Archive for July, 2008
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 [...]
20Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 1 comment | Continued
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 [...]
12Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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As I regularly refer to Franz Kafka, this item on some of his unpublished papers got my attention this morning.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 has [...]
10Jul2008 | Deborah Alicen | 0 comments | Continued
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
