Brad's Blog: A presidential snub
Jo-Ellen Darcy, new Boss of our Corps of Engineers
~The country's new Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, has her work cut out for her.Named to the post by President Barack Obama and sworn in Oct. 2, the Fitchburg, MA native and daughter of a Fitchburg police detective has moved into her Pentagon office, where she will oversee the vast public works operations of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
~Editilla Co'tellas~ Now that the President has blown our socks off with his first Official Hand Job (please fang back though posts, we wo'out:), now that His O'ner has come and gone, literally in our faces, we can turn our attention to his pick to command the rouge military outfit known as the Exquisite Corps of Engineers.
Let us welcome Ms Darcy to The Thunder Dome
Given His Oner's publicly stated absolute ignorance of the causes of New Orleans flooding in 2005, of where Hurricane Katrina Actually struck and where Louisiana's Coastline exists or not, we are struck with this "Idea of Obama" and how that might translate into Actual Engineering Reform here on the ground in the New Orleans District of the very rouge military outfit who destroyed our City on 8/29/05 and killed 1000s of US Citizens on US soil.
What is the Idea of Obama in appointing this woman, who frankly seems to have very little experience with the political side of ASCECORPS, let alone an understanding of their cross-district public relations lobby machinery? She does have good experience with Water Issues, but can she stand in a room full of Men in Uniform (and that includes Project Hope'A'Dope director Karen Durham-Aguillera) and actually Take Command. I would ask this question of ASCECORPS Water Industry Titan Gerald Galloway, had he actually succeeded in his considerable efforts at back- room academic/PR gimplomacy to usurp this important office.
If anyone wants to try Editilla on charges of sexism in my concerns, then of Ms Darcy I would ask: DO YOU HAVE THE OVA TO MAKE CHANGES IN THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS?
Civil Engineering Reform, that is what I'm talking about here.
We need to get our country back to doing real civil engineering to repair our obviously crumbling infrastructure. For example, for His Oner to say that Katrina wiped out New Orleans is like saying traffic wiped out the Minneapolis bridge. Both revealed structural flaws. Both exposed blatant civil engineering mistakes.
Civil Engineering is not Social Engineering, since in CE, a Thing Built is either True or it Fails --as we all witnessed on 8/29/05.
We need to know that Ms Darcy knows about what happened to New Orleans that Infamous Day, not her Idea of Obama as he has No Idea what happened. He said Katrina did it.
We do not need to hear Katrina Shorthand from this woman who is now in charge of our situation. It was such a Deal Breaker to hear it come from the Commander in Chief (in name only) of the Corps of Engineers (in name only).
We need Ms Darcy to get on the Bad Inoperable Pumps (BIPs) and how the Corps forced their instalation on our outfall canals.
She needs to intervene Now in this Extortion the Corps is perpetrating on the City by holding up projects to break the City/State to accept their technically deficient Bad Option 1 Plan over Option 2/2a. She must STOP the Corps' threatening us so.
She must to stop the Corps from shifting millions of dollars between Flood Control Projects down here.
Ms Darcy needs to fire Optimal Process Partners.
These are some of my own top picks of Things To Do Right Now: end the Corps' borderline criminal activities.
It is also important that Ms Darcy face down the Corps more Subliminal activities and apparent conflicts of interests,
like over 700 counts of using government computers to infiltrate and manipulate the public comments discourse on getting the True Katrina Story Straight in our local media, in violation of the Federal Code.
We also really need to get the Corps out of the Wetlands Restoration Business because, again, they are major culprits in that failure as well, due to their wrong engineering in the Atchafalaya Basin, the upper Mississippi River and, oh yes, the soon-to-be Judge Duvall Rendered Sacred Cow: MR-GO.
This is not about Yes Levees/No Levees, Good Corps/Bad Corps.
It is a question of Civil Engineering or NOT.
Gentle'rillas, this isn't just about Reforming the Corps to protect New Orleans or Louisiana or our wetlands, but about Corps failure across the entire nation. Over half of the nation lives in counties with levees. The US Army Corps of Engineers is Not the End All Be All, and ,arguably, not Authoritatively Qualified for the tasks we have before us, to wit: Survival. In the harsh light of what we all witnessed on 8/29/05, this country must demand a better return on our investment. No more 2nd chances, only 2nd Lines.
A missed opportunity in New Orleans~Opelousas Daily World
Bar owners sweating status following state crackdown
~Richard A. Webster
CBD projects to benefit pedestrians, cyclists
~Coleman Warner
Meat Head~Serious EatsNew orleans Photo Alliance Call for Entries: The American Dream ~Nymphoto
Nola Jazz, funk singer, writer Leigh Harris finds home and new life in N.C. ~Michael Hewlett
'Devil at the Confluence'
~Terry Perkins
Benefits as unique musical events~Jeff Albert
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