A purse-snatcher took off with a woman’s $40 black satin purse as 10:50 pm February 1 as she was entering her car, parked near the corner of Commodore Plaza and Main Highway in the Grove.
Among the items stolen: a $300 pair of prescription sunglasses, $35 in cash, a $150 cellular phone and a $10 pair of lace underwear.
–from The Miami Herald, Thursday, February 11, 1999.
Literature is news that stays news.
–Ezra Pound
The Missionaries of Charity are a Catholic religious order respected for their work amongst the poor. Mother Theresa of Calcutta was one of the Order’s most well-known members, but many others perform their good works in anonymity.
In Miami, of course, it’s another story.
On these cities mean streets, an elderly nun somehow interfered—or so it is alleged—with a beat cop trying to make an arrest of a homeless person. I don’t know whether or not the homeless person was arrested, but the interfering nun, wearing the iconic white habit with three blue stripes on the headdress made famous by Mother Theresa, was taken into custody.
She was wearing the same habit during the perp walk after making bond. In Miami, convents must have bail bondsmen on retainer.
Just in case.
I am now in the United States, wondering where I can get a good shwarma with a large glass of pomegranate juice. No more EST +7. A new chapter begins.
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ biography, written by Gerald Martin, Garcia Marquez is quoted as saying that everyone leads three lives: a public life, a private life and a secret life. The concept is an interesting one; most would recognize the contours of our public and private lives, but to posit a third, secret life, is something new.
The quote was in response to Martin’s questioning Garcia Marquez about a relationship he had with a Spanish woman while writing No One Writes to the Colonel. While this episode is well-known amongst serious students of Garcia Marquez, it is not otherwise well known. Even more unusual (and perhaps within the realm of the private) is the fact that years after the relationship ended, when Garcia Marquez had become a celebrated author, he bought the apartment below the apartment in Paris where the woman lived with her husband and children. Such a lack of jealousy is, I suppose, very European, but Garcia Marquez is from the Colombian coast, a place where jealousy burns and betrayal is paid in blood.
Do our secret lives illuminate our public personae? Are the answers to difficult questions found there? Sergio Roncagliolo, in his La cuarta espada, claims that the history of Sendero Luminoso began with an amorous rejection, a failed love story. How much of history is owed to these secret lives?
Dear Justice Scalia,
In November, 2000 I wrote to you after the Supreme court’s decision in Bush v. Gore in order to return my Miami-Dade county voter’s registration card. After all, if the votes weren’t going to be counted, I wouldn’t need the card. I felt that the court’s decision was intellectually dishonest and a disaster for democracy.
I was wrong.
I still feel that the decision was intellectually dishonest. But that is no longer the point. When the Franken/Coleman Minnesota recount began—almost six months ago—I thought, “now we will see how a recount should function, according to the rule of law.” At the beginning, Minnesotans showed that there was no need for thuggery, as in Miami-Dade, and that a recount could be conducted in a socially responsible manner. Six months later, though, the process hasn’t finished. The same American tendency towards squabbling is, sadly, irrepressible. The parties have fought over issues and sub-issues and have not finished. The Minnesota Supreme Court will decide everything soon—supposedly (there is always a chance of a remand)—but the hearing won’t be held for another month. How long after that for a decision? In the meantime, Minnesota is without a second senator.
Imagine the United States without a president for the same amount of time. With no one constitutionally in charge, the perils presented by the world, the economy and all of the other issues the Executive faces would only grow. The risk of catastrophe is real. The United States simply could not function for such a long period of time with no one in charge. The risks to the commonwealth are obvious.
The rule of law, then, is inadequate. Though I still feel that the Court’s decision was intellectually dishonest, it was nonetheless necessary. I apologize.
If you still have my voter’s card, could you send it back?
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced that it is abandoning a Bush administration laissez-faire policy towards potential monopolies. Lawsuits are on the way.
Before anyone gets too excited about this, let’s not forget two great anti-trust lawsuits and successes. The first was the more than 10-year effort to break up IBM. This certainly helped American competitiveness. IBM laptops are now manufactured in China.
I don’t really know how much money was spent to break up AT&T. That was another great job of lawyering that led to greater U.S. competitiveness. The lawsuit resulted in the creation of a smaller AT&T, spinning-off Bell Labs, and the advent of the Baby Bells. Remember NyNex? They used to sell IBM typewriters on Fifth Avenue, back in the day when IBM still made typewriters. In time, the Baby Bells acquired each other, and then AT&T acquired them all, thus re-establishing what Justice had tried for years at great expense to break up. All of this was accomplished at a cost—U.S. telephony was made more competitive, and a decent company (MCI) was acquired by Worldcom, a not-so-decent company led by a former high school coach who is now in federal prison for securities fraud. In the meantime, Bharti, MTN, China Telcom, T-Mobile’s German parent and others roamed the world picking up contracts.
We Americans do a great job litigating and squabbling. In this field of endeavor, we are better than anyone else. Much like the 17th century sons of Latin American nobleman arguing over recondite theological points on their estancias, all this judicial activity led to no real progress, and instead of promoting American business, merely made it less competitive in world markets at an enormous cost.
I understand Justice is looking at Google under the new policy. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a country where you had the right to vote on whether Government should undertake such anti-business activities? Google should be afraid. Very afraid.
The Archives of Internal Medicine reported today that fake acupuncture alleviates back pain. That toothpicks work as well as needles, and that either provides greater relief than standard treatments. Fake acupuncture is not that different from witchcraft. There seems to be an alarming rise in the use of witchcraft to mediate social problems. This sign is but one example:
I have been thinking of writing an essay titled, “On the Uses of Black Magic in the Criminal Law.” Perhaps the time is right to address this important subject.
Thesis binders used to be sold in the University of Miami bookstore. These are sometimes called “spring binders” and you can temporarily bind a document without difficulty to ease reading. They are especially handy if you don’t like to read on a computer screen. For a while now, I have been looking for these binders in A4 size. This may come as a shock to most Americans, but outside the United States, letter-sized paper is not 8 1/2 x 11, but A4 size. I finally found a German company with a U.K. website that sells the binders (they call them “clamp binders”, or more properly, Klemmbinder). Unfortunately, the company refused to ship the binders to the United States because of insurance and liability reasons. They are afraid of being dragged into a U.S. courtroom.
Since I’ve been single (see my post Batchin’ It) I haven’t gotten around to getting medical insurance. So I called BUPA, which is one of the U.K.’s largest insurers. They called me back immediately (this is a clear sign of a buyer’s market—if you don’t believe me start making inquiries about commercial real estate) and offered a very competitive policy. One thing though—there would be a U.S. exclusion. In other words, if I were in the United States temporarily, say, on vacation, they would cover emergency care, but other than that, please come back to Europe. Or go to South America. Or the Middle East. “ABA”: Anywhere but America.
So, how are Klemmbinders linked to health insurance? And what does this have to do with “fixing the medical malpractice problem”? The first step is realizing that the American legal system, insofar as it attempts to address the issue of recovery in tort, is broken. Americans don’t believe that it is, but the world is starting to vote with its feet (to borrow a phrase from Milton Friedman) and avoid American markets with their inevitable legal entanglements.
In the early part of the 20th century, a worker who was injured on the job had almost no recourse. In order to receive compensation for his injuries, he had to prove that his employer was liable. In states that followed contributory negligence rules (that is, instead of comparative negligence) any fault at all on the part of the employee would prevent him from recovering. Eventually a drastic change was adopted, and eventually became law in all fifty states. It would no longer be necessary for the employee to prove his employer’s negligence. However, the amount of his recovery, that is, the amount of the compensation would be greatly reduced. Compensation would be based on schedules that were agreed to by the legislature in advance.
The system has worked well for over a hundred years. By taking liability issues off the table, workers (usually) receive quick and certain compensation. This system should be adopted for injuries sustained by patients while receiving medical care.
In exchange for removing liability issues from the table, patients would get certain and quick compensation for their injuries. There would be no or little need for personal injury lawyers—or defense lawyers, for that matter. Moreover, what I am proposing is a system that has functioned well for a hundred years. The system is not new. It works. One can, of course, criticize worker’s compensation systems. Or say, for example, that Illinois’ system is better than Florida’s. Or that the system can be tweaked or improved. Of course the system can be improved. But by taking compensation issues out of the “tort courts” everyone’s costs will go down to the benefit of both doctors and patients.
And then, as our system changes, it will be easier to buy Klemmbinders in the United States.
Thesis binders used to be sold in the University of Miami bookstore. These are sometimes called “spring binders” and you can temporarily bind a document without difficult to ease reading. This is especially handy if you don’t like to read on the screen. For a while now, I have been looking for these binders in A4 size. This may come as a shock to most Americans, but outside the United States, letter-sized paper is not 8 1/2 x 11, but A4 size. I finally found a German company with a U.K. website that sells the binders (they call them “clamp binders”, or more properly, Klemmbinder). Unfortunately, the company refused to ship the binders to the United States because of insurance and liability reasons. They are afraid of being dragged into a U.S. courtroom.
Since I’ve been single (see my post Batchin’ It) I haven’t gotten around to getting medical insurance. So I called BUPA, which is one of the U.K.’s largest insurers. They called me back immediately (this is a clear sign of a buyer’s market—if you don’t believe me start making inquiries about commercial real estate) and offered a very competitive policy. One thing though—there would be a U.S. exclusion. In other words, if I were in the United States temporarily, say, on vacation, they would cover emergency care, but other than that, please come back to Europe. Or go to South America. Or the Middle East. “ABA”: Anywhere but America.
So, how are Klemmbinders linked to health insurance? And what does this have to do with “fixing the medical malpractice problem”? The first step is realizing that the American legal system, insofar as it attempts to address the issue of recovery in tort, is broken. Americans don’t believe that it is, but the world is starting to vote with its feet (to borrow a phrase from Milton Friedman) and avoid American markets with their inevitable legal entanglements.
In the early part of the 20th century, a worker who was injured on the job had almost no recourse. In order to receive compensation for his injuries, he had to prove that his employer was liable. In states that followed contributory negligence rules (that is, instead of comparative negligence) any fault at all on the part of the employee would prevent him from recovering. Eventually a drastic change was adopted, and eventually became law in all fifty states. It would no longer be necessary for the employee to prove his employer’s negligence. However, the amount of his recovery, that is, the amount of the compensation would be greatly reduced. Compensation would be based on schedules that were agreed to by the legislature in advance.
The system has worked well for over a hundred years. By taking liability issues off the table, workers (usually) receive quick and certain compensation. This system should be adopted for injuries sustained by patients while receiving medical care.
In exchange for removing liability issues from the table, patients would get certain and quick compensation for their injuries. There would be no or little need for personal injury lawyers—or defense lawyers, for that matter. Moreover, what I am proposing is a system that has functioned well for a hundred years. The system is not new. It works. One can, of course, criticize worker’s compensation systems. Or say, for example, that Illinois’ system is better than Florida’s. Or that the system can be tweaked or improved. Of course the system can be improved. But by taking compensation issues out of the “tort courts” everyone’s costs will go down to the benefit of both doctors and patients.
And then, as our system changes, it will be easier to buy Klemmbinders in the United States.
The 1996 film “Rounders” has a certain cult status and popularity due to an increase in interest in poker, especially Texas Hold ‘Em. The film stars Matt Damon and Ed Norton, with Famke Janssen in a supporting role. Recently Ms. Janssen starred in a 2008 action film called “Taken,” also starring Liam Neeson. In the film Neeson and Janssen’s daughter is kidnapped by white slavers in Paris and sold to the bad guys. Who are the villains? Qataris. Arabs. Of course. Such creativity.
There was an article recently (I think it was in the Guardian) complaining about the fact that all recent villains seem to be Nazis. There was even a story about “Hitler’s Cow” in the Daily Mail. Apparently there’s a breed of cattle with some link to 1930’s Germany currently bred in England. Run for your lives!
The author of this article need not worry. Hollywood villains seem to be either Nazis or Arabs. What would we do without them?
