By 2025, most automakers will install rear-seat reminders not to forget helpless smaller children when their parents and others park on hot days.
Without fail each year we read the tragic stories of preoccupied adult drivers who forgetfully leave young children to die. It doesn't take long for temperatures inside an enclosed car, even on a mid-70s day, to rise to fatal levels. It happens too often in our own state.
I've read that on average 38 children succumb each year from heatstroke after being left behind. This year's count reportedly already has surpassed the annual national average. In 2018, the Associated Press reported a record 53 U.S. children died this way.
There's definitely been sufficient carnage for manufacturers to finally begin installing safety systems after another six years. Yet if annual averages are correct, that delay likely translates to about 195 more needless deaths.
The Associated Press also reported several automakers, such as General Motors, wisely already offer alert features.
It's sad it has taken so long for those who manufacture vehicles to help prevent these deaths. Still, the needed reforms come better late than never. I lament the many hundreds of young lives that might have been saved had such a warning system been standard years ago.
What recession?
More than 4 million Americans have joined in the civilian labor force since 2017 when Donald Trump became the 45th president; there are also 1.5 million fewer unemployed. That's the finding of a recent Americans for Limited Government report.
The report contends the August jobs report for America "mocks the idea of a recession" with 571,000 more people employed today than ever before in the nation's history. A total of 5.7 million more jobs have been created.
With a reduced number of seniors working, it looks as though created jobs occurred in the 16-to-64 age group. Hourly earnings also have increased by 3.2 percent, the report found.
Since Trump assumed office, those additions also include 17,000 manufacturing jobs in the past three months. In summary, says the group: "What we are witnessing is almost an economic miracle."
Zapping pesky basals
A reader wrote the other day to ask where she could find the two physician offices in Arkansas that now offer the remarkable SRT-100 superficial radiation machine, which erases basal cell and squamous cell cancers without the need for invasive surgery.
Readers know how much I have had to say about this relatively new technology that offers brief bi-weekly treatments in the doctor's office over about six weeks. Largely I've lamented the fact that, unlike many states, Arkansans did not have this painless and effective choice available.
So for those who missed it in my first column identifying the locations, you can find this treatment option at The Dermatology Office on Linwood Drive in Paragould and Helms Dermatology on West Main Street in Russellville. Having two Arkansas offices with this technology that only penetrates skin-deep is much better than the limited treatment options we had for so long.
Truths for everyone
The human population of this troubled world would be so much better off if those temporarily occupying it for an indeterminate period would recognize a few irrefutable facts.
First, there is no "perfect" life. There is no perfect job. Nor is there a perfect state of health. There is no perfect marriage. There are no perfect people who will always live up to how we expect them to speak, act or behave. Realizing this, why would any of us choose to spend time in futile frustration in anticipation of accomplishing such unattainable fantasies? We all are best served adjusting our sails throughout life's vicissitudes rather than continually railing against its winds.
Thanks to the good folks at Ozark Revival who, along with me, invariably will fall short of perfection.
Credit where due
File this under absconding with intellectual property here in our Natural State. Lawyers for the newspaper in August sent a cease and desist order to the creator and host of Crime Junkie. That's a podcast which in the spring published an episode about the 2002 murder of Greenbrier teenager Kacie Woody.
Nothing wrong with featuring that. Well, except the author of an original copyrighted series of stories in 2003 was former Democrat-Gazette reporter Cathy Frye, who complained the podcast included much of the basis of her work product, including passages suspiciously close to Frye's original narrative.
The episode in question--and several others--was pulled from Crime Junkie's primary feed, reportedly "when their source material could no longer be found or properly cited." The podcast reinstated the Woody story four days later with credits to Frye's original reporting and the paper.
Just goes to show how valuable this newspaper is (in any form) as a primary source for informing the people (including podcasts) who lack a competent and vital reporting staff with established credibility and context.
------------v------------
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 09/17/2019