What Our Air Transport System Says About Us

This week, there’s no shortage of stories on air travel for the holiday season. The Daily Beast has even gone through the trouble of ranking’s America’s airport for you, in another of their “surprising” rankings that finds the often unconsidered shockingly as good, if not better than New York, which is still better than Chicago or Detroit.

Anyway, that got me thinking. Good airports are a pleasant experience. Travel is easy, interesting, and have a large impact on your impression of both a city and your overall experience. Bad airports are the worst. There’s a lot more room for airports to ruin an experience than for them to make it. It’s a rough spot to be in but for the most part, it’s a strange set up. The quality of the airport, often enough, doesn’t seriously impact my travelling decisions. I won’t pay an extra $40 to be routed through Atlanta because they have better food than Cincinnati. LaGuardia and JFK are always a toss-up between which is cheaper, if time isn’t a concern.

With international travel, there really isn’t much of a choice, choosing between Berlin and Hamburg isn’t likely to come down to which has the better airport.

So what incentives are there for expensive, good airports? Airlines, business, and national/regional pride.

The airlines are number one, especially for hub airlines and flag carriers. Their enormous clout and role as construction/financing partners can’t be underestimated. Airlines also, like sports teams, threaten to relocate without facility improvements. Newer airports can attract more airlines, thereby attracting more fliers to and through cities. Second, cargo transit will suffer through airports with costly, slow, and unsafe records. Without ignoring the concerns of commercial passengers,  a reputation for good cargo handling only brings in more revenue. Finally, national/regional pride.

I don’t think it’s any wonder that many of the world’s best airports are in countries with a recent history of  linking their national pride with demonstrations of their wealth, influence, and rise to modernity. Incheon, HKIA, Changi, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing Capital, Pudong, and Taoyuan. As public works they’re demonstrative and symbolic as much as functional.

That said, all three motivations explain why America’s airports are lackluster, uninteresting, and often unpleasant. The American air lines are all fairly weak and while partners in construction (Kennedy, DTW, Hartfield, DFW) outside of critical hubs they often lack the clout they used to have decades ago. Air cargo is increasingly expensive and – unsurprisingly -  the only American airports that rank in the top 10, Memphis, Louisville, and Anchorage, do so because they’re the primary hubs for FedEx and UPS.

Finally, with a couple of exceptions, airports are largely paid for by cities, regional authorities, and some state funds. At that level of governance, national pride considerations often take a back seat to the stunning multi-million dollar and billion dollar price tags of construction and renovation costs.

So in that sense, as Americans, we really have ourselves to blame for the often unpleasant and frustrating experience that is flying. Our laws, our parsimoniousness, our ever-changing security landscapes. That we feel compelled to blame “Big Air” or a faceless “them,” for our troubles is a glimpse into our larger mental disconnect between the services we’ve come to expect and demand and the price we’re willing to pay for them that so dominates our fiscal and political future as a country.

Random Question On HCR

So umm why don’t we just convert Medicaid into some sort of NHS type apparatus and see how it does?

An Interesting Contrast

Something from the Sunday morning talk show circuit stuck with this week. The Democratic TP that insurance markets are heavily concentrated and the anti-competitive practices of health insurance giants demands a competitive public option and insurance exchanges.

Why?

It’s not as though anyone – other than the insurance companies – thinks the status quo, but why leave that framework in place and create a whole new apparatus and circumscribe access to both the public option and the exchanges. I mean, it’s not as though the country hasn’t dealt with highly concentrated markets, artificially propped up monopolies, and obscene profits at the expense of access.

We may have forgotten but that basically describes the American airline industry for much of the 20th century (early/mid). Back then, airways (like the US-Atlantic routes) were limited and access controlled by the government. The result, besides anti-competitive lobbying that strongly benefited say Juan Trippe’s PanAm. The CAB (government) fixed prices to ensure a “reasonable return” and access to routes. As a result, options were limited, service was frequent (frequency was one of the few areas airlines could independently control), and prices were sky-high. The politically strong legacy carriers built profitable empires of transportation. Sound somewhat familiar?

So what we did – generally – was to deregulate, to pare back government controls on access and pricing while maintaining strong safety protections. The result was largely positive, fares decreased, air travel exploded and the industry – though rather volatile, lost heavy, inefficient carriers and gained, new, low-cost ones.

Between 1976 and 1990, fares declined 30% in inflation adjusted terms and since 1991 another 25%.  In the same time period, safety as measured by accidents per mile flown has increased, though service notably has declined significantly.

While emotion wants us to say that health care isn’t a commercial good and should be treated like air travel, two important points need to be made. First, the provision of health care, like education, or security may be a public good but that doesn’t preclude the usefulness of both an alternative and some might say expanded market influence. Second, for air travel in this country was regulated as though a utility and generally has never been seen as an exclusively private-commercial good.

That said, it seems to me that – though late in the game – we might consider what the health insurance deregulation could achieve. What removing the government established anti-trust exemptions and interstate provision ban would do. It would certainly create market upheaval in the insurance industry but it would also lead to the demise of uncompetitive insurance operators, the rise of low-cost, economy plans, and much greater service/price discrimination within the industry.

Curiously enough,  if the airline industry is any indication, more than a public option or any of the reforms currently proposed, this would trim the profit margins of insurers. Cutthroat competition and anti-collusion enforcement are substantially more effective than taxes.

With a more free market, the failures of the market would be clearer to see and hopefully cheaper to address.

General Vs. General

It’s a small thing but it’s a really irritating talking point that keeps popping up from people opposed to sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Namely, that the President has advice from two generals on what to do. On one side General Stanley A. McChrystal
with his recommendation for more troops and on the other Retired Lt. General and Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry expressing a reluctance to increase troop levels given the current state of the Karzai government.

However, much like the disingenuous differentiation between Shinseki and McChrystal, again war critics are glossing over important details to give their arguments more weight and, I think, to undermine General McChrystal in the public eye. To say well one general says more troops and another says none, makes it sound like two experts are weighing in on the same subject with equally valid points of view. It’s as if when driving, two expert navigators suggest going in opposite directions.

Except, just like with Shinseki, the equivalent advice reflects answers to two different questions. Earlier this year, President Obama fired the top US Commander and replaced him with General McChrystal, “the man for the job,” and asked him to evaluate the situation and provide recommendations on how to turn the situation around i.e. win the war in Afghanistan.

The American Ambassador to Afghanistan is more than a courier of messages, director of efforts, observer of culture, and top spy in all but job title. He’s also tasked with providing strategic recommendations to State and the White House with regards to American interests.

In short, the President asked the General what he’d need to stabilize the country and neutralize the insurgency. General McChrystal answered that question and didn’t – to my knowledge – go into whether or not achieving the goals set by the President were strategically sound or necessary within the grand scheme of American short and long-term interests. After all, that last bit is the President’s job. The Ambassador, like other diplomats, is in a different position to give different recommendations that can and do incorporate political and cultural considerations into their strategic recommendations. (See The Long Telegram)

Incidentally, I think the leak s surrounding the advice on Afghanistan are a disgrace. That both were labelled classified and neither remained so is hardly laudable.

If I Were The President…

Vis a Vis Afghanistan.

I’d probably end up with another Vietnam. Afghanistan is a hot, barren, desolate place with ancient roots and virtually no national identity to speak of. So, I think I would aim to pull out, however, I’d offer resettlement to American island territories without restriction to Afghani allies and non-aligned civilians.

Granted that would be a logistical nightmare but surely no more so than securing a country of its size with 100,000 troops and an active, insurgent resistance.

But first, I’d put in one more major attempt to build up a decently strong Afghanistan.

What we need to accomplish in Afghanistan is to shore up our allies and partners in the country and broader region. Defeat the Islamist terrorist groups hiding in the country, along its border with Pakistan, and within Pakistan. Then we need a decently not corrupt nation that can deliver civil services to its population. That’s a tall order.

First, I’d demand civil infrastructure funds and teams from NATO allies. It’s fine that they don’t want to send troops. Let Americans protect our allies but surely they can pay for some water pipes, power plants, and transmission cables. Second, I’d partner with some moderate Islamic regimes and try to get them to spearhead a religious instruction program. Essentially, a moderate version of the Saudi funded madrasas  that would help build up a network of religious leaders who can build relationships with the populace and offer a competing vision of Islam than that of the Taliban.

We need a less corrupt, more functional Afghanistan, and that will require not just training the Afghan army and police forces but also judges and lawyers. So consider that a third prong. Maybe this is a bit off the wall but Afghanistan lacks a strong national culture, so I’d strongly consider pushing intermediaries to fund domestic art projects and the creation of new, Afghani symbols with points of view that aren’t pushed from political or religious higher-ups.

Finally, I’d lay the groundwork for an exodus. After months of supporting building the civil society and infrastructure of Afghanistan, should a bleak picture look even bleaker, I think the US should roll out its free ticket to the Marianas program. Resettlement (think of the jobs creation!) on American soil with some sort of quasi citizenship. Those at greatest risk for reprisals from the Taliban, at the top of the list. Confine a troops presence to securing the cities and allowing emigrants from the countryside to flow into them. Then, evacuate those who wish to leave as they like. When complete, withdraw combat troops and start phase three.

Phase Three, redirect billion dollar war authorization funds towards economic development of the resettlement areas, infrastructure, transportation, small business loans, subsidized housing development, etc… Since 9/11, we’ve spent somewhere on the order of $227 billion. For FY2010, CBO expects a ballpark figure of around $73 billion. Which is around 2/3 the size of California’s budget for the year. If we spent $100 billion a year for three years on such an effort, it’d surely be less expensive than spending another five in Afghanistan.

Then, following phase three, maintain a strong clandestine presence in Afghanistan-Pakistan and rely on the collaborative efforts of the West’s major spy agencies to keep tabs on Central Asia.

That’s what I would do.

Topics From the Weekend, ctd.

The other big topics will be less wordy.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan got much attention and frankly only two things stood out from the discussion.

Senator Joe Lieberman: The war(s) should be paid for.

and

Liz Cheney: “I think it’s just completely inexcusable that we’ve now had month after month of photo-op out of the White House and no decision.” She said “the President is very fond of saying, “before I commit troops I’m going to think very carefully about it,” somebody in the White House needs to remind him he’s already committed troops. We’ve got American men and women in Afghanistan today.

Now, personally, I don’t think the tenor of Cheney’s blast was warranted. It’s not just about the number of troops on the ground but the strategy and direction. Committing troops too soon could be even more dangerous. Moreover, I think it’s entirely unclear that sending more troops will make it safer for troops already in Afghanistan and not just widen our risk exposure. Also, the President did commit more troops to Afghanistan earlier this year.

That said, it’ll be devastating to the president if it comes out that our troops in Afghanistan are or have been made more vulnerable without the larger troop increase, the President is sitting on.

I also think the various camps are being incredibly coy about the downsides to their own advocacy and actions. Not to mention overdrawn comparisons are being made to Iraq left and right. The first major difference, Iraq is/was a country. Afghanistan is/was not a country. It’s neither a nation nor a state.

The get out now/sooner crowd just glosses over what it would mean for our allies and the people – particularly the women of Afghanistan were we to leave. Especially as we orient our domestic priorities to spend on jobs, education, healthcare, etc… I mean those are all needed things but perhaps less important in the global scheme of things that ensuring tens of millions have basic access to education, freedom of religion, etc…

I’m really, really put off by the callous almost selfish disregard for Afghani citizens demonstrated by those who think we’ve been there too long.

The double down crowd is crowing about the success of Iraq and the necessary nature of a commitment to the Afghani people without recognizing the extraordinary cost and sacrifice that entails and the lower likelihood of success. They also, I think overstate the importance of an Al-Qaeda free Afghanistan to our national security.

Asia Trip

I accidentally caught about five minutes of Bill Kristol and Mara Liasson going on about wretched and terrible the President’s trip to China was. Honestly, it was ugly and mean-spirited. Most of all it was uninformed and stupid. Conservative commentators who talk about how we need to approach China and how the President is weak, yada, yada, yada are just willingly ignoring how they cheered similar things when President Bush was doing them. They all talk about how effectively bad conceptions of American weakness are but never talk about how ineffective American criticism of regimes is. Can they name one. One single country in the history of the world that has crumbled or become more free because we stonewalled or chastised them into accepting our version of democracy and freedom?

No, because it hasn’t happened. Yet, that doesn’t stop conservative commentators from going on as if moral pontificating were effective policy and morally good enough to feel smug about one’s self. Gag.

I think, if a criticism is to be found, it is from Bob Reich on the This Week roundtable that the President’s foreign policy team needs to more carefully consider his presence and the optics of strength and weakness. The fundamental relationship between China and America is the same this week as it was last week and the week before but perceptions of weakness and strength matter and while I might go on about how idiotic commentators are being about it here in America. Impressions of the President by foreign leaders and governments do matter.

Topics From The Weekend

From the Sunday Talk Shows, there were three standout topics that I found interesting and worth commenting on.

Health Care

On health care, the This Week debate was better than the bland leading the bland over at Meet The Press.

Basically, Ben Nelson continued his Useless Tour 2009, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was creamed, and Senator Tom Coburn didn’t sound crazy. The DWS moment was something that Democrats are going to have to pay attention to because if they respond like DWS they’re going to make life more difficult for themselves than it needs to be.

First, Tom Coburn says something that sounds eminently reasonable,

“The — the third point that I would say is we can fix all these problems, but we have a government-centered approach that is already failing instead of a patient-centered approach. And we ought to be concerned about patients, not the government.  And — and there’s 11 studies out as of this morning that said both the House bill and the Senate bill will raise premiums, not lower them. There’s — that includes the Joint Tax Committee and the Congressional Budget Office, as well as nine other independent analyses.”

After the fluff about a patient-centered approach, he reveals the most deadly Republican talking point of the next few weeks, studies show that both bills will raise premiums (unsaid but also taxes/penalties).

To which DWS responds,

There — there are differences of opinion as to whether or not the Congressional Budget analysis is correct on — on the increase in premiums. But the important thing here is that I hope we can all agree that we have to get rid of the profit-driven, insurance company-driven health insurance system that we have, where it’s insurance company bureaucrats, Senator Coburn, that are getting in between patients and their doctors.

To suggest that this bill will put government in between patients and their doctors is really disingenuous…

Now, I have my own issues with what she’s saying, namely that Republicans aren’t talking about rationing but public rationing as opposed to private rationing and there is, in fact, a difference. However, her attempt to nullify the impact of the study results by saying people have a difference of opinions on whether CBO is correct is a losing battle. Whether she’s right or wrong it looks over-political, like cherry-picking data to push policy.

Coburn’s response is good,

…private insurance denial rate is. Now, think about that. Medicare’s denial rate on claims is twice — it’s 6.5 percent. The average insurance is 3.5 percent. I — look, I’ve dealt with the insurance industry. I know how bad they can be. I don’t want to eliminate them; I want to make them transparent and accountable.

If this were a debate getting play outside of Sunday morning, you’d have an effective one-two, your costs will go up and government will be no better than your insurer.

Then…DWS and Marsha Blackburn get into it over the new mammogram screening suggested guidelines.

On the House Floor, Rep. Wasserman-Schultz said, “This is an independent task force. It’s not the government.”

Of course, she’s correct that the task force is independent, however, when its website is ahrq.gov, it makes it hard to say, “it’s not the government,” with any degree of believability.

In the This Week debate, Rep Blackburn starts her point,

And, George, this is exactly how it happens. If you go to page 1,296 of the House bill, the engrossed copy, and you began to read in title three of that bill, on preventive and wellness services, and you get down to section 2301, this is what happens. In section 3131 of that bill, it changes the Preventive Services Task Force to the Clinical Preventive Services Task Force.

Then, you go back and you see that that task force on preventive clinical services is tasked with rating A, B, C, D, or I all preventive services. Then you go back into section 222 of the bill…

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKBURN: Yes, I have read this bill. And that indicates what would be paid or covered. And this is where the actual link comes, and I’ll read it for you. In section 2301, it says, “All recommendations of the Preventive Services Task Force” — that’s the group that did the mammograms — “and the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, as in existence on the day before the date of the enactment of this act, shall be considered to be recommendations of the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services.”

Then she and DWS get into whether Republicans are politicizing breast cancer, after which DWS goes from credibile to desperate in about 15 seconds,

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: As a breast cancer survivor, I came out against these — these recommendations. Every major cancer organization has come out against these recommendations. The task force language in that bill actually makes sure that prevention — preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopies and other cancer screenings would be free. The task force recommendations — the language in the bill…

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, Debbie, let me — let me clarify this…

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: … that even more women would get access to…

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Excuse me for a second. That — that is true. But let me clarify a little bit, because under the — the bill — and we have — we have the language, as well. It says that a group health plan and health insurance issuer offering the group (ph) shall provide coverage, but only under — if the Preventive Services Task Force rates it as an A or B.

BLACKBURN: That’s right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And, actually, under the — under the task force, they said that these mammograms for women 40 to 50 is rated C. So they actually wouldn’t be covered. So you have a great expansion for a broad part of the population, but actually, these guidelines would be controlling for ages 40 or 50.

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: … task force’s recommendations are simply recommendations. They…

BLACKBURN: No.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: They aren’t controlling.

COBURN: As a physician who’s been…

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: They aren’t going to be — they aren’t going to be binding. They’re recommendations.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but the language here says they…

at which point G.S. loses control and Tom Coburn steps in like a sensible person,

COBURN: Here’s the question. Here’s the question we ought to be asking. Do these recommendations make sense from a cost standpoint? Absolutely, from a cost standpoint, they’re right. You look at the statistical analysis, they make sense.

From a patient standpoint, they’re atrocious. And that’s the problem with a bureaucracy stepping between a physician and their patient.

Then the funniest thing of the show happens. G.S. asks Ben Nelson to wade in and Senator Nelson goes off about big government and everybody wonders when that uncle guy got elected to the United States Senate.

Why any of this matters is that if the next two weeks mirror this debate, it’ll make HCR even more toxic than it is. DWS was put in the position of almost ridiculing the guidelines – which make good medical and scientific sense – and making the point that nobody wants made in the capital or outside of it. That political considerations like the war on cancer, will impact or override independent recommendations from medical experts gutting whatever lip service is given to cost control or they won’t and Congress will ineptly encourage raging against perceived slights rather than providing leadership on issues.

You also have Republicans saying this is a circus, we’re not improving the system, we’re making it cost more, and cost control is a joke. Which, for now, are all the not-crazy, right points that have resonance with a skittish populace.

DWS was right about one thing, the recommendations are not mandates, as Blackburn was saying, they aren’t binding. She was wrong, however, in insinuating that they were harmless recommendations with no effect. As Stephanopoulos points out they have a huge effect on determining what will and won’t be paid for. So the difference between not providing mammograms for women under 50 and providing them unsubsidized may be mostly rhetorical.

Maybe she was being honest here or trying to build some rhetorical momentum, I don’t know but a few seconds later, DWS waded in with this comment:

We have to make sure that we’re not forgetting about the people. And that’s what the task force forgot about this week, is that we’re not thinking about big, amorphous blobs of — of people. Making — these recommendations say that we can trade one life to save the angst and anxiety in a — a larger group of women, and that’s totally inappropriate, but that’s also why major experts, medical experts, the cancer society, the colon foundation all came out against this, and that won’t be…

Of course, that wasn’t the point the of the task force, they weren’t acting inappropriately at all and she just threw and independent panel of experts under the bus because their recommendations weren’t what she thought they should be and perhaps counter-intuitive. That she highlights the response of interest groups and part of a divided medical community illustrates just how political medical recommendations and advice is and will continue to be so as long as people associate medical advice with what they think the government should or should not pay for.

Frankly, more than anything, this episode has done more to convince me that we’re on the wrong track for reform and – if it weren’t for the damned political consequences – probably start over.

Political Science Or Global Warming

Climate change smackdown between believers and skeptics. (WSJ)

I’ll be honest, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to both reduce emissions as if we were responsible for climate change and study it more to figure out if we’re actually responsible. If there’s one thing the history of science has shown us it’s that our understanding of our world, ourselves, and the interactions that affect both is constantly changing. The dangerous surety of those who insist on human causation of climate change is no more comforting that the refuseniks who stridently deny any role we may have.

 

Avarice Not Wisdom With Age

I have very mixed feelings about the elderly.

On one hand, they’re snazzy dressers, have great voices, tell wonderful stories, and can be delightful people. Often they’ve fought in wars or dealt with the hard-knock life that came their way in the 20th century. They’ve worked hard and deserve respect, assistance, and our thoughtfulness.

On the other hand, they’re a greedy racket. They hold an icy, political death grip on this country and generally speaking oppose investment in a future they know they won’t be around to enjoy. They’re  also rumored to contribute heavily to childhood obesity by giving grandkids snacks galore.

On one hand, they fought for freedom. On the other, they regularly fight tax increases to fund schools. On one hand they’ve made the world safe for Democracy three different ways before breakfast and are model voters. On the other hand democracy means entitlements are like that train from Back to the Future, out of control, on fire, and speeding its way towards a fiery demise at the bottom of a gorge.

It’s rough to reconcile the two. The respect for what they’ve accomplished and done and such irritation at the way they’ve grown to find privilege an entitlement and investments in the future a frivolous and unconscionable assault on their elderawesomness.

This week’s, I’m annoyed semi-screed has been brought to you courtesy of Robert J. Samuelson’s WaPo column today.

AARP justifies the cost-shifting as preventing age discrimination. Premiums based on age should be no more acceptable than premiums based on medical expenses reflecting race, gender or preexisting health conditions, it says. The House legislation bans those, so it should also ban age-based rates. AARP dislikes even the 2-to-1 limit. It thinks premiums for someone 22 and someone 62 should be identical. (In insurance jargon, that would be full “community rating.”)

Yes, the next time I speak to a 25 year old who broke their hip getting out of the tub and needs a replacement, I’ll believe that it’s unfair discrimination.

This is unconvincing. All insurance aims to protect against risk — but within groups facing similar risks. Put differently, most insurance is risk-adjusted. Auto insurance premiums vary by age; younger drivers pay higher rates because they have more accidents. Homeowners’ policies for similar houses cost more in high-crime areas. This is not “discrimination”; it’s a reflection of risk and cost differences. Insurers that ignored these differences would soon vanish because they’d suffer heavy losses and lose customers.

Speaking truth to power…

On health insurance, we may choose to override some risk adjustments (say, for preexisting medical conditions) for public policy reasons. But the case for making age one of these exceptions is weak. Working Americans — the young and middle-aged — already pay a huge part of the health costs of the elderly through Medicare and Medicaid. These will grow with an aging population and surging health spending. Either taxes will rise or other public services will fall. Already, all governments spend 2.4 times as much per capita on the elderly as on children, reports Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution. Why increase the imbalance?

Well, of course, because old people write letters and call and go to town halls and vote in off-year elections. If there is age discrimination in this country, it’s against the young, particularly children, who – lacking a dedicated, effective lobbying group of their own – have little recourse to the generational theft we call politics.

Is It Murder? Or Something Else?

In today’s The Daily Beast, Gerald Posner has a truly unsettling story, Muder or Miscarriage. What we know happened thus far is more than uncomfortable, it’s downright heinous. A man, apparently impregnates his mistress and then secretly forces a miscarriage.

I mean the moral issues of the affair aside, there’s the intentional killing of a fetus without consent. There’s the violation of the woman’s body and rights. Intentionally caused emotional trauma and now three adult lives – the man, his fiancée, and his mistress – directly affected.

While I don’t want to exploit or cheapen the situation it’s impossible to think about what happened in the broader schema of reproductive, parental, and abortion rights. In several states, the murder of a pregnant woman counts as two victims. Pro-life talking heads have underscored that particular view in the wake of the Ft. Hood shootings.

In a different grouping of states, more than 20 altogether, fetal rights can have legal implications for substance abusing pregnant mothers. Yet, in much of the land, a pro-choice framework is socially supported law.

The inconsistency here is huge. It might be consistent to draw a line at consent to termination of pregnancy to delineate criminal acts from legally permissible acts. However, such a line would be inconsistent with more general laws regarding euthanasia and our societal view that assisted suicide is still murder.

However, even if one were to treat the termination of a pregnancy via the mother differently than from other sources, it still would be fairly inconsistent with laws determined to protect the interests of the child by circumscribing the behavior of mothers viz. substance abuse.

Such laws, however, are predicated on the assumption that the baby will be carried to term, without that assumption, fetal protection laws are illogical and likely unconstitutional.

Which begets an interesting set of questions. Does the state have a compelling interest to protect both an expected child and its own interests (in the presumed medical and educational costs and wellbeing efforts) to curtail the individual rights of pregnant women? How does a decision stated or otherwise to terminate the pregnancy affect such laws?

On one hand, you could say that laws designed to protect fetuses in the future interests of the child (and state) are incompatible with abortion rights and, like most obstacles to abortion rights, should go. On the other hand, you could say that the interests of the child and abortion rights can be reconciled but if the stated intention to have an abortion is a permissible defense, then enforcement will be all but impossible. Which, I think, tends to push in the direction that fetal rights of any/most kinds are incompatible with full abortion rights.

To return to the question of the state’s interest, I actually find it compelling that states could act to protect the future interests of the child and state. If doing so is a rational for providing pre-natal care, criminal penalties for endangering pregnant women, and government action labelling and removing substances with deleterious health effects, it certainly can’t be impermissible to apply the same rationale to mothers.

In short, I don’t think, as a class, pregnant women should be the beneficiaries of certain actions and benefits as a direct result of their pregnancy while at the same time not held responsible for some level of custodianship.

By the same token, I think we ought to look at how we view crimes against pregnant women more critically. If the crux of the importance of a right to abortion is, “a woman’s right to choose.” Then the actual crime of a forced termination or her murder is not the taking of an already existing or potential life but a violation of her right to choose, which is solid grounds for grievance against state action but less solid for grievance against private actors. If it were the former, about ending life, then we could and should view self-directed/chosen abortions in the same, deeply unflattering light. However, the deprivation of a right to choose something by virtue of taking it away is theft. So shouldn’t we consider criminal penalties in a similar vein?

It’s unsettling, and to quite a few unconscionable, to consider fetuses/babies as tantamount to property but, to some degree, isn’t it a more consonant framework for criminal prosecution than murder?

At this point, I don’t know, I just think our laws are – like our hearts and minds – an uncomfortable muddle of thoughts and dissonance that are at times more and less coherent.

As a final point, Murder or Miscarriage wouldn’t even be news if, instead of Josh Woodward killing his unborn child, the story was about Josh Woodward’s mistress killing their unborn child. In fact, it’d be safe, legal, and unnoticeably rare.

So, I think, anyone who thinks of Woodward’s actions as shockingly horrible and notes the emotional distress caused by such an action, should think about what it says that the gender reversal here would be treated far, far, far differently without a necessarily corresponding shift in emotional harm.

Airports: Favorites & Fracases

After writing on air travel, I made a list of all the airports I’ve flown in and out of.

From east to west:

1. General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport – Boston, Mass. (BOS)
2. Bradley International Airport – Windsor Locks, Conn. (BDL)
3. Tweed New Haven Regional Airport – New Haven, Conn. (HVN)
4. John F. Kennedy International Airport – New York, N.Y. (JFK)
5. LaGuardia Airport – New York, N.Y. (LGA)
6. Newark Liberty International Airport – Newark, N.J. (EWR)
7. Philadelphia International Airport – Philadelphia, Penn. (PHL)
8. Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport  – Linthicum, Md. (BWI)
9. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport – Arlington County, Va. (DCA)
10. Washington Dulles International Airport – Loudoun/Fairfax Counties, Va. (IAD)
11. Myrtle Beach International Airport – Horry Country, S.C. (MYR)
12. Charlotte Douglas International Airport – Charlotte, N.C. (CLT)
13. Port Columbus International Airport – Columbus, Ohio (CMH)
14. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport – Romulus, Mich. (DTW)
15. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport – Boone Country, Ky. (CVG)
16. Chicago Midway International Airport – Chicago, Ill. (MDW)
17. Chicago O’Hare International Airport – Chicago, Ill. (ORD)
18. Lambert-St. Louis International Airport – Saint Louis County, Mo. (STL)
19. Kansas City International Airport – Platte County, Mo. (MCI)
20. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport – Coppell, Euless, Grapevine, and Irving, Tex. (DFW)
21. Denver International Airport – Denver, Colo. (DEN)
22. Albuquerque International Sunport – Bernalillo County, N. Mex. (ABQ)
23. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport – Phoenix, Ariz. (PHX)
24. McCarran International Airport – Clark County, Nev. (LAS)
25. San Diego International Airport – San Diego, Calif. (SAN)
26. Los Angeles International Airport – Los Angeles, Calif. (LAX)
27. Sacramento International Airport – Sacramento, Calif. (SMF)
28. Oakland International Airport – Oakland, Calif. (OAK)
29. Vancouver International Airport – Richmond, BC, Canada (YVR)
30. Honolulu International Airport – Honolulu, Hawaii (HNL)
31. Hong Kong International Airport – Hong Kong, Hong Kong (HKG)
32. Singapore Changi Airport – Singapore, Singapore (SIN)

From that list, there are some clear winners and losers. From the losing category: Logan, JFK, LaGuardia, Oakland, and Kansas City. If I could travel and never step foot in those airports again, I’d be just fine. (Better than fine, really.)

Logan is just all around unpleasant. JFK is always interesting but never in a good way. It’s literally the only place I’ve ever been where I’ve simply left a restaurant because the service was so bad. After my meal was complete, I waited for about 30 minutes for a check. La Guardia is more conveniently placed but not more pleasant. It’s the only airport I’ve been to that felt unsafe past the security checkpoints. Speaking of security checkpoints: Oakland and Kansas City.

I don’t seem to mind O’Hare as much as most people do and most people do mind O’Hare. Though, I was unsettled by the public art project that decorated a wooden bench with death imagery for Dia De Los Muertos. Who thought that was a good idea to place right in front of a gate?

I think it says a lot about New York that Newark Liberty is the best choice amongst area airports.

Albuquerque wins this silliest name category with Sunport. Really? What does that even mean? Planes fly in the air…not that sun, that’s why we call it an airplane – airways – air lines – and air port. It’s just weird. At least Sky Harbor makes sense, even if not literally.

In the winner category, I absolutely love HKIA, without a doubt Hong Kong’s airport is easily superior to anything on this side of the Pacific. Singapore’s Changi is gorgeous and well run. I would have fonder memories of it had I not been marooned there thanks to an errant typhoon.

Vancouver, DIA, Lambert, DFW, and Philadelphia were all lovely places. My top American airports, however, are Reagan National, Bradley, and San Diego.

Reagan is super convenient, easy to navigate, and compact enough that you don’t have to schlep around to get from place to place, though admittedly Metro access could be improved.

Bradley was a shocker, I avoided it for years preferring to travel through New York and that was a poor choice. Free wireless, fairly compact, and pleasant enough – I’m sad Bradley isn’t close enough to be a New York area airport.

Then there’s San Diego. I’ve done SAN-JFK/JFK-SAN enough to know that AA127  is always better than DAL 743. Mostly, I’ll admit because  the Worldport is possibly the world’s worst airport terminal. Going to New York, both Terminal 7/8 and the Worldport take forever for luggage to get to the baggage claim so that airline difference is pretty much nil.

The route, however, is between two completely different air travel experiences. San Diego’s terminals are airy, pleasant, and virtually never crowded. Luggage usually arrives in very little time and ground transit is easy to find/use. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been delayed leaving San Diego and almost always arrive early. The reverse is far more common going in reverse.