Tag Archives: federal register

Wednesday’s posting was more political than my usual, and this one will be much sillier. If it looks like I’ll be making a habit of these digressions, I’ll implement the “Categories” feature of this blog, so readers can filter the posts according to their tastes. Right now, though, I think these are just isolated incidents. We will return to our regular programming soon.

Gift Registry

Every weekday, the US Government Printing Office publishes a new issue of the Federal Register, a tome hundreds of pages long, documenting the latest activities of our government’s branches and agencies. Regular readers of this publication are a hardy breed. Just skimming the several pages of the table of contents can occupy a very dull quarter hour, and the Register, while peerless in sheer output, favors a much denser writing style than more sensationalist daily publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, or, for that matter, the Journal of Chemical Physics.

With diligent panning, though, this river of bureaucratic sediment yields an occasional nugget of insight, hinting at some new, previously hidden facet of the scale, complexity, or downright strangeness of our vast republic. Consider the 62-page feature article from the Department of State in the August 9th issue.

Sandwiched between the predictable “Colombia; Andean Counterdrug Initiative Section; illicit crops; aerial eradication certification,” and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s stringer “Agency information collection activities; proposals, submissions, and approvals,” we have the real news: “Office of Protocol; Gifts to Federal Employees from Foreign Government Sources Reported to Employing Agencies in Calendar Year 2005; Notice.”

Gifts say a great deal about the givers, and some of the recent presents to our leaders are disquieting. Is there something sexual about the Prime Minister of Singapore giving our President a foot massager? Was Tony Blair attempting sarcasm with a waffle-knit sweater? And why did Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko give our allegedly teetotaling executive a bottle of Muscat (which was subsequently “handled pursuant to Secret Service policy”).

Perhaps more disturbing are the weapons, including a sword, a dagger, and a flintlock pistol from the leaders of Yemen, the Slovak Republic, and Bulgaria, respectively. Does the world believe America is poorly armed? What does that mean for our national security?

The President appears to be taking no chances, having stored all of the new armaments in the Foreign Archives, no doubt next to First Pooch Barney’s bed (thirty-by-twenty-one-inch leather dog bed, with a yellow and hunter green plaid cushion, courtesy of the Sultan of Brunei). If the Secret Service falls asleep on the job, perhaps after using the Ukrainian Muscat to wash down that Dean and Deluca “Consumables” basket from Qatar, George W. can defend his castle himself, Bulgarian flintlock in hand, Slovakian dagger in belt, and Scottish terrier at side.

Dick Cheney will be able to back him up, too, with a “Scimitar 308 Winchester Presentation Rifle with engraved barrel and Night force 3.5×15-50 scope” from the King of Jordan, a gift of obvious utility but questionable wisdom, given the Vice President’s recent safety record on the shooting range. Perhaps the scope will improve his accuracy.

Further down the Executive branch, we are more vulnerable. Ironically, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld makes a habit of giving his weapons (sword from the Prime Minister of Iraq, musket from the President of Pakistan) to the General Services Administration, the civil servants’ equivalent of the Goodwill store.

The Department of Energy, however, is clearly planning something big. Among the gifts Samuel Bodman, the department’s Secretary, has received, we find a “Hinged Lidded Wood Box With Magnifying Glass Tied Inside Lid … With “The Art Of War” Text In English, Pair Of White Fabric Gloves, Map Printed On Leather.” In other words, everything one needs to bootstrap a Napoleonic rise to power. Ominously, this complete kit (from China) was retained “for Official Use.” Perhaps it goes with the chess board (from Brazil) and sword (from Saudi Arabia), which the Secretary of Energy apparently also plans to use.

Our intelligence agencies are a bit harder to read. John D. Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence, received everything from an Arabian-style dagger to a sterling silver cigarette box last year, but the givers of these items are identified uniformly as “The National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C. 403-(1)(i) as amended.”

The CIA takes this Secret Santa approach a step further, classifying both the givers and receivers of three gifts. The three items together virtually write themselves into a romantic set for the next James Bond film: him in a gentleman’s Piaget 18 karat yellow gold and diamond wristwatch, her in a contemporary 14-karat yellow gold ruby, sapphire and diamond three-piece ensemble with bracelet, earrings, and matching pendant with chain, and them together on a Nain silk rug, 4 feet 10 inches by 3 feet, modern, with a windowpane field enclosing stylized rows and flowering branches.

Who are the bejeweled male and female agents on the stylized rug? The Vice President could probably tell you. But then, of course, he’d have to kill you – and he has just the equipment to do it. Continue reading →