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Mr. Atta swung by in May, 2000, and Ms. Bryant remembers quite a bit about it. "At first," she says, "he refused to speak with me," on the grounds that she was, in his words, "but a female." After he'd reiterated the point, she pulled rank: "I told him that if he was interested in getting a farm-service agency loan in my servicing area, then he would need to deal with me." Throughout the hour-long interview, he continued to dismiss her as "but a female."

What is WITH this woman? The first time he tried that line on me I would have told him "Fine, go back to the END of the line and take your chances that a man will be available when you get to the front again".

And when he made the remark about slashing throats I would have had him thrown out.

I repeat, what's WITH these people? They seem willing to endure any amount of abuse while they're giving away OUR MONEY to non-citizens; do they get a commission or something?

When he made the remark about cutting throats, I would have taken it as a threat, pushed the panic button under my desk and started screaming for security. If the USDA moron had done those things, perhaps he would have been arrested and detained, and perhaps history would have been changed. The woman is not only stupid, but culpable.

They aren't paid to exercise judgement, but fill quotas and use their budget.How else can people like Ms Bryant have her productivity measured? No different from a welfare case officer.And their superiors will frown on such independent action, so Bryant and her types go through a check list and nothing more.It is clear that inferential thinking has been marginalized in most governmental agencies.