Here Are 2 Events That Challenge Lackluster Image of Fund-Raising

Are you suffering compassion collapse?

Are you tired of buying blah-tasting cookies, subsidizing wimpy bike rides and just generally having people shake their collection cans in your face?

If so, relief is at hand. At last, something with style, something that gives as well as it gets.

First, I am pleased to announce that, yes, John Wayne’s 3-D western “Hondo” (1953, also starring Ward Bond, Geraldine Page and James Arness) will be shown in San Diego.

Some months ago, the Leukemia Society of America bought rights to a one-time-only showing of “Hondo” as a nationwide fund-raiser.

Don’t look for “Hondo” in your video store. And it hasn’t been shown on television in 12 years.

It’s Duke’s lost classic: two-fisted and full of retrograde politics.

The Leukemia Society will make money from the sale of 3-D glasses. Probably at A Major Convenience Store.

Two dozen stations across the country signed up almost immediately but initially no San Diego-Los Angeles station bit. I waited three long months.

Then came news Friday that Channel 6, Fox Broadcasting, will show “Hondo,” on June 26 at 8 p.m.

As if that weren’t cause enough for celebration, the local United Way on Friday revealed the arrival in San Diego of a kayaking team attempting to paddle from San Jose del Cabo in Baja California to Ketchikan, Alaska.

The 3,000-mile expedition is to raise money to fight illiteracy. You pledge so much per mile.

If the paddlers succeed, you pay up; if they drown or are eaten by sea mammals, you’re off the hook.

They started paddling northward from Cabo on Jan. 1. On Tuesday, they’ll set off from Shelter Island. Next stop: Monterey.

We can only hope that “Hondo” and the paddlers are a trend.

If we must have charitable events, let them at least be hairy-chested. Although, the lead paddler is a woman so maybe that isn’t such a good description.

Making a Stink

Water, jokes and nurses.

* The county government has decided not to turn off the employee showers at its buildings downtown and in Kearny Mesa, El Cajon and Vista.

Reason: It would save water but might hinder employee productivity.

A lot of employees commute by bike to save gas. To avoid antagonizing co-workers by spreading b.o., the bikers are urged to shower before starting work.

* Some homeowner associations are resisting the idea of drought-resistant landscaping for fear it’ll lower property values.

* Jailers are watching inmates at county jails to make sure they take only Navy showers.

* Roseanne Barr is set to perform at Camp Pendleton on March 16. But don’t look for her to sing the Marine Corps Hymn.

When Barr did a similar gig at Twentynine Palms, the Marine brass made one thing perfectly clear: Touch the hymn and you’re history.

* How best to support the troops? Become one of them.

Rudy Bauer, registered nurse at UCSD Medical Center, will be inducted Wednesday into the Army Reserves and immediately assigned to the 129th Army Air Evacuation Unit in Saudi Arabia.

Several nurse-reservists from UCSD are already with the 129th.

A Tangled Web

The psychic, the cop and the gun.

Lots has been written recently about the relationship between psychic Kelly Roberts and San Diego Police Sgt. Harold E. Goudarzi, formerly of the Metro Homicide Task Force.

Among other things, Roberts says she was enlisted by the task force to use her intuitive powers to help find the killers of 44 prostitutes and transients.

The police brass want to fire Goudarzi because they say he had a love affair with Roberts.

Now here’s something new: When Roberts shot her allegedly abusive husband to death in 1989, she used a .38-caliber pistol purchased from Goudarzi.

Then she asked a neighbor to make two calls: to Goudarzi and her sister. The shooting was ruled justifiable by Escondido police.