COB-65: the wisdom of trepanation

Most persons approach bureaucrats only with trepanation.  Given the importance of bureaucracy, that’s unfortunate.  Nonetheless, this bureaucratic obstacle can be removed.  According to Wikipedia, “Trepanation is perhaps the oldest surgical procedure for which there is forensic evidence, and in some areas may have been quite widespread.”  Trepanation probably helped to support the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza and other monumental bureaucratic achievements.  Modern public health bureaucracies should set up mass trepanation programs to help ensure that our children, who are our future, are prepared to live healthy and happy lives in bureaucratic society.

But what about bureaucrats’ children?  After suffering generations of abuse, many bureaucrats have evolved thick skulls.  A thick skull makes trepanation more difficult and dangerous.  However, trepanation is probably less necessary for bureaucrats’ children.  Since bureaucracy begins at home, bureaucrats’ children from an early age are likely to harbor less fear of bureaucrats.  Bureaucrats are also likely to have fewer children than less resolutely committed workers.  For the aforesaid reasons, we tentatively conclude that a program to explore innovation in technologies for trepanation in the case of thick-skulled children is not warranted to be pursued at this time.

In other bureaucratic news this month, the Library of Congress has established a wonderful online collection of blank historic forms.  Historians have sadly neglected bureaucratic history, including the important history of forms.  Persons interested in becoming better educated can enjoy hours of informative reading in this form collection.

Reading through some of these forms this past Friday evening, I came across an intriguing dog license from Reading, Massachusetts in 1860.  Some jurisdictions today require dog licenses via the appropriate form, but they only issue a dog tag, not an actual paper dog license.  Given the choice between a small metal tag and an actual paper document, the paper document is clearly superior because it can be filed much more regularly.  Note also that the Reading dog license explicitly specifies “male dog.” This suggests either discriminatory practices or separate licenses for male and female dogs.  The latter much better honors bureaucratic ideals.

Tripp Babbitt considers whether bureaucrats are getting a bum rap.  He correctly recognizes that they are.  He astutely observes:

If we are to fix government, we need everybody engaged and the bureaucrats are in the best position to see the problems and identify ways to fix them and help fix the systems they work in.

We encourage all concerned citizens to write that sentence on an index card and make copies of the card and hand them out whenever they hear bureaucrats being made fun of.

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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