Wasting 5 million dollars

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

While I’m in favor of a stronger safety net for the sick, if people are able-bodied, I think they should work. This sounds like a good reason to let copyright lapse when an author dies:

Mr. Clarke was a rascally nine-year-old when he inherited that jewel. Ever since, as “Goodnight Moon” has drifted toward the center of America’s collective consciousness, he has floated on the fringes of society. No steady job. No fixed place of abode. Dozens of arrests. Rarely has his life traced a path through terrain even remotely resembling the world of Ms. Brown’s stories. Over the years, that world has yielded to him nearly $5 million. Today, he has $27,000 in cash.

“I’m an inept bungler when it comes to business matters,” Mr. Clarke says, as ash drops from his cigarette into the folds of his trousers. “If it wasn’t for the fact that Margaret Wise Brown left me an inheritance, who knows? I could’ve been a homeless person. I could’ve been a poor, broken-down homeless person.”

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