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Show ! I W&SGg LJ tzSt Kit , t mm LJ LJ Cik 4 ltd Eanj rCfFnn. i nr Sd- - i..--y- . r ! The Daily Herald Friday, April 3, 1992 i ' The policy that distracts C and defeats p- i I ,i I believe in children and I be- -j licvc in school. I believe children should be in school. I have a lot of children and be- tides the fact that it's essential to have them educated, it's quite nice EDITOR 'S NOTE It all started three years ago when Seattle, Wash. , sent out some of its cops on bicycles instead of in squad cars. Other cities tried it and liked it. Now other governmental agencies are turning to pedal power to get their people to where they need to be. By r i. '' t,'"- - Tha Associated Press As long ASHLAND, Ore. as energy analyst Robbin Smith doesn't have to carry a ladder to climb into someone's attic, she likes to ride her bicycle on official business around town. "It feels good, and it's good for me," she says. The Planning Department in this city of 16,310 people likes it too. With a parking space as hard to find as a free ticket to the popular Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the three bicycles the department owns not only save money, they save time. "It's allowed us to get by with three cars instead of five," says Planning Director John "In the summer, when it's congested, our inspectors with bikes can beat their times with a car within of a mile of the office." When building inspector Mike Broomfield pedals up to a house under construction with his helmet on and a cellular phone strapped on the back of his bike, he doesn't even get any ribbing from the builders. "They see it as saving them money," he says. Adopted by hundreds of police departments since Seattle led the way three years ago, city bikes mountain bikes with slimmer tires are now showing up in other government vehicle fleets. "It's a slow start," says Andy Clarke, project manager for the Bicycle Institute of America in Washington, D.C. "But just as it happened with police departments, I expect this kind of thing to take off as other people realize it is just common sense to have people use something other than cars for every trip." It's part of a general increase in people riding bikes. The institute reports that 93 million Americans rode bikes in 1990, with 3.5 million of them commuting to work. It projects an increase of 15 percent this year, with a 20 percent increase in commuters. Mountain bikes are fast increasing in popularity. With 21 indexed gears, fat tires and a more upright riding position, city and mountain bikes are more stable, more comfortable and require less exertion to ride than the that many of toracing day's adults grew up on. "When you're biking more for transportation than for exercise, you don't want to arrive in a sweat," Fregonese says. With Seattle rated the best city in America for cycling by Bicycling magazine, it's not surpris- city-own- i Lifestyle Writer ; to have them out I of the house a bit each day, So when the high school deckled I L. oSe year to adopt a citizenship pol- -, , i;y that dictated every student would be in class, on time, in an I think obedient posture or else there were those surprised that I ' hated it. 1 followed the issue vigorously ; ' fdr a while, writing about it for the ,. weekly papers and helping to keep it alive in hopes the powers-that-b- e ; would change their minds. I lob-- ; bied against it, editorially and per- -. ; sonally. . V But the people in charge were ' adamant. They believed high - school students would come to . " class more often if they were threatened with nongraduation as a result for skipping. I '. I They told the parents we needed to know our kids were often tardy ; and quite often missing from their classes. They told the kids they wouldn't ! j be getting a "real" grade cut but a j citizenship grade cut instead. The citizenship grade didn't really jf 1 count academically but if not re- paid when failed, it could hold up a '.' diploma. . Every class teacher would give a I ; . "real" grade and a "just kidding" ,.a citizenship grade. That meant for eight elasses, there were eight . chances of failing citizenship ' each term. Over a year's time, one could ', conceivably fail citizenship 32 times. Each failure required a pay-- . back of 8 hours in some kind of citizenship service, everything from mowing a widow's lawn to sweeping curbs at the high school. Kids involved in a number of extracqrricular activities quickly became mired in citizenship troubles. Because these kids were in a bunch of things, they were late, often excused for out--; side events, always busy. It took a note written by a recog--j ; ; nized authority figure to get an J absence or tardy excused and ex-- ! ") punged. ' If the note didn't match the class missed or someone messed up i i. 'A ing roll, the word went out to the H attendance office and citizenship .?! : credit was deducted accordingly. ' My son, a Sterling Scholar, ; "" busy with band and debate and the "": Academic Decathlon competition, -" had a citizenship debt that rivaled the Rational debt. !; My daughter, trying to work and ;( cheerlead and the victim of a cou-- :j ARLINGTON, VA New reof major illnesses, will never search suggests that vitamins may t pie ' , rcatch up. play important preventive roles in i My son graduated anyway, be- - a variety of disorders including cause it was the first year for the cancer, heart disease and certain birth defects. These I held responsible for all he owed. protective functions of vi7 My daughter gets a headache tamins were reviewed at a conference sponsored by the New York every time I mention it. it TKa nrnKtm TT1L1I UlIWIII utth HIV Kinct liy Academy of Sciences entitled V5VJl lift ll 4. Krtuvpr ic not th volume nf "Beyond Deficiency: New Views hours that quickly rack up as a on the Function and Health Effects f result of poor bookeepping or low ofVitamins." ? f " commitment to punctuality. One group of nutrients called ' It bypasses natural conse- -' antioxidants appears to be protecr: -quences for students at an age tive in the early stages of heart " when they should be learning to disease, cancer, and diseases of the deal with such real life. elderly. Antioxidant nutrients, inThe "real" grade should reflect cluding beta carotene (a d a lack of interest in 8 class or re- -j pigment that the body turns fleet serious effort put in to shore into vitamin A), vitamin C and vitamin E, appear to work by trap; up the mark. When time is diverted to making ping free radicals, naturally occurI up a "just kidding" grade, there is ring particles that can react with t a very real result soon seen in the and damage the body's cells. The damage caused by free radicals grades that count for college. When kids are tracked and pun-- t (oxidation) is thought to initiate or Ij ished into doing what they should mediate the development of many ' 1 be doing anyway, they don't learn diseases. Ishwarlal Jialal, M.D., of the to take responsiblity for them- ' selves. University of Texas Southwestern At last, Alpine School District, Medical Center in Dallas, showed is that antioxidant nutrients four years later this year may be of the hear instrumental in preventing heart to parents pleas t starting J like me. The policy is slowlv being disease by suppressing the oxida! relaxed and moving toward letting tion of certain fat particles (low miss: of natural consequences ' the density lipoproteins, or LDL) in ' fall. classes the blood stream. ing "Vitamin C, vitamin E and beta So be it, says me. I'm impressed i and I'm not kidding. carotene all inhibited LDL oxyda- , , ' Fre-gones- . 4 three-quarte- . , I !,i - ! '. fre-quen- tly . rs ds . ; e. 4 m AP Photo Robbin Smith, energy analyst for Ashland, Ore., peddles her way through downtown on her way to a job on a ing that King County, Wash., would have 22 bicycles being used regularly by road inspectors, visiting nurses, building inspectors, couriers, fairgrounds staff, and sometimes even managers. The program started last April. "We'd like to say it's environmental consciousness and appreciation for the economics of cy- cling," says Phil Miller, coordinator for King County's RoadShare program. "But we know that's all nonsense. People do it because it fits in, it's fun, and allows some fitness time in a day where there is increasingly less time for fitness. ' Miller says he only needs two or three bikes for people to check out for trips around downtown. The rest are assigned to regular jobs where they work better than n cars. For example, a road inspectors ride together in a van, then are dropped off to fan half-doze- out on their bikes. It saves on ga 3, and bikes don't get in the way of other traffic the way a half-to- n pickup does. So far, there haven't been any injuries. "All 22 bikes were paid for with the savings from buying one less automobile," Miller says. "And it's fitting into our lifestyle here. There is a legitimacy here to using a bike for a real trip, as opposed to just recreation." After reading about King County's bikes, Roy Holmberg wanted some for Santa Cruz County in California. As director of general services, he's assembling a fleet from stolen bikes no one has claimed from the sheriffs department and will offer them for official transportation instead of cars. "My intent is to make it high-profil- Holmberg e," says. "There's going be a kiosk, with a graphic sign on it, 'County Employee Bicycle Pool.' The whole - J newly-understo- t tit ' ; tion and the early stages said Jialal. of plaque-formation- ," The antioxidant nutrients also appear to reduce heart disease risk, according to several studies by Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School in Boston. Dr. Hennekens found that Antioxidants also play an important role in helping prevent cancer. The research of Harinder S. Gare-wa- l, M.D., Ph.D., of the UniverArizona Cancer Center in of sity Tucson, discussed studies showing antioxidant safe and non-toxbeta carotene, nutrients, including ic One gro'jp of nutrients called antioxidants appears to be protective in the early stages of heart disease, cancer, and diseases of the elderly. ; plant-base- ; ! : , and residential developments. Some even provide lockers for the bikes and showers for the riders. "It is something that has caught on," says Gayle Likens, a senior city planner. Los Angeles is considering a similar ordi- "We wouldn't be bike. in the mess we are the greenhouse effect, acid rain, going to war for oil and all the congestion we wouldn't have any of that if people used cars discriminate instead of automatically," she says. City employees in Glendale, Ariz., can earn a free bike if they ride it to work three days a week for a year. The bikes help meet state clean-ai- r goals by getting people out of cars, says city coordinator Diane Adams. In Seattle's Engineering Department, Michael Dornfeld's job nance. is to be sure bikes have a secure Ellen Fletcher, who at 62 rides place in the city's transportation her bike so much she only fills her future. car with gas three times a year, "We have more cars on the persuaded the city of Palo Alto to road than we can handle." Dorn-fel- d pay mileage to city employees says. "If people can't use using their bikes on official busibicycles on them now, they cerness when she was on the City tainly will not be able to use bicyCouncil during the Arab oil emcles on them in the next 20 or 30 bargo in the 1970s. It's now up to years, when projections are that 7 cents a mile. car use will double again." ride-sha- re lesearch shows vitamins may help prevent heart disease 3 ! idea is to get other people in the community and other organizations to follow suit." Cities are also promoting bicycle commuting. Since 1978, Palo Alto, Calif., has required a range of bicycle facilities at new office, industrial city-owne- d men and women who consumed high levels of beta carotene and vitamin E from foods andor supplements had fewer heart attacks, strokes and deaths related to heart disease than those who consumed less of these two antioxidants. Paul F. Jacques, Sc.D., a researcher at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts Univrsity in Boston, demonstrated that dietary vitamin C had a positive effect on three major heart disease risk factors. It tended to lower LDL, the cholesterol-lade- n fat carrier in the bloodstream that may contribute to heart disease; raise high density lipoprotein (HDL), a fat carrier with protective qualities; and lower blood pressure. alone or in combination with vitamins E and C, reversed the growth of oral leukoplakia, white patches on the mucous membranes of the mouth that are a precancerous condition for oral cancer. Gladys Block, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the University of Cali- fornia at Berkeley, summarized over 90 population studies on the relationship between vitamin C or foods and cancer. vitamin of the In about studies, high vitamin C intake significantly reduced the risk of cancer, with particularly strong evidence for cancers of the oral cavity, esophagus, stomach and , pancreas. Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., M.D., ' of the Clinical Cancer Center at the C-ri- ch three-fourt- University of California at Irvine, reviewed population studies showing that groups of women whose also appeared to help reverse some types of precancerous cell growth. Folic acid supplements also may help prevent certain birth defects, diets contained the highest amounts of beta carotene, vitamin according Aubrey Milunsky, C and folic acid (a B vitamin, but M.D., D.Sc, of Boston Universinot an antioxidant) had a lower risk ty School of Medicine. His reof developing cervical or endome- search suggests that folic acid tak- en prior to conception and very early in pregnancy can reduce the fetus' risk of neural tube birth defects, a condition where the protective channel around the nerves in the spinal cord does not close properly. Certain consequences of aging endometrium. Folic acid may help block the might be slowed by antioxidant videvelopment of abnormal cell tamins. Allen Taylor, Ph.D., Digrowth, called dysplasia, in the rector of the Laboratory for Nutriuterine cervix, according to tion and Vision Research at the Charles E. Butterworth, Jr., USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging in Boston, exM.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dysplasia is plained that vitamins C and E and the earliest detectable stage of beta carotene appear to protect the cervical cancer in women. Dr. eye from damage caused by light Butterworth studied women who and oxygen. This damage eventuwere carriers of the human papilally causes cataracts and other loma virus (HPV), one of the prileading causes of blindness in the causes cervical of mary dysplasia, elderly. and found that dysplasia was five Vitamin A may have an effect on times more likely among groups of women with the lowest red blood the immune system of children. cell folate (fol ic acid) levels Gregory Hussey, M.B.Ch.B' Douglas C. Heimburger, M.D., F.F.C.H., a physician in the De- also of the University of Alabama Etrtment of Paediatrics and Child the University of Cape at Birmingham, found that tissues in the body that become deficient Town in South Africa, showed that in folic acid may be more suscepti-- , high doses of vitamin A in critical ble to cancer. In Dr. Heimburger's cases of measles dramatically re-- , studies, folic acid supplementation duced the severity of the disease . trial cancer. He recently has begun a large study to determine whether diets that have been supplemented with beta carotene, alone or in combination with vitamin C and folic acid, can protect women from cancers of the uterine, cervix and ; . t B.fM.M4. |
