The Verdict (Dir: Don Siegel, 1946)

Sydney Greenstreet burst onto the movie scene in 1941 with his Oscar-nominated perormance in The Maltese Falcon. Now, five years later, he finally gets top billing in The Verdict, a wonderful murder mystery, and he is magnificent in the role. Peter Lorre also shines as Greenstreet's co-star.

Greenstreet plays Scotland Yard Superintendent George Grodman, who finds out at the start of the film that he has sent an innocent man to the gallows, resulting in him losing his job to the smug, pompous John Buckley. When another murder occurs, we watch as Buckley tries hard to solve the crime.

The pacing of the movie is good; it moves right along and holds our interest nicely. Grenstreet dominates the film, but Lorre is also good for semi-comic relief, and Joan Lorring is absolutely dynamite as showgirl Lottie Rawson.

There are a number of viable suspects, but everything is explained in the shocker of an ending.

Ten Famous People Who Spectacularly Self-destructed

1. Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde's self-destruction stemmed from an ill-advised libel case he filed. In 1895 Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensberry for libel, the Marquess having accused Wilde of being a sodomite. As the defendant's part of the case was getting started, his counsel was prepared to present a parade of young men with whom Wilde had had carnal relations. Wilde's counsel accordingly dismissed the case.

But this was not the end of it. The information the counsel for the Marquess had put together was forwarded to the authorities, and Wilde was arrested for sodomy! His first trial ended in a hung jury, but on retrial he was convicted and served two years in prison.

2. Alger Hiss. The Hiss self-destruction was quite similar to Wilde's. The case arose in the anti-Communist hysteria of the post-WWII period. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was holding hearings trying to identify Communists and Communist sympathizers in the U.S. One Whittaker Chambers testifed that Hiss had been a Communist in the 1930s. Hiss denied this, and challenged Chambers to repeat his allegations away from the protected confines of the HUAC committee room. Chambers did so, on "Meet the Press", and in August of 1948 Hiss sued him for libel.

The Justice Dept. initially determined that no criminal charegs were warranted. But in November, after some pre-trial discovery in the libel case, and some investigative work by Congressman Richard Nixon, a grand jury was convened and Hiss was indicted on two counts of perjury, alleging that he lied when he said he didn't see Chambers after January 1, 1937, and when he said he never turned over any documents to Chambers. Hiss was convicted after his second trial, the first having hung 8-4 for conviction, and he served 44 months in prison.

3. Douglas MacArthur. The MacArthur self-destruction also came about in the environment of the post-WWII red scare, though it didn't involve any court case. MacArthur's administraton of post-war Japan was known for its wisdom and humaneness, and of course his exploits in the Asian theater during WWII had made him a household name. His downfall was due to his acts of insubordination during the Korean War, when he repeatedly ignored orders from the Joint Chiefs of staff and tried to involve Red China in the war. His basic idea was that World War III was necessary to combat the Communist menace.

President Truman finally fired MacArthur in April of 1951, and MacArthur returned to the U.S. Upon his return, MacArthur addressed a joint session of Congress, and was interrupted by applause 30 times in his 34-minute address. One representative shouted out, "We heard God speak here today. God in the flesh, the voice of God!" "Life" magazine reported that the audience was "magnetized by the vibrant voice, the dramatic rhetoric and the Olympian personality of the most controversial military hero of our times". His biographer, William Manchester, says that MacArthur was "lucid, forceful, dignified, and eloquent; though he clearly thought his message urgent, his delivery was unhurried and rhythmic. All his life had been a preparation for this moment."

This speech represented the high point of MacArthur's popularity, and it was all downhill for him after that. Letters and telegrams to the White House were running twenty to one for MacArthur and against Truman, whose approval rating plunged to 23%, still an all-time low for a sitting president. After the speech, a joint Senate committee immediately began an inquiry into MacArthur's actions. MacArthur tetified, followed by seven weeks during which the administration methodically rebutted MacArthur's position. Manchester says that "One by one, officers who admired MacArthur seated themselves before the Senators and sadly rejected his program for victory." Manchester goes on to state that "Against this array of fact and expertise, the general's Republican defenders had little to offer but a welter of party loyalty and conservative intuition."

After the hearings, MacArthur spent a full year traveling around the country giving rabble-rousing speeches. But the result was that MacArthur's star gradually dimmed, as people got tired of his constant bad-mouthing of Truman and the Truman administration. People were interested in the future, while all MacArthur was doing was re-litigating past personal grievances. Manchester says that "each time he took a swipe at Truman he descended a little". The crowds gradually dwindled, civic leaders started walking out of his speeches, and local leaders started calling him a "demagogue". In particular, MacArthur's keynote address at the 1952 Republican conventon was a complete dud.

MacArthur lived out the rest of his life in relative obscurity in a New York hotel. He finally died in 1964 at the age of 84.

4. Avery Brundage. Avery Brundage was president of he International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1952 to 1972, and prior to that had been president of the United States Olympic Committee since 1928. Growing up in the 1950s, I used to often see his name in the sports pages, usually in the context of his relentless advocacy for amateurism in Olympic sports.

Besides his fetish for amateurism in sports, Brundage had a hstory of anti-Semitism, pro-Nazi sympathies, and misogyny. Despite this history, he was selected as IOC president in 1952, the only non-European to ever hold the post. Part of his appeakl was that he was independently wealthy and served for free, even paying his own expenses.

Brundage's problem was that he was unable to adjust to the changing times. He condemned the Black power demonstration of the two U.S. sprinters in Mexico City in 1968, and then refused to cancel the 1972 games after the massacre of Israeli athleetes in Munich. Historan Alfred Senen sums up Brundage's legacy: "After Munich, Brundage departed the Games, which had grown beyond his comprehension and his capacity to adjust. The NOCs and the [ISFs] were revolting against his arbitrary administration; violence had invaded his holy mountain and was giving every indication of returning; despite all his efforts to reach out to the world through athletics, he stood accused of bigotry and both race and class prejudice, not to mention the denunciations proclaiming him politically naive ... Few mourned his departure from the Olympic scene."

In 1973 Brundage, who had long expressed his wish to marry a German princess, did in fact marry a German princess who wass 48 years his junior, his longtime wife having died two years earlier. Brundage died in 1975 at the age of 87, leaving a decidedly mixed legacy.

5. Pauline Kael. Pauline Kael dropped out of college in 1940, and spent the '40s living a Bohemian lifestyle while struggling to support herself as a free-lance writer. She got into movie criticism in the 1950s, and became nationally famous in 1965 when her first book of movie criticism, I Lost it at the Movies, became a surprise bestseller. This first book of movie reviews was followed by five more: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang(1968), Going Steady(1969), Deeper into Movies(1973), Reeling(1976), and When the Lights Go Down(1980). I enthusiastically bought and read these books, and still have them in my own personal library.

Her downfall can be traced to a scathing review of When the Lights Go Down by Renata Adler, a writer who, like many of us, had always admired Kael's reviews; but when Adler took a closer look after being commissioned to write a review, she found that it was "jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless." Adler's 26-page tour de force is included in her 2017 collection of non-fiction, After the Tall Timber". Adler states that "It is overwhelmingly clear...that one thing Ms. Kael has ceased to care about is films. She hardly praises a movie any more, so much as she derides and inveighs against those who might disagree with her about it." Adler documents in great detail how "Ms. Kael's quirks, mannerisms, tics, and exscesses have...taken over her work so thoroughly that hardly anything else, nothing certainly of intelligence or sensibility, remains."

I am unable to dispute a single word in Adler's epic takedown. In retrospect, it is obvious that over the years Kael grew to love being in the limelight and basked too much in her fame, causing her writing to become more and more over-the-top, at times bordering on the hysterical. By the time she died in 2001, at the age of 82, her star, which once had burned so brightly, had completely faded.

6. Howard Cosell. Howard Cosell was a successful New York lawyer when he decided to switch careers and go into sports broadcasting in the 1950s. He started with radio and expanded ito television, becoming a mainstay on ABC's Mondday Night Football when it debuted in 1970. You either loved or hated Cosell's brash, bombastic, pompous style, but you couldn't ignore him.

By 1985 Cosell's star had faded, and he was taken off ABC's announcing team for that year's World Series, and was fired from ABC. What happened to Cosell is similar to Pauline Kael's fate, in that he fell in love with his public persona, and exaggerated it until he became a caricature of himself. I personally trace his downfall to an appearance on Barbara Walter's interview show in early 1984. When Barbara asked him how he wanted to be remembered, he said, "That's easy. That he was a good husband, a good father, and a good grandfather." Walters asked, "Nothing about carer?", and Cosell responded, "No, it's not important." To me this established his whole broadcasting career as a big fraud, as he had spent his entire career bragging about how he had single-handedly transformed sports reporting from unabashed adulation for the home team to critical, objective analysis; he always claimed that he had introduced journalism to sports reporting. And now he is saying it's "not important"? I cry foul.

Cosell's fall from grace actually took place gradually throughout the first half of the 1980s. Boxing had been his first love and had made him famous during the 1960s, but after announcing a one-sided fight on November 26, 1982, he decided that he was done with boxing forever. Similarly, football was the other sport which had made him famous, but he quit his Monday Night Football gig in August of 1984. In his book I Never Played the Game, Cosell claimed that he never watched an entire MNF game during the 1984 season. He added that "I watched enough to know, however, that the telecasts were dreadful. There was never a story line, only discussions of play upon play upon play. No perspective. No reportage beyond the game. No humanization of the players. Only feeble attempts at humor, trying to prove they could prosper without me. There wasn't a skilled performer among them." Cosell proceeded in his book to criticize all three of the new team--Frank Gifford, Don Meredith, and O.J. Simpson. Not content with that, he also criticized his replacement on the half-time highlights of the prior day's games, saying that they "were a joke. I had turned them into one of the most popular moments on television. My replacement, Jim Lampley, couldn't match my delivery."

The unrelenting criticism of other sportscasters in I Never Played the Game really sealed Cosell's fate. It left him estranged from his former broadcasting colleagues, and, like MacArthur, he retreated to his New York apartment, rarely leaving home and rarely having any visitors, until he died in 1995 at the age of 77.

7. Sarah Palin. When Sarah Palin was picked to be John McCain's running mate in 2008, she seemed poised to become the next right-wing superstar. She had incredible good looks, loads of charisma, and strong conservative credentials.

However, she started self-destructing almost immediately. When Katie Couric interviewed her, Palin was unable to answer even the simplest of questions. When asked "What magazines do you read", the best she could do was "Whatever comes across my desk." After her defeat in the 2008 election, she resigned her governorship the next year, citing a slew of ethical complaints against her. She tried her hand as a FOX analyst, but got cut loose at the end of her contract period, as the network came to realize that she had nothing worthwhile to say.

In 2017 Palin filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for accusing her of "political incitement" in the run-up to the 2011 shooting of Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The case finally came to trial earlier this year, and the jury unanimously found against her.

In 2022 Palin ran for Congress from Alaska and lost to a Democrat, even though Alaska is solidly Republican. During the campaign the man hired to prep Palin for her VP debate with Joe Biden in 2008 was interviewed on one of the news networks, and said that when he had asked Palin what her position on NATO was, she responded, "What's NATO?"! Her self-destruction had become complete.

8. Alan Dershowitz. In a famous article in the late 70s, Esquire magazine called Dershowitz the "best lawyer in America". His many successes during the next three decades supported this honor.

But after the turn of the century Dershowitz started to self-destruct. His fanatical, over-the-top advocacy for the state of Israel cost him much of his credibility. What little honor he still had left was destroyed in January of 2020 when he joined the Trump defense team for the second impeachment case. Dershowitz argued that proof of a crime was needed to impeach a president, a totally lame position, and the opposite of his position in the Clinton impeachment, when he had said just the opposite. To cement his dishonor, he lobbied President Trump for clemency for his past clients still in federal custody, and his efforts played a role in at least twelve clemency grants.

9. Rudy Guiliani. Rudy Guiliani's star burned brightly during his career as a U.S. Attorney and then as mayor of New York City. But when he undertook to help President Trump steal the 2020 election, he completely self-destructed. Today he is a pathetic figure, respected by nobody. He currently faces contempt of court charges for his failure to turn over assets to the Georgia election workers whom he has defamed.

10. Joe Biden. Joe Biden self-destructed twice. The first time was when he ran for president in 1988, and he had to leave the race in disgrace after he was discovered to have engaged in plagiarism of a British labor leader, and to have lied about his law school record.

Biden managed to rehabilitate himself after this debacle, only to self-destruct again when he decided to run for re-election in 2024, after promising to be a "transition president". The pathetic debate performance which sealed his fate was a fitting end to a career by a guy who finished third-from-the-bottom in his class at a third-rate law school.

MLB Front Offices Ranked by Dollars Spent per Win

For this study I took the total team payroll, as of opening day, and divided by the number of wins, thinking that this would be a gauge of how effective each front office was. The per win totals are rounded to the nearest hundred dollars.

1. Athletics -- 876,900

2. Guardians -- 1,014,500

3. Orioles -- 1,038,700

4. Pirates -- 1,128400

5. Brewers -- 1,138,000

6. Tigers -- 1,207,400

7. Rays -- 1,262,800

8. Royals -- 1,340,200

9. Reds -- 1,382,300

10. Twins -- 1,513,100

11. Marlins -- 1,568,200

12. Diamondbacks -- 1,582,300

13. Mariners -- 1,596,900

14. Padres -- 1,741,300

15. Nationals -- 1,786,800

16. Cardinals -- 2,163,300

17. Red Sox -- 2,178,500

18. Rockies -- 2,337,200

19. Braves -- 2,441,500

20. Dodgers -- 2,549,200

21. Phillies -- 2,5621,900

22. Cubs -- 2,566,500

23. Giants -- 2,638,000

24. Astros -- 2,687,800

25. Angels -- 2,745,900

26. Rangers -- 2,863,500

27. Blue Jays -- 2,998,100

28. Yankees -- 3,226,800

29. Mets -- 3,434,000

30. White Sox -- 3,487,700

I must confess that I am not too happy with these results. I intend to search for better ways to gauge front office competence.

"Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America", by Ethan Bronner

With the confirmation battles for the Trump Cabinet nominations looming on the horizon, this seemed a good time to reread this book. The book is an incredibly detailed, nearly day-by-day account of the great battle over Reagan's 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to replace retiring Associate Justice Lewis Powell on the Supreme Court.

When President Reagan announced the nomination of Bork on July 1, 1987, liberal groups around the country were ready, knowing that Bork had been Reagan's second choice the year before when Antonin Scalia was nominated instead. Within 45 minutes of the announcement, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor and delivered a hard-hitting speech, saying:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, school children could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is--and is often the only--protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

"America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tilt the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be.

"The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination if it is not rejected by the Senate could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term....he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme court and the next generation of Americans."

But Kennedy did far more than just give a speech. He worked night and day for the two and a half months from the nomination to the start of the Senate hearings to whip up a groundswell of grass-roots opposition to the Bork nomination. Kennedy masterfully coordinated the efforts of the hundreds of groups around the country who were opposed--women's groups, civil rights groups, labor groups, et al. There were strict guidelines to be followed, like do not talk about abortion or affirmative action; rather, focus instead on how Bork's opposition to any right of privacy puts him "out of the mainstream" of judicial thought.

This was the first Supreme Court nomination fight in which ideology played the major role. And there was a good reason for this. Conservative groups had made it clear that they were out to gain control of the federal judiciary. Bruce Fein, a Justice Dept. attorney in charge of screening nominees, said, in 1985, that "It became evident after the first term that there was no way to make legislative gains in many areas of social and civil rights. The president has to do it by changing the jurisprudence." Part of this strategy involved appointing young judges who would be around for a long time, given the life tenure of federal judges. Thus, 11.4% of Reagan's first term appointees were under 40, a record for modern presidents.

Facing this concerted Republican effort to politicize the judiciary, it was quite natural for the Democrats to push back against it. So, instead of focusing on personal integrity and legal ability, as was customary in the past, and which Bork had high marks on, political ideology now took center stage. Added to the need for this was the fact that Bork would replace the justice, Lewis Powell, who had represented the swing vote during his time on the Court. So, were Bork to be confirmed, the conservatives would be in charge.

Bronner says that ultimately "some three hundred organizations" joined the anti-Bork movement, all adhering to the message that Bork was "out of the mainstream". By contrast, the White House efforts in support of Bork were haphazard and disjointed. The use of "murder boards", where the nominee was subjected to hostile questioning as practice for the actual hearings, was proposed but rejected by Bork. The suggestion that he shave off his beard was also rejected. It was urged that he and his wife be interviewed by Barbara Walters in an attempt to humanize him, but Bork also vetoed this suggestion.

A White House briefing book on Bork tried hard to refute the idea that Bork was out of the mainstream, and would therefore tip the balance of the court to the right. To that the Justice Dept. lawyer, John Bolton, in charge of relations with Congress, threw up his hands in disgust and said, "If he wouldn't change the balance of the Court, then why the hell are we nominating him?" The White House was unable to enlist the cooperation of the strongest conservative lobbying group, the National Rifle Association, due to the NRA's concern over what it saw as Bork's restrictive view of the Fourth Amendment.

Finally, on September 15th, the hearings began, which Bronner doesn't get to until page 208 of his 352-page book. Polls at the time showed the nation evenly divided on Bork's confirmation, so the hearings were vitally important.

The hearings got off to a rocky start for the White House when the first witness, Gerald Ford, gave a statement in support of Bork and was then unexpectedly asked by Senator DeConcini whether he had read any of Bork's opinions or law review articles. A flustered Ford had to admit that he had not. Bronner states that "Ford hadn't the slightest idea about Bork's record. He was there as a showpiece..."

Next came a record five days of testimonay by the nominee himself. Bork came across as overly aloof and professorial, avoiding clear and direct answers to many questions. He gave undecided Senators no reason at all to support him.

Senator Kennedy absolutely destroyed Bork's credibility with his skillful questioning on various constitutional issues. For example, Kennedy asked Bork whether his view would lead him to uphold a statute requirng mandatory abortion. Bork could not give an intelligent answer; Bronmnmer states that "His only argument regarding compulsory abortion was that no state would pass such a law, and if it did, the state would not enforce it. To suggest otherwise, he said, was to exhibit little faith in the people." This exchange illustrates well the fundamental constitutional issue being confonted. The conservatives thought legislative majorities should decide matters, while liberals had a concern for the rights of individuals. The Bork supporters had no concern for the minorities who can, and often do, have their rights infringed upon by legislative majorities.

The White House efforts to rehabilitate Bork failed miserably. OPne GOP Sentaor after another would lob up softball questions to Bork giving him a chance to explain his views, and Bork would consistently fail to take the bait. (This is quite similar to efforts during the recent presidential campaign when FOX commentators would lob softball questons to Trump, and Trump would fail to rise to the challenge. For example, Sean Hannity asked, "You wouldn't operate as a dictator as president, would you?", and Trump responded "Only on day one." Or, Trump was asked, "You didn't intentionally take classified documenets to Mar-a-Lago, did you?", and Trump's response was "I have every right to do that.") Bork would be asked simple questions about basic Bill of Rights provisions, and his answers would be "I'm not an expert on criminal law", or I've never given that much thought".

The Iran-Contra heaarings had taken place in the same hearing room only two months eariler. Oliver North had given a spectacular performance, in which he came acorss as an earnesdt and loyal pastriot, while the Seantors questioning him came across as dul and plodding. The Democratic Senators in the Bork hearing were detemriend to reverse these roles, and they were successful. The Senators came across as eloquent and well-informed in their questions and statements, while Bork came across as dull and plodding, and evasive. My memory of him is that after being asked a question, he would grimace, look up at the ceiling, and then offer a non-answer about how he had no opinion or hadn't reflected enough on the issue. Often he would disavow his prior views and claim that his views had changed, which only disappointed his supporters and showed that he was trying to demonstrate a "confirmation conversion", which called into question the validity and sincerity of his beliefs.

The committee consisted of eight Democrats and six Republicans, the Democrats having gained Senate control in the 1986 election. The one undecided GOP Senator was Pennsylvania's Arlen Spector, and Bork spent seven hours being questioned by Specter, both in the hearing room and in private. In the end, Specter voted against Bork, making the Judiciary Committee vote 9-5 against Bork. At this point it was obvious that his nomination was doomed, and it was expected that he would withdraw rather than facing a vote of the full Senate. At the last minute he chose to go forward, supported by his wife and kids, and the Senate vote went 58-42 against him.

After the vote Bork resigned his post as a Court of Appeals justice, and decided to devote himself to lecturing and writing. He wrote a book "The Tempting of America", which I read after finishing the Bronner book.

In his book Bork rejects all criticisms of him as lies. To Kennedy's initial speech opposing his nomination, Bork says, "not one line of that tirade was true." To an ad from the People for the American Way which criticized Bork's writings on the poll tax, equal accomodations for blacks, and the principle of one man-one vote, Bork says "None of these charges was true". To an AFL-CIO press release stating that "He has never shown the least concern for working people, minorities, the poor or for individuals seeking the protection of the law to vindicate their political and civil rights", Bork says "My public record demonstrates that there was not a word of truth in this litany". He says that a document known as the Biden Report "so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility."

My question to Mr. Bork would be this: If the allegations against you are so clearly and provably false, as you claim, then why weren't you able to convince undecided Senators of this? Are you so lacking in the kind of persuasive skills which good lawyers have that you couldn't articulate your views adequately?

Bork's unwillingness to say that a law mandating abortion would be unconstitutional illustrates his problem. He wants in every instance to defer to legislative majorities. To say that no legislature would ever enact such a law is no answer at all. Legislatures run roughshod over the rights of minorities all the time. Just consider the current problem of gerrymandering. What is gerrymandering but an attempt by a majority to dilute the votes of a minority group? Take Wisconsin; in 2022 Wisconisn voters elected Democrats in the three statewide races--governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. And yet, because of Republican gerrymandering of legislative istricts, Republicans gained majorites of 64-35 in the state Assembly, and 21-11 in the state Senate.

Bork seeks to interpret constitutional provisions strictly, as a judge would interpret a statute. but constitutional provisons are different from statutes. The Constitution contains general provisions, more of an outline compared to the the specific requirements typical of a state statute. The details of constitutional provisions are left to be filled in by the courts, a task which Bork is unwilling to undertake. Our Founders took great care to craft a system which protects minorities against the tyranny of the majority. It is the Supreme Court's job to provide this protection, and Bork would deny the Court this role.

The Neely Subway Chokehold Case

Daniel Penny has been found not guilty by a jury in the New York subway case. Neely was causing a disturbance in the subway, terrifying people in his car. Penny, a Marine veteran, used a chokehold procedure he had learned in his military training to subdue the guy. When the guy died, Penny was charegd with manslaughter. The jury did a conscientious job, asking for clarification from the judge on the meanings of reasonable person, recklessness, and negligence.

The case is reminiscent of the famous 1984 case of Bernhard Goetz, who shot four thugs who were trying to rob him in the subway. Goetz was found not guilty of all charges but a minor gun possession charge. Just as I applauded that verdict, so I applaud the Penny verdict. We are constantly exhorted to get off the sidelines and get involved. We are told, "If you see something, say something". We are told, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good people do nothing". Then Monday morning quarterbcks get involved after-the-fact and criticize those who choose to get involved.

The Killing of Brian Thompson

Brian Thompson, a health insurance company CEO, was shot in the back and killed the other day in New York. Since then there has been a huge response from people who have been denied coverage by his company. While my personal moral sensibilities don't allow me to rejoice in the cold-blooded murder of another human being, I can certainly sympathize with the sentiments of those who are celebrating his demise. The idea that someone can make himself a multi-millionaire by denying help to needy people is abhorrent.

We know that the lack of health insurance is responsible for 45,000 deaths a year, but we don't know how many deaths are caused by health insurance companies denying coverage. I have seen a figure of 68.000 a year, but I cannot verify this figure, though it sounds plausible.

It seems insurance companies are more and more in the habit of denying claims. In the health insurance field, Thompson's company, UnitedHealthcare, leads with a 32% rate of denying claims. The next highest company, Medica, comes in at 27%. I know a guy who says that every time his family has a medical bill, he has to fight with his insurance company to get it paid.

The inefficiencies of the private insurance system are well-known and well documented. If Thompson's death serves as the catalyst for the development of a more humane health care system in this country, then his death will not have been in vain. The unfortunate reality is that it usually takes some sort of tragedy for meaningful change to occur in the U.S.

Michael Smerconilsh, in his daily poll today, asked the question this way: "Will the tasteless reaction of some to the murder of Brian Thompson nevertheless lead to positive change in the health insurance industry?" I thought the answer would come back a clear "yes". The fact that it was a "no" by a huge majority of 78%-22% demonstrates the pessimism that Americans feel about any improvements occurring in our broken health care system.

The Mask of Dimitrios, (Dir: Jean Negulesco, 1944)

It seems there is no end to the entertaining film noirs from the 1940s. This one is the fifth movie, out of nine total, featuring Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, a wonderful collaboration which began with "The Maltese Falcon" in 1941.

Lorre plays a mystery writer who learns of the death of an enigmatic career criminal named Dimitrios, whose body was found in Istanbul washed up on the shore of the Bosphorus Strait. The writer becomes intrigued with the story of the dead man, and he undertakes a quest to unravel the story of the life of Dimitrios. His efforts take him to other European cities, including Athens, Sofia, Geneva, Belgrade and Paris. Along the way he runs into the Greenstreet character, and the last part of the movie is mostly about the two of them.

The use of flashbacks in this film is quite effective. Along the way we meet many compelling characters. This is good, old-fashioned storytelling, a movie well worth your time.