Check out this excellent NY Times interactive feature of four, first-time Tony-nominated actors performing a short scene from their respective shows, including Joshua Henry’s knockout performance of “Go Back Home” from The Scottsboro Boys. Here is a video clip of that song from the show. Enjoy!
The appalling U.S. incarceration rate has been a frequent topic on this blog, so this Veronique de Rugy/Reason.com piece on the troubling numbers involved in the U.S. prison systems caught my eye:
In 2009, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 1,524,513 prisoners in state and federal prisons. When local jails are included, the total climbs to 2,284,913. These numbers are not just staggering; they are far above those of any other liberal democracy in both absolute and per capita terms. The International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College London calculates that the United States has an incarceration rate of 743 per 100,000 people, compared to 325 in Israel, 217 in Poland, 154 in England and Wales, 96 in France, 71 in Denmark, and 32 in India.
Incredibly, de Rugy reports that research indicates that approximate 60 per cent of those prisoners are non-violent offenders (i.e., mostly possession of illegal drug defendants). What is one of direct costs of the drug prohibition policy?:
[S]tate correctional spending has quadrupled in nominal terms in the last two decades and now totals $52 billion a year, consuming one out of 14 general fund dollars. Spending on corrections is the second fastest growth area of state budgets, following Medicaid. According to a 2009 report from the Pew Center on the States, keeping an inmate locked up costs an average of $78.95 per day, more than 20 times the cost of a day on probation.
And, as de Rugy goes on to point out, these direct costs don’t even approach the indirect costs of locking up non-violent offenders with hardened criminals and leaving the children of non-violent criminals without the support of a parent during the prison sentence.
A truly civilized society would find a better way.
America’s dubious policy of drug prohibition has been a frequent topic on this blog, so I was pleased to see this Mary Anastasia O’Grady/WSJ column (previous posts on O’Grady’s work are here) yesterday on the Global Commission on Drug Policy’s statement last week calling for a “paradigm shift in global drug policy.”
O’Grady’s column is particularly noteworthy because of her citing of this fine Angelo Codevilla’s/Claremont Institute piece that explains how one of the unintended consequences of the failed War on Drugs is the increasing militarization of America’s borders. As Codevilla notes:
A friendly border is like oxygen: when you’ve got it, you don’t think about it. Only when you lose it does its importance seize you. But by then it is difficult to remember the fundamental truth: if borders are friendly, you don’t have to secure them; and if they are unfriendly, you must pay dearly for every bit of partial security, because ever harsher measures produce ever greater hostility.
Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War gives us what may be history’s most poignant description of how a hostile border proved disastrous to a great power. In the war’s 19th year, Sparta put a small garrison in Decelea, in their enemy’s backyard, which, Thucydides tells us, "was one of the principal causes of [the Athenians’] ruin." "[I]nstead of a city, [Athens] became a fortress," with "two wars at once," and in a few years was "worn out by having to keep guard on the fortifications." Having lost a friendly border, Athens turned itself inside out trying to secure an unfriendly one.
For an excellent overview of why America’s drug prohibition policy should be scuttled, check out this Milton Friedman argument. And if you are interested in how a regulatory structure for recreational drug usage could be devised, the University of Chicago’s James Leitzel’s TEDxUChicago presentation below provides a great starting point:
So, the NY Times reports that a company that makes lap band devices used in bariatric lap band surgery has applied to the FDA to lower the obesity threshold at which surgery can be performed. If successful, the application would double the number of obese people who would qualify for bariatric lap band surgery.
Some of the obese people who would become eligible for the surgery have health complications that make it difficult for them to lose weight without the surgery. But most of the consumers covered by the new threshold could lose weight and not require the surgery by educating themselves and following healthy nutrition regimens. With third party insurers footing most of the cost of surgery at the point that obesity becomes life-threatening, why bother wasting time learning about — and adjusting a lifestyle to follow — proper nutrition?
Bariatric lap band surgery is expensive. Should consumers who make the effort to control their weight and follow healthy nutrition protocols contribute a part of their health insurance premiums to subsidize surgery for consumers who choose not to do so?
If consumers elect to take the risk of health problems from being obese, then shouldn’t they bear the cost of damages resulting from that risk? And shouldn’t insurers be free to elect not to cover consumers who engage in such risky behavior? Doesn’t shifting the cost of that risk to insurers (who pass it along to the all insureds) simply encourage the obese consumers to consume more health care and avoid confronting their unhealthy lifestyle?
As the late Milton Friedman was fond of saying, consumers will consume as much health care as they can so long as someone else is paying for it.
Check out this amazing time-lapse assembly from the Hector Thunderstorm Project in northern Australia.
Hector Thunderstorm Project from Murray Fredericks on Vimeo.
Longtime readers of this blog know that I’m no fan of John Edwards. He represented much of what is bad about American political leadership.
However, it occurs to me that any federal indictment that is premised on the allegation that “[a] centerpiece of the Edwards’ candidacy was his public image as a devoted family man” should not be a criminal matter.
The fact that Edwards is an easy target should make no difference. While it is clear that Bunny Mellon and Fred Baron financed the cover-up of Edwards’ mistress and love child, it’s far from clear – and simply not provable beyond a reasonable doubt – that this financing constituted illegal political contributions rather than simply payment of Edwards’ personal expenses that would have been made regardless of whether he was a candidate.
The bottom line on all of this is that the financing of a cover-up to save Edwards’ marriage and preserve his public image is not a crime.
If the Federal Election Commission wanted to make an issue out of this, then it should have brought a civil action against Edwards.
But this has no business being a criminal case.
Even for someone like John Edwards.
From 1967 with Herbert Von Karajan directing. Simply delightful.