I may have to cancel the Batty Awards. I can't imagine anything could top this.
The Nov. 21st issue of the Department of Homeland Security's daily e-newsletter, DHS Today, which is a typical, masturbatory insider newsletter, has a section entitled Top Fiscal Year 2005 DHS Accomplisments: FEMA. The first item on the list...the top gun...the big goombah...the thing they are most proud of is...
The FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina.
When I write these Batshit entries I usually shoot for sardonic. But I can't bring myself to be sardonic. Friends of mine living down there who are doing comparatively well have lost everything they own in this world. Friends that are doing not so bad have lost everything they own and people they love. Friends that are doing really bad are the ones that died.
You jack-hole motherfuckers. How dare you spin this, even internally, as anything but the blackest mark the agency has ever earned? I want the names of everyone involved in the writing, editing, and approval of this obscenity. I want them fired. I offer my services up to come get them and drive them to New Orleans or anywhere on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi where I will introduce them to some nice people living in tents with no water, gas, or electricity. I will then tie their asses to stakes and let them live there for a month. Then, and only then, will they be allowed to rewrite this disgusting and heartless piece of self-laudatory crap.
A friend of mine called me from Memphis today. He used to live in New Orleans. He and his family live in a hotel room that they're getting evicted from. They can't figure out why they can't take advantage of federal housing vouchers. FEMA has a better plan. But they can't tell them what it is because the FEMA call center is still overwhelmed by the number of incoming calls (and these are the people who are supposed to be in charge of interoperable wireless radio communications so that first responders across all jurisdictions can talk to each other...hey! rocket scientists! Add phone lines and call center personnel) and when my friend or his wife get through they are told to either: a.) hold while someone goes to get some information...so they hold...and are told to call back in a week, or; b.) given another number to call...a number they can't get through to most of the time and when they can they get voicemail.
Though the official death toll stands at 1300 there are over 6600 people still unaccounted for including one old man I got really attached to...So Don't Spin This.
The Leadership of DHS and FEMA have, with a single-minded dedication to purpose, proven that they are incompetent. That's bad enough. This little nugget is not the result of incompetence. It can only be explained as a callous disregard for human suffering on a monstrous scale.
As Miss Bliss would say...Hate. In. My. Heart.
DHS and FEMA, sadly all I can offer you is my paltry Batshit Award.
But I'd rather hit y'all with a baseball bat.
Hard.
