FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2007
Friday Edition: Nail-Gun Injuries Rise
OK, weekend warriors, I know you want to nail something with
that cool new nail gun you just bought at Home Depot -- but beware.
A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study
says those cheap, easy-to-use pneumatic nail guns caused an average of 37,000 people to be treated at U.S. emergency departments in 2005. Nail-gun injuries have tripled since 1991.
The CDC says most of the injuries involved people nailing
themselves or others. There were some broken bones, and even hearing loss and
eye-injury cases. The study says:
Certain puncture wounds resulted from a nail going through
construction material into a person; in others, a nail was shot completely
through a body part, or a person removed the nail before seeking treatment.
Approximately 4 percent of nail-gun injuries among workers resulted in fractured
bones. Injuries to upper extremities, primarily hands and fingers, accounted
for 75 percent of all consumer nail-gun injuries and 66 percent of all worker nail-gun
injuries. Lower extremities also were injured frequently, accounting for 17 percent of
consumer injuries and 24 percent of worker injuries. Examples of other nail-gun
injuries among either workers or consumers included eye injuries from foreign
bodies and corneal abrasions; dental injuries; musculoskeletal injuries such as
sprains, strains, tendonitis, nerve damage from tool use, and finger
dislocation from reaching and lifting a tool; lacerations; electrical burns;
and noise-induced hearing difficulty.
On some weekends, I help with a mission project for wheelchair-ramp construction here in St. Pete. We build ramps for folks who need
them to get around their homes. When I started seven years ago, we hammered
everything. Now, like the rest of the construction world, we only use nail
guns. Go to any construction site. You rarely hear the sound of a pounding
hammer on rooftops or during framing. The CDC report sort of makes the sore
thumbs from using a hammer look mild, huh?
FCC Wants to Regulate Violence
The Federal Communications Commission just sent Congress its report on TV violence.
See reaction to the report by clicking here.
The report recommends that if TV networks cannot or will not reduce violence in programs that Congress should step in.
The Washington Post explains:
For decades, the FCC has had the legal authority to levy fines on
radio and TV stations that broadcast what are deemed sexually explicit
or "indecent" words and images, such as Janet Jackson's
"wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl. But the government
has never ventured into the realm of penalizing "excessive violence" on
TV, considering the difficulty of defining exactly what is over the
line.
The agency said Congress could model its anti-violence law
on the FCC's "indecency" regulations, which ban salacious or coarse
programming from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Empowering government officials to
determine what is acceptable for TV, however, makes First Amendment
advocates nervous.
"The job of policing TV for children is one for parents, not the government," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's legislative office in Washington. "The government isn't capable of making distinctions about what's violent or gratuitous."
The
FCC says it believes it is possible to define "excessively violent" TV
programming, but such a definition would have to be "narrowly tailored."
This notion that the government
should somehow be able to tell parents what to allow their kids to watch is
nothing new. In fact, you can go
back 50 years and read about the first hearings on the matter.
Eleven years ago, Congress passed legislation requiring the
V-Chip be installed in new televisions. Networks
are supposed to embed, in
the signal, codes "S" for sexual content, "V" for violence, "L" for coarse language, and "D" for suggestive dialogue. Then, the V-Chip picks up the code. But now we learn that most
programs are not correctly coded, so
not only do parents not turn on the V-Chips (only 15 percent used them as of
2004), the V-Chips don't filter what they are supposed to filter.
Last week, the Parents Television Council reported:
(Get the full
report here.)
Content Descriptors Not Being Used
-
54% of shows containing
suggestive dialogue lacked the "D" descriptor.
- 63% of shows containing sexual content
lacked the "S" descriptor.
- 42% of shows containing violence lacked
the "V" descriptor.
- 44% of shows containing foul language
lacked the "L" descriptor.
Network Analysis
- On ABC, 100% of the TV-14 rated programs
lacked one or more descriptors.
- On NBC, 92% of the TV-14 rated programs
lacked one or more descriptors.
- On CBS, 73% of the TV-14 rated programs
containing sexual content lacked the "S" descriptor.
- None of the programs included in this
analysis received a TV-MA rating, meaning all programs were deemed appropriate
by the networks to be viewed by a child as young as 14, including (for example)
an episode of "C.S.I. Miami" in which a woman died of asphyxiation during an oral
rape.
Descriptors Lack in Every Ratings Category
- 40% of all TV-G shows examined were
lacking one or more descriptor.
- 59% of all TV-PG shows examined were
lacking one or more descriptor.
- 79% of all TV-14 shows lacked one or more
descriptor.
The
V-chip allows parents to block channels based either on the age-based ratings,
or on content descriptors. Since 99 percent of all programs during prime time are
rated PG or TV-14, blocking programs based on the age ratings would immediately
disqualify 50 to 99 percent of all prime-time broadcast programming. Content descriptors
are inaccurate two-thirds of the time.
Last
year broadcasters and the Ad
Council launched a $300-million campaign touting the V-Chip. It was
their best hope to keep Congress and the FCC out of the programming business.
Mobile Homes Must Have Weather Radios
It
is a new law in Indiana. New mobile homes must have weather radios
installed, sort of like smoke alarms. Are other states considering this?
Al's Morning Multimedia
The Tampa Tribune's TBO.com has a really nice interactive
site that explores what it means to be biracial in America
today.
Execution-Drug Problems
The
Los Angeles Times reports:
Two
of the three drugs used in lethal injection are not administered in a way that
reliably produces painless death for inmates, leaving at least some to die of
suffocation and be conscious enough to realize it, according to a
new analysis of executions in California and North Carolina.
Reviewing
the cases of 41 inmates dating back to 1984, the researchers found that the
dose of anesthesia given at the start of an execution varied widely and was
often insufficient to keep an inmate unconscious.
They also concluded that the chemical intended to induce
cardiac arrest did not always stop prisoners' hearts.
Two
years ago the same researchers found that at least 40 percent of inmates put to
death in America do not get enough anesthesia and could remain conscious and
experience blistering pain during a lethal injection.
The Most-Praised Generation
At the RTNDA convention and recently
on college campuses where I have done some teaching, I have been talking with
educators about what is being called "The Most-Praised Generation." These are the kids that baby boomers
raised -- giving them trophies for just participating in sports -- praising the kids
at every turn.
The
Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Zaslow
produced a brilliant piece recently about how these kids will change the
workplace. Bosses already are having to
build in daily strokes -- not weekly or annually, but daily.
The piece includes this passage:
Now, as this greatest generation
grows up, the culture of praise is reaching deeply into the adult world.
Bosses, professors and mates are feeling the need to lavish praise on young
adults, particularly twentysomethings, or else see them wither under an
unfamiliar compliment deficit.
Employers are dishing out kudos to
workers for little more than showing up. Corporations including Lands'
End and Bank of America are hiring consultants to teach managers
how to compliment employees using email, prize packages and public displays of
appreciation. The 1,000-employee Scooter Store Inc., a power-wheelchair and
scooter firm in New Braunfels, Texas,
has a staff "celebrations assistant" whose job it is to throw confetti -- 25
pounds a week -- at employees.
She also passes out 100 to 500 celebratory helium balloons a week. The Container Store Inc. estimates that one of its 4,000 employees receives praise every 20 seconds, through such efforts as its "Celebration Voice Mailboxes."
Best-selling
author Marcus Buckingham says:
Generation Y's tend to be employees who show up at work thinking "I'm here; now entertain me." There are two responses to that. You can think of
them as young and needful and assume they will grow out of their sense of
entitlement. The problem is they won't grow out of it because it's rooted in
the societal forces impinging on them as they were growing up. They didn't
watch the Challenger blow up.
They expect more control, more authority, and more discretion
about how they spend their time at work. They will demand praise, affirmation,
and promotions. Obviously a manager can't give them those things just for the
asking. So if managers are not careful, they can end up fighting with this
generation all the time, but I don't think that's a sensible thing at all.
Frankly, I think that the best way to engage a young person's sense of entitlement
is to say "We'll help you get things you want because we want more contribution
from you."
Author Bob
Nelson offers ways to praise workers who need it most.
Buckingham says:
The challenge with Generation Y is how to channel their
sense of entitlement. And frankly I'm optimistic that we can. It's not about
leadership. It's about self-management of expectations. How do you give them
the power and control that they want? How do you give them the authority to
manage the way they spend their time at work?
This group wants to rewrite their job descriptions every other
month. For them, we've got to blow up the old appraisal process where the boss
tells them what they should be doing to develop their strengths and fix their
weaknesses. That won't work at all. The arrow of conversation is going the
wrong way. Generation Y's want to sit down with the boss and enlighten him about
their rights. And in their minds, the boss's job is to facilitate that
happening.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
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.
Posted at 7:21:34 AM
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