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Organ Socialism
by Lloyd Cohen and David J. Undis

Imagine Congress passed a law making it illegal to buy or sell pianos, so the only pianos available were donated pianos.
Imagine this law paid for the formation and operation of piano procurement organizations to identify potential piano donors, acquire donated pianos, and transport them to piano distributors.
Imagine this law created a Piano Procurement and Transportation Network to set standards for the acquisition and transportation of donated pianos by piano procurement organizations, coordinate the distribution of pianos from piano procurement organizations to piano distributors, maintain a national piano waiting list, and establish a national system to match pianos and individuals on that list.
Imagine this law ordered a Washington bureaucrat to outsource the operation of the Piano Procurement and Transportation Network to an organization whose board had to include representatives of piano procurement organizations and piano distributors. Imagine this bureaucrat then hired an organization titled the United Network for Piano Sharing.
Imagine you could only get your name added to the piano waiting list by a government-approved piano distributor, and only if you paid a listing fee to the United Network for Piano Sharing. Imagine you could then only receive a donated piano if you paid a fee to the piano distributor.
What a nightmare for people who want pianos!
Substitute "organ" for "piano" and this is reality, not an absurd fantasy. And because we are talking about human organs, not musical ones, the cost of this idiocy is thousands of lives lost every year.
Congress passed the National Organ Transplantation Act in 1984, making it illegal to buy or sell human organs. That law funded organ procurement organizations, which find organ donors, acquire organs, and ship them to transplant hospitals. It also created the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. It made the Secretary of Health & Human Services responsible for outsourcing OPTN’s operation. HHS hired the United Network for Organ Sharing. People who need transplants can only be put on the waiting list by government-approved transplant hospitals, and only if they pay UNOS a listing fee. Transplant patients pay hospitals for the donated organs they get from organ procurement organizations.
How’s this system working? Over 6,000 people on the transplant waiting list died waiting in 2005. Another 1,800 left the list because they became too sick for surgery. They’ll die soon – if they’re still alive. The waiting list has doubled in ten years to over 92,000 people. Most people on the list will die waiting.
It’s a good thing we don’t have a system like this for food or clothing – or pianos.
Our organ collection and distribution system looks like something designed by socialist central planners, with help from Rube Goldberg. But our system is actually worse. Socialists may control prices, but they don’t usually set them at zero. That’s the price Congress set for human organs, and that’s guaranteed to create a shortage. If Congress set the price of food at zero, would anyone be surprised to see lots of hungry people?
Please don’t mistake this for an economics lesson. Organ socialism kills people. Replacing it with a free market system would save thousands of lives every year. But that’s just not going to happen in the foreseeable future. It’s a complete non-starter from a political standpoint.
Fortunately, you can opt out of organ socialism. The bureaucrats don’t like it, but your participation is voluntary. If you need an organ, you don’t have to just hope the bureaucrats find one for you. You can get one directly from another individual. You also don’t have to let the bureaucrats decide who gets your organs when you die. You can decide for yourself who gets them. The process is called directed donation, and it’s legal under federal and state law.
If you’re going to decide who gets your organs, why not give them to others who are willing to return the favor? That’s the idea behind LifeSharers, a grass-roots organ donation network. Members use directed donation to offer their organs first to other members. Joining LifeSharers could literally save your life, because you’ll get preferred access to the organs of every other member. Membership is free and open to all at lifesharers.org.
By forming a pool of organs available first to registered organ donors, LifeSharers creates a powerful incentive for everyone to register as an organ donor and join the network. This incentive becomes stronger with each additional member. As LifeSharers expands, it will eventually save thousands of lives every year. Your life could be one of them.
LifeSharers can’t fix the mess caused by organ socialism as fast as a free market in organs could. But until Congress sees fit to repeal the absurdity it enacted in the National Organ Transplant Act a free market in organs is illegal. So for now, LifeSharers is the best available alternative.
May 11, 2006
Lloyd Cohen [send him mail] is professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law. David J. Undis [send him mail] is Executive Director of LifeSharers.
Copyright 2006 Lloyd Cohen

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I tried for a decade to get Cohen's view accepted but without success. He's still right. Tell others.
dfd 6-24-06

SOMEONE, CHAIRONE

Is "Someone" masculine or feminine? It's neither. It's neutral.
Then how about using "Chairone?" It too would be neutral.
The same idea could apply to a number of words that have been changed over the past couple decades in order to be politically correct. We have to say chairwoman if she's a she.
But isn't that kind of silly? If we used the "one" suffix wherever the word ends in "man" it could be voiced almost identically. Try it.
The NOW gang couldn't/shouldn't complain since we're not using the male ending.
And any male-chauvinist-pigs still out there could have a quiet chuckle as they slurred that last syllable such that you couldn't quite tell which ending was voiced.
I'm thinking this means I won't have a date on Saturday night any time soon!

Catch this bad guy!

I am fed up with seeing these images the local TV stations show of bad guys robbing a store. Why can't they use the photoshop kinds of programs to crop the picture to just show the face of the bad guy and use the sharpen feature to make it a little more meaningful? The fuzzy shots they show now are just about useless. We don't need to see the torso, arms and legs. The face is the only thing that will make an ID possible.

Journalist’s Bio’s

But first, have you noticed on that TV show Commander-In-Chief how Geena Dqavis talks? Seems to me she has false teeth. Seriously...

Imagine a website you can go to where all your favorite local reporters have posted their biographies. Why? So you can gain added insight into their possible leanings, biases, or tendencies to favor one viewpoint over another.

The Event: An all-day seminar at the University of Memphis titled “The Law School for Journalists.” In attendance: About 200 lawyers, judges, journalists and PR professionals. When: Monday, March 6, 2005.

We decided to pose a rather simple and straightforward proposition to a sampling of them and get their reactions. In the hall outside the meeting room, we spoke to some in each category. The proposition was in first draft form and suggestions for change were invited. We presented it on a 3 by 5 card and recorded their responses. Basically we asked: “What do you think?”

The proposition:

To provide insight for citizens (readers, listeners and viewers) there needs to be a website in which journalists provide their biographical summaries comparable to the information provided by political candidates to the League of Women Voters. It should be voluntary and should detail their political and religious leanings, interests and/or affiliation, as well as educational and geographical background.
What do you think?

The Replies:

Some of the judges immediately liked the idea; the journalists and lawyers were generally more hesitant. The most concern was expressed over the suggestion that political and religious matters should be included. But when it was pointed out that participation was to be “voluntary” the objections tended to diminish or end altogether. TV anchor Joe Birch was both fulsome and philosophical in his comments. (Parenthetical notes are by this writer.) Now here’s what each individual said:

David Yawn: I think the operative word would be voluntary. Who would be the primary audience? (The citizens) That would be one thing. (There could be refinements of the proposition) They would be much more likely to put on their professional biographies than they would political and religious leanings because if they strive to be an unbiased reporter, they are not going to try to be heavy-handed with the political or religious leanings. Now that doesn’t count if you’re a talk-show host like Mike Fleming. There are different types of reporters and they’re in a format that they’re comfortable stating their political leanings. And there are some that are trying to be as best they were taught -- to be neutral. So that’s the only other thought that I have. And their bosses make them bend over backwards to be neutral so they may aver ( maybe he misspoke and meant “demur”) from doing that part. (The reason I put those suggested points in there is that, if a reporter say, covering the Pope or a religious story, and he’s Catholic -- is it relevant that he should either say in the story that he’s Catholic or that that should be known to the reader/viewer by referring to his bio?) I think it’s fair game. And it should be voluntary. I would guess about 30-35% would submit to this.

Jerry Tate: I don’t know that any journalist would want to volunteer information about their, particularly, political leanings. I think most people would say “I need to see it (the website) first.”

Richard Ranta: I think they would be reluctant to do this, too. There might be an educational and geographical background in there, but when you get into what their political leanings and religious background is I think they’re going to see that as sensitive stuff and give you the impression that they can’t be objective. Of course, we try to train them so that they approach things that way without that kind of background. Every story is obviously going to have a slant, regardless of where it’s coming from. But I think you would have a hard time getting them to do this, quite frankly. (Do you think they would if you didn’t even suggest that they put in religious and political leanings, affiliations or interests?) If you put in what we call at the University “directory information” which is basic information (like” wife and two kids”) yeah, and they grew up in Northern Minnesota, like myself and graduated from blah blah blah with a blah blah blah degree; that kind of stuff, I think nobody would probably object to that. But beyond that, if you get into things that they’re going to see that people are going to use to discredit the story, I suspect that that is going to be not easily available.

Judge Rita Stotts: I think that’s an excellent idea. Because I think that a person’s background and leanings certainly come into play in terms of what the output is. I had a trial this last Thursday where I had competing vocational rehabilitation experts. And one man had said “Oh, this man’s not a hundred percent disabled.” But he kind of slipped and said “I believe that it makes a person feel better if they go to work.” So I’m saying you couldn’t objectively look at the voucher that says what this man’s restrictions are because in your heart you feel that a person should make an attempt to go to work every day. He said “You’re right.” So, certainly I think (it’s a good idea) with regard to a journalist because citizens don’t go behind what they read and what they see. (But if this website existed, they would know more.) Oh, absolutely they would. (Do you think journalists would volunteer to participate?) No, they would not! (She laughed.) And you know, I grew up in an era where I grew up with Walter Cronkite and Harry Reasoner and people like that. And it was something about those folks that when they said it, you believed it. And you did not think that they had any kind of ill-motive whatsoever.
So, Mr. Diamond, what has happened to those days? (Well, now we know that Cronkite is a Radiclib!) (We both laughed).

Justice Janice Holder: Well, I think it’s probably a good idea, but I’m not certain that journalists would provide information about their political or religious leanings. Journalists are in the same position in many ways that judges are. And that is that they’re supposed to be neutral and unbiased. And their views aren’t supposed to bleed through their political reporting, just as judges are supposed to decide political cases. ((copy more here))

Judge Diane K. Vescovo : I think it is an excellent idea. I think readers would like to know the background of the authors of certain articles. They would like to know more about their viewpoints based on their background.

Joe Birch: Well, if you go onto my website: WMCTV.com and follow the “about WMCTV” cue, and then click on the “anchors and reporters” you can find out a lot of information about each one of the employees of our on-air staff. And so, since I’ve been there for 28 years, my bio is a little longer than perhaps some of the others and you can find out some of this information in terms of my community involvement and some of the things I’ve done as a journalist. But in terms of my political or religious leanings, you can discern those kinds of things from some of the awards I’ve won. For example, I’m Roman Catholic and the Associated Catholic Charities, although they don’t only award honors to Catholics, they chose to honor me for some community work I’ve done over the years. But I’ve also received it from some other non-denominational non-religious organizations. So you’ll find that on my record. But I happen to be Catholic and for whatever reasons decided to give me an award and I accepted it. But in terms of my political points of view, I certainly have them. And my opinions I try my very best to reserve to myself. Objectivity is a daily fight. You know, we all come from different backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds; we all come from different upbringings. Perhaps we went to church as children. Perhaps we didn’t. Perhaps our children were religious. Perhaps they weren’t. Perhaps they were active in political parties; maybe not. And so we all come to the table that is journalism from disparate backgrounds. I’m sure that Joe Birch, who was basically raised in basically a “Leave it to Beaver” kind of “dad goes off to work and mom stays home,” had a very different experience from a kid who grew up at Fourth and Vance, in the ghetto of Memphis, who grew up in the inner city in a , maybe, single parent household. We come to the table as journalists from very different backgrounds but we have to do our very, very best to bring our greatest effort ever to objectivity.
And it is a daily fight.

Lawyer Robert Hutton: I don’t know, I’d have to think about it. It might be a good idea. I guess the idea would be to see whether or not people have a particular leaning one way or the other. . . . I think a lot of times, if there is a bias on a particular reporter it would probably not typically be something that would show up in a biographical sketch. Typically, it’s going to be who you’re married to, maybe your religion. I’m not really opposed to it, but I don’t know if it would really be that useful. It might be a good idea.

Lawyer Tom Henderson: I think it’s a good idea. The concept of having the journalist make disclosures like politicians is an interesting idea. I’d be in favor of it. I understand journalists might not want to. But it would help dissipate the idea that journalists are biased, or have a bias. Or it might expose a bias. Either one. The interesting part: journalists probably wouldn’t want to be held to the same standard as politicians. And that might say something too.

Judge Kay Robilio: Biographical summaries could include a lot of information that would be strictly objective: where they went to school -- I have absolutely no problem with that, where they grew up. There’s a lot of biographical information that could be included. (Regarding religious and political leanings?) I don’t think that would fly, because it is slightly analogous to the situation where the newspapers say when a judge gives a ruling, “Which president appointed that judge?”

Bar Association President Barbara Zarcola: Before I became a lawyer, I was a journalism major and newspaper reporter. So I don’t think this is a good idea, because I think a reporter’s job is to be objective. And they should not have detailed to the public their political or religious leanings. They should report on the facts, as they see it. Not the facts in light of whether they are Republican or Democrat, Christian or Muslim. I think a reporter should remain objective and not disclose that kind of information. (In the best of all possible worlds, they would all be objective.) We all know there is no such thing as objectivity, right?

Marc Perrusquia, investigative reporter for the Commercial Appeal: I see no problem. This would probably be very helpful -- for something like the Society for Professional Journalists. They might be interested in this. It would give you some disclosure about who is who. More about who is providing your news. I think there would be some reluctance toward (religious and political leanings), because you want to try to remain neutral and objective and you don’t want to hand people ammunition to attack your stories claiming that you’ve got some bias. But there’s all kinds of ways they can find out basic information about you anyway -- that’s out in the public domain, like where you live, the kind of house you own. You’d probably have to work with the various media outlets and the people who run them. Because they’re going to have a say. They’re going to be dragging their heels a bit, I think., and have some types of restrictions on it. Because they’re concerned about those issues too, like “Is too much disclosure a bad thing?” There’s all kinds of people who want to say that you’re biased about something. . . . Political affiliations would probably be the area they wouldn’t want to delve into, that sort of thing.
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So this is your food for thought this month. Is this a good idea? It seems the experts don’t agree. Let’s have some feedback. I’m in the phone book.

Kiddie Talk

Have you noticed? Recently, half the kids being used in TV spots are unintelligible. In one of them, the voiceover guy jumps in after each sentence and repeats what the kid said -- so you can understand it.
The stage moms (or dads) involved in this abuse of the tiny tykes ought to be ashamed. The casting directors ought to be fired.
These children might have some talent, but at this point in their brief existance it ain't speaking clearly. Better they should get some speech therapy first. Otherwise, they may grow up needing psychotherapy.

Non-smoker Action Steps, etc.

Wendi Thomas properly grouses about the harm to us all from smokers in public places. But if the state legislature won't deal with the problem, there are other steps possible. Employees in restaurants which allow smoking could file civil suits claiming they are harmed by second hand smoke. Folks upset by smoking places could picket outside them and at the homes of the owners and otherwise boycott such establishments. Smart merchants could build their business by being smoke-free, as some are already doing.

Individual bloggers can go to the website for the Institute on Money in State Politics and learn just which tobacco boosters gave money to which state legislators and blow the whistle on them -- loudly and often.

I was told "Visitors to the Institute web site can look up contributions given to state-level candidates by industry by using the search function on the right-hand site of the site. Just select a state, election cycle and a special interest (in this case probably tobacco companies and tobacco product sales) and click 'submit search' to find this data. The search will return a list of contributors in that industry. If you click on the contributor name, you can see details of the contributions."

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Here's an idea for tv or radio broadcasters: Put "broadcast bloggers" on the air by establishing a recording hotline so listeners who will prepare serious, well-written commentaries can submit them 24/7. Stations could set a 30 or 60 second time limit, to discipline the bloggers so they don't just ramble on forever. This could add gravitas to a station's efforts to let the public's views have expression.

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Speaking of commentaries, ever notice the piece of rolled up paper Channel 3's Norm Brewer holds as he delivers his commentary? Ever wonder what's in that rolled up paper? I'd love to know. If it's purely a prop to give him something to do with his hands, I'd say it's time to let it go. One more point: Brewer's thoughts are diminished each time when he's required to end with the station slogan, something like "News Channel 3 is the station on your side!" They ought to let that go too -- and let him end with some dignity, rather than as a shill.

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Questions for political writers to explore:
Who is raising the money for Harold Ford JR's senate campaign? Is Harold Ford SR? In what way? To what extent? What resources, like past contributor lists of Ford SR, are being used? How are they generating funds outside Tennessee? From whence cometh the bucks? From whom? What percent are outastate for JR, vs. his GOP opponents? Is that a legitimate concern? Why/whynot?