Friday, January 11, 2002
BAGGAGE DEADLINE APPROACHES
One week ahead of the deadline for airlines to begin checks of all bags, USA Today has a very fine story about the requirements, the loopholes and the expected delays. It notes that there is no penalty, per se, if the airlines don't comply by next week. Except that the FAA can shut down whole terminals if they see violations - an action we've seen them do where there have been other security breaches, including at St. Louis, Boston and New York's JFK. The story says most airlines don't want to talk about compliance, but it's unlikely they'll all meet the deadline. However, it does quote one of the Congressman who authored the new rules as saying his intention was to just get them to do as much as possible in as short a time as possible.
Thursday, January 10, 2002
INSURING GROUND ZERO
The Boston Globe has a story about Liberty Mutual, which has the entire safety contract for clean up of the WTC site. They have about three dozen guys roaming the 16-acre site looking for safety violations and trying to save lives. Liberty may profit handsomely from the contract - but they won't know for decades since they're also liable for any post-WTC respiratory illnesses that may show up years from now.
AMERICAN GROUNDS 33 PLANES OUT OF ST.LOUIS
The FAA said it found more problems with American Airlines' baggage screening process at the St. Louis airport. The airline yesterday had to ground 33 planes as a result, AP reports. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has nothing about yesterday's snafu, but has an archived story about a similar incident at the same airport last week.
American doesn't have anything about the incident on its site, but it has posted a Jan. 7 news release about the deadline to improve baggage checks by Jan. 18. In explaining why they won't be commenting on the status of their procedures, they use this line: "It should be obvious to everyone that a public discussion of aviation security measures is not consistent with successful security processes."
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
KING OF THE WEB
My very dear friend Ken Layne weighs in on some sort of competition over who has been doing these web log thingies the longest. Ken has his own rant, claiming credit for just about all of it. He says he's kidding, but really there is a great big kernel of truth to it all:
As much as I like the warblogs of today, I am forced to claim credit for everything. Everything! Not those geek deals nobody reads, but the whole Journalist-Turns-To-The-Web idea. Of course, many will argue. But that's fine. I invented it all. I posted my first editorials to a Web site in 1995. I am the William Randolph Hearst of the Internet, minus the money.
MORNING AIRPORT SECURITY ROUND-UP
Well isn't it funny how quickly we go from complaining about not enough airport security to too much?
The Detroit News carries a story about Congressman John Dingell being searched in his underwear at Washington's National Airport after his metal hip set off alarms. The story has a wonderful lead quote from the 75-year-old congressman from Michigan: "They felt me up and down like a prize steer. ... I was very nice but I probably showed I was displeased."
There was a teen forced to remove her headscarf, which was described by her father as a religious violation akin to having to remove your pants in public.
CNN.com also has a story about other people who have had brushes with security, including Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, ex-vice president Dan Quayle and columnist Dave Barry, who described his experience as "near-proctological."
And of course we're all familiar with the Secret Service agent kicked off the American Airlines flight.
This morning, I was watching CNBC and they interviewed a guy who had something to do with security at Israel's El Al airline and he was very condescending toward U.S. airlines being too cheap to match Israel's high airline security standards. But as he was talking, he didn't mention the government subsidies El Al receives. And he referred to the interviews his airline conducts with passengers to decide if they might be a threat. But what I've wondered - but don't know the answer to - is to what extent El Al's questioning methods would result in massive discrimination lawsuits if U.S. airlines tried the same policy. Just look at the grief American Airlines is getting over booting the Secret Service guy.
In related news, the Georgia guy who ran past Atlanta airport security guards in November finally has been fined $3,300 for causing the closure of the airport.
CNN also has an awesome graphic showing the airport security violations at the nation's 25 biggest airports.
And in case you missed it, Midway Airport in Chicago had another knife and box cutter incident.
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
TICKETS FOR GROUND ZERO
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that people hoping to get a glimpse of Ground Zero from the viewing platform at Fulton Street will now have to walk a few blocks over to the South Street Seaport to pick up free tickets with a limited viewing time.
When I was down there a week ago, someone in line said they were told it was a five-hour wait that day. The city hopes the ticket plan will cut down on the long lines and encourage tourists to start spending some money down there. The NYT did a story about a week ago that said the tourists aren't spending money when they're down there. They quoted someone at J&R Music, I think, referring to them as "sad shoppers." And it is true. When I've been down there, the stores are still empty, except for a couple little fast-food restaurants right near the viewing platform. The WSJ story is only available by paid subscription, but I'm sure it will be elsewhere soon. I heard it on WNYC this morning, but they have nothing on their site.
DAVE THOMAS DIES
AP is now reporting that Wendy's hamburger man Dave Thomas has died. I interviewed him about two years ago in Queens, where he was camped out at SilverCup Studios filming a new batch of commercials. He came off as very grandfatherly, selfless and nice to an extreme. His handlers spent some time explaining the "Dave bob" to me, the little lilting thing he does with his head at the end of the commercials. Apparently he came up with it himself years ago. While I was on the set, they spent a long time making sure he got the bob just right.
Monday, January 07, 2002
SNOW FLURRIES
Here it is, the second week of January and we're only just now getting the first snow flurries of the season. We were supposed to wake up to 2- to 6-inches of the stuff, but it's only just now starting.
Sunday, January 06, 2002
FRIEDMAN FOR $5
NYTimes.com has a link from their international page selling a package of archived Tom Friedman columns for $4.95. Interesting. I'm guessing his columns have generated amazing amounts of traffic for the site since Sept. 11 and the paper is trying to figure out a way to capitalize on it.
WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KIDS THESE DAYS?
Great weekend for stupid kids, huh? First an 18-year-old claims he's the one behind the anthrax mailings. And now police are reporting that the 15-year-old in Tampa who yesterday flew a plane into an empty building left a note expressing his support for bin Laden and the Sept. 11 attacks.
VALLEY FEVER AT PG&E PLANT
My hometown paper has a great little story about construction workers building a plant for Pacific Gas & Electric who have come down with Valley Fever. The Bakersfield Californian says that so far eight workers have gotten the disease, which can sometimes be fatal. And the workers - many who traveled from outside the area to work in the San Joaquin Valley on the PG&E power plant - are ticked off because they can't get worker's comp benefits because they can't prove they were infected at the site.
Let me tell you a little bit about Valley Fever, otherwise known as Coccidioides immitis.
It's one of those weird little things that most people don't know about outside the Central Valley, (which is how locals refer to the San Joaquin Valley.) People usually get it by breathing it in during a dust storm. We had a terrible one when I was in the fourth grade and there was a huge spike in Valley Fever cases that year. People can also get it when there's a lot of earth moved and dust in the air, at say, a construction site.
When I was reading the Germs book a few months ago, I was surprised to learn that Valley Fever was on the shortlist of pathogens the CIA illicitly kept on hand at the Detrick army base for research as a potential biological weapon.
There's a good report available at the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It says in part: "Kern County, in the San Joaquin Valley, California, is one of the most highly coccidioidomycosis-endemic regions."
Bakersfield is the county seat for Kern. Immediately south and west of Kern are Los Angeles and Ventura counties, respectively. They both got a Valley Fever scare after the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. All the aftershocks kept stirring up dust on the hills and mountains, shaking loose long-settled spores. The CDC report said there were 170 acute cases of Valley Fever after the quake in Ventura County.
The CDC also has a cost-analysis study for a Valley Fever vaccine.
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