Part of the mission, according to the documents obtained by The Associated Press, was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

This is copied from yahoo news, by an AP story this is out right now online. Given the propensity for such headlines and stories to suddenly disappear, this blog post is made quickly to be sure that folks DO SEE THIS. Since we Amerikans are all so relieved that Bush and the federal government is going to look into their own shortfalls on Katrina disaster response, I thought this would be a good place to start looking...

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 7, 2:18 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. disaster official waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000
Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers, internal documents show.

Part of the mission, according to the documents obtained by The Associated Press, was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Acknowledging that such a move would take two days, Michael Brown, director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as "this near catastrophic event" but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities." http://tinyurl.com/8v8wn

From Cynthia's Interests and Professor Kim's News Notes, guess who got the first rebuild contracts from the US government on Katrina?

Right...

Thanks for the tip, Kim, and thanks to she and Prometheus6 for providing links to the Katrina Relief Auction on flickr.com. I have an auction donation there and we hope to raise as much as possible by September 15 for direct contribution to the American Red Cross.

Kim and Earl are providing great coverage of the news regarding Katrina and politics that much of the mainstream media is not picking up or promoting. For instance, I believe that the sluggish and despicable response to the disaster by the US government is partially due to the politics of POVERTY. But some people are really drawn to what they view is racisim. I also think that the racism is very much in evidence when you read the comments from blogs and in public posting forums. Wow, such blatant hatred and fear such as I've not seen publically for a while.

-- from cobalt123

My own protest image in flickr.com drew over 2,500 views and 79 comments. Some people are pretty ticked just over my "anti-Bush" message, which by the way was very much secondary to the important issues raised by the shift in balance of power in the US, caused by the death of our Supreme Court Chief Justice Rhenquist.

His loss means that our emperor who fiddles gets to appoint a REAL powerful person who will affect the US for generations to come, after Bush leaves office. Rhenquist may have been a conservative, but he was at least a jurisprudence expert and had some sense of balance. The next person appointed may tip things on the Court so far that the disaster from Katrina may be a drop in the bucket as far as social upheavel in the US...