Not long ago, I made a post about the incredible disappearing honey bees, and how their absence was going to destroy the world as we know it. I suggested in that post that since no bee carcasses had been discovered, it seemed likely that the bees had not in fact died off, but had relocated to a remote island to lay out plans to attain control of the planet.
You scoffed.
However, today I found a clue on Dave Barry's blog. Barry himself did not allege any connection between this incident and the missing bees, but the story speaks for itself: "Missing" Bees Plot to Take over the World.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Get Out of Jail Not So Free
Not long ago, I wrote about the Illinois high school student who was arrested after writing an essay that his teacher and school officials found disturbing. Now, it's certainly understandable, especially in the shadow of the Virginia Tech shooting, that school officials and law enforcement should be sensitive to violent tendencies. The problem is, it's not a crime to write an essay, and while there's a good argument that it shouldn't have been ignored, there's a better argument that we shouldn't charge people with crimes unless we have at least a reasonable belief that they might have committed them.
Allen Lee was charged with disorderly conduct, which the Cary police chief said could apply to writings that "disturb an individual".
Now, the charges have been dropped. That's not a big surprise, because when a charge actually goes to court, the prosecutor is expected to prove the elements of the crime. This is what the "disturb an individual" provision of the Illinois disorderly conduct statute actually says:
(a) A person commits disorderly conduct when he knowingly:
(1) Does any act in such unreasonable manner as to
alarm or disturb another and to provoke a breach of the peace;
I guess the chief of police forgot about the "and".
So the charges have been dismissed, though Lee's early enlistment in the marines has been cancelled and it remains to be seen whether or not he's eligible for re-enlistment.
The most disturbing aspect of the story, though, comes straight from the mouths of law enforcement, who apparently indicated that the arrest had been justified based on "fear of an imminent attack on the school". That might or might not be a reasonable fear--I'm not even going there. What bothers me is that Lee was charged with disorderly conduct, not "presenting an imminent threat to the school". Why? Being a potentially dangerous person is not a crime. So law enforcement officials arrested Lee for a crime of which he was clearly not guilty, then admitted that they'd really arrested him for another reason entirely. The charges were dropped, they said, when it was "determined that he was not a danger".
Um.
Wait.
I thought we were talking about whether or not he'd committed the crime of disorderly conduct?
In fact, Allen Lee was arrested for a Future Crime (Anyone else see that Tom Cruise movie? Oh, right. Everyone. Well, except the Cary chief of police, that is.) And then it was determined that the Future Crime wasn't going to occur, so they let him go. But it still looks like a slippery slope to me.
Allen Lee was charged with disorderly conduct, which the Cary police chief said could apply to writings that "disturb an individual".
Now, the charges have been dropped. That's not a big surprise, because when a charge actually goes to court, the prosecutor is expected to prove the elements of the crime. This is what the "disturb an individual" provision of the Illinois disorderly conduct statute actually says:
(a) A person commits disorderly conduct when he knowingly:
(1) Does any act in such unreasonable manner as to
alarm or disturb another and to provoke a breach of the peace;
I guess the chief of police forgot about the "and".
So the charges have been dismissed, though Lee's early enlistment in the marines has been cancelled and it remains to be seen whether or not he's eligible for re-enlistment.
The most disturbing aspect of the story, though, comes straight from the mouths of law enforcement, who apparently indicated that the arrest had been justified based on "fear of an imminent attack on the school". That might or might not be a reasonable fear--I'm not even going there. What bothers me is that Lee was charged with disorderly conduct, not "presenting an imminent threat to the school". Why? Being a potentially dangerous person is not a crime. So law enforcement officials arrested Lee for a crime of which he was clearly not guilty, then admitted that they'd really arrested him for another reason entirely. The charges were dropped, they said, when it was "determined that he was not a danger".
Um.
Wait.
I thought we were talking about whether or not he'd committed the crime of disorderly conduct?
In fact, Allen Lee was arrested for a Future Crime (Anyone else see that Tom Cruise movie? Oh, right. Everyone. Well, except the Cary chief of police, that is.) And then it was determined that the Future Crime wasn't going to occur, so they let him go. But it still looks like a slippery slope to me.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Corporate America Doesn't Care if You Die
There's a bill before the Governor in Illinois right now that would allow juries to award damages for grief in wrongful death cases. I've heard the bill criticized as "an end run against damages caps" and here's my thought on that: Please, God, let it be so!
There are many things that I periodically refer to as "the root of all evil", including calculators, but in terms of American society today, the reduction or elimination of punitive damages and the capping of personal injury, product liability and medical malpractice claims truly is a significant root of a large portion of the evil. You may recall that the original quotation said, "the love of money is the root of all evil", and that's exactly the reason that punitive damages are so very important.
We hear a lot about "greedy trial lawyers" and I'm sure that there are many. But for better or worse (regardless of what the insurance industry lobby would like you to think), greedy trial lawyers have little impact on your quality of life. Corporations who value profits over people have a lot.
More than 20 years ago, as you may know, Ford made the decision not to mention the fact that a design flaw made the Pinto prone to explosion in low-speed, low-impact collisions. The company applied a formula set forth in an earlier court case, one that weighed the burden of making corrections against the harm of not making them, and decided that it wasn't worth the investment to fix the Pinto. Sure, some people were going to die, but it wasn't a LOT of people, and it would be expensive to fix the defect, so it would make more sense just to pay wrongful death claims for those who died than it would to make the necessary changes.
This isn't spin. That's what Ford executives reported, and they seemed to think they'd done the right thing. The formula was right there laid out for them in an opinion by the revered Learned Hand. They'd made a cost benefit analysis, and changing the design would have cost about $137 million, while the deaths, injuries, and property damage claims associated with the faulty design would likely not reach $50 million. In short, it made no sense to make the changes.
I hope that you're all shouting, "But...but..." right now and asking whether we really want to live in a society that assigns a monetary value to human life ($200,000 in Ford's case) and considers it a good trade if killing off a few people saves some money. The answer at that time was a resounding "no". But that answer seems to be changing, and it's changing as a direct result of the fact that judges and juries no longer have the discretion to make sure that it's not profitable for corporations to make this kind of decision.
The evidence in one of the many recent cases against Merck over the drug Vioxx was in many ways similar. Merck apparently made an assessment that indicated that the company could save $229 million by delaying revisions to its warnings. Naturally, some people who would have benefitted (as in, lived) if those warnings had been available to them and to their physicians earlier would be harmed, but not $229 million worth.
A Texas jury took a dim view of the analysis and awarded $229 million in punitive damages. Some coincidence, hm? The jury sought to wipe out the profit derived from the conscious decision to risk customers' lives in favor of the bottom line. Unfortunately, Texas law limits punitive damages, and the award was reduced to $5 million. While many were crowing about this "victory for common sense and proportion" and all of that, I'm sure no one was more delighted than Merck...because that punitive damages cap ensured that no matter how egregious their behavior, it would remain more profitable to kill people off it that were the economically efficient thing to do.
The jury awarded $229 million not to compensate the plaintiff, but to punish the defendant, to make sure that its bad behavior (murder) wasn't profitable, and to put other companies on notice that it wasn't acceptable to consciously decide the bottom line was more important than human life. The Texas punitive damage limitations wiped all of that out and instead delivered this message: When you decide to let people die so that you can make more money, you might end up profiting only $224 million instead of $229 million.
Probably not much of a deterrent.
It's nice to think that corporations will avoid killing people simply because they're operated by human beings and we'd like to think that avoiding killing people is sort of programmed into our hearts. But it hasn't happened that way.
It would be nice to think that the market will take care of this kind of problem itself, and that when a company shows itself to be willing to kill off its customers, people will stop doing business with it. But it hasn't happened that way. In the case of drug companies, in particular, it sometimes CAN'T happen that way, because those companies hold patents on life-saving medications.
In the past, we could at least count on the fact that when a company made its cost-benefit analysis, the threat of crippling punitive damages if they opted to kill people would go into the scales. Now that they're largely insulated from that risk, there's just no good reason to give much thought to keeping people alive.
There are many things that I periodically refer to as "the root of all evil", including calculators, but in terms of American society today, the reduction or elimination of punitive damages and the capping of personal injury, product liability and medical malpractice claims truly is a significant root of a large portion of the evil. You may recall that the original quotation said, "the love of money is the root of all evil", and that's exactly the reason that punitive damages are so very important.
We hear a lot about "greedy trial lawyers" and I'm sure that there are many. But for better or worse (regardless of what the insurance industry lobby would like you to think), greedy trial lawyers have little impact on your quality of life. Corporations who value profits over people have a lot.
More than 20 years ago, as you may know, Ford made the decision not to mention the fact that a design flaw made the Pinto prone to explosion in low-speed, low-impact collisions. The company applied a formula set forth in an earlier court case, one that weighed the burden of making corrections against the harm of not making them, and decided that it wasn't worth the investment to fix the Pinto. Sure, some people were going to die, but it wasn't a LOT of people, and it would be expensive to fix the defect, so it would make more sense just to pay wrongful death claims for those who died than it would to make the necessary changes.
This isn't spin. That's what Ford executives reported, and they seemed to think they'd done the right thing. The formula was right there laid out for them in an opinion by the revered Learned Hand. They'd made a cost benefit analysis, and changing the design would have cost about $137 million, while the deaths, injuries, and property damage claims associated with the faulty design would likely not reach $50 million. In short, it made no sense to make the changes.
I hope that you're all shouting, "But...but..." right now and asking whether we really want to live in a society that assigns a monetary value to human life ($200,000 in Ford's case) and considers it a good trade if killing off a few people saves some money. The answer at that time was a resounding "no". But that answer seems to be changing, and it's changing as a direct result of the fact that judges and juries no longer have the discretion to make sure that it's not profitable for corporations to make this kind of decision.
The evidence in one of the many recent cases against Merck over the drug Vioxx was in many ways similar. Merck apparently made an assessment that indicated that the company could save $229 million by delaying revisions to its warnings. Naturally, some people who would have benefitted (as in, lived) if those warnings had been available to them and to their physicians earlier would be harmed, but not $229 million worth.
A Texas jury took a dim view of the analysis and awarded $229 million in punitive damages. Some coincidence, hm? The jury sought to wipe out the profit derived from the conscious decision to risk customers' lives in favor of the bottom line. Unfortunately, Texas law limits punitive damages, and the award was reduced to $5 million. While many were crowing about this "victory for common sense and proportion" and all of that, I'm sure no one was more delighted than Merck...because that punitive damages cap ensured that no matter how egregious their behavior, it would remain more profitable to kill people off it that were the economically efficient thing to do.
The jury awarded $229 million not to compensate the plaintiff, but to punish the defendant, to make sure that its bad behavior (murder) wasn't profitable, and to put other companies on notice that it wasn't acceptable to consciously decide the bottom line was more important than human life. The Texas punitive damage limitations wiped all of that out and instead delivered this message: When you decide to let people die so that you can make more money, you might end up profiting only $224 million instead of $229 million.
Probably not much of a deterrent.
It's nice to think that corporations will avoid killing people simply because they're operated by human beings and we'd like to think that avoiding killing people is sort of programmed into our hearts. But it hasn't happened that way.
It would be nice to think that the market will take care of this kind of problem itself, and that when a company shows itself to be willing to kill off its customers, people will stop doing business with it. But it hasn't happened that way. In the case of drug companies, in particular, it sometimes CAN'T happen that way, because those companies hold patents on life-saving medications.
In the past, we could at least count on the fact that when a company made its cost-benefit analysis, the threat of crippling punitive damages if they opted to kill people would go into the scales. Now that they're largely insulated from that risk, there's just no good reason to give much thought to keeping people alive.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Lies Elementary School Teachers Tell
About six months ago, my fifth-grade daughter came home from school concerned. Her teacher had told her class that "I" was a proper noun. Distressing as this was to me, my daughter, and the roughly 768 writer and teacher friends I shared it with, it was probably an honest mistake. It might even have been a sort of verbal typo. There's a big danger in those when they come from teachers, because most children won't recognize them as mistakes and won't think to share them with parents, and so will move forward throughout life with that misinformation planted firmly in their minds. You may be thinking that this will straighten itself out somewhere along the way, that during the next year or even the next lesson, these kids will get accurate information and question the conflict. But my experience preparing high school students for the ACT indicates that's just not true. We can't create a national force of elementary school teachers who never make a mistake, but perhaps we could create one that doesn't lie for convenience, and that would go a long way.
Some of my "favorite" elementary school lies:
1. Never start a sentence with "because". For example, "Because my third grade teacher told me never to start a sentence with 'because', I will erroneously deem this sentence incorrect when it appears on the ACT." You may be thinking, "Well, that's different--it's an introductory clause." EXACTLY. But the vast majority of students who passed through my classroom--college-bound students--had never learned "that's different". Instead, they'd been told in elementary school not to start sentences with "because", and they'd believed it, internalized it, and were still living it and getting wrong answers on the ACT because of it at 16 and 17.
2. A square is not a rectangle. A rectangle, of course, is a four-sided figure with opposite sides parallel and four 90 degree angles. A square, of course, shares all of those characteristics. But a surprising number of high school students in upper-level math reject the idea of a square as a rectangle. Why? I've heard tell that it's intentional. Apparently, if the legend is to be believed, some curriculum expect somewhere along the way decided it would be "confusing" to young students to be told that all squares were rectangles but not all rectangles were squares. Again, they were obviously expecting someone to explain later on, but no one did.
3. A prime number is a number that has only one and itself as factors. Close. SO close. So close that it's almost semantic. A prime number is a number that has exactly two factors. Even at the college level, even with adult returning students who are preparing for the GRE and GMAT, I often get a shrug in response, as if the distinction were merely one of expression. But there's a big difference: the number one, which is NOT a prime number, fits the first definition and not the second. Yeah, that's right. One is not a prime number.
I'm sure that when the second or third grade teacher makes a statement like, "Never start a sentence with 'because', she doesn't mean 'never'." I'm sure that it's shorthand for "don't talk in fragments" when a child says, for instance, "Because I want to." But the child doesn't get the distinction. It's the words that stick in his mind. And stick. And stick.
Some of my "favorite" elementary school lies:
1. Never start a sentence with "because". For example, "Because my third grade teacher told me never to start a sentence with 'because', I will erroneously deem this sentence incorrect when it appears on the ACT." You may be thinking, "Well, that's different--it's an introductory clause." EXACTLY. But the vast majority of students who passed through my classroom--college-bound students--had never learned "that's different". Instead, they'd been told in elementary school not to start sentences with "because", and they'd believed it, internalized it, and were still living it and getting wrong answers on the ACT because of it at 16 and 17.
2. A square is not a rectangle. A rectangle, of course, is a four-sided figure with opposite sides parallel and four 90 degree angles. A square, of course, shares all of those characteristics. But a surprising number of high school students in upper-level math reject the idea of a square as a rectangle. Why? I've heard tell that it's intentional. Apparently, if the legend is to be believed, some curriculum expect somewhere along the way decided it would be "confusing" to young students to be told that all squares were rectangles but not all rectangles were squares. Again, they were obviously expecting someone to explain later on, but no one did.
3. A prime number is a number that has only one and itself as factors. Close. SO close. So close that it's almost semantic. A prime number is a number that has exactly two factors. Even at the college level, even with adult returning students who are preparing for the GRE and GMAT, I often get a shrug in response, as if the distinction were merely one of expression. But there's a big difference: the number one, which is NOT a prime number, fits the first definition and not the second. Yeah, that's right. One is not a prime number.
I'm sure that when the second or third grade teacher makes a statement like, "Never start a sentence with 'because', she doesn't mean 'never'." I'm sure that it's shorthand for "don't talk in fragments" when a child says, for instance, "Because I want to." But the child doesn't get the distinction. It's the words that stick in his mind. And stick. And stick.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
A Few Questions about Spongebob Squarepants
I ask these questions of my daughter on a regular basis, whenever I come upon her watching the goings-on of Bikini Bottom, but she always says, "Mom." She says it in a tone that's a mix of patience and eye-rolling, a tone that says that she understands that I just don't get it and she DOES find me sort of endearing, but she'd nonetheless prefer that I...well...shut up.
I can't help it, though. Some of this stuff really bothers me. And since my daughter refused to discuss this intelligently, like an adult, I'm hoping that someone else out there has some insights that will let me sleep at night.
1. Why do Spongebob and Patrick require glass domes over their heads when they leave the water to visit Sandy the Squirrel, but did not when they visited Karate Island?
2. Why do normal household objects that FLOAT just sit on the table or ground in Bikini Bottom?
3. How can Spongebob and Patrick go to the beach, even walking up to the edge of a body of water that's...well...under water? Likewise, how is it that there are there sometimes puddles on the ground?
4. In the episode in which Spongebob and Patrick spend the entire day playing in a cardboard box, why doesn't the box fall apart? Why is there a cardboard box at the bottom of the sea at all?
5. Why, when Spongebob and Patrick suddenly "fly" through the "air", is Patrick much smaller than Spongebob, when he's larger the rest of the time?
6. How do they pour glasses of milk and such under water?
I can't help it, though. Some of this stuff really bothers me. And since my daughter refused to discuss this intelligently, like an adult, I'm hoping that someone else out there has some insights that will let me sleep at night.
1. Why do Spongebob and Patrick require glass domes over their heads when they leave the water to visit Sandy the Squirrel, but did not when they visited Karate Island?
2. Why do normal household objects that FLOAT just sit on the table or ground in Bikini Bottom?
3. How can Spongebob and Patrick go to the beach, even walking up to the edge of a body of water that's...well...under water? Likewise, how is it that there are there sometimes puddles on the ground?
4. In the episode in which Spongebob and Patrick spend the entire day playing in a cardboard box, why doesn't the box fall apart? Why is there a cardboard box at the bottom of the sea at all?
5. Why, when Spongebob and Patrick suddenly "fly" through the "air", is Patrick much smaller than Spongebob, when he's larger the rest of the time?
6. How do they pour glasses of milk and such under water?
Monday, May 14, 2007
Yammering about Yammering about Yammering
I never claimed to be sweetness and light, but some days I'm crankier than others. Today, I'm a little peeved about the endless blogs about blogging and alleged writers writing about writing instead of writing.
I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of humor columnist Barb Cooper, and she's right in the middle of a couple of "writers" who are too busy talking about what makes a writer and who should get to say what makes a writer to...well...write anything of substance.
In fact, the whole Rockstories blog seems to be (in its own words) writing about writing about writing. And we never find out what in the hell it has to do with rock.
Light. Sweet. Crude. has a little more variety--its author takes a break from her stand on how she's a real writer even though she's just blogging to tell us about how her husband comes in (I'm dead serious--check it out yourself) and shows her his penis while she's writing.
If I had more time on my hands (like some bloggers obviously do), I'd start counting the number of bloggers out there blogging about writing instead of writing.
I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of humor columnist Barb Cooper, and she's right in the middle of a couple of "writers" who are too busy talking about what makes a writer and who should get to say what makes a writer to...well...write anything of substance.
In fact, the whole Rockstories blog seems to be (in its own words) writing about writing about writing. And we never find out what in the hell it has to do with rock.
Light. Sweet. Crude. has a little more variety--its author takes a break from her stand on how she's a real writer even though she's just blogging to tell us about how her husband comes in (I'm dead serious--check it out yourself) and shows her his penis while she's writing.
If I had more time on my hands (like some bloggers obviously do), I'd start counting the number of bloggers out there blogging about writing instead of writing.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Maybe I Was Wrong About Lawyers....
About a month ago, I wrote about how lawyers seemed to be damned if they did and damned if they didn't--in short, that good lawyering brought on another version of the same bad rap bad lawyering prompted. And I still believe that. Really, I do. But yesterday I was reminded that some lawyers really, really earn the rap they get.
Apparently, an attorney in Chicago got it into her head that a good way to drum up business would be to slap up a billboard of some scantily clad folks (equal opportunity here--one man and one woman) and suggest that life was too short to waste it with your spouse.
Read the full story and see a picture of the billboard (which has since been torn down over the attorney's objections) at The Divorce Blog.
Apparently, an attorney in Chicago got it into her head that a good way to drum up business would be to slap up a billboard of some scantily clad folks (equal opportunity here--one man and one woman) and suggest that life was too short to waste it with your spouse.
Read the full story and see a picture of the billboard (which has since been torn down over the attorney's objections) at The Divorce Blog.
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