the halls of government: SSA

A fun short video about a mural in the SSA building.

Watch Ben Shahn’s The Meaning of Social Security on PBS. See more from WETA Around Town.

ignobel for gao

GAO won the IgNobel LITERATURE PRIZE: “The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.”

REFERENCE: “Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Costs of Reports and Studies,” US Government General Accountability Office report GAO-12-480R, May 10, 2012.
According to the internets, GAO did not send anyone to collect the award.

 

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happy constitution day america!

Today is the 225th anniversary of our nation’s Constitution. Good work America! Read more here.

the lifespan of a fact

The Lifespan of a Fact,by John D’Agata, author. Jim Fingal, fact-checker.

I heard about this book from a podcast out of Wisconsin, TTBOOK. Listen to the interview if you have a few minutes. But you might be wondering what this has to do with bureauphiles. Well, lots of our government’s time, and energy, all joking aside, is spent checking facts before government publications are published. As an intelligence analyst I spent days double and triple checking reports before they were “sent forward” for review and action upon my recommendations.

bringing calm to american discourse

Jeff Gates is an artist among other things. He conceived of this piece of art to bring some calm to the political system in the US these days. He also started the Camomile Tea Party.

I like that the poster is placed downtown in a location that will see many people walking by. Lots of bureaucrats there. Unfortunately, people ignore the ads these days.

Hat tip to Boingboing.net.

from greenbelt to pruitt-igoe

Yesterday, Matt posted about Greenbelt, which was built beginning in 1936. A few decades later, another experiment in building communities was completed in St. Louis. The Pruitt-Igoe housing development was to be a modern marvel. A new movie about the building and demise of the experiment is excellent. Check out the trailer below.

harper’s magazine

Harper’s runs a feature every so often that the bureauphile will seek to emulate in the coming months. Until then, please enjoy the most recent installment from Harper’s chronicling President Reagan’s relationship with the FBI.

felt accountability

It kind of sounds like a sewing term doesn’t it? I just ran across this term at Bob Sutton’s website, by way of BoingBoing. Mr. Sutton was blogging about his friend’s daughter who flew alone and was “misplaced” by United. They lost the 10 year old.

auditor, investigator, analyst: it’s all mixed up

A lot of people use the terms analyst, investigator, or auditor interchangeably, however, each job is different.

infographic: the doing-a-lot-of-nothing congress

Businessweek continues to elegantly distill information into easy-to-read infographics. (Click here to see the original.)

Now is not the time to go into this, but there was a time, not that long ago, when Congress did their work. They passed the budget on time. The worked on important laws, not changing the names of Post Offices. More on this in another post. For now, just note what your Congress has completed recently.