1978: Orlando, Fla. -- home of Mickey Mouse and Disney World.
And also the home of the most unfortunately monikered radio station in the history of the world, BJ-105.
NO, you don't.Osborne, who has advised dozens of cities on streamlining efforts, said Thursday that New Orleans faces myriad, deep-seated problems, the likes of which he has never encountered.
"I was kind of shocked," said Osborne, who served as a senior adviser to then-Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review initiative. "I think they inherited the least competent city government I'd ever seen in this country and the most corrupt -- a really tough experience. I just haven't run into this level of dysfunction before, and I've been doing this work for almost 25 years."
(snip)Other observations about city operations included poor customer service, a focus on relationships rather than results, centralized authority that gives little power to rank-and-file employees, contracting and internal workforce systems that lack rewards and penalties, unnecessarily complex purchasing procedures, a fragmentation of city services among independent boards, and poor working conditions and equipment.
"These people, they feel hopeless," Osborne said of morale among city employees. "It's drinking from a fire hydrant. There's so much work coming at them, and they can't keep up with it, and a lot of it is paper rather than automated. And then there's skill issues: secretaries that can't type. I mean, stuff that you just don't see other places."
An Iowa hospital working to stop the spread of a bed bug infestation was forced to limit access to care in its psychiatric unit for three days after the insects were discovered in two patients’ rooms, hospital officials said.REMEMBER, FOLKS, I don't make this stuff up. I just find it, have a good chuckle and pass it along.Officials at Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, a public hospital that serves Polk County, said workers discovered bed bugs in a room during a routine cleaning in early February.
The hospital hired Ecolab, a pest control company, to eradicate the room of the tiny parasites that feed on human blood and spray two adjacent rooms as a precaution.
More bed bugs were later discovered in another room, and the hospital decided to shut down that hallway and several rooms for spraying and cleaning to stop the spread, said Vincent Mandracchia, Broadlawns’ chief medical officer.
“Bed bugs noted during treatment,” reads an invoice from Ecolab, one of four the hospital paid between Feb. 8 and Feb. 28 totaling $550 and released to the Associated Press. “All activity that was found was treated and inspected.”
The three-day process meant the hospital’s mental health and psychiatric center, which normally houses 26, was forced to stop admitting patients. On Feb. 21 and Feb. 22, the patient count dropped to a low of 16, rose to 18 on Feb. 23 and then went back up to capacity after all rooms were reopened, Mandracchia said.
The idea that religious charities are doing amazing work is a fallacy. They often care for others to convert them to their dogma first and their compassion comes second if ever at all.YOU CERTAINLY can't say that Gonzalez isn't all about unencumbered tenderness (unless, of course, you happen to have a dogma he and his find offensive -- then you get done up as Hitler or get nasty slogans thrown at you). And you certainly can't say he and his aren't all about talking about alleviating suffering.
"But they, the doctors, were good fellows and they had their reasons.
"The reasons were quite plausible.
"I observed some of you.
"But do you know what you are doing?
"I observe a benevolent feeling here.
"There is also tenderness.
"At the bedside of some children this morning I observed you shed tears. On television.
"Do you know where tenderness leads?"
Pause.
"Tenderness leads to the gas chamber." . . .
"Never in the history of the world have there been so many civilized tenderhearted souls as have lived in this century.
"Never in the history of the world have so many people been killed.
"More people have been killed in this century by tenderhearted souls than by cruel barbarians in all other centuries put together."
Pause.
"My brothers, let me tell you where tenderness leads."
A longer pause.
"To the gas chambers! On with the jets!"
Hello, everybody, this is your action news reporter with all the news that is news across the nation, on the scene at the 1974 Academy Awards. There seems to have been some disturbance here. Pardon me, sir, did you see what happened?
"Yeah, I did. I's standin' overe there by the paparazzi, and here he come, running across the stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, behind David Niven, nekkid as a jay bird. And I hollered over t' Ethel, I said, 'Don't look, Ethel!' But it's too late, she'd already been incensed."
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said it has been a "dreadful day" for rescue teams, and that about 75% of the city had now been covered by searchers on Thursday.
However, no survivor has been pulled from the wreckage of collapsed buildings, including the CTV and Pyne Gould buildings, since Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Parker says rumours of survivors being found alive in rubble on Thursday are not true. The search and rescue operation is happening in a "pressure cooker environment" and it easy for onlookers to get false hope, he says.
More search and rescue crews are due to arrive from overseas on Thursday night joining teams already working from Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Australia. The operation will continue overnight on Thursday, he says.
Prime Minister John Key said on Thursday there are no survivors from the CTV building. Work had resumed there earlier on Thursday after there were concerns that the nearby Hotel Grand Chancellor might collapse.
Police estimate up to 120 people were in the devastated building which housed a language school, a regional television station and a nursing school.
The language school, Kings Education, said on Thursday it feared nine staff and 37 students students remained inside. A further 35 students are unaccounted for. The school has students enrolled from Japan, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Korea and Saudi Arabia.
One of Ms Giles' daughters, Olivia Giles, said her family was pulling together to cope. "We're all supporting each other and still all hopeful. The main focus is just Mum."
Ms Giles' son James Gin said conflicting information yesterday about the chances of his mother surviving made it tough.
"We hear there were 15 people alive which was amazing, then within 10 minutes we find out that was false. To be honest I don't know what to think. Of course we hope we see our mum again."
His wife, Cindy Gibb, struggled to accept the news that there was no hope left of her husband coming out of the collapsed CTV building alive.THE EARTH SHOOK under Christchurch on Tuesday. Technically, experts say, it was just an aftershock from last fall.
"I don't know anything else. I just need my husband back," she told the Herald.
"I'm too young for this to happen. It's not supposed to happen like this. Sam's just the best person in the world."