A Solution to the Problem of Feisty Reporters

FEMA followed up its disastrous response to Katrina -- disastrous to the citizens of New Orleans and to the vanishing image of the Bush administration -- to holding a completely fake news conference in response to the California fires. It was fake in that there was insufficient time to alert news organizations as to their holding the news conference so they used their own employees as reporters. Not surprisingly these "reporters" "asked questions many described as soft and gratuitous."

Even funnier than that a representative of Homeland Security said

"We have made it clear that stunts such as this will not be tolerated or repeated," Laura Keehner said, adding that the department was considering whether or not to reprimand those responsible.

So, they are considering whether or not to reprimand the persons responsible. I am wondering why they are not considering whether or not to fire those responsible for this violation of our fast eroding democratic values.

I am not sure whether or not it was common practice in the Soviet Union to hold press conferences like this one but it does sound like what they might have done. FEMA even made sure to provide the normal structure of a press conference by calling for a "last question" the report says. I'm quite sure the Soviets would have done the same thing. Appearances are as good as reality to some.

What is most puzzling about this is why FEMA just didn't provide a live TV feed of someone detailing their plans for dealing with this disaster in California and, in the process, announce that a press conference would be held in, say, two hours. This would have been reasonable given that they didn't have time to gather real reporters and it would have accomplished all of their goals -- providing information and, a bit later, making sure that reporters had an opportunity to grill them.

FEMA just can't seem to get anything right. To me, this is simply a sign that George Bush doesn't give a damn about the American people -- especially Black people, as his response to Katrina made quite clear. If he did, he wouldn't have appointed a crony for the job of heading up FEMA early on who was the father of the lack of a response to the Katrina disaster. And he would be replacing incompetents every time one raised his or her head.

Another sign that the administration has little regard for the American people is the abuse of the National Guard -- ostensibly citizen soldiers but actually not different than the active military in how they are treated. These people have families and civilian careers. They made the mistake of enlisting. People will not make that mistake in the future.

Still another sign that the Administration has no regard for the people is that, in the words of a BBC web news story

The US state department has said it may have to force some diplomats to work in Iraq to fill vacancies at the embassy in Baghdad.

So, the administration is now forcing people to work in a very dangerous environment. It is interesting that the BBC picked out the Orwellian feature of the language used to announce this action.

About 250 foreign service staff are to be told they are "prime candidates" for nearly 50 jobs, state department human resources director Harry Thomas said.

Who could resist being thought of as a "prime candidate." I suspect that the main criterion for being a prime canidate is stupidity.

If not enough volunteer (many carrots will be offered), some will be ordered to go. And if they refuse, they will be sent to the guillotine in the basement of the State Department and their heads will be lopped off. There will be no TV of this and so no need for fake reporters.

Bridges and other dangerous things

The American Society of Civil Engineers is, fortunately, not a branch of the Bush Administration and as a result we can go to them for a truthful account of the progress the Bush Administration and Congress, which was, until recently Republican, have made in the improvement of our nation's infrastructure. If you compare our infrastructure in the momentous year of 2001 with what it was in 2005, the last year that the ASCE gave out grades -- there should be grades coming out this year -- you must conclude that our infrastructure under a fully Republican controlled government has gone from bad to worse, with two exceptions. These are aviation and schools. In some cases grades were not given out in 2001 so a comparison is not possible.

Of course, Osama Bin Laden may be partly responsible for improvements in aviation. And Bush's "No Child Left Behind" could have helped with our schools. The "No Child Left Behind" is a wonderful linguistic slogan, but it is also, like most slogans (the "War on Poverty" and all other similar slogans involving wars on problems that do not require soldiers) fatally deficient. Bush's goal is totally unachievable for some kids are very, very dumb or have very, very dumb or poorly educated parents who provide poor examples and poor guidance or the kids simply don't give a damn.

In every other category things either stayed the same -- bridges (still C), dams (still D), solid waste (still C+) -- or got worse -- drinking water (now D-), the national power grid (now D), hazardous waste (now D), navigable waterways (now D-), roads (now D), transit (now D+) and waste water (now D-). In two cases, no grades were given in 2001. One was security, which gets an incomplete because there is too little information and rail, which gets a C-.

The big story the last couple of days was the bridge collapse in Minnesota. Osama Bin Laden did not bring down that bridge. WE DID. And that was a bridge that had been deemed merely "structurally deficient." Let us suppose that a structural engineer looked at your house and deemed that a recent earthquake had made it "structurally deficient." Would you keep living in it if you had a spouse and two kids? Here's an easier question, closer to the current situation with bridges. If you were buying a house and the house inspector you hired told you it was "structurally deficient," would you buy it? How is it then that we drive over bridges with that designation? The answer is easy. We don't know which bridges are and are not structurally deficient. There needs to be a clear label on every bridge in the country as to its reliability.

We either have a very serious bridge problem or a very serious language problem. Given how I interpret "structurally deficient bridge," I would not knowingly drive my new grandkid over one. In my view, any bridge that gets that designation should be condemned until it is replaced or repaired, if that is possible.

We have the money to repair or replace all our bridges. Where is it? It is in Iraq. In fact, fairly recently a great deal of money was budgeted for infrastructure by Congress. What happened to it? It went to pork barrel projects. We should not be a bit surprised by that.

Yesterday, my wife and I drove over to our kid's house with their dogs to await the arrival of the new kid and her parents. I assessed each bridge and elevated ramp as to when it was built. Essentially all of the ones we went over were built since we arrived in 1971. That felt good. Coming home we went over some that were decidedly older. I was driving this time and I forgot to keep track of the bridges and other elevated structures. Oh well, such is life in the United States.

I don't think I have ever said anything kind about the French. Let me repair that by noting that I would like to go to France just to drive over its very long and very beautiful suspension bridge which was innovative both in regard to its design and in how it was built. This 1.6 mile long, 1,132 feet tall (at its highest point) bridge was the subject of a high definition Discovery Channel program that I watched. Of course, the French did build a superhighway that it intended to go into Italy without having any idea how cars would cross the Tarn River Gorge. The result was a lot of congestion for years as cars wended their way over old roads and through medieval villages. Alls well that ends well, of course. Too bad we can't say this about our thousands of structurally deficient bridges.