From MSN.
By Martha Brockenbrough
Special to MSN Entertainment
MSN has a no-nude-photos policy, so if you're just here for the dirty pictures you can stop reading now.
For the rest of you -- the ones who subscribe to MSN for the articles -- there's something I need to get off my chest. And it's not my shirt.
I am sick of hearing about, let alone seeing, celebrity nipples. The plucked chicken skin of exposed celebrity crotches is worse. And Paris Hilton's oft-photographed posterior mudflap? How is that even physically possible?
Even so, I have no problem with celebrities who appear nude in pictures.
The proverbial scales fell from my eyes when I heard last week that Vanessa Hudgens of "High School Musical" was in hot water over a certain fleshy photo circulating around the Internet.
It wasn't that the sight of her smiling nubile form caused retinal damage. She actually looked pretty darned good in it, like the sort of cheerleader it was fun to resent in high school. Rather, I realized that much of the furor over naked celebrities is moronic.
We're born naked. We remove our clothes daily to shower. And even when we put those clothes back on, we're all still naked underneath, with the possible exception of men who have seriously hairy backs.
What's more, some of the greatest art in human history is chock full of naked people. And they're even in church -- something my mother never would have let me get away with.
I'm thinking here of the Sistine Chapel, which depicts the creation of Adam in full color, if not full glory.
(I'm just guessing that, if his picture were circulated online today some people might mock his assets.) The painting is almost 500 years old. God's had plenty of time to smite the chapel if nudity were really a terrible thing. But no. It's a huge tourist attraction that's even undergone a full restoration.
Somewhere along the way, "Thou Shalt Not Be Nude" has become our 11th commandment.
It's important to distinguish between topless sunbathing pictures of Jennifer Aniston and the sex romps of Pamela Anderson. There's nudity, and then there's porn, and there's a difference.
Hudgens, who was merely nude, had to issue a blushing apology for her actions. Even though Disney did the right thing by standing behind its young star, it still publicly criticized her judgment. The poor kid.
This Puritan view of nudity is a bad thing. It's had the effect of reducing us to a pile of snickering third-graders, seeking quick titillation when we could be spending our time pursuing more meaningful connections.
Mr. Skin, a popular Web site that peddles the flesh of celebrities, gets 1.2 million users a month, and between them they spend 8.7 million minutes looking at celebrities in the raw. It's the equivalent of the population of San Diego doing whatever they're doing that's taking seven minutes. And it's not just men. Typically, almost 17 percent of the people looking at adult content online are women.
But it's not just that it stunts our emotional growth. It turns body parts that are meant to be functional into the equivalent of a nuclear fall-out zone.
I'm talking here about breasts, of course. They're meant to feed babies. But if a nipple should pop out on television, it's apparently bad enough to merit a $550,000 fine.
Never mind that during the so-called "family hour" of television programming we can watch scenes of torture, sex, and all sorts of violence at a higher rate than ever, as the Parents Television Council reported just last week. (This is the same sort of thing, by the way, that gets "Casino Royale" a PG-13 rating despite a nude torture scene, whereas a movie with more than a flash of female nudity would automatically get an R-rating.)
No, sir, it's the spectacle of a nipple that apparently should offend us all. This might explain why women trying to feed their babies have been kicked off airplanes and out of public coffeehouses.
I was asked to stop nursing my baby at Disneyland, and believe me, no one tried harder than I to hide the bits. I not only have had the "I forgot my pants!" dream repeatedly, I even had a version of it in which I forgot my wedding dress, which is much worse, in case you haven't had that experience.
The whole Disneyland thing was humiliating, and it really pissed off my baby, who should not have been forced to eat in a bathroom. Who knows how many women have been shamed by experiences like these into using formula, which is inferior nutritionally, inconvenient and darned expensive.
This is not the only way the silly nudity taboo harms women disproportionately. Returning to Hollywood, exceptional and established actresses like Nicole Kidman and Maggie Gyllenhaal for some reason feel the need to flash skin in magazines to advance their careers, even as their male peers aren't compelled to do the same. It's no wonder the second- and third-rate starlets are showing everything they can. How else can they get noticed?
The cure for it, ironically, is to stop caring so darned much about nudity. If it doesn't rile us, then it's not going to be a route to riches.
Once that happens, we can turn back the clock, perhaps even to Michelangelo's time, and we can look at a picture of a lovely human specimen and appreciate it for its inherent beauty. It's a sad thing to turn the one thing that's truly ours -- our bodies -- into a source of shame.
In any case, I hope Vanessa hangs on to those photos. Not just so a traitorous friend can leak them to the Internet again, but so that she has a souvenir of when she was young and hot. Unlike the Sistine Chapel ceiling, that sort of perfection doesn't last, especially if you have kids.
Just ask that other once-lovely Disney talent, Britney Spears. But be careful where you're looking when you do. Last I saw, she'd forgotten to put on underwear. Blech.
Martha Brockenbrough writes the Cinemama column for the MSN Movies Parents' Movie Guide. She is the author of "It Could Happen to You: Diary of a Pregnancy and Beyond." She's also founder of SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. She writes a fun-with-kids column for Cranium.com, as well as an educational humor column for Encarta. Check out her Web site.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Costco vs Wal-Mart
From the Labor Research Association, dated 2005.
The Costco Challenge: An Alternative to Wal-Martization? (July 5, 2005)
by Moira Herbst
Critics believe that Wal-Mart should play the role General Motors played after World War II… [and] establish the post-world-war middle class that the country is so proud of. The facts are that retailing doesn’t perform that role in the economy. Retailing doesn’t perform that role in any country.
—Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, April 2005
To workers and union leaders, it is a familiar refrain. These days, the story goes, consumers demand low prices, meaning goods must be produced and sold cheaply — and retail wages must be kept as low as possible. Companies like Wal-Mart insist they’re feeling the squeeze and must pay workers poverty wages — even while netting $10.5 billion in annual profits and awarding millions to top executives.
But there’s another company that is breaking the Wal-Mart mold: Costco Wholesale Corp., now the fifth-largest retailer in the U.S. While Wal-Mart pays an average of $9.68 an hour, the average hourly wage of employees of the Issaquah, Wash.-based warehouse club operator is $16. After three years a typical full-time Costco worker makes about $42,000, and the company foots 92% of its workers’ health insurance tab.
How does Costco pull it off? How can a discount retail chain pay middle-class wages and still bring in over $880 million in net revenues? And, a cynic may ask, with Wal-Mart wages becoming the norm, why does it bother?
A number of factors explain Costco’s success at building a retail chain both profitable and fair to its workers. But the basic formula is one the labor movement has been advocating for decades: a loyal, well-compensated workforce means a more efficient and productive one.
The Union Difference
Though only about 18% of Costco’s total workforce is unionized, union representation creates a ripple effect and helps determine labor standards in all stores. The Teamsters represent about 15,000 workers at 56 Costco stores in California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. Workers are covered by West coast and East coast contracts, negotiated in February and April of last year.
“The agreements lock in wage and benefits packages that are the highest in the grocery and [discount] retail industries,” said Rome Aloise, chief IBT negotiator for Costco and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif.
Costco passes on similar compensation packages to its non-union workers; the contracts act as templates for other stores’ employee handbooks.
“The union contracts raise the bar and set the standard for all employees,” explained Aloise. “Still, while the company extends wage and pay raises to non-union employees, only union members enjoy benefits like seniority-based promotions, a grievance procedure and minimum hours for part-time workers,” he added.
The Payoff of Better Pay
Strong union representation isn’t the only reason Costco jobs are so well compensated; the company itself has an unusually forward-looking corporate philosophy.
Costco CEO Jim Senegal has said: “We pay much better than Wal-Mart. That’s not altruism. It’s good business.”
Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti explained: “From day one, we’ve run the company with the philosophy that if we pay better than average, provide a salary people can live on, have a positive environment and good benefits, we’ll be able to hire better people, they’ll stay longer and be more efficient.”
A 2004 Business Week study ran the numbers to test Costco’s business model against that of Wal-Mart. The study confirmed that Costco’s well-compensated employees are more productive.
The study shows that Costco’s employees sell more: $795 of sales per square foot, versus only $516 at Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart (which, like Costco, operates as a members-only warehouse club). Consequently Costco pulls in more revenue per employee; U.S. operating profit per hourly employee was $13,647 at Costco versus $11,039 at Sam’s Club.
The study also revealed that Costco’s labor costs are actually lower than Wal-Mart’s as a percentage of sales. Its labor and overhead costs (classed as SG&A, or selling, general and administrative expenses) are 9.8% of revenues, compared to Wal-Mart’s 17%.
By compensating its workers well, Costco also enjoys rates of turnover far below industry norms. Costco’s rate of turnover is one-third the industry average of 65% as estimated by the National Retail Foundation. Wal-Mart reports a turnover rate of about 50%.
With such rates of employee retention, Costco’s savings are significant. “It costs $2,500 to $3,000 per worker to recruit, interview, test and train a new hire, even in retail,” said Eileen Appelbaum, Professor at Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations. “With Wal-Mart’s turnover rate that comes to an extra $1.5 to $2 million in costs each year.”
Other analysts of the retail industry agree that happier, well-compensated workers help generate bigger profits. George Whalin, president of Retail Management Consultants in San Marcos, Calif., disagrees with many of Wal-Mart’s critics, but said: “There’s no doubt Wal-Mart and many other retailers could do a better job taking care of their employees. The best retailers do take care of their employees — Nordstrom’s, Costco, The Container store — with fair pay, good benefits and managers who care about people. You have fewer employee issues, less turnover and more productivity. It lessens costs to the company.”
Still, Wall Street analysts intent on cutting up-front labor costs tend to frown upon Costco’s model. “Costco’s corporate philosophy is to put its customers first, then its employees, then its vendors and finally its shareholders. Shareholders get the short end of stick,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Dreher.
But Costco’s stock has quadrupled in the past ten years, and has in the past year inched closer to Wal-Mart’s per-share-price. In fiscal year 2004, Costco recorded record sales and earnings. While Wal-Mart continues to profit and expand, its stock has lost value — in recent months it is 16% off its 52-week high — as sales have been more sluggish as gas prices cause customers to cut back on driving to and from the store. The negative publicity around the company has also caused some damage.
Of course, other factors besides low turnover and employee productivity are responsible for Costco’s efficiency. The company has a wealthier customer base than Wal-Mart’s; these customers buy higher-margin goods, purchase in bulk and have steadier spending habits. Costco also saves millions because it does not advertise.
More Than Hot Air
Besides the efficiency of its workforce, another reason Costco can afford to pay more is that it cuts the fat from executive paychecks. The overall corporate philosophy is that workers deserve a fair share of the profits they help generate — not just a pat on the back or a new job title like “associate.”
For example, while CEOs at other major corporations average 531 times the pay of their lowest-paid employees, Sinegal takes only 10 times the pay of his typical employee. His annual salary is $350,000, compared to about $5.3 million awarded to Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott.
After California Costco workers ratified their Teamster contract last March, CEO Jim Sinegal said Costco workers are “entitled to buy homes and live in reasonably nice neighborhoods and send their children to school.”
That the company’s stated ideals match up with workers’ paychecks helps explain employee loyalty at Costco.
Originally from El Salvador, 28-year-old Cesar Martinez has worked at a Redwood City, Calif. Costco for 10 years, serving as a Teamster shop steward for seven years. His pay is now up to $19.42 an hour, which he estimates brings him $43,000 per year.
“There’s a feeling here that the company takes care of its employees and wants to share the profits. We feel compensated fairly,” Martinez said.
“I’ve stuck with it so long because I like the job. And the salary is solid and we have a pension that gives me security into the future. That’s important to me,” he added.
By contrast, some Wal-Mart employees experience the supposed care for “associates” as empty rhetoric. Forty-two-year-old Rosetta Brown, a Sam’s Club employee in Chicago, Ill., for example, stands back each morning when managers and associates gather for the Sam’s Club cheer.
“I refuse to do it,” she said. “I don’t believe the company lives up to what they’re cheering for,” she said.
Rosetta, mother to five children ranging in age from three to 25, does not feel well compensated at $11.34 per hour after five years. She is also suing Wal-Mart, parent company to Sam’s Club, for costs associated with a herniated disc she suffered when she said she was locked in while working the night shift.
Twenty-seven-year-old Jason Mrkwa, who works as a frozen foods stocker in Independence, Kansas, also stands back when it’s cheer time at his store. But he insists he doesn’t hate Wal-Mart: “I’m not another disgruntled employee. I like my job. I just feel cheated with the pay I get.” He started at $7 per hour five years ago, and now makes just $8.53 per hour.
Julie Molina, 38, has worked at Costco’s South San Francisco store for 19 years. “People stick around — most people in my store have been there ten years more. No one in retail makes as much as we do. Plus it’s a good working environment.”
Molina attributes the positive working environment in large part to the Teamsters’ presence. “It works really well now. When problems arise management comes to the union for advice. But without the union I’m not sure what would take place. Would they treat us like Wal-Mart treats its workers? You hear horror stories,” she said.
Of course Costco is not paradise — “On a local level, some managers don’t play fair — they might harass workers, fire them unreasonably or pattern bonuses unfairly. That’s where union representation is the real advantage,” explained Rome Aloise.
Into the future, the question will be which model of employee compensation predominates in retail — the high road of Costco or the low road of Wal-Mart.
“When companies like Wal-Mart are setting the standard, we have to ask: Do we want to live in a country where the largest employer pays below poverty-level wages, whose workers cannot afford health care?” says Paul Blank, chief spokesperson of Wake Up Wal-Mart, the United Food and Commercial Workers’ new campaign to change the company’s practices. “Or do we want Americans to enjoy a decent income and a sense of security in return for their work?”
Costco v. Wal-Mart: How They Stack Up
Global Workforce
Wal-Mart: 1.6 million associates
Costco: 113,000 employees
U.S. Workforce
Wal-Mart: 1.2 million
Costco: 83,600
U.S. Union Members
Wal-Mart: 0
Costco: 15,000
U.S. Stores
Wal-Mart: 3,600
Costco: 336
Net Profits (2004)
Wal-Mart: $10.5 billion
Costco: $882 million
CEO Salary + Bonus (2004)
Wal-Mart: $5.3 million
Costco: $350,000
Average Pay
Wal-Mart: $9.68/hour
Costco: $16/hour
Health Plan Costs
Wal-Mart: Associates pay 34% of premiums + deductible ($350-$1,000)
Costco: Comprehensive; employees pay 5-8% of premiums
Employees Covered By Company Health Insurance
Wal-Mart: 48%
Costco: 82%
Employee Turnover (estimate)
Wal-Mart: 50%
Costco: 24%
Sources: Wal-Mart, Costco, Business Week, Forbes.com
The Costco Challenge: An Alternative to Wal-Martization? (July 5, 2005)
by Moira Herbst
Critics believe that Wal-Mart should play the role General Motors played after World War II… [and] establish the post-world-war middle class that the country is so proud of. The facts are that retailing doesn’t perform that role in the economy. Retailing doesn’t perform that role in any country.
—Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, April 2005
To workers and union leaders, it is a familiar refrain. These days, the story goes, consumers demand low prices, meaning goods must be produced and sold cheaply — and retail wages must be kept as low as possible. Companies like Wal-Mart insist they’re feeling the squeeze and must pay workers poverty wages — even while netting $10.5 billion in annual profits and awarding millions to top executives.
But there’s another company that is breaking the Wal-Mart mold: Costco Wholesale Corp., now the fifth-largest retailer in the U.S. While Wal-Mart pays an average of $9.68 an hour, the average hourly wage of employees of the Issaquah, Wash.-based warehouse club operator is $16. After three years a typical full-time Costco worker makes about $42,000, and the company foots 92% of its workers’ health insurance tab.
How does Costco pull it off? How can a discount retail chain pay middle-class wages and still bring in over $880 million in net revenues? And, a cynic may ask, with Wal-Mart wages becoming the norm, why does it bother?
A number of factors explain Costco’s success at building a retail chain both profitable and fair to its workers. But the basic formula is one the labor movement has been advocating for decades: a loyal, well-compensated workforce means a more efficient and productive one.
The Union Difference
Though only about 18% of Costco’s total workforce is unionized, union representation creates a ripple effect and helps determine labor standards in all stores. The Teamsters represent about 15,000 workers at 56 Costco stores in California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. Workers are covered by West coast and East coast contracts, negotiated in February and April of last year.
“The agreements lock in wage and benefits packages that are the highest in the grocery and [discount] retail industries,” said Rome Aloise, chief IBT negotiator for Costco and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif.
Costco passes on similar compensation packages to its non-union workers; the contracts act as templates for other stores’ employee handbooks.
“The union contracts raise the bar and set the standard for all employees,” explained Aloise. “Still, while the company extends wage and pay raises to non-union employees, only union members enjoy benefits like seniority-based promotions, a grievance procedure and minimum hours for part-time workers,” he added.
The Payoff of Better Pay
Strong union representation isn’t the only reason Costco jobs are so well compensated; the company itself has an unusually forward-looking corporate philosophy.
Costco CEO Jim Senegal has said: “We pay much better than Wal-Mart. That’s not altruism. It’s good business.”
Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti explained: “From day one, we’ve run the company with the philosophy that if we pay better than average, provide a salary people can live on, have a positive environment and good benefits, we’ll be able to hire better people, they’ll stay longer and be more efficient.”
A 2004 Business Week study ran the numbers to test Costco’s business model against that of Wal-Mart. The study confirmed that Costco’s well-compensated employees are more productive.
The study shows that Costco’s employees sell more: $795 of sales per square foot, versus only $516 at Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart (which, like Costco, operates as a members-only warehouse club). Consequently Costco pulls in more revenue per employee; U.S. operating profit per hourly employee was $13,647 at Costco versus $11,039 at Sam’s Club.
The study also revealed that Costco’s labor costs are actually lower than Wal-Mart’s as a percentage of sales. Its labor and overhead costs (classed as SG&A, or selling, general and administrative expenses) are 9.8% of revenues, compared to Wal-Mart’s 17%.
By compensating its workers well, Costco also enjoys rates of turnover far below industry norms. Costco’s rate of turnover is one-third the industry average of 65% as estimated by the National Retail Foundation. Wal-Mart reports a turnover rate of about 50%.
With such rates of employee retention, Costco’s savings are significant. “It costs $2,500 to $3,000 per worker to recruit, interview, test and train a new hire, even in retail,” said Eileen Appelbaum, Professor at Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations. “With Wal-Mart’s turnover rate that comes to an extra $1.5 to $2 million in costs each year.”
Other analysts of the retail industry agree that happier, well-compensated workers help generate bigger profits. George Whalin, president of Retail Management Consultants in San Marcos, Calif., disagrees with many of Wal-Mart’s critics, but said: “There’s no doubt Wal-Mart and many other retailers could do a better job taking care of their employees. The best retailers do take care of their employees — Nordstrom’s, Costco, The Container store — with fair pay, good benefits and managers who care about people. You have fewer employee issues, less turnover and more productivity. It lessens costs to the company.”
Still, Wall Street analysts intent on cutting up-front labor costs tend to frown upon Costco’s model. “Costco’s corporate philosophy is to put its customers first, then its employees, then its vendors and finally its shareholders. Shareholders get the short end of stick,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Dreher.
But Costco’s stock has quadrupled in the past ten years, and has in the past year inched closer to Wal-Mart’s per-share-price. In fiscal year 2004, Costco recorded record sales and earnings. While Wal-Mart continues to profit and expand, its stock has lost value — in recent months it is 16% off its 52-week high — as sales have been more sluggish as gas prices cause customers to cut back on driving to and from the store. The negative publicity around the company has also caused some damage.
Of course, other factors besides low turnover and employee productivity are responsible for Costco’s efficiency. The company has a wealthier customer base than Wal-Mart’s; these customers buy higher-margin goods, purchase in bulk and have steadier spending habits. Costco also saves millions because it does not advertise.
More Than Hot Air
Besides the efficiency of its workforce, another reason Costco can afford to pay more is that it cuts the fat from executive paychecks. The overall corporate philosophy is that workers deserve a fair share of the profits they help generate — not just a pat on the back or a new job title like “associate.”
For example, while CEOs at other major corporations average 531 times the pay of their lowest-paid employees, Sinegal takes only 10 times the pay of his typical employee. His annual salary is $350,000, compared to about $5.3 million awarded to Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott.
After California Costco workers ratified their Teamster contract last March, CEO Jim Sinegal said Costco workers are “entitled to buy homes and live in reasonably nice neighborhoods and send their children to school.”
That the company’s stated ideals match up with workers’ paychecks helps explain employee loyalty at Costco.
Originally from El Salvador, 28-year-old Cesar Martinez has worked at a Redwood City, Calif. Costco for 10 years, serving as a Teamster shop steward for seven years. His pay is now up to $19.42 an hour, which he estimates brings him $43,000 per year.
“There’s a feeling here that the company takes care of its employees and wants to share the profits. We feel compensated fairly,” Martinez said.
“I’ve stuck with it so long because I like the job. And the salary is solid and we have a pension that gives me security into the future. That’s important to me,” he added.
By contrast, some Wal-Mart employees experience the supposed care for “associates” as empty rhetoric. Forty-two-year-old Rosetta Brown, a Sam’s Club employee in Chicago, Ill., for example, stands back each morning when managers and associates gather for the Sam’s Club cheer.
“I refuse to do it,” she said. “I don’t believe the company lives up to what they’re cheering for,” she said.
Rosetta, mother to five children ranging in age from three to 25, does not feel well compensated at $11.34 per hour after five years. She is also suing Wal-Mart, parent company to Sam’s Club, for costs associated with a herniated disc she suffered when she said she was locked in while working the night shift.
Twenty-seven-year-old Jason Mrkwa, who works as a frozen foods stocker in Independence, Kansas, also stands back when it’s cheer time at his store. But he insists he doesn’t hate Wal-Mart: “I’m not another disgruntled employee. I like my job. I just feel cheated with the pay I get.” He started at $7 per hour five years ago, and now makes just $8.53 per hour.
Julie Molina, 38, has worked at Costco’s South San Francisco store for 19 years. “People stick around — most people in my store have been there ten years more. No one in retail makes as much as we do. Plus it’s a good working environment.”
Molina attributes the positive working environment in large part to the Teamsters’ presence. “It works really well now. When problems arise management comes to the union for advice. But without the union I’m not sure what would take place. Would they treat us like Wal-Mart treats its workers? You hear horror stories,” she said.
Of course Costco is not paradise — “On a local level, some managers don’t play fair — they might harass workers, fire them unreasonably or pattern bonuses unfairly. That’s where union representation is the real advantage,” explained Rome Aloise.
Into the future, the question will be which model of employee compensation predominates in retail — the high road of Costco or the low road of Wal-Mart.
“When companies like Wal-Mart are setting the standard, we have to ask: Do we want to live in a country where the largest employer pays below poverty-level wages, whose workers cannot afford health care?” says Paul Blank, chief spokesperson of Wake Up Wal-Mart, the United Food and Commercial Workers’ new campaign to change the company’s practices. “Or do we want Americans to enjoy a decent income and a sense of security in return for their work?”
Costco v. Wal-Mart: How They Stack Up
Global Workforce
Wal-Mart: 1.6 million associates
Costco: 113,000 employees
U.S. Workforce
Wal-Mart: 1.2 million
Costco: 83,600
U.S. Union Members
Wal-Mart: 0
Costco: 15,000
U.S. Stores
Wal-Mart: 3,600
Costco: 336
Net Profits (2004)
Wal-Mart: $10.5 billion
Costco: $882 million
CEO Salary + Bonus (2004)
Wal-Mart: $5.3 million
Costco: $350,000
Average Pay
Wal-Mart: $9.68/hour
Costco: $16/hour
Health Plan Costs
Wal-Mart: Associates pay 34% of premiums + deductible ($350-$1,000)
Costco: Comprehensive; employees pay 5-8% of premiums
Employees Covered By Company Health Insurance
Wal-Mart: 48%
Costco: 82%
Employee Turnover (estimate)
Wal-Mart: 50%
Costco: 24%
Sources: Wal-Mart, Costco, Business Week, Forbes.com
Dag Hamarskjöld
Heavenly Father, who have taught us that the peacemakers shall be called the children of God: Grant that, like your servant Dag Hamarskjöld, we may always seek to live at peace with our neighbors, and to reconcile those living in strife and enmity; so that in this way we may follow in the footsteps of your beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Americans: call on your leaders to support the Employee Non-Discrimination Act
The Employee Non-Discrimination Act would forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Sadly, the homophobes would have us live in the dark ages.
I previously called for action in this post, but momentum for the legislation is now building on Capitol Hill, and there is a very real chance that it will be passed. President Bush might veto it, but then he will condemn himself as a homophobe for sure ... and it might get passed with enough of a majority that he cannot veto the bill.
Go here to email your Congresspeople, adn the President and Vice President.
I previously called for action in this post, but momentum for the legislation is now building on Capitol Hill, and there is a very real chance that it will be passed. President Bush might veto it, but then he will condemn himself as a homophobe for sure ... and it might get passed with enough of a majority that he cannot veto the bill.
Go here to email your Congresspeople, adn the President and Vice President.
Americans: petition the Senate to restore Habeas Corpus
Habeas Corpus is one of the primary defenses we have against extrajudicial punishments. A prisoner can obtain a writ of habeas corpus, which forces the government to go before a court to show lawful grounds for their detention, or else release them.
Less democratic societies, like Singapore and Malaysia, may have acts that allow detainment without charge for some time; Singapore's is called the Internal Security Act. The Singapore government has long refused to take this law off the books; it was most recently used against a terror cell that was plotting to bomb several US targets on the island. Admittedly, there is no doubt that this group of people was guilty of the crimes they were charged with. But, the Singapore government could easily have written a law that forbids arbitrary detentions; what if, in future, the people we arrest are not guilty as charged? They have chosen not to do so, because power corrupts.
The United States has long prided itself as a society ruled by law. However, this administration has tried to place itself above the law, and they succeeded with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which allowed the president to designate anyone as an unlawful combatant, and detain them indefinitely at secret prisons without access to a hearing in court. Americans must get this law off the books immediately, because power corrupts.
Today, Senators are debating the bipartisan Specter-Leahy Amendment (S.185), which would restore habeas corpus. This is a no-brainer regardless of your political affiliation. America is great because she is a free country, not a dictatorship.
Go here to email your Senators to ask them to pass the amendment.
Less democratic societies, like Singapore and Malaysia, may have acts that allow detainment without charge for some time; Singapore's is called the Internal Security Act. The Singapore government has long refused to take this law off the books; it was most recently used against a terror cell that was plotting to bomb several US targets on the island. Admittedly, there is no doubt that this group of people was guilty of the crimes they were charged with. But, the Singapore government could easily have written a law that forbids arbitrary detentions; what if, in future, the people we arrest are not guilty as charged? They have chosen not to do so, because power corrupts.
The United States has long prided itself as a society ruled by law. However, this administration has tried to place itself above the law, and they succeeded with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which allowed the president to designate anyone as an unlawful combatant, and detain them indefinitely at secret prisons without access to a hearing in court. Americans must get this law off the books immediately, because power corrupts.
Today, Senators are debating the bipartisan Specter-Leahy Amendment (S.185), which would restore habeas corpus. This is a no-brainer regardless of your political affiliation. America is great because she is a free country, not a dictatorship.
Go here to email your Senators to ask them to pass the amendment.
Silence about concussions raises risks of injury among American football players
This article is long, but it highlights an intersection between gender and health - particularly among American football players, who sustain a lot of hard impacts, which cause a lot of concussions. Head injuries are bad by themselves; repeated head injuries can be very deleterious or fatal.
To Kelby Jasmon, there was only one answer. The question: If he received yet another concussion this football season, while playing offensive and defensive line for his high school in Springfield, Ill., would he tell a coach or trainer?
Jasmon, with his battering-ram, freshly buzz-cut head and eyes that danced with impending glory, immediately answered: “No chance. It’s not dangerous to play with a concussion. You’ve got to sacrifice for the sake of the team. The only way I come out is on a stretcher.”
Jasmon, a senior with three concussions on his résumé, looked at two teammates for support and unity. They said the same thing with the same certainty: They did not quite know what a concussion was, and would never tell their coaches if they believed they had sustained one.
Matt Selvaggio, who plays with Jasmon on both lines, said: “Our coaches would take us out in a second. So why would we tell them?”
Many of the 1.2 million teenagers who play high school football are chanting similar war whoops as they strap on their helmets. They either do not know what a concussion is or they simply do not care. Their code of silence, bred by football’s gladiator culture, allows them to play on and sometimes be hurt much worse — sometimes fatally.
The National Football League has recently faced questions about its handling of concussions after four former players were found to have significant brain damage as early as their mid-30s. But teenagers are more susceptible to immediate harm from such injuries because, studies show, their brain tissue is less developed than adults’ and more easily damaged. High school players also typically receive less capable medical care, or none at all.
At least 50 high school or younger football players in more than 20 states since 1997 have been killed or have sustained serious head injuries on the field, according to research by The New York Times.
Experts say many of these accidents could have been prevented by simple awareness of and respect for their gravity.
Poor management of high school players’ concussions “isn’t just a football issue,” said Robert Sallis, president of the American College of Sports Medicine. “It’s a matter of public health.”
Interviews with players indicate that even those aware of the dangers of concussions ignore them. Coaches, trainers and parents can detect a gimpy knee or a separated shoulder, and act. But a concussion is often the player’s secret. It is the one injury no one sees — until a case like Will Benson’s, which no one forgets.
•
Benson carried himself with a verticality that captivated teachers, classmates and coaches. A handsome, straight-A student headed for the Ivy League, he was the star quarterback for St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin, Tex.
“He loved the idea of playing for his teammates and his brothers on that battlefield of the gridiron,” recalled his good friend and classmate Kashif Sweet, now a senior at Columbia. “He was a naturally tough kid with a high threshold for pain. He liked to endure things, to conquer things, and have people follow him.”
On a play during St. Stephen’s first game of 2002, as a pile of bodies grew too dense to see through, a crack was heard throughout the stadium: the sound of helmet meeting helmet, two shells of polycarbonate alloy crashing together.
Watching from the stands, Judy Ryser, Benson’s mother, heard the sound — everyone did — and turned to a friend next to her.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said. “I hope that wasn’t Will.”
•
In the stifling heat of July in Alabama, hundreds of high school players from across the United States gathered at Hoover High School outside Birmingham, preparing to compete in a preseason tournament. They ambled about the field in baggy polyester shorts, helmets dangling from their fingers. Give them each five years and 50 pounds, and it could be an N.F.L. rookie camp.
Some sat on the grandstand’s metal benches, waiting for their games to begin. They were asked about concussions.
Garrick Jones, a senior quarterback at Whitehaven High School in Memphis, said he sustained one last year: He was briefly knocked unconscious when a linebacker picked him up and threw him to the ground on his head. No flag was thrown. He said he wobbled to the huddle, took the next snap and dropped back to pass before his vision blurred completely.
“I couldn’t come out — my team needed me,” Jones said. “You have to keep playing — until you can’t.”
Some players airily guessed at describing a concussion: “You feel dizzy and stuff”; “when you’re cross-eyed”; “when you feel real sleepy”; “it’s like when you turn into someone else.” Only a few of more than 50 players interviewed at the tournament came close to defining the injury: a blow to the head that causes the brain to crash into the skull. Concussion — the word derives from the Latin concutere, meaning shake violently — is typically followed by dizziness, headache, nausea, lethargy, impaired vision or other disruptions in brain function.
Studies show that concussions are drastically underreported in high school football in part because many youngsters — even adults — still mistakenly think the injury requires the player to have been knocked unconscious. Athletic trainers report about 5 percent of high school players as having had a concussion each season, studies show, but formal widespread surveys of players strongly suggest the number is much higher.
Anonymous questionnaires that ask specifically about concussions have reported rates among high school football players at about 15 percent each season; when the word concussion is omitted and a description of symptoms is provided instead, close to 50 percent of players say they had one, with 35 percent reporting two or more. Although concussions remain one of the more imprecise diagnoses in sports medicine — magnetic resonance imaging exams and CAT scans cannot detect them — the players’ testimony has been taken by experts to indicate that a vast majority of concussions are not treated.
Asked to define a concussion, Josh Bailey, a senior safety at Patterson High in Louisiana, could not. After being told, he said he definitely had one last year, when his head slammed against another player’s knee. He said no one noticed, and he never considered leaving the game.
“Football, it’s all about contact — you kind of have to suck it up,” Bailey said. “Because you’re going to feel pain. That’s what the game is about. If you don’t put yourself through that, you don’t really love the game.”
•
The crack on the St. Stephen’s field five years ago was indeed the sound of Will Benson’s helmet slamming into another. He played the rest of the game, which his team lost. Admitting to headaches several days later, Benson sat out the next game — and St. Stephen’s lost again.
“He felt a lot of responsibility,” recalled Jay Lamy, a volunteer coach that season. “He didn’t want to let his teammates down. He knew the impact that he had.”
That influence was felt the next Friday night. Filling his No. 7 uniform as only a star quarterback can, Benson ran for a touchdown in the first quarter.
But later in the half, with seemingly no provocation, he took off his helmet and walked off the field. Benson told his coach he felt weird and had “big blobs” in his vision. He sat on the bench and put a towel over his head. Then a golf cart took him to the trainer’s room.
A few minutes later, Benson was screaming in a way that no one present will ever forget.
“Mom!” he shrieked before he lost consciousness.
“Mom!”
“Mom!”
•
Doctors call it second-impact syndrome. Almost solely among teenagers, sustaining another blow to the head — even a seemingly benign one — before a first has healed can set off a devastating chain of metabolic events: Cerebral blood flow increases, arteries swell past capacity, and pressure builds inside the brain, often leading to coma and death. Helmets can do only so much to keep youngsters’ brains from sloshing inside their skulls, like the yolk inside an egg.
A recent study in The American Journal of Sports Medicine led by Barry P. Boden of the Orthopaedic Center in Rockville, Md., found that catastrophic football head injuries were three times as prevalent among high school players as college players — and that “an unacceptably high percentage of high school players were playing with residual symptoms from a prior head injury.”
For many victims, staying alive is only the first challenge. Kort Breckenridge of Tetonia, Idaho, has trouble holding down a job because of short-term memory problems stemming from a football brain injury two years ago. Brady Beran of Lincoln, Neb., emerged from a coma reading at a kindergarten level; he remains in physical therapy with hopes of running again.
Second-impact syndrome is relatively rare, however. Experts said that for every such case there can be hundreds of victims of postconcussion syndrome, leaving youngsters depressed, irritable and unable to concentrate, and they sometimes miss school for weeks or perform poorly on tests. Ben Mangan of Lewisburg, Ohio, still has mood swings and cognitive problems deriving from at least one major concussion in 2002.
“It definitely has held me back in progressing through school,” said Mangan, now 20 and attending a small Ohio college. “I was a B student in math before, but now I sit there and I’m like, Why can’t I get this? I’ll do the same problem five times and keep getting different answers. It’s really frustrating.”
With no limp or wince to advertise most concussions, coaches and sideline medical staff must be keenly aware of their signs; waiting for gross disorientation or nausea invites disaster.
Diagnostic methods vary in science and scope, but most involve asking questions to gauge a player’s awareness, testing short-term memory by repeating strings of words and numbers backward and forward, and administering short pencil-and-paper tests. Players are encouraged to be re-examined after physical exertion to see if headache or cognitive problems return.
Many school districts require an ambulance and paramedics to be on-site in case of emergencies, but a sideline physician is often a luxury. Only 42 percent of high schools in the United States have access to a certified athletic trainer, according to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.
“Budgets are tight,” said Bob Colgate, the assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations. “You hate to say that, but it’s a reality.”
Howells High School is among the 77 percent of Nebraska schools without an athletic trainer. The football coach, Mike Spiers, said that he cannot monitor the health of every player, many of whom he speaks with only a few times a game.
“I have a tremendous fear of all injuries that could permanently damage a kid,” Spiers said. “It’s something that may convince me not to do this anymore.”
At midweek practices, which often feature even more banging and tackling than games, volunteer coaches with little training typically evaluate injuries while the head coach calls plays.
Sallis, of the American College of Sports Medicine, joined many experts in saying he was not trying to discourage the playing of football, only the widespread acceptance of playing it unsafely.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “High schools hire a zillion coaches before they wonder about hiring a trainer. If you hire a head football coach, that next hire should be an athletic trainer.”
•
As Will Benson wailed, vomited, had a seizure and lost consciousness, the ambulance dispatched for him could not find the entrance to the St. Stephen’s campus. According to records released by the local emergency medical services unit, it spent 13 minutes trying to find the trainer’s room.
A helicopter whisked Benson to a hospital as the game continued. Coaches were confused: He had not been involved in any notable hits or tackles in the game.
Bleeding in his brain, Benson slipped into a coma that night and never regained consciousness. A neurosurgeon operated to relieve pressure inside the skull but could not revive him. Five days later, Benson was declared brain dead. He was kept alive overnight so his organs could be harvested for donation.
•
There is no shortage of unenlightened coaches. Scott Robertson, a volunteer team physician for Nipomo High in Southern California, said he had seen coaches at other schools “berate and ostracize” players who complained of concussion symptoms. Jerry Bornstein, another team physician for several Los Angeles-area schools, said a coach once yelled at him for refusing to let a concussed player return to a game. His response: “I’ll be happy to, Coach, as long as you accept the responsibility for this kid waking up dead tomorrow morning.”
Ellen Marmer, the team physician for Rockville High School in Vernon, Conn., said that after she determined an offensive player from the opposing team was unfit to play after a concussion, his coach had him switch uniforms to try to play defense.
Parents lose perspective as well. Garrick Jones, a quarterback from Memphis, said that the week after his concussion, his father pleaded with the coach to let him play. (The coach won.) Vito Perriello, the team doctor for St. Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville, Va., said, “I have had parents tear up the form that I’ve filled out strongly recommending their child not play, and shop a doc to get their kid O.K.’d.”
Yet many experts say that as poorly as adults can behave, it is the football bravado they instill in children, the thirst for competition and the blind eye to pain, that keeps players in the game. More than a dozen high school players at the Alabama tournament said they had hidden concussions from their coaches and medical personnel to stay on the field.
“If the coach knew about it, he’d take us out,” said Matt Arent, a quarterback in Nashville. “They treat us like we’re their own kids. It comes down to the player not telling the coach that something’s wrong.”
Players will hide from trainers and try to sneak back into huddles. They will rehearse answers to impress the trainer, so they won’t forget to use magic phrases like “I don’t have any headache at all” when asked.
One maneuver involves the preseason memory and cognitive tests many schools administer as a baseline for comparison should a player sustain a concussion. Several doctors and trainers said they have heard players boast of purposely doing poorly on the preseason tests so they will be more readily found fit to play.
A paradox has developed in high school football: The more strict the rules, the more likely they are to be evaded by the players they aim to protect. Many doctors support a rule whereby any player sustaining a concussion cannot return to play that day. But Sallis supported a more realistic approach, in which a player may return to the game if doctors are convinced the symptoms have cleared.
If not, Sallis said: “Players are all going to stop telling the team physician that they have any symptoms — they’re going to hide them. Which we know they already do, but I think it’s going to get even worse. It’s putting them at more risk.”
•
Dick Benson spent five years trying to wring something positive out of his son Will’s death. In June, Will’s Bill, legislation he crusaded for, was signed into law.
It requires every Texas high school coach and official involved in every sport to be trained in basic safety and emergency procedures. Beyond neck injuries and heart attacks, special attention will be afforded to the symptoms of concussion and roots of second-impact syndrome. Benson said: “We’re not teaching people the principles of neurology. This is fundamental, basic stuff.”
The law does not apply to Will’s old high school, however. It originally covered parochial and private schools, but the primary sponsor of the bill, State Senator Leticia Van de Putte, said it became entangled in “a raging school-voucher argument.” The legislation had to be scaled back “over politics,” she said.
Benson said that he hoped that the steps taken in his son’s name would reach other states, but added that the process would be slow at best.
“It usually takes something like Will to get people to take this kind of thing seriously,” he said. “People like learning things the hard way.”
Particularly adolescents. Playing linebacker two years ago, Riley Haynes of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., tackled a running back with such force that he found himself on the ground, all but unconscious, not remembering his name. His head throbbed, and he had no idea where he was.
A teammate reminded him. He jumped on top of Haynes and screamed through his face mask: “That’s football, baby! That’s football, baby!”
Haynes gathered himself, stumbled back to his position and took his stance for the next snap.
To Kelby Jasmon, there was only one answer. The question: If he received yet another concussion this football season, while playing offensive and defensive line for his high school in Springfield, Ill., would he tell a coach or trainer?
Jasmon, with his battering-ram, freshly buzz-cut head and eyes that danced with impending glory, immediately answered: “No chance. It’s not dangerous to play with a concussion. You’ve got to sacrifice for the sake of the team. The only way I come out is on a stretcher.”
Jasmon, a senior with three concussions on his résumé, looked at two teammates for support and unity. They said the same thing with the same certainty: They did not quite know what a concussion was, and would never tell their coaches if they believed they had sustained one.
Matt Selvaggio, who plays with Jasmon on both lines, said: “Our coaches would take us out in a second. So why would we tell them?”
Many of the 1.2 million teenagers who play high school football are chanting similar war whoops as they strap on their helmets. They either do not know what a concussion is or they simply do not care. Their code of silence, bred by football’s gladiator culture, allows them to play on and sometimes be hurt much worse — sometimes fatally.
The National Football League has recently faced questions about its handling of concussions after four former players were found to have significant brain damage as early as their mid-30s. But teenagers are more susceptible to immediate harm from such injuries because, studies show, their brain tissue is less developed than adults’ and more easily damaged. High school players also typically receive less capable medical care, or none at all.
At least 50 high school or younger football players in more than 20 states since 1997 have been killed or have sustained serious head injuries on the field, according to research by The New York Times.
Experts say many of these accidents could have been prevented by simple awareness of and respect for their gravity.
Poor management of high school players’ concussions “isn’t just a football issue,” said Robert Sallis, president of the American College of Sports Medicine. “It’s a matter of public health.”
Interviews with players indicate that even those aware of the dangers of concussions ignore them. Coaches, trainers and parents can detect a gimpy knee or a separated shoulder, and act. But a concussion is often the player’s secret. It is the one injury no one sees — until a case like Will Benson’s, which no one forgets.
•
Benson carried himself with a verticality that captivated teachers, classmates and coaches. A handsome, straight-A student headed for the Ivy League, he was the star quarterback for St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin, Tex.
“He loved the idea of playing for his teammates and his brothers on that battlefield of the gridiron,” recalled his good friend and classmate Kashif Sweet, now a senior at Columbia. “He was a naturally tough kid with a high threshold for pain. He liked to endure things, to conquer things, and have people follow him.”
On a play during St. Stephen’s first game of 2002, as a pile of bodies grew too dense to see through, a crack was heard throughout the stadium: the sound of helmet meeting helmet, two shells of polycarbonate alloy crashing together.
Watching from the stands, Judy Ryser, Benson’s mother, heard the sound — everyone did — and turned to a friend next to her.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said. “I hope that wasn’t Will.”
•
In the stifling heat of July in Alabama, hundreds of high school players from across the United States gathered at Hoover High School outside Birmingham, preparing to compete in a preseason tournament. They ambled about the field in baggy polyester shorts, helmets dangling from their fingers. Give them each five years and 50 pounds, and it could be an N.F.L. rookie camp.
Some sat on the grandstand’s metal benches, waiting for their games to begin. They were asked about concussions.
Garrick Jones, a senior quarterback at Whitehaven High School in Memphis, said he sustained one last year: He was briefly knocked unconscious when a linebacker picked him up and threw him to the ground on his head. No flag was thrown. He said he wobbled to the huddle, took the next snap and dropped back to pass before his vision blurred completely.
“I couldn’t come out — my team needed me,” Jones said. “You have to keep playing — until you can’t.”
Some players airily guessed at describing a concussion: “You feel dizzy and stuff”; “when you’re cross-eyed”; “when you feel real sleepy”; “it’s like when you turn into someone else.” Only a few of more than 50 players interviewed at the tournament came close to defining the injury: a blow to the head that causes the brain to crash into the skull. Concussion — the word derives from the Latin concutere, meaning shake violently — is typically followed by dizziness, headache, nausea, lethargy, impaired vision or other disruptions in brain function.
Studies show that concussions are drastically underreported in high school football in part because many youngsters — even adults — still mistakenly think the injury requires the player to have been knocked unconscious. Athletic trainers report about 5 percent of high school players as having had a concussion each season, studies show, but formal widespread surveys of players strongly suggest the number is much higher.
Anonymous questionnaires that ask specifically about concussions have reported rates among high school football players at about 15 percent each season; when the word concussion is omitted and a description of symptoms is provided instead, close to 50 percent of players say they had one, with 35 percent reporting two or more. Although concussions remain one of the more imprecise diagnoses in sports medicine — magnetic resonance imaging exams and CAT scans cannot detect them — the players’ testimony has been taken by experts to indicate that a vast majority of concussions are not treated.
Asked to define a concussion, Josh Bailey, a senior safety at Patterson High in Louisiana, could not. After being told, he said he definitely had one last year, when his head slammed against another player’s knee. He said no one noticed, and he never considered leaving the game.
“Football, it’s all about contact — you kind of have to suck it up,” Bailey said. “Because you’re going to feel pain. That’s what the game is about. If you don’t put yourself through that, you don’t really love the game.”
•
The crack on the St. Stephen’s field five years ago was indeed the sound of Will Benson’s helmet slamming into another. He played the rest of the game, which his team lost. Admitting to headaches several days later, Benson sat out the next game — and St. Stephen’s lost again.
“He felt a lot of responsibility,” recalled Jay Lamy, a volunteer coach that season. “He didn’t want to let his teammates down. He knew the impact that he had.”
That influence was felt the next Friday night. Filling his No. 7 uniform as only a star quarterback can, Benson ran for a touchdown in the first quarter.
But later in the half, with seemingly no provocation, he took off his helmet and walked off the field. Benson told his coach he felt weird and had “big blobs” in his vision. He sat on the bench and put a towel over his head. Then a golf cart took him to the trainer’s room.
A few minutes later, Benson was screaming in a way that no one present will ever forget.
“Mom!” he shrieked before he lost consciousness.
“Mom!”
“Mom!”
•
Doctors call it second-impact syndrome. Almost solely among teenagers, sustaining another blow to the head — even a seemingly benign one — before a first has healed can set off a devastating chain of metabolic events: Cerebral blood flow increases, arteries swell past capacity, and pressure builds inside the brain, often leading to coma and death. Helmets can do only so much to keep youngsters’ brains from sloshing inside their skulls, like the yolk inside an egg.
A recent study in The American Journal of Sports Medicine led by Barry P. Boden of the Orthopaedic Center in Rockville, Md., found that catastrophic football head injuries were three times as prevalent among high school players as college players — and that “an unacceptably high percentage of high school players were playing with residual symptoms from a prior head injury.”
For many victims, staying alive is only the first challenge. Kort Breckenridge of Tetonia, Idaho, has trouble holding down a job because of short-term memory problems stemming from a football brain injury two years ago. Brady Beran of Lincoln, Neb., emerged from a coma reading at a kindergarten level; he remains in physical therapy with hopes of running again.
Second-impact syndrome is relatively rare, however. Experts said that for every such case there can be hundreds of victims of postconcussion syndrome, leaving youngsters depressed, irritable and unable to concentrate, and they sometimes miss school for weeks or perform poorly on tests. Ben Mangan of Lewisburg, Ohio, still has mood swings and cognitive problems deriving from at least one major concussion in 2002.
“It definitely has held me back in progressing through school,” said Mangan, now 20 and attending a small Ohio college. “I was a B student in math before, but now I sit there and I’m like, Why can’t I get this? I’ll do the same problem five times and keep getting different answers. It’s really frustrating.”
With no limp or wince to advertise most concussions, coaches and sideline medical staff must be keenly aware of their signs; waiting for gross disorientation or nausea invites disaster.
Diagnostic methods vary in science and scope, but most involve asking questions to gauge a player’s awareness, testing short-term memory by repeating strings of words and numbers backward and forward, and administering short pencil-and-paper tests. Players are encouraged to be re-examined after physical exertion to see if headache or cognitive problems return.
Many school districts require an ambulance and paramedics to be on-site in case of emergencies, but a sideline physician is often a luxury. Only 42 percent of high schools in the United States have access to a certified athletic trainer, according to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.
“Budgets are tight,” said Bob Colgate, the assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations. “You hate to say that, but it’s a reality.”
Howells High School is among the 77 percent of Nebraska schools without an athletic trainer. The football coach, Mike Spiers, said that he cannot monitor the health of every player, many of whom he speaks with only a few times a game.
“I have a tremendous fear of all injuries that could permanently damage a kid,” Spiers said. “It’s something that may convince me not to do this anymore.”
At midweek practices, which often feature even more banging and tackling than games, volunteer coaches with little training typically evaluate injuries while the head coach calls plays.
Sallis, of the American College of Sports Medicine, joined many experts in saying he was not trying to discourage the playing of football, only the widespread acceptance of playing it unsafely.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “High schools hire a zillion coaches before they wonder about hiring a trainer. If you hire a head football coach, that next hire should be an athletic trainer.”
•
As Will Benson wailed, vomited, had a seizure and lost consciousness, the ambulance dispatched for him could not find the entrance to the St. Stephen’s campus. According to records released by the local emergency medical services unit, it spent 13 minutes trying to find the trainer’s room.
A helicopter whisked Benson to a hospital as the game continued. Coaches were confused: He had not been involved in any notable hits or tackles in the game.
Bleeding in his brain, Benson slipped into a coma that night and never regained consciousness. A neurosurgeon operated to relieve pressure inside the skull but could not revive him. Five days later, Benson was declared brain dead. He was kept alive overnight so his organs could be harvested for donation.
•
There is no shortage of unenlightened coaches. Scott Robertson, a volunteer team physician for Nipomo High in Southern California, said he had seen coaches at other schools “berate and ostracize” players who complained of concussion symptoms. Jerry Bornstein, another team physician for several Los Angeles-area schools, said a coach once yelled at him for refusing to let a concussed player return to a game. His response: “I’ll be happy to, Coach, as long as you accept the responsibility for this kid waking up dead tomorrow morning.”
Ellen Marmer, the team physician for Rockville High School in Vernon, Conn., said that after she determined an offensive player from the opposing team was unfit to play after a concussion, his coach had him switch uniforms to try to play defense.
Parents lose perspective as well. Garrick Jones, a quarterback from Memphis, said that the week after his concussion, his father pleaded with the coach to let him play. (The coach won.) Vito Perriello, the team doctor for St. Anne’s-Belfield School in Charlottesville, Va., said, “I have had parents tear up the form that I’ve filled out strongly recommending their child not play, and shop a doc to get their kid O.K.’d.”
Yet many experts say that as poorly as adults can behave, it is the football bravado they instill in children, the thirst for competition and the blind eye to pain, that keeps players in the game. More than a dozen high school players at the Alabama tournament said they had hidden concussions from their coaches and medical personnel to stay on the field.
“If the coach knew about it, he’d take us out,” said Matt Arent, a quarterback in Nashville. “They treat us like we’re their own kids. It comes down to the player not telling the coach that something’s wrong.”
Players will hide from trainers and try to sneak back into huddles. They will rehearse answers to impress the trainer, so they won’t forget to use magic phrases like “I don’t have any headache at all” when asked.
One maneuver involves the preseason memory and cognitive tests many schools administer as a baseline for comparison should a player sustain a concussion. Several doctors and trainers said they have heard players boast of purposely doing poorly on the preseason tests so they will be more readily found fit to play.
A paradox has developed in high school football: The more strict the rules, the more likely they are to be evaded by the players they aim to protect. Many doctors support a rule whereby any player sustaining a concussion cannot return to play that day. But Sallis supported a more realistic approach, in which a player may return to the game if doctors are convinced the symptoms have cleared.
If not, Sallis said: “Players are all going to stop telling the team physician that they have any symptoms — they’re going to hide them. Which we know they already do, but I think it’s going to get even worse. It’s putting them at more risk.”
•
Dick Benson spent five years trying to wring something positive out of his son Will’s death. In June, Will’s Bill, legislation he crusaded for, was signed into law.
It requires every Texas high school coach and official involved in every sport to be trained in basic safety and emergency procedures. Beyond neck injuries and heart attacks, special attention will be afforded to the symptoms of concussion and roots of second-impact syndrome. Benson said: “We’re not teaching people the principles of neurology. This is fundamental, basic stuff.”
The law does not apply to Will’s old high school, however. It originally covered parochial and private schools, but the primary sponsor of the bill, State Senator Leticia Van de Putte, said it became entangled in “a raging school-voucher argument.” The legislation had to be scaled back “over politics,” she said.
Benson said that he hoped that the steps taken in his son’s name would reach other states, but added that the process would be slow at best.
“It usually takes something like Will to get people to take this kind of thing seriously,” he said. “People like learning things the hard way.”
Particularly adolescents. Playing linebacker two years ago, Riley Haynes of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., tackled a running back with such force that he found himself on the ground, all but unconscious, not remembering his name. His head throbbed, and he had no idea where he was.
A teammate reminded him. He jumped on top of Haynes and screamed through his face mask: “That’s football, baby! That’s football, baby!”
Haynes gathered himself, stumbled back to his position and took his stance for the next snap.
Church of Nigeria to Rowan: we're scared that gay people will talk to us and make us all gay, so please cancel Lambeth
Thinking Anglicans and a number of other sites are reporting and deriding an open letter sent by Peter Akinola to Rowan Williams.
The letter is reproduced below for posterity. The gist is that the Nigerians:
1. Are fearful for their safety (!!!) in England, because pro-gay protesters have been known to be disruptive.
2. Do not want to come to Lambeth under these circumstances, and want a special Primates meeting instead.
Lambeth is an all-bishops meeting, and it involves much more discussion than action. The Primates Meeting is only archbishops. One commentator more well-versed in Anglican politics than I points out that it is far easier to manipulate and bully the Primates Meeting than the Lambeth Conference.
It is true that pro-gay protesters have been disruptive of some Church of England gatherings, as the letter points out. However, they also have not been violent. And the Church of Nigeria has enabled and in fact sponsored violence against LGBT people within its borders. In that light, their protestations are strange.
Additionally, they are trying to force through the Anglican Covenant.
The letter is reproduced below for posterity. The gist is that the Nigerians:
1. Are fearful for their safety (!!!) in England, because pro-gay protesters have been known to be disruptive.
2. Do not want to come to Lambeth under these circumstances, and want a special Primates meeting instead.
Lambeth is an all-bishops meeting, and it involves much more discussion than action. The Primates Meeting is only archbishops. One commentator more well-versed in Anglican politics than I points out that it is far easier to manipulate and bully the Primates Meeting than the Lambeth Conference.
It is true that pro-gay protesters have been disruptive of some Church of England gatherings, as the letter points out. However, they also have not been violent. And the Church of Nigeria has enabled and in fact sponsored violence against LGBT people within its borders. In that light, their protestations are strange.
Additionally, they are trying to force through the Anglican Covenant.
An open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury from the House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria meeting in Osogbo, Osun State
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the one and only Lord Jesus Christ.
We write to you out of profound love for our beloved Anglican Communion and recognition that this current crisis in our common life together is an unrelenting source of anguish for you and for all concerned.
We have reviewed the paper “A Most Agonizing Road to Lambeth 2008” that was made available to us by our primate, the Most Rev’d Peter J. Akinola. We found it to be a compelling summary of many of the key events and meetings of the past ten years. It highlights the intractability of our current crisis.
We are persuaded that a change of direction from our current path is urgently needed and write to assure you of our willingness and commitment to work towards that end. We have noted your desire that the proposed Lambeth Conference be a place for fellowship and prayer and an exploration of our shared mission and ministry – all of these are of course commendable aims.
We all know, however, that the pressures of the present situation would adversely affect the outcome of the conference unless there is a profound change of heart; for how can we as bishops in the Church of God gather for a Lambeth Conference when there is such a high level of distrust, dislike and disdain for one another? How can we meet as leaders of the Communion when our relationships are so sorely strained and our life together so broken that we cannot even share together in the Lord’s Supper? It would be a mockery and bring dishonour to the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ.
We are also concerned about the abuse directed towards those who hold to traditional views on matters of Human Sexuality. The spate of hostility in the UK is alarming.
We are all witnesses to:
* The presence of placard carrying and leaflets distributing campaigners at the last Lambeth Conference distracting Bishops who travelled thousands of miles for fellowship. These protesters effectively shifted the focus of the conference to human sexuality - as if that was all that mattered.
* The physical assaults against clergymen with opposing view, such as your predecessor attacked in his own Cathedral pulpit, and a Kenyan bishop assaulted by two people dressed as clergymen.
* The occasion when your own General Synod was disrupted by protestors angry over the handling of the Canon Jeffery John issue.
* Recent attempts to mandate unbiblical views in the UK through force of law and the protests and attacks by activists determined to disrupt and intimidate any group that seeks to uphold biblical teaching.
In truth anyone who does not embrace revisionist views is a potential target. We know it is possible to provide some security to minimize such occurrences but is the additional cost justifiable? Would the resultant atmosphere of fear and uncertainty be conducive to the goals of such a large gathering of bishops?
These are all matters of concern but in our opinion there is a way forward.
The proposed Anglican Communion Covenant is the one way for us to uphold our common heritage of faith while at the same time holding each other accountable to those teachings that have defined our life together and also guide us into the future. It has already received enthusiastic support from the majority of the Communion. Therefore we propose the following action plan:
As a matter of utmost urgency, call a special session of the Primates Meeting to:
a) Receive the responses made by The Episcopal Church to the Dromantine and Dar es Salaam Communiqués and determine their adequacy.
b) Arrive at a consensus for the application of the Windsor Process especially in Provinces whose self-understanding is at odds with the predominant mind of the Communion.
c) Set in motion an agreed process to finalize the Anglican Covenant Proposal and set a timetable for its ratification by individual provinces. This cannot be done at the Lambeth Conference because it is simply too large and, we all know, the Anglican Covenant requires individual provincial endorsement and signature.
Postpone current plans for the Lambeth Conference (as has been done before). This will:
a) Allow the current tensions to subside and leave room for the hard work of reconciliation that is a prerequisite for the fellowship we all desire.
b) Confirm that those invited to the Lambeth Conference have already endorsed the Anglican Covenant and so are able to come together as witnesses to our common faith.
We make these proposals in good faith believing that they provide an opportunity for us to reunite the Communion consistent with our common heritage and give us a way forward to engage the world with the holistic Gospel of Salvation in Jesus Christ.
Sincerely,
Bishops of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
September 13th, 2007
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