At 06:09 PM Monday 7/24/2006, Nick Arnett wrote:
I've read about this before, but it still just astonishes me that Katrina
survivors have lost civil rights as a result. They end up living in a
community where they are not free to talk to the press unless there is a
FEMA representative present.
I agree with you that that does not sound right.
They can't have a landline telephone or cable
television.
My guess is that these restrictions may be
because of the expenses involved (initial
installation charges + monthly fees can both be
expensive, as well as the fact that there does
not seem to be any way to keep people from
running up a large long distance bill calling
their friends and relatives who ended up
evacuated to another state frex: giving each
family/household a pre-paid cell phone with a
certain number of minutes on it would probably be
considered a better use of the money from an
agency already embarrassed by giving debit cards
to people who used them to pay for, among other
things, ahem, so-called "adult" "entertainment" services . . .
No decorations outside.
It's likely that the problem here is that if they
allow "small," "safe" decorations some people
will print up a little sign on 8.5×11 paper to
stick on the door while others would cover their
trailers with Christmas lights even though it's
July (Pioneer Day in Utah is not generally
considered a reason for outside lights), perhaps
lights they salvaged from their homes which were
already ten or twenty years old before the box
containing them got soaked in Katrina, running up
a huge electric bill and possibly causing a fire
or other hazard, so the only level of decorations
they were sure they could fairly enforce was "zero"
Our government has done better and can do better, much better. What's
really awful about this, to me, is that it works against accountability.
Intimidate the people and the media so that the story isn't told. It's not
going to work in the long run, but in the short run it is a disaster on top
of a disaster.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2924
FWIW, I didn't see any reference to phones, cable
TV, or decorations in the article at that URL. Did I miss something?
--Ronn! :)
I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon.
I never dreamed that I would see the last.
--Dr. Jerry Pournelle
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
