• Trinity Work Fitness opened its first Trinity MedXpress on Thursday, December 15, at the Hy-Vee store located at 2351 West Locust Street in Davenport. The clinic is the first of its kind in the area, not only treating a patient's symptoms, but also focusing on education and prevention with Hy-Vee's pharmacists and a registered dietitian.
Editor's note: The Isle of Capri's application with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its riverfront-hotel and casino-relocation project has triggered a public-comment period that ends on Thursday, December 22.
Karl "Joe" Nissen certainly sounds frustrated. "It's really an uphill battle," he said of making improvements in East Moline's downtown area, with "20 percent of the people doing 80 percent of the work. ... It's like trying to push a rope up a hill.
• Danielle Spaete, a Science teacher at Pleasant Valley High School, is being rewarded for her classrom's innovative methods and strategies. Spaete has been named a state finalist for the 2005 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics & Science Teaching (PAEMST), the nation's highest honor for K-12 teachers in these fields.
• The Cities of Bettendorf and Davenport, together with the Bi-State Regional Commission (BSRC), are conducting two open houses for the Iowa Quad Cities Transit Alternatives Analysis. The open houses will provide citizens an opportunity to identify potential solutions for transportation problems using enhanced transit services.
Municipalities enjoying growth tend toward comprehensive, pro-active land-use planning that prioritizes sustainability, capitalizing on geographic strengths and uniqueness, and employing land-use policies and ordinances that advocate harmony of use for a strong sense of place.
• The Quad City Health Initiative (QCHI) was recently awarded the 2005 Iowa Dietetic Association Gem Award for its work on wellness through its Wellness Warriors team. The award is given to individuals or groups in the private, public, or business community who have made significant contributions to the profession of dietetics in Iowa.
Quad City Arts in Rock Island currently has the most inspired artistic pairing I've witnessed in quite some time. Thaddeus Erdahl's and Susan Mart's work forms an exhilarating one-two punch. Their uses of subtle colors and their shaping of forms within their chosen media generate an energetic call-and-response between their works and throughout the gallery.
• Trinity Regional Health System and Genesis Health System will provide healthier environments for patients, employees, and visitors by becoming tobacco-free health-care organizations starting May 1, 2006. Tobacco use will no longer be permitted in the buildings or on the grounds of Quad Cities hospitals.

Fear and Flu

My mother stopped feeding the birds in her backyard. She was afraid of contracting the bird flu. I told her that was nonsense, but we live in a culture of fear right now. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has fielded concerned calls both about Thanksgiving turkeys and feeding birds.

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