The Obama administration announced on Monday that it would set aside disaster funds for "mega-fires" across the western states which, like California, are experiencing drought.
The main resistance to Mr. Cuomo's plan is likely to come from conservative lawmakers, who have already begun to indicate an unwillingness to approve additional disaster relief spending — at least not until an existing pot of money set aside for disasters is exhausted.
And leaving aside the disasters of colonialism, war and totalitarianism of the last two centuries, the nation building projects of liberal democracies can hardly be read as uniquely progressive philosophies.
The costs are a lot less than the $150 million that Gov. Jay Nixon set aside for disaster aid in 2011.
The city's early history is studded with events in which distinctions of wealth and race were swept aside by disaster.
But already, Republicans on the Hill are voicing skepticism about whether Washington can fully meet New York's plea for help beyond the $20 billion already set aside for disaster relief for the city and state.
Setting aside epic disaster-movie moments such as volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes, there are two key natural factors that can make a city vulnerable to gradual disintegration, or even total disappearance – water and sand.
Another aide to a Republican House leader said that allocating much beyond the $20 billion already set aside for disaster relief for New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania was going to be extremely difficult.
But, setting aside the disaster of Old Testament proportions that is Sub-Saharan Africa, it seems that not all hope is lost: the new US administration has recently restructured its global AIDS policy along Dr. Pisani's book, and UNAIDS the agency that Dr. Pisani herself worked in for 15 years—has finally embraced these concepts as an informal new "mission statement".
Disasters aside, branch libraries are a safe and equitable bet on our social and economic health.
