Kenneth Feinberg who oversaw the 9/11 victim's compensation fund will do the same for the Boston One fund meant to provide funds to those killed or wounded in Boston on April 15. Feinberg seems to me an admirable and solomonic character. I wrote about him here at Commonweal last December "The Appraisal Czar," drawing on his accounts of the many compensation efforts he has judiciously and successfully led (not without criticism, of course, often from the victims--this is America!).He is a lawyer who specializes in arbitration though in today's Times report he remarked, When people come to see me, he said of disaster victims and their families, Id be better off with a divinity degree or a degree in psychiatry. Perhaps Boston College could provide an honorary M.Div.

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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