I’m standing in the bank on Friday, waiting to make my deposit, when a television news program in the waiting area teases, “When we return, we’ll take a look at a massive chemical fire in North Carolina. Could it happen in your town?”
Heh. Since the fire was still burning less than five miles from the bank in which I was standing, I suppose my answer would have to be “yes.”
I wasn’t the only one going about business as usual while the fire burned itself out. Only 18 hours after the fire began, a lawsuit was being filed by a couple of human skidmarks named Richard S. Lewis and J. Michael Malone. Lewis is the hotshot lawyer from out of town, from a firm with a history of absurd environmental settlements. Malone is the local guy, swimming in the wake of the big fish, seeking nourishment from its waste products. They know that in our legal system, only a sucker waits for the disaster to end before filing his suit. Only a fool would wait for an investigation or even a single fact regarding the cause of the fire.
I’ll just watch the farce unfold as I wish for tort reform. Maybe someday, when our legal system is fixed, we’ll be able to produce our own flu vaccines again.
