Some Ideas Are Just Better Than Others

Even if the title is none too clever...

While the FDA is fending off a DHS plan to deliver anti-anthrax medication to every household in America, the USPS is going to test a simpler, smarter idea very plainly titled "Operation Medicine Delivery" by delivering 37,000 empty pill bottles to selected ZIP codes.  Here's the blurb from the ECHO (Emergency & Community Health Outreach) Team

"On May 6 a government exercise called "Operation Medicine Delivery" could be happening in your neighborhood and the neighborhoods of the people your organization serves - help people be informed!

On Sunday, May 6, U.S. Postal Service volunteers will make an unusual delivery of an empty pill bottle in selected Twin Cities' neighborhoods. People living in ZIP codes 55101, 55102, 55411, and 55422 (parts of Saint Paul, Minneapolis, Robbinsdale, Golden Valley, and Crystal) may receive an empty pill bottle in their mailbox - that's approximately 37,000 residences.

The pill bottle delivery is part of "Operation Medicine Delivery," an exercise designed to see how fast postal teams can deliver medicine to homes in a simulated public health emergency. ECHO's role in this event is to make sure that non-English speaking residents of these ZIP codes get the information they need to understand what the test is and why it is happening.

To help with this, ECHO has created materials in four languages (English, Spanish, Hmong, and Somali) including:

An Educational Video: These 3-4 minute videos will help community members learn more about the exercise. They are streamable online for free and are available on DVD upon request by emailing olson@echominnesota.org These videos are ideal for playing in waiting rooms and other public spaces. View them here.

An Outreach Flier: These fliers can be used to hand out at events, hang on community bulletin boards, distribute at community markets, and more. They can also be emailed to the mailing lists, clients, and staff in PDF form. View/download here.

A 5x7 Inch Advertisement: These advertisements can be used in print publications, posted online, in church bulletins, and more. Due to space limitations, they contain less information than the fliers. View/download here.

Translated Webpages: These webpages contain the video explaining the exercise, the information that is on the flier, as well as links to additional resources. View here.

A Pre-Event Audio Message: This is an audio version of the postcard residents will receive the week of May 1 explaining the exercise. Postcard recipients will see translated sentences directing them to ECHO's pre-recorded phone line (888.883.8831). Upon calling, listeners have the option to have the postcard read to them in either English, Spanish, Hmong, Somali, Vietnamese, or Karen. Read scripts and listen to audio here.

Please help get this important information to households in these four ZIP codes! Spread the information in English and also pass along the translated materials to those that may better understand this information in their native language.

Contact wanduragala@echominnesota.org to learn more about using these resources to communicate to the communities that your organization serves.

Thank you!

The ECHO Team"

Does This Strike Anyone Else As An Over-reaction?

At tale of two bomb scares...

Take One

This week Two World Financial Center, a 44 story, 2.4 million square foot office building in New York City, was completely evacuated because someone was concerned a gag hand grenade plaque might be a real grenade? Even if it were a real Mk2 hand grenade - which has a bursting radius of 10 meters - is dumping the entire building required?  How about simply clearing the floor where it was found? A "belt and suspenders type" could add the floor above it and below, but all 44 floors? Seems like a serious overabundance of caution by people who have seen one too many Hollywood special effects explosions on MacGyver.  At some point it seems we'd want to assess the risk that an evacuee will take a tumble, aggravate an existing medical condition, or die in a crush while evacuating an entire building due to the presence of a device - if it were real - intended to destroy a room.

Take Another

In Bomb Threats As a Denial-of-Service Attack Bruce Schneier and his minions have been examining the impact of the non-stop daily bomb threats at the University of Pittsburgh over the past week.  My first comment went like so:

Back in the day some telephonic malefactor was shutting down one of our fabs with daily bomb threats. When a threat was received in the mid-afternoon the predictable effect of the company's standard response was to provide employees an extra long break and then dismiss them for the day with pay. Needless to say no device was ever found, not that you'd need much more than a blasting cap in the right place to conflagrate the usual semi-conductor manufactory. When the fab manager announced the next evacuation would compromise the week's production another response was implemented. [When the next call was received] the threat was described on the public address system inside the fab, staff members were asked to inspect their work area for any unusual or unexpected items, no suspicious packages were found, and work resumed. The threats stopped.

This week the reign of fearfulness at University of Pittsburgh continues and seems to be drawing out the copycats and other nutjobs. Perhaps it's time to quit evacuating before some loose screw attacks students at the rally points?  Will it take a student "sit-in," or a tuition-payers' class action suit, to break the cycle being perpetuated by the administration's reflexive response to the pranksters?

Somebody please let me know if I'm way out of calibration on these cases.

The Latehomecomer

A Hmong Family Memoir...

We had the pleasure to meet Kao Kalia Yang at the 2010 Building Bridges Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College while our daughter Cassandra was an undergrad there.  As we listened to her read from her memoir The Latehomecomer I knew I would enjoy it.  Her story is at once foreign and familiar; who among us spent their childhood in a refugee camp, who has not loved their grandmother?  With a gentle, insistent voice that is as much poetry as prose she tells a story similar to those I've heard from my Hmong friends and colleagues.  If you'd like to become better acquainted with our Hmong neighbors here in the Upper Midwest, or want to see the New American experience through the eyes of a six year old, or simply wish to read an elegantly written, heartfelt memoir, The Latehomecomer is for you.

Hawley Channels His Inner Schneier

Bin Laden was bad, but Bruce was relentless...

In his recent Wall Street Journal essay Kip Hawley - former Transportation Security Agency administrator - sounds very much like is his former arch nemesis and voice of reason Bruce Schneier.  Bruce's followers noticed.  Bruce responded.

By the way, now that he's no longer head of the TSA, Kip has written a tell all book about what someone ought to do to fix his former agency.

Bad Day on the Quad Revisited

The Reynoso Report is out...

The use of OC spray on passively resisting Occupy demonstrators at UC Davis in November 2011 certainly looked like the application of excessive force.  Seems a task force helmed by retired state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso agreed.

"Our overriding conclusion can be stated briefly and explicitly. The pepper spraying incident that took place on November 18, 2011 should and could have been prevented."

The report (the bulk of which the Kroll investigation contained in the appendix) is sharply critical of the administration and the police, but makes it clear that responsibility for the incident is shared by the trustees of the university, administrators, the chief of the police department, members of its command structure, and Lt. John Pike who actually pulled the trigger on the OC dispenser.

It was a bad day on the quad for everyone except the Occupy Movement, who scored a gratuitous public relations coup.  But it could have been worse.  Choreographing an appropriate response to passive resistance and civil disobedience is not an escalation of force issue.  It calls for cool heads and resolute hearts.  The situation could have gone very badly wrong - a Kent State sort of wrong, no thanks to the actions, inactions, abdications, and bad calls of those in authority at UC Davis that day.

In the words of Sgt. Esterhaus, "Let's be careful out there."


Image by Louise Macabitas