Published July 20, 2010

Watch out for Staties. (Ward/Flickr)

With the recent spate of car accidents involving Bay State troopers on duty, the president of the state police union is calling for a crackdown on drunk drivers.

On Monday, in my Q&A about the issue, reporter Curt Nickisch said Massachusetts could do more than enforce its “move over” law in trying to protect emergency responders.

Afterward, I received an e-mail from Howard Cohen, who runs the nonprofit website ResponderSafety.com. Apparently, research to that effect is more than 10 years old.

An edited excerpt of his note:

The issue of public safety personnel getting struck and injured or killed is a growing problem that generally gets little attention, but which is garnering some attention now with the five Massachusetts troopers struck, one fatally, in the past month. In about the same period, a Shelton, Conn., police officer has also been struck and killed, along with three CHP officers and a New Jersey state trooper.

We began our effort in 1998 after one of our members was struck and killed on a Maryland highway, though we soon realized the “struck-by” problem disproportionately affects police officers. On our website, ResponderSafety.com, we track struck-by’s nationwide on a daily basis, track move-over laws and move-over law developments, have free training material, offer a “white paper” that we produced on this issue more than 10 years ago and a great deal more.

The white paper (PDF), dating back to October 1999, warned of many of these problems:

Until recently the “more lights are better” approach, often incorporating variously colored strobes, rotating beacons, and pulses of light, has been in vogue.    This is being rethought in the wake of research and statistics indicating that the multitude of brilliant flashing lights may: (1) effectively blind motorists; (2) attract impaired (drunk, drugged, or dozing) motorists, and (3) emphasize apparatus but obscure response personnel.

That’s exactly what I covered yesterday.

Published July 20, 2010

A lobster in Boston Harbor (Jess Bidgood for WBUR)

When I rounded up the summer’s most predictable news stories, I failed to consider the lobster. There’s good coverage of our favorite summer delicacy around the Hub this week.

This morning NPR reported that life is good for Maine lobsters and lobster eaters — but not so much for lobstermen. Supply is so plentiful that prices are low. Meanwhile, the Boston Globe reports the same for lobstermen here in Massachusetts.

If you missed it, WBUR’s Curt Nickisch reported a fine piece from Boston Harbor as part of our ongoing series, “Looking Out.” Curt (and photographer Jess Bidgood) went out on the water at 4 in the morning to talk with commercial fishermen. You at least owe it to yourself to look at the sideshow.

And finally, you gotta see the “freak lobster” with three pincers in the Herald.

Update: Incredible albino lobster caught off Gloucester from the same guy who caught the three-pincered crustacean

Published July 20, 2010

Murder mapper Adam Gaffin at Universal Hub has put together a Google map of fires in Boston over the last 30 days. You can contribute missing data and help improve the map. Great work, Adam.

If you’re into maps, Hubbub has a shark-sighting map that will be updated throughout the summer. And our most-ever viewed map is reporter Adam Ragusea’s map of “placebo” crosswalk buttons in Boston.

Published July 19, 2010

Apparently, it's not just drivers who share responsibility for avoiding police cruisers. (Sanford Kearns/Flickr)

Five state troopers have been struck by cars in recent weeks, most recently on Route 24 in Taunton. Early Saturday morning, an allegedly drunk driver struck Trooper Corey Rose, who was pulled over with his hazard lights flashing.

If you think there oughta be a law, there is. If you see a cruiser on the side of the road, you must move one lane over. There are flashing signs in some towns to remind drivers.

The law doesn’t help much if someone is driving drunk, of course. WBUR’s Curt Nickisch has been following this story and tells me there is a lot more Massachusetts could do to protect Staties on-duty. Research shows more and brighter lights are not always better. Here’s our Q&A.

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Published July 19, 2010

George Costanza taught us the double dip is something to fear.

Just take one dip and end it. (Peyri Herrera/Flickr)

But WBUR’s Curt Nickisch is not talking about chips and dip. He’s warning about the potential for a second nationwide economic slowdown, following a modest recovery that began last year.

While Massachusetts has fared better than the nation, Curt reports, we don’t live in a vaccuum. People in other states still have to buy what we make — and sell us what we don’t make. That’s why another national dip could hurt our commonwealth.

Now local economists turn their attention toward new foreclosure numbers due out tomorrow. Here is Curt’s prediction:

I expect the number of completed foreclosure proceedings (as in foreclosure deeds) to be up from the same month last year, and the number of foreclosure petitions (the start of the process) to be down from June of last year.  Those would be good indications we’re working through the wave – you have fewer folks going into the pipeline, and more coming out.  But…

The big question is if the slowing housing market will show up in these numbers.  Banks were foreclosing on more because they knew they could unload them quickly in a good market.  If petitions are not down (as in more people behind on payments, thanks to a weak recovery) or deeds are not up (as in banks are afraid to take back the house because they’re not sure they can unload it), then that would tell us something.

Look forward to more reporting on this tomorrow.

Published July 19, 2010

Obligatory cow photo (Skinnyde/Flickr)

The milk in your morning cereal is most likely pasteurized, which means it was heated super-hot to kill all the bad bacteria and then immediately refrigerated cold for preservation. Lovers of unpasteurized milk say that process kills all the flavor, too.

This morning NPR reports on the growing fight between raw-milk enthusiasts (they call it “real milk”) and health experts who say the stuff is dangerous. Unpasteurized milk, handled improperly, can poison you with the same strain of E. coli that turned up in ground beef, spinach,  and cookie dough. It recently sickened 30 people in Colorado. But it’s really, really good.

I have never tasted raw milk, but people tell me it’s so good they can’t go back to pasteurized. Problem is, raw milk is banned in many states — and expensive and hard to find everywhere else.

Here in Massachusetts, where it’s illegal for supermarkets to sell raw milk, enthusiasts form buying clubs and take turns driving out to one of about 20 farms in the state. A story by WBUR’s Bob Oakes and Lisa Tobin on the efforts to ban these clubs quickly became one of the most viewed and e-mailed stories on wbur.org.

The NPR story says advocates even claim raw milk is healthier, but scientists — including those at the FDA are dubious.

• If you want to join a raw-milk buying club in Massachusetts, the Northeast Organic Farming Association has a list.
• NPR.org has a fun explainer on Louis Pasteur’s experiments (he did it to preserve beer).
• Anti-raw: realrawmilkfacts.com
• Pro-raw: realmilk.com

Do you drink raw milk? How do you get it?

Published July 16, 2010

India, or the Harbor Islands? They both collide this weekend. (Dey/Flickr)

There’s a lot to look at this weekend, whether it’s a blueberry pie eat-off, a breathtaking relay race or Bhangra dancing. Set your sights on these summer performances before July slips through our fingers and we’re actually missing this face-melting humidity.

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Published July 16, 2010

A native Southern Californian, I’m used to heat. Dry heat. The humidity out here is killer.

Health experts recommend this remedy for heat exhaustion.

WBZ meterologist Melissa Mack wrote up a humidity explainer, complete with a scale of 1 to Oppressive.

Lately, our dewpoints have had trouble dropping below 65, which is why so many of us find it uncomfortable to exercise, work or spend a large amount of time outdoors.

What’s more, today may be the first day of a heat wave, if the temps over the weekend remain above 90 degrees in the shade. The Glossary of Meterology has a definition of heat wave/hot wave/warm wave if you would like to learn more:

The eastern United States, heat waves generally build up with southerly winds on the western flank of an anticyclone centered over the southeastern states, the air being warmed by passage over a land surface heated by the sun.

Even today on my scooter, with its built-in AC (just hit the throttle), I melted.