A Simple Cowboy Safety Manifesto

I was just reading the February 1917 issue of The Fra being a monthly publication for philistines and roycrofters edited by Elbert Hubbard, a renaissance man if there ever was one.

Hubbard is waxing poetic about price increases of coal, dry glue, sheet copper and leather. He then presents a list of items that could well be a simple Cowboy Safety manifesto.

In one sense I don't want to list these items because some of them have become politicized and may be construed incorrectly. Please think of them in the classical sense. And please bear in mind that there are 21st century applications of these concepts that reflect the exciting new world that is here right now. If your definition of safety is limited to injuries and fatalities your solution is there.

Hubbard summarizes: "My remedy for present burdensome conditions only applies to the individual. But of each would do his share we all would arrive. Here it is:"

Cut out the extravagance.
Refuse to feed the loafer.
Pay cash as you go.
Eliminate waste.
Produce.
Demand reasonable profits.
Pay only reasonable prices.
Live up to your ideals.

David Sneed

Simple Word Pictures for Improved Safety

In 1984, Sam Kinison, comedian and ex Pentecostal preacher, got his breakthrough on Rodney Dangerfield's 9th Annual Young Comedians special on HBO. He did a skit on World Hunger. See link below.

He told of the problem in a quiet voice. He noted the cruelty of the hungry child on the TV commercial. He wondered why the film crew didn't give the kid a sandwich. He presented his idea of how to stop world hunger. It was to stop sending food. Instead send U haul trailers, suitcases, anything to get them to move out of the desert and go to where there was food. In his inimitable way he pretends to pick up sand. He says nothing will grow here. "A hundred years from now it'll still be sand." "Go to where the food is" he screams. We can learn from the style of Kinison and other comedians. To the point real open-minded thinking. Simple word pictures.

Much of safety is wasted money and wasted effort. How much time and money is spent on training workers to know all the different types of fire extinguishers when their worksite, if it has an extinguisher, has only a type C? And the video in the course does not tell the workers where their fire extinguisher is located.

Cowboy Safety is an attitude of looking at the real hazards and planning for a real incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN7ehccspao

David Sneed