Wednesday Edition: Putting the Tour Before the Cart

This is the kind of sports story that I think goes way beyond sports. It speaks to emerging issues facing our aging society and the perception of age discrimination. What do senior golfers in your area say about this?

Reuters explains:

Competitors on the Champions Tour, aged 50 and above, are heading for a showdown with tour executives who have this year, for the first time, barred the use of electric carts to navigate the fairways.

Players can, however, still use a cart during pro-am rounds at 21 events.

Ed Fiori, like many on the ‘golden oldies’ circuit, is a former PGA Tour pro and leading the fight against the 2005 ban after 25 years of cart use.

“All the Tour is trying to do is run the old guys off,” Fiori, 51, told U.S. magazine Golfweek last week.

“It’s discrimination is what it is. The Tour is not thinking straight.

“I’m probably the main case everybody is pointing toward but guys have back injuries, foot injuries. Nothing good can come out of this,” added Fiori, who had a heart attack in January 2004.

“Somebody is going to die out there and we certainly don’t want to see that — and I really don’t want it to be me.”

Fiori told the magazine he and several other players were planning to file a law suit against the PGA Tour, parent company of the Champions Tour, in mid-February.

He said the players had conducted three separate votes last season, with 80 percent of them approving cart use.

Champions Tour president Rick George said the dispute was “unfortunate” but was determined to draw a line after up to 15 players a week took advantage of golf carts towards the end of last year.

“It has to do with image,” he said. “It has to do with the fan. We think it’s better for the fans and the viewers and provides a better look to our broadcasts and it’s better for the condition of the course.”

George is backed by some, literally, big-hitting allies. Champions Tour heavyweights Gary Player, Tom Watson and Hale Irwin all support his move while Jack Nicklaus has long been an advocate of cart-less tournament golf.

The PGA Tour, which oversees the Champions Tour, has gone down this road before. Casey Martin won a Supreme Court ruling that allowed him to use a cart under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Lexington Herald Leader says a record number of kids died in ATV crashes last year in Kentucky :

Thirteen children died in ATV crashes in Kentucky last year, the most in any year since officials began keeping records two decades ago, a report being released today says.

The report,”Children and ATVs: Riding in Harm’s Way,” also says that 105 Kentucky children have died in all-terrain vehicle crashes during the 20 years.

That’s nearly a third of the 326 people who have died in ATV-related incidents in the state since 1984.

What could you learn about the common factors behind such crashes in your state? Did the crashes occur on paved roads, dirt paths? Were they wearing helmets and other protective gear? (In West Virginia, 95 percent of fatal crashes involved riders who were not wearing helmets.) How powerful were the bikes compared to the rider’s age?

The National Law Journal says:

Employment lawyers are warning lovestruck co-workers to take precautions in the office before locking lips outside.

Aside from prohibiting office affairs altogether, some companies are considering “love contracts,” which help to protect them from a sexual harassment suit if two employees are dating and it ends badly.

So-called love contracts confirm that a relationship is consensual, state the ground rules for office behavior and reiterate sexual harassment policies, said Stephen Tedesco, a partner in the San Francisco office of Littler Mendelson who has completed hundreds of the contracts for his clients over the past few years.

“It’s a recurring issue, and frankly will remain so,” San Francisco attorney Stephen Tedesco said. “It protects the employees and it protects the company. Quite a few sexual harassment issues come out of relationships that are consensual, then cease to be consensual.”

Al’s Morning Meeting reader Tony Bridges, a reporter at the Tallahassee Democrat did a terrific job localizing an idea I tossed out some time ago. I showed you how you can find out who holds patents in your community. Tony went looking and found some nice stories.

I am not sure exactly what it means but U Haul says based on its sales last year, Chicago was the number one destination for people doing their own moving in 2004. (Of course other rental companies have have other conclusions.) Chicago pushed Atlanta out of its four-year pole position, while Orlando, Fla. was the number two spot. Sacramento, New York, Denver, Las Vegas and Dallas were also in the top 10 destinations.

The biggest percentage growth cities for rental trucks were Fayetteville, Arkansas; Charlotte, North Carolina and Austin, Texas.

The News-Record (Greensboro) wanted to know why children are still being poisoned by lead after all of the lead bans in the last three decades. The story said:

Almost a hundred children tested in Guilford County since 2000 had dangerous levels of lead in their blood — and there was little health officials could do to stop it.

Those cases came on top of about 30 others in which children were actually poisoned by lead, as previously reported in the News & Record.

County health officials say that between 2000 and 2003 there were 74 cases of elevated lead levels in children. There were at least 20 more cases in 2004, but the final numbers are not yet available, health officials said.

In most of the cases, the high lead levels were detected through blood tests as part of annual exams given at the Guilford County Health Department, health officials said.

Many of them involved low-income children on Medicaid, who are most affected because they often live in old, substandard houses that used lead in the paint. In 1978, the Consumer Products Safety Commission banned lead paint from residential use because young children could be poisoned by eating paint chips, especially from peeling window sills.

Why can’t the government force landlords to remove the lead paint in those homes where the levels are dangerous? The paper learned it is not that easy:

By law, health officials can test the home of any child who is legally poisoned and, if necessary, can get a warrant to do so.

But those officials must get permission from the occupant or property owner to test the home of a child who has a lead level between 10 and 19 micrograms.

“Twenty and above is poisoned, but 10 is something we really need to be concerned about,” said Alyson Best, Guilford County’s senior environmental health specialist.

Because of the health risks, Best said, parents typically cooperate with officials in cases where a child has an elevated, but not technically poisonous, lead level.

But some don’t, and it’s perfectly legal.

Others move or seemingly disappear before an investigation can be completed. Then, the cause goes undetermined and remains a potential threat to other children.

Even if health officials determine the cause of a child’s elevated lead level, they only can suggest that it be removed.

When lead paint in the home is found to be the culprit — as it often is — the owner, many times a landlord, is not required to remove it.

A child has to have poisonous levels before lead removal becomes mandatory.

“We have always wanted to go from reactive to proactive,” Best said. “But it’s really hard.”

EPA has some good resources on lead and children: http://www.epa.gov/lead/lpandyce.pdf

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.