Not a windmill after all?

Dad was certainly a visionary, and I have inherited that particular gene, or curse, or blessing, depending on your perspective. At times it’s all three. It’s a wonderful thing because visionaries can see a beauty that isn’t yet, and be driven by that beauty, and try to make it real. It’s a horrible thing because there can be few or no others who can see anything similar, and when others pay any attention at all, it’s likely to scoff or worse.

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.

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.

We really must have transparency and accountability

Having been clear, I hope, in presenting my progressive/liberal credentials, I’ll say that for some things there simply is no middle road. Transparency and accountability are among those things.

President Obama has so far signaled, if not outright opposition, at least considerable foot-dragging when it comes to undoing some of what can be undone of Bush’s legacy, and pursuing accountability for Bushies who may have committed crimes.

The Innocence Project

If you have not acquainted yourself with the Innocence Project, do so now. And by all means, anytime you start feeling as if your situation is really terrible, just give a few minutes thought to what has been endured by those whom the Innocence Project has helped, and what is being endured by those who continue to be wrongly imprisoned.

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 [...]

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 I think [...]

Some of those stories I was talking about…

Marian Wright Edelman, president of The Children’s Defense Fund, writes on today’s Huffington Post about the importance of a Congressional bureaucratic remedy to the crisis affecting tens of thousands of the nation’s youth who are locked away in detention centers, where they are suffering extensively from physical and sexual abuse. At issue is the Prison [...]

Dumbledore he’s not. (Or, proof of the man’s innocence…)

Albus Dumbledore, and presumably none less than Harry Potter, too, could certainly stir up a real full-sized tempest in a teapot, but I’m not at all sure they could have succeeded better than the Pasco County, Florida, bureaucrats who have sent substitute teacher Jim Piculas packing because he performed an innocuous little magic trick in [...]

“It takes longer to learn less…” Canadian Conservatives’ Growing Opacity

Today’s Toronto Star features a national affairs column by James Travers that’s all about the growing opacity in Canada’s government, which owes, not surprisingly, to Conservatives who campaigned on promises of openness. Oh, so much of that have we seen this side of the border—calling something the opposite of what it actually is. Here’s Travers’ [...]