Indiana, like most states I presume, has dispatched its Rapid Deployment Force of rescue workers and power line repair dudes and whatnot to help take a mop and a bucket to the parts of the eastern seaboard on which Ma Nature took a dump.
This is going to be the annoying part of the disaster, where everybody's busy busting arse as hard as they can to fix things, but the weather has calmed down enough to let all the politicians and wannabe-politicians get out from under cover and, along with their flappers and sideboys, get all underfoot trying to look officious'n'concerned where people are trying to do actual work.
In a perfect world any politician, from president down to dog catcher, that showed up would be handed a mop and told to get busy. If they could not figure out how to operate the mop and demonstrate a minimal level of competence with it, they would be booted from whatever office they held.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
Home run there Tam!!! And yes, it's already occurring on the news back here... sigh
Oh, can we please? I'm pretty sure most of them have never held a mop or broom before....
In fairness, the good ones do a decent job ( mostly thanks to support personnel doing real work) just getting out out there and wandering around letting people know that "Yeah you are hurting, but on a scale of 1 to 10, you are round about 1.5 so there's lot of people ahead of you on the "I could use a hand, here" list" so you'd better try to just get on with it with your neighbors." and also directing the attention of overwhelmed/worked emergency services focusing a little too tightly to areas that need help sooner than later.
But your point stands.
"If they can't figure out how to operate a mop with a minimum competency, boot em out of office." Or ban them from running for it in the first place.
This would make a good addition to the suggestions that those running for office pro0ve knowledge of the US (and State) Constitutions: Have you ever held a job where you got dirty and/or raised blisters? If not, GTFO. If so, prove it.
I like it.
Tam, I like the way you think!
As a Flarduh person, I am amazed at all of this over-reaction. I mean, the Ancient Cuban Ladies and Gent across the street would not even bother to put up shutters for a mild hurricane like this one.
I am horrified to hear that there were fifty-something fatalities from a rather minor, though quite wide, storm. I remember when Donna went through there in 1960 after having stomped us here good and hard, there was not so much whining and complaining, and I believe not so many casualties, either.
I mind the time I rode the band bus to the Tulane game shortly after Camille, and we had to detour around a several-thousand-ton ship washed up on the highway, somewhere near Biloxi. Now, Camille, _that_ was a hurricane! The demolition was awesome!
I remember a story about some people holding a hurricane party in a motel near the coast. None of them were ever seen again, nor was the motel, except for parts of its foundation. It wiped out Jeff Davis's retirement house, too.
As someone who has to live in southern Flarduh, this just makes me sad. This is really a very minor hurricane, though a very wide one. The Ancient Cuban Ladies and Gents across the street would not even deign to put up shutters for such a minor storm. (They do have permanently-installed easily-deployed shutters in case of a Bad One.)
I am horrified to read that there are fifty-something fatalities. Don't those damnyankees know how to prepare? When Donna stomped across my town back in 1960 and then went on to annoy NYC, there was not such whining and complaining. I mean, hurricanes happen, from time to time.
This is an ill wind which has blown us some good, here. The weather in this part of southern Flarduh has been absolutely delightful for the past week or so, with un-seasonably cool temperatures, mostly cloudless skies, and brisk westerly breezes off the Gulf.
I got to watch a bunch of turkey vultures working a thermal today right over my house. There must have been a hundred or more; I reckon they got blown in from somewhere else. You could watch them gain 30 feet or so on each circle.
Sure, we here in Floriduh tend to think of a cat 1 being nothing to fret about...
Then again, keep in mind it hit in an area that " NORMALLY " does not get such things.
The times they are a changing...
Spud,
"The times they are a changing..."
Thank goodness they didn't get hit with a repeat of the Hurricanes of '38 or '93...
I adore you at the worst of times. Now with that Mop Comment, My adoration in boundless.
Which means I'm probably out-of-bounds....
Living on the Gulf Coast, I've done hurricane cleanup a lot of times. I think the main differences here are:
1. Nobody expects hurricanes up there, so they never learn how to prepare for them.
2. Ike was considered remarkable for how wide an area it knocked out power to. Nearly half a million people without power... in a space larger than the one that has several million NYers without power in it. That's the disadvantage of building tall instead of wide.
3. When I do hurricane cleanup, I don't generally have to worry about a hard freeze or a snowstorm before I'm done.
Post a Comment