Disaster relief: Wal-Mart vs. the government
Re: “Wal-Mart outdid feds in gulf,” Sept. 12 David Harsanyi column.
Thank you, David Harsanyi. The cycle is now complete. You and the
small-government, anti-tax people have been playing a con game for
years: You advocate cutting and starving our government to the point of
ineffectiveness, and then claim that you were right all along that the
people in government can’t get it done.
Now, with the clearest example yet of what that policy gets us the unacceptably
inadequate federal response to Hurricane Katrina Harsanyi
has the audacity to try to continue to advocate this empty, illogical
ideology. We’re not falling for these lines anymore. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency was functional and competent before this administration.
Weare to put our post-Sept. 11 faith in Wal-Mart and corporate
America? Please. I saw no Wal-Mart trucks saving the day after the
hurricane hit, just the endless misery or swollen, dead bodies of impoverished
Americans abandoned by their government.
We deserve an effective, responsive government. Hopefully someday it will return.
David A. Iverson, Denver
…
David Harsanyi is being disingenuous. Does Wal-Mart own helicopters? For that matter, does the Red Cross? Is Wal-Mart going to fix levees? How about bridges? Does it know how to drain water from the city or reconstruct roads? Who is going to coordinate the efforts of ground/sea/air search and rescue? Who will repair infrastructure, like levees, bridges, roads, electrical systems, the access and distribution of food and water, temporary shelter, and medical needs?
No one is asking for more government; what we’re asking for is government that does what it’s supposed to do and what it is supposedly funded to do. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is supposed to be prepared for disasters, it’s supposed to react to them, and the reality is that a hurricane gives you a fair amount of warning, at the minimum several days. It’s not like an earthquake or tornado or forest fire that gives little or no warning. We need government that hires qualified people, not good old boys who worship Bush, give him warm fuzzies about how everything is going and ignore the truth.
Debbie Doyle, Indian Hills
…
Being a Hurricane Katrina survivor, I appreciated David Harsanyi’s column on the failure of an inflexible super-bureaucracy like the Department of Homeland Security. My son and I were evacuated from Tulane University, a bed and breakfast, a private home and one hotel, and finally rode out the hurricane in a second hotel.
We were given a ride to Baton Rouge by the hotel owners as the flood waters rose. Unable to purchase airline tickets at the counter or by phone, my husband, who was in Denver, finally got us seats on a flight leaving in 30 minutes. However, the Transportation Security Administration, run by Homeland Security, was mindlessly doing secondary screening on all of us who had recently purchased a ticket and therefore had an “S” on our boarding pass. I daresay most of the passengers that day had an “S.”
We waited in a long (and getting longer) line while one man and one woman wanded and patted down people like us who were wearing the same clothes we had worn for days and had as our “luggage” our plastic bag containing our leftover jar of peanut butter, a partial loaf of bread and water. I explained that our plane was leaving in five minutes. I was told to sit down, and then they proceeded to wand my bare feet. By the time we got to our gate, the plane was still there but the door was closed and couldn’t be opened again because that was “the rule.”
So we had to spend yet one more night in our same clothes with no place to go but an overcrowded shelter or the floor of the airport.
Please, who is the federal government “protecting” in this situation, and from what are they protecting us?
Delores Dafoe, Denver
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Criminal records of hurricane evacuees
Re: “57 storm evacuees at Lowry have criminal records,” Sept. 11 news story.
Considering that the pictures of the Hurricane Katrina evacuees coming to Colorado show that they appear to be mostly African- American, I think your story about 57 of them being convicted felons came across as racist and extremely inappropriate.
The story, which also ran on 9News, notes there is no need for concern about these individuals, as they have all paid their debts to society. Then why report on it?
Haven’t these poor people had things bad enough without you discouraging people from helping them by promoting a racial stereotype? Shame on 9News and The Denver Post.
Paul Gross, Highlands Ranch
Chief justice nominee
Re: “Roberts sees role as limited,” Sept. 13 news story.
“Judges are like umpires,” suggests Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. But what does that really tell us about the potential chief justice?
One umpire might say, “Some are balls, and some are strikes, and I call ’em like they are.”
A second umpire might say, “Some are balls, and some are strikes, and I call ’em like I see ’em.”
And a third: “Some are balls, and some are strikes, but they’re nothin’ till I call ’em.”
Based on his Tuesday Senate testimony and his record, I’m more than a little leery about letting him call the close ones.
Ed Danielson, Denver
Government secrecy
Re: “Let light shine on government,” Sept. 13 editorial.
Your editorial is a perfect case study of why so many citizens of America feel that the press has let them down.
Your source, Rick Blum, says that government secrecy is not a partisan issue, that “the long-term trend has been toward an increase in secrecy, not only within the executive branch but at all levels and branches of the government.” Later, you state that since 2001, the level of secrecy in the government has gone into “overdrive.”
Since 2001, the government has been in the hands of George W. Bush, and it has been Bush who has ratcheted up the secrecy, even before Sept. 11. Yet your paper does not take him to task for the increase but implies that the administrations before him were just as bad. Why does this incompetent pretender to the throne always get a pass from the mainstream media? What will it take for the media to hold this man’s feet to the fire?
Robert Laughlin, Littleton
Spirit of service?
How nice that Qwest chief technology officer Balan Nair assures us voice mail will be available soon on a TV set (“A conversation with Balan Nair, chief technology officer of Denver-based Qwest Communications Corp.,” Sept. 11 business interview). Hello! What about voice mail on a telephone? Here in Berthoud, Qwest does not provide voice mail, despite requests from business and residential customers over the years. It is a profitable, unregulated service, yet Qwest can’t be bothered to install it.
Perhaps Qwest should spend a few minutes focused on deployment of existing technology to its dwindling customer base before we all unplug the Qwest landline in favor of cellphones and VoIP. Winning back a customer is always harder than keeping one.
Robert Weinstein, Berthoud
Possible merger of DPS, state retirement funds
Re: “PERA deal to absorb DPS retirement plans up in air,” Sept. 13 news brief.
I read your article in today’s paper about the possible merger between Denver Public Schools’ retirement system and the state’s Public Employees Retirement Association. As a retiree from DPS, I dread the merger, as do many of my retiree friends. DPS has always had a well-funded retirement plan. After reading all the articles lately about PERA, I wonder how safe my retirement is going to become.
If DPS actually thinks this will help recruit teachers, I doubt it. What will probably happen is that teachers will take jobs with DPS and then eventually transfer to other districts because they won’t be invested in staying in the DPS system. DPS will simply be a training ground for the other districts. I have seen this happen many times in the past.
Syril Beinhorn, Denver
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Mail: The Open Forum, The Denver Post, 1560 Broadway, Denver, 80202Hurricane Katrina – Harsanyi has the audacity to try to continue to advocate this empty, illogical ideology. We’re not falling for these lines anymore. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was functional and competent before this administration. We are to put our post-Sept. 11 faith in Wal-Mart and corporate America? Please. I saw no Wal-Mart trucks saving the day after the hurricane hit, just the endless misery or swollen, dead bodies of impoverished Americans abandoned by their government.
