'How Beautiful We Were' when 'They Poisoned the World': What I've been reading, 2025 edition

It's been since the pandemic that I wrote an installment of "What I've Been Reading."

With some time to spare in transit recently, I've been catching up on my reading. And with the gift-giving season upon us, I thought it would be fun to share. Maybe I can spark an idea for that hard-to-shop-for person on your list.

Though be warned, books implicating torts are not necessarily best if your aim is to lighten the mood at the family holiday table. Fortunately, there's a range here: nonfiction and fiction, spiritual journey, family epic, fable, and fantasy. Take your pick, and enjoy!

What I've Been Reading, 2025 Edition

Mariah Blake, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals (2025). Nonfiction/investigative journalism. If you've somehow been feeling good about the world, this book will take the wind out of your sails. The earth is so poisoned with forever chemicals such as PFAS (see John Oliver's 2021 show) that they can be found even in the blood of newborns in remote parts of the world. Innumerable burgeoning health complications, from cancers to strokes, might be linked to our inadvertent consumption of these unnatural poisons. And we're not making a priority of their elimination from the environment, if even we can figure out how to do that. Aggravatingly, the companies that produce this stuff seem to be following the playbook that Big Tobacco wrote in the 20th century, from denial to self-serving "science," to negotiated immunity.

Investigative journalist Mariah Blake, who has written for The Atlantic, among other prominent publications, artfully weaves together the story of transnational industrial impunity with the real lives of people and communities devastated by illness. The book is important, terrifying, and saddening.

Imbolo Mbue, How Beautiful We Were (2021). Fiction/contemporary novel. Imbolo Mbue is a Cameroonian-American writer based in New York. Her second novel, this epic revolves around a family from a fictional African village that is overrun by a large American oil company. Extraction poisons the environment, sickening and killing children and adults. The story sees the family migrate to America and play a part in a revolt back home. One strand of the story traces (realistically unsuccessful) litigation against the oil company under the alien tort statute in the United States. Mbue's writing is beautiful, and that kept me turning pages—as it did in her first novel, Behold the Dreamers (2016).

As much as I wanted to adore this book, I found the story more superficial than insight-bearing. That might be on me; I came to the book already familiar with both the impact of western corporatocracy on Africa and the Big Oil playbook on environmentalism, besides the plot line of alien tort litigation. The book earned ample acclaim, perhaps justifiably for bringing these themes to popular attention. What I did like, and liked most, in the book was the perspective of family elders later in the story. They watched, helpless and with mixed emotions, as younger generations in the States were absorbed into the very culture that had devastated an ancestral homeland the youth did not remember.

Charlie Jane Anders, The City in the Middle of the Night (2019). Fiction/science fiction. I had wanted to read this science fiction book since I heard an NPR review in 2019. The novel tells the story of two different cities, one in the clutch of oppressive governance, and the other dangerously close to anarchy; and of two very different protagonists, coming from different sides of the tracks, as it were. They live on a planet where humans can survive only in the temperate zone between, symbolically, a light side and a dark side. The protagonists have disparate appetites for the revolutionary movement they both are drawn into. Meanwhile, the human population on the planet regards the monstrous indigenous creatures as mere animals. Yet one of the protagonists, thought to be exiled to die, discovers the creatures to be sentient telepaths.

The themes are familiar: the seemingly counterproductive yet lately resonant human affection for authoritarianism; the privileged protagonist who falls for the proletarian revolution; the forbidden love of opposites; and the seeming monster that secrets a superior morality. In the end, I'd say I was disappointed. The book was long, which meant going a long way for trite themes that have been explored better already in science fiction classics.

Eddie Izzard, Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens (2017). Nonfiction/memoir. If you've never heard of Eddie Izzard, this book might be a heavy lift. But if like me, you're a fan, and you're keen to understand what makes Eddie Izzard's remarkable mind work the way it does, this book is worthwhile. I listened to the audiobook and recommend that. It's best to hear Izzard tell her own story. (Gender-fluid Izzard prefers feminine pronouns, but says not to get hung up on it.) And because the book is often funny, there's nothing like a comedian's own timing. I like to listen to David Sedaris books for the same reason. But this audiobook is especially good because Izzard ad-libs a bit and artfully incorporates her many tangent footnotes into the flow of the narrative. The audiobook therefore comes off with the same structure as Izzard's stand-up, seemingly meandering yet slyly serpentine. My erudite friend Ethan Dazelle and I saw Izzard live at the Vets, for her "Force Majeure" show, in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2015. The show was as memorable as it was mind-boggling; I wished I had had footnotes then, for all that went over my head.

This is not Izzard's first book. But this book stands apart from her humor books as a deeply personal memoir. The audiobook well captures not only Izzard's sharp wit, but the emotional highs and lows of her life story. The first-person account of how her career came to be is fascinating, especially alongside her coming around to express publicly her sexual identity. Izzard included her television experience with The Riches, which I was pleased to hear. I always have thought that that show, from the 20-aughts, was profoundly underrated; it's often described today as "ahead of its time."

Stories of Izzard's parents and her relationships with them are moving. Curiously from a tort perspective, Izzard's father worked in accounting for BP. That's why Izzard was born in Yemen, a fact I knew, though I did not know why. The family's moves to Northern Ireland, Wales, and then England in Izzard's childhood perhaps give a clue to Izzard's breathtaking consciousness of language, though do not fully explain her easy multilingualism. In the end, nurture does not explain the full measure of Eddie Izzard's peculiar kind of savant; nature must have been a quiet collaborator.

Dave Eggers, The Eyes and the Impossible (2023). Fiction/fantasy. This book by Dave Eggers, whose breakthrough memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) was a Pulitzer finalist, won the 2024 Newbery Medal. So that's right: this is a children's book. Technically. My favorite book I read (or listened to) this year, The Eyes is the first-person narrative of a dog, Johannes, who lives in a park. To say more would deprive you of the joy of discovering Johannes's story, and of joining him on his journey of discovery. I will say only that Johannes is never wounded and does not die at the end; my heart just wasn't up for another My Dog Skip or Racing in the Rain, much as I loved those books. 

Heartbreaking Work already demonstrated that Eggers is one of those rare souls endowed with old wisdom, inexplicably defying the bounds of lived perspective. In The Eyes, he puts that wisdom to work to generate a wholly unique fable: the sort of story that can be interpreted and appreciated differently in different phases of a reader's life. I found the book simultaneously amusing and deeply moving; I expect the young cousin to whom I gifted the book will find the same, though for entirely different reasons. I'm always reluctant to describe Heartbreaking Work to someone; rather, I say, you just must read it for yourself. Well, in a fresh and inventive new way, Eggers has done it again, this time for all ages. 

The print version of The Eyes features beautiful illustrations by Shawn Harris. However, I listened to the audiobook, in which the gifted Ethan Hawke, yes, that Ethan Hawke, brought Johannes to brilliant life. A sequel, The Eyes, the Fire and the Avalanche Kingdom, is available for pre-order on January release.

Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology (2017). Fiction/ancient mythology. Gaiman opens this book by explaining his great affection for Norse mythology and his desire to retell it himself. And that's what the book is, a collection of Norse myths. They're enjoyable stories, and all the better in the characteristically lyrical style that has earned Gaiman a loyal fan base. 

It turns out that most of what I thought I knew about Norse mythology comes from the Marvel universe, and some from Netflix's excellent three-season Ragnarok. Those fictions are good on their own merits, but they perpetuate some popular misconceptions. As Gaiman explains in the introduction to Norse Mythology, one key misconception in the popular imagination is the idealization of Thor. In the real myths, Thor was kind of a meathead. Gaiman's stories capture that. Marvel and Ragnarok get right that Loki is not so much evil as "complicated."  I especially like Gaiman's stories because they fill out the character of Odin. The Allfather is the character who should be idealized, the truly deific hero of Norse mythology, who gets short shrift in contemporary adaptations as past his prime.

Overall, there's much to enjoy here. The Norse myths after all articulate a whole and fully functional world vision. The world of the Norse gods stands on its own and does not require the multicultural contextualization that contemporary fictionalizations are eager to impose.

Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity (2014). Nonfiction/religion. Obviously, this book won't be everyone's cup (nor three cups) of tea. It's Nabeel Qureshi's intimate firsthand account of his conversion from Islam to Christianity. The book was recommended to me by a Christ-committed cousin who has worked as a missionary in places in the world where doing so is dangerous. A Christian myself, I'm predisposed to appreciate the conversion narrative, and I did. But I'll say that, notwithstanding my predisposition, I enjoyed and appreciated Qureshi's story from a simply human interest perspective. He describes a journey of spiritual yearning and growth; his changing relationships with family and friends in the course of that journey; and along the way, his cultural experience as a Pakistani-American, son of a U.S. Navy officer, especially in the aftermath of 9/11.

Qureshi became a medical doctor, but devoted his life to Christian apologetics. He completed master's degrees at Biola, Duke, and Oxford, and he became a favored speaker on the university circuit, promoting peaceful interfaith dialog. In 2010, he and associates were arrested in Dearborn, Michigan; police alleged they disturbed the peace while answering questions from Muslim teens. A civil rights lawsuit by the arrestees drew exoneration and an apology from the city. Qureshi was working on his doctorate at Oxford when he died of stomach cancer in 2017, at age 34, only a year after diagnosis and two years after the birth of his daughter (Christianity Today).

After Seeking Allah, Qureshi published two books in 2016: Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward and No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity. There also is a video study series associated with Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.

Not directly related to Qureshi's book, but another book in the genre of religious nonfiction that I read this year with a group of Christian academics, which book I do recommend and might be of interest relative to current events, is Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (2025). Now a journalism professor at CUNY, Beinart, who is Jewish, has been a New Republic editor and Atlantic contributor. He writes compellingly on the inevitable incompatibility of Netanyahu war policy with the teachings of Hebrew scripture.

Happy reading, and happy new year. Maybe humanity will do better in 2026. Nothing is impossible.

From national TV to local school, suspension of dissenters evidences worrisome speech suppression

Google Gemini CC0

Free speech is in danger in the United States, and two recent matters, one national and one local to me, are representative and worrisome.

The national story is the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel from his late-night talk show on the ABC television network.

Where Kimmel apparently crossed a red line with ABC parent Disney was his equation of the accused assassin of Charlie Kirk with the America-first MAGA movement. The comment stoked right-wing ire, and Kimmel was accused of inciting or supporting political violence—an inferential leap he did not make. In the light of day, I find Kimmel's comment in poor taste. But he did not advocate for political violence. 

I support the prerogative of Disney, as a private creative company—subject to procedurally proper and viewpoint-immaterial business regulation, such as antitrust law, which has been under-enforced in the administrations of both parties—to make decisions about what content it wishes to broadcast. But as in the case of cancelled late-night host Stephen Colbert, the decision here is not about reasoned disagreement, rather is about capitulation to government threats to use state power unlawfully and unconstitutionally.

Circumstances strongly suggested that Colbert's Late Show was canceled because of government threats to use the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) broadcast licensing authority to block the merger of CBS parent Paramount with media company Skydance. But it was difficult to find direct rather than circumstantial evidence of the connection between the government and Paramount.

No longer. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr plainly threatened to use FCC power to attack Nexstar, the company that owns a great many ABC affiliates that carry Disney content. Nexstar and Disney are said to be courting, and Nexstar has a history of dissatisfaction with FCC regulation that would stymie the growth of its media empire. So the FCC threat to Nexstar was taken to heart in the boardroom, The Wall Street Journal reported, and became a threat to business partner Disney, in turn. 

Curious how the anti-regulatory right is suddenly interested in a strong administrative state.

The problem here is that censorship of political content, that is, political viewpoint discrimination, is not a legitimate basis for the FCC, nor most any governmental authority, to flex its muscle in interference with the private market. The closest Carr came to a legitimate rationale for FCC retaliation was the assertion that programming such as Kimmel's perpetuates false information. 

Yet even if that were a proper basis for government intervention—arguable, depending on the nature of the information alleged false—there is no evidence that false assertions of fact by Kimmel or anyone else motivated Carr's threat. Whatever one thinks of Kimmel's appraisal of the Kirk murder, or of MAGA, he uttered only opinion.

Incidentally, President Trump's lawsuit against The New York Times Co. this week evidences the same disregard for the difference between fact and opinion. The voluminous complaint is rife with allegations that establish a difference of opinion, but precious few claims of false assertions of fact. So over the top is the complaint that it evidences the abject failure of the legal profession to regulate itself as a profession. (UPDATE, Sept. 19: Did I underestimate the profession? See Trump v. N.Y. Times Co. (M.D. Fla. Sept. 19, 2025). HT @ Dan Greenberg.)

To be clear, if Disney wants to suspend Kimmel because executives don't like his politics, fine. I might worry about whether antitrust law is enforced with sufficient vigor, or simply whether our media infrastructure is sufficiently healthy, that Americans have access to a wide range of viewpoints through audiovisual media. But my worries would not warrant interference with a business owner's political prerogative.

My objection here is to the threatened abuse of power by the FCC. A broadcast regulatory authority picking who may and who may not have access to media channels based on the broadcaster's support for the ruling regime is naked and shameful authoritarianism.

And then there is the local.

In my community of Barrington, Rhode Island, a teacher, Benjamin Fillo, has been suspended from Barrington Public Schools for his TikTok comments about Charlie Kirk.

Once again, I find the speaker's comments in poor taste. According to The New York Post and to WLNE—an ABC affiliate which, incidentally, recently became the second local news broadcaster under the control of the right-wing-disinformation-associated Sinclair group, somehow without provoking FCC regulatory objection—Fillo called Kirk a "piece of garbage" and accused him of hatred for the LGBTQ community and hostility to women's rights and democracy.

Like Kimmel, Fillo did not advocate for political violence. I would like him to have condemned it. But that preference is mine.

Also, as a parent in this community, I am sympathetic to parents' concerns that the public school be a place of neither ideological indoctrination nor ideological marginalization.

What worries me here is that Fillo's speech occurred on TikTok, outside the school, outside his capacity as a teacher, at least insofar as has been reported. His video seems to have effected no "material and substantial disruption" of the schoolhouse, to use the probably applicable constitutional language, other than disruption by people who self-servingly would claim disruption.

The school district has hired an independent investigator. Sounds a bit Orwellian, but better than a summary firing. What's concerning is that, again, as far as I have seen reported, the investigation is based only on extramural speech, and worse, Fillo was placed on administrative leave for his extramural speech. So already he's been singled out and penalized upon no apparent evidence that he poses any threat to students.

When my daughter was a minor in Barrington schools, she had teachers with whom I disagreed, and with whom she disagreed, politically, and who had different religious beliefs from mine, and from hers, just like I have law students who have different opinions and beliefs from mine. The appropriate pedagogy, which my daughter's teachers employed, and which I endeavor to employ, albeit in the different context of graduate school, is to equip students to disagree. It's not an easy line to draw, but that's the job of a teacher.

What does not work, what I would not want from my child's teachers, and what I try not to do in the classroom, is to pretend to be some kind of politically neutered Ken doll incapable of forming a personal viewpoint. That's what no teacher should model for students. Yet that seems to be what Barrington schools, and too many parents, want to see.

That Fillo has opinions outside the school, whether or not I agree with them, whether or not students and parents agree with them, suggests to me only that he is a good teacher, because he is a whole and thinking human being. If he had no discernible political views, I would wonder whether he were competent to teach social studies.

The takeaway from both these matters seems to be that our society is suffering a worrisome intolerance for disagreement.

It's becoming cool and normal for government to use its power to enforce group-think—a place I thought the right promised to move us away from. And it's becoming cool and normal for employers, even public employers, to capitulate to demands that group-think be enforced, or at least that dissent be suppressed. 

The marketplace of ideas is a flawed metaphor. But it's not all wrong. What I know for sure is that ours should not be a country in which the marketplace of ideas sells only one kind of bread, and everyone must get in line for it.

Litigator loses case, writes musical comedy about it

Shangri-La-La poster at Arlington Drafthouse

When a lawyer loses a case, the lawyer moves on. The experience might be quickly forgotten as run of the mill, or memorably instructive. Either way, it's in the past.

Mike Meier lost a case and did something entirely different. He left practice and wrote a musical comedy about it.

Virginia attorney Meier represented the plaintiffs in Preiss v. Horn (9th Cir. 2013), filed in Nevada. Preiss, who served as physical therapist to Roy Horn, of the famous performing duo Siegfried & Roy, alleged that his services were terminated when he rebuffed Horn's sexual advances. He sued under civil rights law. Preiss's wife was a co-plaintiff, alleging infliction of emotional distress "after watching a videotape of events involving her husband after those events occurred."

The litigation failed. Preiss's claim got hung up on the question of whether he was actually employed by Horn, in the legal sense. The relationship was unclear and proved insufficient to support a civil rights claim.

Preiss's wife complained of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED). NIED usually is not actionable in American jurisdictions, as I've explained before at The Savory Tort. Insofar as there are exceptions, the plaintiff watching a video well after the fact did not evidence the contemporaneous observation required by exceptions for liability to bystanders.

The outcome is not surprising, and one need not think it dispositive of what happened between Preiss and Horn. Tort cases without physical injury—such as civil rights claims, defamation and privacy, and infliction of emotional distress—always are a heavy lift for plaintiffs, because they bear the burden of mustering evidence usually in the possession of the defense. Failure to prove does not establish the truth or falsity of the allegations.

Against the odds, Meier fought hard for his clients, and maybe too hard. According to a disciplinary disposition in New York (Sup. Ct. App. Div. 2018), the federal trial judge in Nevada found plaintiffs' claims in opposition to dismissal "not simply without merit but blatantly and undeniably so," insistence on the NIED claim "'absurd' and 'frivolous,'" and prosecution of Preiss's claim "needlessly, unreasonably, and vexatiously multipl[ying] the proceedings in bad faith."

The federal court ordered Meier to pay a sanction entered against the plaintiffs. His home bar of Virginia suspended him from practice for 30 days, and the New York court entered a censure.

The whole affair might have been a welcome excuse for Meier to pursue his passions quite outside the courtroom, in writing, stage, and music. His website Mike Meier Writes now boasts eight screenplays and three books, besides the present project. 

The description of the screenplay Where the Aliens Are exemplifies the sort of quirky narrative Meier favors: "In this science fiction comedy, an elderly professor, along with his neighbors, a lesbian couple and their son, set out to save the world from an impending alien invasion."

Arlington Drafthouse
marquee, July 2025
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

In July at the Arlington Drafthouse in northern Virginia, I was treated to one in just a three-performance run of Meier's comedy musical, Shangri-La-La, a.k.a. All That Glitters (trailer at YouTube). The show is a thinly disguised retelling of the facts alleged in Preiss v. Horn. Meier's website summarizes:

It is a comedy about Las Vegas show business and human nature, with a sprinkling of drama and #Metoo. Joshua from Germany fulfills his lifelong dream of moving to Las Vegas. He is thrilled to get a job as the assistant to the retired Siegfried & Roy, only to find out the hard way that not all that glitters is gold. Joshua’s quest for justice culminates in a court case. But Joshua does not know about the Las Vegas tradition of "Hometown Justice." After all, that Las Vegas tradition began with Bugsy Siegel, the New York criminal who built the first casino on the Las Vegas strip, The Flamingo.

Aptly, Meier himself played Joshua's lawyer. The show pulls no punches in telling Meier's side of the story, both as to the plaintiffs' facts and his own plight as their counselor. In Meier's telling of it, he was victimized by Las Vegas insiders, a legal system under Horn's influence, and punished for daring to challenge a monied icon and power player. 

Who knows. Vegas is no stranger to corrupt influences, and stranger things have happened there.

Of course, owing to Meier's penchant for the absurd and the fictionalization of the case, the stage telling is over the top and does not purport to be factual, wink-wink. It's an amusing romp at the expense of Siegfried and Roy, who are played as buffoons, if dangerous ones. Their comical, Hans-and-Franz-reminiscent accents put on plenty of comedy mileage. Meier himself grew up in Germany, and his speech bears just a trace of authentic accent, in contrast.

Siegfried and Roy are both dead now, since 2021. Even insofar as their estates have lingering legal interests in trademark or right of publicity, All That Glitters is plainly a parody from an outsider's perspective.

The play has a dense script and an original score. Both vacillate between clever and banal. Some droll dialog earns laughs, to be sure. There is also ample jejune chatter that sorely needs rewrite by an experienced comedic editor. The songs are catchy in places, and elsewhere blister with lackluster lyrics. The cast did a superb job with what they had to work with.

To be fair, such a mixed record is to be expected in a straight-to-stage vanity project. Meier deserves credit for his determination. Polished stagecraft is not really the point. 

Meier manages to put his creative stamp on a compelling story and somehow turns sexual harassment into legit comedy. At the same time, with Siegfried and Roy gone, Meier gets the last word in his case. And he clearly has a wicked good time doing it.

You can listen to five tunes from Shangri-La-La at Mike Meier Writes. I'm weirdly looking forward to Meier's forthcoming mockumentary, "So You Think You Can Trust the Media?"

It happens, incidentally, that a couple of weeks after I saw Shangri-La-La in Arlington, I visited the Flamingo in Las Vegas. I had a fabulous time at the Flamingo-resident show Piff the Magic Dragon, starring Piff, the lovely Jade Simone, and the world's only magic-performing chihuahua, Mr. Piffles, an act of America's Got Talent and Queer Eye fame. I got to scratch Mr. Piffles under the muzzle after the show. The trio is on tour now with All-Star Vegas, appearing in Cranston, Rhode Island, tomorrow, September 18.

Stornaiolo publishes book of memoir, travel tracts

Ugo S. Stornaiolo Silva has published a new book, Wandering Meanderings (Into the Idea of Love): The Libertarian Catholic Essays (2023-2025) (2025) (Amazon).

Polymath Stornaiolo writes on political theory, history, and law, and authors poetry, besides. His poetry is collected in Princely Rhymes (2023) (Amazon). This latest book is deeply personal, intermingling interests with memoir and travel log. Here is the publisher's description.

Wandering Meanderings is a memoir-in-essays by a man between homelands, Catholic by anchor, boundless by culture, who keeps a passport in one pocket and notebook in the other.

From Kraków trams, Viennese Mass, and Westminster corridors to nameless winter streets, these essays track how love, friendship, and meaning are made at human scale: slowly, locally, face to face.

For him, beauty wrestles with the sublime, proximity argues with digital distance, and mentors, muses, and peers form the living triad of a life, as Erasmus and Thomas More hover like friendly ghosts, Lords Acton and Byron quarrel on his shoulders, and Leo Tolstoy and Mark Fisher speak across the dark. Travel becomes a way of thinking, and thinking a way of keeping faith with places and people.

This is a conservative book of affections, a romantic book of cities, and a refusal of modern affectations. Attention is not love, algorithms aren’t providence, and abundance without presence is a desert. The remedy is old and demanding: fidelity to the near until meaning appears.

Part travel log, part philosophical meditation and part confession, Wandering Meanderings invites anyone who has felt out of place yet alive to truth, beauty, and goodness to step back onto the pilgrim’s road into the idea of love itself.

Stornaiolo works as a legal researcher for the Centre for Law and Religious Freedom at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. He serves as an associate editor for The Miskatonian and writes as well for The Libertarian Catholic and for the Mises Institute.

I have featured Stornaiolo's work here on The Savory Tort before, including two books that preceded Princely Rhymes: Jueces Como Soberanos: Una Exploración Jurídico-Política del Poder Supremo de la Corte Constitucional Ecuatoriana (2022) (Amazon), and Achaean Disputes: Eight Centuries of Succession Conflicts for the Title of Prince of Achaea (2024) (Amazon).

Stornaiolo is an Ecuadorean and European attorney, now living in Kraków, and a friend, colleague, and former LL.M. student of mine. He kindly has visited my U.S. classes via Zoom to speak on topics such as comparative constitutional law and the Ecuadorean case law on the rights of nature.

Kuwait ponders a future after fossil fuels

Kuwait City skyline

Kuwait is an oil country, and Kuwait City glows with prosperity. Kuwaitis know, though, that they can't ride the oil train forever.

Earlier this month, I took part in a program of the Kuwait Bar Association (KBA) and International Association of Lawyers (UIA) in Kuwait on the mediation of energy disputes. (All photos RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

Kuwait Bar Association (Society of Lawyers)

The program addressed both state and corporate actors, which often in the Middle East are functionally the same, as political royals are only formally differentiated from their investments. Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 largely in response to long-running disputes over access to oil reserves under the countries' desert border. So it's understandable that Kuwait, powered by a 70-year-old, $1tn sovereign wealth fund born almost entirely of oil revenue, is an eager evangelist for non-violent dispute resolution in extractive industries.

Kuwait Towers

I spent some additional time in Kuwait, besides the KBA-UIA program, to see the sights of Kuwait City. The first place I went was the iconic Kuwait Towers. Dating to 1979, the towers were designed to be monumental more than functional, architecturally distinct among Kuwait's historical water towers, a remaining few clusters of which dot the urban landscape. Repaired since they were trashed in the Iraq invasion, and refurbished in the 2010s, the Kuwait Towers are a patriotic reminder of a Kuwait that long imported fresh water for its survival, before oil wealth paid for expensive but effective desalinization. 

Dhow model at Marine Museum

On display at the Al Hashemi Marine Museum and the Maritime Museum are Kuwaiti dhows dating to the 19th century. Some were used for pearling, the dangerous prospect but potential big score of a once seafaring economy. Many of the dhows are specially fitted with large water tanks running along the keel.

Thus imported, water historically was famously expensive in Kuwait. There's still a popular maxim that water, the truly scarce resource of the desert, is more expensive than oil. Water still is expensive, or should be, because desalinization is expensive and largely fossil fueled. 

Other legacy water towers

Government subsidies, however, obscure the cost of water. A combined utility bill in Kuwait, including water, electricity, sewer, garbage, etc., might run US$40 or $50 a month, single family—a lot for some locals, especially ex-pat laborers. But even correcting to U.S. cost of living with a 250% multiplier, utilities including water are far cheaper than in the States. Environmentalists fret over the conceit that water is inexpensive. I thought that my hotels would caution about water consumption, as is common in desert countries, not to mention American desert states, but they did not.

In keeping with the maxim, petrol is cheap. I was worried when Europcar warned me that gas stations accept only cash—until I worked out the prices. I filled up my SUV rental's 13-gallon (about 50L) tank for less than US$10.

Evening recreation at Dasman Beach

There's much to see in Kuwait City, in terms of museums and historical sites. What struck me, though, is the prevalence of western influence and a near indifference to foreign tourism. Attractions are aimed at locals. Kuwait excels at affording its people diversions of all kinds, including the educational and recreational: museums, beaches, playing fields. But the focus is decidedly domestic, bringing the world to Kuwaitis, not the other way around.

Texas Roadhouse Beneid Al Gar, one of three Kuwait City locations

Limited opening hours and a ramshackle bus system make many attractions difficult to access for visitors. Ride-share app Careem works well, though drivers speak little English. Some places' websites are in Arabic only. Besides foods, souvenirs are sorely limited: the norm is an assortment of refrigerator magnets and ball caps with cheap, afterthought patches. Walking south from Kuwait Towers on the city's corniche, the extent of Kuwait's Americanization in particular is on full display. Behind the beaches, the chain restaurants line up: TGI Friday's, the Cheesecake Factory, Texas Roadhouse.

One tentacle of sprawling Souq Al-Mubarakiya

Besides the beach, a favorite evening destination for locals is one of the city's many shopping malls, from the central 1,250-square-foot Assima Mall, with its gourmet Monoprix grocery, to the sprawling 334-acre (1.35m-square-meter) Avenues, with more than 1,100 retailers. Notwithstanding the scale and upscale nature of these operations, they are loaded with the sort of western retailers found on main street anywhere. There's plenty to buy, eat, and drink—besides alcohol; Kuwait is a dry country—but very little that is specially Arabian. A more touristically gratifying destination is the city's Mubarakiya Souq, though its modernized storefronts also cater mostly to local needs. The people-watching is better than the shopping.

Camels, highwayside

To see more than just the city, and also to get a closer look at both rural life and Kuwaiti infrastructure, I drove out both to the Iraq border in the north and to the Saudi border in the south. The highway network is impressive, if a work in progress, strong on asphalt, weak on road marking. Polished bridges here and there are designed for the exclusive use of crossing camels.

In both the north and the south, the desert is dotted with green patches of farms, fed, remarkably, by well water. Visiting these farms for markets of fresh produce, petting zoos, and other children's amusements is a seasonal family pastime.

Starbucks Wafra

Near the Saudi border, the town of Wafra is the center of an equine economy. Riding centers, breeding operations, and a market for export speak to the enduring importance of horses in Arabia. On Wafra's dusty outskirts, I was surprised to find a cluster of modern buildings, including a multistory veterinary center and, no kidding, the farthest flung Starbucks I've ever seen. A sign at Starbucks cautioned that horses are not permitted in the drive-thru.

Electric towers in the desert

Strung across the desert landscape is a mind-boggling network of electric towers, stretching lines into the distance from any vantage point. Kuwait imports electricity from Gulf partners such as Qatar and Oman, and even then struggles to meet demand in sweltering summers (e.g., N.Y. Times). Meeting electrical needs is simultaneously an incentive and an obstacle to Kuwait energy transition away from fossil-fuel dependence.

Change through energy transition and emission reduction was a recurring theme at the mediation program, besides the benefits and skills of mediation itself. I did not expect to hear, and am not accustomed to hearing, harsh criticism of fossil-fuel dependence in the Middle East. Yet in a session titled "The Climate Crisis and the Transition Imperative," speakers were adamant opponents of the status quo.

Panelists: Yousef Al-Abdullah; Elena Athwal, Qatar,
founder and CEO of consulting firm Icelis Global; and Sara Akbar

Moderator Sara Akbar, a chemical petroleum engineer, current CEO of Oilserv Kuwait, and a renowned figure in the modern history of Kuwaiti oil development, condemned the "New World Disorder" of Trumpian climate-change denial and on-again-off-again Paris participation. She argued passionately that the global costs of unchecked climate change, including devastated coastal cities and lost lives, will vastly outpace the costs of energy transition to renewables. According to Akbar, even the Kuwait oil industry understands that the era of fossil-fuel dominance in the Kuwait economy must end.

Akbar cited an interesting and alarming local statistic: Kuwait has long monitored the maximum temperature of the Persian Gulf at the sea floor, which reliably marked 95 or 96 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, she said, it routinely exceeds 100 degrees, evidencing the evaporation that is fueling catastrophic rainstorms from Dubai to Bangladesh.

Yousef Al-Abdullah, research scientist at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, discussed the energy transition and emission reduction commitments of Gulf states. In contrast with the U.S. re-withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and Trump Administration promise to double-down on drilling, Gulf states have articulated ambitious aims.

A leader in goal-setting is the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE aims for 47% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. In energy transition, the UAE aims for 15% renewables in its energy mix; has adopted a net-zero target, green hydrogen strategy, independent energy regulator, and national climate law; plans a massive expansion of solar capacity; and is investing more than $14 billion in transition this fiscal year.

Persian Gulf coastline from Kuwait Towers

Kuwait looks weak on the same benchmarks. But that's not the whole story, Al-Abdullah said. Kuwait believes that some neighbors have announced goals they can't realistically meet, such as the Saudi aim to cut 278m tons of annual GHG emissions by 2030, and Kuwait wants to be realistic. Notwithstanding articulated commitments on the international stage, Kuwait has announced targets domestically, Al-Abdullah said, such as net-zero in the oil sector by 2050, and in other sectors by 2060.

Oil production is down over 10 years, Al-Abdullah said, and that's problematic for environmental strategy. The economy remains dependent on fossil fuels, to the tune of 90% of revenues, and a strong economy is needed to transition away from fossil fuels. Production is down for many reasons, including OPEC restrictions; increased competition from other sources, such as Uruguay, Paraguay, Guyana, Mauritania, and Uganda; and rising production costs.

Here my observation on Kuwait's underdeveloped tourism economy is salient, at least in small part. Because Al-Abdullah said that key to Kuwait's future is diversification of the economy, reducing the dominant position of fossil fuels, especially relative to a newly developed service sector. 

In domestic policy, a national plan called "Kuwait Vision 2035" contemplates an economy centered on logistics, leveraging Kuwait's world-crossroads location by, for example, expanding airport and seaport capacity. Vision 2035 imagines a Kuwait that is more livable for residents and hospitable to visitors, expanding highways and building a rail and metro system.

Besides infrastructure, transformation of Kuwait's workforce is required, too. Kuwait suffers an affliction known to other oil-rich states, which is a comfortable, but under-skilled national workforce. Kuwait's education system must rise to meet the challenge of preparing Kuwaitis to participate in the new economy, while the social and economic fabric must expand the job market and incentivize people to enter it.

Like other Middle Eastern states, Kuwait has a worrisome dependence on foreign workers. Ex-pats, whom I mentioned above, constitute some 70% of the resident population and have no pathway to citizenship. Blue-collar workers hale especially from the Asian subcontinent and Pacific rim. Qatar's plight in this regard was highlighted and made controversial by the location of the 2022 FIFA World Cup there; whether reforms were meaningful or sufficient is debatable.

The existing service economy, including legal, financial, and engineering services, depends heavily on ex-pat white-collar workers, too, who make up a fair chunk of that 70%. At the KBA-UIA program, I met lawyers from other Arabic-speaking countries who have worked for years, even decades, in Kuwait. They are generously permitted to practice, more than an out-of-jurisdiction lawyer may in the States, on matters related to their home jurisdictions. But there's no pathway to bar admission, such as might expose the domestic market to competition.

Legal and regulatory reforms will have to complement the development of a service sector and trade center, Al-Abdullah said. I don't think Kuwaitis alone will be able to make that change. Rather, Kuwait will have to open itself up with a more robust immigration framework, affording ex-pats the likes of property and other rights, if not naturalization, to foster a justified sense of ownership in the new economy.

KOC Oil and Gas Exhibition Hall

Apropos of energy transition, one of the most interesting tourist attractions in Kuwait is the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) Oil and Gas Exhibition. The exhibition—reservations required for guided tours only—offers an artfully constructed tour of the history of Kuwait, from its desert and seafaring cultural history, to British protectorate and the discovery of oil, rise to global energy power, and Iraq invasion, destruction, and recovery.

Exhibit dramatizing Kuwait oil extraction: every second, every day

The exhibition is decidedly a paean to oil. But it is not wholly environmentally tone-deaf. One dramatic exhibit shows, with a massive gush of black liquid, the astonishing amount of oil that Kuwait pumps from the earth every second of every day, averaged out. The exhibits don't say it plainly, but there is an undeniable implication that this business model is not indefinitely sustainable.

The next chapter of Kuwait energy policy is ready to be written.

Tchotchkes for sale at the KOC Oil and Gas Exhibition gift shop

Kuwait sign on the corniche

Book details knotty business of higher ed counsel

By attorney Louis H. Guard and academic Joyce P. Jacobsen, All the Campus Lawyers (2024) is a compelling recent read for anyone interested in the law of higher education—whether as a counselor, as a client, or as a victim of higher ed machinations. I've been all three.

Guard and Jacobsen both are affiliated with Hobart and William Smith Colleges—a beautiful double campus I visited just last summer, perched atop Seneca Lake in Geneva, New York, in the Finger Lakes region. Guard is a general counsel there, and Jacobsen a past president and economics professor.

All the Campus Lawyers thoroughly covers the many facets of higher ed practice nowadays, from civil rights and labor, to intellectual property, contracting, and cybersecurity. It is a lot to see it all in one place. At an overarching level of abstraction, the book—which is subtitled, "Litigation, Regulation, and the New Era of Higher Education"—ponders how and why law has become pervasive, and sometimes paralyzing, of higher ed. 

To my reading, Guard and Jacobsen are careful to avoid a normative agenda, and rather strive to be descriptive, instructive, and sometimes even inspiring. But I came away with an uneasy feeling in the belly that law, at least in practice, has a stranglehold on the free-wheeling nature of academic inquiry that classical-liberal society associates with the "quintessential marketplace of ideas." 

If higher ed is just a business—and maybe it always was—law, from the perspective of university counsel, seems to be part of the problem: supporting the business framing with defensive practice and risk aversion, and prizing the institution over the people who constitute it and whom it serves. No doubt my perception is colored by experience.

I stop by the Geneva, N.Y., Welcome Center in July 2024.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Another impression I had of the book was that it is siloed, tending to view the mission creep of law in the higher ed sector to the exclusion of the same phenomenon across American life. Indeed, what business, what person does not need a lawyer to navigate the world today, even if ordinary people have to manage without, usually to their detriment. I'm not sure the problem of law in higher ed can be examined exclusively of "the legalization of American society" (meaning ubiquity of law, not blessing of lawfulness).

Furthermore, there is, to my mind and at one level, a rather simple explanation for law's infiltration of higher ed. With a hat tip to Lincoln Steffens and Clark Mollenhoff: Follow the money. The relevant question might not be why law has become pervasive in higher ed, but why higher ed has become big business rather than collective good or philanthropy. Guard and Jacobsen are too ready to take that twist of mission for granted.

Despite my nitpicks, Campus Lawyers is a worthwhile read for a fuller understanding of the relationship between law and higher ed, and especially for insight into the modus operandi of university counsel.

Here is the publisher's description:

Not so long ago, colleges and universities had little interaction with the law. In the 1970s, only a few well-heeled universities even employed in-house legal counsel. But now we live in the age of tenure-denial lawsuits, free speech battles, and campus sexual assault investigations. Even athletics rules violations have become a serious legal matter. The pressures of regulation, litigation, and legislation, Louis Guard and Joyce Jacobsen write, have fostered a new era in higher education, and institutions must know how to respond.

For many higher education observers and participants, including most administrators and faculty, the maze of legal mandates and potential risks can seem bewildering. Guard, a general counsel with years of higher education law experience, and Jacobsen, a former college president, map this unfamiliar terrain. All the Campus Lawyers provides a vital, up-to-date assessment of the impact of legal concerns on higher education and helps readers make sense of the most pressing trends and issues, including civil rights; free speech and expression; student life and wellness; admissions, advancement, and community relations; governance and oversight; the higher education business model; and on-campus crises, from cyberattacks to pandemics.

As well as informing about the latest legal and regulatory developments affecting higher education, Guard and Jacobsen offer practical guidance to those in positions of campus authority. There has never been a more crucial time for college and university boards, presidents, inside and outside counsel, and other higher education leaders to know the law and prepare for legal challenges.

Of course, it remains to be seen what remains of higher ed after the Trump Administration. Guard and Jacobsen might have accomplished the equivalent of a book about the flu on the eve of the pandemic, in which case, we'll need a revised edition sooner rather than later.

Plaintiff drops privacy suit that stretched to claim against UMass Medical in nationwide data breach

UMass Chan Medical School
Mass. Office of Travel & Tourism via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0

Until six days ago, the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School was defending a privacy suit over a data breach, though the plaintiff liability theories looked thin.

There doesn't seem to be any dispute over the fact of the data breach. UMass Chan was just one of hundreds of organizations nationwide implicated in a breach affecting tens of millions. According to electronic security firm Emsisoft (which has a commercial interest in higher numbers), the breach affected more than 2,700 organizations and the data of more than 94 millions persons (last updated Jan. 18, 2024).

The vulnerability for all of these organizations was a file transfer platform called MOVEit, a product of publicly traded, Burlington, Mass.-based Progress Software Corp. UMass Chan used MOVEit to transfer personal information to other state agencies and programs. Hackers obtained and published the data of more than 134,000 persons, including recipients of state supplemental income and elder services.

According to state officials, WBUR reported, the "exposed data varies by person, but in each case includes the person's name and at least one other piece of information like date of birth, mailing address, protected health information like diagnosis and treatment details, Social Security number, and financial account information." The commonwealth notified affected persons and offered free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.

The complaint filed in federal court in September 2023 sought class action certification. The named plaintiff blamed UMass Chan for weak security and delayed notification resulting in a fraudulent attempt to use her debit card. Wednesday last week, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed without prejudice, meaning the case might not yet be over.

The articulated causes of action, though, were a stretch. That's not to say that the putative plaintiffs suffered no injury. The problem rather is that the law in most states, including Massachusetts, and at the federal level still fails to define data privacy wrongs in a manner on par with the law of Europe and most of the rest of the world.

There was no statutory cause of action in the UMass Chan complaint. The diversity complaint alleged counts of negligence, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment.

Negligence has not been a productive vein for privacy plaintiffs, who lack the usually prerequisite physical injury. Massachusetts cracks open the door more than most other states to negligence actions based on lesser injury claims, such as emotional distress or economic loss. But it's not a wide opening.

Privacy actions in state law meanwhile are problematic because American common law has not yet well established the nature of the plaintiff's loss according to conventional understandings of injury. Indeed, federal courts disagree over when a statutory state privacy action supplies the "injury-in-fact" standing required by the federal Constitution. 

The named plaintiff in the UMass Chan case hastened to emphasize her contractual relationship with UMass Chan as a service provider, in an effort to anchor the negligence claim within a strong relationship of duty to get through the Massachusetts doorway. She described the identity risk of the debit-card incident to establish economic loss at least.

It's not clear that the pleading could have pushed over the hurdles to negligence recovery. I have advocated for the evolution of common law tort to close the gap in recognition of privacy violations in U.S. law, similarly to how UK courts developed the "misuse of private information" tort in common law to complement transposition of EU data protection. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court could do that; certification would be required here in a federal case. But the trend in American data privacy law rather has been for the courts to wait on legislators to move the ball forward.

The other liability theories were a stretch, too. In contract, the plaintiff alleged herself a third-party beneficiary of data sharing agreements between UMass Chan and its state partners. Third parties can claim rights in a contract, but the proof is stringent. Contract law also raises a damages problem. The plaintiff here was not seeking specific performance, and it's not clear that any recovery in contract law would exceed the remediation the commonwealth already offered.

The equitable claim of unjust enrichment theorized essentially that UMass Chan benefited financially by cheaping out on security. That's creative, but a plaintiff in equity usually wants back something she lost to the defendant. A differential in the cost of contract services is speculative, and it's an attenuated causal chain to allege detriment to UMass Chan clients.

Privacy plaintiffs in the United States have seen some success using laws that predate contemporary data breach. But those theories won't work here. Massachusetts once had a leading data regulatory system for its requirements of secure data management. But the law is now well worn and has not kept up with other states, California being the model. Critically, the Massachusetts regs don't provide for private enforcement.

Some plaintiffs have found success with the dated (1986) Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But a federal CFAA claim would be leveled properly against the hacker. The alleged culpability of UMass Chan is more accident than abuse.

American privacy plaintiffs flailing to state wrongs in litigation unfortunately is common and will continue as long as the United States lacks a comprehensive approach to data protection. I wrote 10 years ago already that American expectations in data privacy had outpaced legal entitlements.

The pivotal factor in whether MOVEit breach victims find any relief is likely to be the state where they and their defendants are located. Perhaps the case will push commonwealth legislators at last to act on a bill such as the proposed Massachusetts Information Privacy and Security Act (see, e.g., Mass. Tech. Leadership Council).

The case is Suarez v. The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (D. Mass. filed Sept. 18, 2023).

Western myopia marginalizes war in Sudan, Ecuador

My prayers, especially over the recent holidays, have admittedly felt cliché, if not comical, being dominated by desire for "world peace."

In case Ricky Gervais is right and prayer works like a democratic election (jk; it doesn't), I've focused on the conflicts of the world that my otherwise-trusted David Muir & co., reporting on Israel and Ukraine, seem quick to forget: Sudan and Ecuador.

I've written previously about Sudan (Apr. 2023, Sept. 2023). The New York Times in December reported a death toll in excess of 10,000 and displaced persons rounding 6 million. My friend from Khartoum remains safe abroad, but it looks increasingly like there will be nothing to come home to. I just read in Christianity Today that hospitals have been targeted and destroyed by the warring generals in the unscrupulous scorched-earth struggle.

I'm the last to rush to judgment with the r-word, but is there another explanation for seeming western indifference to this ongoing tragedy?

And then there's Ecuador, which in recent weeks also has entered a chaotic kind of civil war. It's a country dear to me for personal history there, but also of professional interest for fascinating and groundbreaking developments in constitutional law in recent years.

The Daniel Noboa Administration declared war on organized crime after drug lords were broken out of prison, almost certainly with the help of corrupt insiders. As Noboa cracked down, the country was besieged by retaliatory violence, especially in the Guayaquil Canton.

Efforts to remedy the desperate situation are closely related to the social and economic prosperity Ecuador experienced in recent decades. Ecotourism, again especially in Guayaquil, an access point for the Galápagos, had been an engine of economic and social development, precipitating recognition of rights of indigenous people and of nature with which the nation's courts were experimenting.

When I was last in Guayaquil about a dozen years ago, it was safe enough to walk around, for me, at least, by day. Security and the economy were on the upswing. On January 9, 2024, in contrast, the world was horrified to see armed terrorists, some of them teenagers, holding guns to the heads of journalists in a Guayaquil news station broadcasting live. My friend Ugo Stornaiolo Silva, an Ecuadorean lawyer living and working in Poland, reports that his family in Ecuador is safe, but the hatches are battened down. Domestic travel is out of the question.

Elected only in November 2023, Noboa promised to get a grip on drug trafficking and restore the rule of law. In a sense, then, the present violence is a promising sign of a much needed reckoning. Yet it remains to be seen whether the cause is winnable. Observers predict a bloody road ahead, or maybe worse if Noboa wavers in his resolve.

Ecuador's problem is part of the wider narrative of drug trafficking and human migration through Colombia and Central America, driven by the wealth, demand, and relative opportunities of the United States. America's backyard is declining into a mega-narco-state, while neither of our only choices of political party has demonstrated the will or ability to tackle the problem even in its domestic dimension.

Say what you will about China, the PRC recognizes that stability in its neighborhood is essential to the country's own national security. The means to the ends of course are problematic, exemplified by Nauru's recent change of alignment from Taiwan to China. But that matter again demonstrates the ascendancy of Chinese foreign policy over America's apparent appetite for isolationism.

Pray for world peace, as a spiritual matter. Know that it will only happen with American commitment, as a political matter.

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As often happens in the course of the school year, my personal blogging in the fall semester had to yield to professional workload. I have been logging matters I'm eager to share and will endeavor to catch up in the coming months.