Latest news with #GoldenFleeceAward
RTÉ News
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Sarah Browne and Sasha Sykes awarded Golden Fleece Prize 2025
Artists Sarah Browne and Sasha Sykes have been announced as the 2025 winners of the prestigious Golden Fleece Award, Ireland's largest prize for visual and applied arts. The award, which provides €10,000 to each recipient, aims to provide resources for creative practitioners to innovate and develop their artistic vision at a key point in their careers. The prizes were presented at a ceremony in Dublin Castle: Browne was selected in the Visual Art category, while Sykes was awarded under Craft + Applied Art. The Golden Fleece Award was established through a bequest by Dublin-born artist, researcher and educator Lillias Mitchell in 2001, to support artists originally from or currently living on the island of Ireland working in all forms of visual, craft and applied arts. Sarah Browne, who works primarily through sculpture, film, and performance, is known for exploring embodied knowledge and non-verbal forms of communication. Her recent work often involves collaborative engagement and focuses on justice, labour, and care. Sasha Sykes, an artist and designer with a background in architecture, creates sculptural works using natural materials such as plants, flowers, and algae, embedded in resin. Her pieces reflect themes of environmental change, decay, and preservation. Clíodhna Shaffrey, Chair of the Award's Advisory Panel and Director of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, emphasized the award's vital role in supporting artists' growth. "The Golden Fleece gives artists a timely boost for a specific step forward in their work," she said. "It enables risk-taking and experimentation, especially important in the current artistic climate."
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Are DOGE, Elon Musk following the example of Iowa 'useful pest' H.R. Gross?
Elon Musk is the latest of a long line of protectors against egregious government waste, fraud and abuse. Sen. Bill Proxmire had his annual 'Golden Fleece Award.' Sen. John McCain posted his annual 'Most Wasted Book.' Sen. Tom Coburn announced his 'Wastebook' in which he famously exposed the RoboSquirrel and the Bridge to Nowhere. Taking a page from Coburn, Sen. Joni Ernst rode to election with her pledge to cut government waste and 'make 'em squeal' like castrated pigs. Sen. Chuck Grassley has reported exposures by whistle-blowers of wasteful Department of Defense spending for years. They all follow in the footsteps of Iowa icon Rep. H.R. Gross, who was my congressman when I was growing up. Grassley said Gross earned 'a legendary reputation as watchdog of the Treasury.' He represented northeast Iowa for 26 years in Congress. He was so frugal that he pinched his cigarette between his thumb and first two fingers with the burning end held upright because he thought it would burn slower. He voted against nearly every spending bill, and all foreign aid, congressional junkets and earmarks. He voted against funding President John F. Kennedy's eternal flame at Arlington. He said the cost of the monthly gas bill of $6 wasn't much but it added up over eternity. He never took a junket and was a pain in the backside to his colleagues who loved him nevertheless. When he retired his fellow members bought H.R. and his wife, who had managed his office, an around-the-world trip. He took one last shot at spending when with tears in his eyes he thanked them, 'Wherever, we go, I am sure I'll see you all on your taxpayer junkets!' Time magazine called him 'the useful pest.' H.R. would say 'Amen!' to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) mission. Every day new examples of government waste, abuse and fraud are reported by DOGE. They are catalogued online under and reported in news headlines with stories about spending on "Sesame Street" in Iraq, millions of dollars to farmers in Afghanistan that doubled poppy production for opium, $2 million for funding Moroccan pottery classes, $1 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development (in addition to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding) for bat research on corona viruses that the CIA thinks likely led to COVID-19, and hundreds more. We learn that $10 million of our taxpayer dollars funded DEI transgender experiments on mice, rats and monkeys; $1.1 million to find out if female rats receiving testosterone therapies to mimic transgender men were more likely to overdose on a LGBTQ party drug. Sen. Tom Harkin used to dismissively call such individual wasteful boondoggles "just pencil dust." However, the aggregate cost of waste, fraud and abuse is significant. According to the Government Accountability Office, the estimated annual cost of fraud within the Department of Defense is between $233 billion and $521 billion. The vast Defense budget is a significant target for potential fraud because of complex contracts with multiple layers of subcontractors. Grassley has exposed $10,000 toilet seat lids and $43 million Afghanistan gas stations. In 2023 the Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden estimated that improper payment to Medicare and Medicaid totaled over $100 billion (8.58% of total spending). DOGE is auditing the books of all the federal agencies and departments and will uncover many more egregious examples. There won't always be agreement on what are wasteful spending programs. Some, such as eliminating DEI embedded in most agencies, will be seen by many as eliminating waste but by others as cuts in important areas. Some estimates on the ultimate cost of DEI is $1 trillion. However, there is bipartisan support for eliminating government waste and fraud as evidenced by the unanimous advance of Ernst's bill to stop secret government spending and Grassley and Sen. Bernie Sanders' bipartisan bill to audit the Pentagon for wasteful spending. Mandatory spending programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for about two-thirds of federal spending and are growing as the population ages. Annual interest on the national debt will surpass $1 trillion soon, Federal debt is already 120% of GDP, and annual deficits are running over $1.4 trillion. Cutting discretionary spending by the government — defense, education, infrastructure, agriculture — won't balance the budget, even if all waste, fraud and abuse were eliminated. It would take miraculous economic growth of 4% to 5% to balance the budget. Deregulation, some types of tax cuts or an AI tech boom could improve revenues. However, with health care costs rising more than 6% a year and the number of retirees doubling by 2050, I wouldn't bet on economic growth as sufficient. Some mix of entitlement cuts (like means testing and raising eligibility ages) and raising taxes is probably the only practical fix in addition to growing the economy. When I was in Congress we balanced the budget for five years and actually paid down the national debt. I would meet with constituents and frequently heard, 'Don't cut my programs just stop waste, fraud and abuse!' That is why it is so important to eliminate these egregious examples of unnecessary spending, waste, and fraud. Medicare Grey Panther recipients will jump on Congress members' car hoods before accepting increasing costs or decreasing benefits when they see the federal government spending $50,000 in India to train corporate employees about transgender policies or doing transgender mice experiments. It is imperative that efforts to reduce waste, fraud, abuse, and stupid projects are eliminated as much as possible. Without doing this the public will not stand for what really needs to be done to prevent eventual economic catastrophe. Successful DOGE is the sine qua non, the necessary prerequisite, for the public to swallow the bitter medicine that will be required to treat the budget deficit and our national debt while ultimately protecting the entitlements. We can hope that other members of Congress will emulate spending watchdogs like Proxmire, McCain, Coburn and Iowa's Grassley and Ernst in tackling the waste and abuse. Iowa has a tradition of fiscal rectitude. Gross, would be at the forefront of Elon Musk's DOGE were he still "The Useful Pest" in Congress. Dr. Greg Ganske is a retired plastic surgeon who cared for women with breast cancer, children with birth defects, farmers with hand injuries, and burn patients. He served Iowa in Congress from 1995 to 2003. He was the Iowa GOP nominee for the US. Senate in 2002. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Reductions via DOGE are a necessary first step on deficits | Opinion
