Posts By Ed Albetski

Our Reaction to Obama’s Nobel Prize

Almost as soon as the Nobel Peace Prize recipient was announced this morning reactions started pouring into news outlets. Obviously spokesmen for nations on the “outs” with the United States were of a kind. Gabriela Ramírez of Venezuela ridiculed it. So did Khaled Al-Batsh of Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Surprisingly though several Americans were alsoRead… Read more »

Records Keeping in a Web 2.0 World

Time was when a lot of government agencies, including a few I worked for, kept their records in the equivalent of an old shoebox containing a few old spiralbound notebooks left in the care of that secretary, whats-her-name, who retired four years ago… Yeah. With the advent of e-mail a few decades ago records keepingRead… Read more »

Okay, Lets Be Fair

Last week I tweaked Rep. Brady and his Texas Tea Partiers for whining about the lack of Government services for their protest against the Government in Washington DC. This week I’ll target the Massachusetts effort to change the law on their Governor appointing a successor to a congressional or senatorial vacancy. When Senator Kerry ranRead… Read more »

Can you spell “IRONY”?

Keep government out of our lives, but provide decent Metro service to visitors from Texas! (And provide police protection for our march, and clean up the trash we left, and reseed the National Mall after we tromp on it, and pay for our Medicare, and make the planes we used to fly here safe, andRead… Read more »

Politics as Usual?

Working in Washington DC for the last 30 years has affected me. I take all the politics in the local news for granted. Here in DC we eat, drink, and breathe politics. Nearly every story is tainted with it. Some years ago I was in Omaha, Nebraska on a business trip. Yes, Omaha, Nebraska. IRead… Read more »

Tired of Hearing About Web 2.0?

I was reading through the blogs on Gov Loop earlier today. A lot of what I saw was “Web 2.0 this” and “Web 2.0 that”. But when I read more, well, it all started to sound the same. We all want our government agencies to actively use it in some way, but there are someRead… Read more »

Our History of Polite Political Dissent

In 1832 in a political attack on President Jackson’s policies, Congressman William Stanbery of Ohio made allegations against Sam Houston, a native Virginian, former congressman from Tennessee, and Jackson supporter who was in Washington to lobby for better treatment of the Cherokee. Incensed, Houston confronted Stanbery outside his boardinghouse and the argument led to HoustonRead… Read more »

Staycations

In this dark time of economic downturn I keep reading that many folks are not travelling. They are taking “staycations”. This is where they take their vacation leave and just stay home or do day-trips around their region to save money. If that is your thing, then ok, but really, travel can be done withoutRead… Read more »

Restaurant Week II

This is my twice yearly public service blog about Restaurant Week in DC (August 24 – 30). Do you take advantage of this? Restaurant Week takes place twice a year, once in the frigid cold of the post-holidays and then again in the dog days of August. Times when diners are likely to be few.Read… Read more »