Correspondence
vice chairman of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, came under criticism for bringing along his buddies to watch convicts try to elude prison dogs on the hunt. Mr. Hodge dubbed the event the...
...495.3 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1990 49...
...England's article was read with great interest and approval...
...On my last trip to Manila in 1988 I looked in vain for some sign that the People Power revolution had changed things for the better...
...Moribund Manila Having served at the U.S...
...Your readers surely deserve reporting that is fair and factual...
...England's piece, together with the pioneering work of Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer in Forbes, should help rectify that...
...They are remarkable only because they appear to be publicity gimmicks to soften the rather unflattering image trial lawyers have earned...
...It is hard for someone who has not lived there to understand just how corrupt and venal the whole system has become...
...Thus, the educated elite rail against this perceived domination and the multitude of Filipinos have cargo cult-like fantasies that Uncle Sam will someday steam into Manila Bay and make everything all better...
...You will find that it does not fall into the "common error" you describe...
...Instead, Joe's "education" has instilled in him the lazy habit of seeing whatever "truth" he fancies in whatever "text" happens to plop down in front of him—for instance, a vile lunch served by the Penta Hotel...
...Why did your publication choose to completely overlook thiseasily accessible and already well-publicized resolution...
...For this magnificent contribution to the system of American jurisprudence the trial lawyer received $300,000...
...The first paragraph of Mr...
...yet curiously (or not so curiously) they have thus far escaped critical scrutiny of their own dubious conduct...
...Bayles, who is generally a perceptive critic, should know better, as is evidenced by a remark at the beginning of her report about the feminist professor's view that Derridean "irony" would subvert her own view of literary works as reflections of the ideology "established by Dead White European Males...
...The writer urged immediate action to remove oxygen from the environment, as oxygen was clearly a highly poisonous substance...
...Hodge's pals may have to return their jackets...
...Hamilton's critique of the modern church is penetrating, and his analysis of the meaning of tradition and modernity is clear and thought-provoking...
...The bus carried eighty-three souls, not seventy...
...The crucial point remains that their funding is extraordinarily influential in making and breaking politicians, and comes with at least as many strings as funding from other sources...
...From now on, I'll have to recheck even the facts and assume that the reporters on the scene may not be reliable...
...What is needed in the colleges and universities today is not any particular theory, but an atmosphere in which all inquiry can be conducted on the basis of evidence and logic...
...Filipinos have shielded themselves from the hard facts of their sorry existence by blaming it all on the U.S...
...Not only does this methodreveal a richer and more complete meaning of a poem or an essay, but a deconstructionist reading attempts to win approval by citing evidence that is available to all, and by using logic that is acceptable to all...
...The Kinsey Report's Dr...
...The driver of the bus survived, as did the driver of the truck...
...The National Association of Scholars has, for the most part, maintained this position...
...A tortured sentence in Time magazine left the impression that both drivers were killed...
...The most aggressive contingency-fee operators have made a fortune inflaming public sentiment against every other industry and profession...
...At the end, Joe is teetering on the brink of rejecting his foolish "education" and accepting the principle to which the NAS is, or ought to be, dedicated: not just free inquiry for its own sake, but free inquiry for the sake of truth...
...If you were really interested in the public, you would encourage trial lawyers to work by the hour at a reasonable fee, payable only after the case is settled, or give tort reform a chance to work...
...News accounts still differ on the number of people on the bus...
...It is not concerned with supporting conservative as against liberal or radical views in any discipline...
...England's article had a few errors that, while slight, will probably cause undue pain and suffering...
...The fact that he was a fugitive from justice, had abandoned his wife and child long before, and had never paid any child support made no difference...
...I must thank Mr...
...His kow-towing to the trial lawyers serves to promote his Byzantine network of organizations representing Nader's left-wing ideology...
...Your claim that there are not thousands interested in "such despicable conduct" could not withstand a single cross-examination...
...We sponsor conferences on toy safety, injury prevention for senior citizens, and farm safety...
...The lawyers live the same way, but some would think with less right to tread upon the graves of the dead children...
...They cut across the political spectrum...
...We have a program designed to prevent harm to citizens—and we provide support to injury prevention and rehabilitation organizations...
...Only one of the many thousands of victims and relatives of the Indian dead would have been a windfall for any of these colorful entrepreneurs...
...Walter Olson Manhattan Institute for Policy Research New York, New York Mr...
...B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING CO...
...but we must grant that such a way of reading is not nihilistic...
...Slattery, the damage Nader does goes beyond that caused by left(continued on page 49) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1990 9 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 9) wing ideology masquerading as public interest...
...Thomas H. Henderson, Jr...
...You fail to attack any single major allegation of the story, which appears to suggest you have no major challenge to any of the facts or events as reported...
...From the cop on the street to the cabinet minister, everyone has his hand out and everyone is so accustomed to looking out for number one that their idea of public service or looking out for the national interest might as well be concepts imported from Venus...
...This statement is ludicrous...
...June Reinisch flailed at Americans for failing to pass her test of sexual intelligence...
...Henderson, look who's calling the kettle black...
...The obvious inference that the trial bar in general condones such activity totally overlooks the resolution by ATLA's Board of Governors strongly condemning solicitation of disaster victims and their families...
...Surely your readers deserve more than inaccuracies, unreliable anecdotes, and blatant bias...
...The frothing of the bloody water by the legal sharks was an amazing, disgusting spectacle...
...Bayles might object, doesn't this fact make deconstruction even more dangerous than political criticism, insofar as it is better to have a mistaken meaning than no meaning at all...
...The only consumer Nader represents is himself...
...In this effort, advocates of all theories are welcomed, except for those whose views would end the very process of free inquiry...
...The answer to this objection is that to resist a determinate meaning (or "closure") is not to deny meaning but only to insist that other meanings, meanings unintended by the writer, are also present...
...Paper, $12.95 At your bookstore, or call 800-633-9326 In Michigan, call collect 616-459-4591 FAX 616-459-6540 024 I WM...
...Far from being unbalanced, the story omits dozens of additional examples of influence-peddling and manipulation of Congress...
...But Miller also finds evidence in the tortured language of the poem that Hopkins doubts this possibility...
...ATLA is a large, diverse association with numerous interests and many good works...
...and that the fear of atheism which haunted Hopkins can be felt in his very attempt to overcome it...
...zss JEFFERSON AVE...
...The only quarrel I would have with the article is that it was not pessimistic enough...
...Thus, in interpreting "The Wreck of the Deutschland," J. Hillis Miller certainly responds fully to the poet's explicit belief that there is a unity between nature and God, and that the poet can find the right words to express this unity...
...To cite just one example, the article states that "thousands of American trial lawyers . . . descended on Bhopal...
...In Sacramento, California, Superior Court Judge David Stirling ruled that a mother who was given custody over her five-year-old boy will have to refrain from smoking in his presence until the child turns eighteen...
...Reinisch, who has two nicely turned ankles but remains fastidiously nulliparous.—RET CORRESPONDENCE Trial Lawyers' Entrails Congratulations on Robert Stowe England's account of how organized plaintiffs lawyers have succeeded in manipulating Congress and the press ("Congress, Nader, and the Ambulance Chasers," TAS, September 1990...
...The term "America Held Hostage" takes on profound new meaning so long as these jackals are permitted to use the judicial system as a form of national lottery...
...but it is critical to an understanding of the difference between those who aim for objectivity and those who defend their interpretations by reference to the interests of class, race, or gender...
...There aren't thousands of American trial lawyers who would be interested in such despicable conduct...
...Needless to say, the day after you do either of these will be the day hell freezes over...
...Olson, since I did not tape-record the interview with you, I cannot state categorically that you made the statement as quoted, but, according to my notes, the quote is exactly as I heard it...
...Furthermore, no other party to any of these stories has questioned the facts contained in them...
...But, Ms...
...The New York Times erroneously reported that it was a Coca-Cola truck that hit the school bus, and omitted the location of the accident...
...In any case, I'm happy to see the record set straight, and I'm sorry for any trouble it may have caused...
...He harms the consumer, America's manufacturers, doctors, workers, and the economy by fighting tort reform everywhere it rears its head...
...And, Mr...
...Executive Director The Association of Trial Lawyers of America Washington, D.C...
...GRAND RAPIDS, MICH...
...As for Bhopal, while no one madea head-count of the hordes of lawyers that flew half-way around the world when a gas leak killed two thousand and injured thousands more, it was commonly observed at the time and has been since that the trial-bar lawyers there numbered in the thousands...
...and it was near Alton not Alston, Texas...
...David Christian Newton Mission, Texas Thank you for Robert Stowe England's well-researched look into the hypocritical posturing of Ralph Nader...
...Poor Joe K.'s dilemma—on which he is impaled throughout his report—is precisely between Professor Jack Laddida's insistence that all meanings are equally valid (and therefore equally meaningless), and Professor Paula de Woman's programmatic effort to reconstruct literature in the radical feminist mold...
...The social impact of the settlements has been predictably troubling...
...Unfortunately, I relied on media reports for most of the facts in the case...
...Pickets appeared in front of Manhattan's left-wing Village Voice protesting near sweat-shop conditions at that celebrated organ of progressive sensibility...
...Robert C Meehan Birmingham, Michigan The Oldest Poison Michael Fumento's description of the deliberate misuse of laboratory data by domestic terrorists ("The Politics of Cancer Testing," TAS, August 1990) reminded me of a letter submitted by a wag some years ago, to a magazine for chemists...
...In the final paragraph, Joe realizes that if he accepts the latter's truth claims, then he faces the inconvenient task of weighing all the other truth claims in the world—a task for which the Earl University Non-Center for the Anti-Humanities has failed to prepare him...
...Both identified sources and those not identified are either leading members of Congress, attorneys on prominent congressional committees, tort reformers and their lobbyists, consumer advocates, and a few of the more forthcoming members of the trial bar...
...Any image of ATLA as a "single issue" organization is a result of the article's own lack of balance...
...Lawrence Hyman Professor Emeritus Brooklyn College-CUNY Ridgewood, New Jersey Martha Bayles replieg My dear Mr...
...In this hard-hitting book Kenneth Hamilton maintains that churches everywhere are making the mistake of commending the gospel primarily on the grounds of the personal and social good it can bring about on this earth...
...This last point may seem obvious...
...On September 1 the state of Michigan ended its program of allowing Medicaid clients twenty-four free condoms a day, owing to abuse of the program...
...Again it would be difficult for an outsider to believe the commonly held belief that the Embassy on Roxas Boulevard calls all the shots and the CIA is behind every twist and turn in the nation's political life...
...You make no effort to disagree with the conclusion that the trial bar has systematically reduced Congress to a lapdog, and that nothing ever -passes Congress that threatens the interests of the trial bar...
...Seeing what has transpired in Eastern Europe makes one believe that anything is possible, but in the case of the Philippines I think that the country is suffering from terminal illness and nothing will stop its further decline...
...As for your association's so-called educational activities, they are surely a distinctly minor part of this story...
...It seems to hold out hope that if the policies of the Manila government and its foreign lenders changed, then things could get better...
...If only today's college students would look for such meanings as the undercurrent of doubt in Hopkins's religious poetry—you don't have to be a deconstructionist to do that...
...It's unfortunate that they didn't receive it in this article...
...It is only the latter that the National Association of Scholars opposes because the appeal to interests rather than to evidence denies the possibility of free inquiry...
...Pepper delivery truck, not Coca Cola...
...and several speakers at the June conference emphasized the point that the organization is dedicated to free inquiry for all...
...They are responsible and credible eyewitnesses...
...Everyone knows that thousands of American trial lawyers chase ambulances and feed off the tragic mishaps of the world every day with relish and gusto...
...He claimed that when laboratory animals were made to breathe oxygen in concentrations as small as one-tenth of one percent, they died in a matter of minutes...
...Hyman, please be so kind as to read my article again...
...In one case, a biological father ofone of the children came forward with his lawyer in order to receive his fair share, $900,000...
...Paul Nix Summit, New Jersey Defending Deconstructionism In her amusing report on the June Conference of the National Association of Scholars ("Penta Hostilities: Deconstructing the NAS," TAS, August 1990), Martha Bayles falls into the common error of many conservatives in seeing deconstruction as an ally, if not the source, of current attempts by radical feminists and new-Marxists to politicize literature...
...Hodge dubbed the event the "ultimate hunt" and gave his pals jackets inscribed classily, "Ultimate Hunt," but now the American Civil Liberties Union is protesting and Mr...
...Please note the error on p. 21...
...The grieving survivors now cannot be discerned from the ranks of the drug traffickers because of their gold and diamond ornamentation, their flashy expensive automobiles, and consumptive lifestyle...
...Stephen E. Slattery Falls Church, Virginia The American Spectator's September article on the plaintiffs' trial bar did not even make a cursory attempt to be even-handed...
...Why are so many churches today stepping to a worldly drumbeat, telling members how to pursue a "good" life here and now...
...Many people in the area were amazed at the level of the settlements and the trial lawyers' share for doing less work than most secretaries do in three days...
...Then anything goes...
...Take my advice and never schedule a conference at that Augean establishment...
...Further, the article includes no mention of ATLA's extensive educational activities, or of our contributions to the health and safety field...
...Newton for the corrections...
...Some were even convicted later of misdemeanor business solicitation...
...Robert Stowe England replies: Now, now, Mr...
...Embassy in Manila 1981-1984, I was impressed with William McGurn's article on the Philippines ("Corazon Aquino's Poverty Pimps," TAS, September 1990...
...In the deadline crush, unfortunately, the author inadvertently got a quote from me a bit wrong, leaving the impression that the plaintiffs' bar had managed to monopolize Democratic fund-raising completely in some states...
...It was struck by a Dr...
...The incidents are not merely single-source anecdotes, as you suggest, but have been corroborated...
...He argues that abstract utopian theories and Gnostic ideals have infiltrated and infected the modern church, undermining its effectiveness...
...As McGurn suggests, nothing has changed and nothing will...
...Fifty-five percent flunked the report, according to Dr...
...We do not have to agree with this interpretation of the poem, or with the general method of reading that sees "certain relationships, unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not command of the pattern of the language he uses" (to quote Derrida's description of a deconstructive reading...
...Nebraska Senator James Exon is a Democrat, not a Republican...
...And this feminist, and other radicals who feel that their teaching should be part of an ongoing revolution to overthrow the capitalist, male, Eurocentric hegemony, are quite right in recognizing that a critical method like deconstruction, which emphasizes the resistance of any novel or poem to a determinate meaning, subverts any political meaning that they find in a literary work...
Vol. 23 • November 1990 • No. 11
