Dispatches from the Cosmic Cobra Breeding Farm

Hoisting the flag of waste and abuse, the author, a former newspaperman, issues a clarion call. He takes the reader deep inside a tiny Washington, D.C., foundation that has managed to have its copyrighted code of conduct enshrined in federal and state law. All 50 states, even the U.S. territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, now enforce it. The nonprofit has parlayed the arrangement into a lucrative publishing cartel with top officers and favored trustees jet-setting to Europe and Asia. Stateside, the group hosts officials of an obscure federal agency in winter playgrounds like Pasadena, Scottsdale and West Palm Beach. The agency wet-nurses the nonprofit with guaranteed public grants topping $1 million some years. The author interweaves vivid scene-setting and thoughtful analysis with the surprising comments of stone-honest civil servants, double-talking careerists and anonymous fixers deep in the plumbing of state and federal government. On his journey, the author is jolted by an epiphany.