DISASTER INC

CRONYISM or is it chutzpah is hereby redefined.  Michael "Heckuva a Job, Brownie" Brown has opened an emergency preparedeness private consulting firm.  Who would hire him for this except the Federal friendlies?  Who would hire Brown but for the people he knows.  Brown truly must believe that he has fallen not merely upward, but has fallen to heaven.  Unfortunately it's not looking so heavenly for the city of New Orleans.  Or for the forgotten in Mississippi. Brown may be the least ironic person in America. [story]

"You have to do it with candor. To do it otherwise gives you no credibility," Brown said Wednesday. "I think people are curious: 'My gosh, what was it like? The media just really beat you up. You made mistakes. I don't want to be in that situation. How do I avoid that?' "

RIDING ON the City of New Orleans, penny a point.  Ain't no one keeping score.  Well some are.  The question again begs asking: who would hire this kid except for his connections? AP notes: Brown said officials need to ''take inventory'' of what's going on in a disaster to be able to answer questions to avoid appearing unaware of how serious a situation is.  Lance Mannion:  . . . this is like Custer setting up as an expert in White-Indian relations. Marie Antoinette going into social work.  James Dobson offering advice on child rearing.  Sister has more over at the other boy genius's house. I can’t even imagine how he will decide to price his services. Great tips like “Don’t send emails about shopping and dining while in the midst of a crisis where starving people have just lost all of their worldly possessions” are simply priceless. MP: Sorry and  sorrier.  The Heretik would just like to say Oy. And Oyer.

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED KATRINA READING
KATRINA CATCH 22 [WaPo] Federal officials are encouraging Gulf Coast communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina to turn over the job of removing storm-related debris to the Army Corps of Engineers. The incentive is simple: The Corps will do it free. . .
The Corps turned over the work to its prime contractor in the state, Ashbritt Inc. of Pompano Beach, Fla., at a price of $17 per cubic yard.
Just how much the Corps is driving up the cost of the cleanup is unclear, but debris removal is one of the most expensive parts of the recovery. FEMA has spent nearly $500 million already, said spokeswoman Nicol Andrews, not including the four contracts worth up to $2 billion for debris removal the Corps signed shortly after the disaster. Estimates for the total debris left from Katrina reach nearly 100 million cubic yards, with one cubic yard roughly equivalent to the volume of a three-square-foot box. 

BIG WHEELS KEEP ON TURNING And The Heretik sees Proud Mary and everybody else in Katrina's wake burning.   As eyes shift elsewhere,  attention to small details like who gets paid and where they are from plus a whole lot of money get swept under the carpet.

THE FORGOTTEN [WaPo] Billy McDonald, the white-haired mayor whose house was reduced to a concrete slab by 55-foot-high waves, works out of a trailer. He doesn't expect the word "recovery" to roll off his lips for many months.
"Lots of folks don't have flood insurance; lots of folks don't have jobs; lots of folks don't have hope," McDonald said. "We're a hurting place."
This is the other land laid low by Katrina's fury. Like New Orleans to the west, hundreds of square miles of Mississippi coastland look little better than they did in early September, and many people here harbor anger that the federal government has fallen short and that the nation's attention has turned away. At least 200,000 Mississippians remain displaced, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is short at least 13,000 trailers to house them.

THE HERETIK NOTES sadly New Orleans had a charm and attraction even in its darkest hour.  What people expressed about that city at the time of Katrina reflected what Americans thought about race, religion, the will of god, willful neglect, and a late turn of the century, turn of the stomach pain in the gut.  Few reflect now on that time of darkness now.  It is old news.  Ole Miss, Mississippi, was old news even before it was news.  Mississippi had none of the glamour of NOLA.  But Mississippi was as worse off as its neighbors to the west and is not much better.

MORE ON THAT HECKUVA JOB
Stacy at Cafe Politico steams more than milk for latte: it's a world where incompetence pays off

Comments

[Night Bird]

I'm doing a lot of good work with some great clients,'' Brown said. ''My wife, children and my grandchild still love me. My parents are still proud of me.

and just what race, creed and color are these great clients??

[Missouri Mule]

Amazing, simply amazing.

[Night Bird]

Missouri, my husband just said the same exact thing.

[Shakespeare's Sister]

The Heretik would just like to say Oy. And Oyer.

LOL!

[Missouri Mule]

Night Bird, great minds think a like, no?
Shakes are you minding the store? I thought so.

[Eli Blake]

What really needs to be said is that this is what happens when people vote for starving government, downsizing it, and putting people in charge who believe it shouldn't be involved in non-military functions in the first place.

[Stacy]

I'd like to know exactly who his "clients" are. Haliburton? The RNC? The Wingnuttia Department of Disaster Managment?

He should be embarrassed. Really.