The Real Squatters of Beverly Hills
News Roundup
MAN, PIG, KIDNEY
A genetically-modified pig kidney was successfully transplanted into a human, a significant medical first.
The 62-year-old recipient, Richard Slayman, was dying of kidney disease. Now, he’s expected to leave the hospital this weekend.
The operation holds out promise for harvesting organs from genetically-modified animals on a mass scale, potentially saving many lives by remedying transplant shortages. But it also throws open questions about the ethics of reaping organs from animals, and concerns about unyoking animal-human diseases.
FIVE FAST THINGS
ELECTRIC LOVE: The Biden Administration released a measure to accelerate the switch to electric vehicles, described by press as “the most ambitious climate regulation in the nation’s history.” The measure would phase out gas vehicles. Then, the administration fumbled, unconvincingly arguing that the rule wasn’t an electric vehicle mandate. It is a soft mandate. Republicans have framed it as an attempt to snuff out the auto industry, calling it a gasoline car ban. It isn’t. Former President Donald Trump, per usual the most vocal and least constrained by facts, said it’s an “assassination” of American jobs. They’ll get his emissions belcher from his cold, dead hands.
SINS OF THE SON (UPDATE): James Crumbley, father of the Michigan school shooter, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. His wife had been convicted earlier this year. It was a striking first when frustration is building over the dismayingly high school shootings in the country. For a small update, here’s my recent piece about the use of “threat assessments” in schools, a method for sorting through which student threats foreshadow violence, developed from the Secret Service.
THE HUNT: The U.S. Department of Justice is hunting behemoth, having filed an antitrust suit against the Apple for “anticompetitive behavior.” Apple’s market cap took a $113 billion dip in a single day. That’s likely temporary. But the suit is serious. Author Matt Stoller commented that, “Apple has become a dangerous corporation, with designs on imposing an authoritarian vision over as much of the economy as it can get away with.” For antitrust activists like him, this is part of a larger sea-change that seeks to bring competitiveness back, as Big Tech is a “pace setter of commerce.”
LAISSEZ UN-FAIR: Thematically related: Last month Arizona’s attorney general added his name to a complaint against RealPage, a company accused of helping to fix real estate prices using an algorithm. A similar lawsuit against Yardi Systems shows that algorithmic price-fixing may be widespread in American rental markets. Outside of thwarting the market, algorithmic prices has been flagged as a serious discrimination threat, as I’ve explored previously in the insurance underwriting industry. These companies argue that they’re not price-fixing because the algorithm only makes recommendations for prices. Critics — including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission — say that “price-fixing by algorithm is still price-fixing.”
THE REAL SQUATTERS OF BEVERLY HILLS: Last year, a sleazy impostor, Morgan Gargiulo, took over a vacant mansion in one of America’s most exclusive zip codes, an opulent cul-de-sac overlooking Beverly Hills. Keeping the cops at bay with a shady lease, Gargiulo turned squatting into a surprisingly lucrative operation, renting rooms and charging for tables at what his neighbors describe as wild, Gatsby-esque parties. The matter was complicated by a bizarre and cinematic tangle of criminal proceedings leading to the government trying to seize the house from the clutches of a fugitive surgeon who’s possibly hiding in Lebanon. But the saga of Gargiulo’s eventual eviction shows a thin line between legitimate and illegitimate.
QUICK PROVOCATIONS
LACTOSE INTOLERANCE: A lawsuit against Starbucks, the Seattle coffee empire, claims charging extra money for non-dairy “milks” is a violation of civil rights as lactose intolerance is a disability. (The Guardian) — Allowing anyone to drink Starbucks’ gross dishwater should be considered a human rights violation.
CUTTING THE FAT: Diabetes drug Ozempic took off as a fat buster last year. The latest: some of the side effects have become clearer. But also, the science behind why it caused weight loss was wrong. (The Atlantic) — Probably shouldn’t rush into off-label uses of new drugs. But as the slogan for Virginia Slims, a pre-Ozempic slenderizer, once said: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
The World in Numbers
Human vulnerability is, in many ways, out of our individual control. Sometimes it’s about time and place. Observe:
14
How many people have died from Yersinia pestis — known by its moniker: the plague — in the U.S. between 2000 and 2020. About 7 cases are reported yearly in the U.S. (The most recent death from plague in the U.S. occurred earlier this month in New Mexico. )
400
Regions like Madagascar saw higher figures around the same period, in the hundreds. They report around 400 cases per year of plague, according to one estimate.
60%
The percentage of people in Europe who died from the Black Plague in the 14th century.
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