Re: [open-gov] A Modest Suggestion In Regards To Official Portraits

[Aaron Swartz <xx@aaronsw.com>]

But you don't want to forfeit your portrait!

> On Jan 25, 2009 5:06 PM, "Silence Dogood" <silence@media.org> wrote:
>
>
> To The Group:
> In reading about the 2008 howdeedoo about Government Printing Office
> "profits," [1] your humble correspondent was struck by the fact that
> GPO apparently overcharged State by $50m and had to hire an armored
> car and drive a refund check down to Condi.  GPO would dispute this
> characterization of course.[2]  But, that is not the subject upon
> which I write today.
>
> What has caught my eye is the official portrait commissioned at the
> cost of $10,000 by the Honorable Public Printer Number 25.[3]
> Evidently the official portrait racket is not a new one, and indeed
> $10,000 seems fairly modest, at least by the standards of other
> portraits, or, for example, the entertainment budgets of various Wall
> Street firms.  Indeed, $10,000 would barely cover the cost of a flight
> on a private jet from Detroit!
>
> But, in these times of economic crisis, I would perhaps venture a
> modest suggestion, which is that government no more be allowed to
> commission official portraits.  Instead, officials should be asked to
> hang around in some pre-designated location for a day or two and
> provide an Official Portrait Opportunity, by which artists and others,
> through some open process, are allowed to create portraits.
>
> Later, if the National Portrait Gallery or the agency in question
> should feel a need to purchase a print of such a portrait, they are
> welcome to do so in negotiation with of the artist of their choice.
> But, irrespective of any changing hands of money, any qualified artist
> and perhaps some art students will have been given the opportunity to
> create a work of art featuring a famous bureaucrat or other notable
> and to sell or give it away at their choice.
>
> And, if nobody comes to the Official Portrait Opportunity?  Perhaps
> then, there should not be one.
>
> Humbly yours,
>
> Silence Dogood
>
> 1. FreeGovInfo post on Washington Times Scrutinizes GPO
> http://freegovinfo.info/node/1759
> 2. GPO press release disputing this characterization as poppycock.
> http://www.gpo.gov/news/2008/08news11.pdf
> 3. Wikipedia article featuring #25 and his portrait.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Tapella
> 4. Official portraits draw skeptical gaze.
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/20/AR2008102003627.html
>
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