Florida Today investigated elevator safety and found that in one county alone, one out of five elevators do not have an operating permit and others have not been inspected since 1998.
The universal safety code for elevator and escalator inspections is American Society of Mechanical Engineers A17.1 Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators, which calls for semi-annual inspections. Most cities and states adopt this safety code, meaning every elevator should be inspected every six months.
Here is an elevator inspection company that keeps a photographic Hall of Shame which includes elevators that passed inspections but have some remarkable safety problems all the same. One elevator was supposed to travel at a decent rate of 75 feet per minute was actually clocked at more than 170 feet per minute because of poor maintenance. (See photograph.)
The Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation says:
There are at least 600,000 passenger elevators in the U.S. and each carries an estimated average of 225,000 people in a year or nearly 120 billion passengers annually. That means that elevators move a little more than the entire U.S. population every day.
A 1998 Good Housekeeping article said:
Out of an estimated 120 billion rides per year, about 10,000 people end up in the emergency room because of elevator-related accidents. Their injuries are most often caused by tripping or being hit by closing doors. In some cases, accidents have occurred when the doors opened onto an empty shaft. As for the odds of getting stuck in an elevator: they're about once in a lifetime for the average person using elevators on a daily basis.
The Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation has an interesting myth-busting page.
FCC Indeceny Cases Coming
I am increasingly seeing reports in trade blogs, such as this one from Broadcasting & Cable, saying that by the end of this month the Federal Communications Commission may come down with its findings in some long-pending indecency cases. The FCC has not proposed any fines in more than a year and has been sitting on the latest decisions for months. The popular thinking is that the first proposed fines will be against TV stations.
The Wall Street Journal says:
Among the incidents that have drawn complaints that are under final review are the actress Nicole Richie's unbleeped rumination on removing cow excrement from a Prada purse during the 2003 "Billboard Music Awards" on News Corp.'s Fox Television, commission insiders say, and an episode of "NYPD Blue" on Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network, which featured a nude woman's backside followed by a shot of her chest, artfully obscured by the appearance of a young boy.
Other complaints concerned graphic descriptions on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" of teenage sex acts, which drew thousands of complaints. The FCC is likely to dismiss those complaints, insiders say, because viewers were warned about the nature of the show's content, and Ms. Winfrey said it was aired to help educate parents. Many of the complaints about the Oprah Winfrey show were from supporters of Mr. Stern, the shock-jock, noting that the show's language was far more suggestive than some of his shows that have drawn FCC fines.
There were a quarter of a million indecency complaints filed in 2005, only a fraction of the complaints filed in the year of the great Super Bowl halftime incident.
The Wall Street Journal produced a telling graphic about how the once-hot crackdown on indecency cooled last year. In all of last year the FCC did not propose a single dollar in fines compared to almost $8 million in fines the year before.
The Hollywood Reporter has an especially interesting profile of the FCC's new chairman, Kevin Martin, who is only 39 years old. He has been especially focused on the issue of indecency in the media. Stay tuned, this could get interesting and soon.
Bioethics in Times of Pandemics
Dr. Art Caplan, a member of Poynter's National Advisory Board, co-authored a terrific piece this week on the need to begin now to think about the ethics of controlling a pandemic, such as the Avian flu.
What's In Those Fries?
McDonald's French fries contain both wheat and dairy products in them, according to a new posting on the company Web site, and that has sparked at least three lawsuits already. One involves a person with a gluten allergy and other involves a vegan who said if she had known about the dairy additive she would not have eaten the fries. USA Today explained: "Until recently, the company had said its fries were free of gluten and milk or wheat allergens and safe for people with dietary issues related to the consumption of dairy items."
On the bright side, I am thinking that now a bag of fries can substitute as a dairy serving on the food pyramid.
While it was releasing bad news, the chain also discovered that its estimate of transfats in the fries was about 30 percent too low.
A Little Design Fun
I have been meaning to point you toward a fun page about newspaper design. NewsDesigner.com collects cool design ideas. I wanted you to see some of the interesting things papers did with the Cheney shotgun story last week. Several papers used shotgun blast patterns in their coverage and The Washington Post even let the shotgun pellet holes leak into inside pages, as if somebody shot into the newspaper. Very clever.
I was in the Norfolk area last week (teaching at Hampton University) where The Virginian-Pilot used a nice little graphic of a shotgun pellet compared to a penny. It is a nice use of a simple image to explain the story.
Check out some blogs by designers in this roundup by Poynter Design Editor and "Design Desk" columnist Anne Van Wagener.
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. 
