Single-Payer Health Insurance should be a no-brainer. The United States pays twice as much for health insurance as anywhere else in the world, for inferior health care, because we refuse to join the rest of the civilized world and enact single-payer health insurance. Politically, single-payer, or “Medicare-for-All” is not going to happen with a divided Congress and a President opposed to the idea. But it is possible to enact in the near future at the state level.

Here, I offer an historical roadmap for achieving single-payer in California, based on the enactment of worker compensation in California, during the Progressive…

In a more cynical and depressing vein, you are expressing some of the same concepts my Father published over a half-century ago. You see, I’ve been “researching on the internet” ever since there was an internet, and before it was called by that name.

My Father, Dr. Harold Sackman, was a researcher for the RAND Corporation and its spinoff, SDC. His specialty was what was then known as “Man-Machine Interface.” What is now known as the “world-wide-web” he called the “Mass Information Utility.” The very name embodies his perhaps-naïve hope for this emerging technology.

In his first book – Computers…

Young boys play basketball in a schoolyard to the chords of Santo and Johnny’s Sleepwalk. As one boy passes the ball, we see a plane appear in the sky. The low drone of multiple propellers. Another, smaller plane appears in another part of the sky. The higher-pitch whine of a jet engine. One boy pauses to tie his shoe. Then:

- BOOM! -

Richie Valenzuela (played by Lou Diamond Philips) wakes with a start. This is the opening dream sequence of Luis Valdez’ film, La Bamba about the rock star known as Richie Valens.

But this wasn’t just a dream in a movie. It was a real event in the life of Richie Valenzuela (who his agent insisted go by the less-Mexican name of “Valens”). I was there. That event left a mark on both of us.

On January 31, 1957, a Douglas DC-7B took off for its maiden voyage from the Douglas Aircraft field in Santa Monica, California. Meanwhile, two Northrop F-89 Scorpion test planes took off from the Air Force Base in Palmdale, California…

I was disappointed, but not surprised, at the news that Sha’Carri Richardson was suspended from the Olympics just because of a positive cannabis test. This was one more story in a long history of inequality of opportunity at the event which is supposed to unite us all — the Olympic Games. My own family was part of that history, and there is more that remains to be written. That was Abe Kiviat, cousin of my grandfather Isadore Kiviat. (I’ve never pinned down the exact relation, but according to my Mother, he was from the “richer” side of the Kiviat family).

No. Fairness is not getting want you want - it's getting what you need. No, literal "equality" is not the goal, because everyone is different. My starting point and my goal is the ideal of my grandparents:

From each according to ability,

To each according to need.

Each of us has different abilities; each of us have different needs. So when I say something is unfair or unequal, I mean it is blocking someone's opportunity to contribute to society to the best of their abilities; or it is blocking someone from receiving what they need, when we have the capability to provide it.

Thank you for pointing this out. Labeling people, especially, is a hostile act. I know this very well - as a lawyer, it is my job to put labels on people and their actions, in order to make them pay money, do something they don't want to do or not do something they want to do, put them in jail, or even have them killed ("first degree murder with special circumstances.") Labels are weapons and shields in my arsenal - you don't want me using them on you any more than you want me to point a gun at you.

…

That’s way too over-used.

“Freedom” is a word that is thrown around a lot — usually by people who have no idea what it means. The “freedoms” claimed these days include.

Freedom from masks — which really means “freedom” to harm others.

Freedom from government control — which usually means “freedom” only for those invoking it, but not for anyone else.

Freedom of Religion — which really means freedom to impose your religion on me.

Freedom of Speech — which really means freedom to incite an angry mob to violence.

Three thousand years ago, my ancestors were supposedly “freed” from…

Do not be so quick to cheer the SCOTUS decision supposedly “upholding” Obamacare. The death-bell does not just toll for Texas — it tolls for thee.

The headline for the U.S. Supreme Court decision of California v. Texas (6/17/2021) was “Obamacare Upheld Again.” That was not true. The Court did NOT uphold “Obamacare.” It never reached the issues raised against that Act. Instead, it threw out the case because the plaintiffs did not have “standing.” Isn’t the result the same? No, it’s not. Because it was thrown out based on standing, someone else with proper standing can still bring suit…