"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Monday 25 August 2014

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.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't mind a kid who tries to play a strange sport getting some sort of a beginner's badge. But passing kids in school because they might have tried verges on criminal.

Anonymous said...

Re the junk mail, Evelyn.
Yu can get a sticker for your mail box which shuts that down. We did that and have a lot less to re-cycle. The advertisers can not get to you. I guess stuff sent to the town would still have to get delivered to you though....

Anonymous said...

There is a candidate boasting about the # of publicity products to descend on the town. This is strange when candidates seem to try to out-green each other. I checked with some of the spending from the last election. One person spent $12,000 on brochures ! If one adds in the cost of signs, it could become staggering.

Anonymous said...

The paper-less society ?