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Feature Article #1

Open Records blog on transparency pros and cons

So nice to come across someone else’s post that’s about one of the things on my list of topics to get to. Open Records is a blog I’ve mentioned before.

Deborah Alicen | June 21st, 2010 | Continued

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Feature Article #2

More moves toward transparency and accountability

So the news is still full of bad stuff, but I detect a change in people’s reactions to the bad stuff, in that calls for transparency and accountability keep mounting.

Deborah Alicen | June 15th, 2010 | Continued

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Feature Article #3

Of Gladiators and Children

One of my avocations is archeology. I’ve never been on an archeological dig (yet), but I like reading about them and their discoveries, and the stories they suggest about the people who lived once upon a time.

Deborah Alicen | June 8th, 2010 | Continued

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Feature Article #4

The reason why Justice hasn’t acted on Siegelman?

Here’s that one little piece of information that starts dispersing the fog around the matter of Justice’s inaction: the involvement of someone very close to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Deborah Alicen | May 20th, 2010 | Continued

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Feature Article #5

Bob Schieffer on Church Bureaucracy

To follow up on yesterday’s post, here’s a great commentary by CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Catholic Church bureaucracy and the pedophile priest scandal.

Deborah Alicen | April 4th, 2010 | Continued

About this Site

I am a scholar activist, organizer, and consultant to businesses, organizations and individuals focused on increasing effectiveness by achieving transparency and accountability in bureaucracies, whether in the public or private sector. Following a first career as a television producer/director, I went back to grad school in psychology and spent 20 years in private practice. My [...]

Other Recent Articles

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They may as well be Martians: what the Vatican doesn’t get

To date, every time a Vatican spokesman or other defender of the Pope opens his mouth, what comes out is a clear demonstration of how much they do not comprehend about the experience of sexual abuse; and, more to the point, how little they attend to what’s necessary for healing from sexual abuse.

3Apr2010 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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“Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”

President Obama’s appearance yesterday in Baltimore with Republican House members was certainly a stunning event, not least in that it seems to have left some Republicans stunned as to why they allowed it to be televised live.  Obama seized the opportunity to lay out the biggest problem that accompanies demonizing the opposing party—members of opposing [...]

30Jan2010 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Cigna: “That’s just the way it is;” but not if Dawn can help it

Every now and then a bureaucracy finds out that they’ve messed with the wrong person, and now it’s Cigna’s turn to find out they shouldn’t have messed with Dawn Smith.

2Oct2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Protect Insurance Companies PSA

MoveOn.org has released a new “insurance company public service announcement” featuring Will Ferrell.  This one competes for top spot along with the Insurance Company Rules video.  Here’s the new one–check it out and then look at the old one for an additional dose of hoot: Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

22Sep2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Crystal Lee Sutton, “Norma Rae” dies after denied timely care by insurance company

Crystal Lee Sutton, whose labor organizing efforts inspired the movie Norma Rae, died September 11 in North Carolina at age 68.

14Sep2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Gang of Six and Battered Woman Syndrome

Why, oh, why, has the Gang of Six–the six Senators working on the Senate Finance Committee’s version of a health insurance reform bill–why on earth, why in heaven’s named, would they do anything (as they have) to accommodate him and his wingnuts?!?

Battered Woman Syndrome.

11Sep2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Heartbreak and horror, knee-jerks and demonizing

Late night channel surfing can lead one into all sorts of unfamiliar territory. It has led me to writing this.

31Aug2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Another corporate snafu–Tracfone false advertising? Updated

I’m not someone who needs all the latest electronic toys. Only once did I do a 30-day trial of an upper tier cell phone plan. All the little extra charges made me faint, so I ditched that for a Tracfone.

1Aug2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Revisiting Australia–Updated

Oh, would that I were getting on a plane to actually fly to Australia! Alas, this is instead a revisiting of the subject of Australia and its bureaucracies.

30Jul2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Catamount Health flub up

Vermont’s Catamount health insurance option is truly a wonderful thing for many people who would otherwise have no health coverage. And I haven’t heard any horror stories about them such as one reads about private insurance companies refusing to pay for medical treatment for people who’ve paid in their premiums faithfully.

29Jul2009 | Deborah Alicen | 1 comment | Continued
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Amazon and 1984–a lovely bit of irony

Here’s one about corporate bureaucracy. You may have seen or heard something about Amazon having angered some owners of Kindle, Amazon’s ebook reader. Amazon deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984…

28Jul2009 | Deborah Alicen | 1 comment | Continued
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“There’s a dynamic change in people’s views about transparency”

Tim Geithner has apparently been cutting deals with some of the banks that received bail-out funds and which are now posting significant profits. That level of recovery is great news–their profits are up, which means taxpayers’ investment should be receiving a nice return, yes? Um, not so much.

21Jul2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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On the short term, maybe an “enforcement monitor?”

ProPublica writes of extreme problems in California regarding professional regulation of nurses. One option for dealing with the problems is that of installing an “enforcement monitor” in the regulating agency to keep things moving along. The article says the California medical board had once done that for a period of time. Perhaps some such person(s) [...]

15Jul2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Child Protective Services, OPR, and State Ombudsman Office

The first thing the universe presented me with last week was a call from a state senator’s aide, looking for input on how to effect external oversight for CPS. My response, of course, is to create a State Ombudsman office. With a little reminding, the senator remembered that our paths had crossed before, when I testified before the Senate Government Operations Committee against removing a level of appeal in the Office of Professional Regulation (OPR).

13Jul2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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Starting again, again…

During this hiatus the bureaucratic stuff has kept right on swinging along, one bit after another after another. Here are a few of the stories I’ve bookmarked, listed in no particular order.

25Jun2009 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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