Two articles

Two articles caught my attention this afternoon. The first addresses how Americans do not take vacations. It seems that we work all the time. It was on CNN.com. Why is America the "no vacation nation"? One man speaks about the culture in his office: "The running joke at Brock's company is that a vacation just means you work from somewhere else."

The article points out that this isn't the case in other countries where people actually take vacations and they leave their work behind. One of the findings of a study is that Americans get more satisfaction from work than they do from taking vacations. Yet, doing so, says another study cited in the article, doesn't make our economy more competitive than countries where workers take lots of time off for vacation, such as in Sweden, which mandates that workers take five weeks of vacation each year.

 The second article was also reported on CNN.com, Little people, lots of pills: Experts debate medicating kids. This article addresses the complicated issue of using behavioral drugs to manage kids. Some of the cases cites speak to severe cases, in which drugs appear to be life-saving. Other cases are about kids with mild behavioral issues. Of course, this is a news article and not a formal study. Yet, it raises awareness of what could be an important issue in our culture.