Archive for March, 2008
Vermont Child Protection Update
The Human Services and Judiciary Committees each developed bills that shifts the mode of operation more toward providing service to children and families in trouble, and away from the more corrections-oriented approach that has prevailed under the old laws.
31Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
A Story to Watch in Tahoe
This is a story I will check back in on from time to time. It certainly has the makings of possibly winding up in the Strategies and Solutions Library someday.
29Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
James Kilpatrick on Bureaucrats, and more…
It was certainly a more craven example of an insurance company’s trying to pad its stockholders’ dividends by cheating poor and injured workers.
28Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Anti-Corruption and Open Society Forum Work in Mongolia
The Montsame News Agency in Mongolia carries this item today: Montsame Agency By an order of the Anti-Corruption Authority, the “Glob International” non-governmental organization has conducted a survey encompassing 121 state institutions, 185 officials and 189 state servants who are duty bound to offer state services, and 749 citizens. The results of the survey, funded [...]
26Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Open records requests, sunshine laws in Missouri’s headlines, too…
STLtoday – Blunt turns over 3,000 pages of records ASSOCIATED PRESSJEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Gov. Matt Blunt’s office has provided attorney general’s investigators with almost 3,000 pages of documents detailing open-records requests made by the media, his political opponents and citizens. But that information covers only a small part of what investigators appointed by Attorney [...]
25Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
On a little spring hiatus…
Updates will be spotty here for awhile. There’s way too much snow still on the ground outside my window so I’m going to concentrate very hard on increasing local thermal units and see if that will help. (Actually, the hiatus is occasioned by a little arthroscopy on a knee, so there’s this middle stage in [...]
24Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Iowa’s doing it, too…
The article also quotes an Iowan who has made an issue of access to particular records as saying that he thinks the newly-proposed office to deal with records requests “…would stop a lot of this stuff from happening in cities and counties.” That’s what I think, too, about all manner of bureaucratic missteps in Vermont—a lot of it would never happen if bureaucrats knew that someone was looking over their shoulder and could hold them accountable.
19Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Sunshine and other updates…
Sunshine, sunshine everywhere? Ah, were it only true—even the sort that one of these days will melt the snow in my yard and draw toward it the sharp green shoots of daffodils and tulips. As for political sunshine: I’ve refrained thus far from joining the fray about former Gov. Spitzer, which all came about shortly [...]
18Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
From The Rising Nepal: Promoting Ethics in Civil Service
There’s a very thoughtful editorial today on The Rising Nepal, Promoting Ethics in Civil Service. It’s far more than just a cheer leading piece for ethics. It presents an analysis that has both depth and breadth in its considerations of the issues in different types of organizations—ranging from social and academic associations to professional bureaucracy—and [...]
15Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Where Bureaucracy Leaves Off: Black & Missing
Posting this on the fly, I’ll fill in more later. You can do so yourself, however, by reading this and this. Here’s an effort by a young woman who is picking up where bureaucracy leaves off, to save the lives of people are are otherwise being forgotten by the system and mainstream media. If you have your [...]
14Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
More in the Kays Gary Library
I got another of Dad’s old columns from The Charlotte Observer posted over the weekend, and have a couple more picked out to transcribe and upload this evening. These are straight off the old, crinkly yellow newsprint. Check them out as time and inclination dictate. Peace. Deborah Gary Alicen
11Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Jit Satharana—The “Public Mind” and Older Women
All such activism is indicative of what Penchom calls, “Jit Satharana (the public mind), a mind that cannot tolerate injustice, is willing to make sacrifices and looks toward the welfare of future generations. And it has nothing to do with ”political ambition, nor planning to become a public figure’.”
8Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
And now a few words about the journalists…
So now we have these talking heads who are all rah-rah for the right or the left and who have turned the words “fair” and “balanced” into limping, oozing parodies of themselves. Blog Land often doesn’t show itself to be a lot better, but there are some wonderful, real journalists who pop up from time to time.
6Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
The political understory…
The most heartbreaking and headache-inducing aspect of what’s happening out there in blog-comment-land is that there are so many people who think of themselves as politically progressive who are behaving this way. If that kind of knee-jerk, insulting, obliterate-the-other-side non-thinking is characteristic of progressive politics in general, then what’s the point of getting rid of the Bushites?
5Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
New Website in NY: WGRZ News – Shedding Some Light on Your Elected Leaders
A ray of sunshine, and presumably some fresh air to follow, dawns in New York: WGRZ News – Shedding Some Light on Your Elected Leaders ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Want to find out what your state and local elected officials are up to? New York state has a new Web site that makes that task [...]
4Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
I couldn’t have said it better…
I couldn’t have said it better, and actually I have been thinking about a post along these lines lately, so I’ll let the Philippines’ former Civil Service Commission chair say it for me: ABS-CBN Interactive A professional bureaucracy is the best defense against graft and corruption in government, former Civil Service Commission chair Karina David [...]
3Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
Fresh from Portland, OR: What rhymes with “antlers”? (Jack Bog’s Blog)
From a blogger in Portland, Oregon: What rhymes with “antlers”? (Jack Bog’s Blog) We’re on the mailing lists for all sorts of communiques from the City of Portland. Lately we got two city bureau newsletters — one from the Bureau of Development Services (which I think is what they used to call the building permit [...]
3Mar2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
