A Tribute to William S. Geimer

A Tribute to William S. Geimer Meredith Susan Palmer* * Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Admissions, Washington and Lee University School of Law, J.D., 1985, Washington and Lee University. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.1 Bill Geimer is not a man of material things. But somehow, in the material things that he chose to have around him - the mementos, the odd souvenirs, the offerings from students, clients, friends - I find the story of the man, the teacher, and the lawyer Bill Geimer is to me. In my mind's eye, I see Bill's office here at Washington and Lee as I first saw it, as a hesitant first-year law student approaching the sanctum sanctorum of a faculty member. There is a desktop name plate, regular Army issue, decorated with grenades or something equally militaristic and intimidating. But next to that is a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King, with his stirring words evoking hope for justice and freedom on earth. And next to that, a membership certificate for the Lawyer's Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control, and a drawing of Quijote, lance raised to a windmill. How could this be? While reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable is the everyday task of the law student, no trick of logic could make these disparate pieces fit; one simply had to get to know the man. That one could do so as a law student is itself part of what defines Bill Geimer. The student who came to know Bill heard a story of a kid from the rural south, off to a small state university to play basketball but who, like countless kids before him, spent a bit more time playing than studying. Come Graduation Day, with no game plan, he joined Uncle Sam's family. A grounding in tanks, guns, and tactics preceded duty with the military police, but something else happened during those years. Assigned to assist with an investigation, he finds an aptitude for the law, an appreciation of justice, and a burning sense of the unfairness of justice denied. The young man who returned from service to go on to a distinguished career as a law student at the University of North Carolina was a man with a game plan, and a mission. It was no surprise that Bill's mission as a lawyer was not in the office towers of Atlanta or the corporate boardrooms of Wall Street, but among the plain folks of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and later in the community of migrant farm labor working and living hard under the hot Carolina sun. I see another memento, this time in Bill's home. It's an odd piece of, well, let's call it folk art. Crudely carved, frankly ugly. Taste is a delicate thing, so one observes diplomatically that it is an "interesting" object. There's a story, of course, a story of a client for whom Bill had worked, putting together the paperwork to get a fledgling arts-and-crafts shop off the ground. This client, like many Bill served, claimed not to have the cash to pay. But, the client said, he could give Bill this valuable piece of work. Barter being a fundamentally more honest exchange and thus appealing to Bill, the transaction was concluded. Not until Bill brought his sculpture home did he discover the price tag stuck to the underside, for something substantially less than the agreed-upon fee. He kept the awkward thing, price tag intact, I think as a reminder of his own fallibility, of the ingenuity of the ordinary man, and of the need to forget neither. Another memento, in some ways the most important to this former student, is a large, faded, well-handled poster on the professor's office door. A young man in Carolina Blue goes up for a shot, stretching for the basket, with seconds left on the clock. Anyone who knows Bill Geimer knows that he is devoted to Carolina basketball. In fact, Bill may have spent so much time watching the Tar Heels play that he began to confuse teaching with coaching. As a former student of Bill's, I'm not sure that was a bad thing.

Estimating the costs for the treatment of abortion complications in two public referral hospitals: a cross-sectional study in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Treatment costs of induced abortion complications can consume a substantial amount of hospital resources. This use of hospitals scarce resources to treat induced abortion complications may affect hospitals’ capacities to deliver other health care services. In spite of the importance of studying the burden of the treatment of induced abortion complications, few studies have been conducted to document the costs of treating abortion complications in Burkina Faso. Our objective was to estimate the costs of six abortion complications including incomplete abortion, hemorrhage, shock, infection/sepsis, cervix or vagina laceration, and uterus perforation treated in two public referral hospital facilities in Ouagadougou and the cost saving of providing safe abortion care services

Adult body growth and reproductive investment vary markedly within and across Atlantic and Pacific herring: a meta-analysis and review of 26 stocks

Life-history traits of Pacific (Clupea pallasii) and Atlantic (Clupea harengus) herring, comprising both local and oceanic stocks subdivided into summer-autumn and spring spawners, were extensively reviewed. The main parameters investigated were body growth, condition, and reproductive investment. Body size of Pacific herring increased with increasing latitude. This pattern was inconsistent for Atlantic herring. Pacific and local Norwegian herring showed comparable body conditions, whereas oceanic Atlantic herring generally appeared stouter. Among Atlantic herring, summer and autumn spawners produced many small eggs compared to spring spawners, which had fewer but larger eggs—findings agreeing with statements given several decades ago. The 26 herring stocks we analysed, when combined across distant waters, showed clear evidence of a trade-off between fecundity and egg size. The size-specific individual variation, often ignored, was substantial. Additional information on biometrics clarified that oceanic stocks were generally larger and had longer life spans than local herring stocks, probably related to their longer feeding migrations. Body condition was only weakly, positively related to assumingly in situ annual temperatures (0–30 m depth). Contrarily, body growth (cm × y−1), taken as an integrator of ambient environmental conditions, closely reflected the extent of investment in reproduction. Overall, Pacific and local Norwegian herring tended to cluster based on morphometric and reproductive features, whereas oceanic Atlantic herring clustered separately. Our work underlines that herring stocks are uniquely adapted to their habitats in terms of trade-offs between fecundity and egg size whereas reproductive investment mimics the productivity of the water in question.publishedVersio

Tribute to Professor David Bruck

A tribute to Professor David I. Bruck, who served on the faculty of the Washington and Lee University School of Law from 2004 to 2020. Bruck directed W&L\u27s death penalty defense clinic, the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse, also known as VC3 . He became Professor of Law, Emeritus in 2020

Self reported skin morbidity and ethnicity: a population-based study in a Western community

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent studies have shown ethnic differences concerning cardio-vascular disease, diabetes and mental health. Little is known about ethnic differences in skin morbidity. The purpose of this study was to describe possible ethnic differences in self-reported skin morbidity in a Western urban community.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The design was cross sectional. 40 888 adults in Oslo, Norway, received a postal questionnaire providing information on socio-demographic factors and self-reported health, including items on skin complaints.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>18770 individuals answered the questionnaire. In the sample 84% were from Norway. The largest immigrant group was from Western countries (5%) and the Indian Subcontinent (3%). Itch was the most prevalent reported skin symptom (7%), and was significantly more reported by men from East Asia (18%) and Middle East/North Africa (13%). The same observations were seen for reported dry and sore skin. Hair loss was a dominating complaint for men from the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East/North Africa (23% and 25%) and for women from the same ethnic groups. Women from Sub-Saharan Africa reported significantly more pimples than in the other groups (17%).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The study showed that there were significant differences in self-reported skin complaints among ethnic groups. Issues concerning the cultural value of some skin symptoms should be examined further.</p

Adolescent pregnancies in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador: a rights and gender approach to adolescents' sexual and reproductive health

In the Andean region of Latin America over one million adolescent girls get pregnant every year. Adolescent pregnancy (AP) has been associated with adverse health and social outcomes, but it has also been favorably viewed as a pathway to adulthood. AP can also be conceptualized as a marker of inequity, since it disproportionately affects girls from the poorest households and those who have not been able to attend school