In the safety world, zero is the new name of the game. Have you heard of the Zero Injury Institute.com? Or slogans such as, “Target Zero,” and “We’re drilling toward zero.”

Is this any way for America’s number one blue-collar guy to talk

That’s the essence of the message sent out in early March by the Business Roundtable, an elite institution of leaders of major U.S. companies with more than $6 trillion in annual revenues and more than 14 million employees.

You might have missed this bizarre bit of news at the beginning of the year because it came from across the “pond,” in the United Kingdom. Prime Minister David Cameron issued a New Year’s resolution pledging, among other promises, to “kill off the health and safety culture for good.”

What’s with that perfectly round, candy yellow smile face with the black, blank eyes popping up on newsstands lately?

Brrriinnggg!!! rrriinnggg!!! “Hello? “Who’s calling? What’s that? The Society for a Sustainable Future?

Last August while trolling for votes at the Iowa State Fair, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney created a little media stir when, egged on by an irate protestor, he said, “Corporations are people, too, my friend.” 

The first thing we noticed in this year’s annual White Paper EHS State of the Nation reader survey was age. 

Distressing. Unacceptable. Mired in mediocrity. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the essence of the American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) reaction last month to news from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that a total of 4,547 workers died on the job in 2010 compared with 4,551 from 2009. 

Just where will this new Super Committee of Congressional Budget-Cutters come up with more than a trillion bucks in federal spending savings, as mandated by that Grand Bargain reached by Congress this summer to raise the federal government debt ceiling?