Blogging revolution among elected officials, public agencies

A new report by a Southeastern Louisiana University management professor and issued by the IBM-based Center for the Business of Government examines how blogging is becoming an increasingly common method for elected officials and public agencies to communicate with constituencies. The report chronicles blogging activities at all levels of government, including members of Congress, governors, mayors, police and fire departments.

Using the Internet, particularly blogging, is becoming an increasingly common method for elected officials and public agencies to communicate with constituencies; a Southeastern Louisiana University professor explains in a new report, issued by IBM’s Washington, DC-based Center for the Business of Government.

“As a whole, blogging is still in its infancy, but it is starting to take hold among public officials across the American landscape,” said David C. Wyld, Southeastern’s Maurin Professor of Management and director of the university’s Strategic e-Commerce/e-Government Initiative.

Defining a blog as an online journal that can be updated regularly with entries typically displayed in chronological order, he said blogging is increasingly moving from the fringes to the mainstream, with intense interest in both corporate American and public offices in joining the trend of user-generated media. There are more than 60 million blogs in existence today, with more than 50,000 being created daily.

Wyld’s report, “The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0,” chronicles blogging activities at all levels of government, including members of Congress, governors, mayors, police and fire departments, and provides insights into how blogging is used within agencies to improve internal communications and speed the flow of information. “Web 2.0” refers to the second generation Internet, where interactivity among users is the key. The report also assesses blogging in corporate America, with a first of its kind survey of top executives who blog and the potential benefits and challenges associated with blogging.

He noted that blogging by political candidates has been highly publicized in the current election cycle, but less recognized is the growing trend for agencies and public officials to use this new communications medium. “Just as in the private sector, public officials are finding blogging to be an excellent way to communicate both within their organizations and with their constituencies,” he said.

In looking at bloggers and blog readers, Wyld said they tend to be better educated, more diverse and more urban than the American population as a whole. In addition, from a political perspective, they are more civically involved and politically engaged in both the online and offline worlds.

The report includes tables detailing Wyld’s research, which is baseline data identifying blogs initiated by members of Congress, Congressional committees, governors and lieutenant governors, state legislators and other officials throughout the nation and in places as far away as Scotland and India.

“Members of Congress were a bit slow to pick up on blogging,” Wyld said, citing factors such as the lack of pressure to engage in blogging, worries about giving up control of the message, a lack of web savvy, and the time management and demanding workload Congressional members carry. A facilitating step developed in late 2006 when the House Administration Committee began offering the House Web Log Utility.

“This made it easier for congressional offices to offer blogs on their official member websites,” he said. “And now skepticism about blogging is turning into curiosity about how this new Web 2.0 tool can be used to communicate with constituents in a unique way.” Today, there are Senators and Representatives, including Presidential candidate Barrack Obama, who are adding videos and podcasts to their blog sites.

Wyld – who devoted over a year to this project since having his proposal funded through IBM’s research grant competition -- offers a case study in organizational blogging on the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), citing it one of the best examples of governmental blogging.

“The military is perhaps the most important of all public sector organizations today,” Wyld said. “In the war on terror, the military is learning that information – more specifically, information sharing – is a key strategic success factor. The military is realizing that its traditional top-down structure, with long decision cycles and one-way flow of information, is not a good fit for today’s needs.”

STRATCOM, Wyld explained, is implementing 24-hour, real-time secure communications from the top generals to troops in the field, with the centerpiece of the effort in a classified network called Strategic Knowledge Integration or SKI-web. “This is nothing less than a 24-7-365 virtual intelligence meeting with blogging and chat as essential parts of the operation,” he said. STRATCOM’s Commander, Marine General James Cartwright – who has been nominated to be the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – is a huge proponent of the use of blogging and other Web 2.0 technologies to better equip the military to fight the global war on terror.

Greener Magazine

Copies of the report can be downloaded for free at http://www.businessofgovernment.org/main/publications/grant_reports/details/index.aspgid=291. The Center for the Business of Government will also provide free hard copies of the report to interested public officials, members of the media, and educators.

Reproductive justice: voices from SisterSong

Women in the reproductive justice movement seek the basic human right to control their bodies. This includes a woman¹s right to terminate her pregnancy, and the rights to have a child, and to parent that child. On this edition from our Women's Desk, we hear from three women advocating for comprehensive reproductive health.

The issues they say need to be prioritized include: sex education, HIV and AIDS prevention, housing, educational opportunities, queer-conscious-healthcare, the economic resources to support a child, the right to live free of violence, as well as an analysis of reproductive technologies. They spoke at the 10th anniversary of SisterSong, a women of color led organization dedicated to a vision of "reproductive justice" that considers the race, class and sexuality dynamics of reproductive health.

Featuring::

Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, executive director, Pro-Choice Public Education Project; Mia Mingus, executive director, Georgians for Choice; Sujatha Jesudason, program director, Gender, Justice and Human Genetics at the Center for Genetics and Society.

Senior Producer: Tena Rubio
Contributing Freelance Producer and Guest Host: Sarah Olson
Interns: Puck Lo, Alexis McCrimmon and Samson Reiny

Bonus Audio::

Cara Page - 9:39 128k broadcast-quality mp3
Dorothy Roberts - 23:37 128k broadcast-quality mp3
Graciela Sanchez - 17:01 128k broadcast-quality mp3

For more information::

Georgians for Choice
PO Box 8551
Atlanta, GA 31106
404-532-0022; fax: 404-532-0025; gfchoice@mindspring.com
http://www.georgiansforchoice.org/

Pro-choice Public Education Project
PO Box 3952
New York, NY 10163
888 253-CHOICE; fax: 212-977-4578; pep@protectchoice.org
http://www.protectchoice.org/

Gender, Justice and Human Genetics Center for Genetics and Society
436 14th Street, Suite 700
Oakland, CA 94612
http://www.genetics-and-society.org/

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective
PO Box 311020
Atlanta, GA 31131
404-344-9629; fax: 404-346-7517; info@SisterSong.net
http://www.sistersong.net/

Comment Post:: 7/4/2007 7:35 AM

Protecting life, caring for others, and respecting God's gift of creation. These are moral principles worth striving for, and I appreciate Greener Mag's (and my good friend Harlan's) commitment to these. But it's simply impossible to be both pro-abortion and pro-nature.

It was Rachel Carson's book about the impact of chemicals on unborn eagles that started the modern environmental movement. A generation later, while eagles have happily rebounded, environmental groups still know these chemicals harm unborn animals and are fighting hard to keep these out of the environment.

Science today gives us powerful tools to look at what's going on in utero or in eggs as the unborn of different species develop. Using these tools we can closely measure the effects our chemicals and wastes are having on new life both before and after it is born.

Even though they would probably never describe it this way, it was progressive advocacy groups that lobbied for listing teratogens as a regulated class of chemicals because of their effects on unborn babies. They were only looking at the after-effects of birth-defects, but they were applying prevention directly against the in-utero cause of them. We have rightfully enacted dozens of laws protecting the unborn from chemical hazards. The effect of teratogens is well established by OSHA and EPA. The NIOSH Pocket Guide has been a standard for protecting women and their unborn babies in industrial settings for decades. In fact, EPA and OSHA have passed regulations specifically and strictly controlling the measurable exposure of high risk categories of people to these chemicals, including pregnant women.

We run national campaigns to prevent pregnant mothers from smoking and consuming alcohol and drugs because we know what horrible damage these chemicals cause. With respect to "my body my choice," these chemicals harm both baby and mother at the same time.

Since Rachel's book we have also come to know a lot about the effects of environmental toxins like PCBs, lead, mercury, and uranium. They harm developing marine and terrestrial mammals and cause species-altering genetic defects. Endocrine receptors in unborn animals are impacted by growth hormones and other complex chemical compounds we create in our agricultural industry and dump into our waterways. They alter normal sexual growth and expression of physical characteristics in the womb and in the egg.

I've argued for years that the largely-conservative pro-life community should be fighting for all babies to be able to grow free from pollutants. It frustrates me that pro-lifers are not more concerned about the impacts of these chemicals on the rest of God's creatures. Assuming most conservatives are also pro-business types, I believe we shouldn't do business with companies that put mercury or sex-modifying chemicals in the environment.

We work diligently to protect these unborn creatures. Why do we make the choice to trample these rights for a select group of unborn humans?

In their 1991 statement Renewing the Earth, the U.S. Catholic bishops remind us "[W]e are charged with restoring the integrity of all creation. We must care for all God's creatures, especially the most vulnerable. How, then, can we protect endangered species and at the same time be callous to the unborn, the elderly, or disabled persons? Is not abortion also a sin against creation? If we turn our backs to our own unborn children, can we truly expect that nature will receive respectful treatment at our hands? The care of the earth will not be advanced by the destruction of human life at any stage of development. As Pope John Paul II has said, 'Protecting the environment is first of all the right to live and the protection of life.'"

Here's the bottom line: If an unborn human is poisoned by environmental contaminants or by toxins taken in by the mother, we call it a tragedy. If that same unborn human is poisoned by an injection of saline, we call it a choice.

Greener Mag's blog header says it's "The Green Solutions Magazine for American Homes Gardens and Families." I hope the editors will see that this endorsement of abortion is not a green solution for our homes and families at all.

Warm regards,
Don Bosch
Managing Editor
evangelicalecologist.com

Response::

As a Green publication we see the logic in airing expressions from all points of view including the view that any form of discrimination toward anyone: gays, women, non-human species, has a deleterious effect on all creation, the environment included; exposing that is the green solution.

While we started as a “get on the green bandwagon” publication, we soon found our own niche, which suggests that all forms of inequality whether social, economic, political or, which discriminates against someone’s right of self determination is the true origin of environmental pollution.

Destroy a man’s right to raise a crop, take away someone or something’s home in order to mine the land, clear cut a forest or tell a women her voice doesn’t count and you’ve played roughshod over someone else’s rights and that is environmentally destructive.

My body, my choice is simply one group’s vision of environmental equality and as such we are obligated to air that opinion in the long term hope that by listening to everyone we will eventually hear the solutions.

Thanks to Don for his unfailing advocacy for the environment and for his quite correct assessment that green is not always found in the nature of what we do but rather, we hope, in the result.

Greener Magazine

For more opinion see the “queer” minds of some of our colleagues at InTheFray.org

Asia/Pacific Rim program studies multi-generation family businesses

This Wednesday Babson College will launch its STEP Project (Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices) in Asia and the Pacific Rim. A three-day research working session for academics, the summit brings professors together from select universities throughout Asia.

More than twenty academic researcher representatives from eleven academic institutions in eight countries will gather at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from June 27-29 for the launch.

The STEP Project research initiative allows business families and academics to learn from one another. The research focuses on understanding how families continue to grow and create wealth across many generations. STEP refers to this capability as Transgenerational Entrepreneurship. The STEP Project seeks to generate knowledge and solutions that have immediate impact and personal application to business families.

Timothy Habbershon, the founding director of the Institute for Family Enterprising at Babson College, will deliver the keynote address entitled, Transgenerational Entrepreneurship: Growth and Continuity in Family Firms.

Workshops and seminars will also feature experts from Ernst & Young and Prudential Assurance, who will present proven financial planning strategies and ways for raising new capital for growth. Dr. Roger King, advisory board member of the CUHK Center for Entrepreneurship and former Managing Director of Oriental Overseas (International) Limited, will discuss how to form a board of directors.

Participating Institutions::

- Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Nankai University, Tianjin, P.R. China
- Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan
- National University of Singapore
- Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, P.R. China
- Kyungpook, National University, Korea
- Seoul National University Of Technology, Korea
- Waseda University, Japan
- Queensland University of Technology, Australia
- Bond University, Australia
- Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India

The goal of the STEP Project is to understand the transgenerational nature of business families and groups, assessing how they create new economic activity across time.

Recent studies have acknowledged that families:

- control between 60% and 90% of business in nearly every nation
- contribute more than 70% of private jobs
- have a dominant impact on business world wide
- most likely function as the largest single source of start-up capital.

STEP is viewed as a global research consortium with leading universities from four regions of the world – Europe, Latin America, Pacific Rim, and North America. The European STEP Project began in the summer of 2005 at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy with seven founding member institutions: Babson College, ESADE, HEC, Universität St. Gallen, Universität Witten/ Herdecke, Universita Bocconi, and Jönköping International Business School.

The STEP Project initiator, the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, is the hub for entrepreneurial activity at Babson. It is the Center’s mission to lead the global advancement of entrepreneurship education and practice through the development of teaching, research, and outreach initiatives that inspire entrepreneurial thinking and cultivate entrepreneurial leadership in all organizations and society. Visit http://www3.babson.edu/eship/

For more information on the STEP Project visit http://www.stepproject.org/ or contact rnason@babson.edu.

Greener Magazine

NASA satellites watch as China constructs giant dam

Last June we described the progress of Three Gorges Dam in Dragon and sword, now the dragon has begun to stir and with some unexpected results.


The Yangtze River is the third largest river in the world, stretching more than 3,900 miles across China before reaching its mouth near Shanghai. Historically, the river has been prone to massive flooding, overflowing its banks about once every ten years. The dam is designed to greatly improve flood control on the river and protect the 15 million people and 3.7 million acres of farmland in the lower Yangtze flood plains.

Observations from the NASA-built Landsat satellites provide an overview of the dam's construction. The first images show the region prior to start of the project. By 2000, construction along each riverbank was underway, but sediment-filled water still flowed through a narrow channel near the river’s south bank. The 2004 images below show limited development of the main wall and the partial filling of the reservoir, including numerous side canyons. By mid-2006, construction of the main wall was completed and a reservoir more than 2 miles (3 kilometers) across had filled just upstream of the dam.

Engineered to store more than 5 trillion gallons of water, the Three Gorges Dam is designed to produce more than 18,000 megawatts of electricity when all 26 turbines become operational in 2009­twenty times the power of Hoover Dam. The reservoir will also allow 10,000-ton freighters to enter the nation's interior, opening a region burgeoning with agricultural and manufactured products, increasing commercial shipping access to China's cities.

While Landsat is a premier research tool for observing changes on the Earth's surface, other NASA satellites are also helpful in determining how changing land cover and use may influence climate and the environment. Just as transforming forested lands into cities can change the local climate, scientists have found evidence that Three Gorges Dam and its enormous reservoir might have a similar effect.

In a recent study, researchers used computer models and data from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite to estimate how the dam's construction impacted area rainfall. Information from NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites also revealed the dam's effect on land surface temperatures.

"The satellite data and computer modeling clearly indicate that the land use change associated with the dam's construction has increased precipitation in the region between the Daba and Qinling mountains," said lead author Liguang Wu of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland - Baltimore County. The land changes also reduced rainfall in the region immediately surrounding Three Gorges Dam after the dam's water level abruptly rose in June 2003.

The researchers were surprised to see that the dam affected rainfall over such a large area - a 62-square-mile region - rather than just 6 miles projected in previous studies.

Land surface temperature changes were also found to occur in the area where more rain fell. In the daytime, temperatures between the Daba and the Qinling mountains decreased by an average of 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit (0.67 degrees Celsius). Where there was more rainfall, there were more clouds, which reduced the amount of sunlight and heat that reached the land surface, creating cooler daytime temperatures.

The study suggests that the cause of these temperature changes was the expansion of the width of the Yangtze River and the formation of the dam's reservoir. After construction, a 401-square-mile reservoir formed in the mountainous area. Before the dam, the Yangtze River was only one-third of a mile in width. The larger mass of water created a "lake effect," causing cooler temperatures and increased rainfall between the Daba and Qinling mountains, but less rainfall in the immediate vicinity of the reservoir.

When the dam becomes fully operational in 2009 and the reservoir reaches its peak size, scientists predict these regional temperature and precipitation changes may increase even more. The 2006 study was published in the American Geophysical Union's Geophysical Research Letters.

Greener Magazine

New Orleans Now:

Immigrants, Labor Rights and the Human Cost of Rebuilding an American City - Part 3

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are more than 40 million people in the U.S. without health insurance. Those mostly affected: people with low income and people of color. Now, imagine you're both and from another country. You've come to help rebuild New Orleans and you find yourself working in unsanitary, unregulated and hazardous conditions. Where do you go for help if you get hurt or you get sick?

On this edition, part three of our immigration series, we hear from two people who have affected countless lives by providing a basic necessity: health care.

This series was made possible in part by the Open Society Institute.

Greener Magazine

Featuring::

Jennifer Whitney, Latino Health Outreach Project (LHOP) co-founder and coordinator; Dr. Ravi Vadlamudi, Common Ground Health Clinic medical director & Tulane University¹s Uptown Square Clinic doctor.

Senior Producer/Host: Tena Rubio,Open Society Institute Fellow
Mixing Engineer: Phillip Babich
Interns: Alexis McCrimmon and Samson Reiny
Translation: Frank Rubio, Andrew Reisseger, Christine M. Rodriguez
Voiceover talent: Jose Ramirez, Dr. Joseph Khamsi, Paul Bieber, Samson Reiny, Steve Masar, Christopher Williams, Aaron Shuman, Joshua Grossman
Transcribing: Casting Word

Much appreciation to all the people who contributed their time, energy and support to this show, Eve Troeh, David Kunian, Claire Schoen, all of those listed above and especially to Steve Masar and Emily Polk.

For more information::

Latino Health Outreach Project
Thursdays at Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. & Claiborne Ave.
(Jueves: Avenida de Martin Luther King Jr. y Avenida de Claiborne)
504-377-7281
www.cghc.org/lhop.html

Common Ground Health Clinic (Latino Health Outreach Project)
1400 Teche Street
PO Box 741801
New Orleans, LA 70174-1801
504-361-9800; healthalgiers@yahoo.com
www.cghc.org

Other helpful links::

Workplace Justice Project
Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law
7214 St. Charles Ave., Box 901
New Orleans, LA 70118
504-861-5550; molina@loyno.edu

New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice (NOWJC)
The New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition
504-363-1108; organizer@neworleansworkerjustice.org
www.neworleansworkerjustice.org

Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
www.splcenter.org

The People's Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF)
1418 N. Claiborne, Suite 2
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-301-0125; 1-888-310-PHRF; info@peopleshurricane.org
www.peopleshurricane.org

New Orleans Now:

Immigrants, Labor Rights and the Human Cost of Rebuilding an American City - Part 2


New Orleans is the largest construction site in the United States. Countless houses, businesses and public facilities are being rebuilt by an immigrant and migrant workforce that is mostly new to the area. Some were invited as part of the U.S. "Guest Worker" program. Some were already here in this country, and others came from hundreds of miles away, betting their futures on the promise of work and fair pay. The work is here, but too often the pay is not.

On this edition, part two of our immigration series, we hear from the people on the ground making a difference in the lives of these workers and from the workers themselves.

This series was made possible in part by the Open Society Institute.

Featuring::

Father Joe Benson, pastor, Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos Church; Eva San Martin, Hispanic Apostolate outreach worker; Francisco, migrant worker, Israel Lopez, Manuel, Lorenzo Alvarado Duran, and Rafael Sanchez, immigrant laborers; Luz Molina, director and founder, Workplace Justice Project, and Loyola Law School professor; Saket Soni, founder and organizer, New Orleans
Worker Center for Racial Justice.

Greener Magazine

Senior Producer/Host: Tena Rubio,Open Society Institute Fellow
Mixing Engineer: Phillip Babich
Interns: Alexis McCrimmon and Samson Reiny
Translation: Frank Rubio, Andrew Reisseger, Christine M. Rodriguez
Voiceover talent: Jose Ramirez, Dr. Joseph Khamsi, Paul Bieber, Samson Reiny, Steve Masar, Christopher Williams, Aaron Shuman, Joshua Grossman
Transcribing: Casting Word

Much appreciation to all the people who contributed their time, energy and support to this show, Eve Troeh, David Kunian, Claire Schoen, all of those listed above and especially to Steve Masar and Emily Polk.

For more information::

Workplace Justice Project
Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law
7214 St. Charles Ave., Box 901
New Orleans, LA 70118
504-861-5550; molina@loyno.edu

New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice (NOWJC)
The New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition
504-363-1108; organizer@neworleansworkerjustice.org
www.neworleansworkerjustice.org

Hispanic Apostolate
P.O. Box 640249
Kenner, LA 70064
504-464-5478 ext. 125
hispanicapostolate@archdiocese-no.org
www.archdiocese-no.org/offices/departments1.html

Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans
1000 Howard Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70113
504-523-3755; ccano@archdiocese-no.org

Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos Church
3053 Dauphine St.
New Orleans, LA 70117-6794
504 943-5566

National Day Laborer Organizing Network
www.ndlon.org

Other helpful links::

Common Ground Health Clinic (Latino Health Outreach Project)
1400 Teche Street
PO Box 741801
New Orleans, LA 70174-1801
504-361-9800; healthalgiers@yahoo.com
www.cghc.org

The People's Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF)
1418 N. Claiborne, Suite 2
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-301-0125; 1-888-310-PHRF; info@peopleshurricane.org
www.peopleshurricane.org

Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
www.splcenter.org

National Immigration Law Center
3435 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 2850
Los Angeles, CA 90010
213-639-3900; info@nilc.org
www.nilc.org

Hope House
916 Saint Andrew St
New Orleans, LA 70130
504-522-5881

New Orleans now:

Immigrants, labor rights and the human cost of rebuilding an American city - part 1

Since the floodwaters receded, New Orleans has been submerged in a sea of reconstruction issues, and a displaced population with still has no way to return.

Yet, a new population has taken root: an immigrant labor force. Some of them were already in this country, or were invited by the U.S. government, and some have risked all, crossing borders, for the promise of work. But for many, that promise of work has become a fight for survivalOn this edition, we hear from the immigrants themselves and from the people on the ground trying to help them.

On this edition, we hear from the immigrants themselves and from the people on the ground trying to help them.

This series was made possible in part by the Open Society Institute.

Featuring::

Arthur Robinson, business owner; Israel Lopez, Senor Jose Castillo, Lorenzo Alvarado Duran, Rafael Sanchez and Manuel, immigrant laborers; Marco Amador, New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice field worker and National Day Laborer Organizing Network member; Jose, Mobil Taco Truck Owner; Saket Soni, founder, New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice.

Greener Magazine

Senior Producer/Host: Tena Rubio, Open Society Institute Fellow
Mixing Engineer: Phillip Babich
Interns: Alexis McCrimmon and Samson Reiny
Translation: Frank Rubio, Andrew Reisseger, Christine M. Rodriguez
Voiceover talent: Jose Ramirez, Dr. Joseph Khamsi, Paul Bieber, Samson Reiny, Steve Masar, Christopher Williams, Aaron Shuman, Joshua Grossman
Transcribing: Casting Word

Much appreciation to all the people who contributed their time, energy and support to this show, Eve Troeh, David Kunian, Claire Schoen, all of those listed above and especially to Steve Masar and Emily Polk.

For more information: :

New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice (NOWJC)
The New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition
504-363-1108; organizer@neworleansworkerjustice.org
www.neworleansworkerjustice.org

Workplace Justice Project
Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law
7214 St. Charles Ave., Box 901
New Orleans, LA 70118
504-861-5550; molina@loyno.edu

National Day Laborer Organizing Network
www.ndlon.org

Other helpful links::

Common Ground Health Clinic (Latino Health Outreach Project)
1400 Teche Street
PO Box 741801
New Orleans, LA 70174-1801
504-361-9800; healthalgiers@yahoo.com
www.cghc.org

The People's Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF)
1418 N. Claiborne, Suite 2
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-301-0125; 1-888-310-PHRF; info@peopleshurricane.org
www.peopleshurricane.org

Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
www.splcenter.org

National Immigration Law Center
3435 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 2850
Los Angeles, CA 90010
213-639-3900; info@nilc.org
www.nilc.org

Hope House
916 Saint Andrew St
New Orleans, LA 70130
504-522-5881


New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice (NOWJC)
The New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition
504-363-1108; organizer@neworleansworkerjustice.org
www.neworleansworkerjustice.org

Workplace Justice Project
Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law
7214 St. Charles Ave., Box 901
New Orleans, LA 70118
504-861-5550; molina@loyno.edu

National Day Laborer Organizing Network
www.ndlon.org

The joys of summer: safe fun in the sun

Safety tips for this summer's enjoyment and don't forget the
The Great American Campout coming up June 23rd.

Ah, summer! Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie—bugs, heat, accidents. Follow these tips to keep your family healthy this summer.

Play it safe. Whether it’s hiking, bicycling, inline skating or soccer, everyone loves to get out and play, but that often means an increase in injuries.

“We see more trauma cases during the warm months, like someone playing basketball who sprains an ankle,” says Nick Zenarosa, M.D., medical director of the emergency department and a physician on the medical staff at Baylor Medical Center at Garland. Wear the proper clothing and gear for your activity.

Beat the heat. Excessive warm-weather activity can lead to heat exhaustion or heat stroke, particularly when humidity is high. “The importance of hydration cannot be overstressed,” says Dr. Zenarosa. Drink plenty of water, and switch to sports drinks if you’ll be working or exercising in the heat for a long stretch. Limit outdoor activities when heat alerts are forecast. If you begin to feel dizzy or nauseated, get out of the heat and drink some Gatorade or water. Try to speed the cooling process by wiping down your skin with moist cloths and sitting in front of a fan.Young children and the homebound elderly are especially at risk for heat illness. Check on relatives, and never leave kids or pets in the car.

Don’t get burned. Use SPF 15 or higher sunscreen, wear a hat and sunglasses, and limit sun exposure. The same goes for kids. “Children’s skin is more sensitive to the sun,” says Dr. Zenarosa.

Bug off. Use insect repellent containing DEET, particularly at dawn or dusk. Few people develop West Nile virus, but keep an eye out for fever, headache and body aches after a recent outing where you may have been bitten.

Put it on ice. When picnicking, bring ice packs to keep cold food cold. “Don’t leave food out very long. Anything made with eggs or mayonnaise can go bad very quickly,” says Dr. Zenarosa. Toss leftovers unless you’re certain they’ve been kept properly chilled. Make sure grilled meat is cooked thoroughly.

Just say no. Alcohol increases dehydration and mental impairment and is a big factor in many car and watercraft accidents.

Lock and latch. Kids wander away quickly, so be sure your swimming pool is secure. If you’re planning a road trip, buckle up.

Whatever your plans this summer, pack a little common sense and you’ll have everything you need to stay safe.

Greener Magazine

Keywords:: SUMMER SAFETY, BUG SPRAY, PICNICS, HEAT STROKE, DEHYDRATION, SUNBURN, SPF, WEST NILE