Thermo-automotive neglect

You know how when you open the door of a car that's been sitting outside during the summer, you're nearly overwhelmed by a wave of heat emanating from its interior? And you have to wait for it to dissipate before you can even attempt to enter the vehicle? Believe it or not, there are certain people who don't understand why this is a poor environment for anything alive. These people, apparently lacking the most rudimentary common knowledge of thermodynamics and human physiology, leave young children alone in cars with the windows up. Because the car is entirely enclosed, it functions as a solar greenhouse and traps heat with no way to vent it, potentially reaching interior temperatures of 109°F from an ambient temperature of 83°F in only 15 minutes. Cracking the window doesn't improve the circulation enough to mitigate the effect; the aforementioned temperature rise occurred with a two-inch opening in the window. Under the worst conditions, interior temperatures can exceed 140°F. The child is unable to free himself, suffers heat stroke and usually dies.

This happens dozens of times every year, with at least 356 fatalities since 1998. Even though the incidents are always widely reported, people just keep leaving their kids in makeshift ovens. In almost every case, they claim to have just forgotten. About a child. Is this some kind of belated natural selection carried out by terminally moronic parents who, unfortunately, have failed to avoid reproduction? It's certain they're all aware of these deadly incidents, but what keeps it from solidifying in their memory? When researching these stories, I realized there's no consistent terminology to describe the act of leaving a child in an enclosed vehicle on a warm day. There are plenty of ways to describe the consequences for the child (overheating, hyperthermia, heat exhaustion, heat stroke) and the consequences for the adult (charges of child neglect, child endangerment, manslaughter, negligent homicide, or half the time, nothing at all), and the stories almost always include the phrase "hot car", but there's no single term for the act itself. I believe this is a large part of the problem, and clearly defining the phenomenon would go a long way in helping people curb their stupidity. I have created a term for this purpose: Thermo-automotive neglect. It is defined as follows:

Thermo-automotive neglect (TAN) describes an incident where a child or animal suffers, or is placed at risk of, injury or death by extreme temperatures in a partially or fully enclosed automobile, causing hyperthermia (heat stroke) or hypothermia. The incident is the result of neglect on the part of a parent, guardian or owner, whether malicious, ignorant or simply forgetful.

This term is precise, but inclusive, and encapsulates the three essential properties of the event. While referring to parents leaving their kids in cars, which is the most prevalent incident, it also covers situations such as childcare workers leaving kids in cars, people leaving animals in cars, and parents not keeping an eye on their kids and allowing them to enter a car and lock themselves inside. It still counts as thermo-automotive neglect if the child or animal suffers no ill effects, because it describes the irresponsible action or inaction of the adult. If it happens in the winter, that's TAN too. And TAN serves as a short, memorable, easily pronounced and self-descriptive acronym, like SAD and IED. It can also be used as a verb. For example:

Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby TANned her 2-year-old daughter to death last month, and will not face charges, despite having been warned about the dangers after non-fatally TANning the girl during winter.

While summer is over in the northern hemisphere, TAN is still just as dangerous; even exterior temperatures in the low 60s can be fatal. And once winter is in full swing here, TAN will pose a threat to the southern hemisphere. I hope for the thermo-automotive neglect meme to become reasonably widespread in time for next summer to achieve optimum efficacy and prevent more TAN deaths, and I will work to that end. I've even got a slogan for the campaign: "DON'T FUCKING DO THAT!" I'll be following up on TAN events much like chair throwing, and I'd like to hear your comments and suggestions about this idea.

Although I haven't taken any new pictures of Wal-Mart since March, mostly because there aren't many interesting new things to photograph, they've been used 20 21 times on The Consumerist^[1], and included in Google Maps results. As always, I'm taking requests, but not for long, because Wal-Mart Discount Store #1556 in Orland Hills will be demolished in the near future. In fact, the entire Orland Town Center plaza at 159th St. and 94th Ave. is being redeveloped:

The satellite imagery is out of date, but I have more recent photos of the Orland Town Center. Zone A is where Wal-Mart #1556 is currently located. To its immediate west is an empty lot that's never been occupied, next to a discount bookstore (Zany Brainy before FAO Schwarz went out of business) attached to PetSmart (the source of six of our rats). Zone B is a strip mall (seen here looking northeast and here looking east), with Circuit City occupying the northernmost section (with the angled square protrusion on the front), followed by Office Max, and several other businesses. Zone C, while apparently a vacant section of parking lot on the map, was torn up several months ago, and a strip mall and fresh new parking lot were built in its place. Businesses in Zone B are in the process of moving out and into the new strip mall (seen here looking north), because Zone B is being torn down (seen here looking northeast, and this used to be My Child's Room in the southernmost section) to make room for a new Wal-Mart Supercenter. Zone C is significantly smaller than Zone B, but Fashion Bug and Subway have already moved in, along with a Hallmark store that wasn't there before. There seems to be room for an additional one or two stores, but definitely not Circuit City or Office Max, and I doubt World's Finest Chocolate^[2], Gymboree, My Child's Room and the seasonal decorations store will all be able to fit in there.

Once the Supercenter is finished, Wal-Mart #1556 will be demolished, and Zone A and the adjoining vacant lot will become part of the parking lot. I really hope it happens in that order, because not having a Wal-Mart nearby would be pretty inconvenient. I'll definitely be taking pictures of the closeout sales and destruction of #1556, and probably hundreds of the inside and outside of the new Supercenter, so now we've all got something to look forward to. As you can see, I'm a bit obsessed with this topic. I've got a few more photos of the Orland Hills/Orland Park area here.

1. 31 Oct 2007, 26 Oct 2007, 15 Oct 2007, 3 Oct 2007, 11 Aug 2007, 5 Jul 2007, 22 Jun 2007, 13 Jun 2007, 29 May 2007, 27 Apr 2007, 24 Apr 2007, 11 Apr 2007, 10 Apr 2007, 4 Apr 2007, 23 Mar 2007, 20 Mar 2007, 12 Mar 2007, 8 Mar 2007, 6 Mar 2007, 2 Mar 2007, 15 Feb 2007.
2. Their chocolate is of generally poor quality and widely used in door-to-door fundraisers. When we got some from this store, it tasted like pesticides. Stay away.

I mentioned rats from PetSmart earlier, and we recently acquired two more. We found Blackjack, a very young black capped dumbo rat, at PetSmart this past Monday. Their supplier had only sent one rat, and there were no other rats there to keep him company. He seemed a bit scared, but instantly took to us when we picked him up, and would stay still when held closely for several minutes. Since you can't keep solitary rats, we went to Petland the next day and found Charlie, an even smaller grey hooded rat, about the size of a large mouse. He was kept with two female rats, which is just asking for litters. While he was initially a bit skittish, he's begun to enjoy all the attention, and he and Blackjack are getting along well. They're quite eager to climb out of the cage and will sometimes sit comfortably on our shoulders, and they're beginning to learn their names.

Also, I've sent politely worded emails to Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, the founders of StumbleUpon, inquiring about the possibility of having my site removed. They have not responded. Four days until Lastmeasure! And my reddit karma now stands at about 17680, having gained 1433 in the past week. Only 4500 more to get into the top ten, if everyone else happened to stop gaining karma. Just to see what happened, I submitted one of my own updates, and while it wasn't successful, I still received about 130 views from there. So if you ever want a few dozen visits to a page, that's something worth considering.

Additionally, I've removed bans on IP ranges covering about 732,000 addresses, since they were from two or three years ago and likely weren't performing their intended function anymore. However, I've also added bans on several webhosts known to host web proxies, which may impede interoperability with any web service that tries to read content on this site for whatever reason. And, because of someone spamming replies about purses (which I've now written a filter for), I've banned every range I can find that's used by China Netcom's Beijing Province Network, covering 3,080,192 addresses. If you have the same problem, these are the ranges:

61.48.0.0/14
61.135.0.0/16
61.148.0.0/15
123.112.0.0/12
124.64.0.0/15
125.33.0.0/16
125.34.0.0/16
125.35.0.0/17
202.96.0.0/18
202.99.0.0/18
202.106.0.0/16
202.108.0.0/16
210.82.0.0/17
218.107.128.0/18
219.141.128.0/17
219.142.0.0/15
219.158.128.0/17
220.181.0.0/16
220.249.0.0/18
221.216.0.0/13
222.128.0.0/14

Oh, and props to The Keane Organization for helping me recover $10,000 in unclaimed assets I didn't even know I had. You guys rock!

Alexyss K. Tylor's Vagina Power
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