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Washington Times Scrutinizes GPO
This article was published in The Washington Times yesterday: "Outsourced passport work scrutinized". Several concerns were cited, including security and profits:
"Documents and interviews with Bush administration officials said the GPO made about $100 million in profits on the production of electronic passports since 2006 and their sale to the State Department far beyond the costs. The profits are raising questions among congressional investigators about whether the GPO is complying with laws that limit its business activities to recovering printing costs on a break-even basis".GPO replied with their side of the story via a lengthy press release.
"The current agreed upon price between GPO and our customer (the State Department) for the production of the e-passport is $14.80 per book. That includes: materials, labor, overhead, required inventory, the secure production facility and future investments. GPO does not have any role in setting the price to the public for a passport, the State Department determines that price. ...GPO is unlike most other Federal agencies in that all GPO activities are financed through a business-like revolving fund. The revolving fund functions as GPO’s checking account with the U.S. Treasury. The fund is used to pay all of GPO’s costs and the fund is reimbursed by our agency customers when they pay GPO invoices".Today, the Washington Times published the second part of this three-part story: "GPO profits go to bonuses and trips".
"When the government's main printing agency booked $100 million in unexpected profit it went on a spending spree: large bonuses to top managers, trips to Paris and Las Vegas, and an official photo of the boss that cost $10,000. The bonuses, some nearly as high as $13,000, and travel are raising questions among congressional investigators and Government Printing Office officials about whether the agency is misusing its newfound wealth and whether it received the proper authority for some of the larger compensation payments from the Office of Budget and Management".I'll be honest...my head is spinning. I'm trying to find out more information about this and understand some of these issues. What do you think about all this? I'll be sure to post a link to the third part of this story and any responses from GPO that are released. Stay tuned... Continue reading
Virtual Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall
If you wish to pay your respects but cannot travel to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in D.C., can now do so from your computer. NARA and Footnote.com have released a searchable digital replica of the Memorial Wall. The site also allows you to "leave a tribute, a story or photograph about any of the 58,256 veterans killed or missing in the Vietnam War". Word of warning, the site claims that due to recent high traffic, you might experience slow loading pages or images. They are working to improve this. Continue reading
Happy Document Freedom Day!
Today is the world's first Document Freedom Day! About 200 teams from more than 60 countries worldwide are organizing local activities to raise awareness for Document Freedom and Open Standards. The site also has a pamphlet to print and distribute, as well as information on open standards, document standards, and more. Continue reading
Follow the Oil Money
Well lookee here...a website that tracks petroleum industry campaign contributions, called Follow the Oil Money. I did a zip code/name search, and not surprisingly, Texas and Louisiana congressmen received quite a bit of campaign funds from the oil industries and they voted for "big oil" 65-100% of the time. And did you know that George W. Bush received $2,649,725 in oil contributions during the 2004 election campaign? John Kerry received $184,037. In 2008, Rudy Giuliani received $659,158 and Barack Obama received $163,840. The presidential races page told me so. Their visual charts are pretty amusing. They compare them to Facebook or MySpace, "in which companies and politicians have become 'friends' by giving money". For more information, including how they get their data, go to FAQ page. Continue reading
Civil Defense Documents and Films…My Current Obsession
Several student patrons are working on research papers about the Cold War era and some are focusing on the nuclear arms race and the fear of nuclear attack. It's been fascinating finding and reading materials we have in our print collection, including information published by the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) in the 1950s and the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization (OCDM) during the Kennedy administration. (For a concise history of civil defense preparedness, read "Civil Defense and Homeland Security: A Short History of National Preparedness Efforts" published by the Homeland Security National Preparedness Task Force).
The students are just as fascinated (and sometimes amused) as I am with these documents that represent an era we never knew and a fear we can't relate to. Or maybe we can relate...our generation lives in fear of terrorism "code red" rather than the red scare of communism or atom bomb attack, but it's still a fear.
Anyways, the students and I found some more civil defense documents listed in the print Monthly Catalogs (we owned some FCDA and OCDM docs, but not as many as I would've liked), but we also found some on the internet. So I thought I'd share some of these online government sources I've discovered in my hunt for all things Cold War/Civil Defense related:
* Clips of historical "test" films at the DOE agency website.
* "Mr. Civil Defense Tells About Natural Disasters!" A government document comic book!
* "In Time of Emergency: A Citizen's Handbook on Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters" (1968).
* The "Survival Under Atomic Attack" booklet can be found in federal depositories, but here is an online transcription.
* NARA records of the OCDM.
* "Atomic Culture" article by the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission.
* Not a government source, but a virtual Civil Defense Museum website created by a Civil Defense enthusiast.
* "Civil Defense Log Dies at 67, and Some Mourn It's Passing" article at NYTimes.com.
And my favorite...Civil Defense videos!
* Internet Archive's collection of Civil Defense Films and other media/film resources on civil defense.
* Some of YouTube's collection of Civil Defense Films.
Did they really think ducking n' covering under a school desk would protect them from a nuclear attack?
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