to where you want to be.
KAGAN: OK. So that's about taking it out and putting it in your retirement fund. What about when to take it out?
SAVAGE: That's going to be a big thing for Baby Boomers and those that precede them. The question is, how much do I have, how should I invest and how much can I withdraw to make sure I don't run out of money before I run out of time?
And that's going to be the subject of my next book, "The Savage Number," which will be out in spring. How much do I need to retire?
And there are advice services for that as well. Because you can't just say, "Well, I'll take X thousand out of month." You don't want to run out of money. So major mutual fund companies, notably Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Vanguard, as well as financial planners, are using a special kind of computerized modeling to give you the range of probabilities so you know, when you reach retirement, how much you can withdraw, and how to invest the balance and when you should take it out.
That's going to be the next focus for the Baby Boom generation.
We hare been given a big responsibility. Social Security won't provide enough, if it provides anything for some. And we need to take responsibility for our own retirement. So start by going in Monday and saying, "I'm going to take more out. I'm going to figure out where to invest it." That's very important right now.
KAGAN: Here, here. Well, it sounds like you're already on your way to a prosperous and productive 2005. We wish you a wonderful and a healthy one, as well.
SAVAGE: Thank you, and the same to all CNN viewers. KAGAN: Thank you. And yes, you come back when the book comes out and we'll figure out our numbers there.
SAVAGE: OK, Daryn.
KAGAN: All right. Thank you, Terry.
Well, speaking of numbers, let's see what Wall Street is looking like on this final day of 2004. David Haffenreffer is there, watching that for us.
Hi, David.
(STOCK REPORT)
KAGAN: Not too bad. David, thank you for that and happy new year to you.
And for the final moments, something a little bit lighter we thought might be in order. Jeanne Moos reviewing the year in mistakes. Her awards for best bungled sound bites when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: In television news we call them sound bites, little snippets of information from speakers. Usually no one really remembers who said what. Usually, but then there is CNN's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We couldn't let the sound bites of 2004 bite the dust without noting the ones that bit back.
(on camera) The "What Did He Just Say? Award" goes to President Bush.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many ob gyns aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country.
MOOS (voice-over): And speaking of practicing love...
(on camera) "Coming Out of the Closet Admission of the Year" goes to New Jersey's governor.
JAMES MCGREEVEY, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: I am a gay American.
MOOS (voice-over): His administration spawned a talking doll.
ROBOTIC VOICE: I am a gay American.
MOOS (on camera): There's so many nominees for "Trash Talk of the Year Award" they're just going to have to share it. (voice-over) From the immortal words of Teresa Heinz Kerry.
TERESA HEINZ KERRY, JOHN KERRY'S WIFE: You said something I didn't say, now shove it.
MOOS: To the male anatomy insult that Jon Stewart fired when he got cross on "CROSSFIRE."
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion.
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": You know what's interesting, though? You're as big of a (expletive deleted) on your show as you are on any show.
MOOS (on camera): Arnold Schwarzenegger is the winner of the "Too Much Information Award."
(voice-over) Arnold was asked if his speech at the Republican convention...
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: Don't be economic girlie men.
MOOS: ... caused his wife, Democrat Maria Shriver, to punish him.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, there was no sex for 40 days.
MOOS: And while we're on the subject of sex...
(on camera) ... we are pleased to present the "Lifetime Falafel Award" to Bill O'Reilly.
(voice-over) In court documents filed by a former FOX News employee alleging sexual harassment, O'Reilly is quoted describing a shower fantasy in which he mixes up the word "loofah" and instead says "falafel," so that the sentence comes out, "I would take the other hand with the falafel thing and I'd just put it" -- never mind where he put it. It's not fit for a falafel.
(on camera) The "Best Darn Expletive Deleted Award" goes to the vice president...
(voice-over) ... for what Mr. Cheney suggested Senator Patrick Leahy do to himself.
(on camera) The "What's She On Award" is a no-brainer.
(voice-over) Anna Nicole Smith gets the award for how she presented an award.
ANNA NICOLE SMITH, FORMER MODEL: And if I ever record an album.
MOOS: "People" magazine picked a few catch phrases of 2004, among them. DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE MOGUL: You're fired.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's just not that into you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who's your daddy?
MOOS (on camera): We have to hand the coveted "Index Finger Award" to President Bush.
(voice-over) W's response when confronted by anti-Bush protesters in Canada...
BUSH: I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave with all five fingers.
MOOS (on camera): Several nominees richly deserve the "Can I Rephrase That? Award."
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have.
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": We go on the air with the comedy we have, not with the comedy we want.
MOOS (voice-over): The moral of the year in sound bites, bite your tongue.
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes!
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: It will be a long time before we forget that one.
Dave Henin keeping an eye on weather for us.
Hey, Dave.
(WEATHER REPORT)
KAGAN: Interesting. Thank you for that. And Dave, happy new year to you.
DAVE HENIN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Same to you, Daryn.
KAGAN: Thank you. And that's going to do it for me, Daryn Kagan. That's it; I'm done for the year. I would say.
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