Board Responsibility Week Ends With A whimper

A rough chronology goes like this. Having found no one at all attending to
the alarming Alarie current red ink report [shades of Tom Dorsch], I
wondered if anyone at all was at the helm?

Concentration of posts have been about the Ex Dir's actions, in 2003 and
2007. My question was why the board took [political] interest in this and
did the Ex Dir act outside his brief?

I asked the same question in 2003, after similar criticism of Frank Niro,
despite a personal antithesis, and received a response from [still] board
members Shultz and Marinello, apparently not!

They then both affirmed they would do something about the board's need to
regulate the Ex Dir, for whatever reasons they had to do so, which they did
not explain. But did nothing.

[remember, this is Responsibility week]

On reading the same thing here this week 100 times, and also a similar
charge laid against the current Ex Dir, I asked the person who raised the
issue, Sam Sloan, if indeed Bill Hall acted outside his responsibility? Sam
Sloan did not reply.

So, beyond liking or disliking the cast of characters here, by raising
questions of USCF contracting, there is an implicit sense of 'false
contracting' or some form of deceit. This indeed is the realm of journalists
to question, and certainly in respect of the 2003 contract I did so.

When current politicos on the board raise these issues against current
political opponents, and without addressing if the executive director did
anything amiss - rather than doing something chess politicians didn't like!-
this is quite a different scenario.

My challenges stand, and while they go unanswered I do not make any
assumption that events 4 years ago, or currently, in respect of 'rogue' Ex
Dir activities are anything more than political cartoons, on the same level
as the famous Jackie Chan Ninja Hypnotic Tie, which renders your mind to
mush and makes you sign irresponsible contracts.

And what is not reported are real and current board responsibilities to the
Alarie report. That issue, if substantiated, is alarming since it reflects
not just a failure of one event or activity, but seems to spread red ink
across every USCF portfolio.

This is something politicians can do today, especially since it happened on
their watch. If board members can't address that, then their writing is on
the same basis as a scribbler like me. But if that's true, you really can't
report on yourself, you know and even pretend to be anything like
'objective', and should resign in order to rejoin the venerable society of
chess hacks.

Its a choice;

(a) impertinent irreverent questioning is the realm of the true hack to
combat and penetrate official rhetoric, spin and almost-truths

Or

(b) taking responsibility is the role of the chess manager/politico

Despite appearances, there is no middle ground, and I rather suspect that in
the coming election responsible attention to the job will be the central
issue.

Phil Innes