| Why
Not Disney?
Your editorial on
the last page of the October 2005 Sourcebook was spot on for
the requirement that the rebuilding of New Orleans "Requires
Vision." My vision, however, is somewhat counter to yours,
particularly when you mention that a Disney-like environment
would be an unhappy outcome. New Orleans is unsupportable
as a normal city. What engineer would design a structure that
was doomed to fail before the first foundation was poured?
My vision would turn New Orleans
into a theme park. In fact, who better to be the construction
managers and operators than Disney? Their track record in
central Florida is impressive. They seem to be able to build
cost-effective housing and recreation areas, coupled with
the necessary infrastructure and transportation networks.
It’s certainly a better option than giving $200 billion
federal tax dollars haphazardly to local and state governments
that haven’t a clue as to a vision.
Stick to Engineering
Incredulous. That’s
the word I think best describes my feelings after I read this
editorial, "Some Disasters Are Real and Ready to Roll"
(ENR 9/12 p. 52.) The reason is that I have come to expect
that one of our leading professional engineering information
sources will, as it has done so well in the past, use its
editorial might to focus key engineering issues for the community’s
contemplation and action.
Instead, this tome left me thinking
that I was reading a weekly political rag on a subject not
within the professional expertise of its author or that I
had been listening to some left-wing professor talking liberal
ideas and nasty politics at some aloof academic institution.
I found particularly disconcerting
the use of hyperbole such as we often see in the liberal media.
What right do you have to tell us [in your opinion] the response
was a "political disaster of Biblical proportions,"
or that there has been "pathetic or miserly funding of
flood defenses?"
You question the competency of
decision makers, yet you leave them un-named. You also say
they have been short-sighted in their investment strategy.
Who are these terrible and short-sighted people and at which
level of government? What are your qualifications (as a sociologist)
to render such an opinion in the context of race or economics?
Your final and most infuriating
statement suggests that the U.S. investment in regime change
in Iraq was foolish, implying that we would better have spent
the money on our own infrastructure. Just as you don’t
look to your doctor for professional advise on non-health
related problems, we readers don’t look to you to render
an opinion about how the federal government spends its money
overseas on matters of national security, and I’m sure
most of your readers won’t look to you for insights on
sociology.
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