[Fwd: OT If We Had A Real President]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: OT If We Had A Real President
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 11:09:57 -0400
From: William Wagner
Organization: None will have me
Newsgroups: sci.med.cardiology
References:

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197

Article Last Updated: 09/06/2005 02:04:54 AM

Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA
By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune

ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight
hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"
As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for
firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for
a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in
a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the
United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they
were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations
officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to
disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the
Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in
backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
Federal officials are unapologetic.
"I

would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA,
to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA
spokeswoman Mary Hudak.
The firefighters - or at least the fire chiefs who assigned them to
come to Atlanta - knew what the assignment would be, Hudak said.
"The initial call to action very specifically says we're looking for
two-person fire teams to do community relations," she said. "So if there
is a breakdown [in communication], it was likely in their own
departments."
One fire chief from Texas agreed that the call was clear to work as
community-relations officers. But he wonders why the 1,400 firefighters
FEMA attracted to Atlanta aren't being put to better use. He also
questioned why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - of which FEMA
is a part - has not responded better to the disaster.
The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring
backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They
were told to prepare for "austere conditions." Many of them
came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift
through rubble and save lives.
"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified,
paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting
in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims]
in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."
The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to
send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA
has warned them not to talk to reporters.
On Monday, two firefighters from South Jordan and two from Layton
headed for San Antonio to help hurricane evacuees there. Four
firefighters from Roy awaited their marching orders, crossing their
fingers that they would get to do rescue and recovery work, rather than
paperwork.
"A lot of people are bickering because there are rumors they'll just
be handing out fliers," said Roy firefighter Logan Layne, adding that
his squad hopes to be in the thick of the action. "But we'll do
anything. We'll do whatever
they need us to do."
While FEMA's community-relations job may be an important one -
displaced hurricane victims need basic services and a variety of
resources - it may be a job best suited for someone else, say
firefighters assembled at the Sheraton.
"It's a misallocation of resources. Completely," said the Texas
firefighter.
"It's just an under-utilization of very talented people," said South
Salt Lake Fire Chief Steve Foote, who sent a team of firefighters to
Atlanta. "I was hoping once they saw the level of people . . . they
would shift gears a little bit."
Foote said his crews would be better used doing the jobs they are
trained to do.
But Louis H. Botta, a coordinating officer for FEMA, said sending
out firefighters on community relations makes sense. They already have
had background checks and meet the qualifications to be sworn as a
federal employee. They have medical training that will prove invaluable
as they come across hurricane victims in the field.
A firefighter from California said he feels ill prepared to even
carry out the job FEMA has assigned him. In the field, Hurricane Katrina
victims will approach him with questions about everything from insurance
claims to financial assistance.
"My only answer to them is, '1-800-621-FEMA,' " he said. "I'm not
used to not being in the know."
Roy Fire Chief Jon Ritchie said his crews would be a "little
frustrated" if they were assigned to hand out phone numbers at an
evacuee center in Texas rather than find and treat victims of the
disaster.
Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by
their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up
the tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for
the federal government.
"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're
sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter
said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day
[of FEMA training] was a waste."
Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered
roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into
pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency
aid.
But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in
Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight
headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside
President Bush as he tours devastated areas.





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without explicit permission from The Salt Lake Tribune.

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This article is posted under fair use rules in accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and is strictly for the educational
and informative purposes. This material is distributed without profit.

Bob (this one) wrote:

|| But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in
|| Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a
|| flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand
|| beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
||
||

This is just unbelievable! Using 50 skilled fire fighters for PR instead of
search and rescue. Why does this not surprise me?

--
Peter
Website: http://users.thelink.net/marengo

Before you get too excited about this story, consider that it's one
line at the end of a story by one reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune.
That's the only place it's been covered, which is pretty strange for
such a sensational story, don't you think?

Many of the other accusations directed at President Bush have already
turned out to be false. Remember the folks without food and water at
the Superdome and Convention Center? Everyone, including the Mayor of
NO were blaming FEMA and the president for that too. Now the truth is
finally coming out. The Red Cross had food and water staged outside NO
and was ready to deliver it to those in need. It was LOUISIANA STATE
OFFICIALS who specifically blocked them from bringing it in. Below are
the facts as reported by Fox News and a link to the Red Cross website
where they have a statement confirming it. There will be plenty of
time after the crisis for a complete investigation into ALL the events
leading up to the hurricane and the response to it at all levels of
govt. But apparently some of you just can't wait.


"The Red Cross is confirming to Major Garrett of Fox News that it had
prepositioned water, food, blankets and hygiene products for delivery
to the Superdome and the Convention Center in the immediate aftermath
of the hurricane, but were blocked from delivering those supplies by
orders of the Louisiana state government, which did not want to
attract people to the Superdome and/or Convention Center.


Garrett has no paper trail yet, but will follow up on his verbal
confirmation from sources at the highest levels of the Red Cross.
Hugh Hewitt interviewed Garrett after he broke the story.


Transcript here
http://www.radioblogger.com/#000967
http://www.radioblogger.com/


The Red Cross backs up Garrett's story on their website here
http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0...4,00.html#4524


"...The 'STATE' (of Louisiana) Homeland Security
Department had requested--and continues to request--
that the American Red Cross NOT come back into New
Orleans following the hurricane.


Our presence would keep people from evacuating and
encourage others to come into the city..."

Marengo wrote:


This is just unbelievable! Using 50 skilled fire fighters for PR instead of
search and rescue. Why does this not surprise me?

Because we have come to expect less than the minimum?

I think the full story will be told over time and it will be ugly for
almost every decision maker, from New Orleans on up to the top. Sad
times when we are unsurprised at the worst.

Hollywood

I heard about this on FOX, also---the dingy Mayor wanted to wait for
MORE water tests to check toxisity before letting the emergency vehicles
in.?????? Can you believe that?

well, DUH, honey, YES the frickin water is toxic.

Also reported today was the increasing numbers of Black democrats
claiming a racial, economic and agist agenda.
....That IF the submerged neighborhoods had been predom white, the wait
wouldn't have been so long.

Something Im not clear on....you cant tell from the pics of roofs,
exactly where the submerged neighborhoods are....Im wondering if they're
not what used to be called The Irish Channel?

Back in the Long Ago, when the Irish were the "******s" of the world,
they lived in the cheapest-rent parts of NO---those areas so far below
sea level nobody with good sense or the dough to afford higher ground
would live there.

So, Im wondering........it stands to reason those very low areas would
STILL be the cheapest rent districts, for the same reason. Cheap rent
BECAUSE they are the most likely to be flooded in a Big Blow.

Ya gotta remember NO has a LONG history of hurricanes and floods. In the
1800's, there were several occasions when the bodies of dead and
buried-above-ground cholera epidemic vics floated down Bourbon street,
epidemics and hurricanes both occurring in summer, natch, they go
hand-in-hand.

IF so, well, yeah, whoever the poor happen to be, Irish, Black,
whatever, they would naturally be the people living in the cheapest
(lowest) areas.

Another long-standing tradition of NO life has always been, the RICH
never stayed for the summer. It's too damn hot and humid. Everybody who
had the money to leave, did. They went to Paris or to second homes
somewhere cooler for the whole summer, missing, of course, the hurricane
season, too.

In other words, YES there is an economic factor But it's nothing "new",
LOL, let alone a "planned agenda". In the Old Days, there were MANY
well-off to quite wealthy "Gentlepeople of Color" who were NEVER slaves.
Born free, well educated abroad, landowners who ALSO split town for the
summer......while many and many a poor white sharecropper stayed.

I think it's the same, now---the poor of whatever color stayed---those
with money of whatever color split.....as New Orleaners have done for a
couple hundred years.

LassChance

"I heard about this on FOX, also---the dingy Mayor wanted to wait for
MORE water tests to check toxisity before letting the emergency
vehicles
in.?????? Can you believe that? "

Yes, I can believe it. Because he's the same guy that according to the
local newspaper, on Sat, as the storm approached, was meeting with
lawyers for legal opinions on the city's liability for closed
businesses, etc., if he issued such an order. That'a a real good time
to figure out the criteria for ordering a mandatory evacuation, isn't
it? So, he didn't order it until Sunday. And even then, very little
was apparently done to make it happen.

The media have shown interviews with other vulnerable areas in other
states. Those areas routinely issue mandatory evacuations and they
back it up by sending emergecny personnel door to door, before the
storm telling people they have to leave. In NO, this was also
apparently not done. And we've all seen the pictures of the NO school
buses sitting flooded that were never used to offer rides to those
without transportation. That despite that their very own evacuation
plan, though sadly lacking, does identify 100K people likely to need
transportation and specifying that city transportation and school buses
should be used for that purpose. Then Nagin has the nerve to go on
radio in the worst performance I have ever seen from a city official
anywhere and whine, cry, and point fingers everywhere but at himself!

What get's me is these whackos that post here want to continue to point
the finger at President Bush and FEMA, when there is lots of evidence
that most of the blame for the loss of life is going to ultimately be
found elsewhere. In fact, they just give the guys like Nagin a free
pass, while ranting about Bush!

Lass Chance_2 wrote:
I heard about this on FOX, also---the dingy Mayor wanted to wait for
MORE water tests to check toxisity before letting the emergency vehicles
in.?????? Can you believe that?

well, DUH, honey, YES the frickin water is toxic.


In other words, YES there is an economic factor But it's nothing "new",
LOL, let alone a "planned agenda". In the Old Days, there were MANY
well-off to quite wealthy "Gentlepeople of Color" who were NEVER slaves.
Born free, well educated abroad, landowners who ALSO split town for the
summer......while many and many a poor white sharecropper stayed.

I think it's the same, now---the poor of whatever color stayed---those
with money of whatever color split.....as New Orleaners have done for a
couple hundred years.

See Anne Rice's recent editorial in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/op...gewanted=print

Pastorio

"Bob (this one)" wrote in message
...

See Anne Rice's recent editorial in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/op...gewanted=print

See Jim Geraghty's rebuttal:
http://www.nationalreview.com/geragh...0509070826.asp

Rich

Thanks, Pastorio---the article was fascinating. Rice is right---NO is
unlike any other city--there really is no 'racism" there....mainly
because just about everybody whose roots are there has a mixture of many
bloods. It's the only place I know where you might meet a very fair
skinned, blue eyed person with frizzy hair and a very dark skinned
person with an aquiline nose, thin lips and pale green eyes.....and
they're cousins.
Nobody whose family has been there for two hundrted years is "all" white
or "all black.

The wealthy gentlemen of Old NO generally had two families---one with
their white wives and another with their Quadroon or Octoroon mistress.
His children by either relationship were equally educated, both families
taken care of in his Will, and ocassionally even knew each other
socially. At the very least, they were aware of each other, even if they
did not mingle socially. Both families carried his last name.

For a TRUE "melting pot"---New Orleans is it. There's no place like it,
here or abroad.

I saw Richard Simmons a son of NO, being interviewed a couple days ago
and the news guy asked, "Since so much of those neighborhoods are
totalled....wouldnt it make more sense to NOT rebuild?"

Simmons looked at the man as if he had turned purple, then replied,
"It's NEW ORLEANS". (and the unspoken but palpable, "you idiot", hung in
the air, LOL.

LassChance


OT If We Had A Real President]

Group: alt.support.diet.low-carb Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2005, 2:32pm From:
(Bob=A0(this=A0one))
Lass Chance_2 wrote:
I heard about this on FOX, also---the dingy Mayor wanted to wait for
MORE water tests to check toxisity before letting the emergency vehicles
in.?????? Can you believe that?
well, DUH, honey, YES the frickin water is toxic.
In other words, YES there is an economic factor But it's nothing "new",
LOL, let alone a "planned agenda". In the Old Days, there were MANY
well-off to quite wealthy "Gentlepeople of Color" who were NEVER slaves.
Born free, well educated abroad, landowners who ALSO split town for the
summer......while many and many a poor white sharecropper stayed.
I think it's the same, now---the poor of whatever color stayed---those
with money of whatever color split.....as New Orleaners have done for a
couple hundred years.
Lass

"See Anne Rice's recent editorial in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/op...wanted=3Dprint
Pastorio"

Bob (this one) wrote:

|| See Anne Rice's recent editorial in the New York Times:
|| http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/op...gewanted=print
||
|| Pastorio

I wonder if Lestat's crypt is flooded? ....

--
Peter
Website: http://users.thelink.net/marengo