It's a Mad Mad World ...Much of it paid for by taxes

I  acknowledge my inclination is to be a bit of a Calvinist. Do the job best you can and for the least possible cost. The opportunity in itself is sufficient  self-satisfaction.I'm the one paying. I need to know I'm getting value for my money and if my neighbours feel good about my being on the job
that too is reward enough.

Just get it done and never mind the frills and furbelows.

There ere is barely a funded government agency I know that isn't spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on promoting itself.  High priced  ton weight glossy publications are a steady stream through the mail  the the Mayor and Councillors. Sometimes I get two copies.

Ordinarily  there's a department with a payroll to support the promotion.

It's all about making an impression. Convincing people they cannot do without this or that and always willing to pay.

Few would be so ill-mannered as to refuse an  award. Even  while wondering what is all the fuss about. And failing to understand, it's not about them.

It's about the politician  in the spotlight making  the grandiose and generous  gesture at someone else's expense. Even if with a brass coloured plastic medal or a paper ribbon or an office printer run-off  certificate in a cheap plastic frame.

Or an award from some Institute of Excellence that's raking in the dollars with ten or twelve thousand annual memberships.

And Oh Yes ....we have sponsorships...platinum,gold, bronze......another excuse to hand out public money and  have it sound  as though there's value in the process.

Even the  team that didn't win has to receive a runner-up trophy. When the kid finally leaves home,boxes of them have to be disposed of...surreptitiously.

People buy larger homes to accommodated the spoils of victory here, there and everywhere.