Dear HCN,
Regarding Randolph F.
Edwards’ brutal attack on my “dumb poorly drawn cartoon” of park
rangers with deformed heads, Mr. Edwards must realize that I doodle
from experience. I was a park ranger at Arches National Park for 10
years and the consensus among field rangers (the ones who actually
work in the park, and not in an air conditioned office) has always
been that the NPS Smokey hat is one of the most poorly designed,
inefficient and uncomfortable forms of headgear ever designed by
civilized society. And they’re just great in the wind – we used to
call them our straw frisbees, when the slightest breeze sent them
sailing.
I am convinced that over that decade, as
I was forced to sacrifice principles and logic in order to enforce
and support the brain-dead policies of an agency no less corrupt or
wasteful than any other government-run bureaucracy, my head
actually did start to change its shape. It’s called Bureaucrabloat.
But I finally quit the government, and now draw dumb cartoons and
rant and rave about the government for a
living.
The swelling has gone down and I’m
feeling much better now. Thank
you.
Jim
Stiles
Moab,
Utah
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline ‘Bureaucrabloat’ and other occupational hazards.
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