Keeping military recruiters away from your children in high school

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:35:47 -0400, BarbL aBarbL@comcastdotnet
wrote:

It was a widespread disaster, and to expect it to be built
back up quickly would not make sense. I'm hoping the levees
get repaired, and other big things that could possibly
affect that area again, as well as the individuals who need
help.

Until the day before Katrina's arrival, New Orleans's 350 miles
(560 kilometers) of levees were undergoing a feasibility study
to examine the possibility of upgrading them to withstand a
Category Four or Five storm.

:: Why this was only begun in 2000 might be a valid question
:: though)

Corps officials say the study, which began in 2000, will take
several years to complete.

Upgrading the system would take as long as 20 to 25 years,
according to Al Naomi, the Corps' senior project manager for
the New Orleans District.

Martin McCann, a civil and environmental engineering
professor at Stanford University in California, warns that
long-term planning may not account for changes to the risk
equation.

"As further development goes on behind levees, over decades
you need to revisit the question and say, Are those levees
providing us the protection that we wanted?" he said.

"The answer is probably no, because the exposure is probably
greater. The number of people and the [amount of] valuable
property [behind the levees] is greater."

Why the levees failed he

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1103/p02s02-ussc.html

It may be productive for the California delta to look to their
levee system.



--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:04:16 -0400, BarbL aBarbL@comcastdotnet
wrote:

I'm mostly angry about their local government, but that
could even be that I'm thinking of New Orleans, which tends
to get most of the money, time, action, etc. The squeaky
wheel. Maybe all along the other communities have been
quietly fixing and improving on their own, instead of saying
"Why isn't the federal government doing more?"

Most of the people in New Orleans are attempting to rebuild on
their own. Unfortunately, the beauracracy can't even give people
answers about whether or not they *must* raise the homes they
want to rebuild. Mostly, the FEMA information is inaccurate.
Many people are still waiting on insurance money or on crazy
legal snafus.

Some reports from our local paper:

************************************************
After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA has proposed new
building rules for metropolitan New Orleans. At the Federal Emergency
Management Agency's behest, New Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany
parishes now require that except for historic properties or those on
the highest ground, new or substantially rebuilt homes be raised at
least 3 feet above grade, and in some neighborhoods, much higher.

Building a house 3 feet above ground, as their grandparents did, would
have made no difference at all to tens of thousands of homeowners
during Katrina.

Their homes, slab and raised, flooded past the eaves.

Even so, FEMA's world view embraces an old idea made new again: "What
they've said is the preferable construction is pier-like construction
to allow sheet-flow (flooding) coming through an area," said Mike
Hunnicutt, a FEMA spokesman. The new reality, he said, is that in many
cases, "building slab-on-grade is not the most economical or logical
way to build."

**************************************

The office of the consulate general of Japan in New Orleans, which has
been a physical reminder of the ties between the Crescent City and the
Asian country since 1922, will become another post-Katrina loss if a
grass-roots movement fails to block plans to move the office to
Tennessee.

Although the plan has not been approved, Vice Consul Takeshi Kodo
confirmed Tuesday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan has
proposed moving the office out of New Orleans.

Nashville, Tenn., would likely become its new home, he said.

*****************************************
"Recovery reports to hasten federal cash flow: Nagin: Projects
can't wait 3 more months," Page 1, Oct. 21.

The planning effort is a chaotic mess, something that in the military
we would have called a "goat rope." Despite planner Steven Bingler's
response, his team for Gentilly has been focused on short-term
infrastructure. This is exactly the inappropriate duplication
experienced elsewhere.

From my perspective, professional planners' efforts to duplicate the
city's have completely left out the critical needs of neighborhoods to
provide collective answers to how returnees will rebuild safer,
stronger and smarter. Without some kind of community project focused
on neighborhoods, those decisions are being made by Road Home
beneficiaries one at a time.

In my Vista Park neighborhood, all of which stood under 8 or 9 feet of
water for 15 days, half the returnees are renovating at grade and the
other half seem to be rebuilding elevated structures. Which half is
building riskier, weaker and dumber than the other half?

It's too late for neighborhood projects to influence the early
returnees, but you'd think the rest could benefit from some collective
advice.

Konrad C. King

New Orleans
*******************************************

http://snipurl.com/10fcb

Flood-prone areas to flood again, it says
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
By Mark Schleifstein
The politically volatile option of closing flood-prone areas to
redevelopment might do more to reduce death and property loss than
building bigger and better levees and floodgates, a new RAND Corp.
study concluded. The study released Monday also warns public officials
to plan now to avoid a repeat of the breakdowns in regional
infrastructure and services, including a disruption of first-response
and public safety networks, in the event of another Katrina-like storm
hitting the Gulf Coast.

And it warns that as the community rebuilds, the "inherent bias
towards creating what used to be" could blind residents and public
officials to better rebuilding alternatives.

The wide-ranging 66-page report, which examined four flood disasters
around the world in an effort to find lessons for New Orleans,
contains both short- and long-term recommendations and examines both
preparation for floods and rebuilding issues.

"In the short term, you've got to realize that someday this kind of
disaster is going to come back," said James Kahan, one of the authors
of the report and a senior behavioral scientist with RAND, the
Washington, D.C., policy think tank. "It may happen next year or in
two years or five or 10 years. But you've got to have the
infrastructure to deal with it, even if it brings another tidal wave
and the levees break again."

And the preparation should not be limited to public agencies, Kahan
said. Residents and businesses should participate, whether in
developing their own disaster planning or in public education
programs.

The longer-term, strategic decision-making of the Army Corps of
Engineers and state and local government officials will include
applying Katrina's lessons to decisions on how to protect New Orleans
and other coastal communities, he said.

Among those decisions, federal officials must determine what level of
risk the flood protection system will be designed to handle: The worst
flood that might be expected in 100 years? 500 years? 1,000?

The corps is still determining how high existing levees and levee
walls must be in the New Orleans area to withstand a major hurricane
likely to occur once every 100 years, a requirement set by Congress
after Katrina. Corps officials have said the chances of another
Katrina-like storm hitting New Orleans are believed to be 1 in 300
years.

Congress has required the corps to complete a second study aimed at
determining whether new levees, gates, and wetlands and barrier island
restoration projects are required to provide additional hurricane
storm surge protection to Louisiana's coast, including New Orleans.

Kahan said determining whether the 100-year protection is good enough
is a decision that must be made in Katrina's aftermath. And often, he
said, the increased cost of improving protection can be surprisingly
less than expected.

For instance, in a 1992 study for the Netherlands, Kahan found that
there was only a 2 percent cost difference between levees along a
Dutch river that would withstand a 300-year flood and those that would
protect from a 1,250-year flood.

"But the consequence of exceeding the lower flood risk were totally
horrific from the perspective of that country's citizens," he said.
"The Dutch were just recovering from the Second World War. 'We cannot
tolerate anything like this happening again,' they said, which is why
they chose a 5,000-year risk standard." At the same time, he said, the
assumptions used in determining risk can turn out to be wrong.

"After we finished our study, the Dutch had three 100-year river
floods within the next 18 months," he said, which might have indicated
that the risk assumptions were too lenient. "In the end, it's a
political decision as to how much to protect against and it's a money
decision. You never pick one number and say that's the golden number."

Making such decisions even more difficult is the inability to predict
how many people will return to New Orleans and thus require
protection.

The study released Monday compares four historic flood disasters to
Katrina:

-- The 1948 failure of a dike protecting the city of Vanport, Ore.,
and its population of 20,000 from the Columbia River, which resulted
in the city being destroyed, with damage estimated at $100 million.
The city was never rebuilt, and most residents moved to nearby
Portland.

-- The 1953 overwhelming of flood defenses in the Zeeland region of
the Netherlands, which resulted in 1,835 deaths out of a population of
300,000, and between $800 million and $1.1 billion in property damage.
The nation decided to build world-class levees and gates to provide a
5,000-year level of protection.

-- The 1993 floods along the upper Mississippi River, an area with a
population of 64 million, which caused 50 deaths and $16 billion
damage. The researchers say the response to that flood was mixed at
best, and failures to improve local and national emergency responses
since then are partly to blame for the poor results during Katrina.

-- A 1998 flood of the Yangtze River in China, an area with a
population of 71.1 million, which killed 1,562 and caused $20.5
billion in damage. In its aftermath, the report said, China moved to
reduce risk by forcing people to move out of flood-prone areas in ways
that would be unacceptable to citizens in this country.

The report said government officials at all levels had anticipated
catastrophic flooding and even levee failures in New Orleans but had
not upgraded protection in response.

Public officials also failed to anticipate the breakdowns in services
and emergency response that occurred during Katrina, the report said.

"Some activities, such as evacuation planning, simply cannot be
implemented on the fly," the report said. Kahan said the most
difficult decisions will concern where people rebuild in Katrina's
aftermath.

"You've got to have a place for people to live or you can't encourage
them to come back," he said. "But if you just put people in the same
old flood plain, the next time a similar storm comes, you'll have the
same problems all over again, and you don't want that.

"Maybe you don't want to encourage a return for everyone who wants to
come back," he said. "It's not an automatic decision. Their protection
has economic and environmental consequences, and I think there's 100
percent agreement that what happened last year is not to be
tolerated."

But unlike China, which can order its citizens to move out of flood
plains, the United States has more limited means of telling people
where they can and can't live, Kahan said. That can mean relying on
the federal flood insurance program, local building ordinances, and
banks and private insurance companies to exert influence on those
rebuilding decisions, he said.



--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

enigma wrote:
"-L." wrote in
oups.com:

I feel sorry for the poor kids who feel they have no hope
in the world, other than to join the military. But they
make a conscious decision to join an "evil machine" the
main purpose of which is death an destruction. There has
to be some underlying morality (or lack thereof) there that
allows them to make that decision. I know there are a lot
of kids in the military who don't support this assinine
war. But they stay. They have other choices.

there is occaisionally a need for military force. WWII is a
good example. if it were not for the military, who would have
stopped that genocide? (which brings to mind the genocide in
Africa that Bush is also playing see no evil with...) so one
cannot condemn the military out of hand.
most people who joined the Guard did so because they thought
it was an easy way to get a college education. they were
(rightly) not expecting to be shipped off overseas for combat,
after all they are *meant* to be state milita, to serve at
home in times of crisis.
once one joins the military, one *does not* have a choice
about staying. either you serve your term (and the x years
following) or you go to jail. that is that.

I know there are ways out of it, I've seen people leave.
Sometimes it's from a medical condition for the military
person or a family member. Other times, it just doesn't work
out. But, for the most part, when a person signs a contract
to work for a certain amount of time, they need to follow
the contract, military or civilian.

Barb - Proud Navy Mom (and proud mom to 2 others)

PattyMomVA wrote:
"BarbL" wrote and I snipped:
-Patty, mom of 1+2
Could you explain that, please? It's been a few years since I've been on
the newsgroups, so I might not know all the newer terms. What does it mean
being a mom of 1+2? Thanks.

It's not a common term. It's my own shorthand to indicate that I have one
stepchild and two biological children. Since I spend most of my time on
m.k.breastfeeding and m.k.pregnancy, I've felt that the distinction was
important. After all, I gave birth to and breastfed only 2 of my 3
children.

Ah, thanks for the explanation! It makes sense once explained.

Interestingly, you're the first person ever to ask me about it. I've always
thought that most readers didn't know and didn't care.

I used to be a regular, but then changed services, and had
to figure out how to get back on, so I don't know how long
you've been posting with that. I figured that everyone else
understood it.

Barb - Proud Navy Mom (and proud mom to 2 others)

BarbL aBarbL@comcastdotnet wrote in
:

I know there are ways out of it, I've seen people leave.
Sometimes it's from a medical condition for the military
person or a family member. Other times, it just doesn't
work out. But, for the most part, when a person signs a
contract to work for a certain amount of time, they need to
follow the contract, military or civilian.

actually, the contract is a good point. a lot of people
joining the regular service (i'm not sure if the Guard has
contracts. Nan, do you know?) do NOT know that they have a
choice of what they learn & do in the service.
if, for example, you join the Army & sign your contract
stating you will be assigned to Medical Corps after basic, and
then the Army decides they will put you in a paratrooper
division, you can ask for, & recieve, an honorable discharge
on the grounds that *they* are breaking your contract.
lee
--
Question with boldness even the existence of god; because if
there be
one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of
blindfolded
fear. - Thomas Jefferson

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:15:26 +0000 (UTC), enigma
wrote:

actually, the contract is a good point. a lot of people
joining the regular service (i'm not sure if the Guard has
contracts. Nan, do you know?) do NOT know that they have a
choice of what they learn & do in the service.
if, for example, you join the Army & sign your contract
stating you will be assigned to Medical Corps after basic, and
then the Army decides they will put you in a paratrooper
division, you can ask for, & recieve, an honorable discharge
on the grounds that *they* are breaking your contract.
lee

I'd have to ask ds about that. I know anyone entering basic training
needs to choose their MOS (Military Occupation Specialty), so I don't
believe you're correct that they don't know they have a choice. After
basic, the AIT is specialized towards their MOS, and which base they
get assigned to, depends on the MOS they've chosen.

Nan

enigma wrote:
BarbL aBarbL@comcastdotnet wrote in
:

I know there are ways out of it, I've seen people leave.
Sometimes it's from a medical condition for the military
person or a family member. Other times, it just doesn't
work out. But, for the most part, when a person signs a
contract to work for a certain amount of time, they need to
follow the contract, military or civilian.

actually, the contract is a good point. a lot of people
joining the regular service (i'm not sure if the Guard has
contracts. Nan, do you know?) do NOT know that they have a
choice of what they learn & do in the service.
if, for example, you join the Army & sign your contract
stating you will be assigned to Medical Corps after basic, and
then the Army decides they will put you in a paratrooper
division, you can ask for, & recieve, an honorable discharge
on the grounds that *they* are breaking your contract.

I don't know how common it is for the military to make such
a drastic change. There is a lot of training for some
fields. Some people join knowing what job, or type of job
they want to train for, and others go in, and get all kinds
of testing to see what they will do, what they have natural
abilities for, etc.

I only know about that from the Navy and Air Force views, as
I asked a lot of questions there. I don't know about the
other branches, but I think it would definitely depend on
how specialized a person's training is. Another factor in
choosing is the grades the person gets.

Both my husband and my daughter fix/ed specific airplanes.
The way my daughter got this airplane is by going through a
book that lists where the different kind of aircraft are.
She chose the base that has the kind of airplane she wanted
to be trained for. Her friend who joined when she did chose
to be a chef, and is working in the base that she chose.


Barb, Proud Navy Mom (and proud mom to 2 others)

Nan wrote in
:

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:15:26 +0000 (UTC), enigma
wrote:

actually, the contract is a good point. a lot of people
joining the regular service (i'm not sure if the Guard has
contracts. Nan, do you know?) do NOT know that they have a
choice of what they learn & do in the service.
if, for example, you join the Army & sign your contract
stating you will be assigned to Medical Corps after basic,
and then the Army decides they will put you in a
paratrooper division, you can ask for, & recieve, an
honorable discharge on the grounds that *they* are breaking
your contract. lee

I'd have to ask ds about that. I know anyone entering
basic training needs to choose their MOS (Military
Occupation Specialty), so I don't believe you're correct
that they don't know they have a choice. After basic, the
AIT is specialized towards their MOS, and which base they
get assigned to, depends on the MOS they've chosen.

well, i think it isn't obviously pointed out that if the MOS
isn't adheared to, the recruit has the option to ask for &
receive an honorable discharge.
i had a friend that joined the Army & signed for medical
training (& a German base). after basic he was told he was
going to be placed in a paratrooper squadron instead. since he
is afraid of both enclosed spaces & heights, he disagreed...

lee
--
Question with boldness even the existence of god; because if
there be
one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of
blindfolded
fear. - Thomas Jefferson

On Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:55:08 +0000 (UTC), enigma
wrote:

Nan wrote
I'd have to ask ds about that. I know anyone entering
basic training needs to choose their MOS (Military
Occupation Specialty), so I don't believe you're correct
that they don't know they have a choice. After basic, the
AIT is specialized towards their MOS, and which base they
get assigned to, depends on the MOS they've chosen.

well, i think it isn't obviously pointed out that if the MOS
isn't adheared to, the recruit has the option to ask for &
receive an honorable discharge.
i had a friend that joined the Army & signed for medical
training (& a German base). after basic he was told he was
going to be placed in a paratrooper squadron instead. since he
is afraid of both enclosed spaces & heights, he disagreed...

lee

I agree with you on that, I'm just not sure how often it happens
currently.

Nan