🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <lloschinDH5C6z.FvK@netcom.com>,
Lynn Loschin <lloschin@netcom.com> wrote:
>its lifeblood - funding from congress - doesnt seem too flaky to me.  I 
>would rather cut a newsgroup than cut programs or jobs because the budget 
>is cut.

I should emphasize that in posting about this episode I'm not
trying to justify a demand that NASA employees have access to
one or another newsgroup. In fact, I think that Goddard is not
typical in having access to the rec. groups -- other NASA
installations carry only the comp. and sci. hierarchies.
Remember that the alleged transgression originated in an
officially sanctioned newsgroup.

My point was that if mid-level NASA management finds itself
"fighting fires" as a result of public resentment that its
employees seem to be making frivolous use of what seems to
them to be an expensive perk, then maybe the top level at NASA
isn't very good at conveying the value of NASA's mission to
the public.

I could fantacize a scenario in which NASA might have a chief
who would ask that complaints about Internet use be directed
to his office instead of being passed down the line. Then he
would go before the committee headed by the senator whose
office had heard from an irate constituent and point out that
the government invented the Internet and that NASA in
particular had a signifcant role in its evolution, so that the
Internet culture to which the consituent was objecting had
ALREADY BEEN PAID FOR by the taxpayer...