A WHILE BACK, I mentioned the idiocy of FEMA requiring firefighters to take sexual harassment training before being sent to New Orleans. Now John Derbyshire has what appears to be the curriculum for FEMA volunteer training. Whatever you think of this in the abstract, it seems awfully dumb to be putting people through this stuff when there’s an actual, ongoing disaster.

UPDATE: Reader Don Fleming emails: “Is there a firefighter who has been on the job longer than a month anywhere in this country who hasn’t already had the diversity training?” Seems unlikely to me.

Derbyshire’s curriculum is satire. Sadly, I had to read it twice to be sure.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader who requests anonymity says that it’s not that much of a satire:

Sadly John Derbyshire isn’t far wrong. It’s called “Cultural Awareness” and is required before you can deploy. Anyone that wants to deploy in any FEMA team has to take required training BEFORE becoming “deployable”. USAR, DMAT, DMORT, VMAT, it doesn’t matter. Cultural awareness is only one module. Sadly, most of the training is a waste of time. For example, doctors have to take basic classes in first aid.

Some of the training is helpful, such as how to set up equipment, but it makes more sense to do this in field training exercises than in on line sessions.

If you chose to mention this, please don’t attribute it to me.

I think that we could skip the sexual harassment stuff when there’s an actual disaster underway.