Of Somnolescence

Yesterday my public affairs prof remembered my name, hooray! She usually refers to me, Emily, Katherine, and Barbara interchangeably as "Katherine", though she does seem sorry whenever she does. She also confirmed to me that new public management is a little on the confusing, semi-coherent side. It's this philosophy of administration set up in opposition to the traditional bureaucratic model, so it's a little "anything you can do, I can do better" about things. "Well, we're going to give managers more discretion and power. But they're also going to be more accountable to the people they serve and possibly to the political branch as well. It's going to rock!" Such is life.

Last night was great: after a three-day schoolwork blitz, I went to bed at 9:30 p.m. and slept until 9 a.m. When I got in I was afraid I was coming down with something, too, so I took some cold medicine and some asthma meds. Interestingly, the doctor at the student health service told Katherine that she had "temporary asthma" when she had her bad cold a few weeks back. I did not know such things were possible. Anyway, my chest feels sort of full of junk this morning, but it will likely pass.

Today we are going grocery shopping; that darn Food-Condiment Horizon is creeping up again. However, we have enough perogies to live on them happily for a week or two.

And now, a rant: the New York Times' top story today is that the White House knew that the levees in New Orleans had failed on the Monday night Hurricane Katrina struck. A guy from FEMA, Marty Bahamonde, was in a helicopter over the city on Monday and saw the damage. He called Michael Brown and told him. Brown says he called the White House. The White House, however, claims not to have known about the damage until Tuesday, and "White House aides have urged administration officials not to discuss any conversations with the president or his top advisors and declined to release e-mail messages sent among Mr. Bush's senior advisors." Of course, if the White House knowing was dependent on Brown's ability to make a phone call, then it's a miracle they know now. All of this aside, of course, the response was still disgraceful from all levels of government. But why did the White House lie about that? I know the President is pretty much closed for business at 9 p.m., but you'd think on the night of a national emergency somebody would have cared enough to stay late and get the ball rolling.