THE DEPARTMENT OF REDUNDANCY DEPARTMENT

SUNFUN Unloads More Bureaucracy...

Greetings, Citizens!
     It is hard to find anything positive to say about
bureaucracy.  We all hate having to play the games of stupid and
arcane regulators, filling out useless forms and standing in line
after line.  It is almost like being in the military.  The word
bureaucracy is derived from an old joke: Bureau is an antique
word for desk.  Some unknown comedy writer about 1820 fit the
word into the same pattern as words like democracy, theocracy and
ogliarchy, making a word that means literally "rule by desk." 
And that is just the way it feels.  Some of the bureaucrats don't
seem to be nearly as smart as the average piece of furniture.
     There's just something undemocratic about bureaucracy - some
loss of self to satisfy the needs of some remote machinery of
official enterprise.  Even the bureaucrats administering it
usually know that the process is stupid, but they continue on as
if it was some vital service.  Their frustration and boredom just
adds to the experience.  Not positively.  Trust me on this.
     No matter how much bureaucracy we run into, it's always a
good week when we get to talk to so many of SUNFUN's regular
contributors.  Hello and Thanks to: Hong Laura Li (It's
Official!), Nnamdi Elleh, Etsuko Hori, Kiyomi Kanazawa, Caterina
Sukup, Sylvia Libin He, Jerry Taff, Brian Siegl, Ellen Peterson,
Akiko Inagaki, Tomoko Naito, Yasmin & Meredith Leischer and
Howard Lesniak.  The SUNFUN Rule for dealing with bureaucrats? 
Only a bureaucracy can fight a bureaucracy.  Besides, if we get
them tussling with each other, maybe they'll leave us alone.
     Have A Great Week!


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DON'T WORRY IT'S IN THE MAIL...
----------------------------
     There's something about immigration departments that bring
out the very worst in bureaucrats.  Perhaps because the
bureaucrats who work there wield unusual power over people's
lives and that the immigrants can't vote.  Whatever it is, the
immigration types make the I.R.S. tax folks look like a bunch of
sweethearts.
     Just ask Nadia Costabel.  After immigrating legally to the
U.S. from Argentina, she has been working as a airplane cleaner
for United Airlines in Seattle.  Decades of hard work and jumping
through all of the official hoops brought her to the point where
she could proudly become a U.S. citizen.  She studied hard for
her citizenship test, and had no difficulty answering the
questions.  Then she was officially sworn in as a citizen.
     There was just one tiny problem: on her citizenship papers,
the typist had mistakenly typed "Argentino" instead of Argentina. 
It was late in the day, and no one could be found to correct the
mistake.  "No problem," said the INS.  "We'll get it fixed and
mail it to you."
     You can't blame Costabel for being suspicious of that
phrase, since that was exactly what she was told when the INS
lost her file early in 1996.
     All of this leaves her officially a person without a
country, since she has already turned in her residency visa, but
isn't a citizen without the formal paper.
     "I've got no green card, no citizenship; I'm nothing right
now," she said.  "I'm an alien from somewhere.  I don't know
where."


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THE UNDEAD OF WASHINGTON STATE
------------------------------
     Sounds like a title for a horror movie, doesn't it?  Some
kind of a horror, anyway.  At least the lady from Argentina
didn't have to prove to some bureaucrat that she was still alive.
     All that really happened to Charlie Bodony was a really bad
motorcycle accident that left him partially disabled.  He found
it impossible to return to his job as a stagehand at a Seattle
theater.  After the expenses of 1998 accident, Bodony ran out of
money and applied for assistance from the Washington State
Department of Social and Health Services.
     It would have even been OK if they had turned him down. 
They didn't exactly do that, they just declared him dead.
     "Since the person named in this notice has died, his or her
needs are no longer included in your household's benefits," the
rejection letter said.
     Though he has visited the agency's offices in Bremerton,
assuring anyone who cared to listen that he wasn't pushing up
daisies, the State of Washington has not yet changed its official
position on the state of Charlie Bodony.  The state still lists
him as deceased, though Bodony disagrees with that assessment.
     "All this confirmed my disbelief in the system's capability
to function," he said.  (Reuters)


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JUST WAIT HERE...
--------------
     As bad as things have been for the "late" Charlie Bodony, he
has nothing on Merhan Karimi Nasseri, a resident of Paris'
Charles DeGaulle Airport.
     The story is fairly complicated, but Nasseri got into
trouble in Iran back in 1977 for protesting against the Shah's
government.  Iran exiled him without a passport.
     For four long years, Nasseri went from country to country,
applying for refugee status in each and being rejected.  Then in
1981, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Belgium
granted him refugee status, which gave him legal papers to travel
again.
     Unsuccessful at seeking citizenship on the continent,
Nasseri decided in 1988 to relocate to England, where he hoped to
find relatives who had escaped from the turmoil in Iran.  He got
as far as Paris, where his briefcase full of papers was stolen.
     Nasseri got on the plane to London anyway, and got as far as
Heathrow Airport.  Authorities there denied him entry because he
didn't have a passport and sent him back to Paris.  There, French
police arrested Nasseri for illegal entry, but found that they
had to release him since there was no country to which to deport
him.
     A long court battle resulted in a 1992 ruling that Nasseri
had entered the airport legally as a refugee and couldn't be
expelled from the airport terminal or arrested there.  But that
didn't mean that the French immigration officials gave up.  They
refused him permission to enter the country, as did Belgium. 
Which left the airport terminal as the only country Nasseri could
call his own.  He has been there ever since, never able to leave
Terminal One, like a character in a bad "Twilight Zone" episode.
     Nasseri keeps himself neat and clean in the airport
bathrooms, and never bothers travellers.  On at least two
occasions, he has turned in lost billfolds full of money.  He
assures everyone that he is not a beggar, and refuses aid much of
the time.  The airport staff has adopted him, and try make sure
that he receives proper medical care and eats reasonably well.
     "He does no harm to anyone," said the manager of the Les
Palmes restaurant.  "Everyone cares for him here."
     But a decade being on permanent standby have done him
damage.
     "When I think about the past 10 years, I realize that it is
all wasted time," Nasseri said.  "It's not a normal life to stay
in the airport for so long.  It gets boring."  (The Toronto Star)


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EXOTIC BUREAUCRACY...
------------------
     Some people find Canada to be a little boring, too.  Oh,
it's a very nice country with friendly people, but it tends to be
a little conservative.  Which makes it all the harder to find
people willing to work in the more unusual jobs.
     Last year, Canada's Human Resources Development office
determined that there was a serious and long-standing shortage of
exotic dancers in Canada, leading to a special immigration
category for strippers.
     But, being a true bureaucracy, the office wouldn't just take
a supposed dancer's word for it.  The Toronto Sun reported that
foreign strippers wishing to work in Canada have to provide proof
that they are professionals in the field, such as photos of
themselves dancing, promotional ads or portfolios showing their
work.  Once approved, the dancers can receive a visa to work in
Canada for up to six months.
     The Human Resources people claim that the review is
necessary to "curb abuse and exploitation of the young women."
          [ No word on whether the review office is
          equipped with stage lights and rotating
          mirror balls. ]


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PLAYING GAMES AT WORK...
---------------------
     Concerned about the content of some video games, New Zealand
passed a law that all games must be reviewed and rated by
government bureaucrats.  But no one took into account is the time
and effort this would take.  For one thing, the government
censors have to learn the game and play all of its options to be
sure that there is nothing offensive in them.  This takes days
for each game.
     Chief Government Censor Bill Hastings admits that his staff
takes a long time to review each game for sex and violence
content.  But he doesn't believe the games should be made easier.
     "If I bought a computer game and I could play the whole
thing in say three, four or five hours," he admits, "I would be
ripped off."  (Reuters)
          [ Right!  Consumer fraud would be under
          another department. ]


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VISA?  NO, CASH ONLY.
--------------------
     Don't ever try to tell a bureaucrat that he's wrong.  Two
men from Hong Kong were accused of smuggling drugs into the
Philippines and spent five years in prison before their
conviction was overturned in 1996.  The moment they were released
from prison, Philippine immigration authorities slapped them with
a 50,000 peso ($1925) fine for staying in the country after their
visas had expired.
     After the British Embassy protested that the men had only
stayed in the country because they were in jail, the Philippine
authorities reduced the amount to 28,500 pesos, claiming it was
just a fee to clear up the paperwork.  (The Daily Yomiuri)


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WELL, THAT EXPLAINS IT...
----------------------
     Sometimes we wonder just how stupid things can get.  Then
events demonstrate that it's much worse than we could have
imagined.
     After a series of accidents resulting in compensation
claims, employees of the fingerprint unit of the Seattle police
department were ordered to attend classes on how to sit down.
     The injuries had occurred as employees attempted to sit in
chairs with wheels.  The police department even published a
helpful memo on how to properly sit in an office chair.  In case
you were wondering, the official technique is, "Take hold of the
arms and get control of the chair before sitting down."


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LIMITED BENEFITS...
----------------
     Three health care professionals die in an auto accident and
find themselves at the gates of heaven.
     Saint Peter asked the first, "Why do you deserve to get into
heaven?"
     "I was a great surgeon," she said.  "I saved countless
people and improved the lives of hundreds of others.  I did
volunteer work at mission hospitals in South America.  And I
never charged anyone I knew couldn't pay."
     "Go right ahead," Saint Peter said, "you certainly deserve
to get in."
      Saint Peter asked the second, "What did you do in life to
be worthy to get in here?"
     "I was a medical researcher doing studies on blood
chemistry.  The test I developed for plasma made transfusions
safer for everyone.  I passed up moving into industry at more
money because I knew my test was more important work"
     "That is certainly a positive contribution and a good use of
your talents," said Saint Peter, "You may enter, too."
     Finally, Saint Peter asked the third, "What did you do to
belong here?"
     "I was a benefits administrator for an HMO.  I helped pay
for thousands to receive medical care."
     "Okay," replied Saint Peter, You can go in.  But you can
only stay a day and a half."


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