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America's Most Dangerous Jobs
By Jim Stavis
Each August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes out with their Most Dangerous Jobs rankings from the prior year. It is their form of the Oscars for the occupations you might want to reconsider having (unless you like living on the edge). It was interesting to me that there were many obvious jobs left off the list. First of all, I would think running into a burning building with a fire hose or apprehending criminals might rank right up there as "dangerous jobs", but they are not even in the top ten. Also missing from the list was our armed forces (military). Perhaps this is viewed not as an occupation, but as a service to our country. I still think it qualifies as dangerous duty.
Anyhow, this year's winner of the most dangerous goes to the fisherman. All tolled, 48 died, up from 38 the year before. This is nearly 30 times higher than the average worker. From personal experience, I always get those hooks caught in my fingers, so I understand the dangers. Fishermen go to sea in ships in terrible weather conditions and many fall overboard which results in death by drowning. And I always thought sea sickness was the worst fate possible.
The next group fighting to keep its tragic status is the tree loggers with 80 deaths, down from 85 the year before. Loggers have to contend with mammoth tree weights and irregular shaped tree trunks that can be difficult to control. And I always thought they just had to yell, "Timber". The next group taking the third spot are flyers (81 fatalities). This includes pilots, but not commercial airline pilots. It is more of your crop duster, small plane pilots, the ones that should never have flown in the first place.
One of the most mundane parts of the workday, commuting to and from work, proved fatal to more workers than any other-2,480 died in transportation accidents, more than 43 percent of all fatal workplace occurrences. Think about that one as you say goodbye to your spouse before you go off to work.
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And finally, we come to structural iron and steel workers, ranked fourth on the list. Only 35 died, but as a percentage it was quite high. The most dangerous industry was clearly construction where 1,186 workers died. Of those who died, about 32 percent suffered from fatal falls of a story or more.
The list is provided below. It is apparent to me that those jobs that pillage the environment: fisherman for the sea, loggers for our forests and miners of our natural resources have the highest death rates on the list. Perhaps this is Mother Nature's way of getting even.
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What is a Billion?
The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual way, think about how you want your tax money spent. A billion is a hard amount to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that number into perspective.
- A billion seconds ago, it was 1959.
- A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.
- A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
- A billion days ago, no-one walked the earth on two feet.
- A billion dollars ago, was only 8 hours and 20 minutes ago, at the rate our government is spending it.
Here is some fuel for thought:
According to the Web site nationalpriorities.org, so far in the Iraq war we have spent $310 billion and counting. It
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shows how many students we could send to college, how many schools that could be built and how many people we could feed.
According to NASA, we will spend nearly $100 billion for repairs and renovations of the space station that is currently floating in space.
Finally, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu is asking Congress for $250 billion to rebuild the city of New Orleans. This would mean:
1. Every man, woman and child of the 484,674 remaining residents would receive $516,528.
2. The 188,251 remaining homeowners would receive $1,329,787.
Of course the money would also be spent to build the great wall of New Orleans to prevent the next hurricane disaster, but you get the point. Where does the madness end?
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