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21 february | stuff already up on blogger |

micromanaging bureaucrats | I take some solace (not much, mind you) in knowing that there are others out there (like Ms Frizzle, a New York City Schoolteacher) in the same situation as I am at my job | I've modified her comments slightly [changes are bracketed] to make her descriptions more universal, but in a recent blog entry, she writes:

A micromanaging

, on the other hand, cannot distinguish between what matters and what is less important. This kind of

might observe a lesson and comment only on a petty aspect of the bulletin boards, or some other item on a checklist.

I would say to many of the

out there: Your complaints are aimed in the wrong place! You ought to be complaining about

who are not good leaders, who are in it for the money, who can't see the forest for the trees. And keep in mind that every policy passes through several levels of bureaucracy before reaching the

, so it is possible that your

is nitpicking because his or her instructional superintendent or even regional superintendent is setting an example of petty, punitive enforcement of policies rather than open-minded, supportive leadership.

     This is what I have to deal with at work | In my case it was an order to move some file cabinets immediately, instead of meeting with clients and staff to resolve a complex problem | Sadly, I believe that it represents the state of the nation | Furthermore, mere knowledge of this malaise in no wise corrects real foul ups nor addresses society's present social ills |      Social conservatives got it all wrong | It isn't liberalism, per se, that's messing up the functioning of society, so much as it is unthinking administrators (in both public and private sector) making uncaring decisions, based on following written prescriptives that were cobbled together without any due thought to how the outcomes are affected by edits written by those with no direct understanding of their actual end results |
     Which brings me back to my last post's conclusion, namely, if you don't know what the natural rythym's of an ecosystem are, and you decide to mess with them, then the end results will be messed up, too |
     And I still agree with the guy who calls himself the "intellectual gun lover" in his Law of Diminishing Returns, and asserts that it is probably the Peter Principle (you know, promote someone to their highest level of incompetence) that results in non-representative government (whether in corporate nations on land-based nations) being so shody with outcomes, and which end up hurting the polity but not the political elite |

conservation ethics lost to poor leadership | I read recently of a woman who called a well known bowhunter | She lived in or near a large city in a restricted, gated community | She was upset that a herd of deer were eating her ornamental flowers and defecating on her driveway | She wanted to know what he could do to "...make them go away..." | But she didn't want the herd, already fiercely competing due to overgrazing in suburbia, to be thinned | In fact, when he suggested the obvious, that is, for the gated village to authorize a limited hunt to thin the herd, she got irate | "I want you to take them away~! I didn't say they should be killed!" |
     There's something wrong with this picture | It reminds me of a New York Times article some yars back where an exclusive neighborhood in Arizona [also a gated compound] complained bitterly to it's property managers about snakes running wild in the settlement | Some were poisonous | The parents were afraid for their children, they said |
     Finally, a third example, much more devastating and extreme, namely, the fires last year in San Diego county | In that scenario, exclusive and high priced settlements were placed and sold with expansive, breath-taking vistas, but in the middle of scrub pine, eucalyptus and other species with highly volative oils in their plant systems | Oh yeah, one final matter there, in the near desert, an arid expanse that gets hardly any rain waterfalling the entire year |
     Again, something wrong with these pictures | What would that be, you ask? | Quite simply | The encroachment of people who haven't a clue about nature and her rythyms, plopping themselves down in the middle of a landscape that is, and has been, thriving quite well without human habitation or incursion |
     Simply put, seems that when urban kulture leaders, movers and shakers (some of whom are the same, but not always) make decisions about use of the land, then we get caught up in some lame arguement that's wrapped up in the "property rights" blanket, but is really about the right to make really stupid decisions | And that's wrong | We need to stop selecting leaders because they'd make good frat house posterboys, and to start choosing according to whom is likely to make sound, thoughful, aware of the long term outcome and larger picture |
     Someone who is in touch with the rythyms of Nature |
     Makes me wish for the return of land perservationist Edward Abbey | Not that I expect the rigged electoral system shall provide anyone like him | Hell, Abbey was derided and called an ecoterrorist for placing a higher value on Earth preservation objectives over Eco-catastrophe |
     And who do our supposed leaders wish for us to listen to? I'm afraid it is those who wish to be in power but who want mediocre decision-makers below them | Another blogger had this to say of that: His own version of the Law of Dimishing Returns | (come to think of it, he and I could be working at the same place) |

18 february

back pain | I tore a ligament or muscle in my upper back this weekend past | Keeping me out of work, on prescription pain killers and zonked out | The effect of this is that I have little sense of concentration | I just want to sleep | Hopefully, after a trip to the ER, a second to my MD/Chiro/Naturopathic doctor (nothing like getting the most treatment mileage for the buck), and two visits so far to the physical therapist) the pain will become less pronounced and I'll be able to get back to doing things again |

other stuff || ECONOMIC TREASON: Do travesties like ENRON make your blood boil? There's a new discussion group on the Yahoo Groups website. The conversation has just begun. Participants are welcome. Stop by, sign up, and add your POV.

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ABOUT THE "PIX OF THE DAY": Each "day" I present a new image from my own work. The image may or may not be relevant to the text the is next to it. The purpose is more to show off my work | Hope you like them |

e-mail | you can write me either at wbrady@rondak.org or at will-b@earthlink.net | I have a couple of older e-mail addresses which have become so clogged with spam that I barely look at them anymore | Too bad, really, since I still seem to get a number of notes on US Civil War artists on one of them | I won't write you back from the old addresses | Regrets for this inconvenience |

legal & disclaimer notice: © 1999 - 2003 / Will Brady || I hope you've found this site interesting, even thought provoking || Occasionally, images have been directly linked to source sites and others may come from commercial sources | They are reproduced here under fair use guidelines of US Copyright law | Don't write to me about the content of other peoples' sites linked from here || On the other hand, please let me know of any inactive links || Constructive comments, suggested links to add, are welcome.

since 12 june 1999