Late Night Drifts
Posted: January 20, 2011 Filed under: open thread | Tags: Crazy republican hypotheses, michelle obama, open thread, What's in the water in Virginia? 24 CommentsYesterday was a full moon. That could possibly explain what I want to call attention to as the most bizarre right wing 
meme I’ve read in a long time. This is from a Talk Radio Station that features Rush Limbaugh prominently on its banner so be forewarned: Michelle Obama’s ‘Get Moving’ Program Linked to Pedestrian Deaths. I swear it’s not The Onion.
The Governors Highway Safety Association says pedestrian deaths increased in the first half of 2010 and the First Lady’s program to get Americans to be more active could be partly responsible.Governors Highway Safety Administration spokesman Jonathan Adkins told 630 WMAL that Michelle Obama is “trying to get us to walk to work and exercise a little bit more. While that’s good, it also increases our exposure to risk.”
After four straight years of steady declines, pedestrian deaths were up during the first six months of 2010, the latest figures available to be studied.
Other factors include distracted drivers, distracted pedestrians and what Adkins calls “aggressive pedestrians.”
“People who are not crossing where they are supposed to. They’re running in front of cars. We’ve even had examples of pedestrians getting out on the interstate,” said Adkins.
Alcohol is also factor in increased pedestrian deaths.
“We’ve done a good job of getting people, after a night out of partying, to leave their keys behind. But just because you are walking does not mean you are not at risk,” said Adkins.
Pedestrians are also increasingly distracted by iPods and smart phones. It is not uncommon to see people crossing streets while fiddling with an electronic device and not watching where they are walking. Hospital emergency rooms have reported an upsurge of people injured in a fall because they were distracted by electronics.
TBD has a good post in which the GHSA’s executive director, Barbara Harsha, explaining that she never said that at all. The group isn’t sure exactly what caused the uptick in deaths—and they certainly can’t pin it on Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative.And as TBD’s Dave Jamieson aptly concludes, “If the ‘Let’s Move’ campaign is so effective that herds of inexperienced joggers are suddenly getting run over, then we need to put Mrs. Obama in charge of more nationwide initiatives, starting with the economic recovery.”
Oy. We women get blamed for everything these days!
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
You see these people walking and texting, looking at their phones the whole time. It is ridiculous. Watching this thing on the Science Channel on just how smart an Octopus really is…I bet these creatures would never walk across the street texting.
and don’t forget the drivers … they are at it too
hopefully her eggs have self destructed
She file a suit against the mall………..she said they didn’t even ask how she was doing, they were just laughing, she said.
I think that she’s suing because they put the tape on youtube and people figured out it was her.
Now this is interesting:
Yeah…funny huh?
No more bizarre than linking mass shooters to little-seen maps with crosshairs on them. :-p
not on the tea party mailing list?
Well, there are several hundred lists, or do you mean the republican bigwigs who want to try to be the tea party by getting Sarah Palin to answer questions with some permutation of “Oh golly gee gosh, I’m just a hockey mom eh, I don’t know that!”? :-p
BB,
Look, more people are catching onto Issa but, we heard it here first.
Congressman Issa’s Shady Past
I hope that more media outlets start to pick up on the Issa thing too. Hooray for BB and her kick ass post!
Yup! She even didn’t put all she had out there. You could write a book on what sleazy things this guy’s gotten away with. He made his money on theft and insurance scams.
I’m gonna sound like a cranky old lady, but in my town, I’ve become downright afraid to walk around. In the past month, I’ve almost been hit three times walking in crosswalks. People who are so sleep deprived, driving like zombies to work, not paying attention at all. One woman turned left right into me. I had my hand on her hood, backing up running, screaming for her to stop. She finally woke up and noticed. I was about ready to jump up onto her hood because she was going to hit me. Didn’t even see me. I’ve been hit by a car before and didn’t want it to happen again.
And forget it if you are walking in a cross walk that crosses a freeway onramp. I literally run now. I think it’s got a lot to do with the empathy thing, or maybe people are so disconnected from their surroundings, they don’t see others. It’s freakin scary.
Teenagers in gangsta BMWs or Mercedes driving 100 mph down residential streets. God help any pet or child that happens to be out there. It’s so weird. It’s gotten so much worse in the last year. I know that nobody walks in LA, but damn. And no, I don’t blame Michelle Obama for this one. Sorry for the rant, but it’s just one of those things that is punching my ticket for Europe. The strangeness is making me walk around in a constant state of WTF?
There’s definitely something in the air, or maybe it’s the water?
Sleep deprived and distracted, and the narcissist craving for more stimulation.
And it’s not only drivers, though cars can be deadly weapons. Simply walking or driving isn’t enough for a lot of people, they’ve got to be texting or talking on their cell, or drinking water or coffee or eating or putting on make-up or imagining they’re in a show with their iPod. Walking in Manhattan today is a completely different experience from 20 years ago; purposefulness has changed to self-absorption. Used to be I could walk anywhere in the city and nobody except tourists was in anybody’s way, there was an urban rhythm to traffic, foot and motor. Today it’s herky jerky because everybody’s in their own electronic world. They’re not living in and responding to what’s happening out here, they’re engaged with what’s going on in there in those little devices. They were supposed to open up our worlds but I think they’re closing in worlds.
There are other articles out this week about colleges failing to teach students critical thinking skills but IMO it’s not the teacher’s fault, it’s our culture and it’s not just kids. How can anybody engage critical thinking when they give themselves no undistracted time to think?
Zal, this one is for you..American pie-eyed: Ed Fornieles's Animal House | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
Your descriptions are spot on…I remember when we first moved to Manhattan, that sense of purpose you saw and felt in the people walking in the city was amazing. It made me feel so empowered and independent.
Such a shame it has been replaced by an iPod commercial. Did you ever see that Sprint commercial where a family is walking through the Museum of Natural History, and all of them are walking past the exhibits…texting? Ugh, disgusting.
Yea, but the arrogance and aggressiveness in much of the behavior has roots that go way deeper than being distracted by electronics, or so it seems to me.
It’s very possible that pedestrians are getting hit more because so many drivers are distracted by their cell phones. This is becoming an obsession with me. I am so damned sick of people who are either texting or talking while driving. You can spot them in a minute without even being close enough to see what they are doing; they are weaving, driving way too slowly in the left lane, not going forward when the light turns green, pulling out into traffic before it is safe, I could go on and on. I really wish that laws against drivers’ cell phone use while the vehicle is be operated would be strictly enforced. It’s getting ridiculous. If Bob McDonnell, my illustrious Governor and graduate of Regent University school of law (Pat Robertson’s university) would insist that existing laws against distracted driving be enforced instead of wasting our time with spurious accusations against Michelle Obama, we’d all be a lot safer.
Sorry, but I just had to rant about this. It’s become really scary to drive a car these days, and I have a teenage driver to worry about (and no, she not only does not text or use the phone, she doesn’t even turn on the radio when she drives).
My partner and I sometimes make a grim game out of it, point to a car: “Cell phone!” We never get it wrong – as you say, it’s easy to recognize the symptoms.
We do the same thing. Yesterday, I kid you not, I saw a woman driving while talking on a cell phone with a dog on her lap!
Yesterday, I had a phone conversation with my father’s hospice social worker. I didn’t realize until about 10 minutes into the conversation that she was driving until I heard a funny noise, and upon inquiring about it, was told that it was some vehicle which had just passed, and she added…I’m driving. I was apparently on speaker phone as she drove. I guess it’s OK, though, as in the old days, drivers always used to talk to the passengers in their car as they drove.
I’m all in favor of hands-free cell phone devices when driving. I agree, it’s the same as talking to someone else in the car, but it’s become obvious these days that when you see someone making driving errors all over the place, some of them dangerous, that they are either talking or texting on a cell phone. It needs to stop. I’ll admit, I’ve been guilty in the past of doing it myself, but now that I have observed other drivers, I do everything I can to avoid talking on my cell while driving. If someone else is in the car, I’ll have them answer my phone, and if I’m alone, I don’t answer it and call the person back when I stop. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t have this technology, and we got along fine. Even if someone has to take a call, it should be extremely brief. The people causing the problem are the people carrying on long chats while behind the wheel.
I’m not sure hands-free cell devices are the same as talking to someone in the car – didn’t seem like it to me when I tried it. And studies I’ve seen have shown that talking on hands-free or a hand held cell phone is pretty much the same in terms of risk. What’s dangerous is the increased “cognitive workload” involved in holding a conversation, not the use of hands.