Quick Hits – February 24, 2022

Let’s catch up on a few short but fascinating stories:

If you have nothing to hide, they’ll find something!

We briefly discussed this story in last week’s column covering license plate reading cameras.

To fill in a few of the blanks, on Easter Sunday 2021, a pregnant Wooddale woman visited the Amita Health St. Alexius Medical Center ER in Hoffman Estates complaining of high blood pressure likely related to a previous preeclampsia diagnosis. As a matter of course, the medical staff collected blood and urine samples which the woman assumed would be used for further diagnostic purposes.

Ah! But unbeknownst to her, Amita also tested the urine for drugs, which, considering that beyond blatant violation of every Fourth Amendment right, is quite difficult to fathom.

Give the above average intelligence of my average reader, I’m sure you’ve already surmised the test came back with a false positive. And after an obstetrician confronted her with the opioid result, despite explaining that she’d eaten a traditional “makoweic” Polish poppy seed cake for Easter desert, with absolutely no other evidence of drug use, the fine folks at St. Alexius reported her to DCFS anyway.

What could possibly go wrong with that, right?

Though, this time, DCFS actually did their job so this poor woman had to endure:

• Having a third party move in with them before she could take her child home
• DCFS agents randomly visiting the home to check on the child
• Regularly being drug tested

Sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it?

After a few months of this rigmarole, DCFS finally admitted that St. Alexius’ charge was “unfounded,” but by then, what should’ve been a joyous event had already been turned into a flippin’ nightmare.

Though the Tribune didn’t report the damages sought, the Illinois ACLU is representing this woman in a lawsuit against Amita for the non-consensual drug test and sending her “case” to DCFS despite a more than reasonable explanation for the false positive.

Of course, St. Alexius’ attorneys will pound their fists on the defense table and self-righteously proclaim the hospital is a mandated reporter, but that argument will fall completely flat when the judge considers the abject illegality of the drug test itself.

This is yet another a perfect example of the pandemic incited imperiousness that’s beset most hospital administrators and staffers. I’d add MDs to that list, but everyone already knows the joke about the difference between God and a doctor.

With the too-predictable general sweaty public having engaged in their too-typical pendulum swinging overboard effort to canonize “frontline workers,” doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators are starting to believe they really are “saints” who can do no wrong, and thus, they can simply ignore the legal boundaries that constrain the rest of us.

But more importantly, this not-nearly-rare-enough scenario is exactly why we can unequivocally enjoy our inalienable Constitutional rights. And to any idiot who claims having “nothing to hide” is your best defense, in the words of the great philosopher Bill Engvall, “here’s your sign.” All this woman did was eat desert and she went through three months of hell because of it.

I hope she takes St. Alexius for everything they’re worth.

Bitching effectively does work!

I can’t remember the exact timing, but around two or three years ago, I sent then Geneva, Illinois, Electric Superintendent, Hal Wright, an email detailing the incessant West Side power outages that were plaguing my Fisher Farms neighbors and driving us nuts.

Every summer, regardless of the temperature or any specific weather condition, there were a plethora of short ten second outages interspersed with three or more one-to-three-hour blackouts. As one neighbor put it, “All it took was for one cloud to appear in the sky and the power went out.”

Not only did this power perplexity make it difficult to get any work done, but despite whatever power strip precautions were in place, those shorter outages had a nasty propensity to destroy electronic equipment.

But instead of ignoring me, making excuses, and blaming ComEd, Mr. Wright directly responded to my missive, not only agreeing with my basic precept, but he acknowledged that the Geneva electric utility could, and should do better.

I have to say this journalist was quite impressed with that kind of unflinching public official reply. Perhaps Mr. Wright could supplement his retirement income by his providing his former peers with lessons on how to effectively deal with the press.

It was certainly far better than the rabble’s response to posting that email on social media. They took it personally because some Genevans seem to think “their city” should be immune from any form of constructive criticism whatsoever because it somehow diminishes them.

Sadly, in a “don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone” Catch 22 dynamic, I hadn’t noticed the vast improvement until a brief outage hit the West Side earlier this month. That’s the point at which I realized that the electric issue hadn’t reared its ugly head for a couple of years.

So, my hat’s off to the former superintendent for being true to his word and presiding over the kind of night-and-day improvement that goes a long way towards restoring one’s faith in municipal government.

Good job, sir!

And what’s that saying about the squeaky wheel?

The WORST COVID symptom yet!

Now, we all knew that COVID-19 would likely have some rare but serious long-term side effects, but not even I thought one of ‘em could be quite this devastating. Why, it’s gotten so bad that even this former anti-mitigation libertarian is leading the call for another round of shutdowns because society clearly can’t cope with this brand of rampant ruin.

Is it some sort of lingering fatigue? Does it involve children (well, kind of)? Are we talking about a zombie apocalypse? No! it’s nothing nearly that mild. Brace yourselves! Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham said marriage license applications have soared almost 30 percent in the last pandemic year.

And Kane County’s not nearly the only one to experience this nuptial spike, either. 

All I can say is, “Oh, the humanity!”

It’s gotta be a symptom of the disease because logic and sanity would dictate that being stuck inside and working from home with your significant other day after day after day after day would have exactly the opposite effect. Shouldn’t the divorce rate be skyrocketing? Shouldn’t breakup parties be the norm? Shouldn’t folks be swearing off that “secondhand emotion” forever?

I know it’s too late for me, but you single folks can still save themselves. Yes! Married men live longer than their unmarried counterparts, but so do animals living in captivity. I don’t care what you have to do – get vaccinated, hide in the crawl space, become a priest or nun – do whatever it takes to fight off this deadly COVID complication before it’s too late.

You can thank me later.

Now, who’s willing to hide me from my wife for a couple of weeks?

I wouldn’t want to join any club that would have me as a member

So, the Geneva School Board has two openings and the City of Geneva Ethics Commission has a similarly vacant seat.

I’m thinking of applying for both. I figure I’m a shoo-in!