Who Thought That Was A Good Idea?

When natural disasters strike, it's sometimes hard to grasp the magnitude of the disaster, whether it's a forest fire, earthquake, or hurricane.  Sometimes a single photograph can perfectly capture the scope of the disaster.  Like this one, a photo published in the Chicago Tribune on 4/20/13 showing a flooded neighborhood in Des Plaines, IL, a Chicago suburb (north at the bottom).

 

In this neighborhood, the river forms a tight loop and the street of houses inside the loop are completely flooded.   Towards the bottom of the photo, you can see an area which is a spillway into a lake, presumably to give the river a place to go when the water gets high.   In this case, the spillway was no match for the river.

This is a google maps image of the neighborhood (north at the top):

So, here's the question: who on earth thought this tongue of land surrounded on three sides by a "flat" river that often overflows was a good place to build houses?  These are not vacation homes, they're year-round homes about 8 miles from O'Hare International Airport.  I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but was it a good idea to build houses there?  Really?  And undoubtedly repair or rebuild them over and over?  Really?

This river is one of several in Northeast Illinois that are flat, meandering rivers that don't have much in the way of river banks to hold them in their channels.  For many years, anytime there's a significant rainfall, these rivers tend to fill up and overflow, although not as badly as was caused by last week's 6-7 inches of rain in 24 hours.  So if the "weird" weather patterns of the past several years is any indication of what's happening climate-wise, we might expect that flooding is going to get more frequent.  

I suspect that we ought to be having a discussion about moving residences away from flood-prone rivers as well as from coastal areas that are repeatedly hammered by hurricanes, and hillsides prone to mudslides.   But I doubt that we'll have that conversation.

It's Just Not Going Away

It's a good thing that so many people and news outlets and bloggers are now paying attention to the proliferation of guns.   The DailyKos blog site is tracking news stories about a ridiculously long list of "gun fails" in which people have shot themselves, friends, neighbors, pets, and floors by accident or incompetence or both.   Some of these incidents are actually funny in a sick sort of way, such as the Indiana case of a police officer responding to an emergency call to find a drunk guy with a pistol and shotgun, a jug of urine, along with a bunch of shot up television sets.  Some are more disturbing, like the guy hired by a Michigan school as a guard after the Newtown murders, who left his pistol in a restroom "for a few moments."  Read over this list at DailyKos and remember these people are all around us. 

Absolutely Horrifying

Part and parcel of our current consternation over 20 kindergarten kids murdered in Connecticut is the 800 pound gorilla in the room: our healthcare system and its inability to adequately help our citizens suffering from mental illness in its various forms.   

This blog article by a mother of a teenager with serious mental health issues is horrifying and puts the spotlight on what may have happened in Connecticut.  Read "I am Adam Lanza's mother."

Don't Want To Pay For Certain Government Spending? Too Bad.

Jon Stewart says it all so well it doesn't need elaboration.   Don't like paying for some part of government spending?   Quit whining and get used to it.

On his 3/5/2012 Daily Show, Stewart commented on "conservatives' reaction to Rush Limbaugh's incendiary remarks about Sandra Fluke and her congressional testimony on birth control coverage."  Another example of why Stewart's considered our "greatest public intellectual" by a Loyola University bioethicist.

It's about an insurance mandate from the government covering contraceptive medications as part of overall health care.  It's not your tax money that pays for it.  I'm not even going to get into your round-about argument about how somehow money is taken out of your pocket to pay for Georgetown's private insurance plan...

I'm just saying to the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don't like: Welcome to the $%&#* club.  Everyone pays for $%&#* they don't want to all the time.   You know what?  Reimburse me for the Iraq War and oil subsidies, and guess what, then diaphragms are on me.  Prophylactics are on the house.

Indeed.   We're not talking about tax dollars here, we're talking about health insurance.  Let me know when we all get to exclude various government activities and spending from our personal tax dollars.  I can put my list together pretty quickly, how about you?

Health and Politics-A Very Bad Mix

The scandal of the month appears to be the short-lived "non-political" decision by the Susan Komen Foundation to cut it's ties to Planned Parenthood, which has used Komen Foundation money to provide breast cancer screening and support to thousands of women.  The Foundation defended its decision because they have a "policy" that prohibits them from making grants to organizations "under investigation."   What investigation was targeting Planned Parenthood (PP)?  In case you hadn't heard, Republican Representative Cliff Stearns of Florida has launched a Congressional Investigation of PP.  That's not even close to a criminal investigation, which most of us might consider possibly valid rationale for a charity to guard its grant money.  Congressional investigations are a dime a dozen and signify nothing, beyond some political agenda.

In this case, Representative Stearns is an avowed opponent of PP and has vowed to find a way to cut off all federal funds the group receives.  PP is already prohibited from using those funds to provide abortion services, but that is apparently not good enough for Mr. Stearns.
What's even worse than the Congressional witch-hunt, is the lame and unbelievable defense that the Komen CEO presented for the Foundation's action.  When word spread that the Komen Foundation had succumbed to heavy pressure from abortion opponents to cut ties with PP, CEO Nancy Brinker maintained that the decision had nothing to do with her recent hiring of a former conservative Georgia gubernatorial candidate as Vice-President for Public Policy.  Karen Handel lost her race for nomination in 2010 after campaigning on an anti-Planned Parenthood platform.  Brinker announced that Handel "had nothing to do with" the Foundation decision to cut off PP funds, despite the fact that Brinker had already said the action was taken in conformance with a new Foundation "policy."  Who could possibly believe that the person in charge of public policy wasn't involved?  It's just plain ridiculous.


The good news is that Planned Parenthood raised nearly a million dollars in the few days after the Komen announcement, and the Internet was filled with angry people who vowed to never participate in another Komen "Race for the cure" fundraiser.  

Don't forget, this is the same foundation that filed lawsuits a year or so ago against other charities who they alleged were infringing on Komen's "trademark" of the words "for the cure."   Can you say charity acting like a corporation?
    

Fracking-NIMBY

You know all that controversy about fracking to retrieve oil and natural gas from shale deposits?   It's a process where drillers pump chemicals, water, and sand into underground deposits to break up the rock and force gas to the surface to be collected.

Fracking has come to suburbia.   This 12/27/11 Marketplace story explains that because many States have no laws either authorizing municipalities to regulate drilling within their boundaries or banning such regulation, companies are now installing drilling rigs in residential neighborhoods.  Suburban sub-divisions!

According to the story, "companies only need to maintain a set-back of 150 feet when putting up rigs near homes. It's the minimum clearance needed to avoid damage -- in case the rig tips over."   

I suspect that the rig tipping over is the least concern of most homeowners, considering the largely unknown side-effects of the chemicals used and the impact on the environment (e.g., underground water supplies).   How would you like a derrick 150 feet from your house?  That would probably be a great, big, NIMBY.

Just What We Need (Not)

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson has identified yet another reason why Michele  Bachmann is just what we don't need in a national leader: more ignorance.  The latest dust-up is Bachmann's position opposing requiring (or encouraging?) adolescent girls to receive the effective human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.  The vaccine prevents acquiring HPV and, in turn, vastly reduces the future chances of being stricken with cervical cancer, most of which is caused by HPV.


Instead of even attempting to argue logically against the requirement, Bachmann chose to demonize her opponent (Gov. Perry of Texas, another member of the Republicant brain-trust, NOT), for signing a law requiring the HPV vaccination.   She didn't cite religious reasons, or even some sort of government intrusiveness reasons.   She chose to lump the HPV vaccine in with suspect un-named vaccines that cause "retardation."  She went off the rails and downhill from there.


As those friends of yours who think Bachmann is just what this country needs, why it is that we need more ignorance.