Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

Barack Obama:

Which brings me to the next point. Once the situation is stable, once families are settled - at least for the short term - once children are reunited with their parents and enrolled in schools and the wounds have healed, we’re gonna have to do some hard thinking about how we could have failed our fellow citizens so badly, and how we will prevent such a failure from ever occurring again.

It is not politics to insist that we have an independent commission to examine these issues. Indeed, one of the heartening things about this crisis has been the degree to which the outrage has come from across the political spectrum; across races; across incomes. The degree to which the American people sense that we can and must do better, and a recognition that if we cannot cope with a crisis that has been predicted for decades - a crisis in which we’re given four or five days notice - how can we ever hope to respond to a serious terrorist attack in a major American city in which there is no notice, and in which the death toll and panic and disruptions may be far greater?

Which brings me to my final point. There’s been much attention in the press about the fact that those who were left behind in New Orleans were disproportionately poor and African American. I’ve said publicly that I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially-based. The ineptitude was colorblind.

But what must be said is that whoever was in charge of planning and preparing for the worst case scenario appeared to assume that every American has the capacity to load up their family in an SUV, fill it up with $100 worth of gasoline, stick some bottled water in the trunk, and use a credit card to check in to a hotel on safe ground. I see no evidence of active malice, but I see a continuation of passive indifference on the part of our government towards the least of these.

And so I hope that out of this crisis we all begin to reflect - Democrat and Republican - on not only our individual responsibilities to ourselves and our families, but to our mutual responsibilities to our fellow Americans. I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren’t just abandoned during the Hurricane. They were abandoned long ago - to murder and mayhem in their streets; to substandard schools; to dilapidated housing; to inadequate health care; to a pervasive sense of hopelessness.

That is the deeper shame of this past week - that it has taken a crisis like this one to awaken us to the great divide that continues to fester in our midst. That’s what all Americans are truly ashamed about, and the fact that we’re ashamed about it is a good sign. The fact that all of us - black, white, rich, poor, Republican, Democrat - don’t like to see such a reflection of this country we love, tells me that the American people have better instincts and a broader heart than our current politics would indicate.

We had nothing before the Hurricane. Now we have even less.

I hope that we all take the time to ponder the truth of that message.

The full text is here. Via ASZ.

Again, as you know, I’m no great fan of Andrew Sullivan, but some of his letter writers are quite astute, so I’d like to highlight another one.

“Plain and simple: President Bush signed Gov. Blanco’s request to declare a state of emergency in Louisiana on 8/27. Within the text of that declaration the Gov. declares:

Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.

The Stafford Act is the legal stipulator in that declaration. Under The Stafford Act:

§ 5170a. GENERAL FEDERAL ASSISTANCE {Sec. 402}

In any major disaster, the President may–

# direct any Federal agency, with or without reimbursement, to utilize its authorities and the resources granted to it under Federal law (including personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, and managerial, technical, and advisory services) in support of State and local assistance efforts.

When President Bush signed that declaration on 8/27 he accepted a responsibility to the citizens of Louisiana. Who has the greater resources, Gov. Blanco, or President Bush? Why is Gov. Blanco held to a higher standard of competence than President Bush, when they each had the same responsibility?”

For reasons I stated yesterday, I’m in full echo chamber mode today, so forgive me for posting things you’ve likely already seen elsewhere.

Have a look at this Katrina timeline prepared by Think Progress and keep it handy so you can refer to it when you suspect your government and your media might be trying to forge brave new realities.

Just because you’ve seen this story everwhere else, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see it here too.

From Salon:

From all across the nation, local fire departments have sent firefighters — many of them trained in emergency medicine and search-and-rescue techniques — to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Federal Emergency Management Agency requested the help. But when the firefighters arrived in Atlanta, loaded down with the firefighting gear FEMA told them to bring, they were sent to a hotel to wait. Some of them have been waiting for three or four days now. Some have been assigned to sit through an eight-hour class on topics that included sexual harassment. And some have been dispatched to the disaster area to work as human props behind George W. Bush as he toured the destruction.

…
FEMA defends the use — or nonuse — of the firefighters, saying that their chiefs knew they were being sent to the Gulf Coast to work as community-relations officers for FEMA. Apparently, that job entails working as human props and passing out FEMA’s phone number. “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 told the Tribune.

On Monday, the Tribune says, some firefighters began to take off their FEMA-issued T-shirts in protest. A FEMA spokesman responded by questioning the firefighters’ willingness to help in a time of need. “I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country,” FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak told the Tribune.

I’m sure they’ll be sure to revisit that comitment Mary, because god knows T-shirts and bullshit political imagery are more important than saving lives. It’s not as if there was anything for a trained rescue worker to do in New Orleans last week anyway.

One of Susie’s commenters asks the sadly pertinent question “How will they spin the bodies?” I shudder to think.

…I think the answers are already coming in.

I’m going to take a break from the blog for a day or an hour or whatever. I’m not sure. I’ve posted some 42 entries on Katrina since last Monday and it’s really beginning to take its toll on me personally. I feel awful saying that, as so many float dead, needlessly, beneath polluted, diseased water and so many have more have lost everything but their lives, while I have lost nothing. Nevertheless, I need to look away for a little bit. As the waters recede in coming days and weeks and months, what will be revealed will be far more awful than most of us can imagine. What do you do or say about that?

I’ll see you soon.

There are no words. From the Washington Post:

While Chertoff said the levee breach that flooded New Orleans “exceeded the foresight of planners,” Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, said Brown and other top federal officials were briefed as much as 32 hours in advance of landfall that Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge was likely to overtop levees and cause catastrophic flooding.

“They knew that this one was different,” Mayfield said yesterday. “I don’t think Mike Brown or anyone else in FEMA could have any reason to have any problem with our calls. . . . They were told. . . . We said the levees could be topped.

Louisiana officials have blamed FEMA and Brown for bureaucratic bottlenecks, accusing FEMA of ignoring pre-storm offers of aid from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and the American Ambulance Association.

In his last extended TV interview on CNN,Brown admitted Thursday that the federal government did not know that thousands of survivors without food or water had taken shelter at the city’s convention center, despite a day of news reports.

Read the whole article if you can. The gross incompetence is mind numbing. Would any amount of time have been long enough for these worthless bastards?

From Shakespeare’s Sister, some more examples of mind numbing incompetence

FEMA won’t accept Amtrak’s help in evacuations
FEMA turns away experienced firefighters
FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks
FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel
FEMA won’t let Red Cross deliver food
FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans
FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid
FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board
FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck
FEMA turns away generators
FEMA: “First Responders Urged Not To Respond�

The problem may not have been that FEMA didn’t show up. The problem may have been that they did.

To the unhinged loon who wants me allow him to publish hate filled, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the what happened to levees in New Orleans; try as hard as you might, I’m not going to publish them - ever.

Just a piece of advise for you sir; the internet is cheap and despite what many claim, bandwidth is so cheap it’s a joke. You could probably pan handle enough for a year’s worth of bandwidth and a domain name in a day or two. You may have enough under the cushions in your sofa. Go get yourself some bandwidth and a domain. It’s really very easy and I’m sure you’ll find numerous fans who will gladly bask in the glow of your well roasted nuts.

Until then, don’t forget to polish and wax your neural implants, because your comunication is getting scrambled and we, the loyal members of the thought police, are having trouble monitoring your brain waves.

From Phily Indy Media Center

The City of Philadelphia’s ‘Project Brotherly Love’ is calling for volunteers to help service the approximate 1,000 families arriving from New Orleans. The first 100 families will begin arrive tomorrow morning. Call 215-235-3408 to get involved.

The families will be taken to the John Wanamaker Middle School at 1111 Cecil B. Moore Ave where they will be provided shelter and services. Remaining families will be taken to the Palumbo School at 12th and Catherine Streets.

Volunteers are needed in the following areas: General, Medical, Technology, Education, Floor Monitors, Clerical, Support, and Child Care. Call 215-235-3408 to sign up.

(Via Susie)

For more info on the local relief effort click here.

This has been everywhere, but I’d like to reproduce it here as well so that nobody who reads this site misses it. This is a transcript of a little editorial Keith Olbermann gave on his show last night. (Via Matt) The full trascript is here.

SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: “Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater…�

Well there’s your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government’s response to a crisis, this was it.

The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might’ve saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could’ve brought last Monday and Tuesday — like the President, whose statements have looked like they’re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.

But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called “The Department of Homeland Security�: “Louisiana is a city…�

Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the “I-Me� switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.

And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to save the stranded — even the internet’s meager powers were correctly devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural… and government-made.

But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.

No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.

But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn’t even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the “chatter� from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn’t quite discern… a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, “we are not satisfied,� with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which “we� he thinks he’s speaking for on this point. Perhaps it’s the administration, although we still don’t know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, ‘I’ll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die’?

I don’t know which ‘we’ Mr. Bush meant.

For many of this country’s citizens, the mantra has been — as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to ‘08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government — our government — “New Orleans.�

For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick “I’m not satisfied with my government’s response.� Instead of hiding behind phrases like “no one could have foreseen,� had he only remembered Winston Churchill’s quote from the 1930’s. “The responsibility,� of government, Churchill told the British Parliament “for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence.�

In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.

As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our government’s credibility.

Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.

My own favorite line is “And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological. It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.”

Indeed.

This has been flying under the radar for a few days, but I’m really quite pleased that Mayor Street is opening up several city buildings to 5000 New Orleans evacuees.

Philadelphia transformed an empty school into a makeshift hotel yesterday as it prepared for up to 5,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees now expected to begin arriving as early as tomorrow.

“FEMA has finally come through,” a slightly frustrated Mayor Street said after touring the refitted Wanamaker School in North Philadelphia. “We’re going to receive people. This is a very, very good thing.”

Earlier yesterday, Street had been critical of the federal government’s response in New Orleans and of what he saw as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s sluggishness in sending evacuees to Philadelphia.

Yesterday, with nearly a quarter-million Katrina evacuees already in Texas and more still pouring in, Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to airlift some to other states that have offered help.

“There are shelters set up in other states that are sitting empty while thousands arrive in Texas by the day, if not the hour,” Perry said. “We are doing everything we can to address the needs of evacuees as they arrive, but in order to meet this enormous need, we need help from other states.”

Aid centers will be set up at airports in Houston and Dallas where incoming evacuees can be given food, water and medical care before they are flown out.

The evacuees will be spread out over a couple of city and school district buildings. The two I know about are in North Philadelphia and in Bella Vista. Without question, this is going to be a budgetary hit for a city that can’t take many, but it is unquestionably the right thing to do. Hopefully some more information will be available in the coming days so that people with special skills from the area can donate time and expertise. Computer geeks, tutors, teachers, mental health professionals etc, will probably all be needed, so get ready to answer the call.

I’m taking a walk down to the Bella Vista building to have a peak and maybe a few pictures.

Update: I just got back from my stroll to one of the buildings that will be used to house refugees from New Orleans. The building, which formerly housed the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) is located on 11th and Catherine and is currently being used by the Police athletic league. It’s quite a substantial building and one of the features that I think will make it as comfortable as possible for the incoming evacuees is the presence of athletic fields on the roof. I assume this is relegated to tennis, handball and basketball, but I can’t say for certain.

I walked around the entire building and spoke briefly with some of the residents of 12th street, on the back side of the building, who were having a labor day block party and barbeque. Other than the increased activity, most seemed unaware that they would soon be getting new neighbors.

One thing I’m concerned about is that this neighborhood, Bella Vista, has experienced a boom in housing prices in the last few years and that we may see some “not in my backyard” bullshit thrown at people who definitely don’t deserve it and have far bigger things to worry about. We all need to be as welcoming as possible and realize that this will have no effect on the quality of our lives or the price of our rowhouses and condos. If we are inconvenienced at all, let’s please remember that we are not the ones who lost everything, including likely loved ones, and have been relocated over 1000 miles from what was home.

During the winter months, I could get some great pictures of the building from my roof, but at the moment trees obscure the view. I’ve placed a few pictures from street level beneath the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shamefully, I’m not taking part in Missing Monday this month, but I’d like you to go have a look at some of the blogs that are; The Smedley log, The Disenchanted Forest, Pax Romano’s Ramblings, iFlipFlop, Blonde Sagacity and Pardox1x. More information on the effort is available here.

Dave boldly goes where few have gone before him, and bravely explores the unknown. Join him if you dare. Also, have a look at Susie’s thoughts on the Maestro. Just enough to make you sick. Enough from me for now.

In keeping with my promise to post a non-Coltrane MP3, I present you with the Tony William’s composition Extras as performed by Tony Williams on drums, Sam Rivers on tenor Saxophone, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone and Gary Peacock on Bass. The track comes from Tony William’s album Spring and was recorded on August 12, 1965.

I’m not going to do any analysis, but I’d like to point out that Sam Rivers is one of the most influential avant garde jazz saxophone players and composers that just about nobody, other than hard core jazz geeks, has ever heard of. His influence on this album and Tony Williams’ first album, Life Time, is unmistakable. On this particular track he takes the second saxophone solo. Don’t forget to listen to Shorter either, as his solo is remarkable. Enjoy, and as always, please consider buying the album.

Click here to play or download.

AfterI posted that last Krugman snippet with the snide remarks about FEMA director Michael Brown losing his last job, which involved overseeing horse shows, I thought I should provide some background.

From E&P:

During the 1990s, Brown served as judges and stewards commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. His job was to ensure that horse-show judges followed the rules and to investigate allegations against those suspected of cheating. “I wouldn’t have regarded his position in the horse industry as a platform to where he is now,” said Tom Connelly, a former association president. The reporters refer to Brown’s stormy years with the horses as a “rocky tenure.”

But Brown knew Joe Allbaugh, President Bush’s 2000
campaign manager. Allbaugh took over FEMA in 2001, and hired Brown as general counsel.

Apparently, being the college roommate of the President’s campaign manager is sufficient training to oversee FEMA, at least in the eyes of the Bush Administration. I can only imagine the state of their dorm room.

From the Boston Herald:

The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.

And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.

The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.

The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster.

[snip]

Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders’ and horse-show organization based in Colorado.

“We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,” explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner’s office. “This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,” she added.

Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures

“He was asked to resign,” Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.

Soon after, Brown was invited to join the administration by his old Oklahoma college roommate Joseph Allbaugh, the previous head of FEMA until he quit in 2003 to work for the president’s re-election campaign.

There needs to be hell to pay. I joked the other day that I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving Brown to care for a bunny or a kitten, and considering this horse business, it doesn’t look as though I was far off the mark. This is one of the worst disasters to hit the United States probably ever, made exponentially worse by the complete lack of competence at every level of government.

While we are most certainly are stuck with the Bush Administration until January of 2009, some extraordinary changes to that administration need to be made immediately. Competent, experienced leadership needs to be found and put in charge of emergency management. College roommates of campaign managers, with checkered employment records do not cut it. How many died because of incompetence? Likely thousands. How many thousands will face debilitating physical and mental disorders for the rest of their lives due to inaptitude? Brown must be relieved and replaced with an experienced disaster manager immediately. Anything short of that is the embrace of failure.

No more college roommates, no more political hacks, no more failed horse show lackeys, never again.

Update: Billmon examines the horse angle. Go have a look.

Krugman:

Several recent news analyses on FEMA’s sorry state have attributed the agency’s decline to its inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security, whose prime concern is terrorism, not natural disasters. But that supposed change in focus misses a crucial part of the story.

For one thing, the undermining of FEMA began as soon as President Bush took office. Instead of choosing a professional with expertise in responses to disaster to head the agency, Mr. Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh, a close political confidant. Mr. Allbaugh quickly began trying to scale back some of FEMA’s preparedness programs.

You might have expected the administration to reconsider its hostility to emergency preparedness after 9/11 - after all, emergency management is as important in the aftermath of a terrorist attack as it is following a natural disaster. As many people have noticed, the failed response to Katrina shows that we are less ready to cope with a terrorist attack today than we were four years ago.

But the downgrading of FEMA continued, with the appointment of Michael Brown as Mr. Allbaugh’s successor.

Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh’s college roommate. But Mr. Brown was made deputy director of FEMA; The Boston Herald reports that he was forced out of his previous job, overseeing horse shows. And when Mr. Allbaugh left, Mr. Brown became the agency’s director. The raw cronyism of that appointment showed the contempt the administration felt for the agency; one can only imagine the effects on staff morale.

That contempt, as I’ve said, reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility.

The administration has always tried to treat 9/11 purely as a lesson about good versus evil. But disasters must be coped with, even if they aren’t caused by evildoers. Now we have another deadly lesson in why we need an effective government, and why dedicated public servants deserve our respect. Will we listen?

I’ve never deleted a comment left on the site before this evening. The comments are and will remain open to all viewpoints, with little exception. I cannot, however, tolerate hateful anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and rants being published here. This is not the place. What I read earlier, in six comments left here, was so awful that I had to go against my own policy and delete some very ugly things. I hope everybody understands.

Since you’ll probably be trying to explain why so many people simply could not evacuate NOLA to the ignorant assholes in your life for some time to come, this article may come in handy.

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 — To those who wonder why so many stayed behind when push came to water’s mighty shove here, those who were trapped have a simple explanation: Their nickels and dimes and dollar bills simply didn’t add up to stage a quick evacuation mission.

“Me and my wife, we were living paycheck to paycheck, like most everybody else in New Orleans,” Eric Dunbar, 54, said Saturday.

“I don’t own a car. Me and my wife, we travel by bus, public transportation. The most money I ever have on me is $400. And that goes to pay the rent. And that $400 is between me and my wife.” Her name is Dorth Dunbar; she was trying to get some rest after days of peril.

Dunbar estimated his annual income to be about $20,000, which comes from doing graphic design work when he can get it. Before the storm, when he and his wife estimated how much money they needed to flee the city, he was saddened by the reality that he could not come up with anywhere near the several thousand dollars he might need for a rental car and airfare.

The blame the victim meme is creeping through the bloggosphere as we speak. It may well hit a fever pitch by the time the Holiday weekend is over. In your wildest dreams could you have imagined an evacuation plan for any major American city that relied soley on privately owned vehicles? I can’t begin to imagine what would have happened if the same thing were to take place in New York or Philadelphia or Baltimore or name the dense urban city of your choice. Not that those places are prone to the sort of event that took place in New Orleans, but should the need to evacuate ever take place, for any reason, the situation would be just as grim, only with an even higher death toll. Only those with cars and money would make it out. We must do better.

This has been everywhere, but it’s quite powerful so I wanted to reprint it here as well. This is an open letter to Mr. Bush from the New Oreleans Times-Picayune.

Dear Mr. President:

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, “What is not working, we’re going to make it right.”

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a “Today” show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: “Buses! And gas!” Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day.”

Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, “You’re doing a heck of a job.”

That’s unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

Look, I’m as willing as the next person to give the military, the government, and all the disaster relief agencies a certain amount of credit for finally getting their shit together and accomplishing a good deal in New Orleans over the past day and a half.

But earlier this afternoon, I watched a press conference on Fox News in which all the authorities in charge were given way too much camera time and spent far too many words congratulating each other on their accomplishments.

It’s offensive if you ask me. They really just need to shut up and keep working. I might be interested in hearing from them in about two weeks, once all the stranded survivors and dead bodies are cleaned up.

But right now? Huh uh, it’s way too soon for this self-congratulatory bullshit.

If this looks familiar, it was previously posted here.