Iowa's Radio News Network
Iowa National Guard soldiers (file photo)
Six Iowa communities are holding send-off ceremonies today for Iowa National Guard troops who’re headed to
Afghanistan. The farewell events are being held in Algona, Boone, Eagle Grove, Mount Pleasant, Keokuk and Storm Lake. Guard spokesman Colonel Greg Hapgood says they’re the first of 28 sendoffs that’ll be held over the next nine days for the massive activation of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division.
An Iowa State University study has found repeatedly making a certain “fashion statement” can do some long-term damage.
I.S.U. master’s student Danielle Barkema and the professor who heads the kinesoiology department worked on the study, which found women may suffer long-term damage to their knees and other joints by standing and walking, day-after-day, in high-heels.
“My twin sister got a job in Chicago working in retail after she graduated from college. She was doing some management on the floor there. She was wearing high heels all day, pretty much all day, and she was complaining about the lack of comfort and what not,” Barkema says. “She also noticed that a lot of the older women that she was working with who had been wearing heels for a period of years — all day, every day — were having problems: various joint problems, foot problems, knee, hip — things like that.”
Barkema’s study has found that wearing and walking in high heels can contribute to “joint degeneration and knee osteoarthritis.” The higher the heel, the greater the “loading” or pressure on the knee joint itself.
Barkema, by the way, still owns high heeled shoes, but she doesn’t wear them all day, every day. ”I sort of try to limit myself to wearing (high heels) to once or twice a week — and for not very long periods of time,” Barkema says. “So I’m not saying to completely throw out all your high heels because they are sort of fun to wear every once in a while, but sort of limit yourself, if possible.”
Barkema and the head of I.S.U.’s kinesiology department will present part of their research about high heels at the annual meeting of the American Society of Biomechanics at Brown University the third week of August.
Barkema’s research focused on how women walked in flat shoes compared to women wearing two-inch heels and women wearing three-and-a-half-inch heels. She used sensors and other equipment to measure the forces the women were putting on their knee joints by walking in the heels. She also measured the “shock wave” that travels up the body when the heel strikes the floor. Barkema cautions she can’t say “with certainty” that wearing high heels causes joint problems, but she says women who routinely wear high heels are at greater risk for developing osteoarthritis in their joints.
Barkema, who is from Cedar Falls, is moving to Chicago this weekend — high heels in tow.
Jody Swilky
A documentary that focuses on the impact of immigration on an Iowa community makes its national debut this weekend. It’s called, “A Little Salsa on the Prairie: The Changing Character of Perry, Iowa.”
Jody Swilky wrote and co-produced the film which studies how changes in the U-S meatpacking industry created a high demand for new laborers from Mexico and Central America.
Swilky says, “The effect of it was, within a decade, from 1990 to 2000, Perry, like other communities, had gone through a radical culture change.” Swilky is a Drake University professor and chair of the English Department.
Over the course of ten years, he says the town in central Iowa’s Dallas County went from having a minority population of less than one-percent to nearly 25-percent Latino.
“The first part of the film goes into the issue of ethnicity in meatpacking and the history of it in Perry,” Swilky says. “The second part is interviews with people who had been there during the culture change, Latinos and Anglos, and talk about the effect of it.”
The film also addresses the impact of Latino immigration on the economy, society and physical environment in Perry. The documentary also analyzes present-day Perry and looks ahead to what the future may hold. He says they feature local Perry residents who emigrated to the rural community from Mexico.
Swilky says, “We have a group of undocumented students who talk about what it was to get here and what it is to live here and the whole life that they’d lead, hopefully enlightening people into what is going on in people’s lives.”
The film will air Sunday at 6 P-M on the Documentary Channel, which airs documentaries from around the world. Learn more at www.littlesalsaontheprairie.com.
Congressman Bruce Braley is chiding people for jumping to any conclusions about the Lake Delhi Dam that failed last weekend.
“There’s a tremendous amount of misinformation floating around about what did or did not happen to manage this event before the dam collapsed,” Braley says. “…It’s very important for people to take a step back, make sure they have all the facts about how this event unfolded before they judge anyone.”
Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, represents the area in congress. He says the dam is privately-owned and the road that went along the top of the dam is publicly-owned.
“Rather than getting into any ‘blame game’ right now, the most important thing is for state, local and elected officials and these private homeowners and associations to try to come together and think of creative solutions on how we can get this dam restored, how we can get the lake rebuilt and how we can continue to have the type of place that will benefit the entire region,” Braley says.
Braley calls the situation a “real tragedy,” as the Lake Delhi Recreation Association was making improvements to the dam when it collapsed. ”(They) had a crane in the water and building materials there by the side of the road and I watched that crane wash over the dam and float downstream, so the incredibly poor timing of all this couldn’t be more severe and that’s why my heart goes out to everybody that’s being effected by this and it’s really not the time for any type of recrimination,” Braley says. “It’s the time for problem solving.”
According to Braley, it’s “way too soon” to put a dollar amount on how much may be required to fix the dam and the road which ran over it. ”The goal is to try to get the dam repaired, to get the lake filled up as quickly as possible so people will want to stay in the area and won’t want to abandon those properties because of the enormous economic value they have,” Braley says.
About 900 homes surrounded Lake Delhi and about a third were damaged or destroyed in last week’s flooding.
O.KayHenderson.com