FEMA to New Orleans: Shrink This

EDINBURGh--Apropos of my post earlier this week about the paucity of volunteer psychological services for the heavily traumatized population of New Orleans, today's T-P reports that FEMA is announcing a grant for a counseling service that includes no doctors. Adding insult, the grant--for a city that was 80% flooded by federal negligence--is less than a quarter of the similar grant the agency announced for New York in the wake of 9/11, a disaster that covered maybe a dozen blocks of the city. But, not content with taking bows for that dribble of chump change, FEMA cements its reputation as an agency still thoroughly in the clueless fraternity with this:

FEMA agrees that the number of people who need grief counseling is vast. The agency said Thursday in its press release that, "everyone who was in the hurricane-affected area has been impacted by the stress of being subjected to the wrath of Hurricane Katrina."

That damn wrath. Thank goodness the area's levees didn't breach, too.