Compare The New York Times letter with the original.
Re “President Gerald R. Ford, Who Led U.S. Out of Watergate Era, Dies at 93” (obituary, Dec. 28): You write: “He had sought to bind up the nation’s wounds as much by instinct as by design. One of his earliest acts, combining courage with forgiveness, was to announce before a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that he favored leniency for Vietnam-era draft resisters.”
With Mr. Ford’s amnesty program, only a paltry 21,800 men out of 350,000 who were eligible were granted clemency. The program ignored the plight of military deserters, who were generally less educated and usually came from less well-off backgrounds than draft resisters.
This must be weighed against the full pardon he granted Mr. Nixon.
Howard Lisnoff
Dec. 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/opinion/l29ford.html
December 27, 2006
To the Editor:
In “Gerald Ford, 38th President, Dies at 93” (December 27), your writer states, “He had sought to bind up the nation’s wounds as much by instinct as by design. One of his earliest acts, combining courage with forgiveness, was to announce before a convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars that he favored leniency for Vietnam-era draft resisters.”
Mr. Ford’s amnesty program, as it was eventually applied, forced war resisters to swear an oath of allegiance. Only a paltry 21,800 men out of 350,000 who were eligible under the program signed on. The program completely ignored the plight of military deserters, who were generally less educated and usually came from less well-off economic backgrounds than did draft resisters.
All of this must be weighed against the full and free pardon he granted Mr. Nixon who had committed high crimes while in office, including his involvement in the cover up of the Watergate break-in.
Sincerely,
Howard Lisnoff
Friday, December 29, 2006
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Warwick, July 1969
Warwick, July 1969
Mike stood up on the seat of his Triumph, a screaming and powerfully built machine, on Main Avenue in Warwick. Letting go of his handlebars, he looked like a 60’s Winged Victory. Free, unencumbered by norms of accepted behavior, we rode together on Sundays, living in the moment.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Motorcycle Reprise
Motorcycle Reprise
Midday, the open road, heading south and east down from the Berkshires past small Massachusetts and Connecticut towns each with their own indelible provincial mark, the postcard panorama of the Taconics and Catskills over my shoulder, a brilliant memory in verdant green and towering cloud shadows driven effortlessly by the heat of summer on a southerly wind. Down toward the coastal plane of New England, the wheels of my machine gliding against the wind on the snaking blacktop, the thump of the cylinders and the tuning of the pipes fitting in with the chorus of memories of youth when innocence and the mountains and the sea and a road south in summer were all that mattered and all that was.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Grandma Rose and The Life of Silence
Grandma Rose and The Life of Silence
Grandma Rose led an unremarkable life,
Silent like a cloistered nun or Buddhist monk,
Sitting hidden on a wooden crate behind
The glass display case of women’s handkerchiefs,
White hair pulled up in a bun above a round expressionless face.
“A size to fit,” she uttered when rousing for a customer,
An indication that Russian peasants weren’t as exacting
As many other immigrants in the Promised Land beside gilded streets.
What was it that you saw old woman?
The shock of your husband lowered
From his basement perch,
Suicide of high blood sugar
Or depression, that most American of maladies?
Why wouldn’t you speak or show emotion?
Were you considering some esoteric personal philosophy?
Or had you happened on the meaninglessness of it all,
The certain void to follow or the wizened ways
Of some all-knowing ancient deity?
Grandma Rose led an unremarkable life,
Silent like a cloistered nun or Buddhist monk,
Sitting hidden on a wooden crate behind
The glass display case of women’s handkerchiefs,
White hair pulled up in a bun above a round expressionless face.
“A size to fit,” she uttered when rousing for a customer,
An indication that Russian peasants weren’t as exacting
As many other immigrants in the Promised Land beside gilded streets.
What was it that you saw old woman?
The shock of your husband lowered
From his basement perch,
Suicide of high blood sugar
Or depression, that most American of maladies?
Why wouldn’t you speak or show emotion?
Were you considering some esoteric personal philosophy?
Or had you happened on the meaninglessness of it all,
The certain void to follow or the wizened ways
Of some all-knowing ancient deity?
Jimmy Carter, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine
Jimmy Carter, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine
I decided to publish this piece on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Territories after Jimmy Carter’s book, Peace Not Apartheid, recently was published. Many of the same criticisms of former President Carter are reminiscent of the attacks that any critic receives in regard to Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians of both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The drumbeat of attacks, that Carter foresaw, is very similar to attacks against American Jews and others who criticize Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Jimmy Carter got it right when he argued, in public appearances about the book, that an honest and open discussion of Israeli policy is possible anywhere in the world save the U.S. Parts of the American-Jewish lobby transform any criticism of Israel into a cynical discussion of anti-Semitism, which is ludicrous, since those same arguments are heard around the world and in Israel itself. The following article was slated for publication in the Rhode Island Jewish Voice and Herald, but ultimatley was not published. That article's focus was on this past summer's war between Israel and Lebanon. The article was a commentary about an article that appeared in the Jewish Voice and Herald by Yehuda Lev.
Yehuda Lev makes many cogent observations about the current war in Israel and Lebanon, but only touches the surface of a most significant issue when he states, “Even in Israel the racist National Union Party and the settler successors to the neo-fascist Meir Kahane, are ecstatic over what they see as vindication of their sectarian, expansionist ideology”(“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,” July 21). Perhaps Mr. Lev is onto something very significant.
Much of what has passed for support of and pride among Jews since the founding of Israel in 1948 has devolved into plain and simple cynicism against anyone in the U.S. who dares to criticize Israel. One of the first victims of the endless wars in the Middle East was not only truth, but also denigrating the “enemy” into something less than human and therefore not deserving the protections of international law guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions, the charter of the United Nations, and what has come to be known as the “just war” thesis developed by religionists over the past thousand years. Once a protection against the worst excesses of war, a “just war” is a now a complete fiction, however, given the lethality and technological sophistication of contemporary weaponry. Modern weapons are blind to civilians (among them countless children) whose mangled bodies these deadly devices routinely destroy without distinction, making a mockery of the most significant protection of noncombatants contained in the Geneva Conventions.
Besides being deadened to the endless cycle of an eye-for-an-eye that passes for foreign policy in the Middle East, most recently between Hezbollah and Israel, even a casual observer must realize how the dehumanization of Palestinians into less than equal beings has evolved. Such was the case of the transformation of Vietnamese into “gooks” during the Vietnam War; "Japs" during World War II; and "diaper heads" in Afghanistan. Such dehumanization soon expands to anyone residing in a particular country without distinction. The Nazis began their deadly march toward the Holocaust by first claiming that Jews were less than human using the bogus claims of eugenics to back up their insanity! How long after that slander did European Jews become the objects of the hate and terror of the Third Reich?
In countless conversations I’ve been part of, Palestinians have been immediately cast in similar hateful terms. Next comes the casting of Hamas as master terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel. It seems to me that Hamas was not only elected in a free vote in the Palestinian Territories, but that their radicalism is a reflection of the failed policies of both past Israeli and Palestinian political entities. Hamas could be engaged across a table through diplomacy, even if we reject much of their propaganda, but diplomacy is not the chosen means of negotiations of the Bush and Olmert administrations. In regard to Hezbollah and this past summer's war in Lebanon, much of the same analysis of failed policies can be cited for the unconscionable hostilities and their impact on both Israelis and Lebanese civilians!
Mr. Lev asks, “Who is profiting from this war?” He responds that Hamas and Hezbollah are the “big winners.” I think that the United States has also “profited” from this war, and in particular the bellicose Bush administration, whose only method in dealing with the complexities of world events is the use of the most lethal kind of force, and the support of that force through ample sales of arms. Diplomacy is unknown to the players in this administration, and truth their first casualty. Israel’s security has not increased in any measurable way since its alliance with the messianic fundamentalists of the Bush administration. No high level negotiations regarding the Middle East have taken place since the Bush administration came to power in 2001.
Israel’s attack against Lebanon and Hezbollah makes a mockery of the idea of proportionality in retaliating against Hezbollah’s attacks! It flies in the face of a rational approach to the self-defense of Israel.
The issue of what constitutes a Palestinian state has also fanned the flames of viciousness on the part of all parties for decades. Palestinians have the same right to a state as Israel, and to treatment that regards them as human beings with full human rights. The founding of Israel in 1948, and the expulsion of the vast majority of its Palestinian population, and decades of military and religious discrimination have created much of acidic hatred that fans the cycle of violence that has sapped all parties of their humanity. Israel has consistently treated Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip as less than human. Israel has refused to remove many settlements from the West Bank and has retaliated again and again with the disproportionate use of military force against their adversaries. How could anyone sane imagine anything other than intense unreasoned hatred arising from such a situation?
The great loser in this war will be Israel which has long since lost its historical memory of just how a whole population can be demonized by denying them the most basic regard for their humanity. With the great toll of civilian deaths in Israel and in Lebanon from this past summer’s war, both Israel and Lebanon become victims to the endless cycle of violence.
Attacking the humanity of Israel’s critics has become a cliché. Denying reality has become a significant part of that history. Rather than attacking Jewish critics of Israel as “self-hating Jews,” and others as being anti-Semitic, an emphasis needs to be made regarding the complexities of the Middle East that reinforces the high morality of Jewish culture and the consideration of all people of that region as worthy of decent and humane treatment. Diplomacy needs to replace militarism!
I decided to publish this piece on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Territories after Jimmy Carter’s book, Peace Not Apartheid, recently was published. Many of the same criticisms of former President Carter are reminiscent of the attacks that any critic receives in regard to Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians of both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The drumbeat of attacks, that Carter foresaw, is very similar to attacks against American Jews and others who criticize Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Jimmy Carter got it right when he argued, in public appearances about the book, that an honest and open discussion of Israeli policy is possible anywhere in the world save the U.S. Parts of the American-Jewish lobby transform any criticism of Israel into a cynical discussion of anti-Semitism, which is ludicrous, since those same arguments are heard around the world and in Israel itself. The following article was slated for publication in the Rhode Island Jewish Voice and Herald, but ultimatley was not published. That article's focus was on this past summer's war between Israel and Lebanon. The article was a commentary about an article that appeared in the Jewish Voice and Herald by Yehuda Lev.
Yehuda Lev makes many cogent observations about the current war in Israel and Lebanon, but only touches the surface of a most significant issue when he states, “Even in Israel the racist National Union Party and the settler successors to the neo-fascist Meir Kahane, are ecstatic over what they see as vindication of their sectarian, expansionist ideology”(“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,” July 21). Perhaps Mr. Lev is onto something very significant.
Much of what has passed for support of and pride among Jews since the founding of Israel in 1948 has devolved into plain and simple cynicism against anyone in the U.S. who dares to criticize Israel. One of the first victims of the endless wars in the Middle East was not only truth, but also denigrating the “enemy” into something less than human and therefore not deserving the protections of international law guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions, the charter of the United Nations, and what has come to be known as the “just war” thesis developed by religionists over the past thousand years. Once a protection against the worst excesses of war, a “just war” is a now a complete fiction, however, given the lethality and technological sophistication of contemporary weaponry. Modern weapons are blind to civilians (among them countless children) whose mangled bodies these deadly devices routinely destroy without distinction, making a mockery of the most significant protection of noncombatants contained in the Geneva Conventions.
Besides being deadened to the endless cycle of an eye-for-an-eye that passes for foreign policy in the Middle East, most recently between Hezbollah and Israel, even a casual observer must realize how the dehumanization of Palestinians into less than equal beings has evolved. Such was the case of the transformation of Vietnamese into “gooks” during the Vietnam War; "Japs" during World War II; and "diaper heads" in Afghanistan. Such dehumanization soon expands to anyone residing in a particular country without distinction. The Nazis began their deadly march toward the Holocaust by first claiming that Jews were less than human using the bogus claims of eugenics to back up their insanity! How long after that slander did European Jews become the objects of the hate and terror of the Third Reich?
In countless conversations I’ve been part of, Palestinians have been immediately cast in similar hateful terms. Next comes the casting of Hamas as master terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel. It seems to me that Hamas was not only elected in a free vote in the Palestinian Territories, but that their radicalism is a reflection of the failed policies of both past Israeli and Palestinian political entities. Hamas could be engaged across a table through diplomacy, even if we reject much of their propaganda, but diplomacy is not the chosen means of negotiations of the Bush and Olmert administrations. In regard to Hezbollah and this past summer's war in Lebanon, much of the same analysis of failed policies can be cited for the unconscionable hostilities and their impact on both Israelis and Lebanese civilians!
Mr. Lev asks, “Who is profiting from this war?” He responds that Hamas and Hezbollah are the “big winners.” I think that the United States has also “profited” from this war, and in particular the bellicose Bush administration, whose only method in dealing with the complexities of world events is the use of the most lethal kind of force, and the support of that force through ample sales of arms. Diplomacy is unknown to the players in this administration, and truth their first casualty. Israel’s security has not increased in any measurable way since its alliance with the messianic fundamentalists of the Bush administration. No high level negotiations regarding the Middle East have taken place since the Bush administration came to power in 2001.
Israel’s attack against Lebanon and Hezbollah makes a mockery of the idea of proportionality in retaliating against Hezbollah’s attacks! It flies in the face of a rational approach to the self-defense of Israel.
The issue of what constitutes a Palestinian state has also fanned the flames of viciousness on the part of all parties for decades. Palestinians have the same right to a state as Israel, and to treatment that regards them as human beings with full human rights. The founding of Israel in 1948, and the expulsion of the vast majority of its Palestinian population, and decades of military and religious discrimination have created much of acidic hatred that fans the cycle of violence that has sapped all parties of their humanity. Israel has consistently treated Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip as less than human. Israel has refused to remove many settlements from the West Bank and has retaliated again and again with the disproportionate use of military force against their adversaries. How could anyone sane imagine anything other than intense unreasoned hatred arising from such a situation?
The great loser in this war will be Israel which has long since lost its historical memory of just how a whole population can be demonized by denying them the most basic regard for their humanity. With the great toll of civilian deaths in Israel and in Lebanon from this past summer’s war, both Israel and Lebanon become victims to the endless cycle of violence.
Attacking the humanity of Israel’s critics has become a cliché. Denying reality has become a significant part of that history. Rather than attacking Jewish critics of Israel as “self-hating Jews,” and others as being anti-Semitic, an emphasis needs to be made regarding the complexities of the Middle East that reinforces the high morality of Jewish culture and the consideration of all people of that region as worthy of decent and humane treatment. Diplomacy needs to replace militarism!
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Elmwood Cemetery
Elmwood Cemetery/Saint Peter’s Cemetery, Great Barrington, MA, August 2005
Moved beyond grief among the cemetery lanes—amid the arching great maples…the cathedral spires of hemlock…thyme hesitating an instant before transforming purple to gray…masses of billowing August cumulus-waiting to betray the heavens…the constant chorus of crickets and cicadas, as if pleading with the season…the nearly imperceptible flecks of red in the surrounding hills—by the simple granite of a child’s grave.
Moved beyond grief among the cemetery lanes—amid the arching great maples…the cathedral spires of hemlock…thyme hesitating an instant before transforming purple to gray…masses of billowing August cumulus-waiting to betray the heavens…the constant chorus of crickets and cicadas, as if pleading with the season…the nearly imperceptible flecks of red in the surrounding hills—by the simple granite of a child’s grave.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
He Doesn't Get It!
He Doesn’t Get It!
Instead of taking action to end our dreadful war in Iraq the President has decided to put off until January 2007 any substantive response to the bipartisan commission's (Iraq Study Group) recommendations for ending that conflict President Bush is completely out of touch with the reality of the war. Rather than setting a timetable for withdrawal and immediately demanding that the government of Iraq take over the responsibility for its own defense, the President is entertaining recommendations to actually increase the number of U.S. forces in Iraq!
Nothing seems to make an impact on this President. Current opinion polls give the President a twenty-one percent approval rating regarding his conduct of the war. Nearly three thousand American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, a $400 billion cost so far (at a rate of $10 million per hour), and an election that was a direct rejection on his conduct of the war don’t seem to matter one iota!
Nothing seems to make an impact on this President. Current opinion polls give the President a twenty-one percent approval rating regarding his conduct of the war. Nearly three thousand American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, a $400 billion cost so far (at a rate of $10 million per hour), and an election that was a direct rejection on his conduct of the war don’t seem to matter one iota!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Leave Taking
Leave Taking, Great Barrington, October 2006
A pale white new moon soon gone to yellow suspended above the Berkshire Hills, now transformed to brown.
Dark clouds sweeping from the north nearly indiscernible from the mountain peaks they traverse against a pale blue sky.
Wanderlust, a road south, away again, seemingly forever in motion.
The Death Penalty
The Death Penalty
Since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to reinstate the death penalty in 1976 (following a three-year hiatus), the ultimate penalty for capital crimes has been applied 1, 056 times. Three thousand three hundred seventy inmates remain on death row (Statistics as of September 2006). The death penalty has been applied both by the states and the federal government. The military has the authority to carry out the penalty, but has not carried out an execution since the penalty’s reinstatement.
The death penalty flies in the face of the Judeo-Christian tradition of mercy. It finds it’s legal roots in the ancient Code of Hammurabi that demanded an eye for an eye as an answer to criminal behavior. Hammurabi reigned as king of Babylonia during the 18th century B.C.E.
Many advocates of the death penalty cite the right of the victim’s survivors to feel a sense of closure for heinous crimes. Others cite religious underpinnings for putting to death those convicted of serious crimes, owing to Christ’s admonition to “render unto Caesar,” meaning generally that they view the state as reserving the right to decide matters that belong to the realm of governments.
What’s wrong with the death penalty? Well, first, while there are hideous crimes and grotesque criminals who often leave a wake of pain and mayhem, society has evolved to a point of being somewhat more sophisticated in the twenty-eight centuries since Hammurabi.
Prisons exist to remove violent offenders from the streets and separate them from the rest of society. Most industrialized nation-states now view the latter as an appropriate means to remove dangerous individuals from contact with the rest of society.
Judicial systems are sometimes faulty in trying those condemned eventually to death guilty. Evidence may be lacking, juries can reach wrong decisions, legal representation may be substandard, and as DNA evidence can sometimes indicate, those convicted of capital crimes can sometimes later be found innocent.
In some cases the convicted felon either lacked sufficient mental prowess to comprehend the nature of a crime committed. Alternately, mental illness may preclude the ability to understand what the accused or convicted felon’s mental state was at the time of a crime.
The wealthy are never put to death. Usually the penalty falls on poor individuals. Only infrequently is anyone executed who can afford competent legal counsel. The issue of the cost of putting convicted prisoners to death is best illustrated by the state that executes the most people, Texas. In that state, the cost of trial and appeals of a convicted felon, through the act of execution, totals $2.3 million, or three times the cost of imprisoning a felon for life.
Conclusion
While the death penalty may give a sense of closure to the surviving victims of a crime, family, and large segments of society, the great moral issues about its rightness commands attention. Nowhere, where there is an absence of a death penalty, and felons are sentenced to life imprisonment, do crime rates approach states and nations where the death penalty is widely practiced. The fact is, in places where the death penalty is carried out, crime rates are higher, mistakes are made in the judicial process, legal representation may be lacking, the expense of convicting and carrying out a sentence of death is astronomical, and the innocent and incompetent are sometimes killed. A mark of advanced societies is how they treat the least among their citizenry. The existence of the death penalty, or its absence, is a direct reflection of the moral makeup of a nation.
While revenge is an understandable result of having suffered the consequences of serious crimes, the issue of forgiveness, while ensuring that society is protected against further criminal behavior, must be weighed. Nations and states that attempt to further justice through becoming complicit in premeditated murder leave great moral questions in their wake.
Saturday, December 9, 2006
HOPE After Hurricanes?
HOPE After Hurricanes?
When I returned to South Florida after Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 I passed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s tent on Indiantown Road in Jupiter. I thought how exciting and fulfilling it would be to work in a project helping those who had suffered losses from the hurricane. Within six months I would not only be terribly disappointed by my experiences working for the state through a FEMA grant, but would be driven to the point of leaving that job because of the near complete waste of time and resources that were squandered in that program. I feel cheated, as I believe are the hundreds of people I interviewed along the way in Palm Beach County. Some were living in conditions that resembled third-world countries, their trailers damaged beyond repair, their walls mocked with mildew and their spirits often shattered.
The project was named H.O.P.E.—Helping Our People in Emergencies (similar programs exist all across the state at the present time in areas hit by the vicious hurricanes of recent years.) The main objective of the program was to help people cope with the aftermath of the hurricane and provide them with useful resources to help mitigate some of the psychological and property damages they suffered.
I began working for Project H.O.P.E. by sitting beneath the FEMA tent for five weeks at the corner of Indiantown Road and Military Trail doing next to nothing. On “good” days I, and the team I worked with, would see on average of about two or three people during an eight-hour day.
Providing resources to hurricane survivors was supposed to be a key service of the program. Promised resources disappeared as quickly as leaders of the program announced them, as if they never really existed for most people who were promised help. One group—a good example of how resources weren’t provided—a faith-based organization, provided the labor to complete hurricane-damage related projects if survivors provided the materials. I filled out referral after referral to this agency, until learning that their money had run out and that they would not be able to perform any of the services they purportedly offered. Resource after resource proved to be the same dead end for hurricane survivors. As soon as a particular city or town announced that it had grant money set aside to provide for damage repair, that money seemed to disappear overnight, much like the blue skies before a storm.
Personnel within the program were a separate and often disturbing issue. Some counselors were naturals at listening to survivor’s woes, but most crisis counselors in the program were totally inept at the simple counseling skill of listening to people in the different areas in the county we canvassed. We were grouped into teams of about ten people serving different geographical areas in four offices in Palm Beach County.
Some team members in different groups appeared to want to have nothing to do with actually knocking on doors and speaking with people. Many would wander in at ten or eleven o’clock in the morning—we started at nine o’clock—and left in the early afternoon. There was absolutely no give or take among many members of groups that is absolutely essential to performing group goals.
As the project shifted its emphasis to prepare residents of the county for future hurricanes, the lack of cooperation was most obvious. I had written a book, A Hurricane Story, for presentation to upper-elementary school students. Unfortunately, not being able to illustrate the book, I asked members of the project with artistic ability to help out with the illustrations for the book. In each case I was either denied help or offered the kind of assistance that would not have allowed me to complete the text and read it for children as an attractive and effective piece of writing.
Leadership was totally inept within the program, but their hourly reimbursement was quite generous at $25.00 per hour plus liberal travel reimbursement. Leaders often had no more professional training or any additional expertise in counseling or group dynamics than other team members. Gross violations of team cohesiveness were the usual mode of operating.
The worst violation of ethics came from the program’s top leadership, who refused to address any of the group’s problems, instead portraying the project as one happy family. One group member threatened to do violence to another member with whom he had had a disagreement. Absolutely no sanctions were ever taken with that individual, nor was he counseled on how to deal with strenuous situations while canvassing that had led to his outburst.
The most obvious breach of leadership ethics came when several representatives of different organizations, representing different facets of FEMA, came together to meet last February with groups from the H.O.P.E. offices all over Palm Beach County in Delray Beach to discuss the project. Leadership repeatedly told group members that this venue was “not the place to air dirty laundry.” The session went as planned by the leadership of the program, and not one complaint was lodged and the panel representing FEMA left thinking that we were performing miracles in the county.
I was cautious of the faith-based link that was constantly reinforced by the project leaders and many team members. I strongly favored the direct involvement of local, state and federal governments instead, as a way to ameliorate the damage done by hurricanes. Churches need to be largely supplemental to that process. On several occasions we met as a group in a particular church in the area, where during one meeting a group member who was also a church member at this church invited us to go into the sanctuary and reflect. What could be more inappropriate for a group working for the government?
I recently met with people I had known while working for the project. They reported for work about three hours a day as the program drew to a close by the end of November 2006. Some days they stayed away from the office when the project director was not in. When the word went out that the director was returning, they would return to the office and go through the motions of actually “working,” even though they reported there was absolutely nothing to do. They said that they would soon be collecting unemployment benefits for several months, which I thought peculiar since any actual work in the program had ended for all intents and purposes many, many months ago! One project worker reported being so bored that he and a companion from the program laid quarter on the railroad tracks in West Palm Beach to pass time.
A series of articles written in The Florida Sun-Sentinel documented that FEMA had paid $22.6 million to Florida for the kind of “crisis counseling” of Hurricane Wilma and Katrina victims that I had witnessed. Adding insult to injury on the part of FEMA, the Associated Press reported on December 5 that that same agency had spent $17 million in housing and rental payments to Hurricane Katrina victims who had already received those housing benefits. The Government Accountability Office was somewhat less generous in terms of measuring FEMA’s squandered funds, placing the figure at one billion dollars!
When I began working for Project H.O.P.E. I had high ideals and wanted to make a difference in the lives of people who suffered emotional problems and property damage as a result of hurricanes. I left with a slight readjustment in my understanding of how inept bureaucracies can be, when lacking leadership—I believe planning for the program was both shoddy and for the most part missing—resources and trained workers in dealing with the aftermath of hurricanes.
The project was named H.O.P.E.—Helping Our People in Emergencies (similar programs exist all across the state at the present time in areas hit by the vicious hurricanes of recent years.) The main objective of the program was to help people cope with the aftermath of the hurricane and provide them with useful resources to help mitigate some of the psychological and property damages they suffered.
I began working for Project H.O.P.E. by sitting beneath the FEMA tent for five weeks at the corner of Indiantown Road and Military Trail doing next to nothing. On “good” days I, and the team I worked with, would see on average of about two or three people during an eight-hour day.
Providing resources to hurricane survivors was supposed to be a key service of the program. Promised resources disappeared as quickly as leaders of the program announced them, as if they never really existed for most people who were promised help. One group—a good example of how resources weren’t provided—a faith-based organization, provided the labor to complete hurricane-damage related projects if survivors provided the materials. I filled out referral after referral to this agency, until learning that their money had run out and that they would not be able to perform any of the services they purportedly offered. Resource after resource proved to be the same dead end for hurricane survivors. As soon as a particular city or town announced that it had grant money set aside to provide for damage repair, that money seemed to disappear overnight, much like the blue skies before a storm.
Personnel within the program were a separate and often disturbing issue. Some counselors were naturals at listening to survivor’s woes, but most crisis counselors in the program were totally inept at the simple counseling skill of listening to people in the different areas in the county we canvassed. We were grouped into teams of about ten people serving different geographical areas in four offices in Palm Beach County.
Some team members in different groups appeared to want to have nothing to do with actually knocking on doors and speaking with people. Many would wander in at ten or eleven o’clock in the morning—we started at nine o’clock—and left in the early afternoon. There was absolutely no give or take among many members of groups that is absolutely essential to performing group goals.
As the project shifted its emphasis to prepare residents of the county for future hurricanes, the lack of cooperation was most obvious. I had written a book, A Hurricane Story, for presentation to upper-elementary school students. Unfortunately, not being able to illustrate the book, I asked members of the project with artistic ability to help out with the illustrations for the book. In each case I was either denied help or offered the kind of assistance that would not have allowed me to complete the text and read it for children as an attractive and effective piece of writing.
Leadership was totally inept within the program, but their hourly reimbursement was quite generous at $25.00 per hour plus liberal travel reimbursement. Leaders often had no more professional training or any additional expertise in counseling or group dynamics than other team members. Gross violations of team cohesiveness were the usual mode of operating.
The worst violation of ethics came from the program’s top leadership, who refused to address any of the group’s problems, instead portraying the project as one happy family. One group member threatened to do violence to another member with whom he had had a disagreement. Absolutely no sanctions were ever taken with that individual, nor was he counseled on how to deal with strenuous situations while canvassing that had led to his outburst.
The most obvious breach of leadership ethics came when several representatives of different organizations, representing different facets of FEMA, came together to meet last February with groups from the H.O.P.E. offices all over Palm Beach County in Delray Beach to discuss the project. Leadership repeatedly told group members that this venue was “not the place to air dirty laundry.” The session went as planned by the leadership of the program, and not one complaint was lodged and the panel representing FEMA left thinking that we were performing miracles in the county.
I was cautious of the faith-based link that was constantly reinforced by the project leaders and many team members. I strongly favored the direct involvement of local, state and federal governments instead, as a way to ameliorate the damage done by hurricanes. Churches need to be largely supplemental to that process. On several occasions we met as a group in a particular church in the area, where during one meeting a group member who was also a church member at this church invited us to go into the sanctuary and reflect. What could be more inappropriate for a group working for the government?
I recently met with people I had known while working for the project. They reported for work about three hours a day as the program drew to a close by the end of November 2006. Some days they stayed away from the office when the project director was not in. When the word went out that the director was returning, they would return to the office and go through the motions of actually “working,” even though they reported there was absolutely nothing to do. They said that they would soon be collecting unemployment benefits for several months, which I thought peculiar since any actual work in the program had ended for all intents and purposes many, many months ago! One project worker reported being so bored that he and a companion from the program laid quarter on the railroad tracks in West Palm Beach to pass time.
A series of articles written in The Florida Sun-Sentinel documented that FEMA had paid $22.6 million to Florida for the kind of “crisis counseling” of Hurricane Wilma and Katrina victims that I had witnessed. Adding insult to injury on the part of FEMA, the Associated Press reported on December 5 that that same agency had spent $17 million in housing and rental payments to Hurricane Katrina victims who had already received those housing benefits. The Government Accountability Office was somewhat less generous in terms of measuring FEMA’s squandered funds, placing the figure at one billion dollars!
When I began working for Project H.O.P.E. I had high ideals and wanted to make a difference in the lives of people who suffered emotional problems and property damage as a result of hurricanes. I left with a slight readjustment in my understanding of how inept bureaucracies can be, when lacking leadership—I believe planning for the program was both shoddy and for the most part missing—resources and trained workers in dealing with the aftermath of hurricanes.
Friday, December 8, 2006
A Storm Approaches Chatham, October 2006
A Storm Approaches Chatham, October 2006
Great ominous masses of cumulous swept over peaks of the Taconics and the Hudson toward Chatham creating a stark rift between earth and the heavens, trailing ghost-like specters of gray sheets of rain.
A great tapestry of brilliant, vibrant colors—crimson maple, gold beech, rusty oak—waited silently on the gently undulating land for the onslaught.
Soon, and imperceptibly, the sun would return again in yet another season, driving life from the decay and tumult of that day.
Living a life would be much like the storm’s approach and its aftermath.
Great expectation…discomforting turmoil…and a small place and time from which to watch such wonders, as a storm approaching Chatham.
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