Tuesday, September 06, 2005

An unhappy number?

I was browsing through the web pages of CNN and I came across yet another story of a government official making a statement about the disaster in the south. Take a look at this:

Speaking in Baton Rouge on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned the body recovery process would be "very difficult" and said it would take some time before officials would have a reliable death toll.

"It's going to be an unhappy number," he added.



"An unhappy number", he says. IS there a number of deceased in a situation like this that is HAPPY?
I know everyone has their opinion about whose fault this is, how it could have been avoided, what to do now and so on. I accept that people feel the need to have their opinions heard. What I don't accept is reading a statement made by a seemingly intelligent human being suddenly stuck in the "stupid zone". Comments made that are so off-the-charts stupid, that one has to ask themselves how this person got as far as they have in life.

4 comments:

Handy Home-dweller said...

Amen.

People are dumb.

GUYK said...

Andi, no number is a happy number when it comes to deaths. One of the things that we have to learn to deal with though is a concept called acceptable losses. I don't like it but it is reality. I learned when planning tactital combat moves that there are going to be losses. The idea is to minimize them as much as possible.
This was not done in New Orleans.There is a lot of blame to go around and most of it was politics. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered at the local levels though before the finger is pointed on up.

Keep in mind that it has been the liberal left that has been protesting against national guard recruitment in the schools and colleges-yet they are the first one to blame the federal government for not sending in the very national guard they protest against? This was a case of the left protecting their own and finger pointing to the president for not doing enough. Even the national media is starting to recognize this and was on the national NBC news tonight.

Yes, it will be an unhappy number. We only lost eleven in Florida-all of which could have been avoided if the people has obeyed the simple rule of staying indoors. Terrible but acceptable losses.

Andi said...

I know you have quite a different past than I can even imagine of. I know you were trained to understand the difference between acceptable and unacceptable losses. I wish I could think that way. Unfortunately, I still feel that any loss in a situation like this one is unacceptable. I just found it very hard to believe that someone in the office of Homeland Security Secretary would make such a moronic comment as "it will be an unhappy number". OF COURSE IT WILL!

Some people's children

GUYK said...

Yes. I reckon it was a bad choice of words but I am sure it was not said to offend but to try to warn that the losses were going to be horible. And, that is the way I took it.