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.

Sometimes You Just Want to Unplug From The World

So yesterday was a bit weird.   I received a letter from Capital One, thanking me for "applying for a credit account from the above merchant," and informing me that they were "unable to approve" my application "at this time."  I examined "the above" and found "Best Buy Company."   Here's the problem: I hadn't applied for a credit card from Best Buy.

I was a little alarmed and called the number in the letter that had been provided for obtaining "specific reasons or to review" my application.   I think I reached someone who was in the U.S., but it quickly became clear that it was someone who was working only with scripts and had little or no idea what Capital One did or why.  I explained that I had not applied for a Best Buy credit card and she stumbled through changing scripts to the "fraud" script.  After a lengthy pause, she asked me for name, address, date of birth, and the "reference number" in the letter.  After several more pauses she told me that someone applied online using my name and that it was OK, because Capital One required "additional verification" so the application had been denied.   I asked if that meant someone had used my correct name, address, and date of birth.   I'm not certain what her answer was, because she stumbled through that part of the script also, repeating Capital One's requirement for "verification." 

She told me the "least she could do" (I swear that's what she said a couple of times) was put a notation on the application file that it had not come from me and she would also enter it into Capital One's "fraud database."   I asked if that meant that should I actually apply for credit from a business that uses Capital One, I would be subject to providing additional "verification" information.  Her response: "That's a good point."  I wanted to ask what was the "most she could do" but by that time, it was clear it was the same as the "least."  That was apparently all her scripts told her.

The letter also included information about the credit bureau Capital One had used, Trans Union, who I could ask for the information used from their records, since "our credit decision was based, in whole or in part, on information provided..." by Trans Union.  There was an 800 number to call, so I called it.  As might be no surprise, Trans Union has designed its phone system to shield their employees from any contact with the public, and all the options were for automated systems to buy one of their "products," or obtain a copy of my credit report.   There was no one to ask if my credit report, going forward, will show I was denied credit from Best Buy.

Just a couple weeks ago, we had to close a credit card account because the bank (not Capital One) had identified a questionable online charge, which in fact, was not made by us.  So they issued new cards.  I don't know if it's coincidence, or if I should be very worried about what's going on.   I know Capital One has had a number of humorous TV ads over the years, but my encounter with them makes me wonder whether they are a real bank or that they know what they're doing.  They are clearly not invested in customer service.

The credit bureau report I looked over yesterday showed nothing unusual, so for the moment, everything's OK.  I can't wait to see what's in the mail today.

Debate in the Legislature? Imagine that!

Yesterday, the Illinois House of Representatives had something extremely unusual, a free and open debate on a topic of great interest, including votes on individual components of possible legislation.   It was about gun control and concealed carry of firearms, and was caused by a December Federal Court decision that invalidated the State's existing prohibition on concealed carry of firearms.  I am not a fan of Democratic Speaker of the House Madigan and can't know what his motivation was for the unusual debate yesterday, but it is a welcome breath of fresh air.  

The Republican Party's collective head exploded because it, in their words, was all a publicity stunt.  The Republican minority complained that it was a stunt designed to force legislators to reveal their positions to the public.   Imagine that??

""This is a political stunt," said Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, a former prosecutor. "It demeans this process."

A stunt?   Legislators debating a matter of great import and trying to determine, in public what provisions might have enough support to become law?   A stunt?  Apparently being a former prosecutor is not great preparation for being a legislator.

The legislators debating an issue, as opposed to backroom discussions that lead to a final bill to vote up or down at the last minute, is the way legislative deliberation is supposed to work.  The fact that is was so unusual is a damning commentary on how our State government normally operates (I hesitate to use the term "functions").   I can only hope that our esteemed State lawmakers liked the experience and demand similar behavior on subsequent issues.

NRA lobbyists and their sympathizers complained that the list of possible exemptions to allowing concealed carry was so long, there would hardly be any place left to carry a concealed weapon in Illinois.   Pardon me while I shed a tear.  If Illinois was the only State that did not allow concealed carry of firearms until the Federal Court ruled that could not continue, what's wrong with Illinois being the only State with a very long list of places that concealed carry is not allowed?   Nothing.  Schools, churches, mass transit, malls, stadiums, movie theaters, grocery stores?  What the NRA just does not understand is that a lot of Americans do NOT feel safer knowing their neighbors may be carrying a deadly firearm in his/her pocket.   They feel LESS safe knowing that the public, including unknowable numbers of hot-heads and unbalanced personalities, are armed to the teeth.

Democratic lawmakers voted in favor of prohibiting concealed weapons in places like casinos, libraries, hospitals, mental health centers, child care facilities, stadiums and amusement parks.

"When they get done with this, you won't be able to carry anywhere," said Rep. David Reis, R-Willow Hill, expressing a frustration among many gun rights advocates as they watched restrictions get piled on.

Mr. Reis, maybe that's exactly the point.  

How Will We Remember Ohio?

I'm not sure what I want to accomplish in this post, but I think it's pretty modest.   I think I just want to make people aware of something, read a couple of articles about it, and think about it.  That's not so much to ask, I think.

In August 2012, in Steubenville, OH, a night of teen partying went horribly wrong.   If party after party of under-aged drinking wasn't bad enough, more than one of those parties apparently were the sites of repeated gang-rapes of a 16 year old girl.   Since that night, as the local law enforcement and civic leadership essentially decided to protect the student athletes rather than the female victim, the Internet has stepped in.   Publicity of the incidents, exposure of the students' web posts and tweets boasting of the repeated assaults, videos and photos of the attacks (including one showing the unconscious teen being carried from one party to another for more raping), and assorted other efforts to expose what Steubenville was apparently trying to ignore, have all occurred online.  

Two students have been arrested and are scheduled to stand trial in juvenile court in February, 2013.   None of the party-goers who witnessed the assaults, posted photos and videos of the assaults, and who failed to stop the attacks or report them to law enforcement have been charged.  The online hacktivist group "Anonymous" has gotten involved and leaked some of the evidence and Roseanne Barr has also gotten involved in applying pressure to political leaders in Ohio to ramp up the investigation.   Even porn actress Traci Lords has spoken about how she was raped as a ten year old when she lived in Steubenville, and speculated that the attack and "culture" in Steubenville must have had something to do with her embarking on a porn career.

The undercurrent to the entire sordid episode is that Steubenville has long revered their vaunted football team and is not likely to actively prosecute those students who participated in the rapes, observed the rapes, or failed to stop the rapes.  

Read about it:
New York Times article, one of the first mainstream news stories about the rapes
Boston Globe opinion column on "stigma shift" from victim to accused
The Nation blog on media explosion
New York Magazine story on threats against NYTimes reporter
New York Magazine story about Roseanne Barr involvement
Buzzfeed interview of Roseanne Barr


So, the question is, will Ohio be known as a place that celebrates gang rape, or a place where it is aggressively prosecuted?  I can't image what it must be like to be a female of any age in this town.