From the Failing Up Dept.: Seems that Michael “Brownie” Brown has been given his own three-hour evening talk show on KOA radio in Denver, which seems to be the Mile-High City’s version of WWL-AM minus some of the Hebert-Deke-DelGiornoisms.

But why Brownie? Let’s ask Clear Channel honcho Kris Olinger:

Regarding the notoriety Brown earned from his Katrina actions, Olinger says, “I think it’s a definite positive. He has great insight into what happened in New Orleans and how government works. He takes responsibility where he needs to, but he’s also pretty candid about other things that went wrong. I think people get the inside story from him.”

And here’s Brownie showing how he takes responsibility later in the same story:

“People get beaten up and thrown under the bus all the time,” he notes. “You’ve got the choice of letting the bus run over you three times, and wallowing in that, or getting up and moving. And my choice was to get up and keep moving.”

If your radio doesn’t pick up signals from Denver, you’ll have to wait until June, when Brownie’s book Deadly Indifference: Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, Disease Pandemics and the Failed Politics of Disasters hits bookshelves. And if you’re shaking your head that Michael “FEMA” Brown would actually have the temerity or boneheadedness to write a Katrina book called Deadly Indifference, you don’t know Brownie.

As we wrap up a weekend of remembering the hurricane and the federal floods, Michael Brown is cashing in on his disaster expertise…

On the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Alliance of Hazardous Materials Professionals is holding its convention, featuring . . . Michael Brown, the FEMA director forced out of his job for his weak response to the hurricane.

“There are a lot of lessons learned — whether he did them right or wrong — that our people need to hear,” said Cedric Calhoun, group’s executive director.

Brown is getting $10,000 for his appearance at the three-day San Diego convention that begins Sunday, and Calhoun expects some “yelling and screaming.”

Whole story here. Heckuva job, Alliance of Hazardous Materials Professionals.

What to look for in this week’s Gambit (in newsracks tomorrow and online Monday)? A few things:

• In our cover story, “Bonanza of Bills,” Jeremy Alford snoops around Baton Rouge and examines a few bills that have been flying under the radar while the legislature grapples with the upcoming budget shortfall (currently estimated at eleventy-five gazillion dollars, more or less)….

• David Winkler-Schmit looks at the delicate dance that Louisiana’s gay and lesbian adoptive parents must perform in “The Gay Parent Trap.” Under the proposed House Bill 60, unmarried couples (either same- or opposite-sex) would not be able to list both partners on the birth certificates, and on Thursday the N.O. City Council issued a unanimous condemnation of the proposal. (Councilman Arnie Fielkow, an adoptive parent himself, had some particularly strong thoughts.)

• After a 10-year absence from the bookshelves, writer J.M. Redmann is back with Death of a Dying Man, her fifth mystery featuring P.I. Micky Knight. She’ll be talking Micky at this weekend’s Saints & Sinners Literary Festival….

• Clancy DuBos has a few pointed words about Hizzoner C. Ray Nagin and his memory problems in a column called “The Blur”….

• …and in Commentary, we have a few more words for David Vitter’s foot-dragging when it comes to confirming the eminently qualified Craig Fugate as the nation’s new FEMA director: Knock. It. Off.

Hey — in all the hubbub of putting out the paper, we sometimes forget to say thanks to our readers, who are the entire reason we do this, week after week. So, if you’re reading this: thank you for reading, thanks for your letters and comments on the blog (and keeping them so smart and civil), and thanks for being here. Summer’s almost here, and we’ll get through it, together.

I can’t imagine why anyone in the world would solicit Michael “Heckuva Job” Brown’s opinion on anything more weighty than “white or wheat?,” but it seems that Neil Cavuto saw fit to give him airtime to pontificate on the current administration’s response to swine flu:

I think there’s one thing they’re legitimately worried about, and that is this H1N1 is a new strain we haven’t seen before — so we’re not sure how Tamiflu and everything will work against it. Here’s what I really think is going on: I think they want to raise this level because that gives them more attention, it gives them more, you know, more legitimacy, and allows them to get out there and say ‘Oh look at us, we’re in control, we’ve got this thing taken care of.’

Because God knows Brownie himself would never want to appear in control of a bad situation, much less get out ahead of it.

BROWNIE: SHUT UP. GO AWAY.

It’s a testament to the depth of feeling we all have for Michael “Heckuvajob” Brown that three of us here raced to the blog to share the news that he had to be evacuated due to the wildfires outside Boulder.

Brownie’s okay, but he’s sleeping on a friend’s couch at the moment. Won’t you sign his card in the comments?

Courtesy of Wonkette, former Arabian horse association president and FEMA director Michael Brown is caught up in another disaster. Thankfully, he was evacuated on time. But his nose for disaster is almost biblical in nature. The Colorado Independent has the story. On a side note, the story mentions the figure of Hurricane Katrina causing $81 billion in damages. Too bad Katrina couldn’t wait. That’s just the ante for what the federal government now drops on failing financial institutions (Lehman Bros. excluded) that are victims not of nature, but of their own bad management.

Via Clay at Nola-dishu:

Ex-FEMA head Brown evacuated in Boulder wildfire

Hurricane Katrina victims take note. Michael Brown is safe.

A series of wind-whipped wildfires north of Boulder, Colo., have forced the evacuation of more than 11,500 residents — among them vilified ex-Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown.

Here’s Brownie discussing the horrifying ordeal, which ends with Brownie sleeping not in a trailer for 3 years…but on a friend’s couch. “We hope you can get some rest!” says the concerned interviewer to Brownie.

“No worries on that count!” thinks New Orleans.

The headline reads: Ex-FEMA head Brown evacuated in Boulder wildfire

And it’s not even from The Onion.

There has to be a way to insert this into every English dictionary under the word ‘irony’. There just has to. Heck of a job, cosmos.