Legal Commentary

Long ago Michael Kinsley found the most boring headline ever: "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative."

The story that grabbed my inattention was in the New York Times on Monday, July 26. It was about a man who used to take long walks around the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, until he died last week. That?s it. That?s the story. In Silver Lake, he was wittily known as "the Walking Man." (You see, it?s because he walked all the time).

Was he a homeless man who walked because he tragically had no place to go? No, he was a family doctor named Marc Abrams. Was he an eccentric recluse who lived in squalor and scared the neighborhood children? No, he lived in a house with a hot tub next to the reservoir with his wife, Cindy. Cindy worked with him in his practice. Did he walk every day, rain or shine? No, only ?near-daily.? Did he reject all conversational overtures due to the intensity of his need to keep walking, walking, walking? No, a local restaurant owner used to ?walk half a block with him? and ?strike up a conversation.? People along his route knew him from ?years of drive-by small talk.? So what inner demons possessed him and caused him to take long walks nearly every day? The Times reporter asked neighbors. ?He walked, he told them, to keep fit.? Of all things.

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Full post as published by Althouse on August 01, 2010 (boomark / email).