Eat Dinner as a Family

Mitch Albom has a great column from Sunday's Free Press on the advantages of families that eat dinner together. As a kid, the dinner table was where we talked about our day at school and learned that if you complained about how you had more vegetables on your plate than your sister you ended up getting another heaping spoonful. Families that have dinner together won't be without their trouble. However, I am willing to bet that a family that cares enough to make it a priority to eat dinner together is already ahead of most other families. It shows a commitment to the family instead of extra music or sports practices, or meetings you just couldn't say no to.

It is scary how busy families are these days with individual activities. We are so busy having "fun" that we have forgotten how to have fun without being busy. A fun and full life is not about how many different activities you can be involved in.

We recently had a missionary at our church that made a statement that has stuck with me. He was in Africa and one of the Africans laughed at him for wearing a watch. He said to the missionary, "In America, you have watches. In Africa, we have time."

Time. All the money in the world won't buy more when you realize you don't have much left.

U.P. Paper Stops the Presses

Bill Westerman, Ironwood Daily Globe press foreman, never had the chance to shout, "Stop the presses!" The motor that runs the presses started up on its own Wednesday and then quit as quickly as it began. The Daily Globe had to use the presses in Ashland to produce Wednesday's paper since their press could not be fixed in that short of a time period. The Ironwood Daily Globe website.

Is Bird Flu the Next Y2K?

Remember how the world was going to face mass chaos and horrific events when the year 1999 rolled into the year 2000? All those folks who listened to the daily barrage of the impending doom who stockpiled food, water, and purchased generators. Then, the clock struck midnight and our computer's internal calendars rolled over to 2000. Nothing. No riots in the streets. No worldwide blackouts and panic. It was yet another panic caused by overzealous media and politicians.

I believe that the current bird flu craze is in the same vein as Y2K. I think it is easy to stir up public panic when the media dishes up daily stories related to bird flu. Bird flu is not something that is new in the past few years.

It has always been around. The avian influenza (bird flu) pandemic of 1918 is evidence of this. In the current bird flu frenzy the media is creating there have only been 103 deaths attributed. My fear is that once again the news media is playing Chicken Little and claiming that the sky is falling because it makes for a good story.

10 years ago we didn't get daily reports of recent bird deaths. Now, it seems every time someone spots a dead bird it is because of the West Nile Virus or possibly (gasp) bird flu. Don't birds ever die of natural causes? I know I have been unfortunate enough to snuff out a few birds that flew in front of my truck. I didn't see any crime scenes or news crews gathered around investigating those deaths.

The point is this. More people are dying from influenza (you know, the regular old flu) each year than the worldwide deaths attributed to bird flu. Did you know that each year 36,000 people in the United States die from influenza? Yet, all we hear about is bird flu which has only claimed 103 individuals worldwide.

For more media frenzy coverage, the Lansing State Journal has a story about how Michigan is smack dab in the middle of the migratory path of birds that could be carriers of bird flu.

Shameless Plug for my Alma Mater

Hey, I have a shameless plug that involves my Alma Mater, Western Michigan University. There is a new weblog from the Kalamazoo Gazette that features the WMU Broncos sports teams. It is written by Gazette sports writer, Graham Couch and delivers additional information and insight into Western sports. Even though Western was embarrassed by Toledo in basketball last night (81-58, ouch) I look forward to the additional coverage. I have added a link to the blog to my blogroll on the right hand side if you are interested.