“From city halls to county courthouses, from the State house to the White House – bureaucrats control our lives.  Public servants who often try to become our masters.  People whose salaries we pay, but what goods and services do we get?  On Sierra Wave’s Bureaucrat Beat, we’ll report what they’re up to.”  That’s the Bureaucrat Beat declaration of dissatisfaction, but as you may know, Bureaucrat Beat talks about so much more.

Postal Service's new sportswear line will likely not look like your daily postman.

Postal Service’s new sportswear line will likely not look like your daily postman.

Like the Post Office.  We in the Bureaucrat Beat Newsroom do love the Post Office, in spite of some obsessive regulatory attitudes.  It’s a service we need, and the Post Office, partially funded by the federal government, loses billions of dollars per year. To help stall the financial slide, the P.O. has decided to launch a fashion line – for men only!!  What are they thinking??  Don’t they know women are the world’s premiere shoppers?

The clothing line will be called Rain Heat & Snow.  The P.O. will collect royalties from sales.  They will sell outerwear, sportswear, casual wear, athletic wear and seasonal wear – for men only!!  What’s up with this?  Is it requirement that the P.O. shoot itself in the foot?    Oh, all right, eventually, they claim, they will include women.

Smith & Wesson doesn’t care what gender buys their products.  News reports say that S & W’s third-quarter earnings more than tripled from the previous year.  Like locusts, Americans have cleaned out huge gun stores’ shelves. Fear of gun control, and some unnamed terror has driven up sales.  This year, Smith & Wesson reported a third-quarter profit of $14.6 million compared to last year’s $4.4 million.

Love the story about the Crystal Geyser employee who sued for discrimination – he is an overweight white man.  Before the judgment came down in his favor, he had lunch with his lawyer at the Merry-Go-Round in Lone Pine.  His fortune cookie said look for financial gain ahead.  He was awarded more than half a million, in total.  We in the Bureaucrat Beat Newsroom have made reservations for lunch.

Way over half million – the latest DMV debacle.  According to the LA Times, a half-finished, $208 million computer project was iced for lack of progress.  They spent $135 million before trashing a big part of it.  The part that would have overhauled vehicle registration is dead in Sacramento waters.

That’s not the only computer nightmare in the State’s capital.  A computer upgrade for the state’s payroll system came to an ugly end after spending $254 million!!

davecarlebookOn a more soothing note, David and Janet Carle of Lee Vining have issued a new book after they traveled outside cities across Japan, Korea, China, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Greece, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, the Azores Islands, and the U.S.  Their book, “Traveling the 38th Parallel”, indeed follows that line of demarcation around the world and bisects familiar territory at Mono Lake.  The book chronicles the Carle’s adventures.  The book’s inside cover says, “Former park rangers, the authors set out on an around-the-world journey in search of water-related environmental and cultural intersections along the 38th parallel.”  The book focuses on many who are “struggling to preserve some of the world’s most amazing, yet threatened, landscapes.”

Back down to the ugly depths – lots of scams about these days.  For heaven’s sake, don’t give strangers personal information, don’t trust a weird story over the phone or in email.   Sadly, you can’t even use your credit/ debit cards for shopping without fear of someone stealing your numbers.   A Bishop man said he found out his card numbers were hacked when his bank told him about a charge on his card in a jewelry store in Italy!  He was one of the some 200 Bishop people whose cards were scammed.

Did you catch “Hotel Impossible” and the crew’s re-do at Alpenhof Lodge? Great story and a lesson to all of us in business – we’re only human, we need to grow and change, it’s not scary.  Especially if Anthony Melchiorri comes to visit.

Let us pray that the Koch brothers do not visit their ownership on the Los Angeles Times and other Tribune papers.  The obsessive brothers like to wield political power with their big bucks.  If you dig extremist, right-wing life, you’ll love the Koch brothers.  That kind of out of balance lifestyle is not compatible with news media ownership.

We’re not the only ones miffed at LADWP.  Parents of students at Marquez Elementary Charter School at Pacific Palisades have launched a major campaign to stop DWP from building a power distribution station right next to the school.  Parents point to “regular accidents at distribution stations around the country, risk of fire and explosions, and health risks like childhood leukemia from the electromagnetic field.”

Poor DWP.  Those pesky members of the public always get in the way!

With that, this is Benett Kessler, signing off for Bureaucrat Beat where we await your word on our lives in the Eastern Sierra and beyond.

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