The end of The Smithsonian as THE worlds greatest museum

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MiTasol said:

I am so glad I left pre ww2 Germany by flying out of Los Angeles in December 1972 and never going back to live there.

I am appalled that friends who have been working at the NASM since the early 80s are no longer answering their work emails.
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Not surprised.

I cannot make a sensible reply without running afoul of the board's "no-politics" rule. In any event, trying to censor history to remove facts you don't like from display is not the behavior of somebody who believes in elective democracy. As to restoring the statues of confederates? If you're going to put up a statue to Nathan Bedford Forest or Robert E. Lee, you should also start putting up statues to Benedict Arnold. They're cut from exactly the same cloth.
 
It is sad that science, facts, reason and history have been demphasized and in some cases ignored or done away with over the past few years for a number of reasons, right or wrong.
Devolution is now in favor and hopefully, soon the pendulum will swing back to favor evolution. In the mean time it is a bit worrisome. Get out and visit places of interest for you before changes happen. Then you can say to your kids and grandkids "I remember when......."

Jager
 
Jager52 said:
It is sad that science, facts, reason and history have been demphasized and in some cases ignored or done away with over the past few years for a number of reasons, right or wrong.
Devolution is now in favor and hopefully, soon the pendulum will swing back to favor evolution. In the mean time it is a bit worrisome. Get out and visit places of interest for you before changes happen. Then you can say to your kids and grandkids "I remember when......."

Jager
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I'd disagree with the "past few years" phrase. A lot of history was deliberately obscured for decades by political forces in the US. What is going to be suppressed in the name of ideology? Indian boarding schools? State supported terrorists, like the KKK? Racist policies like the Chinese Exclusion Act? Violent acts like the Tulsa Massacre?

They should all be in museums. They should all be in histories.
Marcel said:
Not sure what "we" as non US citizens can do.
This is actually internal US politics. Let's leave it at that.
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Offer all the academics and scientists being fired as part of the purges appropriate jobs.
 
swampyankee said:
Not surprised.

I cannot make a sensible reply without running afoul of the board's "no-politics" rule. In any event, trying to censor history to remove facts you don't like from display is not the behavior of somebody who believes in elective democracy. As to restoring the statues of confederates? If you're going to put up a statue to Nathan Bedford Forest or Robert E. Lee, you should also start putting up statues to Benedict Arnold. They're cut from exactly the same cloth.
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I live in Virginia, was born in Indiana.

The upper South (VA, NC, TN, AR) didn't secede until Lincoln demanded conscription, passage, materiel and quartering from the upper South states. They wanted nothing to do with supporting Lincoln's illegal war on the lower South.

I'm not a fan of Lincoln. If the South wanted independence, then they should have been granted it. Consent of the governed is a fundamental principle America has always believed in, and if we don't believe in it anymore then we should apologize to the King.

The fact that Lincoln refused to accept that hallowed principle is one of the most damning things ever said about any US president. That may sound harsh and discordant given the hero-worship he's enjoyed for so long, but it's hardly an unreasonable conclusion for an unbiased observer to draw.
 
Many or most here are vets or old age pensioners. This worries me as much as what has happened at the Smithsonian.

1743584488824.png
Look at the NUMBER fired. So much for supporting those who protected the country and put their lives on the line.
and
1743584576628.png

1743584694058.png
 
MiTasol said:
Many or most here are vets or old age pensioners. This worries me as much as what has happened at the Smithsonian.

View attachment 825552 Look at the NUMBER fired. So much for supporting those who protected the country and put their lives on the line.
and
View attachment 825553
View attachment 825554
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I had a 2-hour wait to fill a prescription on Monday. On my recent trip to visit museums, so many people thanked me for my service, but this is the actual thanks we're getting.
 
In my 30+ year career with Kodak servicing equipment as a vendor to various Government installations, I saw waste in lack of attention to jobs, make work positions, and people in charge who, if not in U.S. Government employment, would be living under a bridge somewhere. As an example, there was an individual at a USDA site who wore expensive clothes and only walked around and talked to folks. When I asked what he did, I was told, "Oh, that's Frenchie. He's rich." He apparently inherited oil wells and owned two float planes which he used to pick up prosperous clients at the airport and fly them to a site on the Gulf where they went deep sea fishing. He only stayed with the USDA for the pension. I encountered others at other government offices who were only holding space. As a result of my servicing equipment at VA hospitals, I determined never to go to a VA hospital. This has been reinforced by the treatment my late brother in law received, as well as how my sister, his spouse, is treated. As a tricare recipient, she must drive two hours to a base to get her prescriptions, and often some cannot be filled although a call before leaving assured her the meds were ready.
I saw much was inefficient and wasted effort and hope some of the dead wood and unnecessary duplication will be eliminated.
Too many things come to mind to put down, such as watching constructions knowing things will be made right after completion by modifications.
 
There is undoubtedly waste and fraud at all levels of government.
There is a lot that could stand fixing.
It is like an old house with plumbing problems, electrical problems, loose floorboards and a slightly leaky roof. A lot of stuff to be fixed.
But it appears that the Dogy (intentional spelling) Boys plan on burning the house down without having even a set of blueprints to build on the foundation.
We are basically being told how much money we can save by living in a tent.
We will have lots of money to spend on clothes and blankets when we don't have to pay for actual heating systems or insulated walls or running water or..................................

I worked as a town firefighter for 33 years. There was some waste in our dept. Outride fraud was rare/nonextant. Maybe there was over in finance? Fire chief ordered stuff but finance wrote the checks and reviewed purchases. Old New England town, supercheap, anything over $300 needed to be brought to the town council.
Now the town (40,000 people) could have saved money by getting rid of the fire dept and ambulance. I don't know how much fire insurance would have gone up and I don't know for sure how many residents would have died. But hey, all of us old people are just a drain on society anyway? Burning down 5-6 houses instead of 1 just opens up space for new construction?

Better oversight/maintenance is a good solution for waste/fraud, not perfect but better than torching the structure.

BTW my wife fought cancer for 4 years, we had good insurance but we still got help from some special programs for certain drugs. Certain drugs we had to qualify for help, not make too much money and manufacturer would supply "free", or they would take what Medicare and insurance would pay and forget the rest.

If this is too political please take it down.
 
MiTasol said:
Many or most here are vets or old age pensioners. This worries me as much as what has happened at the Smithsonian.

View attachment 825552 Look at the NUMBER fired. So much for supporting those who protected the country and put their lives on the line.
and
View attachment 825553
View attachment 825554
Click to expand...
Speaking just to this, from my limited experience I have doubts that it is only 0.9% fired for the FAA. The FAA was already short-staffed, overburdened and suffering from mass brain-drain, but the recent firings within the FAA have had catastrophic impacts from a conformity and certification standpoint. Type certificates and supplemental type certificates are being ignored entirely simply because there aren't enough eyes to review and respond.

This has other knock-on effects, too, for what happens when the FAA is mandated to keep their program throughput the same, with their reduced manpower? Well, at that point their entire review process becomes little more than a rubber stamp affair, at grave risk to the flying public.

The irony is that, from what I am aware, several of the folks who were fired were involved in the review & approval process for DER/DAR/DMIRs, folks who in of themselves are critical to reducing the bureaucratic workload the FAA is saddled with. And so the dominoes begin to fall...
 
Think Tanker said:
The irony is that, from what I am aware, several of the folks who were fired were involved in the review & approval process for DER/DAR/DMIRs, folks who in of themselves are critical to reducing the bureaucratic workload the FAA is saddled with. And so the dominoes begin to fall...
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Many, many years ago (my memory may be faulty) I read a newspaper article in Connecticut about a budget cut in the Connecticut welfare system.
They were going to lay off eight of the ten agents/inspectors in the fraud dept. The average salary was listed as was the amount of fraud the 10 inspectors had discovered the previous year. They had uncovered over twice the amount of money in fraud than what their salaries cost in total.

The other thing about government budgets and costs. They often only look at a the cost for one year, spreading the cost out over several years will add to the total cost but keep the price tag low for the following year so the politician/s can brag about low cost in the next election cycle.
What the total cost will be is ignored.

Going back to my house analogy, it is going to cost a lot more to rebuild the destroyed structures than it would have cost to actually fix them. And you don't have the structures in the meantime.
 
Rather than participate in arguments, I will point to only one personal incident with Social Security and let others comment about waste or not.
I took early retirement at 62 and went to the SS office in 2002 to sign in.
After about an hour, the paperwork and discussion was finished. I stood up to leave and was told, "Now for your daughter." Speechless, a rarity for me, I sat down.
I told the lady, "My daughter is not handicapped." It doesn't matter, when a person retires on SS, his minor child (children) also get SS until 18 years old.
My daughter was eight at the time, so with some mental math including 4% cost of living annual increase I figured she would have very close to $100,000 at graduation. With in a couple hundred of mine by the time. It came out a couple thousand less, in the event, due to Pres Obama declaring there was no inflation during his terms. I immediately set up a savings account at our bank for my daughter's deposits. Over the years, the only dips into the account was for dental braces and a very used car at high school graduation. Since her birthday was in March and graduation in June payments lasted till June.
The intent was to provide savings for college, however college costs were low because of scholarships and reductions from being on dean's list. This left considerable for Marriage and still some left for their possible home down payment.
I thank all of you American taxpayers for sending my daughter to college.
I feel this is an abuse of the SS system, but to turn it down would have been stupid.
I began to see why I would see, in traffic, an old fart in a Lincoln towncar or a Big Caddy, with a young thing in passenger seat with four or five little ones running around
inside.
Each year, some one would call from SS ( an addition to mailing & completing the annual form) asking the distribution of the funds. When I said funds went to savings account as noted, the person was usually astounded that it was saved. Once I was asked, "How did you live?" My response was, "If I could not afford to raise a child, we would not have had one."
The very last SS phone call was from a very young sounding woman who asked why I saved the money. When I told her it was for college, the young lady said, "Oh, that's so great. I still owe $58 thousand." She was obviously a Sociology degree student
 
Alan Stevens said:
I live in Virginia, was born in Indiana.

The upper South (VA, NC, TN, AR) didn't secede until Lincoln demanded conscription, passage, materiel and quartering from the upper South states. They wanted nothing to do with supporting Lincoln's illegal war on the lower South.

I'm not a fan of Lincoln. If the South wanted independence, then they should have been granted it. Consent of the governed is a fundamental principle America has always believed in, and if we don't believe in it anymore then we should apologize to the King.

The fact that Lincoln refused to accept that hallowed principle is one of the most damning things ever said about any US president. That may sound harsh and discordant given the hero-worship he's enjoyed for so long, but it's hardly an unreasonable conclusion for an unbiased observer to draw.
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Lincoln...you have a beef with Lincoln. The man was assassinated 160 years ago... The south has got to get over itself. No one I know in the north talks about the civil war...and we won. Honestly i wish you did succeed. So the rest of the union wouldn't have pay for states like Louisiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky, for example, that have historically relied heavily on federal assistance. Think of where they would be without the union. SMH
 
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