Self-licking ice cream cone

In political jargon, a self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself. The phrase appeared to have been first used in 1992, in On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones, a paper by Pete Worden about NASA's bureaucracy.[lower-alpha 1][2] James A. Vedda described it as "Why do humans go into space? So we can go farther into space!"[3]

Ice cream cone licking its own nose

Since then, the term has been used to describe the habit of government funded organisations and programs spending taxpayer money to lobby for more funding from the taxpayer. Other things compared have included financial bubbles, chatshows and reality television. In The Irish Times, Kevin Courtney observed that "many organisations are also stuck in limbo, destined to keep lurching on without ever achieving their stated goal. That’s because their real goal is simply to carry on regardless."[4] The Cold War infrastructure has also been compared to a self-licking ice cream cone, given that expensive projects continued to be financed long after world communism had ceased to pose a viable threat.[3]

Richard Hoggart used the term to describe certain United Nations programmes.[5]

In sport, the Bowl Alliance was criticised using the term.[6]

See also

Notes
  1. but was later confirmed to have been said by Ed Neidorf in 1982. Mr Neidorf was an engineer with The MITRE Corporation[1]

References
  1. Worden, S. Pete (1992). "On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones" (PDF). Proceedings of the seventh Cambridge workshop on cool stars, stellar systems, and the sun. ASP Conference Series. 26. Astronomical Society of the Pacific. pp. 599–603. Bibcode:1992ASPC...26..599W. ISBN 0-937707-45-7. This unfortunate train of events has resulted in a NASA which, more than any other agency, believes it works only for the appropriations committees. The senior staff of those committees, who have little interest in science or space, effectively run NASA. NASA senior officials' noses are usually found at waist level near these committee staffers.
  2. А, Зацний Ю.; В, Янков А. Нова розмовна лексика і фразеологія: Англо-український словник.: Довідкове видання. Нова Книга. ISBN 9789663822952 – via Google Books.
  3. Leffler, Melvyn P.; Legro, Jeffrey W. (May 15, 2011). In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy after the Berlin Wall and 9/11. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801461293 – via Google Books.
  4. Courtney, Kevin. "CON TEXT: SELF-LICKING ICE CREAM CONE". The Irish Times.
  5. Hoggart, Richard. An Idea and Its Servants: UNESCO from Within. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 9781412848138 – via Google Books.
  6. Competition, United States Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and (December 14, 1997). Antitrust implications of the College Bowl Alliance: hearing before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fifth Congress, first session ... May 22, 1997. U.S. G.P.O. ISBN 9780160554674 – via Google Books.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.