COB-88: organic bureaucracy enhances collard greens

bureaucracy-certified organic collard greens ($2.99 plus tax)

When you eat collard greens, don’t settle for old-fashioned collard greens.  Recently I had the pleasure of buying “certified organic” collard greens at an exorbitantly priced grocery store.  An informational tag on the collard greens explained what “certified organic” means:

It means that our product has been grown according to strict uniform standards and rules that are verified by independent state of organizations {sic}.

Bureaucrats relish vegetables grown under “strict uniform standards and rules,” irrespective of what those standards and rules are.  Being verified by organizations is also good.  The more organizations, the better.  The informational tag continues:

Cal-Organic is certified by California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) as well as the USDA.

Double-acronym certified!

Our rigorous certification program include many procedures, i.e. inspections of farm fields and processing facilities, detailed record keeping, and testing of soil and water to ensure that we are ultimately accountable to you.

Every consumer-accountant should be pleased: many procedures are being carried out, detailed records are being kept, and testing is being done.  What other information would you want to know?

Our motto is more than just the words “FARMING WITH PRIDE AND INTEGRITY.”  It is our action plan to assure your complete trust in our produce.

That’s a troubling action plan.  It consist of only five words.  Capitalization is no substitute for additional verbiage and a full-fledged mission statement.  Solid growth of organic bureaucracy takes time. Nonetheless, these collard greens provide a good taste of bureaucracy.  They obviously are not your grandfather’s collard greens.

In other bureaucratic issues this month, postal services around the world have been struggling economically.  Postal services are venerable bureaucracies.  Enemies of bureaucracy deserve much of the blame for postal services’ problems.  Many bureaucratic enemies have been reducing paperwork and the volume of correspondence.  More malicious bureaucratic haters, the sort who write books entitled Bureaucrats: How to Annoy Them, actively attempt to sabotage postal services.  Consider this despicable behavior:

One man who got into a war of letters with the Royal Mail itself persisted in sticking his stamp right in the middle of the envelope. This makes it difficult for the franking machines.

This petty but effective tactic riled every official in the postal hierarchy, right up to the district chief manager. He wrote to the rebel, warning him never to stick a stamp anywhere but the top right‑hand corner of the envelope.

By return came an envelope with the stamp dead centre, and a little rhyme enclosed: ‘Hey diddle diddle, the stamp’s in the middle.’

That’s why your postal rates are going up.

Nothing is more important to the future of bureaucracy than education.  Many young people today do not understand the importance of bureaucracy.  Consider this question put to Yahoo! Answers:

I recently bought the best of rugrats on iTunes and chuckies dad mentions he’s a bureaucrat sometimes and in the episode where the babies become “big people” and go to work chuckie said that they can do what his dad does and “push paper”. what does. Bureaucrat actually do?

That’s a sad commentary on our education system.  The “best answer” is very bad:

Bureaucrats generally serve to administrate and to carry out policies. They often don’t actually get anything done, while doing quite a bit….if that makes any sense…

That makes no sense.  Please write “bureaucrats save the world” three hundred times and re-submit your answer.

That’s all for this month’s Carnival of Bureaucrats.  Enjoy previous bureaucratic carnivals here.  Nominations of posts to be considered for inclusion in next month’s carnival should be submitted using Form 376: Application for Bureaucratic Recognition.

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