« A nursing home consultant responds | Ragged Edge Home | The ECBloggerArchives Home | Feeding problems »

September 12, 2005

The September S.N A.K.E.

From the Unintentional (surely!) Self-Parody Department: An email from the National Organization on Disability tells us the group

received authorization to deploy four
rapid assessment teams consisting of nationally recognized special needs
emergency management practitioners into the Gulf region impacted by
Hurricane Katrina.

They're calling these the -- I am not making this up -- the S.N.A.K.E. Team.

Surely they could have come up with a better acronym to identify people heading into storm-ravaged subtropical flooded swampy areas of our nation than ... S.N.A.K.E.. Or maybe not. Maybe they thought it appropriate. Or humorous. Or maybe they didn't think about it at all.

When you go to the NOD webpage their email directs you to, you find an ad sponsored by the Ad Council -- telling us that "September is National Preparedness Month."
No, I am not making this one up, either. I don't believe I could.
COMMENT-AUTHOR:Stephen Drake
COMMENT-DATE:9/12/2005
COMMENT-BODY:Mary,

I'll do you one better. The website of the Dept. of Homeland Security (www.ready.gov) is running the same ad on its site!

Do they really want to remind people they were focussing extra-hard on preparedness this month?
COMMENT-AUTHOR:Anonymous
COMMENT-DATE:9/13/2005
COMMENT-BODY:Well you could think of a SNAKE as a creature that may be able to travel into places that are considered difficult to access...
COMMENT-AUTHOR:Mary Johnson
COMMENT-DATE:9/14/2005
COMMENT-BODY:. . . yeah -- and bite people! Sorry, but the public image of The Snake, deservedly or not, hasn't yet been rehabbed to the point where folks will see the acronym S.N.A.K.E. and think anything but bad thoughts. I wish it were different. I like snakes myself. (And there's always Echidne.)
--------

Posted by mjohnson at September 12, 2005 10:38 AM