DINNER WITH THE KIDS NONE OF GOVERNMENT'S BUSINESS

Thank you, Waupaca County Board. Thank you for refusing to buy into
the feel-good, pseudo pro-family "have dinner with your children for a
change" proclamation the president, 35 governors and some big-city
mayors have historically endorsed.

The organizers, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse
at Columbia University, call the event "Family Day - A Day to Eat
Dinner With Your Children." They say it's good for kids to eat with
the family. Keeps them off drugs, pretty much, the group says.

You don't even have to cook dinner on this special occasion, the
organizers assure us. Take-out pizza is good enough. Just as long as
you eat it with your children.

Apparently, the people at Columbia are hoping that families are going
to have so much fun sitting around the table together Sept. 22 they'll
decide to do it again next year.

Anyway, they sent around a resolution for local governments to sign,
asking the governor to recognize "that eating dinner as a family is an
important step toward raising drug-free children." Gov. Jim Doyle went
to Harvard Law School. He's probably figured that out.

The resolution goes on to declare the fourth Monday of every September
"National Family Day - A Day To Eat Dinner With Your Children."

If that's what the anti-drug people want to spend their time and money
on, fine. But why is government involving itself in a pep rally for an
annual dinner with the kids? If our government wants to encourage
parental involvement, it would quit wasting our tax money courting
special interests so we could spend less time at work, quit preaching
consumerism as the American way, and quit trying to raise our children.

But the Waupaca County Board, at least, wanted nothing to do with the
resolution. They thought it was weird.

"Having dinner with your children is important, and I have no problem
with that. I really don't see the need for this type of proclamation,"
Supv. Pat Craig said.

Thank you, Waupaca County Board.