[lbo-talk] what a country

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri May 8 11:28:30 PDT 2009


On Fri, 8 May 2009, Doug Henwood quoted the NYT:


> <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/us/08trailer.html>

I sent it to my friend Mado who was born in Alsace during WWII, and she wrote back an interesting comparison:

<begin quote>


> Nonetheless, FEMA wants its trailers back, even though it plans to scrap
> or sell them for a fraction of what it paid for them.


> "All I can say is that this is a temporary program, it was always
> intended as a temporary program, and at a certain point all temporary
> programs must end," said Brent Colburn, the agency's director of
> external affairs. He said there would be no extensions.

Back home in Colmar [in Alsace] there is whole neighborhood of "Canadian Houses" (Les Canadiennes), trailers which were originally set up as part of the Marshall Plan of reconstruction... they too were intended to be temporary, as were the many such neighborhods dating back to that period... their extension past the cut-off point was never questioned... giving rise to a new French proverb

"Il n'y a que le provisoire qui dure" (only the "provisional" lasts ...

<end quote>

This is really brutal. I'm willing to bet 20 bucks that poor fellow in the picture gets to keep his trailer, though. Nothing like a picture story in the NYT to get bureaucrats hoppin. I'll even go so far as to bet we see a follow-on story about the reversal within 2 weeks.

Michael



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