Most of my time lately is still spent getting used to my two new knees, but I keep watch on matters bureaucratic when I have the opportunity between the day job and rehab sessions.  Now having the time for a post, I find I do have a problem with deciding which stories to focus on, among the never-ending options out there.

Less common than stories to choose from, however, are accounts of those stories that are at once as moving and incisive as today’s Huffington Post piece by Erin Brockovich and Robin Greenwald about the TVA disaster.  Here’s the cost of bureaucratic incompetence, or bureaucratic indifference, and certainly lack of bureaucratic oversight, shown in sharp relief.  It’s today’s Katrina, or the Minnesota bridge collapse, or Crandall Canyon mining disaster.  The destruction is as thorough and avoidable as in all those other cases, however much the scale differs from one headline to the next.

Here’s to the people affected in Tennessee receiving the attention and help Brockovich and Greenwald advocate for.  And here’s to the leaders who can make the changes in bureaucracies to prevent such things taking the initiative to make those changes.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen