If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you are likely one of the millions engaged in end of summer activities, such as getting kids prepared for going back to school, or preparing for your Labor Day final summer weekend. Having a chiropractic practice nearby the shores of the Pacific coastline in Los Angeles, I’ve seen a number of interesting things taking place inside and outside the office. It’s fire season here in Southern California, and while fires in the hills around Los Angeles never help the hot weather, the combination of heat and smoke does make for interesting sunsets. Hopefully, everyone will stay safe throughout the remainder of this season and California firefighters will do what they do best.

Palmer College of Chiropractic’s West Campus in San Jose will offer chiropractic and sports injury care through its Sports Council to more than 10,000 athletes from throughout the United States in August. The athletes will convene on the Stanford University campus and other California locations Aug. 1-15 to compete in over two dozen sports, including basketball, cycling, racquetball, swimming, track and field, and water polo.

Just when the flu “formerly known as swine” was losing its headline luster for being too mild and ordinary a bug, the first global influenza pandemic in 41 years was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO). On June 11, 2009 the WHO raised the pandemic warning to level 6, the highest possible alert.

Time to get together and get focused! There is a Focus Philosophy Chiropractic Weekend taking place in Pennsylvania on the weekend of August 8th. That’s a Saturday, for those of you that haven’t checked your calendar yet, and I’m thinking about making a flight from Los Angeles, because I love Focus Philosophy events.

Are you grabbing your face mask, stocking up on food and Tamiflu, locking your doors and keeping your TV tuned to the news to find out just how bad the “swine flu pandemic” really is going to get? While Americans are being scared to death, few are noticing how much of their tax money politicians are giving to drug companies and government health officials to grease the skids to create more experimental flu vaccines and drugs and more effective ways to quarantine or force their mass use whenever a “public health emergency” is declared in the future.