This morning, on ABC's "Good Morning America" there was a short interview with Bernadine Healy, in which she took the position that donations to the American Red Cross were never intended to be earmarked specifically for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their families. The interviewer (Diane Sawyer) showed a donation form for the terrorist victims in which the small print at the bottom says the funds were to go toward victims of this and other disasters. Healy denied that there was anything deceptive about that. She deflected questions about the donaters' dissatisfaction wih the way their money is being handled, and repeatedly emphasized that the Red Cross's purpose in using the money accumulated is to be ready for the next disaster or attack. So Healy doesn't seem to be the 9/11 victims' advocate after all.

As far as the NYC firefighters' status as folk heroes is concerned, I feel I must say this: immediately after the WTC collapse, there were complaints from some survivors that the firemen going up the stairs of the towers were blocking the way of the people coming down, which may have prevented more from escaping, but those sound bites were very quickly squelched in favor of the folk-hero rhetoric. There's no question that people who run into a burning building are brave and heroic, but I do hope that all firefighters take a lesson from this disaster and formulate better evacuation-and-rescue plans in the event of a skyscraper fire, so that fewer lives will be lost if such a catastrophe occurs in the future.

GUEST: When I said that the NYC firefighter protest turned into a "minor tiff", I meant that it wasn't a riot. No one was killed or seriously injured. That's what I meant by "minor". DougR used the term, too. Yes, the donnybrook is indicative of deeper problems between NYC firefighters and NYC police, and within the city government, and those problems should be addressed before there is a riot. But Friday's incident, in and of itself, was not an all-out brawl.

BTW, I find it interesting that the NYC firefighters are considered heroes but the police, who also put their lives on the line and lost many that day, are somehow less heroic. Where's Tom Paxton's song about them?