A caller this week had a very reasonable suggestion, which the Parkersburg police chief endorsed.
The caller said an accident report involving her vehicle had listed on it the Social Security numbers of all drivers involved in the relatively minor, no-injury accident.
In light of all the public warnings about protecting Social Security numbers and not giving them out except when absolutely necessary, the caller thought it was odd the public record accessible by anyone wanting to see it would have Social Security numbers on it.
The caller telephoned Chief Joe Martin, who, the caller said, listened to her concern, checked and found indeed the multi-page, state-mandated, standardized accident report did contain Social Security numbers of drivers. The chief agreed there could be a potential problem in letting those numbers out for non-law enforcement personnel and pledged to have the numbers redacted whenever anyone wished to see or get a copy of the report for their insurance company.
In this case, the caller may have saved us all a potential problem in the future, which police recognized and took steps to eliminate.
Among those things I've never been able to understand is why at some Veterans Day and Memorial Day observances there are various political figures speaking instead of veterans.
It's especially hard to understand when the politicians aren't veterans.
Granted, it might be more difficult to find veterans willing to tell of their experiences, especially those in combat, and how it changed their lives or the remorse they felt or are still feeling over the loss of a fellow soldier, but such a message would have much more impact on veterans and supporters than hearing a non-veteran politician utter all the usual rhetoric.
Put this in the category of stupid!
Mount Healthy City Schools, a suburb near Cincinnati, is withholding a graduate's diploma until he or members of his family perform 20 hours of community service because cheering for him was too loud at graduation exercises.
The superintendent says extended cheering for the football star disrupted the May 24 ceremony. The superintendent said the student did legally graduate, but he's not getting his diploma until the community service hours are completed.
Hopefully, the school board has a semblance of common sense and overrules the superintendent before the school district finds itself facing litigation I doubt it could win.
Natalee Seely, the News and Sentinel's evening reporter-photographer, is leaving to return to Ohio State University to get a master's degree and maybe pursue a career change into academia.
Consequently, we are looking for a highly motivated journalism grad to cover the police-general assignment beat. The ideal candidate will have strong writing and news-gathering skills, as well as being driven to dig for all the information available ... and then some.
At least a bachelor's degree in journalism or a related field is required.
Emailed resumes I have received for the job have been from around the nation, which isn't surprising, but getting one from Germany was. Over the years, I have received a lot of resumes, but never one from a foreign country, making it an interesting first.
Contact Jim Smith at jsmith@newsandsentinel.com.
