Word: bureaucratism
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...sent it down to Athens for inspection. They even asked to borrow the book we were using-a 1913 edition, now out of print, of The Nomads of the Balkans -promising to return it the next day, but they sent it down to Athens for some American-paid intelligence bureaucrat to examine...
Most Americans have learned to coexist with the inefficiencies and jargon of bureaucracy, accepting them with sullen resignation. Not so James Boren, president of NATAPROBU (for National Association of Professional Bureaucrats), a mischievous group organized to reform bureaucracy by lampooning it. Last week, at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., designed to demonstrate the bureaucratic characteristic of "dynamic inactivism," Boren belatedly named Sandra Summers, a Pentagon secretary, as "Miss Bureaucrat...
...model of inefficiency. Phone wires, some disconnected, make Boren's desk look like a spaghetti bowl. Papers, stamps and stamp pads are everywhere. One example: "Cleared/Deputy Associate Assistant Chairman/Committee on Clearances/NATAPROBU." There are copies of Inaction Line, the organization's own very occasional publication; a clutch of bureaucrat pencilsfeaturing erasers at both endsand even copies of a society song called Let's Fingertap Together. Boren estimates that the organization has about 300 members, but admits the roster has not grown much in the past year. Bureaucratic inefficiency has slowed recruiting, of course...
...fitting bureaucratic style, the coronation of "Miss Bureaucrat 1969" last week was followed, a few moments later, by the crowning of "Miss Carbon Copy," her twin sister. Both presided over the presentation of awards for extraordinary bureaucratic finesse. Winners received a gold-painted, potbellied, disheveled bird, sculpted by Boren himself. Among the recipients were ex-Ambassador to Panama and former Peace Corps Director Jack Hood Vaughn and John Brayton Redecker, a State Department official and author of CASP: A Systematic Approach to Policy Planning and Analysis in Foreign Affairs. Absent was Vice President Spiro Agnew, tapped for "his contributions...
...minor Tokyo bureaucrat, Senji Kataoka, 53, spends the week doing public relations chores for the Ministry of Agriculture. But every Sunday during the harvest season, he becomes an Oriental Quixote-a tireless crusader against the urban sprawl that is fast destroying Japan's rural beauty. Armed with three cameras, he mounts his Honda and chugs off to perform his duties as president (and sole member) of the Japan Scarecrow Institute. His mission: to save and celebrate scarecrows, "the silent critics of this country's devastating environmental disruptions...