|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
                             Memo to Moses from HEW
                           by James E. Mignard, Ph.D.

The HEW staff has reviewed your application for permission to undertake a
project on desert living and thinks it has some merit.  However, we cannot
approve it as it stands because you have not interfaced with Federal rules and
regulations on socially-oriented proposals and have failed to meet several
government standards.  A reading team studied your program carefully.  Their
criticisms and recommendations in the following paragraphs will help you
understand our concerns.  You may want to rewrite the proposals according to
our suggestions.

First of all, it is not clear to us whether your ten words, or "ten
commandments," as some of our staff call them, are guidelines for a bonafide
program for governing people in a nomadic societal setting.  We assume they
were MORE than guidelines; therefore, we must point out that we do not approve
social programs that have been designed without assistance of consultants who
have been certified by HEW.

The regulations require that experts with doctorates and at least ten years
experience be consulted whenever a proposal writer deals in areas in which
he/she has NO professional competence.  You speak, for example, of family
relationships, neighbors and "the sojourner who is within your gates" (tidy up
this phrase a bit), the OBVIOUS domain of sociology, but you have not listed a
single sociologist as a consultant.

There is no evidence that you sought the advice of lawyers when you drafted the
sections on killing and stealing.  We think a scholar with a national
reputation in ethics could have improved what you were trying to say about
bearing false witness and committing adultery.  And was there a good reason for
avoiding theologians when you wrote about having no other gods or not taking
the divine name in vain or not making graven images?

Your failure to utilize professional testimony SERIOUSLY WEAKENS the proposal;
indeed, if we WERE to approve it, our own experts advise ue that it would not
last more than four or five years.  More specifically, we question the
SOUNDNESS of many of your ideas.

Take the phrase, "You shall have no other gods before me."  Not only is this
unclear, but we are troubled by the absence of measurable behavioral
objectives.  How will you know whether this is being accomplished?  Do you plan
to administer pre- and post-tests, or will you use some kind of peer review?
If this idea is valuable, why is it so negative?  In fact, why have you
EMPHASIZED the negative in these propositions?  We believe your proposal would
be more easily implemented if it were recast in POSITIVE terms.

The "graven image" statement.  We are puzzled by the weight you give this both
in terms of the number of words you have used and its position among the ten.
Did you prioritize?  Does it really belong in SECOND place?  Is it necessary to
include the THREATS?

Furthermore, as you surely know, a needs assessment must accompany every
application submitted for HEW approval, but you have NONE.  Without supporting
data, we have no way of knowing whether there is a genuine "graven image"
problem among your people.  Please DETAIL this in an appendix with charts, bar
grams, histograms and statistics.

"Taking the name in vain" is a fuzzy expression.  A couple of good footnotes on
recent research in Near Eastern onomastics would show that you know what you're
talking about.

The "sabbath day" paragraph seems overly long and of questionable value.  What
exactly do you mean by "remembering" the sabbath day?  How is "holy" to be
understood?  Have you considered a more modern word like "unstressful"?  Our
proposal readers were DISMAYED that you have chosen to stay with the nuclear
family concept.  Please review the literature.

"Honor father and mother."  If this section is crucial to your project, we
suggest you define HONOR.  Is there some reason why father precedes mother in
the rank-ordering?  You state that compliance will affect the lives of the
people "in the land which the Lord your God gives you."  We studied this
strange notion and could not determine the significance of real estate here.
Are you implying that there is a direct relationship between parent-honoring
and land-holding?

In the opinion of the HEW staff, the next five statements could be lumped
together, using, however, less FLAMBOYANT language.  Verbs like KILL, COMMIT
ADULTERY, STEAL, LIE and COVET do NOT sit well with most people.

In our overall examination of your proposal we were struck by the fact that you
have made NO provisions for the utilization of role-models.  We do not think
that asking the people to follow your ten points simply because it please God
is an effective substitute for role-models.  If you had attended one of our
regional workshops, you would have learned that we do not approve projects that
are weak on role-modeling.

Finally, we wish to point out that the rules and regulations stipulate that
fourteen typed copies of the proposal be sent to us.  Several HEW staff members
were upset because you disregarded this.  Two stone tablets with chiseled
letters do NOT COMPLY with Federal regulations.

                             (from the Best of JIR)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------