Chicago Fire
I suppose I should say something about the fire here in Chicago last night. Yes, the fire was on my street, LaSalle. No, it wasn't really near me. I mean, comparatively it was a hell of a lot closer to me than anyone else you know... but the LaSalle Bank building is south of me a few city blocks. It's at 135 South LaSalle, and I'm at 1000 North... so I wasn't in any danger. I hear that 22 fire fighters were hospitalized from smoke inhalation-related injuries... but that no one died in the fire. What a fantastic job the Chicago Fire Department did. I mean, as far as dangerous jobs, fire-fighting is probably, domestically, at the top... and they were able to stop a fire that took about five hours to extinguish from killing anyone. Great job, CFD!

And then there's a story like this, that really makes me want to puke. If you're not into "reading", then why are you coming to my blog? I hardly ever have pictures... maybe I should change that. Anyway... allow me to highlight why this news story is so terrible. Two teenage boys hit this woman's SUV with a golf ball (no damage done)... went over to her car to apologize, and then walked away. This woman does a U-turn, in her SUV, over the median and runs the two boys down. She then, as a witness reports, got out of her SUV and smoked a cigarette while the two boys lay bleeding. The woman told police she has a history of mental illness... and will probably use 'insanity' as her defense to get out of the three counts of attempted vehicular homicide she will no doubt face (did I mention she went after a third boy after hitting the first two? No? Well, she did.) My question here is, if she in fact does have a history of mental illness... how is she allowed to drive, not just a car, but a huge-ass killer SUV? Maybe we can't stop people with mental illnesses from getting drivers licenses... but shouldn't we be able to limit which kinds of vehicles they can drive? Like, "oh... I see you are prone to want to kill people for hitting your car with small objects? Have a Yugo"... or something. Or at least say, "compact cars only"? I hate SUVs in general. I think they make driving less safe for everyone... especially those with smaller cars. I can't see over an SUV to the traffic ahead. That's dangerous, no matter what anybody else thinks. But, whatever, all this is moot, since the psycho woman probably shouldn't have been driving in the first place. That's all I've got.