Al's Morning Meeting

The story says:

An estimated 350,000 athletes endure some kind of head injury while playing sports every year in the United States, and that's only counting the ones who lose consciousness after impact.

Counting the rest of the dings, pings and "rung bells" that result in concussions, the total could be as high as 3.8 million.

That's why concussions are, in the words of agent Leigh Steinberg, "a health epidemic, the consequences of which are a ticking time bomb that may not be seen in their totality for 10, 15 or 20 years."

I could not help but think that this story is not just about professional athletes. It also should be a wake-up call for athletes, coaches and trainers at all levels, from Little League to pros. Some forward-thinking schools, even high schools, have trained staffs to screen for concussion injuries.

Here are 10 tips from the National Athletic Trainers' Association on how to reduce the severity of sports-related concussions in school athletics.

Among the most alarming findings at the conference is a possible connection between concussions and what might be called Neurofibrillary Football Linked, or NFL, Dementia.

Sports Illustrated reports:

The dangers of head injuries in sports have risen in national prominence recently in large part because the NFL and the NFL Players Association continue to deny that there is any link between concussions suffered while playing football and an increased risk of dementia, a claim that was debunked repeatedly during the summit.

"This case series constitutes indisputable scientific evidence of the link between repeated concussions in football and dementia and major depression," said Dr. [Bennett] Omalu. "Given the prevailing scenarios in these cases of abnormal proteins in such young athletes it cannot be caused by anything else but repeated concussions."

One after another, respected experts presented information that built a crystal clear picture that concussions are among the most serious injuries in sports. Yet concussions are rarely recognized and treated properly, according to Dr. Gerry Gioia of the [...] Children's [National] Medical Center in Washington [D.C.].

Experts maintain that the damage caused by concussions is compounded exponentially by returning to play before the brain has recovered, and the research shows that it is unlikely that the brain ever fully recovers in time to return to the same game.

Despite this data, however, presenters showed that as many as 99 percent of athletes play through their concussions, and that at the NFL level, even when the doctors do discover a concussion, they still allow more than 50 percent of athletes back into the same game.

[Andre] Waters once said, "I stopped counting my concussions at 15. I just wouldn't say anything. I'd sniff some smelling salts then go back in there."

Nursing Home Sanctions Down -- But Safer?

The General Accounting Office found [PDF] that government financial sanctions against the worst nursing homes are down, but it may not be because the homes are doing a better job.

A few years ago, the feds jacked up the fines for the worst offenders. But look what the audit found:

Despite changes in federal enforcement policy, almost half of the homes we reviewed -- homes with prior serious quality problems -- continued to cycle in and out of compliance, continuing to harm residents. These homes corrected deficiencies only temporarily and, despite having sanctions implemented, were again found to be out of compliance during subsequent surveys.

The just-released audit says the serious deficiencies in care may be underreported, and between 8 and 23 percent (yes, a full one-fourth of the homes checked in Michigan) of nursing homes have serious deficiencies in care. (See page 25 of the audit.) The audit also found that when investigators did fine the worst homes, they usually only fined them at a low level and almost never used maximum fines. (See page 29.) And states almost never revoke Medicare participation -- the mother's milk for nursing homes. The reason, auditors say, is because it might be difficult to find somewhere to place the patients. Also, moving would be hard on patients, even if they were getting lousy care at their current residence. (Page 42.)

The audit covered 63 repeat-offender homes in Michigan, Texas, California and Pennsylvania.

Journalists in those states really have to look at the details of the abuse and neglect at some homes. Go to page 44 of the report. The GAO does not name the nursing homes, but your state should be able to find out which homes the GAO is referring to.

Banning Journalists from Memorials

I want to point you to a story in The Rappahannock (Va.) Voice. It is a thoughtful and challenging piece about whether anybody can ban the media from a memorial service when the memorial service is being held in a public building. Not to be heartless while Virginia Tech families are grieving -- this is no fight with them. But instead, it is a push back on county officials who on the one hand grant the use of public buildings and on the other hand want to make them off limits to journalists. It is something to think about. Don't misunderstand the point of this piece. It is not an argument to push cameras into funerals; it is an argument that governments should be more thoughtful when they grant taxpayer-funded space for private use.

Al's Morning Multimedia

Here is a Web site I have been using the heck out of. It will make it tons easier for you to send big files, like multimedia files that usually can move around as e-mail.

YouSendIt.com is a for-pay site, but it is less than five bucks a month to send up to two gigs of material at a time. You can send up to 100MB files free.

Imagine you are trying to upload raw video as I was last week while at the RTNDA convention. It was taking forever to move it to an FTP server, and I didn't want to compress it more than I already had. This is a great solution. I have sent eight videos and a huge text file in the last 24 hours, and they all went through flawlessly.

The History of Ranch Houses

I grew up in an old two-story farmhouse in Kentucky, but I dreamed of someday owning a brick ranch-style house with air conditioning, "city water" and carpeting -- none of which my childhood home had. We had no centralized heat, much less air. Not surprisingly, three of the four homes I have owned have been exactly that. How exactly did America become populated with subdivision after subdivision of ranch homes? Where did the idea begin? Slate.com takes a fascinating look. I wonder if you could dig into your town's architectural past to discover why people there live as they do.

By the way, I remember interviewing a sociologist years ago who told me that the greatest factor in the dissolution of the family unit was not TV. It was central heating, which allowed people to sit in different rooms of a house and still not freeze.

Happy Birthday to Al's Morning Meeting

Happy birthday and thanks to the thousands of you who join me every day for these paragraphs. This adventure that we call "Al's Morning Meeting" began April 25, 2001.

We have produced about 7,800 story ideas since we began this column.

We have covered terrorist attacks, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, campus killers, and all manner of political silliness, elections and scandals.

I try to write with you, the working journalist, in mind. A huge amount of what I include every day comes from the notes and story ideas that you send. In so many ways, this is your column.

I want to thank the editors who, through the years, have worked long and crazy hours with me to make this column happen. My editors usually are just-graduated journalists working as Naughton Fellows here at Poynter Online. My current editor, Leann Frola, is scary smart.

She checks every link, tests every fact and never complains when I send her a note at the last minute saying, "Hey, I think we need to insert a late add."

Often people ask when I write this column. The answer is that I am always writing. I write on planes, at the airport, in hotel rooms, in the morning, at night. Anybody who writes a column knows that you write when the idea hits. You sometimes don't know when that will be.

People also ask me where the story ideas come from. The answer is never a good one, but they come from all sorts of places. You send me hundreds of ideas. I read lots of stuff. I have an RSS page with about 100 feeds coming in. I read sites like Stateline.org, the Casey Journalism Center newsletter, IRE.org hot tips, ResourceShelf, DocuTicker, Digg, Slashdot and such. I look at a lot of sites that cover the environment, veterans' affairs, government releases, local government, emergency response, justice and jail issues, and I read popular-culture sites including MTV. I read outdoor- and farming-magazine sites, and I read several financial and business publications. The TV in my office is always on, and I keep a TV on in my truck (I don't watch while I drive.), but that way I can catch the evening-network newscasts on the way home. Of course, like you, a lot of my story ideas come from my own life experiences.

Before we have another anniversary, my hope is that we can develop Morning Meeting into a multimedia experience. I have hopes that soon, we will be able to upload your best video and audio stories to share with others. I want educators to have a treasure trove of teaching materials to choose from, and I would like this column to be an easy place for college students to show the world their good work. We are already beginning to make that idea happen. Starting this week, I will have some podcasts and even iChats with some people who contribute ideas. Look for these in the days to come.

So thanks for another year. Keep the ideas coming.

Al

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.