Top FEMA leaders short on experience – Yahoo! News Michael Brown, who heads FEMA as undersecretary of homeland security for emergency preparedness and response, already has endured sharp criticism for comments he made last week that seemed to suggest he did not understand that thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina had taken refuge at the New Orleans convention center. Before joining FEMA in 2001, Brown, a protege of longtime Bush aide Joseph Allbaugh, was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and had virtually no experience in disaster management. An official biography of Brown’s top aide, acting deputy director Patrick…
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Gay marriage up to governor now / Landmark legislation clears Assembly by narrowest of margins on second try It’s been too long since there was good news to report on the issue of gay marriage. Good from my point of view, that is: I’m in favor of marriage for everyone who wishes to enjoy the bonds of matrimony, especially since yesterday was our 8th wedding anniversary. Just like last year and the year before, I’ll go on record and say this: “My marriage is not threatened if my gay friends and family get hitched.” TOASTERS AND USELESS SILVERPLATE SERVING FORKS…
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Bush breaks HIV funding promise The Replenishment Meeting was widely billed as the first significant test of the promises made by world leaders at the recent G8 meeting, during worldwide MakePovertyHistory protests. The 3.7bn US dollars pledged by donors will be just enough to sustain current programmes. However there is no funding for new prevention, treatment or care programmes for 2006 and 2007. It is suggested that 7 billion US dollars was needed to adequately address funding needs. The US contribution is just 0.6 billion dollars for the next two years. For the first time since the establishment of the…
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I ran across this article about the one thousand firefighters that FEMA had sequestered for training in Atlanta in the Salt Lake Tribune, and then finally this morning I heard a piece on NPR on how the highly trained firefighters have been deployed in teams of two to affected areas… where they’re handing out FEMA flyers and referring questions about other services as best they can. It still seems like they could have used these guys to do rescue and recovery work, and find another thousand or so faceless bureaucrats to run around shining people on with “information packets.”
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We’ve returned from our short but action-packed weekend in Utah; David’s parents were also there as a surprise for my mom and in fact are still there. They’ll return tomorrow, full of tales of excitement and thrills. Sunday, for example, the 4 of us went up to my cousin’s cabin in Lamb’s Canyon just to look around, then a few miles “around the corner” to Park City for lunch and window-shopping. On a whim, we all rode the “Town Chair” ski lift up the mountain, took pictures, wandered around in a featureless and stony wasteland devoid of shopping opportunities, and…
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Just a bit of background: we’re traveling, hanging out, and helping my little mommy celebrate the big 9-0. We had a blast today at the party, but I started the day feeling a bit… rocky. As this is likely to be a really gross and offensive post in which graphic descriptions of alarums and excursions in one’s personal innards play a major part, the following disclaimer is offered as a public service. If you have delicate sensibilities and a weak stomach for yucky detail, perhaps this picture of nice bunnies and kitties from Hulk’s Diary will please you. If you…
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David told me about some of these stories, and I ran across some of them today and decided to stick them all together. NPR : Reporters Give Voice to Post-Katrina Desperation Others are also pressing senior public figures for specific answers. On National Public Radio Thursday afternoon, Robert Siegel questioned Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about the dire conditions for thousands of people who were not allowed into the New Orleans Superdome but were directed instead to the city’s convention center. Chertoff said aid workers were confronted by a “double catastrophe” – a hurricane followed by a flood that complicated…
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My travel client has heard from his son in a roundabout fashion – the son and some other people with him were rescued and are being transported to a shelter. My guy got the word via one of the many online forums that’s been set up for people to leave word on missing family and friends. This particular happy ending was made possible by the heroic efforts of the Times-Picayune, which is somehow publishing online, reporting the news, and providing neighborhood and parish community forums for people to get in touch… all after being evacuated from their newspaper offices the…
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Profile In Blurrage When President Bush left Texas for Washington DC, he left just as storm refugees were set to arrive at the Houston Astrodome, which has been turned into highly organized emergency housing. Very convenient timing – he gets away from Cindy Sheehan and her supporters, and also gets away from all those icky refugee people who might make him look like he’s not helping very much. He can certainly do more from Washington, can’t he? If this were 1977, Jimmy and Rosalind would have been in N’Awlins for 3 days already, coordinating relief efforts and handing out food…
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But it’s turning to twilight now, and I was looking at pictures, and writing. I got some pictures back in the mail: mom, just before she died, when she was that awful nursing home, in the last photo anyone took of her. Dad, in his awful tam o’shanter. The miles and miles of empty highway under that pewter Iraqi sky. I read how Iraqi women are basically going to be put under the thumb of the sort of people that we’re supposedly determined to defeat. and I just thought: I helped to do that. I helped do that to other…