I'm saying Hmm....because last night Brian Williams, owned and operated by GE, the world's largest defense contractor, aired an investigative report on what a waste to the taxpayers FEMA trailer parks have gotten to be. This report by Lisa Myers was on how some FEMA trailers cost $229,000, which would buy a big, beautiful home in the area where I live, and details how
Over a 7-month period, investigators found $30 million in improper payments for trailer maintenance alone.
However, this report, true to the fact that NBC's New Orleans bureau has been closed, was actually out of Washington and the film had been shot at a trailer park in Mississippi. Maybe that's better than no post-Katrina coverage at all--but since it wasn't out of New Orleans, I'm saying Hmm...
It's easy to imagine the behind the scenes planning that went into that report, with some assignment editor saying, "O.K., cover FEMA's waste--but out of Mississippi. New Orleans doesn't exist." So last night's was the 52nd "Nightly" newscast that didn't air anything out of New Orleans.
See Ana Maria's diary for a FEMA atrocity Brian Williams should have covered, but hasn't. When one compares the short-sighted, petty nitpicking FEMA does over what they will and will not reimburse with the things FEMA chooses to spend--and waste--money on, one can see the need for scrapping FEMA and replacing it with a more accountable agency more responsive to the needs of disaster survivors and their communities.
FEMA is penny-wise and pound-foolish. An aquarium might sound like a trivial frill to some petit bureaucrat in a comfy chair behind a Washington desk who's never been to New Orleans, but as Ana Maria notes it's a major tourist attraction and a pride of the city. And I'll add that it'll bring in tourist dollars much-needed in a city trying to get back on her feet. And the $90,000 Ana Maria reports that it cost to catch new fish is probably much less than what we taxpayers have been wasting on the salary of the out-of-touch FEMA big shot who's haggling over the cost of the fish.
Here'a something else Brian Williams should cover on this Veterans Day week, but hasn't: New Orleans' homeless vets. As chigh posted recently,
Many NOLA veterans without homes due to the failure of the FEDERAL levees are living under the overpasses. They have no VA because the powers that be refuse to fix a building that was flooded on the first floor only. The victims waited for the LA National Guard to rescue them from the flood just like in Waiting for Godot.
However, to Williams and NBC, which stupidly closed its bureau in this beleaguered city which now no longer exists to NBC, they're invisible. The Extremely Annoying Brian Williams, to put it bluntly, doesn't give a damn about their ordeal. And this is unconscionable.
And for the record, Brian Williams has been ignoring the good news out of New Orleans as well as the bad...nothing has been aired on the happy news of the return of the St. Charles streetcar, which was reported by YatPundit earlier this week. As I mentioned in a post under his piece, would you believe Fox News, which is much-maligned by many Kossacks, headlined the return of the streetcar on Sunday several times?
Here's something Extremely Annoying that Brian Williams did deem newsworthy, but is actually crap: Sandra Day O'Connor's "private battle" as he called it. Why is this news--and who the hell cares? (I wonder if she's just published and is trying to sell a book--I didn't pay the closest attention to that report.) It's time Brian Williams were told to get a clue and told to cover the private battles of people struggling to rebuild their homes and lives in New Orleans because their inspiring stories and that of their beloved city are far more newsworthy than that of Sandra Day O'Connor.