Juris Unnecessarius

I spent the majority of my day yesterday knitting on the second colorblock sleeve and chatting with some very nice people.

Tort Thoughts
They released the entire group of potential jurors at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, without ever having called anyone in my group of about 200 people. I found the day rather relaxing and enjoyable.

As for tort reform and the litigious nature of our society, I have a few thoughts.

Having worked for a large chiropractic office and also for an insurance company, I have had quite a bit of exposure to some of the worst aspects of the legal system.

From it all, I believe that greed will always find a way to abuse any system that is put in place. That same greed is one of the reasons that communism would never work in a society.

I think of it this way. I pay car insurance. The insurance company pools my premiums in with all the other insured car owners, and bases the cost of my insurance on their historical claims experience (sounds a bit like communism...no?). When the insurance company pays a claim on my behalf, it affects the claims experience, and will be reflected in the determination of cost for insurance for everyone in the group.

If I see a lot of folks filing claims for "pain and suffering" when they really had none, I will start to worry that I'm not getting my "fair share" of the pool of claims money. Many lawyers are all too willing to file a lawsuit on my behalf, and many doctors are all too willing to treat me for alleged injuries. And now the insurance company finds itself in the position of trying to adjudicate claims in a way to reduce payouts and lawsuits, identify fraud, and keep their profits up.

Greed of claimants, greed of lawyers, greed of doctors and greed of insurance companies.

I don't care what kind of laws are put into place to prevent this greed cycle, but with all the greed in the world, one or more of these groups is going to find a way to circumvent it.

Current Knitting
As mentioned, I got some work done on the second sleeve of the colorblock cardigan at jury duty yesterday.



I still have some work to do on it, but I'm glad for the progress.

I also started the front of the bulky Lavold-like pullover.



I'm also happy with the progress on this garment.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Kathy writes, "...it looks like you're doing the Lavold on straight (gayly forward?) needles--perhaps Brittany's? Doesn't that get heavy, especially using bulky yarn?"

I'm working the bulky Lavold-like pullover on these amazing hand-crafted rosewood needles that my friend bought for me last year (US10's). When I was finishing the back of the garment, the ends of the needles started to get a little heavy as I got to the top third of the garment. Not overly burdensome, and definitely offset by the lovely feel of the needles.