Beaten white male body on the cover of the Daily News (New York, not Yale.) The cameras construct the crisis through racialized lens. The ruins of New Orleans become South Central Los Angeles circa April 29, 1992 and the reactionary blogs fill column after column condemning the hurricane victims not only for looting, not evcen only for remaining, but for being (black/poor.) Meanwhile Condoleeza Rice has finally ended her prolonged New York shopping expedition and Bush has only now, with the corpses floating through the streets left his ranch and scheduled photo ops and press conferences. This didn't have to happen.

My mother was forwarded this email, which is apparently excerpted from the Washington Monthly.

CHRONOLOGY....Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both
FEMA andflood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration.
Read it and weep:
January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas,
as headof FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster
management.
April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush
administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh
confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster
assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he
said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and
the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate
level."
2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as
one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this
country."
December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh
announces heis leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies
seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown,
who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster
management.
March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position
and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on
fighting acts of terrorism.
2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's
preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of
Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and
recovery.
Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation
funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You
would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program
called for. We were more than qualified for it."
June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee
construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency
management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been
moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq,
and I suppose that's the price we pay."
June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit
areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created
after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St.
Tammany parishes.
August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion
catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the
guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his
vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the
unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat,
defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden...