Daily Archives: April 22, 2004

SCOTUS turns down Clarett motion for stay

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As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down football player Maurice Clarett’s motion to stay the Second Circuit’s order of earlier this week that bars Clarett and similarly situated underclassmen from this weekend’s NFL Draft pending the Second Circuit’s final adjudication of the NFL’s appeal of the U.S. District Court decision that enjoined the NFL from barring Clarett and similarly situated underclassmen from the NFL Draft. The SCOTUS’ reasoning was the same as the Second Circuit’s. Inasmuch as the NFL has already agreed to conduct a supplemental draft for Clarett and others like him before the upcoming NFL seaosn if the Second Circuit upholds the District Court’s decision, SCOTUS concluded that there was no material harm to Clarett and the others in barring them from this weekend’s draft pending the Second Circuit’s ruling on the merits of the NFL’s appeal.

Libertarian dilemma

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From the “News in Brief” section of the Onion:

Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department
CHEYENNE, WY?After attempting to contain a living-room blaze started by a cigarette, card-carrying Libertarian Trent Jacobs reluctantly called the Cheyenne Fire Department Monday. “Although the community would do better to rely on an efficient, free-market fire-fighting service, the fact is that expensive, unnecessary public fire departments do exist,” Jacobs said. “Also, my house was burning down.” Jacobs did not offer to pay firefighters for their service.

VDH on the lessons of Vietnam

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Victor Davis Hanson answers the following question on his website:

My question is about the lessons of Vietnam. In your book, ‘Carnage and Culture’ . . . you point out that millions died as a result of our withdrawal. You also point out the hypocrisy of the left in ignoring this point. It seems like we’re now in the exact same situation as we were then, a tenuous military situation in Iraq and the radical left screeching to get out. How do we avoid the catastrophic mistake of Vietnam?

Hanson: We must hope that we are folk more like that of the Okinawa-generation than the Mogadishu public. If we take Fallujah, and alienate and end Sadr?s militia, then the reconstruction will be back on track?offering more of a moral boost than before the present turmoil. The entire struggle depends on whether the United States believes we are in a real war? or whether we think this is a criminal matter. Imagine May 1945 in the midst of trying to dislodge the Japanese from Sugar Loaf Hill: would we engage in national inquiry about who got us into the war with Japan? Or blame each other over Pearl Harbor? Become despondent from horrific footage of suicide bombers? Cease the assault and ask to parley with Japanese generals? Or begin a national debate about leaving the Pacific to avoid such seemingly senseless carnage?

Big Medical Center news: Baylor picks St. Luke’s over Methodist

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In a move that has been expected for over a year but nevertheless shakes the foundation of Houston’s huge Texas Medical Center community, Baylor College of Medicine announced yesterday that it is ending its 50 year primary affiliation with Methodist Hospital as its main teaching hospital and entering into an agreement to make St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital its primary teaching hospital.
Baylor (which has no affiliation with Baylor University in Waco) is one of two medical schools in the Medical Center (the University of Texas Health Science Center is the other) and the older of the two. In addition to the financial considerations that induced Baylor to make the move, the affiliation with St. Luke’s now gives Baylor a direct relationship with two of the Medical Center’s best hospitals, St. Luke’s and its world-renowned affiliate, Texas Children’s Hospital.
Although the severing of the Baylor-Methodist relationship is unfortunate in several respects, it may turn out to be a good thing for the Medical Center as a whole if Methodist and UT agree that Methodist would become UT’s main teaching facility in the Medical Center. Such a relationship would give Methodist a direct relationship with another of the Medical Center’s world recognized hospitals — UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and would either supplement or replace UT’s existing relationship with the Memorial Hermann Hospital System. UT’s relationship with Memorial Hermann has always been hindered by Memorial Hermann’s relatively limited presence in the Medical Center, where its only hospital is Hermann Hospital, which is much smaller than either Methodist or St. Luke’s.