"Knowing how to select the best candidate for a job is a science and an art and reflects on the intellect of the selector, no?"
That's a stretch for Ed. More accurately, it was obvious that your niece was the best candidate and he simply got lucky. I tend to believe anyone else would have spotted you niece and her talents also.
Here's one of the things about making decisions, especially when you are elected to make them. When you make a decision, you won't know if it's the right one until the results are seen. If the storm would have passed and spared the city, there would be no criticism of Nagin or Blanco. No one would have said "Look, their lack of action almost got our city destroyed." The decision would have been the same one they DID make (not acting responsibly for citizens) but the consequences would not have been devastation for them.
Since the consequences of not responding immediately to secure the safety and welfare of people resulted in massive destruction and loss of lives, their decision to NOT act immediately sets them up for reproof. Now we know it was a wrong choice. Apparently they went through a few token motions a little too late.
And I can also imagine the criticism if they HAD acted and responded *appropriately* and then the hurricane passed by LA/MS/AL without doing all the damage. I'm thinking we'd hear "What a waste of time and money - why bother with evacuation procedures when we've never been hit before?" and "Geez, they get scared over nothing" and "Gosh, what would they have done if this had been the real thing?" and finally "They're going to call 'Wolf' one too many times and then where will we be?"
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I'll be sending it around to quite a few of my friends and family!
That's a stretch for Ed. More accurately, it was obvious that your niece was the best candidate and he simply got lucky. I tend to believe anyone else would have spotted you niece and her talents also.
Since the consequences of not responding immediately to secure the safety and welfare of people resulted in massive destruction and loss of lives, their decision to NOT act immediately sets them up for reproof. Now we know it was a wrong choice. Apparently they went through a few token motions a little too late.
And I can also imagine the criticism if they HAD acted and responded *appropriately* and then the hurricane passed by LA/MS/AL without doing all the damage. I'm thinking we'd hear "What a waste of time and money - why bother with evacuation procedures when we've never been hit before?" and "Geez, they get scared over nothing" and "Gosh, what would they have done if this had been the real thing?" and finally "They're going to call 'Wolf' one too many times and then where will we be?"