Informed Delivery service gives you, and distant snoops, a glance at your mail

 

     "You got a postcard from the University of Richmond Law School yesterday," my older son told us during his weekly phone call from California. "Why didn't you tell me?"
     I answered before the implications of his question had sunk in.
     "Why should we?" I said. "Is there a chance in hell you're going to Richmond?"
     Both my boys, whom you might think of as toddlers, since I sometimes do, are graduating from college this spring (the younger one, champing at the bit to get at Life, graduating a year early). Both are heading off to law school in the fall, God help them and us all.
     "And you got a letter addressed to 'The Steinberg Family' from 'Edie,'" he continued. "What's that?"
     "It was from Cousin Evie," my wife, also on the line, corrected him.
     I asked to know what is going on, and he explained the United States Postal Service has a new feature, Informed Delivery, where you can receive email images of mail you are slated to receive today, or have received for the past week.
     "My name is still associated with your address, so I was able to sign up," he said.
     "This is really creepy," my wife said.
     "It is!" Ross enthused, happily. Suddenly I remember that this was the boy who put a chemical in my glass of milk, causing it to solidify. Who once took a screen shot of my iMac screen, and then contrived for that photo to be displayed on the computer, so nothing I clicked on worked, and it was only when I was at the point of grabbing the computer and hurling it out the window did he laugh and reveal the joke.
     Of course I raced to sign up. The terms of service are extensive, as is typical, and include a little speech about privacy:

For over two centuries, the Postal Service has valued Your privacy, and built a brand that customers trust. When using the Service, the information You provide is accessible to the Postal Service, but may also be collected by third parties such as the companies that control the operating systems of the particular application

     Why is that not comforting? The place can't even capitalize correctly. How are they guarding my privacy?
     The questions were multiple choice answers about places I've lived and, disturbingly, the loan on my car. A dedicated hacker could cut through them like a hot knife through butter. The Postal Service said that is not a problem.
     "I have not heard of any issues with it" said Timothy J. Norman, USPS spokesman for the Chicago area.
     Norman said the service has been very popular, reaching more than 8 million users.
     "This is one of the coolest things we have," he said "You actually see the images of the mail pieces for that day, in a grayscale."
     How long, I wondered, does the USPS keep those photos? Are they building a database of every letter every American receives?
     "I really don't know how long they're available,' Norman said. "I don't think we would probably keep 'em more than 30 days, if that long."
     Reassurance comes in the fact that it's the mail: not exactly a font of fascination, as the first email Tuesday telling me of the bounty I'd have waiting in my mailbox at home.
     One postcard offering FREE ADMISSION to learn about how "STRESS, HORMONES and HEALTH" can be harnessed to fight belly fat. Another from the Chicago Opera Theater is inviting me to a double bill of Donizetti's "Il Pigmalione & Rita." That's it.
     Our veils of privacy are being pulled away one by one. Turns out Amazon has already patented technology so Alexa can overhear a conversation—say, on the mental health of a close relative - and send you advertising for psychiatrists. Given that, I can flip a switch and turn my own damn lights on.
     I imagine the benefit people derive from previewing the mail —"Oh look, my Harry & David catalogue is coming!"— is dwarfed by the potential for abuse.
     Still, my son, whose capacity for mischief is boundless, seemed pretty excited.
     "Now I can know, 'Oh, Mom got mail from a mystery bank in Guam,'" he taunted. "This is so good for domestic abusers or stalkers."
     "Why did you sign up?" I asked.
     "I need to know each piece of mail that comes to the house," he said, reminding me how, when he lived here, we'd both race to the mailbox to be the first to savor the joy of flipping through the fresh stack of letters and periodicals.   
     "Now we don't have that struggle anymore," he said. "It's a valuable service."

Superstar

The Crucifixion by Gerard David (Metropolitan Museum) 

     During NBC's broadcast of "Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert" Sunday night, my wife would occasionally miss a lyric in one of the songs and turn to me with an inquiring look.
    "'What's the buzz? Tell me what's a'  happenin'" I'd say, or whatever the passage in question happened to be. Not because my ears are any better than hers. But because as a teen I memorized the entire double album, not intentionally, but by listening to it over and over again and, if I recall with a cringe, singing along. That sort of thing stays with you.
     I'd be hard-pressed to explain why. Maybe because of the electrifying music. Maybe because of the appeal that a story of a bunch of radical young people changing the world; that would certainly speak to a young person who wanted to at least make a dent. 
     Maybe because  the plot was new, to me. Being raised Jewish, I'd never encountered the narrative before—that surprised people when I told them. They had trouble believing I learned the details of the Easter story from "Jesus Christ Superstar." But really, where else would I get it?  Not like they taught it in synagogue. 
     So Pilate and Herod and Judas and, for the most part, Jesus, were all fresh characters. I bought the double album that everybody bought, with Murray Head and Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, and also saw it on stage, during its record-setting run at the London Palace in 1977.
      So while I have an almost 100 percent consistency avoiding all must-see television, I was on the couch, in position, 10 minutes early. My wife required no prodding, showed up before the first note. The event seemed a throwback to an earlier era, when the nation would pause to watch some vaunted musical event. (The show drew 9.4 million viewers; so not quite the whole nation, more like 3 percent. But close enough to make it the most popular show of the evening, beating "American Idol" and "Sixty Minutes," if only by a hair). 
     The cold opening was a little unexpected—no intro, no throat-clearing, just cue the music and begin. And for a live production it went flawlessly after an initial glitch with the sound.
      How does "Jesus Christ Superstar" hold up?
      Surprisingly well. What "Superstar" did that was so unsettling to the powers-that-be in 1970 was to wrench Jesus away from the clutches of the grim church elders who had kept him prisoner for centuries, and hand the would-be Savior back to the people who first surrounded him, the apostles, particularly Judas. 
     "Superstar" tells the Passion story form the point of view of the man who betrayed Jesus, a twist on a classic narrative that would become standard in musical drama in musicals like "Wicked" where the villain gets his (or her) due. So it was in a sense apt that Brandon Victor Dixon was a far more engaging performer as Judas than John Legend was as Jesus. Christ here is a softer role to begin with, but at times Legend seemed  half asleep. It was as if they cast Ben Carson in the role. (I later learned that Legend produced the special, which would certainly explain how he landed the role). 
     Sara Bareilles, an impressive Mary Magdalene, would not be accused of somnambulism. With pre-Raphaelite beauty and a bell-clear voice, she stole the show from the Son of God as she worked through her conflicted feelings toward him (I'm tempted to say "toward Him," out of respect, but don't want to pander). 
     I'm enough out-of-the-swim, culturally, that I had never heard of either Dixon—Aaron Burr in "Hamilton" and with TV, movie and Broadway credits, or Bareilles, who has sold millions of records, er, downloads. I was barely familiar with Legend: a pop singer of some sort.
     Alice Cooper I recognized, though he was a stiff Herod, upstaged by his orange suit, with none of the leering, porcine dissipation I'd expect in the role—they'd have done better casting John Lovitz, though I suppose he wouldn't be as big of a draw.
     At a time when interpersonal agita far outstrips doctrinal orthodoxy, "Superstar" feels right, where what Jesus taught is a murmur compared to the hopes and complaints of who he taught it to, not to forget his own hopes and complaints. Nothing stood out in a bad way from the nearly half century-old libretto, though I did pause in "Everything's Alright" to wonder at Judas' complaint about Mary Magdalene using "brand new and expensive" oil on Jesus' feet, when it could have raised "300 silver pieces or more" to aid the poor. That must be some high-end oil.
     What really made the show, for me, was the ensemble, the look, feel and energy of the production. The Roman ruins arching overhead, the multi-level orchestra on scaffolding. I liked the hip haircuts, the tattoos, the dancing. The costumes were eye-catching, particularly the black quilted robes of the Pharisees.
    Speaking of which: I never agreed with those who accused "Superstar" of being anti-Semitic. Yes, the role of the Jews in the condemnation of Christ has been a pretext for anti-Semitism for millennia; no, that doesn't mean every artistic endeavor has to try to correct that real-life wrong. Their villainy is intrinsic to the plot; someone has to start the ball rolling for Jesus' downfall, and the leaders of the religion he's rebelling against are the obvious candidates. It's always a mistake to pretend that haters hate you for a reason. The hate comes first, the reasons afterward, and "Superstar" could portray the rabbinic court condemning Jesus as Yoda and the Jedi Council acting reluctantly out of love and compassion and a desire to execute God's plan and it wouldn't make a bit of difference on 4chan. 
       Sunday night set a high bar for Lyric Opera of Chicago's "Jesus Christ Superstar," opening at the end of April, this year's example of classic musical theater inhabiting the opera house. I was just wondering whether NBC's live production will dampen Chicago's appetite for more "Superstar" or whet it, and my wife, as if to answer the question asked, "We have our tickets, right?" 
     I thought hard.
     "Yes we do," I said.

Warning: Too many warnings dilute the value of being warned

 

     The Santa Barbara Biltmore is swanky. An enclave of Spanish revival cottages tucked amongst lush vegetation and tiled fountains. Right on the Pacific Ocean, you can do a few laps in its enormous pool, then step onto a sandy beach.
     A guest in one of the bungalows, say Fremont — they each have names — could wake up, feeling luxurious and pampered, wrap himself in a thick white robe and, musing whether to splurge on a room-service breakfast in the charming little courtyard, lazily flip open the menu and, among the freshly squeezed juices and sinful waffles, be confronted with:

                                       WARNING

Chemicals Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer or Birth Defects or Other Reproductive Harm May Be Present In Foods or Beverages Sold or Served Here.

Foods such as French fries, potato chips cooked in oil at high temperature can produce Proposition 65-listed chemicals such as acrylamide, which is known to the state to cause cancer. Broiling, grilling and barbecuing fish and meats can produce Proposition 65-listed chemicals such as benzo-a-pyrene, which is known to the State to cause cancer. Nearly all fish and seafood contain some amount of mercury and related compounds chemical known to the State of California to cause ...

     It goes on ... and on. But you get the idea. The warning even points out that drinking water out of the fancy Biltmore glasses might be a problem, since "consuming food of beverages that have been kept or served in leaded crystal products made of leaded crystal will expose you to lead ..."
     Welcome to California. The idea of the state being an asylum of health fanatics and lifestyle extremists might feel outdated, a 1970s cliche. Outdated because much of the country is imitating them now, with big business — hello, Whole Foods — catering to their whims.
     But stereotypes often have a grain of truth, and occasionally, California manages to top itself. Last Wednesday, a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge issued a ruling in a 2010 lawsuit that large businesses serving coffee must post cancer warnings or face a hefty fine because roasted coffee contains trace amounts of the same acrylamide that caused the Biltmore to try to slap its guests' hands away from the chips.
     News stories on the coffee warnings tend to overlook they’ll merely be a single chirp in a vast chorus of Golden State alarm.
     “The warnings are everywhere: parking lots, hardware stores, hospitals and just about any decent-sized business,” the Los Angeles Times noted in 2009, calling the law “a boon not only to environmental and public health advocates but to plaintiff lawyers, who have reaped significant settlements over chemicals that have never been proved to cause significant harm at the levels in which they are present. In 2008, for instance, a total of 199 lawsuits were settled, netting $14.6 million in attorney fees and just $4.6 million in civil penalties.”
     So … good for lawyers, good no doubt for the sign-making industry. So what’s the harm? The harm is that warnings over dubious perils dilute the value of warnings. Cigarette kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, and each warning label is a chance to reach out to a nicotine addict and nudge them toward changing their ways. Coffee doesn’t kill anybody — in fact, studies show that it’s beneficial to health — and so tagging it for some trace amount of something just trains the public to ignore warnings.
     You need to match the warning with the peril. The National Parks are good at this: visit Yellowstone, and stark signs advise you not to blunder into the boiling pools, because tourists do — 20 have died horrible scalding deaths. (In 2016, a 23-year-old from Oregon, leaning toward a thermal acidic pool to check how hot it was, fell in. By the time rescuers reached him, his body had entirely dissolved).
     Yellowstone does not, however, label every tree, even though you could be injured blundering into on, or receive painful splinters drawing your hand across it.
     There is one important warning that must be given before we move on. Warning: Bad laws have a way of sticking around —Proposition 65 was passed in 1986 by 63 percent of the voters. No one expects it to be repealed anytime soon.

The warm human side of Michael Madigan

Ed McElroy, Michael Madigan, Neil and Edie Steinberg

     Today is April Fools Day. While in past years I've marked the occasion with prankish posts, this year, as the Poynter Institute observes, "feels different." 
     Why? That's easy. Donald Trump's constant invocation of "fake news" has sapped the value of parody, if not of humor itself. While I can't speak for other journalists, I for one appreciate having this brought to my attention by ivory tower academicians in Florida, because otherwise we might miss it. And they have a valid point. If the mainstream media demonstrates unwavering fidelity to the truth, even on a day traditionally given over to levity, then perhaps the Right will finally become aware of the error of their ways.
     So in that spirit, I will not try to fool anybody today. Save that for some happy occasion in the future when our country has returned to the path of truth and justice. 
     Instead, as luck would have it, I have a column from the archive that originally ran on April 1 and I've been meaning to repost, but it always got bumped by my modest attempts at April Fools humor. 
     Okay, perhaps I've also been reluctant to post it, for reasons that will become clear.  Michael Madigan gets a lot of bad publicity—universally bad, in fact. The Nazis get better press. So I'm not only happy to post this, in keeping with my contrarian nature, but I think it would be cowardly not to take advantage of the pause from my typical April Fool's drollery to slip this in. To show you how times have changed, this got very little notice when it was first published in 2009.

     "When are you inviting me to that pool party?" whispered a low voice behind me.
     I was standing with my wife at the Beverly Country Club, at the 85th birthday party of my old friend Ed McElroy, when I heard a familiar thin, tight voice nearly in my ear. I turned.
     "Mr. Speaker!" I said, seeing the smiling face of Michael Madigan. Well, not smiling, in the traditional sense of the corners of the mouth curving upward. But a kind of slight-yet-detectable tightening of the mouth, and the merest hint of sparkle in the eyes that might otherwise seem cold and dead to a causal observer, but that I've learned from long experience means that he's smiling, or trying to. 
      "Just finishing up?" I said. He was wearing a green polo and had obviously come from the links. 
      There was a silence for about five seconds.
      "Yes," he finally said, in that way of speaking without actually moving his lips that's always fascinated me. We gazed at each other fondly. He is a man of few words.
     "How was your game?" I asked brightly. "Play with anybody I'd know?"
      He looked at me for along time, his expression never changing.
       "If I told you," he said, with asperity, "I'd have to kill you." 
      I roared at his joke, and  observed that we had invited him to our last pool party, but he hadn't come. He never comes.
      "You know you're always welcome," I cooed, reaching over to shake his hand, but he yanked it away.
      When we bought our house in Northbrook in 2000, the backyard just cried out for a pool that our boys, then 3 and 4, could enjoy. I had known the speaker for years, back to when I was opinion page editor of the Wheaton Daily Journal. He has a lovely pool behind his neat bungalow in West Lawn. When I asked him who did it, he immediately arranged for a contractor to come out. The guy did an excellent job for not too much money—$1200, quite a bargain, really for a large, below-ground concrete pool with two ladders and a curving slide. Plus a changing cabana and a fence. Though Mr. Madigan does needle me about it—his quip about the pool party is his standard line. The truth is, I really can't imagine the speaker ever showing up, though I always invite him, out of loyalty.
      Mike Madigan appreciates loyalty. 
      I know a lot of people give Mr. Madigan grief. He's supposedly aloof, sphinxlike. But I find him very open and accessible. Sometimes, if I'm writing a column about a complicated piece of legislation, I'll email it to him before it's published and he'll immediately respond, more often than not with a few "small tweaks," as he calls them, and they always turns out an improvement. 
     We're close enough that he was the godfather to my older son, and helped him get into the pre-kindergarten Chicago City Day School when they rejected him for misbehavior, and on a special "Speaker's Scholarship" to boot. People complain that Chicago Day is expensive, but we didn't find it expensive at all.
     Mr. Madigan isn't known for his sense of humor, and people are surprised when I tell them we do have a joshing relationship. He'll say. "Did your house burn down? I heard there were firefighters over there," when of course it was just the Northbrook Fire Department coming to fill the pool, which they do every spring. 
    "How did you know?" I say, well aware that he's up on everything that goes on everywhere, and he'll rib me back, "What are you, an idiot?"
     Some neighbors grumble that it's a perk, but the truth is that firefighters need to train with hydrants—"quick water from the hydrant" they call it, and if that water used in this important training ends up in my pool then really, what's the harm? In fact, it helps the environment by saving water. I'm almost certain they do it for other people.
    "You hear from Bob much?" I asked—Bob Page, former publisher of the Sun-Times, who hired me after I had written some editorials in the Daily Journal backing various Madigan projects and candidates. 
      "No," the speaker said.
      "Well, give him my best. When you do, tell him I'm in his debt for his taking a chance on me.
     I invited Mr. Madigan to join us at dinner though, being such an important figure in Illinois politics, he had to decline.  A moment later he was gone, but not before allowing us to take a picture to document the occasion. He's really good about that kind of thing. I wish people could see the warm human side of him that I see.
                    —Originally published in the Sun-Times, April 1, 2009
           


     
     
     
     

Destroying Meigs Field

      Fifteen years already? That went by fast. When Richard M. Daley dug up Meigs Field in the dead of night, on March 31, 2003, it seemed an unhinged, illegal act, the worst thing the mayor had done during his administration—we didn't realize then just how badly he was mismanaging the city's finances, digging a hole that Chicago struggles to crawl out from to this day.
     I loved Meigs Field, and was lucky enough to take off the tiny lakefront airstrip once, in Susan Dacy's stunt biplane, to do barrel rolls and loop-de-loops over Lake Michigan.   
     This column ran in 2012. What impresses me most is that, six years ago, I'd actually phone the mayor's office to try to get his reaction on something. Now that's inconceivable, because I can't imagine him giving a candid response on any subject whatsoever, nor anybody caring if he did.

     Rahm Emanuel is a controlled, close-to-the-vest kind of guy. Despite his reputation when elected, there are no spontaneous explosions from him, alas. No colorful sputterings of public outrage for us in the media to have fun with. Especially when it comes to the various chronic urban problems created by his predecessor, the unlamented former mayor, Richard M. Daley. Emanuel has gotten quite good at addressing some inherited problem while pretending it just popped spontaneously into being, as if an act of nature, and wasn't dumped into his lap by the carelessness and folly of his old pal.
     So it was odd to see Emanuel this week seem to defend Daley's biggest lapse while mayor: the surprise, probably illegal 2003 destruction of Meigs Field, the city's downtown airport that . . . well, why re-invent the wheel?
     "Meigs Field was an urban jewel and a unique lakefront asset that will never be replaced," the Chicago Sun-Times wrote in 2005. "As tragic as its loss was to the vibrancy of downtown Chicago, worse was the dead-of-night manner in which Mayor Daley destroyed it two years ago, without question the most extreme abuse of power he has committed in a decade and a half in office - well, as least the most extreme we know about."
     OK, OK, it was me who wrote that in the Sun-Times in 2005. But wait, we're coming to the best part:
     "Even if it were a good move—and it wasn't—he did it the wrong way. I might want an omelet for breakfast, but that doesn't mean I want Mayor Daley to break into my house and prepare it while I sleep."

 Granted, I'm an airplane fan. What man with a pulse isn't? I've always rejected the argument that you had to be a bigwig using Meigs to jet from deal to deal in order to benefit from the field. Many, particularly kids, liked to see the aircraft come and go. The terminal was a small gem of late 1950s modernism. The place had a lot of history. Going for a ride with Bill Lear, who was showing off his new Learjet, a Daily News reporter looked out his window and said that scant Meigs runway looked "like a stick of gum."
     The city has mile after mile of underutilized lakefront park, and it made no sense to destroy Meigs just to add a few hundred yards more.
     So ruining Meigs was a mistake, and Daley doing it in his I'm-the-King-of-Chicago-I-can-do-what-I-please manner made it worse.
     Time is a balm, however. Asked if digging up Meigs was the right thing to do, Emanuel initially said, "It is right, yes, on this level, this way: Meigs Field is no longer there."
     But that seemed to be saying that the ends justify the means. Whatever works, just do it.
     "I'll leave it to others to make that judgment," Emanuel continued. "I think it was the right thing to do."
     Which is it? Since I wasn't there, I thought clarification was in order. Perhaps the mayor was flustered by my colleague, Fran Spielman—a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, Front Page, honed-razor of a newspaper reporter who will cut out your heart and make you comment on it as you die. If she asked me the time, I'd start to cry. I thought, to be fair, I had better check with Emanuel's office. So he approves of Daley's most power-mad act?
     "No way, no how," his office replied.
     Well, that's a relief. So does that mean—follow-up question!—that the mayor is not laying the groundwork for his own extra-legal, unilateral acts? That he won't, oh, decide to fill in Belmont Harbor? Because really, who enjoys that? A handful of rich boaters. That's all. Why indulge them when the city could seize the lagoon and fill it in. More campground for poor kids! And the Water Tower—it really jams up the intersection. Why not pull it down in the dead of night and reassemble it south of Roosevelt Road, where congestion is not such an issue? And why go through all the bothersome hearings and preservationist thumb-sucking and hobbyhorsing that are the hallmarks of a free country, or were, when a powerful mayor can simply decide it's the best thing to do and then command his quivering underlings to see that it is done while nobody's watching?
     Again "No." Emanuel is celebrating his ill-gotten gains, but not the act that got them.
     I suppose he can't, at this point, put the airport back. Too late for that. And, looking forward, as he wants us to, transforming Northerly Island to prairie might turn out wonderful. The idea of camping there, with the stunning cityscape arrayed before you, is enticing. I'd sure give it a try, for a night.
     But I think it's too early for anyone to shrug off what happened to Meigs. It was a crime. Daley ripped up the runway while planes were still parked next to it. It cost the city more than a million dollars in fines, and sent a chill down the back of Chicagoans, or should have. The city kept re-electing the guy, and now it's got another mayor for life, whose office insists he is definitely not, no way, no how, testing the waters to see what the public will accept. Let's hope not.

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Aug. 19, 2012

Chicago company makes big things that are seen but seldom noticed

Bob Doepel and Remi at Chicago Scenic Studios

     So here's the riddle:
     What business makes something big that you see all the time but seldom notice?
     These very large, custom-made products are usually unique: built once and never again. Each can cost millions of dollars only to be used briefly, sometimes just for a few hours, then thrown away.
     Hint: you don't see their work often because your attention is focused on the people in front of it.
     Give up?
     Chicago Scenic Studios creates stage sets, museum displays and the physical contours of public spaces at trade shows, conventions, parades, and at least one war.
     Their Cermak Road headquarters is an enormous, sleek industrial building, with 165,000 square feet of clean, soaring space that looks like someplace NASA would use to assemble communications satellites.
     So big, you hardly notice the 50 full-time employees.
     It was started 40 years ago by Bob Doepel, whose flat-coated retriever Remi has the run of the place.
     Born in Chicago, Doepel came out of Carnegie Mellon with a master's degree in fine arts and an interest in theater production. He started at a small theater in Lake Forest, and grew to focus more on arts than commerce.
     "So many people do trade shows, we decided we'd rather be a big fish in a smaller pond," he said. "There are not that many theatrical shops. We do a lot of environmental branding. We do a tremendous amount of museum work."
     Environmental branding?

To continue reading, click here.

Beth Smith, head of the metal department at Chicago Scenic Studios, uses a water jet to cut through half-inch thick aluminum plate to make supports for a truss arch that will decorate Northwestern's April 21 Starry Night gala. 

Hospitals are too cheap to train nurses to care for rape victims

     The myth is that if only people knew about a particular problem, it would be halfway solved.
     The reality is that the status quo has an inertia, that change is hard, and outrage tends to fade.
     The Tribune ran an article this week about how few nurses in Illinois are trained to handle rape kits. I read it with interest, because I wrote a similar article six years ago. It isn't the sort of piece I usually write, but the issue is particularly galling, and the attorney general's office was unusually helpful—Lisa Madigan wanted this fixed. The paper gave it prominent play. Maybe the Tribune will have better success in lighting a fire under the public and the medical profession. But I'm not holding my breath.

     After Katie Feifer was raped at knifepoint by a man who pushed his way into her Oak Park home, her assailant tied her up in the basement and left.
     She freed herself and called police, who took her to the emergency room at West Suburban Hospital.
     "It's funny how vivid the memories are, even after all these years," Feifer says of her treatment after the 1988 attack. "A resident came in, and had this rape kit, and started opening envelopes and vials. He was fumbling around and he was very, very nervous. He did a pelvic exam, and kept apologizing. 'I'm sorry I have to do this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'
     "I remember feeling I had to comfort him and make him feel OK. This guy was supposed to be examining me and helping me, and he didn't know what he was doing."
     There is no shortage of jarring rape statistics.
     Illinois State Police data reported 5,300 rapes statewide last year—more than 14 a day—though experts believe the actual number is triple that. Most go unreported, in part because the majority of rape victims are children—54 percent, according to the Illinois Attorney General's office.
     Another reason rapes go unreported is that the process of seeking medical care after a rape can itself be traumatic, since the vast majority of nurses at most hospitals fail to undergo the training needed to properly treat a rape victim.
     Even though in Illinois such training is free through a program called SANE, or Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners, a course designed to teach nurses to handle sexual assault cases and make sure they are paired with victims as they arrive at the hospital.
     Of the more than 200 hospitals in Illinois, how many fully participate in the SANE program?
    Two.
     "The baseline we're at is two programs, for the state, where a victim is guaranteed to have a specially trained SANE," said Shannon Liew, SANE coordinator at the Attorney General's office.
     The two are Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville and Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana.
     Two hospitals and neither is in Chicago. The other 200 don't take part because the training takes too much time, and, in the hospital's view, not enough people are raped to justify the trouble.
     "There's just not a community need for it," said Michelle Ruther, emergency department nurse manager at Loyola University Medical Center's Emergency Department. The Loyola ER has 80 nurses; two have SANE training.
     "We don't get the amount of rape cases here you'd think," she said. "The program itself is nice. You go through how to talk to these people, to help with the grieving process. It's a really great program, and we'd love to have it at Loyola if they could make the requirements less stringent."
     Hospitals in other cities manage to run SANE programs.
     "Milwaukee has a SANE program, Los Angeles does, Houston does, Indianapolis does," said Liew. "The reasons we hear from hospitals is that one hospital might get 40 victims a year, and they say we can't create a program around 40 patients. I believe every single patient every single time deserves the best possible care they can at a hospital."
     The SANE training takes 40 hours: 24 in a classroom, 16 online.
    "A lot of time, to send nurses for a whole week," said Edward Gutierrez, in charge of patient care management at the adult emergency department at the University of Chicago Medical Center. "It's a huge financial commitment."
     And that is just the formal training; to be certified, a nurse needs to put in hours more of clinical training: pelvic exams, courtroom observation.
     But without training, an ER nurse who might have never administered a rape kit has to figure out what to do on the spot.
    The kits are designed to collect evidence. There are complicated instructions, and the nurse must guide the victim while she or he—10 percent of rape victims are male—disrobes over a plastic mat.
     "When you are a busy ER nurse and you are untrained, it's very difficult to read through all the instructions while you are trying to do this exam and then get through your other three or four patients," said Liew. "But that is what happens. Sometimes nurses are actually reading the instructions in front of patients, if they are untrained, or they skim the instructions and do the best they can."
     Untrained nurses contaminate evidence. They scoff at rape victims. "They literally can say things like 'I don't know if this person was really assaulted,' " said Liew.
     Training is so spotty that volunteers try to fill the gap.
     "Our advocates step in to navigate the situation," said Sharmili Majmudar, executive director of Rape Victim Advocates, which works with 11 Chicago-area hospitals. But advocates are not trained nurses.
     "Having a SANE nurse is extremely important," Majmuder said, pointing out that not only is the nurse treating the patient before them, but also is gathering evidence that could help prevent future rapes.
     "It's connected to overall public safety," she said. "It really does make a difference when it comes to the criminal justice piece, absolutely. The SANEs are in a position to make sure the kit is completed. They're available as an expert witness, to testify. How victims are responded to makes a difference in what victims do, whether or not they choose to report the rape to the police."
     "SANEs are seen as that critical link between the survivor and putting forward a case, because you are also trained to testify," said Natalie Bauer, a spokesperson for the Attorney General's office.
     The program began in Memphis in 1976. The first pilot program in Illinois started in 1999 at Carle Foundation Hospital, which still runs it.
     "One of the things a lot of hospitals have missed is that you have to have someone that coordinates the program," said Patty Metzler, SANE coordinator at Carle. "We've incorporated it into our staff, which makes a difference."
     "It takes a hospital commitment, it absolutely does," said Jody Jesse, director of emergency medicine at Condell, the other Illinois hospital in the SANE program. "The second issue many hospitals face is, you need physician support."
     Lack of this coordination keeps most of the 650 or so nurses who have had SANE training from using their skills—their hospitals don't have a system to call them when rape victims arrive.
     Metzler said that though the training takes time, SANE "actually saves the emergency department time, because when we have a sexual assault come in, we have somebody who can do it. It doesn't take hours and hours. The doctors don't have to disrupt their whole practice. Our physicians love it. Police officers love it because they know they're not going to be here for hours and hours. Our administration has supported it since 1999. We have really good results, really good feedback."
     As with any hospital that emphasizes a medical speciality, running a SANE program draws patients. Carle saw 125 rape victims last year, more than were seen by the University of Chicago Medical Center.
     "This gets repaid by the state," said Majmudar. "The Sexual Assault Survivors Emergency Treatment Act—SASETA—governs what the victims' rights are. One thing we run into is hospitals that didn't even realize they were supposed to comply with SASETA."
     When Lisa Madigan took office as attorney general in 2003, she began to learn more about the program.
     "It sounded like a no-brainer," Madigan said. Her first priority was getting the rape kits tested—it doesn't matter how skillfully evidence is collected if the police crime lab lets it sit unexamined for years.
     "Two years ago, we passed this bill ensuring that all rape kits are being tested by state police," said Madigan.
     Only recently has she realized how neglected the SANE program is.
     "And I'm talking to people about the training, they're giving me feedback, and they say, we need to let you know, virtually none of us become certified," Madigan said.
     Of the 650 nurses with SANE training, only 75 completed the follow-up component of clinical work and courtroom observation.
     "I was really drop-jawed in front of these nurses," said Madigan. "I said, 'You're kidding me?'"
     Last summer, the Attorney General's office announced a goal of trying to bring 15 more hospitals into the SANE program.
     The good news is that hospitals are realizing the importance of SANE. The University of Chicago plans to put the program in place.
     "This is a program we would like to start," said Gutierrez. "Our goal is to have SANE nurses on the unit 24/7. Evidence shows greater prosecution rates, more compassionate care to patients."
     "We have taken anti-violence as one of our big umbrella projects," said Vikas Ghayal, U of C's director of emergency services. "We really are taking on, as a hospital, this concept of trying to end violence in the community, and this is just one component."
     "It's really the right thing to do for these victims," said Jody Jesse. "The bottom line is hospitals, to me, have a certain commitment to their community. This is the right thing for the community."
     The man who attacked Katie Feifer was arrested within three hours, pled guilty and spent 15 years in prison. He got out, murdered a hotel worker, and is currently serving life without parole in Nevada. Feifer lives in California and is research director for The Voice and Faces Project, which encourages survivors to talk about their experiences.
     "I'm happy to talk about what was done to me," she says. "Survivors need to tell their stories in order to change public policies about rape."
                  —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Feb. 5, 2012