Linda and her (much) younger sister Carolyn
On the occasion of the latter's birthday
When I decided to accept the offer of a faculty position at
Western Washington University I had two other alternatives. I had an offer from San Diego State
University, as well as the option of returning to the U. S. Geological Survey,
where I had worked for over five years.
Pay, of course, was a factor, but not in this case an important one; the
Survey paid by far the most, and Western the least, by a substantial
margin. I rejected SD State on the
grounds that it had a punishing teaching load, precluding the opportunity to do
much research - which I particularly wanted to do. The Survey did nothing BUT research, but
required one to live in places I disliked – big cities, especially Washington,
D.C. And also, in my time with the
Survey I had discovered it to be painfully and frustratingly bureaucratic. The most important person in my Survey branch
was the director of personnel – who knew how to get around the bullshit and let
things get done. Unfortunately, he
retired.
But enough baloney about me.
Let’s get to the point. However…..
Last chunk of baloney.
All that I wrote above is true – but the real reason I picked WWU was to
be near the North Cascades.
So here is a progress report on the Moonshot; the Federal
program to kick-start cancer research – or, rather, turbocharge it. The initial appropriation was $1.8
billion. So far (two years) $600 million
has been spent. The principal result,
according to this progress report, seems to be to have been to establish
committees to oversee the work! That is
1/3 of the pot. Moonshot is supposed to
last seven years, so now we have five left to get results. Shades of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Read the link given below; you will get a good summary of
what Moonshot is all about. And while
you’re at it, see if you detect a note of” bureaucratise”. After all, is there anywhere else that you might
encounter a word like “operationalize”?
You made a wise choice so now let's hope the Moonshot people make wise choices on how to spend that money.
ReplyDeleteIf you enjoy dangling your toes in a footbath of Federal bureaucratic pronouncements, try this. Click on some of the blue terms, too. Like me you will discover what is meant by, for instance, 8th percentile – and then scratch your head when you encounter “140th percentile”
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2018/sharpless-nci-fy2019-budget?cid=eb_govdel