I suspect this is not just a
California story, but a national story that the
Contra Costa Times (in Walnut Creek, Calif.) leads us toward. The story says:
One out of four
children in California elementary schools have untreated tooth decay,
which can lead to serious problems if allowed to fester, a new study
reveals.
An estimated
138,000 kids -- 4 percent of elementary school students -- are in such
pain from rotting teeth, abscesses and oral infections they need to see
a dentist within 24 hours.
Yet many suffer quietly,
forgoing treatment because their families lack insurance, don't realize
the importance of dental care or can't afford it.
These are among the sobering findings of a statewide survey released today by the Dental Health Foundation.
Teams of dentists,
hygienists, dental assistants and nurses traveled to schools throughout
the state from February to June last year to peer in the mouths of
21,000 kindergartners and third-graders.
"To be honest, we were shocked," said foundation Chairman Dave Perry in an introduction to the report.
"While there are
children in some high-income schools that have never had a cavity, in
other schools there are kids in debilitating, chronic pain in every
classroom," he said.
Similar surveys were conducted in 24 other states. California had the second-worst record for prevalence of tooth decay, topping only Arkansas.
Here is a collection of other resources from the national Children's Dental Health Project.
And here are some selected state resources:
- California:
- Colorado:
- Connecticut:
- Illinois:
- New Hampshire:
- North Carolina:
- Rhode Island:
The Rising Cost of Everything
The News Journal in Wilmington, Del.
says it is not your imagination. The cost of everything -- tolls,
electricity, gasoline, you name it -- is all rising. But civilian
workers' wages and benefits rose only 3.1 percent in 2005 -- the
smallest increase in nine years, according to the Labor Department --
the paper reports. Inflation, the story says, ran at 3.5 percent. In
other words, income adjusted for inflation actually declined a half of
a percentage point.
Some people, the story says, are borrowing from their 401(k) retirement plans.
Other papers are telling the story of sky-high natural gas bills this winter that are leaving customers in a state of disbelief.
Online Poker: A Lesson in Losing
The Philadelphia Inquirer
reported a story that may stun you. It is the tale of the pervasiveness
of online gambling on college campuses. The story included details of
one student who has played more than 17,000 hands of poker online in
just the last three months. He said it would have been more, but his
grades were starting to tank.
The story said:
Meanwhile, the poker
sites market themselves relentlessly to the college demographic, hiring
"student representatives" to promote the game and sponsoring "Win Your
Tuition" tournaments. One site, AbsolutePoker.com, recently boasted in
a news release that the winners of its last two tuition competitions
weren't "lazy, beer-swilling, up-all-night bums," but "4.0 students and
model citizens."
The Inquirer added:
Twenty-six percent of
college men gamble in online card games at least once a month and 4
percent once a week or more, up from 1 percent a year earlier, according to a 2005 survey by Penn's Annenberg Public Policy Center. The vast majority are betting on poker.
"We keep waiting for it to peak," said Dan Romer, director of the Risk Survey of Youth. "So far, it hasn't."
For generations of
college students killing time, penny ante was a staple of dorm life.
Then along came television's million-dollar prime-time tourneys about
five years ago to gild poker in trendiness.
By 2003, the fever was sweeping the Internet.
The Justice
Department considers Internet gambling illegal at any age. So the
online poker rooms -- at least 300 of them -- are based outside the United States, with many in Canada but the largest in Gibraltar. Their profits come from raking in a very fat pot: $60 billion bet worldwide last year, according to London analysts who research the online poker industry for investors.
When Police Use Force
The San Francisco Chronicle
published a big project this weekend about how the San Francisco police
department has failed to control officers who repeatedly resort to the
use of force. One sidebar I liked was a profile of a street cop who has worked for 20 years without routinely using force.
UPDATE (Feb. 7, 2006): Jim Romenesko added this item to his blog this morning: "SF cops: Chronicle's 'Use of Force' Series is irresponsible."
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. Another important angle on the pediatric tooth decay story: California...
