Bunnies, Clams, and Hindsight

Wednesday, Apr. 18, 2007 - 12:24 a.m.

One of my stuffed bunnies was just becoming a little too dank to cuddle, so I had to wash it in the sink.

It's the long light brown bunny I bought in Chico, hence the name of Ch-Chi.

She is mad at me for dunking her and scrubbing her. But, I really had no choice. The water was greyish brown.

I'd forgotten how pathetic a stuffed animal looks when it's wet. Poor bunny.

But I'm blotting her throughout the night and she's fluffing back up.

---

In the Clams Got Coincidences department, I'm reading where Brant Parker, the dastardly co-conspirator of The Wizard Of Id along with Johnny Hart, has died. only eight days after Hart did.

He was 86 and he had Alzheimer's, so he didn't know his collaborator had passed.

I hope they were pleasantly surprised to see one another in the next incarnation.

---

Okay. Here is the deal with the VA Tech crisis and why it's important to find out whether or not safety protocol was followed.

A college applies for insurance. The insurance is general liability for things like injury and death of students while on campus. This covers things like, oh, say, slip and fall, food poisoning in the cafeteria, etc. There is also probably a second policy, called an Educators Legal Liability policy, dealing with the specific actions that directly have to do with the educational process (for example if a teacher accidentally blows something up in a science class and students get hurt or die that incident is covered). In the case of VA Tech, that second policy, the ELL policy, should also cover the actions (or lack thereof) of the counselor who met with the gunman before the incident happened and noticed that he was unglued, but didn't report any findings to higher authorities.

Anyway, as part of the coverage agreement, the college agrees to put in place and implement a set of protective safety procedures if any danger is perceived to be present to the students, such as, oh, for instance, a double murder over in the dormitories adjacent to the campus.

The campus then has an obligation to implement those procedures, or else the insurance company will be reluctant to pay out. The implementation of those procedures is a type of contractual obligation to the insurance company. It is mandatory, and it cannot be superseded or avoided or overlooked.

In the case of the VA Tech incident, even if no additional lives were saved, the safety protocols needed to be implemented before the insurance company will meet its half of the coverage obligations.

If there is a discovery that the safety protocols were not followed to the letter, then the insurance payouts will take much longer, and could be much smaller. The insurance company will argue that the liability lies with the campus personnel for not doing everything they could, in the eyes of the insurance company, and it will be the job of the campus folks to convince a jury otherwise.

---

Obviously, not every school has an emergency plan designed to strictly address the Crazed Gunman Issue.

I do however wonder about the counselor who didn't speak up, and there's also something I keep hearing about one of the gunman's creative writing teachers who keeps using that very generic word 'troubled' to describe his writings.

There are going to be more discoveries about this disturbed young man. People are starting to come forth and say he was the weirdest person they'd ever met, that his writing was graphic and horrifying, that he stalked several different girls, had an imaginary girlfriend named Jelly, and that he just generally acted as if the burlap was still on his root ball.

I wonder what else we will find out.

---

Lest you think I don't have any idea what I'm talking about, let me assure you that I do.

My husband John is an insurance claims consultant. Before his company switched to Internet only tutorials, I helped him study for his license renewals for many years. After he switched to Internet only tutorials, I was still fascinated by the insurance industry, and I've continued to study and learn and be interested in this field.

In other words, I know of what I speak.

John has helped me write this post, and he says I'm pretty much spot on.

---

All right, kids. That's it.

Have a good Wednesday.

---

what you missed - what's next - leave a note
first post - cast page - diaryrings - top ten

THE LEGAL STUFF: All content on this site that was created by me is copyright 2003-infinity by Brin Marie McLaughlin. Steal my stuff and I'll squash you like a bug. All incoming email or any other form of communication with me is subject to publication or other distribution by me in whole or in part at my sole discretion. This diary features the sole opinions and experiences of one person, namely me, the person who is paying for this space. In the interest of safety and accountability, no anonymous input will ever be allowed here, ever, for any reason in the entire history of ever. Whenever there is a comments section appearing in this diary, it's to be considered part of my paid presence on the web, and shall be used by my readership to supplement the things I have written here with relevant information in a polite manner. Comments that do not fall in that category are subject to deletion at my whim. Your visit to my diary along with your use of my comments section constitutes the understanding of this statement. Anything else on these pages including any comments belongs to whoever created it. All external links are current as of the date of the entry in which they are first featured, but at no other time. News excerpts used here are for educational purposes and are permitted under the Fair Use Doctrine. Hold hands when you cross the street, and play nice.