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Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Courage is Contagious …it fell to me to give the lion’s roar


~ “I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar.” Winston Churchill


‘I welcome their contempt’: Bernie Sanders fires back at Verizon, GE Business Inside



It makes Don Boudreax’s Quotation of the Day very timely:
Democracy imposes few limits on the power and reach of the state.  Legislators are unrestrained from organizing themselves into predatory majorities; pennies and dimes are taken from an unwary majority and dollars are delivered to alert interest groups.



Politicians flinch before her, ugly truths are exposed, awards come showering down. Sarah Ferguson is a formidable force in Australian journalism. She also loves Keats, rugby and her husband's cooking. Royal Commission Style Jounalist of Sydney fame Sarah Ferguson

Via Investigative Reporters and Editors: “Journalists who helped free enslaved laborers, improved the safety net for injured workers and brought about reforms for failing schools serving mostly black youth, are being honored as winners of the 2015 Investigative Reporters & Editors Awards. This year’s winners come from a mix of new and established media, with many of the winning entries involving collaborations between teams of reporters from a wide range of news organizations.“ This year’s entries show that fearless investigative reporting continues to thrive in an era of industry change,” said Ziva Branstetter, chair of IRE’s Contest Committee. “The judges were impressed by examples of strong investigative work being done in all mediums and markets. These award-winning projects prove that news organizations understand investing in investigative journalism is more important than ever.” This year’s winners were selected from among more than 550 entries. Two organizations,ProPublica and NPR, teamed up for two award-winning projects. And three projects were singled out for IRE Medals, the highest honor the organization bestows. The awards, given by Investigative Reporters & Editors Inc. since 1979, recognize the most outstanding watchdog journalism of the year. The contest covers 17 categories across media platforms and a range of market sizes. Click here for a complete list of winners and finalists…”

starlings_300
oversight.garden – “The US government has many dozens of offices dedicated to keeping the government honest and efficient through strong, independent oversight. They produce a lot of good work, but the results are scattered all over the internet. Sometimes they get the attention they deserve, and many times they don’t. It would be a shame for good oversight to go overlooked. We gather the work of the US government oversight community in one place so you can freely search and subscribe to it.”

*Writers in government

*Capek's Robot Writers:
The team is looking for a creative thinker. Someone who is passionate about idea creation, exploring different ways of working, examining processes that make the place in which we work better and the products and services we provide our customers, exciting. Your title; Open Ideation Consultant. You will be responsible for the management and operationalisation of an open ideation vehicle/channel with the objective of building an ecosystem which fosters the development and submission of innovative ideas. Successful submission/s may be supported with dedicated time in the Garage @ Innovation Lab an ideation and incubation lab which is also managed by the Capability team. Who are the brave souls to to dare to apply for this Kafkaesque role of Open Ideation Consultancy 

“I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.”
Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution 

So long, good Samaritans.
In the first study of its kind, Cornell sociologists have found that people who have a medical emergency in a public place can’t necessarily rely on the kindness of strangers. Only 2.5 percent of people, or 1 in 39, got help from strangers before emergency medical personnel arrived, in research published April 14 in the American Journal of Public Health.
For African-Americans, these dismal findings only get worse. African-Americans werRare to Come Across Good Samaritan 

Dear Malchkeon
You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, “Why don’t you make something for me?”
I asked you what you wanted, and you said, “A box.”
“What for?”
“To put things in.”
“What kind of things?”
“Whatever you have,” you said.
Well, here’s your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts- the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.
And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.
And still the box is not full.
MD


Poetry-obsessed diplomats


Two years ago, The Guardian’s Paul Farrell  wrote a piece showing that an Australian vessel engaged in policing our border against asylum seekers went deep into Indonesia’s internal waters to do so. A government review of the incident had previously said the crossing into Indonesian waters was inadvertent. By showing how far the vessel had actually gone, Farrell’s story cast serious doubt […] How to know if the AFP how is spying on you or your journalistic sources


WARNING
Everything in this blog
may be
all wrong.
But if so,
it’s
all right!

To all those who lead monotonous lives, in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure.
The Secret Adverary, by Agatha Christie

Information Security: IRS Needs to Further Improve Controls over Taxpayer Data and Continue to Combat Identity Theft Refund Fraud, GAO-16-589T: Published: Apr 12, 2016. Publicly Released: Apr 12, 2016.

Resolution Plans: Regulators Have Refined Their Review Processes but Could Improve Transparency and Timeliness,GAO-16-341: Published: Apr 12, 2016. Publicly Released: Apr 12, 2016.

‘I have a conscience’: the Wall Streeters fighting for Sanders in New YorkGuardian

Security Assistance: Better Records Management and More Reporting Needed on Presidential Drawdowns, GAO-16-291: Published: Apr 12, 2016. Publicly Released: Apr 12, 2016.

Terrorism Risk Insurance: Comparison of Selected Programs in the United States and Foreign Countries, GAO-16-316: Published: Apr 12, 2016. Publicly Released: Apr 12, 2016.



Knowledge@Wharton, 14/4/16. Explores why companies whose business models involve leveraging networks generate more value than traditional firms