In Opinions on January 12, 2010 at 9:14 am
Technology, specifically the Web, is a grand theodicy of the early 21st century. In the face of evil and societal failures it gives birth to new identities— souls— for individuals, nurtures the ever so important Libertarian freewill, grants such individuals the power to do great evil, and recognizes postmodern natural laws— a stable ‘natural’ medium/experience of the world from the level of computer code and network protocols to human institutions such as Facebook®. Read the rest of this entry »
2010 Budget, charitable giving, health, nonprofits, President Obama, tax breaks
In Budgeting, General, Nonprofit, Opinions, Policy on March 10, 2009 at 7:40 am
What are the pros and cons of President Obama’s proposed 2010 budget plan for the philanthropic and nonprofit community and society more generally? It appears that when we weigh the costs and benefits, nonprofits and citizens generally will come out ahead. Unfortunately, most of the organized philanthropic community (not necessarily representing most nonprofits) and several politicians have come out against the changes, narrowly framing the issue around what impact the proposed tax changes will have on the wealthiest donors. Read the rest of this entry »
education, funding, inequality, lottery, Policy
In General, Opinions, Policy on February 23, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Every once in a while, I come up with an idea to solve a problem that I’m often not an expert in, but that seems to make sense. I like to run these ideas by others to get their input and hopefully come up with an even better idea. I recently started re-reading Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities. I first read this excellent book on the inequalities in the American education system when I was a sophomore in college eight years ago. At that point, I was too overwhelmed byKozol’s description of the state of schools in East St. Louis and Chicago to respond with ideas on how to change the situation. This time I approached the text with the eye of a policy analyst and I had an idea… Read the rest of this entry »
defense mechanisims, Motivation, rationalization
In General, Opinions on February 9, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Many people who are struggling with the current financial times take some solace in the notion that as bad as things are, they could be worse. A recent feature by cnn.com collected personal stories of difficulty during this downturn. Repeatedly, and even when the situations were very dire, some version emerged of, “we are fortunate for what we have because it could be worse”. Even locally when we here news of furloughs, cutbacks, and layoffs, they are often accompanied with this notion that it could be worse. Read the rest of this entry »
citizen involvement, Information Technology, open source, profit motive, transparency
In Information Technology, Opinions on February 5, 2009 at 9:21 am
With our new Executive administration settling in at the White House, I thought I might pass an idea by all you intelligent readers out there. Obama’s election platform was based on change and one these much touted changes was transforming the federal government from eight years of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth to a transparent distributor of information. In the spirit of that push for transparency, I would like to present my idea for transforming information technology (specifically application adoption and development) in government. I have decided to do this in three parts: (1) briefly argue that the mainstream methodology of software procurement and development is incompatible with the philosophy of a transparent and democratic government, (2) present my solution to solve this problem, and (3) counter some concerns and issues that might arise from implementing my idea. Read the rest of this entry »
efficiency, health, Policy
In Opinions, Policy on February 3, 2009 at 11:13 am
Within the current world of policy and administration, efficiency has become an important if not overarching goal. Arguments for privatization and program elimination have been based almost solely on whether or not a program is efficient. The PART program under the administration of George W. Bush rated programs at various levels of efficiency and then based their budget recommendations on these ratings (whether or not these ratings were based more on ideology than actual science will be addressed in another, future post). There seems to be one area, in which, the concern for efficiency has been ignored; healthcare. Read the rest of this entry »
diversity, future, neoliberal, public administration
In Opinions, Theory on January 22, 2009 at 9:05 am
Why the new state? We have entered into a new American epoch. Economic, technological, and political structures that have been the framework of the study and practice of public administration have radically changed. In the ever so close past, the ends that governing sought were limited to economic development. Safety, housing, the environment, and education had all become commodities and have been used as means to generate economic development. Privatization, outsourcing, de-regulation, and “creative” finance are just a few of the tools that public administrators have used to generate economic development. But now with the collapse of our economy we have realized that the focus on economic development has left us with crumbling infrastructure, substandard education and environmental policy, over-crowded jails, a food production industry dependent on environmentally devastating practices, massive corruption, a socially stagnant classes with little mobility, and greater wealth accumulation in a ridiculously few. A self interested society, it turns out, is not sustainable. Read the rest of this entry »
