Shed a Tear for Limbo

The NY Times reports the Vatican may be doing away with the concept of "limbo":

"Unlike purgatory, a sort of waiting room to heaven for those with some venial faults, the theory of limbo consigned children outside of heaven on account of original sin alone. As a concept, limbo has long been out of favor anyway, as theologically questionable and unnecessarily harsh. It is hard to imagine depriving innocents of heaven. "

Apparently the theologians are reverting to the idea of God's mystery--a just God can't condemn children, aborted fetuses, and those who died before Christ to hell, so how you reconcile justice with the idea of Christ as the necessary savior of corrupt mankind becomes just another mystery. You may gather I'm a nonbeliever, but I did appreciate the concept, just as I appreciate the facility with which a painter creates the illusion of perspective on canvas.

Fraud and Speed

The Post today has articles on fraud at the Red Cross:

Fraud Alleged at Red Cross Call Centers: "Nearly 50 people have been indicted in connection with a scheme that bilked hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Red Cross program to put cash into the hands of Hurricane Katrina victims, according to federal authorities."

and the GAO's investigation of credit card fraud. The latter one buries this finding "The lists of purchases provided by five government agencies show nothing outrageous -- bottles of water, hundreds of maps of New Orleans and Texas, pizza dinners, and lots of insect repellent." But apparently GAO is looking at whether money could have been saved by better purchasing practices. The answer, of course, is "yes". As a Microsoft software engineer has written in connection with software, you can do software that's good, do it cheaply, and do it fast, but you can't do all three at the same time. At NASA they found that the"faster, better, cheaper" mantra had its limits. Or, as Robert Heinlein wrote, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

I suspect the best thing the government could do is set up two sets of rules: one set would apply when saving money is primary; the other set when speed is primary. A Presidential declaration of disaster could trigger the second set for the disaster area and for a designated period. Trying to design one set of rules for both scenarios is like designing a swimming camel.

Winslow Homer and "Red Tape"

Just back from the crowded National Gallery of Art and its exhibition of Winslow Homer art. We've seen almost all of it before, since these are works NGA owns, although not always displays. I was pleased by one print that was a conglomeration of Homer's sketches--covering the years 1860-70, with an associated poem. Various images, mostly of war, but Lincoln was at the center holding a paper labeled "Emancipation Proclamation." A streamer or ribbon trailed down to the left. It was labeled "red tape". I'm not sure of the implication--that Lincoln's executive action had cut through the procedural red tape involved in freeing the slaves (i.e., through constitutional amendment)?

The Marginal

The LATimes had an article on Georgia's requirement that voters have government ID. The theme of the article was that the van that was driving the state to offer ID's wasn't getting much business. Dems had claimed the law would deprive lots of people of the right to vote, Reps not. I found this portion interesting:

"'How does a person get along these days without a picture ID of some sort to cash checks, turn on utilities, drive a car or enroll their children in school?' Larry Watson of LeGrange, Ga., wrote in a letter to the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In constructing their case, ACLU lawyers gathered a group of plaintiffs that included elderly people who did not have birth certificates, had never learned to drive, were too frail to stand in line at a licensing center, had allowed their licenses to lapse because they no longer used them, or had encountered bureaucratic obstacles.

But finding those people was not easy, said Neil Bradley, the Voting Rights Project's associate director. One dropped out of the case when he was asked to give a deposition.

'How do you find them? They don't have telephones,' Bradley said. 'These are people who live at that edge of society, where they pay their rent in cash or they pay 20% to get their check cashed.' "

Some points. The marginal, whether as in Chicago's Heat Wave of years ago or in Georgia now, fall out from society. They suffer. They pay more (check cashing), are more vulnerable to crime (keeping their money in cash, rather than the bank), eat poorer (no car to get to markets with good fruits and vegetables), and have less opportunity (aren't comfortable dealing with bureaucracy).

Golden Rule in Reverse

In my youth, I was taught the Golden Rule is the end-all and be-all of ethical rules. Indeed, the Social Gospel movement tried to apply it to society. But after lifelong observation of Christians, I don't believe my teaching. At bottom the rule is very individualistic--it governs one's actions as they affect others, so you are the actor. It says, don't torture your prisoners if you don't want your military children tortured. What's lacking is a rule for the reverse.

A Christian might object here that they do have such a rule: turn the other cheek. But that rule applies only to the receipt of bad. How about the receipt of good?

My proposal: allow others to do unto you what you would do unto others. Such a rule would stop a
"Lady Bountiful", who lives her life doing for others, but would resist any efforts by others to do for her. For example, in the wake of Katrina many foreign countries tried to offer aid to the U.S. The impression I get from news accounts is that many of the offers failed, because the government was not used to the idea of receiving help from foreigners. If we're to make this a better world, help must be mutual, not one-sided.

Keep Immigrants Coming

Buried in a NYTimes interview, House Prices: The State of the Bubble is this piece of information. Sounds like immigration is a key to rising housing prices, which tend to cast a rosy glow over our evaluation of the economy:

"Q. Can you describe some of the trends that support your views on the long-term growth prospects of the housing market?

A. In the old days, the typical 50-year-old homeowner would downsize, sell the family home and buy something smaller. What is occurring now is that they are keeping the family home and buying the second and third home.

The typical immigrant buys a home much faster than his or her historical counterpart. Thirty-five percent of the household formations forecasted for the next 10 years will be driven by Hispanics."

Why "Turf Wars" in Bureaucracy?

The Post continues its series on the DHS reorganization with todays article--Brown's Turf Wars Sapped FEMA's Strength.

It's full of discussion of the infighting among FEMA's Brown, Secretary Ridge and staff, and the White House. But the authors take for granted that turf wars are natural. Are they?

Reorganizations of big bureaucracies create major uncertainty and stress throughout the organization. It's possible that a reorg will change your boss, give you different duties, redo communication channels, change the prestige of your agency, or do away with your job. So your attention becomes focused on such issues and not on what you're supposed to be doing. By definition a reorg results in a scarcity of information--whatever decisions are being made at the top trickle down to the bottom. With no authoritative information, any information becomes valuable and passes on more quickly than ever before. But the increased speed of circulation increases the difficulty of separating good from bad information, so that increases your stress.

I assume the truth of the idea that people often react to stress defensively. So the first reaction to plans is: "change is bad". That changes the position of the head of the agency, like Michael Brown. Where in normal times an agency head has to make tough decisions, favoring one part of the agency against another, saying: "no" to the pet ideas of his/her subordinates, during times of reorganization things change. There's less happening within the agency. And the boss can get brownie points with her subordinates by fighting vigorously on behalf of the agency against the ill-informed plans of outsiders. In international affairs it's a familiar situation--unify the nation by picking a fight with someone else. (Lincoln's Secretary of State proposed the tactic to avoid the Civil War--pick a fight with Britain that would unify South and North.)

So turf wars are natural, if not rational.

Efficient Bush Government--Firstgov Newsletter

Republicans boast about being good managers. Maybe so, but they have problems reading calendars and planning. I'm enclosing the first part of this e-mail from their Firstgov.gov site [note the "Happy Holidays" as well]:

FirstGov News
From FirstGov.gov http://firstgov.gov
The Official U.S. Government Web Portal
Vol. 4, No. 6
December 22, 2005

To read our illustrated online version, go to:
http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/firstgovnews/fgnewsv4-6.htm

Dear FirstGov Subscriber,

In this issue, we'll look at our Happy Holidays page, and recent additions
to FirstGov.gov's News and Features.

**********

Happy Holidays From FirstGov.Gov

The holidays: family and friends, gifts, New Year's resolutions,Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam? Yes,your favorite uncle in Washington is joining the holiday festivities at FirstGov.gov, the official web portal of the U.S. government. Whether you're looking for just the right gift or trying to make a New Year's resolution you can actually keep, the "Happy Holidays" page at http://firstgov.gov/Citizen/Topics/Happy_Holidays.shtml is the perfect place to start. FirstGov.gov is organized by subject--not by confusing government terms--so it's easy to find the help you need to make your holidays merry and bright.

For your holiday gift-giving, let FirstGov.gov be your doorway to shopping made easy. Find unusual gifts like photographic prints and recordings from the Library of Congress, coins from the U.S. Mint, and items from the Smithsonian Institution's museum stores. Those hard-to-shop-for people on your list are sure to be delighted with their gifts.

Once you've found that perfect gift, FirstGov.gov can make your trip to the post office a breeze. Create your own personalized, legal postage stamps featuring photos you've taken. And get on the fast track at the post office by printing mailing labels online or arranging for special pick-up services. Fight the battle of the bulge and get fit with Uncle Sam as your personal trainer. Go to FirstGov.gov to find ways to enjoy holiday foods without overindulging. You can also get low-intensity exercise plans to help you keep fit and keep that extra weight off.

Invite your Uncle Sam for the holidays--log onto http://FirstGov.gov today. It's government made easy.

**********

Bureaucratic Reorganization II

I blogged earlier today on the Post article on Homeland Security reorganization. To continue on the difficulties: I took part in reorganization efforts in USDA. Leadership there used another model--task forces essentially working from bottom up. By getting people assigned from the different agencies, leadership could draw on our expertise and co-opt us into supporting, at least verbally, the proposed organization. The problems this sort of effort faced included:

• the people assigned were often "turkeys"--people their management was anxious to get rid of for a while, either because they weren't capable or didn't "fit in". If the first, they didn't provide the expertise; if the second, they couldn't speak for their management.
• in reality, few of us could speak for management. In my case, I was comfortable being a loose cannon, which meant I didn't keep my bosses involved and supportive. But most of the time if people don't get their hands dirty they don't truly support the outcome. So managers who may have spent a hour a week on the reorganization proposal were weakly committed.
  
• if the reorganization would have made a difference, it would undermine parts of the existing agencies, thereby arousing the opposition of the interest groups and Congressional delegation. If it was innocuous, it wasn't worth doing.
  

The Problem of Bureaucratic Reorganization

The Washington Post starts a series on the DHS reorganization today: Department's Mission Was Undermined From Start:

This quote represents part of the problem of doing reorganizations:

"The lesson his [Secretary Ridge's] staff took away was the need for secrecy: When bureaucracies were informed of potential threats to their empires, they tended to resist. 'Everybody realized the agencies were not going to look at mission first, they were going to look at turf first,' recalled Bruce M. Lawlor, a National Guard major general working for Ridge."

It also describes another part of the problem: lack of knowledge by the reorganizers. The reorganization was mapped out by a "Group of Five" bureaucrats, 2 aides to Ridge and 3 OMB men, none of whom had detailed knowledge of all the government entities being reorganized.

"Some of the decisions were almost random. Falkenrath thought it would be nice to give the new department a research lab that could bring cutting-edge research to homeland security problems. He called up a friend and asked which of the three Department of Energy labs would work. "He goes, 'Livermore.' And I'm like, 'All right. See you later.' Click," Falkenrath told historians from the Naval Postgraduate School. He did not realize that he had just decided to give the new department a thermonuclear weapon simulator, among other highly sensitive assets of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory."

So the dilemma is: if you involve senior people from the agencies early, they undermine the effort (they've the links to the media, the hill, and the interest groups to do it). But if you don't involve knowledgeable people, the effort fails from lack of realism.