Helen Gurley Brown, the former editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine has written a number of books. The only one I’ve read was on this last trip, Wild Again, which I’m afraid I found frivolous. As a result I sort of "sped read" my way through it. However, aA couple of things she wrote about registered with me. One was her advice about travel. She said " When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money, then take…
The New England Journal of Medicine (April 12, 2007 Volume 356:1496) reports in an article "Making Smoking History" about the world wide effort to eliminate smoking. It reports that Ireland was the first country in history to pass a comprehensive indoor smoking ban in 2004. Overwhelming public support in Ireland for the ban followed from smokers and nonsmokers both to the surprise of most people. South Africa passed national laws in 2000 baning smoking in public places with some exemptions…
The National Law Journal reports that New York City’s Common Good has joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to experiment with a tort reform idea of health courts. It would create "expert courts" in medical malpractice cases consisting of medical doctors, academics and others who would act as judge and jury. Among other tort reform restrictions, the plan would have a schedule for pain and suffering damages and caps on recovery. Does that sound like a an unbiased forum for…
The Sin of Omission It isn’t the thing you do, dear, It’s the thing you leaved undone; That gives you a bit of a heartache at the setting of the sun. The tender word forgotten, The letter you did not write, The flowers you did not send, dear, Are your haunting ghosts at night… For life is all to short, dear, And sorrow all too great, To suffer our slow compassion That tarries until too late; And it isn’t the…
I could provide a long list of everyday frustrations. One of the most common involves sullen salespeople whose demeanor reflects how much they hate their job and who could not count change if their life depended upon it. Even with the cash register read out telling them the amount of change they have trouble doing it right. Each time one of these people sticks out their hand full of money and dumps the change with a "here’s your change" I…
We never got off the cruise ship in Mazatlan. It was hot and the ship was tied up at a commercial dock some distance from the City so we decided to stay on board for the day. Our office staff took tours and enjoyed the day while we had Margarita’s, read and relaxed. In Puerta Vallarta we sat on our balcony where we had a view of all the small ships that take people out for a cruise around the…
Arianna Huffington’s blog has the disturbing follow up to the scandal of Congress and big oil’s love affair. See my report of 2/19/07 for the original report of the huge gift the lame duck Republican congress gave big oil by not charging for their government leases. The Democrats promised to fix this outrageous $10 Billion dollar windfall the Republican Congress had provided. A bill was passed in the house which which would require the oil industry to pay royalties from…
It’s Easter Sunday on the Golden Princess cruise ship. We are docked at Mazatlan, Mexico. This is a commercial fishing port located on a peninsula at the bottom of the Sierra Madre mountains. I was impressed to read that this city exports some 40 million pounds of shrimp every year. We are tied up in the commercial dock area after cruise from Puerto Vallarta. We got off the ship there and took a taxi to old town where we did…
We checked out of our hotel and were driven to the pier to be tendered to the Golden Princess at anchor in the harbor. Our luggage, too many bags, was loaded and we went to the ship. This passenger ship is 950 feet long (three football fields) and carries 2,600 passengers. Since this is Easter vacation, most of the passengers appear to be children of all ages who are everywhere. Our state room is in the aft section of the…
The National Law Journal reports that immigration judges are continuing to demonstrate inappropriate and unjudicial conduct as I´ve previously reported about. See post for 3/2/07 Two Circuits, the 7th & 8th criticized two more immigration judges for their conduct. In the 7th circuit, Judge Craig Zerbe rejected an immigrants claim of religious persecution and death threats. In doing so, this judge used phrases like "essentially zealots" and other inappropriate comments. He accused them of contributing to their own problems by…
