Tucked away in the DOJ guidance to the prosecutors of corporate crime, there is guidance to consider the,
“collateral consequences, including whether there is disproportionate harm to shareholders, pension holders, employees, and others not proven personally culpable, as well as impact on the public arising from the prosecution.”
So corporations, while considered individuals by the law, have a bit of a shield because of a concern for collateral damage. For example.
“The CEO of Spirit Airlines, Ted Christie, a man who presided over the insolvency of the firm, was paid a $3.8 million retention bonus the week before the bankruptcy filing. The reason such a fact matters isn’t just because it’s outrageous, it’s because it’s one more bad decision by a bad management team that is blaming the government for their own choices.”
Why can we allow a CEO to take a bonus just before filing bankruptcy, especially when they leave others holding the debt? As usual, it comes down to federal regulation and the dynamic response of those being regulated. From Big, Spirit Airlines CEO Got A $3.8 Million Bonus A Week Before Its Bankruptcy
Could the phone’s screen alter our view of reality?
“The aspect ratio of our lives has changed. By narrowing our field of view, cutting off our peripheral vision, the phone doesn’t just remove us from space and provoke a sense of claustrophobia. It isolates us. A horizontal frame places a person in a landscape. It emphasizes the ground in which the figure stands. It provides context. It tempers vanity and hubris. Verticality erases the landscape, the ground, the context. The figure stands alone, monumental in its solitary confinement.”
From Nicholas Carr’s New Cartographies, Out of the Landscape, into the Portrait
There is an acknowledged problem concerning microbes and their resistance to our antibiotics. That should be no surprise; like any life form, they will find a way to fight back if you try to kill them. But they are not the only life forms resisting our offensive moves.
“One of the most wicked weeds in the South, one that plagues Steckel and his colleagues, is a rhubarb-red-stemmed cousin to water hemp known as Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri). Populations of the weeds have been found that are impervious to nine different classes of herbicides. The plant can grow more than two inches a day to reach eight feet in height and dominate entire fields. Originally from the desert Southwest, it boasts a sturdy root system and can withstand droughts. If rainy weather or your daughter’s wedding prevents you from spraying it for a couple of days, you’ve probably missed your chance to control it chemically.”
Welcome to the war on weeds. From the MIT Technology Review, The Weeds are Winning
In the world of big data, could Little Data be more problematic?
“Little data tell us little stories in which we play starring roles. When I track a package as it hopscotches across the country from depot to depot, I know that I’m the prime mover in the process—the one who set it in motion and the one who, when I tear open the box, will bring it to a close. That little white arrowhead traveling so confidently across the map on the dashboard? That’s me. I’m going somewhere. I’m worth watching. When I monitor the advance of a song’s progress bar, I know I can stop the music anytime, purely at my whim. I’m the DJ. I’m the tastemaker. I say when one tune ends and the next begins. So lovingly personalized, so indulgent, little data put us at the center of things. They tell us that we have power, that we matter.”
Another from Nicolas Carr, in the Hedgehog Review, All the Little Data Speaking the Language of Robots
Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
Director of Medicine
Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.
