Growing Out of Control

Well, the next thing she found was a little cake: and it had the words "EAT ME" marked on it. So of course she set to work and ate it up. And THEN what do you think happened to her? No, you'll never guess! I shall have to tell you again.

She grew and she grew, and she grew. Taller than she was before! Taller than ANY child! Taller than any grown-up person! Taller, and taller, and taller! Just look at the picture, and you'll SEE how tall she got!


—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
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In the beginning, in 1788, George Washington's cabinet consisted of 4 departments: State, Treasury, War, and Attorney General. Can you history buffs name the first heads of these 4 departments? Jefferson, Hamilton, Knox, Randolph. Easy. Sadly, Jay Leno received 3 answers starting with, "Barack Obama?...??....???" Yet, while American's knowledge of their government has plummeted over the years, the size of their government has grown much faster than Alice and her cake or mushrooms or whatever it was.


In addition to the above named Executive Branch of our early government, we also had a congress, consisting of 26 Senators and 65 Representatives. I was not there, but it is a pretty good bet that their first order of business was probably to start dividing themselves up into committees. Or perhaps that only came after the issue of fringe benefits was debated.


Even with this, I am pretty sure there was yet not a House Foreign Affairs Committe, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversite. Most of you will be relieved to hear that there is one today.


Now, that is no longer quite true. You see, the House Foreign Affairs Committe, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Righs, and Oversite was apparently not able to cope with all its business, so, recently, it was broken up into two separate subcomittees: the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations; and the Human Rights folks became the Subcommitte on Africa, Global Heath, and Human Rights. I'm assuming the House thought there was no longer any U.S. domestic heath or human rights problems, and that those things belonged under the heading of "Africa." On the other hand, there is already an entire Executive Branch Cabinet-level Department of Health and Human Services, or used to be, unless it has been broken up and subcommitteed out. Now, I should hasten to add, that our Department of Health and Human Services used to be a subcabinet subdepartment under the old HEW (Health, Education, and Welfare) - what folly it was back in the 1960s to ask one department to do all of that under one roof! Or under one "big tent" as the politicians are fond of saying.


Yes, our government is too big and out of control. Sadly, it seems to be the main model for the United Nations internal organization, which is what I really wanted to talk about here today before my preface again outgrew (get it? "outgrew"?) my main thesis. Talk about grossly obese, bloated, and top-heavy bureaucracies. Oh, my, god. OMG OMG. Please tune in next time. This would be funny if it weren't actually YOUR money I am talking about here. If only we could pattern (patten?) ourselves after the clean and efficient, lean and mean, government of the U.K.


My thoughts keep returning to Alice's Cake. Dear U.S. government: EAT ME!

International Monetary Fund

"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 186 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world."

The IMF is an agency of the United Nations.

The IMF is not a bad thing, seeking to squeeze repayment from countries like Haiti who could never repay anyway.

The IMF has just approved $102 million in aid to Haiti. Although this must be shown as a loan (the IMF lends money) one should not be afraid that Haiti will have to use your donations to pay back the IMF. Haiti doesn't pay it's debts. No need to fret.

Additional information added from Reuters newswire, 1/28/10:

Some $1.2 billion of Haiti's debts to the IMF and World Bank were written off in July last year as a reward by the international community for progress the country was making in economic reforms and management.

A brief history of the middle east

Everyone seems to have an opinion of the Middle East, and everyone seems to have an opinion about the seemingly everlasting Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the land in what has come to be known by many as the “Holy Land”. Of course the Middle East includes many other surrounding countries, but this post is a short history of what used to be a geographical area called Palestine.

I won’t attempt to go into great detail, but will do more in subsequent posts. This post is only an overview of the history of the area - a first step for readers who would like to know what is going on there and why.

First of all, both the Israelis and the Palestinians (and a lot of other historical inhabitants) have a “claim” to that land, but, in point of fact, it has seldom actually been “controlled” by any of the claimants for any length of time in history. By that I mean there has almost always been some outside “landlord” or “occupier” to whom the actual inhabitants were more or less subjugated.

Going far back in time, the Egyptians enjoyed great influence over a pretty vast area in that part of the world, but coming forward in time more recently, lest we spend too much time on the real early stuff, one might logically start with the Babylonians. They took over in 586 BC, although the Assyrians already held sway over parts.

50 years later, the Persian Empire was the owner of the moment, under Cyrus the Great, followed by Greek rule after being conquered by Alexander the Great. They were all “great” back then. Then the Egyptians again and then ancient Syria. In 63 BC came the Roman Empire, which eventually morphed into the Byzantine Empire in that area. In 638 AD began the long 1300-year rule of the Arab Conquest. In 1517, the Ottoman Turks conquered, and held the territory until the Ottoman Empire was defeated and broken up in World War One.

I don’t present the above to confuse you, only to illustrate that the long-term residents of the area (and there were more than just the present day Israelis and Palestinians) were, with few exceptions, seldom actual masters of their own domain. Even after World War I, the area was controlled by the French and the British.

I point all this out to remind you that the concept of sovereignty by the actual inhabitants is a fairly recent event, and simply because they and their ancestors lived there for a very long time does not mean they were the rightful controllers of the land over everyone else. To the contrary, all of the inhabitants of the area were almost always tenets of some occupier or another. That gives the lie to whether Israeli or Palestinian (or others) REALLY have a pure ancestral claim to the land any more than any other long-term inhabitant. There were indeed some short-term exceptions, but to put it bluntly, they were almost always the conquered people of this or that Empire.

Next: The British Mandate land area (which had been issued by the League of Nations following WWI) is broken up and apportioned by the United Nations.