Record Retention Policies

I've not followed the IRS scandal in detail, mostly because as a liberal I doubt if there's anything much there.  The latest is IRS is unable to provide Ms. Lerner's emails from a period in 2011.  The right is screaming 18 1/2 minutes, the left is blase.

Megan McArdle says the IRS story is possible.

I've no idea what actually happened.  When I came to ASCS, the records management people were still remembering the Billie Sol Estes scandal (a Texas wheeler-dealer, one of whose scams was transferring cotton acreage allotments from one county to another in order to make more money).  Congress tried to investigate, and found the ASCS correspondence and records were in a mess, resulting in establishing a new system of central files and documentation.  They were proud of the system; I remember in the 70's they showed it off to a visiting Soviet representative(s).  The system worked with the hierarchical nature of the organization: correspondence came up the line or from the public, replies went down the line or to the public, decisions were made using CCC board dockets mostly, or reflected in memos or directives to the field.

By the 90's, everyone who'd been involved in creating the system was gone and there was no one left who really understood the importance of records management. And since the early 80's we'd been using one email system or another (Wang, Dec Allinone, etc.) finally ending with a central email system.  Telecommunications costs had come down and we used more conference calls etc.    But the multiplication of communication channels and the gradual decline in the hierarchical nature of the organization meant there was less of a clear division between decisions which were considered official records and those which were not.  And when you looked at email that was especially true.  The initial starting point was that not all emails were official records, those that were had to be printed out and stored on paper in established files.

Bottomline, by the time I left, I had no confidence in the record management of FSA--management had never given it the time and money it required.  Another scandal might lead to a change in the situation, but it was very unlikely to be solved otherwise.

I don't know whether the same situation held in other government agencies then, or in IRS today, but I wouldn't be surprised.  Here's a link to a search on the GAO site for records management.

Farming in DC

Everyone needs their own agricultural research station, even DC, as outlined in this article.

Here's the URL for UDC's college of agriculture.  It looks to me as if they're pushing the envelope a bit to make use of extension funding? 

I mock, a little, but this is the result of our weak government because of federalism. 

You Gotta Laugh, Even If You're a Bureaucrat

From today's Post:

"In November, we reported that the NSA and Homeland Security Department were none too pleased about parody products sold online using an altered image of their logo, such as a T-shirt with: “Peeping while you’re sleeping” inside the NSA seal and under that, “The NSA, the only part of the government that actually listens.”

When will people learn that laughter is valuable, even if you're the butt of it.

A Divided Country and a Flawed Commentary

The NYTimes Charles Blow weighs in on the recent Pew report describing how divided and partisan the nation is becoming.

He leads with this:

"For an increasing number of Americans, the tenor of politics has reached a near-religious pitch, in which people on opposing ends of the ideological scale take on theological properties: good or evil, angels or demons, here to either save our way of life or destroy it."

After a discussion of the report he writes:

"There are some moral issues on which there can be no ambiguity. For instance, people cannot be treated differently because of the way they were born, developed or identify;  women must have access to the full range of reproductive options; and something must be done about the continued carnage of gun violence in this country. "

I commented with this:

Though I think Mr. Blow and I share the same positions, mostly (liberal Democrat, Obama contributor, etc.) I disagree with this paragraph: "There are some moral issues on which there can be no ambiguity...country. " We cannot, in our political life, distinguish between moral issues and other issues. In politics everything is subject to practicality, to compromise, to limits. Outside the political sphere everyone is welcome to believe any damn thing they believe, but our politicians should lead us to compromise in our policy. Roe v Wade was an example of such a compromise, not a trumpet call to a pro-choice position. The alternative to compromise can be seen in someplace like Ulster over the last century.

Kevin Drum has a take on the report.

Great Metaphor If Politically Incorrect

" it’s like an epileptic with Parkinson’s dancing under strobe lights in a discothèque."

Dirk Beauregard on the joys of driving a crap car.  Read the whole thing.

On Blogging--Personal and Policy

Was reading a fine post by Sharon Astyk here which starts off by commenting on the observable differences in parenting ability she finds among the domestic animals and wildlife on their small farm.  I've seen the same, though I was nowhere near as observant as she is.

She then segues into a discussion of human parenting, of which she's seen much, as she and her husband are parents and foster parents of a large number of children.

When I first started reading her, she was blogging as a peak oil/locavore activist.  She always had an interesting voice, interesting enough to overcome my knee-jerk reaction against the positions she favored and the dire future she forecast.  But time happens to us all, and these days she's less into policy and much less into blogging and much more into managing a large and variable household.  Whether her blogging, as opposed to the subjects she blogs on,  has changed that much, I don't know, but I do find myself liking her writing a lot more.

Residents and Tourists

Living in the DC area I intuitively knew what these anthropologists spent time and money figuring out--the travel patterns of residents and tourists are different. The fact leads to things like tourists seeing sights and visiting vicinities which the resident has never seen.

When I was in the Army stationed at Ft. Belvoir I did a lot of tourist stuff.  Since I've lived here, hardly any, except when escorting visitors.

As far as the "settling in" of new residents, my guess is it's personality-dependent: the amount of exploring before establishing habits/patterns will vary.

Politics in FSA

 From a Government Executive piece on VA problems

“Health care is by definition an enormously specific, patient-oriented, detailed business process,” he said. “The agency itself was designed to be sealed against political influence,” he added, noting its 9,000 to 1 ratio of career to political appointees, compared with a 2,000 to 1 ratio at the Defense Department and a 500 to 1 ratio at most agencies.

In FSA when I was there: 50 SED's, 5 area directors, 4 deputies, associate, and administrator, plus maybe 5 aides--call it 65 total political. That's a 200 to 1 ratio at FSA, meaning it's more politicized than the average agency. 

Our Couch Potato Dogs

Modern Farmer reports on research that says "agility dogs" (i.e. farm dogs) do better on tests than do "companion dogs" (i.e., those dogs who spend their lives on the couch alongside their masters).  Must be why Walt Jeffries boasts of his talking dogs.

Buffett on Government, No It's Private

Brad Delong posts Warren Buffett's lessons learned:

My most surprising discovery: the overwhelming importance in government business of an unseen force that we might call “the institutional imperative.” In business school, I was given no hint of the imperative’s existence and I did not intuitively understand it when I entered the government business world. I thought then that decent, intelligent, and experienced civil servants managers would automatically make rational government business decisions. But I learned over time that isn’t so. Instead, rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play.

For example: (1) As if governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion, an government agency institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, government corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any government business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of government consultants peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.