The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 7, 1995 Page: 3 of 20
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opinion
THE RICE THRESHER FRIDAY, APRIL 7.1995 3
Bureaucratic fondle-fests, idiocy should be re-examined
Thanks to the rightward shift
in America's political scene, Ameri-
cans seem more ready than ever to
embrace conservative
Republicans' maxim
about why the bureau-
cracies of big govern-
ment are incompetent,
inefficient, impersonal
— and even dangerous.
That maxim, highly
simplified, is this: Left
unchecked, government
grows and expands in or-
der to increase its power.
It creates bureaucracies
that dramatically enlarge
the public sector—most
of the time to the detri-
ment of the private sec-
tor.
These bureaucracies
will increasingly become more and
more concerned with cultivating a
loyal clientele and finding new tasks
that make them "indispensable."
ROBERTS RULES
Undisciplined by the forces of
the market, their main mission be-
comes that of self-preservation and
growth. Missions
such as efficiently re-
sponding to the de-
mands of individuals
in society and the
changing realities of
our country become
secondary, even ter-
tiary, goals.
Anyone who still
believes that bureau-
cracies do respond
efficiently to the de-
mands of individuals
in society has never
visited the Post Of-
fice or DMV. Anyone
who thinks bureau-
cracies are quick to
respond to changing realities in the
country need only study the Depart-
ment of Agriculture and take note of
the following statistic: In the past 50
Apples should fear Satan
ANY
Jym
Schwartz
GATHER CLOSE, my children,
for I have heard that Satan has been
released, and none among us with
network connections are safe. He is
loose on the Internet, and mere
mortals cannot stop his cunning and
his prowess.
Only the few who have been cho-
sen by virtue of their programming
might can protect the weak and the
ignoranj.
Why has this been
done? To what end
has this creature of
destruction and may-
hem been created?
Are we being tested?
Yes, my children,
we are being tested
by the Powers That
Be. It has been de-
cided on the Celestial Plane that
institutions such as Our Fine School
have grown fat with information,
ready to be struck like the prover-
bial goose. This plague upon "our
house comes not from the hand of a
mere man, but from a hand directed
by God.
After all, God is the Creator of All
Things, including such fabulous
products as Cheez-Whiz, Jell-O,
Valium, hot dogs... anything which
you might take internally. And in
His Wisdom, God knew the univer-
sities and the corporations would
hoard their files of data and dirty
pictures just as the kings and emper-
ors of old gathered gold, silver, frank-
incense, myrrh and the jawbones of
their slaves, buried in storehouses.
6 This plague upon our
house comes not from the
hand of a mere man, but
from a hand directed by
God. >
But retribution is never far be-
hind for the greedy. The God of Old
had a flamboyant style: destroying
cities with a rain of fire and brim-
stone (Ever been hit with a brim-
stone? Man, it smarts.), sending forth
plagues of locust and disease, turn-
ing disobedient people into pillars of
salt. Back in those days everybody
knew you didn't mess with God.
Nowadays God has tolled down
His modus operandi. Having passed
from His tempestuous teen years
into a kind of relaxed early adult-
hood, God now makgs His presence
known in small ways: potatoes
shaped like Mary, Elvis sightings,
public humiliation of Jimmy
Swaggart, UFOs. The Angry God of
Retribution has become the Un-
knowable God of Small Mysteries
and Miracles.
years, the number of American farms
has dropped about 66 percent.
The number of bureaucrats in
the Department of Agriculture, how-
ever, has increased by 300 percent.
On the face of it then, the conser-
vative maxim which explains bureau-
cratic failure and inefficiency is a
wholly satisfying one.
After all, it is theoretically sound
and backed up by much statistical
and anecdotal evidence. So intellec-
tually satisfying is this maxim that I
thought it, and it alone, explained
the growth of bureaucracies that pro-
mote the growth of big government
and big incompetence.
Then, however, I picked up a copy
of the Houston Chronicle this Sun-
day and perused Section A.
As I flipped through the pages,
more concerned with reading ar-
ticles about the end of the baseball
strike than anything else, I spotted a
story buried on page 18A that caught
my eye. Its headline read: "Diversity
Training Consisted of Abuse, Ex-
agency Worker Says."
Once upon a time, faith was not
only important, it was vital for sur-
vival. If you were starving in the
desert, you bet your sweet ass you'd
believe when manna fell from the
sky and filled your stomach. People
who were "in" with God received
word of important events (such as
40 days and 40 nights of rain) before
the shit hit the fan. Everyone else
got to tread water.
We now forecast our
own weather, eliminat-
ing the need for God's
Early Warning System.
Eventually we'll even be
able to control the
weather. God, naturally,
has foreseen thi^ and to
some extent I'm sure it
irks Him. After all, He
may not be much for wiping out
entire zip codes these days, but natu-
ral phenomena have always been
handy for doling out divine retribu-
tion.
We have angered God with this
so-called "progress" of ours, in which
we divest God of his powers to end
lives, destroy crops and smite mem-
bers of the general populace. God
has found the need to diversify his
repertoire of punishments and di-
sasters in order to keep the mortal
population on its toes.
The original tool for this project
was Satan. I'm not talking about the
impersonal computer program, but
the very personal, cloven-hoofed,
bat-winged, fiddle-playing, mortal-
tempting, horned harpy from Ha-
des. That's right, I'm talking about
the Prince of Darkness himself.
Beelzebub was created by God to
provide us with distractions and
eventually punish those who fall into
his ways.
But with the march of progress
we have created distractions never
before imagined, and punishments
so grim that even Lucifer can only
shake his little goatee at our inven-
tiveness. Although the world beyond
this one is timeless, this one is not,
making change necessary even in
the realms of the divine and the
damned. So God has fired the Fallen
Angel, and created a computer pro-
gram to take his place.
In the end, the expression "as on
earth, so in heaven" directly trans-
lates, even with regard to mechani-
zation of labor, loss of management
jobs in the private sector and disen-
franchisement of the work force.
After all, why pay someone to do a
job when a computer can do it for
free? And what could be more hell-
ish than being eternally tortured by
some computer program trapped in
an endless loop?
Tempora Bona Volvant and keep
in mind that even if you unplug your
computer Satan will find you.
Jym Schwartz is a third-year graduate
student in the Department of Geology
and Geophysics.
' [Y]ou are probably
wondering what kind of
contribution strip-
downs, buttocks-fondling
and the listing of racial
epithets made to...
diversity at the DOT. '
Basically, the story talked about
how, in 1993, Transportation Secre-
tary Frederico Pena eliminated man-
agement and sensitivity courses in
"diversity awareness" after many of
the participants — most of them
employees of the Federal Aviation
Administration—complained about
the course content and unorthodox
teaching methods. A former analyst
at the DOT, Marie Birnbaum, testi-
fied before a congressional subcom-
mittee that "the training course con-
sisted of three days of psychological
abuse. I realized later it was like cult
programming."
An air traffic controller from Salt
Lake City named James Ferguson
testified that he was forced to make
a list of vulgar names that could be
used to describe women and minori-
ties. He also said that his instructor
in the course forced participating
men to run through a gauntlet
formed by two lines of women. Mr.
Ferguson walked between the lines
of the women, with the following
result: 'The two lines collapsed
around me, and the women started
making vocal comments about me
and my clothing. One of the facilita-
tors started to unbutton my polo
shirt and rub my chest, saying, '
Look at this hairy chest.' I made a
move to remove her hand, and an-
other woman put her hands in the
back of my jean pocket and started
to fondle my buttocks."
Representative Frank Wolf, a
Republican from Virginia who chairs
the subcommittee, claims that his
staff has documented evidence of
employees "being required to stare
at lighted candles for hours, being
physically tied to co-workers for
hours and being required to strip
down to their underwear in front of
co-workers and reveal deep-seated
problems."
Now, after reading all this, you
are probably wondering what kind
of contribution strip-downs, but-
tocks-fondling and the listing of ra-
cial epithets made to the promotion
of diversity at the DOT.
I, for one, can certainly think of
better ways to promote understand-
ing between people than holding
fondle-fests at taxpayer expense and
employing "teaching methods" that
even the KGB might have been
ashamed to use.
Well, as it all turns out, strip-
downs, fondling and listing of bad
names promoted more insanity at
the DOT than they did anything else.
The "management coach" who
taught the sensitivity programs, a
man named Gregory May, was a
disciple of a "West Coast guru" who
believes that he "channels a 35,000-
year-old spirit named Ramtha."
It would seem that Mr. Ramtha
gave Mr. May some rather strange
ideas about strengthening the bonds
of human understanding and foster-
ing respect for human dignity across
racial and gender lines.
6 I... can certainly
think of better ways to
promote understanding
between people that
holding fondle-fests at
taxpayer expense. ... *
Now, as embarrassing as this
whole incident must be for the DOT,
officials there at least have a scape-
goat to blame.
When asked how they allowed
these "diversity awareness" pro-
grams to continue uninterrupted for
11 years, they can reply that the
devil (Ramtha) — not the failure of a
bureaucracy to pick a sane diversity
consultant, or more fundamentally,
a failure to ask themselves why they
should have even instituted a diver-
sity program to build bridges of hu-
man understanding when they can't
even build a decent bridge for cars
— made them do it. And maybe, just
maybe, he did.
Have Newt and Co. considered
finding out who has done manage-
ment and sensitivity training semi-
nars for the government since the
eras of the New Deal and Great Soci-
ety? Have Ramtha and his demonic
minions been at work promoting
bureaucratic expansion, inefficiency,
and incompetence all this time?
If sfl1, the conservative maxim
about bureaucracies will require a
rather strange amendment, and the
world of politics, if it weren't already
spooky enough, will get even scarier.
Bert Gall is a Lovett College senior.
Animals
FROM PAGE 2
For example, we may grant
women abortion rights, but to do the
same for men would obviously be
ridiculous.
6 But we can no more
deny animals rights
because they are not
humans than we can
deny blacks rights
because they are not
white. ...
Equal consideration is the key
even if it results in different sets of
rights.
With this in mind, we can con-
sider the case for animal rights. We
showed earlier that the principle of
equality for humans is not actually
based upon any inherent equality
among humans.
Yet there must be some similar-
ity that causes us to give the same
amount of consideration to a men-
tally disabled individual as we give
to a college professor.
Yet the only similarities between
the mentally handicapped and the
college professor may well be that
they both have the_£apacity to suffer
and to experienc^raippiness.
Although we are unsure of the
intellectual or moral capacity a handi-
capped individual possesses, we still
give equal consideration to them
because of this capacity to feel.
With this in mind, the question
becomes: Why do we deny animals
this same consideration? Cows and
chickens also have the capacity to
feel suffering.
The only distinction to be made
is that animals are not human. But
we can no more deny animals rights
because they are not humans than
we can deny blacks rights because
they are not white, or can deny
women rights because they are not
male. Some other distinction is nec-
essary.
Yet no other distinction can be
made.
Certain people with severely im-
paired intellectual and moral capaci-
ties may be closer in these capaci-
ties to other advanced animals, such
as monkeys, than they are to nor-
mally functioning adults.
The<only similarity between the
three may well be the ability to feel
suffering and joy.
It is this ability to feel that gives
these beings interests, interests
which we must consider.
,As Jeremy BenthanT writes, "A
full-grown horse or dog is beyond
comparison a more rational as well
as a more conversabje animal, than
an infant of a day or a week or even
a (honth, old. But stfppose they were
otherwise, what would it avail? The
question is not, can they reason? nor
can they talk? but, can they
suffer?"
Since no sweeping distinction can
be made between animals and hu-
mans aside from species, animals
should receive an equal amount of
consideration.
This does not imply they should
have exactly the same rights as hu-
mans.
Just as men do not need abortion
rights, animals do not need voting
rights.
But consideration implies that
animals not be subject to undue,
inflicted suffering.
Since no sweeping
distinction can be made
between animals and
humans aside from
species, animals should
receive an equal amount
of consideration. '
These standards when applied
consistently to humans and animals
provide for a fair and just society, in
that all humans and animals have an
appropriate amount of consideration
given to their interests.
Not only does this standard pro-
vide for a just society, but a compas-
sionate one as well. In contrast,
Mike's article provides for a stan-
dard within society where exploita-
tion and prejudice can flourish^
where fairness can be subjugated to
the "prejudices and sympathies" of
the mainstream.
Kanika Bahl
Baker '98
Mona Rashad
Baker '97
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Klein, Charles & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 7, 1995, newspaper, April 7, 1995; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246510/m1/3/: accessed June 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.