Consider Communications

June 6, 2017

Like many of my generation, I have a love-hate relationship with advances in communications technology.

I love it when, during a single day, my wife and I can have important career conversations by text with one son in China, chuckle at dog photos from another son in Texas, message with a "daughter" in South Korea, and watch videos of a "granddaughter" in California. I need it for heart-to-heart emails with my sister in Oregon. I love it for talking with and seeing many of these people in real time, face to face through Skype.

I enjoy the freedom that this technology provides me to keep in touch with both work and family when I travel, or escape to the cottage on summer weekends. It makes me far more productive than I was able to be years ago.

And that's a good thing because, with all of the convenience has come the expectation that everybody is "on call" every minute of every day.

Which is but one of the many downsides of our technological progress. Another is that people can communicate so quickly that they are prone to do so without thinking. 

Another is the frequency of solicitations and the stupidity of most social media that tends to swamp my inbox. The "unsubscribe" feature cannot cope with the flood of foolishness.

I recall reading a biography of John Adams, masterfully created in large part from the letters written by his wife Abigail. It amazes me that when she wrote a letter to a person in Europe, she knew the letter would not be received for several months, and that she would not get a reply for half a year.

That was not necessarily a better time, but I imagine each word was given greater consideration as it was penned and posted.

Summer Football Safety

July 23, 2018

(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com on June 23, 2017.)


Across the U.S. this summer, school-age football players are flocking to camps conducted by colleges and commercial interests. They get outfitted in full gear and launch themselves into drills and skills work.

Unlike the start of the interscholastic football season, the players usually do this without several days of acclimatization to avoid heat illness, and without limits on player-to-player contact to reduce head injuries.

Required precautions of the school season are generally ignored at non-school summer camps.

One notable exception to this foolish behavior is found in Michigan where the Michigan High School Athletic Association prohibits member schools’ student-athletes from using full equipment and participating in full-contact activities outside the high school football season. This is not a recent change; it’s been the MHSAA’s explicit policy for more than four decades.

And it’s a policy that has never been more in style and in favor than it is today.