Archive for April, 2008
April 3rd, 2008
I took a CPR course at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center a few years ago. I remember aceing the written test but leaving very unsure about whether I could ever do CPR for real. Was that 30 compressions to every two breaths? No, wait a minute. That can’t be right. (It was.) And what if I forget to check the airway and force some object into the person’s lungs? I was proud to get my card in the mail that showed I was a certified in CPR, but it didn’t help that insecure feeling.
Turns out I wasn’t alone. Far from it. A survey done by the American Heart Association showed that most people in a crisis didn’t try CPR because they were afraid to hurt someone by doing something wrong. But that hesitation could be the very thing that costs a cardiac victim his or her life. Brain damage can happen in as little as 4 minutes if the heart can’t pump oxygenated blood to the brain.
So I was relieved this week to see that the heart association has formally recommended that chest compressions alone can save lives. If you have two hands (and dial 911 first) you might be able to rescue a victim of cardiac arrest from likely death. The catch is that the compressions have to be firm and fast — 100 presses per minute — and the person must be unresponsive.
That’s not very hard to remember.
The American Red Cross doesn’t agree with the “hands only” recommendation, and still recommends the traditional mouth-to-mouth coupled with chest compressions. I’m sure the organization has its reasons.
But if I’m lying unresponsive on the floor — or one of my loved ones is in the same state — I’d sure want whoever is there to try something rather than nothing. At that point, I don’t want to see their CPR card or know what they scored on their test. I’d want them to just do it.
April 3rd, 2008
For those of you who follow this blog, granted there aren’t that many of you yet, you’ve noticed that posts before March 31 are missing.
We don’t know why.
It only happened on Seat at the Table. Other blogs were unaffected. There’s no conspiracy to remove information and comments. The electronic gremlins must have escaped one night and eaten at our table.
Heck, I was looking forward to reading stuff that was posted while I was on vacation.
I guess the solution is to keep posting stuff until there’s so much new stuff, no one will care about the old stuff.
April 2nd, 2008
It’s not bad enough that state Sens. Brad Burzynski and Dave Syverson voted against a proposal that would prevent the Illinois High School Association from regulating how news organizations use photos and video of high school sporting events, they voiced their opposition on the senate floor.
Burzynski and Syverson were two of only five no votes in this long-running IHSA photo policy dispute.
Contrast their position with that of their fellow local Republicans in the House. Dave Winters and Ron Wait are co-sponsors on an identical piece of legislation.
Winters sees it as a free-market issue. Many of my media friends see it as a freedom of the press issue. The press doesn’t need any more restrictions.
I look at it from a parent/fan perspective. If the local newspaper photographer takes a picture of your son or daughter playing in a tournament game and that photo only appears online, you won’t be able to buy a copy of that picture if the IHSA prevails.
Let’s say your kid only gets to play garbage time in a state tournament game. The official IHSA photog probably won’t take a picture of your kid. Your local newspaper photographer is more likely to.
The photo wouldn’t make it into the paper, but would be included in an online photo gallery. If you liked the picture, you could buy it. The IHSA doesn’t think we have the right to sell it to you.
The IHSA is not just stopping professional newspaper photographers, but has also stopped parents from taking pictures.
Last fall in Peoria, parents who were trying to take photos of the all-state cross country runners and the winning teams as they stood together at the podium with their trophies were shooed away.
So the IHSA photo policy hurts you as much as it hurts us.
April 1st, 2008
I received the op/ed below and thought I’d share it with you. We’re running out of foolin’ time. We’re still looking for comments and stories. Follow this link.
What’s Funny and What’s Not?
By Stanley C. Baldwin
April Fools Day has murky origins, and there are many colorful legends about how it came to be. Some of the tales are April Fools jokes themselves. What we know is that people have practiced hi-jinks on April 1st since ancient times, just as humans have also enjoyed a long love affair with humor in general.
Ancient monarchs had court jesters, sometimes called fools, who were highly valued for their ability to make the king laugh. Those who weren’t all that funny risked their positions and sometimes their heads. Today, skillful humorists and comedians are among our highest paid entertainers. We love to laugh.
Over the years imaginative people have come up with many clever and funny April Fools stunts. One favorite, described in museumofhoaxes.com, is the April 1, 1998 full page newspaper ad by Burger King that introduced the “Left-handed Whopper.” All of the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the 32 million lefties in America. Great numbers of people ordered the new Whoppers, while other customers specified they wanted the original Whopper. Filling the different orders was easy since there was absolutely no difference between the two.
Imaginative April Fools “news” items have featured pickle farming and instructions on how to grow spaghetti (you plant it in tomato sauce). One item reported a scandal–the use of performance enhancing steroids by concert violinists. (No doubt most offenses were by bass violinists.) And then there was the report of a high tech breakthrough resulting in software to translate dog barks into English.
All of these gags roped in huge numbers of people, all in good fun. Such harmless humor is a great gift, but the operative word here is harmless. On April 1, 1999 a Bend, Oregon radio station said the Ochoco dam had burst and residents downstream needed to evacuate immediately. The panic that ensued was perhaps funny to the perpetrators, but it was cruel to the down-streamers.
Thoughtless or mean stunts not only take the fun out of the day but they have also led to serious consequences not only for the victims but also for the perpetrators, some of who have lost their jobs or been sued.
Getting our laughs to other people’s detriment is more cruel than funny, whether on April 1 or any other date. Often such humor is mean-spirited, as when radio talk show host Don Imus called the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos” (whores). Or when Ann Coulter said (in jest?) that liberals are godless, stupid, traitors, and Commies.
Laughing at others can be hurtful even when it is innocent. When Miranda Baldwin was four years old, her grandmother, who had taught her to take care of her clothes, asked one day, “Miranda, are your clothes all hanging up?” Miranda nodded very seriously, then paused, “Well, actually, they are hanging down.”
Her grandmother burst out laughing until Miranda scowled and said, “Girls aren’t funny, Grandma!” Her grandmother realized that the child felt ridiculed and disrespected. Instead of disallowing the child’s feelings or simply telling her to lighten up, Grandma was kind enough to honor those feelings and control her amusement.
Like almost everything else in our society, humor can be used to serve people or to abuse them. Seems like it should be a simple choice.
(Stanley C. Baldwin is president of Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Humans. To enter the Society’s April Fools contest go to: www.preventcrueltytohumans.com and click on April Fools Contest.)
April 1st, 2008
I got taken in by a small April Fool’s joke today.
Listening to the radio on the way here, the weather forecaster, I think it was Mark Henderson, on Q98.5 said something like this: “This just in. A winter storm warning. Expect 6 to 12 inches of snow.”
Given how crazy this never-ending winter has been, I believed it.
He quickly let us in on the joke.
The best and most famous prank was initiated by another radio station in the early to mid-’80s.
Bill Phillips, a Rockford radio icon, had us believing that the Goodyear Blimp was at the Rockford airport. Quite a few folks trekked out there to take a look.
Any good ones out there today? We’re soliciting comments. Follow this link.
April 1st, 2008
I’m posting to two blogs nowadays. This one and “Talkin’ Cubs,” which we launched yesterday.
I grew up within walking distance of Wrigley Field. It was a long walk, but not that bad. I still remember the day I found a $5 bill along the railroad tracks as I was going to Wrigley. I think I spent the entire amount on baseball cards.
My friends and I would go to the park now and then, but we didn’t think it was a big deal. We’d rather be playing baseball ourselves than watching the game. That was when kids could play outside without fear of getting kidnapped or molested.
Crowds at Wrigley in those years were modest at best. Going to a game was not the phenomenon it is today.
Autographs were not hard to come by, unless the player was a jerk. We ran into a few of those, but most would sign anything we put in front of them.
We didn’t always know who was signing what. One time we saw a guy we thought was Randy Hundley and asked for his autograph. Turned out the guy was some behind-the-scenes technician for WGN radio.
I saw all the legends play: Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Ferguson Jenkins. I saw Ken Holtzman pitch a no-hitter. Great memories.
In my first newspaper job with the Champaign-Urbana Morning Courier, I got to cover a couple of Cubs games. Dave Kingman was the star of the moment and he wasn’t talking to the press when I made a trip to Chicago.
He had a good game that day. I went to the locker room to interview him (no staged interviews then). No one was around him. The other reporters were talking to players who had marginal impacts in the game.
I went up to Kingman and introduced myself: “Hi, I’m Wally Haas and I work for a newspaper you’ve probably never heard of.” He smiled and we talked for about 10 minutes.
When I finished, one of my colleagues who was watching came up to me and said “You got more out of him today than we have all year.”
It felt pretty good outdoing the big newspaper guys that day.
I watch or listen to as many games on TV as I can and I go to a couple of games at Wrigley every year. Hey, I love the Cubs. Maybe this is next year.
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