Meant to post this earlier, but I assume it’s still relevant. From Michael Sokolove, at the NYTimes:
There are 1.27 million lawyers in the United States, one for about every 300 Americans — about 400,000 more of them than there are doctors. Their work is rarely glamorous, and especially for those just starting out in the profession, it can be grinding and repetitive. Jason Luckasevic, hired out of law school in 2000 by a firm in Pittsburgh, passed the bar exam on his first try and was quickly sworn in to practice. The ceremony, such as it was, took place on a Thursday in a clerk’s office, rather than in a courtroom in front of family and friends, because his bosses needed him to get started. The following Monday morning, he drove to Johnstown, about 90 minutes away, where he spent the day taking depositions from former employees of an enormous steel plant that had exposed them to asbestos. Late that afternoon, he climbed back into his Honda Civic and headed home. He repeated this routine for the next six months, five days a week, racking up some 400 depositions and about 20,000 miles on the road…
As Luckasevic was getting started on his legal career, his older brother, Todd, was in his medical residency at the Allegheny County medical-examiner’s office, working under a forensic pathologist named Bennet Omalu. The Nigerian-born doctor spent some Thanksgivings with the extended Luckasevic clan. He and the Luckasevic brothers sometimes went out for beers together or to hockey games. Luckasevic found Omalu to be good company, “an easy guy to be around, even though you could tell he was brilliant or even a genius.”
In 2002, Omalu performed an autopsy on Mike Webster, a former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman and a member of pro football’s Hall of Fame. Webster was just 50 when he died, and he spent the last years of his life suffering from dementia, at times living in his pickup truck. When Omalu studied Webster’s brain in his laboratory, he noted a degeneration of tissue and other markers of decline usually present only in people decades older or sometimes in boxers suffering from “punch drunk” syndrome. Over the next few years, he autopsied five other former N.F.L. players, none of them old, and saw the same patterns: tangled brain tissue and the accumulation of tau protein, a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
Omalu published his findings on Webster in 2005 in the journal Neurosurgery. He identified what he was seeing as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., and suggested that football caused irreversible brain damage. The N.F.L.’s response was to attack him, and N.F.L.-affiliated doctors demanded, without success, that Neurosurgery retract the article. Later his conclusions were called “preposterous” and a “misinterpretation of the facts.”
Luckasevic by this time had begun to take on other types of cases: auto accidents, slip-and-falls — the bread and butter of the plaintiffs’ bar. He did not seem to be on the verge of initiating a landmark case. At first, his response to the public controversy picking up around Omalu, whom he occasionally employed as an expert witness, was just to step up and defend his friend. He remembers thinking: Why would Bennet make this stuff up. I mean, why would he? It’s just not done. He worried that Omalu would pay a professional price. “It looked to me like Bennet had raised his hand and said there’s a problem we need to be aware of, and he got savaged for it.”…
Luckasevic began to think about whether he could buttress Omalu’s lab findings. In 2006, he had his first meetings with retired N.F.L. players, who introduced him to other players. The damage that Omalu observed when he looked at brain tissue under a microscope, Luckasevic saw in human terms. Many of the men he met suffered from headaches, memory loss, depression and sleeplessness. He went down a checklist when one of them came into his office the first time. Was the former player employed? On disability? Could he follow the conversation, or did his wife have to fill in details and answers to questions? The worst off among them seemed many years older than their chronological age…
Baud
Interesting read. Thanks, AL.
Tree With Water
I just glanced at your headline and immediately thought: Marvin Miller, who belongs in baseball’s Hall of Fame.
If the owners voted, I would understand why lawyer Miller isn’t in Cooperstown. But they don’t, sportswriters do, and I don’t get it.
Keith G
I wish that guy (Jason Luckasevic) well. I love football. Played it. Coached it. I feel it made me a better person. It also gave me one lights out concussion – back at a time when if after your head cleared, you could stand up, you went back in.
Things have changed for the better, yet I think that it is likely that the statistically average high school player might experience a thousand small, but significant blows to his head during his career. I hope a lot of effort gets allotted to determining what the clinical implications are for such activities. We sorta owe it to the kids.
geg6
So glad this story is getting the treatment it deserves. I knew Webby and his family and the suffering for all of them was unimaginable and it was sad to watch IRL as all Pittsburghers, and especially Beaver Countians (much of his decline was spent here in Beaver County and some people here made heroic efforts to help him) know. I love me some football and my Stillers, but I have many qualms about what my entertainment results in for these men.
karen
Too much money to be made.Could Mohammed Ali have developed his Parkinsons this way?
WereBear
Thanks, AL. The more I read about this, the spookier it gets.
J R in WV
I see unsportsmanlike conduct penalties being called on hard hits around the offensive player’s head, which is a good thing. Perhaps taking pads and helmets away, playing like rugby teams play would make a difference.
I don’t pay a cent to NFL or college teams. I watch broadcast TV, over the air, no charge channels. I don’t even watch the commercials, as I’m a key stroke away from switching from the TV viewer to this web page. I can hear enough to know when to pick TV versus web.
I still feel queasy about watching now. I’ve had several head trauma injuries over the past 50 years. My cousin threw a rock when we were little guys, making splashes in a puddle. He climbed the hill behind us to get more drop, into my head. Hit by a sports car riding a 10-speed bike, T-Boned in my left side. Had a power tool dropped on my head, shattered my hard hat. I suspect that was deliberate, but will never know.
Lately, passenger in a rolled PU truck, felt the cab roof hit my head, but of course I don’t remember that part. Ouch!
I’m not stupid. yet. But if you ask am I as smart as I was 35 years ago? No. Almost certainly not. Partly that’s life, I choose to be active, to work as a hobby. My career was software development, not too many head impact injuries there, more just strain from holding too many rules in your head at one time.
I’m glad my living doesn’t depend upon high impact sports, I can say that.
Violet
Interesting article. Thanks, AL. It compares the NFL to the tobacco industry. This bit struck me:
Can you imagine anything like that happening today? The Surgeon General (what Surgeon General?) issuing a report about the dangers of anything? Followed by Congress passing laws restricting how an industry operates? I simply cannot comprehend it. It’s like bizarro world, reading that.
Amir Khalid
@karen:
Not the first time I’ve come across that suspicion. But then what about all the people like Linda Ronstadt, Michael J Fox and Janet Reno (to pick three names at random) who developed Parkinson’s disease without ever getting hit on the head?
The Thin Black Duke
@Tree With Water: I think it’s because most sportswriters are sock puppets for the owners. Case in point: Peter King of Sports Illustrated, who did his best Sgt. Schlutz impersonation during the infamous Ray Rice controversy.
KG
@J R in WV: pads and helmets were first introduced because of broken bones (including skulls) and deaths on the field. I highly doubt that we will go in that direction. I think a big part of it is just retraining guys on how to tackle properly, which after the “here comes the boom” era was something that was lost
Violet
@Amir Khalid: There seem to be different kinds of Parkinson’s disease. For some, the brain implant device that you can turn on and off by button you hold, stops the symptoms of Parkinson’s. For others it does nothing. That seems to indicate that there is not one single genesis of Parkinson’s. There could be a type associated with brain injury and other types associated with other things.
browser
@J R in WV:
U of New Hampshire’s football team started practicing without helmets:
http://mmqb.si.com/2014/12/04/helmetless-football-practice-university-of-new-hampshire/
Hungry Joe
The biggest and longest fight our family ever had was over my brother’s wanting to play high school football. He wasn’t huge, but was very solid and pretty fast — perfect for a small-school linebacker, which was his dream position, Our parents said No, on the grounds that he could be seriously injured. Fireworks for months. They never gave in. Today, many years later, he’s grateful and then some.
Not long ago my plumber rose painfully from beneath our sink and told me about his life-long back problems stemming from injuries he received playing high school football. (He was a linebacker.) He said that at class reunions he talks to his former teammates and damn near every one of them lives with pain from a football-related injury.
Pogonip
There’s an entire book about this, League of Denial.
currants
@Baud: Seconding the thanks, AL.
Since I first learned about the topic, I have had a very hard time even listening to people talk about football. (Maybe I just have a thing about my brain, but OMG, the articles are terrifying.)
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: It’s not clear what causes Parkinson’s yet (afaik) and some statements were made this year that Ali’s Parkinson’s followed a normal course and he had done better than many other Parkinson’s patients as far as that goes, implying that TBI did not cause his Parkinson’s.
However, there are plenty of bad consequences that can result from traumatic brain injury including dementia, which I think is more to the point, and plenty of US boxers have had TBIs (we protect the hand and not the head).
Mike J
@J R in WV:
The Seahawks have youtube videos showing how to tackle rugby style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HihjPApzCg
Violet
@Hungry Joe: I dated a guy who played high school football. He injured his back while playing. He was supposed to sit out for a week or two but he wanted to play so desperately that his parents doctor-shopped until they found a doctor who would sign him off to play. Stupid parents. Stupid him.
As a young adult in his early 20’s he had back pain so bad that he had to invest in a special chair and it affected his ability to do his job, which included traveling a lot. The plane rides were painful. He’d always say something like, “By the time I’m older, they’ll have invented the surgery I need to fix this!” Full of bravado.
I remember having conversations with him about why he went back in to play when he was injured. It was just that important to him, apparently. He said he couldn’t let the team down. He wanted to play. Etc. At that time he still didn’t have regrets.
Roger Moore
@Tree With Water:
Look at how the sportswriters respond to labor issues in general and this should be no surprise. For most sportswriters, the next time they take the players’ side over the owners’ will be their first.
J R in WV
@KG:
I know about the painful history of pads and helmets, and you’re probably right about calling penalties, ejecting violators, and educating players about legal hits and illegal hits being the only practical way to limit injuries.
I’m sure you’re right about the odds of limiting violence by eliminating protective hardware useful for offense as well as defense.
Or, I may just be confused…
raven
@Violet: I snapped my left leg in half AFTER football practice when the branch broke on a tree I climbed. I broke my back in a wreck and spent a year in a full body cast and had rods on my spine. I’ve broken my nose, collar bone, wrist and several fingers. Life is full of risks.
Schlemazel
I loved football. Played it as a kid until they found out I only had one kidney then the doctors said no. I used to live & die for NFL game days every fall. But the shine started coming off for me many years ago when HBO did a special on players that had been badly damaged. That was long enough ago that Jim Otto was one of the guys they reported on & he had only been retired a few years. There was a kid there who had been paralyzed on the first play of his rookie season and NFL contracts didn’t (still don’t?) pay off if you can’t play. I was able, like so many fans do, down play the damage and ignore the facts but the more I learned the less I could deny that the damage done by the game, long before many kids fail to make the NFL far outweighs any aledge benefit.
TheMightyTrowel
@Mike J: Thanks for posting this vid. I just sent it to my dad, a life long athlete, and to Mr. Trowel, a former rugby player and (obsessive) England rugby fan. As someone who watches tons more rugby than football (or “gridiron” as they call it down here in Oz) I have 2 observations (a) OF COURSE you shouldn’t be using your head as the tip of a battering ram. FFS and (b) rugby has professionalised over the last two decades and the players have more than trebled in size, while the IRU people are trying to build safety into the rules, I can’t help but think that we’re about 10 years out from a similar head-injury induced spate of early deaths and dementia diagnoses.
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: Parkinson’s is a multi-factorial disease; it takes a lot of factors to all interact in a certain way. Pesticide exposure and head injuries are known to increase the risk, while smoking actually decreases it. (Not that anyone should smoke for that reason! Probably due to nicotine’s effect on the brain, which has downsides, as well.)
Get a high dose of pesticides with a genetic predisposition and it could manifest… or not. We don’t know.
It took years to discover that polio hit lightly, or massively, depending on the state of stress and exhaustion of the person when they exhibited first symptoms.
TheMightyTrowel
@TheMightyTrowel: In case anyone is curious…
Here’s Australia V New Zealand 1990
And Australia V New Zealand 2000
New Zealand fields (and has always fielded) one of the world’s largest and heaviest teams.
raven
How Teddy Roosevelt helped save football
Football at the time was particularly dangerous and violent. In 1905 alone, at least 18 people died and more than 150 were injured playing football. According to the Washington Post, at least 45 football players died from 1900 to October 1905, many from internal injuries, broken necks, concussions or broken backs.
“Nearly every death may be traced to ‘unnecessary roughness.’ Picked up unconscious from beneath a mass of other players, it was generally found that the victim had been kicked in the head or stomach, so as to cause internal injuries or concussion of the brain, which, sooner or later, ended life,” The Post wrote on Oct. 15, 1905.
Football at the turn of the 20th century was more akin to rugby. The ball was roughly the size of a watermelon. Forward passes were not allowed, leading to short lateral tosses, large scrums of players jockeying for the ball and vicious hits.
Roger Moore
@raven:
But that’s no excuse for taking stupid ones. We are starting to appreciate more just how risky football is, so it makes sense to reconsider how- and whether- it should be played.
TheMightyTrowel
@TheMightyTrowel:
And to bring it up to the present Australia vs. New Zealand 2010
Look at how much bigger the players are now.
Violet
@raven: Life is definitely full of risks. That’s why it’s important to make good decisions when you can. I am not sure that a high school or younger kid is equipped to make the right decisions about whether or not to go back in to play football when he has an injury. What surprised me was his parents doctor-shopping for him to find someone who would sign him off. His dad was a doctor himself. They had to use that network to get one of his dad’s friends to approve him playing. The whole thing seemed really wrong to me when he told me the story. I think he was surprised I was surprised.
raven
@Roger Moore: Come on, anyone who didn’t know these risks didn’t know diddly about the game.
ruemara
This is terrible. I feel about football the same as I feel about cockfighting or boxing. I can’t watch people abuse themselves or others. I don’t know. We, at least, can make a choice about our activities. But, for whole sectors of the population, the ability to play a sport well is a golden ticket out of poverty. If, IF, you can survive and make it. No aspersions on people who love football intended, before someone takes offense. Every sport and activity has risks. Not entirely sure how we can fix this one in football, though. It seems that harsh tackles are part of what people pay for.
Violet
@TheMightyTrowel: Agreed. Rugby household here too. The players are massive compared to what they were a few decades ago. That has to cause problems. Still, one thing rugby has over American football is that players have to play both offense and defense. No specialized players built perfectly for that one position. The game turns quickly and suddenly you need different skills than the moment before. I think that has to lead to more well-rounded players and fewer mammoth battering rams.
That being said, I think the first head injury reports in rugby are starting to come out. Saw something about a former professional player talking about being put back in when they were really woozy from a hit, or being knocked out cold and getting up and playing again. That’s not going to be good a few years down the road.
Schlemazel
@raven: Not true. Even today the NFL denies the extent and the depth of the risks. Many players do not understand the risks when they start but that is changing. The slow dawning of recognition will have an impact of the numbers of kids playing but how far it wlll go remains to be seen
Violet
@TheMightyTrowel: Oh…Jonah Lomu. So good. Saw him in the 1999 World Cup in the UK. Amazing.
sharl
OT, on the topic of John Crawford getting gunned down in a Beavercreek OH WalMart a few months ago, more “law enforcement” scumbaggery has come to light back in my old stompin’ grounds, thanks to a video released in response to a determined Guardian reporter’s FOIA request:
Goddam fucking scumbags with badges…
Roger Moore
@raven:
I don’t think we know the full risk of CTE now, so it’s hard to claim that people should have known about it years or decades ago. I’m also suspicious that we don’t know the full risk of life-long problems from acute injuries.
gene108
@raven:
The crazy thing, when I read about how violent football was in the late 19th century and early 20th century is that it was mostly played at elite colleges.
The power houses of football, where people were clobbering each other dead, were Harvard, Yale, etc.
These weren’t dumb ass rednecks beating the shit out of each other.
These were the sons of the elite, who were being groomed to take their place among the elite of the country.
Violet
@raven:
How do you respond to this statement in the article linked:
Mr Stagger Lee
@Tree With Water: They will vote in Bud Selig, who knew about steroids in the game. Sportswriters outside Dave Zirin and maybe others with a conscience are few and far between.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: I think we know more than we did.
I don’t know or follow football, but I ski (talk about taking risks) and have done so for 50 years+. Equipment has gotten safer, ski areas have gotten safer, and yet now everybody (and I mean everybody) wears a helmet. As do I. 10 years ago I didn’t. 20 years ago nobody did. People are more aware of risks and of safety measures.
Just got back from a day on the slopes, in fact. I saw one person all day, a 20-something snowboarder, without a helmet.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: In the 80s, when I played rugby, one could have sub-6′, sub-13 stone players on a good international first XV; they’d be backs, of course.
Tommy
@Roger Moore: My grandfather, no longer with us, was a small town rural doctor. But he read all the medical journals and went to the conferences. When I was 8 or 9 and wanted to start playing football he put the hammer down on my parents. Nope. Never.
It has been well known to the medical community getting hit in the head hard, having a concussion is bad. Both short term and long term.
That is why in 1976 when I fell out of of a tree and hit my head the doctors told my parents to monitor me. Wake me every few hours. Ensure I don’t hit my head again anytime soon.
These are just not new issues.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@J R in WV:
It’s becoming apparent that rugby has its own problems with brain damage. Keep in mind that there is a good deal of evidence that tackling doesn’t have much to do with the biggest problems, so changing the way that’s done won’t solve it. A high percentage of those found with serious brain damage were linemen who didn’t experience the big hits. Instead, they suffer lots of much smaller hits when they engage other linemen on every play. There is some evidence that they can develop early CTE without ever having a full concussion.
With rugby, the biggest danger seems to be among those in the scrums. Until you can figure out a way to play football without blocking, you won’t solve the problem.
Keith G
@raven: One of the things that interest me is how changes in equipment technology has changed the game to a faster game with collisions involving more energy and more impacts which are”helmet centric” – for lack of a better term.
IIRC, your hs playing days would have been mid to late 60s. Mine were the mid 70s. In my part of the world, the mid 70s was a pivot point for equipment tech. Cleats and pads became lighter and less bulky. Helmets became lighter and internal helmet padding changed from partial foam to full, form-fitted foam, to the introduction of air and gel cushion padding. Critically, by the mid to late 70s all helmets in even a modest hs program could be fitted with a light-weight full cage face mask. Even some the more risk adverse kids felt that they could fly head first into contact…and were often expected to.
Botsplainer
@Roger Moore:
Sportswriters are, as a whole, better on basic journalism skills, but are far too beholden to front offices for the access that is necessary for them to function.
Thus in EVERY player-owner dispute they toss out a bunch of propaganda about guys getting rich just for “playing a game”. Always ignored will be the fact that the actions of the players is what adds the systemic value; no fan pays admission, buys fan gear or tunes in just so he can watch owners own or the front office manage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: The last concussion I had came from a stupid fall (as in I just tipped over for no real reason) I took while X-C skiing. I never had anything like a concussion while playing rugby.
ETA: Of course, the first of the two concussion I have had came from standing up and cracking my head on a low beam in someone’s loft. I stood up into it and immediately dropped back to the ground.
Litlebritdifrnt
Y’all are missing the real story here, there is 1 lawyer for every 300 people in the US. Of those 300 people perhaps 5 will need help from a lawyer and yet law schools are pumping out law students at a rate of knots. At what point do law schools tell people that getting a law degree is a path to destitution?
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: Mine was mountain biking. Low speed stream crossing, stayed clipped in to the pedals as the bike fell over sideways. Derp.
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: If he let himself have regrets he’d go to a very dark place.
Most of us try to avoid depression and anxiety so this sometimes provides that powerful incentive to double down on a bad decision.
Then, of course, there are the people who are terrified of ever admitting they were wrong/making a mistake. Those people are trifling, but too numerous to ignore. (The distinction is that unlike your friend who was dealing with a world of pain, these are people who would experience no serious consequences to admitting they were wrong, just a few moments of that uncomfortable feeling where you wonder why you screwed up and how you could improve next time. That feeling only really hurts the first few times until you figure out it’s not such a bad thing … really makes your typical religious reicher look like a coward, don’t it?)
Another Holocene Human
@Mike J: I took some really stupid spills in my bike but the worst outcome was a chipped tooth (helmet took the impact). Guess I was lucky.
Another Holocene Human
@Litlebritdifrnt: Have you been following the coverage on LGM of this?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): With Rugby the biggest problem is getting your ears torn off in a scrum, not brain damage.
Violet
@Another Holocene Human: That was awhile ago. He was a young man. Age changes things. He has a son. That son does not play football, although he’s still young and there’s still time. Knowing his wife, I do not think the son will play football.
Baud
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Law school applications are falling. Plus, not everyone with a law degree provides client-based legal services.
Botsplainer
@karen:
Ali’s last fight with Foreman was what did him for Parkinson’s. Ol’ George had sledgehammers. I saw him in court with a relative in 89 and chatted with him a bit; he could barely keep me in view, his head was shaking so.
Keith G
@Litlebritdifrnt:
When they tire of collecting tuition and probably not a minute sooner.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: I took a couple of really, really hard cracks on some unsafe equipment on the job in my 20s. I reported the injuries but good luck ever proving causality when my inevitable brain damage becomes incontrovertible decades from now.
I even complained to management and suggested a cheap mitigation and they blew me off.
And pace littlebritdiffrent seems like myself and the people I know need fucking lawyers all the fucking time, but it’s a matter of what you can afford, kinda like healthcare.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
One of the big revelations, though, is that the issue extends beyond just concussions. There’s a strong indication that repeated blows that don’t produce an obvious concussion are actually doing more damage than the occasional spectacular hit. That’s why people are talking about non-pad practices. They aren’t trying to prevent concussions in practice but to avoid all the smaller hits.
Tommy
@Mike J: That is by far the worse concussion I’ve had. Lost a few teeth. Got clipped by a car on my mountain bike. Broke my collar bone and dislocated my shoulder. I didn’t have a helmet on.
I now never don’t wear one. NEVER. I am lucky.
People I know mock me, what do you think you are riding a motorcycle? My response is I want to live and honestly it seems when you are in your car you don’t “see” me. I won’t repeat the same mistake twice.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Another Holocene Human:
Yeah Campos has been all over it, when my boss complains that there is simply no business in town anymore I tell him that it is because there are 1,000 lawyers in court every day undercutting him, there is one lawyer in town doing traffic tickets for $35.00, when my boss quotes $150.00 it is a no brainer for potential clients,
Omnes Omnibus
@Litlebritdifrnt: Well, if one is a second row or an eight man, it might improve one’s looks. It would certainly help the props.
N.B. I was primarily a wing but I would also play flanker in B-side games. I hooked in sevens.
Central Planning
It’s too bad my town just voted to spend something like $40m upgrading the sports fields with artificial turf and lights “so the kids could play football at night!”
Parents complained that having to bus the kids 15 minutes to a college field and back, even though that was infinitely cheaper over 20 years….
“My daughter doesn’t have time to study!” Perhaps she shouldn’t be playing sports.
There’s a cult around sports. It’s downright scary.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: It’s also that kind of relentless class based resentment as well, how dare some blue collar make more than some white collar (ignore the hours, skill set involved, demand, etc), how dare these poor “thugs” make more money than me playing a “game”, you should resent them too, also this narcissistic notion that the players owe the fans, the fans are #1, guess the players are slaves a la the fantasy movie Django. Narcissism/false victimhood are hand in glove.
I was against the player strike in the 1990s but I don’t know if I was just effectively propagandized. I didn’t even really understand what the issues were or anything.
Southern Beale
Unrelated, but 13 people have been taken hostage in Sydney, Australia right now …
Another Holocene Human
@Central Planning: Those who can’t, make a cult of high school sports.
Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas….
Botsplainer
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Hopefully never. From a purely mercenary standpoint, fewer and fewer of the kids are actually launching, which is really good for those of us who were suffering the Reagan-Bush recessions of the late 80s-early 90s at the start of our careers.
I also had to explain to some old dinosaur several years ago why it’s great that law school admissions were pulling in over 55% female students. As I put it, a sizable percentage would be having babies at the start of their careers, which would set them back on practice starts at minimum, and some would opt for other careers after that, thus eliminating market competition.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: A good friend’s niece is apparently thinking of going to law school. When my friend told me this, I blurted out, “Does she want to be poor?” My friend laughed and said her niece doesn’t necessarily want to work as a typical lawyer but us it as a springboard for something else. Not quite sure what, but that was the response.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Litlebritdifrnt: Wrong.
JimV
I like to watch football – the diving catches, the 50-yard passes that drop into a receiver’s hands, the shifty running backs. I don’t enjoy players being helped off the field or carried off on gurneys. Was it last week there was a lacerated spleen, a kidney injury, a couple knee injuries and a couple concussions?
If I were king, I would make this simple rule: defenders have to tackle the ball-carrier, not hit them. Tackle: your arms are spread wide to grab. Hit: your hands are close to your chest with your forearms elbows forward. I would enjoy the game a lot more. A whole lot.
Another Holocene Human
@Litlebritdifrnt: Is it ever worth it to hire a lawyer for traffic tickets, at $35 or $150 (still less than fines and court fees!)
Unless it’s something where you really WERE unfairly charged and can prove it with traffic diagrams and post accident analysis, then
I thought the whole game was a to request a new court date on a different day of the week to increase the likelihood that the cop won’t show and you win by default.
When I was in traffic court (pled nolo contendere) I saw lawyers there but the judge was cutting them off and ruling against their clients anyway.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human:
I was a at a CLE class earlier this where where the speaker noted that 75-80% of people’s legal needs are not being met due to cost. People are going it alone in court, winging it when setting up a business, etc. The need is out there, the problem is figuring out how to meet those needs in a way that is cost effective for the client and allows the lawyer to have a decent life. Lawyers are starting to experiment with different strategies, but it is early days yet.
Another Holocene Human
@JimV:
This is why I quit watching NFL 20 years ago.
I ran outside and played soccer. Now heading is supposed to be the worst thing ever. IDK.
Full metal Wingnut
@Amir Khalid: They just fucking developed Parkinson’s. How does that disprove anything
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human:
If you need to keep your driving record clean to keep your job or something like that, it is; but otherwise no.
Another Holocene Human
@Full metal Wingnut:
http://theinjuryco-op.com/link-between-traumatic-brain-injury-and-parkinsons-disease/
“TBI does not cause Parkinson’s, but creates a specific neuron deficiency in the brain which can make patients more susceptible to developing the disease.”
Some sources say 4 times more likely than otherwise (relative risk). IOW Ali was always at risk for Parkinson’s but stood a better chance of not getting it without boxing.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah but unless (as I said) you can prove you weren’t the negligent party, can the lawyer really get your speeding ticket tossed out or is that more bullshit like pills for weight loss and pickup lines that really work?
ETA: I’m not talking about major injury or fatality, then you NEED a lawyer
Violet
@Southern Beale: Jeez. That’s bad. I’m watching the livestream. They’ve shut down airspace. Evacuated the Sydney opera house. Rumours are flying, apparently. The woman on the live feed just reported that one of the women being held hostage signaled drawing her finger across her throat.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: A lawyer is more likely to be able to talk to a prosecutor and get a moving violation changed to something else. The client still pays a fine, but ends up with walking out with a clean driving record. If you were a UPS driver, something like that might matter.
Cervantes
@raven:
Sure, and they’re not all equal, either.
TheMightyTrowel
@Southern Beale: following. Mr. trowel works about 15 min from there. He says they’ve been locked in their building.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: Gotcha.
TheMightyTrowel
Guardian live coverage of Sydney hostage situation
Another Holocene Human
I’ve only done transportation in the public sector and the corruption dance plays out differently.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: @Omnes Omnibus: What you are really paying for is someone who is a member of the guild interceding on your behalf in this type of case.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
At the prices some people are quoting here, that could pay for itself in reduced insurance premium for most drivers.
Violet
@TheMightyTrowel: Hope Mr. Trowel stays safe. Apparently police are looking for bombs in the area, etc. Following ABC livestream–whoever they’ve got on now is claiming something got botched and the guy ducked into the chocolate shop. It’s not the original target. I think it’s speculative, but the man doing the interview with this “expert” isn’t clarifying that this guy is just guessing. This so called expert has what sounds like an American accent.
ABC livestream here.
TheMightyTrowel
@Violet: don’t trust anything on the australian news. You think the US has hacks? You ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen the australian media. They’re usually ok, post hoc, but they can’t really cope with breaking news. I’d follow the guardian because they have higher bullshit criteria and more experience with actual news coverage.
Another Holocene Human
Post racial transcendence, Miss. style:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/12/13/us/ap-us-mississippi-racial-attacks.html?ref=news
Violet
@TheMightyTrowel: I’ve got that open too. The original livestream that Southern Beale linked kept stopping, so I looked for another livestream. Found the ABC link. Thanks for the local input on the ABC news. So far I’m not impressed. The guy interviewing the “expert” seriously couldn’t even point out that the guy was speculating. Lame.
TheMightyTrowel
@Violet: this is what happens when 3/4 of your media is owned by the Murdochs and 95% of the rest is owned by mining execs
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: Right, I got that. I’m just wondering how these UPS drivers get hooked up with the right guy (but probably through other UPS drivers, that’s how it works … that’s like my employer and our favorite workers comp lawyer, client still gets screwed but not as badly screwed as if you don’t hire this law firm, so there’s that).
It seems like your average Joe who calls the lawyer on the billboard does not get his money worth in traffic court. But average Joe is usually also pretty delusional about his standing vis a vis the court, society, and the nature of the offense….
My employer (this is some time ago, statute of limitations I think) wasn’t there in person to defend me but I still got my points wiped, clear the judge had made the decision prior to actually looking at my record (and was surprised that, hey, actually I did have no prior moving violations, lol–riding a bike is so good for your permanent record, unless you’re riding while black, then you get nuisance fined every time you turn around apparently, saw that in traffic court too). It also, not present in the flesh but there anyway, got me out of a nasty speeding ticket that one time at the goode olde countie speed trap. (Look, the signs were misleading, and I slowed down anyway, just not quite enough.)
jeffreyw
cookies please
Central Planning
@Another Holocene Human:
Makes me think of this:
Alas, we are suburb of Rochester, NY
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus:
The one time I used a lawyer we were in and out before court started. He walked up to the prosecutor, said, “no pross at cost?” “Yeah, sure.” No prosecution, paid court costs, my guy was a family friend who had a trial on courtroom over so didn’t even charge.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: The only times I have done traffic work were as favors for a good clients.
lamh36
Gin & Tonic
@lamh36: You gotta admire the stones on those dudes.
Violet
@lamh36: From the article linked in the tweet:
Wow. That is ballsy. What assholes.
Baud
@lamh36:
Maybe it’s time for the Browns to move to Baltimore again.
TheMightyTrowel
(@Baud: a commentor at Deadspin: “Wow! They found a way to put “Cleveland Browns” and “Pathetic” in a sentence and still be wrong!”)
lamh36
Patricia Kayden
@sharl: Read that in a thread below (I believe Skerry posted it). Not really shocking. The police have proven themselves to be scumbags in the way they treat Black people. I’m surprised they didn’t just go ahead and shoot her too. Any excuse would have done.
Baud
@TheMightyTrowel:
Heh.
sharl
@Patricia Kayden: Ah, thanks. Shoulda scanned previous threads first. I was late in seeing it, and was pissed mightily…
Anne Laurie
@TheMightyTrowel: Heck, our Blogmaster has written about how playing rugby crippled his shoulders & fingers. As for the TBI part, well…
(/snark)
MazeDancer
People who love football are going to stay in denial as long as possible. Further, with so much money involved, denial is going to be encouraged. Many people’s social and community lives revolve around football. They do not want to think of the harm.
There is some possibility, however, that at the junior high and high school level, municipalities will not be able to afford the liabilities. Not all colleges will be able to either. The insurance factor, at a non professional level, may be the reason programs are folded.
When pee-wee football has to be phased out because it’s established it’s way too dangerous, then that’s another possible way denial will be interrupted.
Ta-nehisi Coates stopped watching football a while back. And like the article said, boxing and smoking used to be very popular. So who knows what the future will bring.
raven
@MazeDancer: Oh bullshit. You want to deal with something that is fucking dangerous?
” Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years.”
Ban that shit and then come talk to me.
kc
@lamh36:
Fuck that shit.
Arclite
Kids and sports: It’s hard not to be proud of your kids and push them, but yeah, you gotta have their future in mind. My daughter is tall and wanted to play basketball. But knowing so many high school and college players with knee injuries really put the damper on my enthusiasm. Luckily she was also really good at swimming, so we were able to guide her in that direction. When she gets too sore, we give her a day or two off, but that only happens a few times a year. Recently she kept complaining about knee pain, and it wasn’t getting better so we took her in. Turns out she’s got Osgood Schlatter’s disease, which happens when you play running and jumping sports during a growth spurt. Heals with rest, but the doctor said she could swim since that probably wasn’t the major cause. Around the time it started she was playing flag football during PE, and kept bragging how she got more flags than anyone else, even the boys. Not sure where she gets that competitiveness, since neither my wife or I are that way. And she qual’d for 10 events in state championships next week.
Violet
@raven: Excessive alcohol consumption is harmful, however, alcohol in limited quantities is shown to have health benefits. Are you suggesting all alcohol be banned? Tried that in the early part of the 20th century and it didn’t work out very well.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@karen:
No
mainmati
@geg6: I grew up in Pittsburgh in the Steelers 1970s hey-day and remember Mike Webster well. He lasted along time. Nowadays, I have a daughter who is a superb soccer player (high school and travel teams) and actually headers are an issue for concussions in that game too. It is not like American football but there is a kind of headband that some girls wear. (The bigger issue is knee injuries in girl’s soccer.)
ellennellee
dammit, folks, i’m going to try this again. it worked so well the first time.
so you’ll know, i’m a neuopsychologist, so i see this stuff happen, even in kids. it has to stop.
moreover, there are all the other insanities, the excessive money, exploitation of players (mostly black), the misogyny, the violence, that sick team competition that is just not healthy.
face it; this game, and much of competitive sports in the US can be pretty sick overall. the rejoinder that it is a strategically fascinating game that i obviously don’t understand … i dunno, people; is this your justification? war battles are also pretty strategically fascinating, but to you really want to go there?
risking head injury, especially for the kids, it just nuts. so is all the rest of it. none of it speaks well of us. it is not a flattering or honorable endeavor, for the players, the owners, the media, or the fans.
i’m genuinely fond of everyone here, but it is cringe-worthy to encounter the football fanaticism each week. reminds me of the gun nuts.
sorry to be so blunt, but it is not pretty to watch.
and don’t tell me to stop watching. is this what you would say to the ferguson marchers?
yup; it really is that bad. a kind of blind sickness. i just wish you guys could see it. could see yourselves.
mazedancer, i’m with you on this. raven, get a grip. are you saying we can’t attack this problem until we get rid of alcohol? like saying we can’t get rid of guns till we get rid of war? that’s hardly worthy of response; you’re smarter than that.
Omnes Omnibus
@ellennellee: Besides football, what other sports should we get rid of? Boxing? Rugby? Soccer? Skiing? Hockey? I am pretty sure that the level of competition in track is at least as unhealthy as it is in football. Where would you suggest the line be drawn and why would you put it where you do?
Another Holocene Human
@ellennellee: The competition is a problem, especially abusive coaches, saw some of that (fortunately not any team I was ever in) and it was wrong yet nobody stops these assholes. Plus some of the parents are abusive and off their rockers as well and it’s very hard to rein them in.
Of course, school itself is a competitive rat race that teaches you all the wrong lessons for going out into the work world. Maybe they ought to do something about that. Oh, too bad, too busy trying to crush the teachers’ unions. Carry on.
Interrobang
@Omnes Omnibus: It seems like a pretty bright line is the obvious danger of delayed-onset brain damage. If people routinely took hard blows to the head in skiing, then I’d say you’d have a point about that, but they don’t, and you can mitigate a lot of the effect of accidental impacts by wearing a helmet and learning to fall properly. (I skiied with the Track III programme for years in the 80s and 90s and wore a helmet even though I wasn’t racing. I fell often enough to feel it was worth looking like a dork, and learnt how to fall so I wasn’t hitting my head.)
Boxing, yes. Football, yes. Rugby, I don’t know, I can’t say, as I don’t know much of anything about it.
I rode horses for 20 years, and equestrians have been wearing substantial helmets for decades, and they’re only getting more substantial as time goes on, and the point of riding horses isn’t exactly to throw yourself headlong at opposing players, or get punched in the face until you lose consciousness. (Why exactly is prizefighting a sport, anyway?)
Linkmeister
@Pogonip: There is another book about those in the medical profession who, for pay, rise up to fight these health assertions and nowadays climate assertions as well. It’s called “Merchants of Doubt.” The title indicates how they do it: imply the scientific findings aren’t complete, imply the scientists aren’t reputable, etc.
Gindy51
@Amir Khalid: How do you know they weren’t hit in the head? I know I have been and all my jobs have been office doing computer software stuff. I was in a couple of car wrecks, hit my head on a short door frame when I stood up to walk out backwards (can’t do roller coaster rides anymore thanks to that one), and fell off a roof when I was a kid. None of those had anything to do with sports injuries but I did suffer concussions with each one.
brantl
This is why I will never have anything to do with football, or boxing. I practiced martial arts, and when I did, all the good schools were no-contact. And any school that I saw practicing contact, were sloppy, and typically slow.
sw
I’m done with football. Used to be an absolute fanatic. Now I see crushed eggshells bashing into one another. Its bread and circuses pure and simple. Nothing has changed after three thousand years. We are a primitive fucking species.