This morning Ezra Klein of the Washington Post adds more than two cents’ worth to the not-quite debate about end-of-life medical decision-making. Klein discusses the legislation proposed by Oregon rep Earl Blumenauer that I described yesterday. The problem with Blumenauer’s legislation isn’t that it goes too far. It’s that it doesn’t go nearly far enough….We […]
Second Thoughts
Posted inOpinion
Personalize Your Care
In “Happier endings,” I ventured the opinion that patients with life-threatening conditions ought to talk sooner with their physicians about end-of-life issues. News comes that a Democratic congressman has introduced a bill to make such conversations easier. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) sat on the Portland city council in the 1990s when I lived in that […]
Posted inOpinion
Trial by juries
In 2011’s “Good and true,” I took up the problem of biased or incompetent jurors rendering our criminal justice system anything but just. In a recent post, Slate’s Brian Palmer looked at the research and reports that juries might reach the correct verdict between 75 and 90 percent of the time. I can’t argue with […]
Posted inOpinion
Makers
In “Three strikes and you’re in,” I endorsed the idea that what Springfield needs to make its economy perk is the entrepreneurial energy and enterprise that immigrants supply. Turns out that the Small Business Administration commissioned a report on that idea in 2012. Robert W. Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California at […]
Posted inOpinion
America
Ah, another Fourth is gone – the ritual burning of dead animals, flags made in China waved by just folks celebrating our glorious victories over the world’s peasant armies, speeches by people convinced that if the Founders were alive today they sit at their table in the cafeteria and not yours, all experienced through an […]
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Quotes for the day
While I’m in a patriotic mood, I thought I’d pass along a few quotes from the Founding Fathers, courtesy of David Atkins over at Hullabaloo. Among them: James Madison: “The growing wealth acquired by [corporations] never fails to be a source of abuses. Thomas Jefferson: I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy […]
Posted inOpinion
A city moving backward
More questions about the Jefferson Crossing project. * The project will require subsidy in the form of $9.2 million in tax increment financing — believed to be the largest single TIF award in Springfield’s history. Is creating buildable land in a floodplain necessary in a city that has thousands of acres of unbuilt or underused […]
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The case for a new open door policy
In “Three strikes and you’re in,” I endorsed the idea that what Springfield needs to make its economy perk is the entrepreneurial energy and enterprise that immigrants supply. Catherine Rampell of the new York Times has more from a 2012 report commissioned by the Small Business Administration. According to Robert W. Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, […]
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A little knowledge….No 3 in a series
Bill Gardner, posting on The Incidental Economist, Aaron Carroll’s invaluable health care blog, reported the other day on trends in the prescription of Prilosec, Prevacid and other proton pump inhibitors. These drugs are used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD, and their prescription for use by infants has exploded. The patients are babies who […]
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People skills
Back on Sept 29, 2011, I asked in The college game whether college was always the only or the best way to prepare for a career. In Education Isn’t the Same as Skills, Slate columnist Matt Ygesias warns that we shouldn’t be so blithe about identifying formal education with skills, since it is possible for […]
Posted inOpinion
Moonrise in Illinois
Reacting to my “In defense of the politician,” a veteran State of Illinois employee told me that he thought it would be fun to work under a governor like Jerry Brown. Younger readers might be interested to know that Illinois very nearly had its Jerry Brown, in 1982 and 1986, when the 11-year U.S> Senator […]
Posted inOpinion
Buying time
Rich Miller reported on June 11 (Caps off for general if busted in primary) that HB 2418 passed both chambers and is likely to be signed by Mr. Quinn. The bill stipulates (speaking very broadly) that if Bruce Rauner or any other rich guy busts the contribution cap in a primary race and wins the […]
