Opinions
Page 4A • Sunday, June 5, 2011
Our view
The Daily Citizen
City, hospital move closer to pedestrian safety
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good first step was taken last week toward increasing pedestrian safety at the crosswalk area of Hartsfield Drive near White County Medical Center. This thoroughfare is a busy one for motorists, serving as a connector between Race and Moore avenues. The area is especially dangerous at night, when patients, employees and visitors have been seen entering and exiting the hospital while wearing dark clothing and paying little or no attention to traffic. Last week, city officials, in cooperation with the hospital, installed yellow reflective signs at the crosswalks, along with rumble strips to alert motorists that they are approaching a pedestrian area. Officials say no accidents have occurred in the area — which is exactly the right time to act. It is far too common for decision makers to wait until accidents occur before taking action, sometimes causing injuries and deaths in the process. That said, lighting in the area is very dim for an area that sees so many motorists and pedestrians. Hospital officials say they are considering adding new streetlights in the area, but nothing has been set in stone. We strongly urge city officials to work with the hospital once again to ensure that the area is properly lit. The signage and rumble strips were a good start, but there is still more work to be done.
STAFF viewS
STAFF VIEWS
Can I hitch a ride to the 1960s?
W
orking in the newspaper business, there are many times when I can't help but think I was born 50 years too late. The 1960s were truly a golden age in the newspaper industry, with many publications putting out two editions per day to keep up with consumer demand. Truth be told, there is no reason this shouldn't still be the case. Sure, newspapers of the 1960s didn't have to compete with local TV news, the Internet and smartphones, but newspa— The Daily Citizen pers still provide the best news coverage. It's not even a contest. On a national level, the 1960s were a time when the media focused on issues that mattered. Washington reporters knew about politicians' personal flaws, but chose not to report on them in favor of actual news. I like to imagine that the 1960s were a time when reporters would take a long look in the mirror and say, "Sure, people like to read juicy and embarrassing details about people's lives. But I'm better than that. Instead of scoring a few cheap points by writing about President Kennedy's dalliances, I think I'll write about the Cuban missiles that are pointed at our nation and the trouble that is brewing over in Vietnam."
Friends on the outside
My distant cousin lives in Washington and once was the receptionist for the late Texas Republican Senator John Tower who we don’t talk much about for obvious reasons. The widow of a deceased major general who was a World War hero, she is Republican to the core but we are close enough in age that we have the same sort of memories. She recently sent me a piece she got, I’m sure on the Internet, with some of those memories that I could make a couple of columns out of. This is the first. Those born between 1930 and 1980 were born to mothers who smoke or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can and were never tested for diabetes. After all that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, no locks on doors or cabinets and we wore baseball caps when we rode our bikes, not helmets. As infants and children, we rode in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts and no airbags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes. Riding in the back of a
PERRIN JONES
pickup truck on a warm day was a special treat. We got a drink of water from a garden hose and not from a plastic bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends and no one died from the experience. We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool Aid made with lots of real white sugar and we weren’t overweight because we were always outside playing daylight to dark. We’d leave home in the morning and play all day as long as we were home when the street lights went on. No one was able to reach us all day, and we were fine. We didn’t have a Playstation, Wii or Xbox. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround sound or CDs, personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms But we had friends. We went outside and found them. Perrin Jones is editor emeritus of The Daily Citizen.
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My nostalgia was rekindled this past week. I read state and national headlines every morning and keep the TV in my office turned to cable news during the day to stay on top of breaking news. Early last week, these 24-hour broadcasts were dominated by a "scandal" regarding whether U.S. Rep. Anthony Wiener, D-N.Y., sent an embarrassing photo of himself to a woman on Twitter. The in-depth reporting on this story was astounding. Reporters contacted women Wiener follows on Twitter. They would grill the congressman on the question as if the future of the nation depended on his answers. "Was this a photo of the congressman, or was it simply a prank?" the talking heads would ask hour after hour. "Yes, please get down to the bottom of this story for me!" I would
Jacob Brower is the editor of The Daily Citizen. He can be reached at jbrower@ thedailycitizen.com, or (501) 268-8621.
ONLINE VIEWS
Facebook Question of the Week This week, we asked our Facebook fans, “What movies are you excited about seeing this summer?” Some of their answers are published below.
We want to hear from you! Jules Rusinowski
Beth Adams
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Evelynmarie Black
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“Whatever is out on DVD. Going to the movies is too dang expensive.”
“None. I prefer to read.”
“I want to see Bad Teacher. The commercials seem pretty funny!”
Today in history
Today is Sunday, June 5, the 156th day of 2011. There are 209 days left in the year.
Serving our readers since 1854
JACOB BROWER
respond sarcastically. "I'm on pins and needles!" I don't know whether the photo is of the congressman, nor do I care. I don't believe trash journalism has any place in a legitimate news source. Publications such as the National Enquirer specialize in "stories" like this, and I say let them have at it. What I do care about is the ongoing debate about how the get the economy back on track, the future of Medicare, this year's unprecedented storm season and the unrest in the Middle East. The only useful thing that comes out of this type of yellow journalism is the fodder it provides for late night comedians. Of course, I know that asking the national media to ignore stories like this is a tall order. That line was crossed years ago, and there's no going back now. But I keep holding onto hope that I will live long enough to see the day when stories like this will come across national desks, and reporters will respond the way I imagine they responded in the 1960s. "I'm better than that."
Today's Highlight in History: On June 5, 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel after claiming victory in California's Democratic presidential primary. Gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was immediately arrested. On this date: In 1884, Civil War hero General William T. Sherman refused the Republican presidential nomination, saying, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected." In 1916, the Arab Revolt against Turkish Ottoman rule began during World War I. In 1933, the United States went off the gold standard.
In 1940, during the World War II Battle of France, Germany attacked French forces along the Somme line. In 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech at Harvard University in which he outlined an aid program for Europe that came to be known as The Marshall Plan. In 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Henderson v. United States, struck down racially segregated railroad dining cars. In 1967, war erupted in the Mideast as Israel raided military aircraft parked on the ground in Egypt; Syria, Jordan and Iraq entered the conflict. In 1976, 14 people were killed when the Teton Dam in Idaho burst. In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control reported that five homosexuals in Los Angeles had come down with a rare kind of pneumonia; they were the first recognized cases of what later became known as AIDS. In 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan,
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the 40th president of the United States, died in Los Angeles at age 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Ten years ago: Tropical Storm Allison made landfall on the Texas coast (the storm resulted in severe flooding and tornadoes blamed for 41 deaths). Senate Republicans spent their last full day in power before turning control over to Democrats, a change that came about because of a decision by Vermont Senator James Jeffords to leave the GOP and become an independent. Five years ago: More than 50 National Guardsmen from Utah became the first unit to work along the U.S.Mexico border as part of President George W. Bush's crackdown on illegal immigration. Serbian lawmakers proclaimed their Balkan republic a sovereign state after Montenegro decided to split from a union and dissolve the remnants of what was once Yugoslavia.