This is our "busy season" but I'm going to ask for your patience while I vent some frustration with what I've been hearing on the news today.
One: What kind of perverse psychology informs the comments by Chertoff implying that the disaster would not be so horrendous in New Orleans "if the people had evacuated when they were supposed to?" Math was never my strength, but if there are a half million people in New Orleans and 30% live below the poverty line; then 150,000 would have needed help to evacuate. On what? From where? And, this while the bus drivers, engineers, and pilots were evacuating too?
Five more questions below the fold:
Two: What pathetic view of human nature informs the FEMA decision NOT to give food and water to people stranded at the Convention Center and the SuperDome--because that aid would make them want to stay? Am I to assume that this administration believes that if you are humane to people then those folks will not do what they are supposed to? Those were exactly the people who did do what they were asked to do! And, look what it got them!
Three: Can I assume that because the FEMA Director ran an agency that turned away private efforts by boat owners to put themselves in harm's way to rescue others, that left fire boats unused while the warehouses burned, that ignored pleas of desperation from starving and dehydrating people, that screwed up offers of help from the city of Chicago, that refused offers of fan boats from Florida...and Heaven Only Knows What Else!...Can I assume that Mr. Brown will be the next recipient of the President's Medal of Freedom?
Four: What possible logic underpins statements like: "This storm was just so big and fast we were taken by surprise?" It isn't like the Weather Channel wasn't sounding the tocsin for a week!
Five: What conceivable logic allows statements to the effect that criticism isn't appropriate now, because while initial efforts were inadequate we're "on the ball" now? That's just the point of an emergency--what you do Initially--and what was done was slow, ponderous, and just plain wrong.
Six: How does the Secretary of Homeland Security expect me to believe that he honestly cares about the people in Louisiana and Mississippi when he blames the victims for not leaving?
If I'm covering previous "territory" I apologize, but this is the first day I've been able to spend some time here. And, I do appreciate the first hand accounts and analyses I've read today. This blog, as usual, is doing some of the best and most informative work on the Internet--thanks!
