"Throw Me Something Mister"
The other day I sent out more info on the bizarre antics of the Feds. I honestly don't know what's up with them, and it might seem like I have some sort of chip on my shoulder. I'd like to report that there's a lot of good being done and things are getting better organized, but I'm not seeing it, and every day I hear more frustrated people complaining. This isn't some group of welfare moms bitching about how the system they've never paid into owes them a Jaguar. These are government officials, local responsible media, and other people trying to make things work, and getting stuck neck deep in a bureaucratic mire that most of us can't imagine how it could be created even if it was intentional. Honestly, I don't think you could create this much of an unorganized mess if you air-dropped a bunch of employment forms over a third-world country and randomly assigned them positions in the government.
I can understand the Feds newfound, "F-U" attitude towards media. There was a lot of shoddy journalism going around relating to the Katrina disaster, but this was 99% from the national news.. NOT the local stations. But the local stations are in the mire, as CNN and Fox have retreated and started regurgitating file footage, the locals are dealing with the fallout and venom exhibited towards them because of asshats like Fox and CNN who made it seem like New Orleans was overrun by mini-Malcolm-X's shooting at anything in uniform.
Police Chief, Eddie Compass came on TV today and confirmed that to date, there are only six known homicides that occurred during the Katrina evacuation, and that even he, after watching the news, was led to believe there was some kind of mass, gun-totin' anarchy going on in the city. This was not the case, but that didn't stop CNN and FOX from painting a different picture.
But I'm probably too hard on the mainstream network news. I know it's "hard work" combing through the throngs of evacuees in shelters to find the most illiterate, 400 pound, black woman with a half-dozen bastard children to interview as a representative of your typical New Orleanean affected by the hurricane.
The degree to which the national media portrays evacuees is obviously slanted. Here's an example from some person whom I don't know who had my missive forwarded to him:
While the above missive represents the kind of detached, ignorant opinion many people outside the area have as they sit on their fat asses and watch what some sleazy news network decides is representative of the area and its people, it's not very accurate.
Perhaps the cruelest blow to the people of the Gulf Coast is the destruction of their independence. It's very easy to sit far away and reason that if this happened to YOU, you'd know exactly what to do, but that's total BS. When I was displaced by the hurricane, there was no place to go. It didn't matter if you had a $100,000 in your pocket, the hotels were booked, and we, like many others were forced to impose upon others as we sat back waiting for the smoke to clear before we figured out our next move.
Another thing we all have in common is that we pay our taxes. We've seen our taxes go to help everyone from Florida hurricane victims to $800 toilet seats for the Pentagon, Star Wars defense projects that never ever worked, tax breaks for multi-billionaires, and bridges to nowhere in Alaska. New Orleans has always been a bastard child of the country... the kind of place people from outside like to go to, trash, and then leave. It's no wonder that our city is ranked in the top in both pollution and efficiency of trash pickup.
Many people from here have lost EVERYTHING except their lives. I don't think most people can fathom what this means. And a lot of us, who have been supporting every boondoggle, pork-barrel project from Iowa to Iraq now feel it's our turn to get some support. I have a friend who has applied for every government "handout" she can get, from food stamps to FEMA money. She's one of the hardest working people I know, holding down a half-dozen different jobs. She's not mooching. She's doing what she can to get what she needs. It's time for the system she's paid into, to give something back. The irony is that the minority, the low-income, uneducated evacuees aren't nearly as smart or resourceful to fully exploit the government programs that are available, and even if you add up all these financial liabilities, they are a mere shadow of the less-controversial pork barrel projects that we all pay for on a daily basis and think nothing of.
When you're sitting at a rest stop watching some church group hand you a brown bag lunch, the first thing you think of is how you can get back on your feet, NOT whether or not you can get more free lunches! This however, doesn't stop Fox news cameramen from finding the one group of black ruffians to slap all over the nightly news.
That being said, if anyone who was affected by this disaster can get anything from the government, that's a good thing. It's one less dollar that goes to Halliburton! If we don't grab it, this money is going to be spent anyway, on some big politically-connected outside contractor group that will screw everything up. If you gave the people in the New Orleans housing projects a million bucks, that would do more for the city than giving a hundred million to Kellogg, Brown & Root, who have instantly garnered tons of money from the Katrina disaster without going through any bid process.
Beyond this, as a taxpayer, I expect some degree of performance from the government I support. Pardon us if we expect proper "Emergency Management" from an agency that has this as its middle name. We don't want handouts. We want to see the results of the programs that we've been supporting for decades that are supposed to deliver what they say.
I got this note from someone who was forwarded my first "Hurricane FEMA" missive. I think this sums it up:
Now, I'm in the IT field as a software engineer. What I do for a living is set up the kind of "mission critical" systems that you might have expected the FEMA online claim center to resemble. So maybe you can understand how unambiguously disgusted I am with the crap system they have. I could have done better, and probably charged about five million bucks less than what the feds probably paid for the second rate programmers who designed that system.
A friend of a friend filed a claim online the other day. They logged back in to check the status of their application, only to find out that HE was apparently a middle-aged Spanish woman who had no damage done to her home. Upon a painful and time-consuming investigation, it was revealed that apparently, a bunch of FEMA claim files mysteriously turned into middle-aged Spanish women that had no right to receive relief. Gotta love these programmers.
By the way, the $2000 FEMA insta-grant thing? Rumor has it that was a "fluke" and if you didn't get it already, forget it.
I've already resigned myself to the obvious probability that I'm going to get screwed by my insurance company, FEMA, Red Cross and every other "we're-here-to-help-you" group in the area. That's fine, but if I see another talking head desperately trying to do damage control while ignoring all the problems, despite overwhelming complaints to the contrary, I think I'm going to explode.
I need a vacation obviously. I've been in this mess too long. We actually booked reservations at an event in Disney World in October -- and until recently realized that we never booked the hotel because we got wrapped up in the Katrina thing. I wonder if Disney would give me a discount? Ooops, that sounds like a handout doesn't it? I'm such a mooch for inquiring as to whether or not there's any chance of paying less than $300/night at a hotel in Florida.
I can understand the Feds newfound, "F-U" attitude towards media. There was a lot of shoddy journalism going around relating to the Katrina disaster, but this was 99% from the national news.. NOT the local stations. But the local stations are in the mire, as CNN and Fox have retreated and started regurgitating file footage, the locals are dealing with the fallout and venom exhibited towards them because of asshats like Fox and CNN who made it seem like New Orleans was overrun by mini-Malcolm-X's shooting at anything in uniform.
Police Chief, Eddie Compass came on TV today and confirmed that to date, there are only six known homicides that occurred during the Katrina evacuation, and that even he, after watching the news, was led to believe there was some kind of mass, gun-totin' anarchy going on in the city. This was not the case, but that didn't stop CNN and FOX from painting a different picture.
But I'm probably too hard on the mainstream network news. I know it's "hard work" combing through the throngs of evacuees in shelters to find the most illiterate, 400 pound, black woman with a half-dozen bastard children to interview as a representative of your typical New Orleanean affected by the hurricane.
The degree to which the national media portrays evacuees is obviously slanted. Here's an example from some person whom I don't know who had my missive forwarded to him:
- Why should the Federal government give this person anything? I don't
- understand why they all want HANDOUTS! Tell him to GET A JOB! If
- something like Katrina happened to me, I'd be looking to get
- licensed in whatever state I was in and starting up another company
- or at least I'd take a job with an established EC. I certainly
- wouldn't be trying to MOOCH off of the government! The government
- doesn't have any money! That money comes from my pocket and your
- pocket. This entire $2000 handout thing was stupid to begin with.
- Hell, most of the people are wasting it anyway! It needs to stop
- ASAP!
- The only thing the FED and FEMA will cover is the rebuilding of
- infrastructure. It's TOO BAD that so many from New Orleans are
- totally indigent and expect to be spoon fed for the rest of their
- lives! Tell Mike (whoever he is) to stop his tantrums and GET A
- FREAKIN' JOB!
- Someone once said, and I hope you know who it was: "Ask not what
- your country can do for you, but ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR
- COUNTRY"!
- Get off of your ASS, MIKE, and GET A JOB!
While the above missive represents the kind of detached, ignorant opinion many people outside the area have as they sit on their fat asses and watch what some sleazy news network decides is representative of the area and its people, it's not very accurate.
Perhaps the cruelest blow to the people of the Gulf Coast is the destruction of their independence. It's very easy to sit far away and reason that if this happened to YOU, you'd know exactly what to do, but that's total BS. When I was displaced by the hurricane, there was no place to go. It didn't matter if you had a $100,000 in your pocket, the hotels were booked, and we, like many others were forced to impose upon others as we sat back waiting for the smoke to clear before we figured out our next move.
Another thing we all have in common is that we pay our taxes. We've seen our taxes go to help everyone from Florida hurricane victims to $800 toilet seats for the Pentagon, Star Wars defense projects that never ever worked, tax breaks for multi-billionaires, and bridges to nowhere in Alaska. New Orleans has always been a bastard child of the country... the kind of place people from outside like to go to, trash, and then leave. It's no wonder that our city is ranked in the top in both pollution and efficiency of trash pickup.
Many people from here have lost EVERYTHING except their lives. I don't think most people can fathom what this means. And a lot of us, who have been supporting every boondoggle, pork-barrel project from Iowa to Iraq now feel it's our turn to get some support. I have a friend who has applied for every government "handout" she can get, from food stamps to FEMA money. She's one of the hardest working people I know, holding down a half-dozen different jobs. She's not mooching. She's doing what she can to get what she needs. It's time for the system she's paid into, to give something back. The irony is that the minority, the low-income, uneducated evacuees aren't nearly as smart or resourceful to fully exploit the government programs that are available, and even if you add up all these financial liabilities, they are a mere shadow of the less-controversial pork barrel projects that we all pay for on a daily basis and think nothing of.
When you're sitting at a rest stop watching some church group hand you a brown bag lunch, the first thing you think of is how you can get back on your feet, NOT whether or not you can get more free lunches! This however, doesn't stop Fox news cameramen from finding the one group of black ruffians to slap all over the nightly news.
That being said, if anyone who was affected by this disaster can get anything from the government, that's a good thing. It's one less dollar that goes to Halliburton! If we don't grab it, this money is going to be spent anyway, on some big politically-connected outside contractor group that will screw everything up. If you gave the people in the New Orleans housing projects a million bucks, that would do more for the city than giving a hundred million to Kellogg, Brown & Root, who have instantly garnered tons of money from the Katrina disaster without going through any bid process.
Beyond this, as a taxpayer, I expect some degree of performance from the government I support. Pardon us if we expect proper "Emergency Management" from an agency that has this as its middle name. We don't want handouts. We want to see the results of the programs that we've been supporting for decades that are supposed to deliver what they say.
I got this note from someone who was forwarded my first "Hurricane FEMA" missive. I think this sums it up:
- Just a personal note on my personal experience with FEMA. I applied online before I relocated to Pompano Beach, FL so my information had to be updated when I got here from Pensacola. I went online and updated the necessary contact information.
- On Sept 2nd, I applied. On Sept 8th the emergency housing money ($2000) was deposited into my checking account. A few days later, I checked the status of my application and it said that FEMA had tried (and failed) to contact me despite being given 3 contact numbers beside the required phone number of my destroyed property. I called about 50 times before talking to a human who said she would correct the info even though I told her that I had corrected it online.
- Today, I went online where I see my application has been "withdrawn" since they could not contact me. Well, somehow I managed to contact someone who pulls inspections for FEMA and they told me that they had tried ONE number... the number of my destroyed home.
- How stupid can you get when I was required to give the number and then noted that that number was not functioning because my home was destroyed. Now I have to wait "3 to 10 days" for someone to contact me. This nightmare continues.
Now, I'm in the IT field as a software engineer. What I do for a living is set up the kind of "mission critical" systems that you might have expected the FEMA online claim center to resemble. So maybe you can understand how unambiguously disgusted I am with the crap system they have. I could have done better, and probably charged about five million bucks less than what the feds probably paid for the second rate programmers who designed that system.
A friend of a friend filed a claim online the other day. They logged back in to check the status of their application, only to find out that HE was apparently a middle-aged Spanish woman who had no damage done to her home. Upon a painful and time-consuming investigation, it was revealed that apparently, a bunch of FEMA claim files mysteriously turned into middle-aged Spanish women that had no right to receive relief. Gotta love these programmers.
By the way, the $2000 FEMA insta-grant thing? Rumor has it that was a "fluke" and if you didn't get it already, forget it.
I've already resigned myself to the obvious probability that I'm going to get screwed by my insurance company, FEMA, Red Cross and every other "we're-here-to-help-you" group in the area. That's fine, but if I see another talking head desperately trying to do damage control while ignoring all the problems, despite overwhelming complaints to the contrary, I think I'm going to explode.
I need a vacation obviously. I've been in this mess too long. We actually booked reservations at an event in Disney World in October -- and until recently realized that we never booked the hotel because we got wrapped up in the Katrina thing. I wonder if Disney would give me a discount? Ooops, that sounds like a handout doesn't it? I'm such a mooch for inquiring as to whether or not there's any chance of paying less than $300/night at a hotel in Florida.
posted by Wisdom at 8:38 AM
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