Call me Ishmael

Call me Ishmael.

 

A friend loaned me a record once.  Yes, that old-timey grooved vinyl frisbee that made scratchy, skippy music.  The album title is not important, but what I did with it next was. 

I put it in the hatch of my Toyota Corolla.  In South Carolina.  In July. 

Four hours later, the record was destroyed.  Warped beyond any ability to even pretend that I hadn't destroyed it.  The next week, Jack asked me if I had liked the album, and I had to admit that I had never even listened to it.  And I showed him the results.

What was it that I was supposed to do?  Shrug my shoulders, and say, 'It wasn't really my fault'? Give it back to him?  Offer him a protection plan to avoid future meltings?

Of course not.  The right thing to do would be to buy a new album to replace the one I destroyed. 

Remembering this episode yesterday, I realized that I have come up with the perfect, just, and equitable solution to the problem of the OPM data breach.  Since it was the government's responsibility to safeguard the information on their employees, and since they lost that information, I think it is the only right thing to do.

For every identity that is stolen, they are now responsible for replacing it with a new one.

I can see it.  It would work like the Witness Relocation Program.  You get a small place in the suburban midwest. You get a mid-level government job - a nice sinecure to keep you with a living wage.  You get a new name, a new driver's license, probably not a new passport.... yet.

Just call me Ishmael.  Kansas, here I come.