Firefighters are most useful to Bush as Props

Here, from the Salt Lake Tribune, is the tale of firefighters who volunteered through their local departments help FEMA with the aftermath. It seems the firefighters' local chiefs (who received FEMA'a request for help and passed it on to individual firefighters) were told the need was for Community Relations Specialists. But many of the firefighters thought their actual skills were needed, which is understandable, especially since they

were told were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for "austere conditions."

Maybe, just maybe, the firefighters complaints such as

"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."

show nothing wrong on the part of FEMA. But I find this rather persuasive:

While FEMA's community-relations job may be an important one - displaced hurricane victims need basic services and a variety of resources - [community relations] may be a job best suited for someone else, say firefighters assembled at the Sheraton.

Would that we lived in a world where that level of marginal competence was the worst our government -- with its commitment to showing that governmemnt was incapable of anything good -- was inflicting on us. Would that this was only a mis-allocation of resources, but still an allociation toward tasks that need to be accomplished. But alas,

[A]s specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

President Aristocrat

Yes, 1cmf, mockery is appropriate when there's an essential point that's well-made that way. Though I admit that in this case a few of the specifics don't hold up and a few more are only half true.

So this guy walks into a talent agency and says to the agent, "Have I got an act for you! It's a family act, you'll love it."

The agent says "Alright, lay it on me."

The guy says, "Well, first the grandpa comes in, this is in the thirties, mind, deals with the Nazis and makes a ton of money off German banking and mining, see.

Click the link above to read the whole joke.

My New York niece was in an accident

BEGIN UPDATE: Do NOT mention the names of my family here. I don't want it to be connected to my last name by a simple search query, but I don't want to make it friends-only.

My neice is critical but stable. The adults are fine. I have found out my neice is the baby you may have heard about on the news, who was stabbed by a crazy person on the street. She was with her nanny at the time. END OF UPDATE

I was in the middle of writing LJ stuff when I just got a call from a New York Post reporter looking for my comments on the family. All he told me was that there was an accident and that my New York neice was in surgery. (He kept hemming and hawing about how he didn't want to be the one to tell me, but he wouldn't tell me what he didn't want to tell me. I thought she (and maybe my brother and his wife) were dead. Finally I pinned him down, a little. For all I know, the adults are dead and my neice is dying. I told him I had nothing to say until I knew what the familiy wanted public and what they didn't.