My experience as chairman of the President's Commission on Organized Crime, which fulfilled its mandate and disbanded last March, taught me just how sensitive a topic drug testing is with the public, and how quick the media can be to jump to conclusions.
Swift rightly observed that legal battles take forever, political action could take just this side of forever, but that appealing to public opinion could be the surest and quickest arena to achieve her aim: compensation for artists.
That said, locals speak in hushed tones in public and are quick to notice foreigners who talk too loudly on trains, buses or in coffee shops; doing so comes across as being careless at best, and rude at worst.
The second reason why economists may feel particularly reviled is more mundane: The public is quick to trace failures in any policy area back to "some academic scribbler of a few years back" (as Keynes put it in a famous quote).
The syndromic surveillance allowed an early warning for this outbreak to be issued and a quicker public health response by the armed forces.
The vast majority of users of digital public services are honest and expect quick and responsive services.
HENDRIK HERTZBERG: Hard to imagine how there could be more public pressure for "quicker and more innovative action" at this point.
How members of the public are given quick, fair and cost effective access to justice is the real issue.
Democrats say public works construction is a quick and effective way to lift employment.
Critics say online registries, while popular with the public, are a "quick fix" to a complex issue and could stigmatize and victimize marginal offenders and ultimately produce more sex crimes than they prevent.
