One Bitch to Another

I remember that when Leona Helmsley was in some deep poo in the 1980s, Newsweek had a picture of her on its cover with the phrase "Rhymes With Rich." This was before she was hauled off to the big house for a while.

Today I learned that Helmsley, who died about 10 days ago, instructed in her will that her dog Trouble will receive $12 million. The media are making a big deal that the dog gets money and some grandkids don't. Big deal: the testator has the right to do anything she wants, including not including particular descendants. So the grandkids have no leg to stand on, unless they can prove she was mentally incompetent when she signed the will, and that's long and messy. They'd be better off attending to other business, especially because Grandma did leave money to some other grandkids, who presumably would rather believe Helmsley was coherent when she signed her will.

Let's remember, as some professor told me in law school: Money+family=litigation.

My questions here are: What could possibly cost a dog $12 million over its life? How the hell much does kibble cost? Does this dog take vacations? Cruises? Does it regularly bathe in 14-karat gold? Does it live better than most American families?

Other than that, Helmsley planned and executed a thoughtful will, unlike, say, Anna Nicole Smith. But I wonder who the remaindermen are (those who stand to take if there's anything left after all claims and gifts are made), and whether they're plotting the unfortunate demise of Trouble right this moment.

The Gonzales Exit

Blogging: It's a timely sport. Meaning if you've spaced your password, you can't be all timely on the Gonzales thing. But some things are better on the second day. Pizza. Kugel. Who the next attorney general will be.

First of all, better late than never. President Bush, who takes loyalty to a high art form (even when it's totally unwarranted) got to put it all out there b/c the Gonzales Goodbye didn't come from his direction. Cough.

Secondly, Paul Clement, who is the current Solicitor General, will be the interim AG. He's a conservative. He's bright as hell. He clerked for Scalia. He's argued cases in lower courts on the Administration's approach to terrorism(1).

Third, from the peanut gallery, the speculation is delicious. Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security? That will be held against him (see Katrina)(2) but actually Chertoff has a credible legal background, and served as United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals(3).

Theodore Olson was the Solicitor General for a while(4), and his wife Barbara was killed on the Pentagon plane on 9/11, which automatically imbues him with a no-shit approach regarding terrorists. He's also legally credible, and every case I ever read involving him was sound. (In a bit of unrelated weirdness, 9/11 is also his birthday. However, I'm glad to report he's now happily remarried, to his fourth wife.)

The other choices are less noteworthy to me, but the interesting choice I saw bandied about yesterday (though not today) was Senator Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah. Extremely conservative guy but also, almost inexplicably, good friends with across-the-aisle Ted Kennedy(5). I can't recall Senator Hatch ever seeming like the Great Bridge of the Diametrically Opposed, and I don't imagine he would be in this role either. I further don't imagine any serious Democrat would take Senator Hatch's candidacy as some kind of appeasement.

I am personally very glad to see Gonzales gone, not because of his bungling of the judges being fired, but because of his involvement in 2002, while working in the Department of Justice, in narrowing the definition of torture(6). I believed and still do believe that anyone so bogged down in technically defining the extent to which pain needs to be present in the life of a detainee before the detainee is allowed to so much as visit with his own human rights has probably long since lost the forest for the trees and thus, he wasn't a suitable candidate to be upholding justice.


Sources, I got your sources right here:
1. http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/aboutosg/paul_d_clementbio.htm
2. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294911,00.html
3. http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/chertoff-bio.html
4. http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/aboutosg/t_olson_bio.htm
5. http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/edwardmkennedy.html
6. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48446-2005Jan4.html

A word on the miners

There is something about the plight of miners that touches me. It's hard to believe there are still people who do abnormally dangerous work in substantially similar circumstance as was done in the early 1900s. And it's also hard to believe that in that span of over one hundred years, there are not better, safer methods in place for the quick return of people trapped in the mines. The mine at issue here has apparently had more than 300 violations since 2004. As recently as last month, it was cited for inadequate escape passages.

In the law when someone engages in abnormally dangerous activity that harms the interests of others, we don't use negligence or recklessness as the tort theory. We use strict liability, meaning it's of no issue whatsoever how many precautions the wrongdoer tried to take.

I have no illusions that any of the miners are alive, and I feel terribly for their families. As I say, miner incidents just seem particularly tragic to me. But this incident leaves me with some questions:
1. How the hell many violations does a mining company get to have before it gets shut down? Why bother with a sanction mechanism if its enforcement is a joke?
2. If a company routinely blows off citations, and doesn't make a mine as safe as it can be under the circumstances, is it held to a strict liability standard, responsible for absolutely everything that flows from the actions of its business? And if not, why not?
3. Who's paying for all this? Who are the people lowering microphones and drilling and rethinking how to throw more light for the camera? Are they donating their time? Is Murray paying for all of it?
4. Would it have been so hard to get a couple of translators in place for the families of several of the miners, whose first language is not English?


Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/july-dec07/miners_08-08.html