Its important to hear what Dr. Michael Osterholm on Covid-19 says about how long it takes to develop effective vaccines.
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Its important to hear what Dr. Michael Osterholm on Covid-19 says about how long it takes to develop effective vaccines.
Thanks Carolyn,Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by caromia333:
What follows is a little off-topic and trivial, but it was a big deal for me personally.
Thirty two years ago, I was responsible for hiring a keynote speaker for a law school banquette.
I picked Ralph Nader.
He was my hero both then and now.
In his contract rider, he had the following terms and conditions:
1. Instead of paying him a fee for speaking, we had to donate $5,000 to a charity involved in consumer advocacy and product safety (and provide him with proof to that effect).
2. We had to buy him round trip plane tickets, but his seat on the plane had to be in "coach" and not in "first class".
3. We had to pick him up at the airport in a mid-size (non-luxury) American-made (non-foreign-made) car.
4. At meal time, we had to take him to restaurants that served all vegetable meals at moderate prices (no luxury restaurants). .
Essentially, Nader did not want his give his political enemies ammunition to portray him as greedy and profiteering from his work in consumer advocacy for the ordinary citizen. So he made that impossible by his behavior when ever in public.
When we picked him up, he was wearing a business suit and tie, but he was wearing REAL, spit-shined, U.S. Army, Combat Boots. He wears them at all times. (I am not kidding.). There has to be a Freudian message in that somewhere. My information is that he does this to purposely send a message to his enemies that he is fully prepared for war at all times. (True story).
Even at the law school banquette (which was black tie), he wore a tuxedo with his Army Combat Boots!
To top it all off, he gave a mesmerizing speech without notes or a teleprompter.
His knowledge and communication skills were stunning.
He earned a five minute standing ovation from the audience.
That's my Ralph Nader story.
Snoop
Dear Carolyn,
I do not know how much you know about Ralph Nader, but there is good reason that he is my idol. He is a man without fear and of impeccable, unimpeachable, moral character.
Early in his career as a lawyer, Nader sued auto manufacturers whose cars routinely burst into flames when being involved in auto accidents. The reason for this problem was poor auto design (improper placement of the fuel tank in the car design). The real trouble with manufacturing cars with poor design is that all cars of the same model have the same exact design. That means a single design defect can kill thousands of people in thousands of accidents all over the world. As I recall, the Ford Pinto was one such vehicle. Another may have been the Corvair (a car with the engine placed in the rear).
Nader had discovered that the manufacturers new of the problem, but refused to make any changes to save money. Specifically, Nader actually obtained a secret internal memorandum wherein the manufacturer conducted a study and had determined that it was cheaper to pay settlements to the families of those burned to death in their cars than to redesign the car and retool the assembly line to make a safer car. In effect, the manufacturer chose to kill its own consumers because that was more profitable to do so. Nader won the case. Then, Nader wrote the book, "Unsafe At Any Speed". Manufacturers viewed Nader as Satan in the flesh. It is a miracle he was not "disappeared".
During this entire period, auto manufacturers and their goons tried to compromise Nader so as to be able to blackmail him into dropping his lawsuits and books and ending his campaign against them. These creeps would send unbelievably beautiful prostitutes to proposition him and seduce him while they were secretly filming and audio-taping the whole thing. They attempted to engage him in a number of similar compromising situations. Bribery, Extortion. He NEVER took the bait. NEVER!
This is the reason for terms of his contractual rider in the post.
He is always a step ahead of these creeps.
There is no telling how many lives he has saved.
Best Regards,
Snoop