East Village resident found alive and well after having gone missing for four days. [NYDN]

James Cameron will rerelease Titanic in 2012. In 3D, natch. [WSJ]

American ire falls on BP's high-profile CEO. [NYT]

Laura and daughter Barbara Bush spotted house hunting in the Village. [NYDN] 

City to pay $9.9 million to a man wrongfully imprisoned for two decades. [NYT]

Jonathan Karp to replace Rosenthal at Simon and Schuster. [NYP]

Gagosian to sell luxury speedboats. [ARTINFO]

McDonalds recalls toxic Shrek drinking glasses. [LATimes]

No word just yet on how much they paid, but the two-day auction took place during late December. The soon-to-be-former first lady is quoted in the release as saying she is "very pleased to be associated with Scribner, the distinguished publishing house of many of [her] favorite books.”

Mrs. Bush's memoir was the subject of a recent Talk of the Town piece by Observer alum Sheelah Kolhatkar, in which several editors and publishers were quoted on their expectations for the book and its prospects in the market.

"She was not forthcoming about anything that I would consider controversial," one publisher who met with Mrs. Bush before the auction was quoted as saying. "We questioned her rigorously, but it was one-word answers. I considered it the worst, or the most frustrating, meeting of its sort that I’ve ever had."

A publisher at a different company told The New Yorker that he/she had chosen not to meet with Mrs. Bush, and had heard from those who had that they were "totally underwhelmed."

Industry reporter Michael Cader, who runs the news hub PublishersMarketplace.com, wrote in a posting at the end of the month that those quoted in the New Yorker piece were just "trying to manipulate down the selling price."

Citing Robert Barnett, the DC lawyer who represented Mrs. Bush on her memoir, Mr. Cader reported that eight publishers were interested in pursuing the book.

"Far from declining to meet, there were several more who asked for a meeting who we were not able to accommodate because of scheduling," Mr. Barnett was quoted as saying. "The meetings were lively, insightful, and revealing. I have been at this long enough to know that, because certain publishers are well-known for being pathologically unable to maintain confidentiality, you don't reveal your best material in multi-publisher meetings. We will resolve it right after the first of the year."

(This after a much-publicized appearance in J. Crew on The Tonight Show in the wake of news of Sarah Palin's $150,000 department store splurge.)

Mrs. O, a blog devoted exclusively to the fashion choices of the future First Lady, points out that Ms. Pinto, the Chicago designer, recently told the Wall Street Journal that she was hoping Ms. Obama would wear today's red dress on Election Night. Ms. Pinto also said that—bucking abysmal trends in retail—her orders have increased 45 percent in the past year on the strength of Mrs. Obama's repeated endorsements.

Mrs. Bush wore a comparatively dowdy rust-colored dress.

On a stage inside the ballroom, Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, talked about the progress his foundation had made in making the world a better place. Bush’s entrance and their announcement of a plan to visit hurricane-ravaged states together again was meant to be a surprise. So he stayed out of sight behind the ballroom doors, chatting with aides, amiably posing for pictures, looking over his speech and then tossing the apple core at a trash can. (He missed. A fan happily rebounded it for him.) He looked around, a little bored, and then his old friend Andrés Pastrana Arango, the 38th president of Colombia, walked up and patted his arm.

“Mr. President,” said Arango.

“Mr. President,” said Bush.

Arango introduced his son, Santiago, a college student with floppy, shiny black hair.

“How old are you?” the former president asked Santiago. He turned and called over his granddaughter. “Hey, Lauren,” he said.

Lauren Bush, who is blonde, and designs and models clothes, walked over in black heels. She wore a fashionable cardigan vest that hung over her blouse and skirt. She smiled and carried a muslin tote bag that said “FEED the Children of the World.” Her grandfather introduced her to Arango, “the former president of Colombia.”

Arango introduced her to his son, who wore what looked like a black Bar Mitvah suit. She smiled gracefully and he smiled eagerly as they shook hands.

Bush asked the younger Arango where he went to college.

“Spain—Madrid,” he said. “When my father left office we went to Spain.”

“Oh, I love Spain,” said Lauren.

They talked about Colombia, a country Bush’s granddaughter confessed she had yet to visit. “You’ve never been, so you have to go,” said Santiago. The discussion turned to Bush’s smart tote bag, which she said was selling wildly and aiding a good cause. “We should send some to Colombia then,” the younger Arango said, winningly.

During the conversation a well-wisher came up to the young model. “Oh, oh my God, hey,” she said. Handlers whispered to Bush that he would go onstage soon. He nodded. The conversation petered out and the Arangos made their farewells.

“Good to see you, Mr. President,” said former President Bush.

The handlers got the cue they were waiting for in their Secret Service-style earpieces and led Bush into the ballroom. Former President Arango stayed behind and answered a question from a reporter, who was interrupted by one of the omnipresent and aggressive conference volunteers. The women wore blue scarves and white shirts and the men wore blue ties and white shirts. They both stalked the halls interrupting any conversations between reporters and conference “members,” as the credentials hanging from the necks of attendees read.

“Very fussy,” former President Arango, himself a former news anchor, said disapprovingly.

The CGI conference, as it is known, has for four years been a place for dignitaries, do-gooders, former presidents and aggressive special interests to get together and talk about ways to raise money for worthy causes. (The Clinton Foundation said that the week's conference resulted in the commitment of about $8 billion to help fund a variety of humanitarian efforts.) It's also been a place for them to catch up and network. (John Sauer, an aggressive representative of something called “Water Advocates,” handed his card to another conference attendee over a urinal.)

It has always been, for reporters, an extremely target-rich environment, with important and hard-to-get leaders and societal titans walking the hallways, exposed, like ordinary people, and eager to chat. (“I’m going to poverty, you going to poverty?” said Alan Patricof, a major Clinton fund-raiser to a friend. The friend replied, “Education.” “Education?” answered Mr. Patricof, unimpressed.)

But this year, the army of volunteers forced the press downstairs, into dark corners of the ballroom without seats or power outlets, away from the elevators and away from both the attendees who wanted to talk to reporters and those who didn’t.

Some other things haven’t changed, though, even if maybe they should have. A quote on one of the blue conference posters papering the hotel read, “This is a time to build bridges and not burn bridges,” a dictum attributed to “Pervez Musharraf, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”

After Clinton and Bush announced their travel plans (“I love working with President Bush,” Clinton said from the stage) the crowd in the ballroom broke up into their "Poverty," "Education," and "Global Health" working groups. Wesley Clark, the former general and presidential candidate who sits on the board of something called “Emergya Wind Technologies,” followed the Arangos up an escalator. They talked briefly about energy and business.

“Who do we, uh, contact? Do we call you?” said Clark after a few minutes.

“Generaaaal,” Arango said, as if to say, of course you must call me directly! He gave him a card with his personal contacts and they both attended their respective working groups. They were closed to the press.

Verdict: Cindy's been keeping up her tan better.

Republican footwear became an issue when Sarah Palin wore snappy red heels bearing uncanny resemblance to Dorothy's ruby red slippers to the announcement of her vice-presidential candidacy (lucky for the GOP, shoe bloggers unearthed them for $149 on Zappos.com).

Meanwhile, candidate McCain has been called out on his preference for $520 Ferragamos. And on the Democratic side, Michelle Obama was named to Vanity Fair's International Best-Dressed List—which, in the upside-down world of politics, just might be the ultimate faux pas.

No word on the price of Mrs. McCain's pumps.

What is the Aidmatrix Foundation? On Fox News, correspondent Bret Baier referred to it as “eBay for charitable contributions.” The truth appears to be somewhat less tidy.

The Aidmatrix Foundation, founded in 2000, is based in Dallas and is currently run by Scott McCallum, the former Republican governor of Wisconsin. The organization has contracts with numerous private charities and state governments, including Louisiana’s, playing a middleman role by “matching corporate surplus with charities" according to the nonpartisan Network for Good. In November 2006, after the organizational disaster of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded the foundation a $3.5 million dollar grant to develop of a software program to streamline the process of collecting and distributing donations of money and goods after natural disasters. Democrats in Congress, including Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, have recently questioned the effectiveness of the software. Aidmatrix declined to testify at a congressional hearing on July 31.

On its web site, Aidmatrix says it distributes “more than $1.5 billion of aid annually to more than 35,000 voluntary organizations.” Tax forms, however, suggest that as of 2006—the year it received the FEMA grant, and the most recent for which such records are available—the organization had a $2 million budget, and distributed $667,000 in the form of grants. The largest single grant, to the World Food Program, amounted to $100,000. McCallum’s salary was $279,000, while the organization’s chief operating officer made $192,000.

McCallum served as Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor during the Tommy Thompson administration, and ascended to the top job when Thompson was appointed secretary of Health and Human Services by President Bush in 2001. He failed in a bid to win a full term in 2002, and went on to become CEO of Aidmatrix, reportedly saying: “Why would I want to be in politics when I can save the world?”

The Aidmatrix Foundation’s tax returns for 2004 through 2006 can be found here, here and here.

And now, at the Republican National Convention, the effort is underway to portray this good news as a triumph of Republican leadership.

Just before 5:00 p.m. (E.S.T.), with the scoreboards in the Xcel Energy Center prominently displaying the words “Country First,” First Lady Laura Bush was called to the stage, where she spoke of the human toll that the storm threatened to exact and the need for support from all Americans for any recovery effort.

She noted that all of the governors of the affected states are Republicans, prompting loud applause from the delegates.

Then, the lights were dimmed and a video featuring appearances from most of the Gulf Coast governors was screened. Starting with Rick Perry of Texas, each governor spoke of his state’s preparation for, and response to, the storm. Each also offered effusive praise for his fellow Republican governors and for the way the storm had been handled by the federal government.

Perry handed off to Alabama’s Bob Riley, who was followed by Florida’s Charlie Crist, who was followed by Haley Barbour of Mississippi (a former G.O.P. national chairman who invited John McCain to his state for a much-publicized pre-Gustav visit this weekend). Only Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal didn’t appear.

No Democratic office-holders were included. Granted, there is no Gulf state with a Democratic governor, but it isn't as if there are a shortage of Democrats who were part of the hurricane planning. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin or Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, who's up for re-election this year, would have been good choices. Even former Senator John Breaux, also of Lousiana, could have provided some balance in a relatively non-political fashion.

Instead, the speakers painted a picture of cooperative and effective--but definitively Republican--leadership, all while maintaining the nonpartisan rhetoric.

“All of us have worked together and are going to continue to work together to help each other,” Barbour declared.

When the video ended, Cindy McCain joined Bush at the podium and reiterated her husband’s refrain of the past several days: “As John has been saying for the last few days, this is a time when we take off our Republican hats and put on our American hats.” The crowd roared its approval.

With that, the opening day of the G.O.P. convention came to an end. On Fox News, anchor Brit Hume quickly segued to a piece about the various ways in which delegates have put politics aside these past two days to focus their thoughts and efforts on helping the people of the Gulf Coast. On television, one woman noted that her delegation had turned its morning meeting into a prayer session.

But if last night is any indication, not every Republican has gotten the memo.

“Our first priority now today is to ensure the security of those living today in the Gulf Coast region,” said Bush, who added, “When such events occur we are reminded that first we are all Americans.”

Dressed in white, she introduced the governors of the Gulf states, who, she noted, are all Republicans.

Governor Rick Perry of Texas appeared in front of a revving Air Force plane.

“We’re taking care of the citizens. That’s what we do,” he said.

Bob Riley, governor of Alabama, said he wanted to personally “thank President Bush for his leadership.”

Florida Governor Charlie Crist appeared like a weather news correspondent in steady winds.

And then Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi said that the federal government has been a great partner and “no doubt will be a great partner in the aftermath.” He was also the first person to say the word “Katrina.”

After the videos, Cindy McCain came out in black high heels and a high-collared yellow dress and, with Bush beside her, pitched relief fund Web sites. Everyone applauded.

“Governor Palin is in town, she got in last night,” said Davis, who also said that she had no public schedule. “She is working on her speech.”

Davis said that the first lady would introduce Cindy McCain after the official business of the delegates had taken place, at around 4:50 p.m., and that both their remarks would conclude about 20 minutes later.

“In keeping with the nonpolitical” nature of the day’s events, Davis said, there would be no dramatic music or videos between the two speeches.

The first lady gave an unofficially political speech at a delegate breakfast this morning.

When asked about her definitely-not-apolitical comments about the lack of experience in the Obama campaign, he said, "I was O.K. with that because it's true. She didn't say it to be politically aggressive—she is basically stating a fact. Mr. Obama does not have experience."

"Some might call it a political jab," he said. "But I don't because it's true."