Tom Sgouros: Short Takes

Tom Sgouros: Short Takes

Plan B

I try not to insert my private life into these columns. Good policy usually has little to do with my family's own circumstances, and there are plenty of other ways to tell the good from the bad, so what's the point?

But here's a case where my private life does have some bearing. This week Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, overruled the FDA in order to keep Plan B, the "morning after pill" from being available over the counter to girls under 17. This appears to be the first time any HHS Secretary has overruled the FDA on a matter like this. It's interesting to consider why this was even an issue at this time: It's because in 2006, a bunch of teenagers and women's health advocates sued Andrew von Eschenbach, George W. Bush's FDA commissioner over restrictions on the availability of the drug that weren't supported by FDA research. They won the suit, the result of which was that Duramed, the drug's manufacturer, had to apply to make it available over-the-counter. The application was approved by the FDA, and the approval reversed by Sebelius this week.

Why does my life have any bearing here? Largely because President Obama used his to support the decision. He said that "as the father of two daughters" he thought Sebelius did the right thing. He went on to say he thought most parents feel the same way.

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Well here's one who doesn't. I also have two daughters, both teens, and I want them both to have easy, safe, and private access to Plan B. (Actually one's 18 now, but I felt this way last year, too.) I hope my daughters will talk to me enough that an event requiring emergency contraception won't come as a complete shock, but whether the lines of communication between me and my daughters are that open is between me and them. Would I want to know if they needed Plan B? Of course I would. But why should I imagine a law to prevent their access to emergency contraception would help? They could ask any adult to get it, not just me. Is it any more than a bizarre fantasy to imagine that the legal system could improve a parent's relationship with his or her children?

Not that it should matter, but this drug is not an abortifacient like RU-486. It works by preventing fertilization, the same as a birth-control pill. Its side effects are few and minor and the research available has shown it is safe (repeatedly). It's not particularly cheap; one pill runs $40-50. You'd think that would be limitation enough, but no. Apparently it's now thought to be good public policy to maximize shame -- in teenage girls.

RIPTA

A couple of weeks ago a driver on one of the buses I take regularly told me about a fellow driver who decided to tell the world what it's like to drive a bus in Rhode Island. William Alsheimer now works in a RIPTA office job, but for 14 years he drove buses and in "All Aboard: One Driver's Story" he tells you what it's like.

The book is little more than a collection of reminiscences, a lot like hanging out at a bar with Bill the Bus Driver. You hear about the drunks he's dealt with and the tussles with management, the sweet passengers who help him out and the not-so-sweet ones who make the days long. There was Sophie who would occasionally stand at the bus stop with home-made cookies, and Steven, the mentally disabled guy who would have to ride the bus to work with his job coach but who had memorized the times for every stop for every run on the bus schedule. And of course there was also the drunk who proved the wisdom of his father's advice to wear a clip-on tie, and many more of his ilk. There's no plot or narrative to the book, it's just one little story after another: fairly aimless wandering, but through some interesting territory.

Alsheimer himself mostly shows a remarkable tolerance of his clientele, remarking that a passenger once told him that he should have patience with people, "because we don't know what their burdens were." He is the author, so a sympathetic portrait is the least you'd expect.

Like all of us, he does have some limits to his tolerance and good humor, and these show up here. But he's likely to get plenty of sympathy from people who spend their days dealing with the public. Unlike columnists, who have only the aspersions of online commenters to deal with, a bus driver shares the physical world with his passengers with all the accompanying rewards (e.g. cookies, kindness, good conversation) and penalties (louts, cranks, drunks and the occasional mess they leave behind). If he goes on a little too long sometimes, or shows the slightly intolerant side to his character, it's also not so different from that guy on the next barstool when he occasionally goes off on a rant too long. But you listen and think about what he says, because after all, you don't really know his burdens.

Amazin'

You might have noticed the bookstore link above is to Powell's. The book is a print-on-demand title, which means it's unlikely to appear in any local bookstore unless you go ask for it. I encourage you to go ask for it from your local bookseller. If you must order online, don't order from Amazon.

Why? Amazon just started a "price comparison" premium program. They pay money to people who will go into a store and use their cell phone to scan prices for them and then leave without buying anything. In other words, they've moved on from just undermining their competition through competition, and seem to be moving in on the territory where they undermine their competition by turning customers into industrial spies. A world with no real stores would be a sad place indeed. Amazon is already a free rider, contributing nothing to the states on whose roads their goods are delivered, and nothing to the causes local businesses support. Please boycott them until they decide to be a better citizen and give up this destructive program.

Tom Sgouros is the editor of the Rhode Island Policy Reporter, at whatcheer.net and the author of "Ten Things You Don't Know About Rhode Island." Contact him at [email protected].
 

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