Archive for Deborah Alicen
Deborah Gary Alicen, Ph.D., is a scholar activist, organizer, researcher, and consultant focused on increasing transparency and accountability in bureaucracies, in both public and private sectors.
The old home team is doing good stuff
This is a journalist doing what journalists are supposed to do.
5Aug2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Open records struggle in Vermont
This week saw a new chapter in open records struggles here in Vermont. The Vermont State Employees Association, the state workers’ union, had requested from the Department of Human Resources emails and other documents relating to Gov. Douglas’ plan to cut 400 jobs from the state’s payrolls. DHR responded with a demand for $1700 to pay for the time DHR staff would have to spend gathering the documents
2Aug2008 | Deborah Alicen | 1 comment | Continued
On Jim Schutze, incompetence trumping party lines, and race and racialization
One of the things I love about doing this blog is sitting here in my little corner of Vermont, poking around the net and finding terrific writers and their writing…
24Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Insurance Company Rules
Netroots Nation, which recently wrapped up in Austin, TX, is something I really, really hoped to go to, but alas. Good things are popping out of there, however, including this stitch of a video, Insurance Company Rules. It’s from Health Care for America Now!, a grassroots campaign to achieve universal affordable health care.
Insurance company bureaucracies are [...]
Patent Failure: New book addresses bureaucracy’s suppression of innovation
Not a long post today, but a good one. There is a terrific review from the Ars Technica website of a new book: Patent Failure:How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk.
16Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Keith John Sampson’s Apology from IUPUI Chancellor Bantz
This one will also go into the BureaucracyBlog Resource Library as an example of both the importance of standing up to bureaucratic abuse, and the role that publicity plays in rectifying bureaucratic abuse.
14Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Getting the approval of 15 different agencies
The Gulf Port, MS, Sun Herald reports today on both the problems and progress of the Missisippi Development Authority (MDA) in its post-Katrina rebuilding efforts.
Officials from the Mississippi Development Authority paint a picture of vital Hurricane Katrina-relief projects still snared in federal bureaucracy almost three years after the storm.
But members of the MDA [...]
Bureaucracy and higher education
I find it astonishing, but also fairly common, that institutions of higher education often do not take time to find out, and make use of, some of the cutting edge work being done by their own students and faculty that could so well serve the kinds of administrative changes that would enhance the educational mission.
11Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Speaking of Kafka
As I regularly refer to Franz Kafka, this item on some of his unpublished papers got my attention this morning.
Part of Kafka’s genius was in seeing, and making the picture accessible to others, the crazy-making, and sometimes downright evil (e.g. Nazi), abuses to which bureaucracies so often are given. In doing so he [...]
Keith John Sampson update: The WSJ story
As mentioned in the post of a few days ago, there is indeed a story in today’s Wall Street Journal by Dorothy Rabinowitz about Keith John Sampson’s situation at IUPUI. The reportorial aspects of the story are fine, but oh, do I have a problem with the tone! And the graphic.
7Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Unpacking the last decision: Egregious is as egregious does
If Franz Kafka and Lewis Carroll had provided the raw materials for the fantastical creation of a government office, their results would probably look very much like the Office of Professional Regulation in the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office. Last week I posted the latest and last decision in my Kafkaesque journey through the Looking Glass world of the OPR. This week I unpack that decision.
6Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Conduct Unbecoming a University
“I thought my situation was over here at IUPUI but now I find that the IUPUI News Center, run by Rich Schneider, is still telling members of the media that the problem was not in my reading the book in question but some other actions that they can not reveal to the press. “
3Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
When the best can’t pull it off…
What is to be done when even the best, most idealistic and well-seasoned elected official, in the country’s most politically progressive state, cannot prevent her staff from abuses of power based on crony-ism and conflict of interest?
Create a State Ombudsman Office.
30Jun2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Changes and Announcements Coming…
BureaucracyBlog will soon have a new look, and one or more new authors contributing to the flow of information, analysis, and ideas. J.T. Miller, whom I wrote about in a post last month, has sent me an revised version of his op-ed piece and has kindly agreed to post occasional Kentucky updates here.
There have also [...]
“Incredibly quick response for a governmental institution…”
A nod to yesterday’s Progress Report for pointing me to this Washington Times story. It’s about veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) being given the drug Chantrix in a Veterans Administration study about smoking cessation. Chantrix has a record of causing or exacerbating mental instability, and someone somewhere had to be nuts (to use [...]
18Jun2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
A couple of different organizational bureaucracies…
My lack of posting much recently owes to my having had the opportunity to do some work with a couple of different organizations, each with very different cultures, though the leadership of each would describe them in terms very similar to each other. Both are service organizations, and both profess a style of operation [...]
17Jun2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Stuck
Stuck is a movie I’d really rather not watch, but I think I’m going to have to see it. I don’t like seeing blood and gore, and Stuck has plenty of it, according to what I’ve read. But the movie juxtaposes a horrific, real life event against a callous bureaucracy, and that’s why [...]
9Jun2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Another International Update–Nepal
A couple of months ago I ran a story about the promotion of ethics in civil service in Nepal. It appears we can look for that to continue following the abolishment of the monarchy and the nation having been declared a democratic republic.
I am far away from an expert on Nepalese politics, but as someone [...]
Rudd and bureaucrats again…
Kevin Rudd’s administration in Australia is going to continue to be of interest here because of his background as a bureaucrat, and his apparent dedication to bureaucracies that well serve the public.
The operative word there is “apparent.”
Time will tell the story, of course, but there’s a news item today–or technically, tomorrow, given that it’s now [...]
My Memorial Day Weekend
I suppose I spent the Memorial Day Weekend much as many people did. I mostly did yard work, planting flowers and cleaning up the detritus that gathers in a yard over a winter. I talked with neighbors who were walking their dogs or pushing a stroller with a studious little face peeking [...]
27May2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Hello Debby,
Just this week I sent 2 copies of the eulogy for your Dad to people. This happens regularly. ...
