Ken Rogerson, professor of public policy and director of undergraduate studies at the Sanford School of Public Policy, participated in the New York Times’ Room for Debate blog, “Obama on All Channels,” Sept. 23.
Rogerson was one of several professors, presidential speechwriters and authors to comment on President Barack Obama’s frequent media appearances. Posts addressed whether the president is in danger of being overexposed.
In his post, Rogerson noted that Obama is “doing his job.”
“He is out among the citizens—both virtually and physically—promoting his policy agenda, showing support for existing programs and asking us to think hard about political decisions that are being made,” Rogerson wrote.
Rogerson added that still, Obama may be overexposing himself, leading citizens to prioritize consuming other information available to them in the “maze of modern technology.”
He contrasted the surplus of information about Obama and his doings with the author J.D. Salinger’s media shyness, noting it is “interesting” that Salinger’s reclusive behavior has made him more compelling to the public.
“The next time Salinger decides to say something in public, I suspect people will stop to listen,” Rogerson wrote.
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Several people in the Sanford School of Public Policy want to help prevent people from making poor decisions when they drink.
Although they may not care whether people who imbibe keep their clothes on, Philip J. Cook, professor of public policy, and Maeve E. Gearing, a doctoral candidate in public policy, want to keep them off the roads.
Cook and Gearing co-authored an op-ed article that ran in the New York Times Monday about ignition-interlock devices. These devices are breathalyzers that attach to the ignition of a car and will prevent the vehicle from starting if the driver is intoxicated, which if widely used could save as many as 750 lives a year, according to a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration report estimate.
Currently, eight states require drunk-driving offenders to have ignition-interlock devices installed in their cars and 25 states require repeat offenders to install them, according to the article.
But in 2007, only 146,000 ignition interlocks were in use, they wrote, adding that the reasons were clear: the devices are expensive to install and there is little enforcement or oversight of their installation.
The authors suggest courts connect installing ignition-interlock devices with substance-abuse treatment requirements and only allow offenders to remove the devices when they do not try to start their cars while drunk over an extended time period.
“The ignition interlock could be an extraordinarily effective way to prevent drunk-driving recidivism,” Cook and Gearing wrote. “But it can save lives only if we make sure people use it.”
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