general three meanings of the word ‘order’

According to CNN, Louisiana Governor Blanco said yesterday: “We have to get order so that we can proceed with the orderly progression, with getting people out of there, and that is our first order of the day.”

In other news, they found Fats Domino. It’s one thing to hear that Trent Lott’s house in Pascagoula was wrecked, or that Ellen DeGeneres’s aunt lost hers, but if you help invent rock and roll, and you still get stuck in your house and have to be evacuated by boat, something’s wrong with the world.

This story:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.fema.brown/index.html

refers to a couple of interviews Paula Zahn did that I happened to catch live on CNN early Thursday evening, before I gave up and watched Buffy for a few hours. The online story makes the FEMA guy sound much less defensive, and the Louisiana senator much less accusatory, than they actually were. Brown actually said FEMA didn’t know about the people at the convention center “until today” (meaning Thursday), and Paula Zahn basically called bullshit on that (“Sir, you can’t possibly be telling me you didn’t know…” and so on). Then she asked Sen. Landrieu how high the death toll might go, and I guess the satellite feed/delay messed up the question, because the senator talked for a good two minutes about how high gas prices were likely to go. It was embarrassing for all involved and made me wince to watch, especially once she was asked again and realized she’d answered a different and far lesser question.

I will stop rambling about the news soon. The thing is, I’m temping this week, and I have very little to do. I would have more, but I work much, much faster than they apparently expected I would, so yesterday and today have involved a good deal of sitting around. I have an internet connection (obviously) but on another company’s time and on their computer I’m not comfortable doing much more than going to news sites or my webmail. So that’s why so much CNN. I’m sorry.

Edited to add:

In the Netherlands, much of which lies below sea level as in New Orleans, there was some consternation that the Louisiana city was so poorly prepared, AP reported.

The nation installed massive hydraulic sea walls known as the Delta Works after devastating floods in 1953.

“I don’t want to sound overly critical, but it’s hard to imagine that [the damage caused by Katrina] could happen in a Western country,” Ted Sluijter, press spokesman for Neeltje Jans, the public park where the Delta Works are exhibited, was reported as saying by AP.

“It seemed like plans for protection and evacuation weren’t really in place, and once it happened, the coordination” was poor.