It Takes Two, Baby

The newly formed Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report showing how he federal government has 81 overlapping programs resulting in $100 billion in wasted money. Obama’s been talking about this for as long as I can remember, and having something in black and white is certainly useful. I just hope they take the information and put it to use instead of stare at it like a riddle trying to figure out how the 82 different teacher-quality programs are America’s downfall due to the opposing party’s negligence.

I can’t help but think about our region when reading the absurdity of some of these stats (52 economic development programs! 15 agencies tasked with food laws!) I wonder how many regional dollars are spent in ways that overlap. Obviously we’re paying seven+ police departments, city councils, etc. We have seven+ garbage pickup services and ways to register a pet. Combining a lot of our overlapping services into regional ones would save money that could be put back into the region, which, regardless of where you live within it, we all really do share.

Republican Tom Coburn (OK) proposed the GAO and deserves recognition for his good idea. Democrat Mark Warner (VA) is then quoted as touting a new, different law expected to roll out in 2012 where directors of government agencies must report their best and worst programs, with the idea that the director’s themselves are more apt to identify problems within their agency than the third-party, non-partisan GAO.

Right, obviously the directors of said programs would never think about job security when reporting their agency’s deficiencies. They would never sugarcoat. There would never be opportunity to partisan bias.

Does anyone else find it ironic in a story about consolidation of government programs doing essentially the same thing, we have a Republican who devised a way to monitor this and then a Democrat who is essentially creating a different way to monitor it? Thus, we’ll have two government agencies tasked with overseeing ways to avoid having multiple government agencies oversee things.

CNU Continues March into Awesomeness

That guy's gonna march in London. | pic: CNU.edu

Christopher Newport University’s marching band has been personally invited to participate in 2012’s New Year’s Day Parade in London (the biggest in the world.) When I say “personally,” I mean it. Winston Churchill’s great-grandson flew here to physically hand the invite to CNU President Paul Trible.

Go Captains! (Note: I’m a CNU alum. I am proud and biased.)

Speaking of Marching Bands…

I was in Flag Corps in high school, which technically means I was in the band. It was okay. However, if it had been the band in the below video, I most definitely would be Karen O instead of jESiO. This band teacher rocks.

Virginia Women Keep it Classy

When I pulled up the paper’s website today, the first two headlines were “Va. woman gets probation for being naked in store” and “Va. woman, 29, charged in beating death of boyfriend, 77.” I gotta say, Va. women, you’re a heckuva lot more interesting to wake up to than generic 7-11 hold ups or run of the mill domestic crimes. Jennifer Riegler (naked lady) was told she’s persona non grata in the great state of Maryland and responded to her sentence by saying she was “not in the right state of mind” when she danced suggestively and unclothed in the middle of a grocery store. Seriously, Maryland? You’re going to ban her? I think she’d fit right in in certain sections of Ocean City.

Or Crazy…

Jill McGlone, the Norfolk Community Services Board employee who didn’t show up for twelve years while she continued to get paid (sums totaling over $300k) is angry. She’s angry because she was experienced a “wrongful termination” at the hands of CSB director Maureen Womack. She’s angry because she’s being denied unemployment.

She was scheduled (at her request) to meet with Womack and City Manager Marcus Jones today but canceled abruptly and without explanation. You can read her letter to them online, and, well, it certainly doesn’t lack in cajones. She doesn’t seem to feel she did anything illegal (and maybe she didn’t, as she hasn’t been charged with anything) and outright states “ I personally never knew why or how my termination took place other than the falsified allegations of me being a “no-show worker” and how her “wrongful termination” has placed her and her family in distress.

Park Place Update:

The top Pilot story today is about Chesapeake’s real estate assessments, which made me think of two weeks ago, when Norfolk’s were released. I live in Colonial Place and couldn’t find my neighborhood in the listing.

That’s because we are now North Colonial Place and South Colonial Place. No real news on when this change occurred or why. While the cynic in me could hypothesize that the Northerners might want to separate themselves and their water views and large driveways from the stigma associated with acknowledging your neighbor to the south is Park Place. How much nicer to say your neighbor is South Colonial Place!

This is speculation of course. It could be completely rational and census-based. It could also have the reverse effect, where Park Placers and South Colonial Placers continue to merge into one hodgepodge of culture and community. I mean, NoCo has a water view, but SoCo (besides being dubbed SoCo) also gets walking proximity to coffee shops, live entertainment, restaurants, etc.