Here's an important aspect of the debate on a "public option" in health care. As Zachary Roth notes, the fear that government-offered health insurance will be unfair competition misses the point. In a pretty large part of this country, insurance companies have no meaningful competition. That is, one company has a lock or near-lock on one area...and is fighting to keep things that way.
I don't think much of Christopher Hitchens as a human being but he's a colorful writer, especially when in his usual state of supreme outrage. That can be useful when, with a track record a little better than a stopped clock, he's directing it to good use. I laughed out loud just now when I read the following expression: "...the thought of the Nixon gang in the White House still infuses me with a pure and undiluted hatred and makes me consider throwing up things that I don't even remember having eaten."
It's from the linked article about the newly-released Nixon tapes. Everything you ever heard about the moral bankruptcy of Richard Milhous turns out to be so — again and again and again...
You can listen to the new tapes or read transcripts here. This is the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, where every effort is made to put its subject into a sympathetic context and to suggest that the pressures of the era would have driven even a saint to treacherous action. But even if one accepts that framework, Nixon and his associates still look pretty damn bad.
Bernie Madoff got 150 years in prison. That works out to $120,000,000 for each year...or ten million bucks a month.
I have a friend whose car was taken by a thief. The car was worth maybe $5000 and they caught the guy who took it and he got 3-5 years behind bars. If he did the minimum sentence, which he probably did, that's like $139 a month.
Bernie got a helluva bargain. At those prices, I would have stolen more.
I haven't listened to it but authorities have released tapes of the 911 call that summoned paramedics to the home of Billy Mays the other morning. And the 911 call for Michael Jackson is all over the web. Why do they do this?
I'm all for the public's right to know but we don't have a right to know everything. There's such a thing as attorney-client privilege. And doctor-patient confidentiality. And your right to talk to someone else without them recording it and posting it on the Internet without your consent.
A person finds a friend or family member passed out and not breathing. In panic, they call 911 and that's often one of the worst moments of a life. They're scared. They're overcome with emotion. Sometimes, they're facing the very real possibility that the person they love the most has just died or is about to die...
Why is it anyone else's business what they said or what the operator said in reply?
Okay, yes, it's amusing to hear when some mother calls 911 because her daughter won't eat her asparagus. And I suppose if some death was under suspicious circumstances, that 911 call might be evidence...but then, it belongs in a courtroom, not on TMZ.com.
Am I missing something here? When "authorities" release such things, is it ever on the authority of the caller? Is the family consulted? Or do they, as it would seem, just put it out there for public titillation without regard to anyone's feelings?
For the last few months, it was a hush-hush secret that master impressionist Fred Travalena was in and out of hospitals, battling cancer again. It had come and gone in various parts of his body but was back, attacking his precious throat. At the beginning of May, Sperdvac — which is the local old radio show society — had its annual convention and Fred was supposed to appear and play George Burns in a re-creation of an old Burns & Allen radio show. When he cancelled, that was a bad, bad sign. Fred was a trouper in every show biz sense...and if he was letting someone down, it had to be for a dire reason.
He died yesterday of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 66. This obit will give you the details of his career but basically, he bounced around in early life between the possible careers of singer, impressionist and commercial art before finally settling on the first two. He was a darn good mimic, especially his replicas of Sinatra and the other members of the Rat Pack. He did a darn good Jim Nabors, too. And just about anybody else you might request.
I first worked with Fred when he supplied voices for an animated special I wrote for ABC called The Secret World of Og. It was one of the first times he did a cartoon, if not the first and as you might imagine, he was quite good at it. Later though, when he was offered more work of that sort, he usually declined. "I like being in front of an audience," he told me once when he courteously turned me down. He was also bothered that most cartoon jobs pay union scale. That's more than enough money for most people. I have friends who've gotten very wealthy doing animation gigs for union scale.
But Fred was uncomfy with the whole concept of working for minimums as a matter of principle. He didn't like doing it and he didn't like hearing that others did it...and this was not out of greed. No performer I can think of did more pro bono work than he did, lending his talents to every charity and noble cause that asked him. He placed a high value on what entertainers supply and when you saw him supplying, you could understand why. I hope you got to see him live, at least once. He sure did like being in front of an audience...and audiences liked having him there.
Here's a repeat of a clip I linked to a year and a half ago of Fred in front of audiences...
Mega-Swindler Bernard Madoff is to be sentenced today...and I love that grown men and women are actually arguing for the full 150-year sentence. Like it's a slap on the wrist if a 71 year old man only gets, say, a 100-year sentence. Those extra fifty years will teach him not to do it again. The L.A. Times article actually includes the statement that "In papers filed late Friday, prosecutors argued for the full 150-year term or at least a lifetime sentence."
That's kind of like saying of a convicted serial murderer, "We really think you should execute him twenty times but for God's sake, at least kill him once or twice!"
They also quote a lawyer — I don't think it's one of Madoff's — saying, "This isn't a guy who murdered people, who raped people or who sexually abused children. This is a guy who stole money, and it's terrible. But when you climb down through the hysteria, we don't generally give life sentences to people who steal a lot of money." That's true. Then again, criminals don't usually steal amounts equal to the entire gross national product of Uzbekistan.
"A lot of money" is kind of the key phrase here. A few days ago, I believe I used that term to describe the full retail price of Adobe InDesign. The amount Mr. Madoff made disappear is a wee bit more than "a lot of money."
What would I do if I were the judge? Easy. We throw the guy in prison for an indeterminate time. We give him a job in there...working in the laundry or making license plates or something. And we pay him for this at the full minimum wage, which is presently $6.55 an hour.
Then he stays in prison until he pays back the full $13 billion. With interest.
June 30, 2009
