Cronyism before qualifications = corruption

[sigma7]

The Washington Post reported on Friday that five of eight top FEMA officials had come to their jobs with virtually no experience in handling disasters. The agency's top three leaders, including Brown, had ties to Bush's 2000 presidential campaign or the White House advance operation.

You know, I can't even act surprised anymore. Obviously I was applying in all the wrong places.

Also, a call to arms for photobloggers from Andrew Sullivan (!).

'[O]n Tuesday, FEMA refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas, saying they would take up valuable space need in the recovery effort and asked them not to take pictures of the dead. In an e-mail explaining the decision, a FEMA spokeswoman wrote: "The recovery of victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect and we have requested that no photographs of the deceased by made by the media."'

The press should ignore those requests, get boats themselves and show the world what has actually happened. (Hey, much of the media was ahead of FEMA during the worst of it. Why not again now?) That goes for any intrepid bloggers with camera-phones or anyone else who can slip through the censorship net. If necessary, faces can be blurred to protect the dignity of the dead. But it matters that we see the full consequences of government delinquency. That's what the press is for. Ignore FEMA. Photobloggers, here's an opportunity for important and necessary work.

Also NBC's Brian Williams on Wednesday: While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

Also also wik: a purported first-hand account of the relief efforts. Yeesh.

Unrelated but still relevant: Campbell Brown is my new hero.

Comments

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not something I want/need to see, but I think it's something that someone needs to be able to see. Not just for the forensic possibilities, tracking down missing people and identifying them visually (which is a process that'll need as much data as it can get), but just the fact that in the absence of proof to the contrary we've been seeing spin from the disaster to shift/avoid responsibility, and that really bothers me. Not only in the simple fact of denying the facts of the disaster and the response but in the attempt to censor and suppress and intimidate in its aftermath.

I'm trying to be thoughtful and respectful of the dead, too, but I'm more worried about the living and the slow strangulation of the American democracy....

[beeform]

Okay, THAT makes more sense than "Ya'll! We NEED photographic proof that the government screwed up big time! America must see! Sneak in photograph what you can! FEMA regulations be damned!"

Are they not going to allow access to forensic-type people for identification purposes? And will the information not be made available in an "official" place to those searching for missing relatives?

I'm obviously not following this as closely as you are...