This has been a fairly spectacular year for tornadoes, and
the seasonal peak for storms is still
a couple of weeks away. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center has measured more than 475 twisters, about double the 10-year average.
Click here to
get information about each of the tornado-related deaths so far.
Where were people when they died? Look at this chart for
2007:
Circumstance Fatalities
Twister Tourism
There
is a dollar to be made on just about everything it seems, and the tornado-tourism business is booming. See this story from USA
Today.
Why Do MLB Players Chew?
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says an estimated one in three Major League Baseball players chew
tobacco or dip snuff during the season. About one in 10 American males chew or dip.
Why do baseball players chew, when nobody in the NBA, NHL or NFL does? The last-known chewer in pro football was 40 years ago (even though former Dallas Cowboys running back Walt Garrison was a
spokesman for snuff). Still, as the
paper points out, MLB has been reluctant to ban smokeless tobacco from the
dugout, even though it has come up in labor talks time and again:
Tobacco has been interwoven with the game's appeal for more than a
century.
Baseball cards started as a promotion by tobacco companies. By
1910, advertising for American Tobacco's Bull Durham brand at ballparks was
common.
Hall of Famer Ty Cobb treated his bats with juice from Nerve navy
cut, a slow-burning, rope-like tobacco that was often steeped in rum. The
introduction of the spitball in 1902 encouraged pitchers to chew so they could
have a ready supply of juice to put on the baseball.
The advent of televised games increased tobacco's presence.
Cigarette makers advertised on the telecasts, and their brands became
identified with teams.
Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan said that when he broke into the majors
with the New York Mets in 1968, more than half the team smoked.
About a decade later, as the health risks of cigarettes became
better known, players returned to the old habits of chewing tobacco and dipping
snuff. All the while, tobacco companies provided free products to teams and
included players in advertising programs.
"We do know that young players starting in the game admire
the leaders and look up to them,'' said Dr. Herbert Severson, a psychologist at
the University of Oregon and a scientist at the Oregon Research Institute.
"They see them chew and develop the perception that to be successful, you
have to chew."
Severson served as the senior research scientist on a study of the
use of smokeless tobacco by major-league players from 1998-2003. Severson found
smokeless tobacco is far more prevalent in baseball than in the overall
population.
According to Severson, the rate of usage in baseball ranged from
30-36 percent during the study. According to the most recent data, about 10
percent of all males use smokeless tobacco.
The study said that about 40 percent of the users considered
themselves addicted to smokeless tobacco. Others said they used it as means of
relaxation or to sharpen focus and therefore improve performance.
In
a survey of major-leaguers from 1988-90, the University of Washington's School
of Dentistry found no relationship between tobacco use and performance. Users did not produce as a better rate than players who
abstain. Severson's study showed the same pattern.
"There's this mythology that it somehow makes you a better
player,'' Severson said. "There are a lot of myths that players buy into, but
we can find no evidence to support them.
"One thing about baseball is that a lot of rituals and myths
are passed down from generation to generation. That's pretty strong.''
Earlier
this year, the National
Cancer Institute reported about a new smokeless product called
"snus," which has been popular in Scandinavian countries for some time and
has started making its way into the United States. The appeal of this kind of
smokeless tobacco is that users do not have to spit, so they can be more
discreet.
Al's Morning Multimedia: Politicos Who Blog
The
Des Moines Register has an interesting section on its politics page.
The site gives space to state-elected officials to write about their
experience in the legislative session. Some
explain their votes, and others try to give some insight into what is happening
behind the curtain.
The other thing I like about the Register's blog-conversation pages is the clearly stated conversation standards. It is a nice model for those of you who are inviting
public interaction but want to post some guidelines for what you will and won't
allow.
The Five Dumbest Renovation Fads
I
like this list from CNN Money -- the five worst home-renovation fads of recent
decades. The "great room craze," the "kitchen stadium," the garage that
is so big that it ate the house, porches in the wrong place and (the one I am printing off for my wife) overdone built-in lighting that makes
every room look like a hotel conference room. I bet you could find well-known
renovators/architects and planners who could tell you the things that make them
cringe.
Cinco de Mayo Facts
If you are going to do something on Cinco de Mayo, you
should know what it is about and have some background on Mexican-American
heritage. It is a
common misconception that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day, which is
celebrated on Sept. 16. In fact, May 5 is
the commemoration of the defeat of the French army by the Mexicans at the
Battle Of Puebla in 1862. The truth is that
Cinco de Mayo is celebrated more in the U.S. than in Mexico. Here are some facts from the U.S.
Census Bureau. Here is the same fact
collection in
Spanish.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's
Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story
excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as
original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the
accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and
inaccuracies found will be corrected.
