Welcome once again to Journalism 101 - the Good News edition.

Why good news? Well, newspapers are often accused of printing only the bad news: stories about war, violence and celebrity misbehavior.

To that we say: How can a story about Lindsay Lohan having an appendectomy be bad news?

But, critics of the media do have a point. Often the good news we publish gets overlooked in the rush to get to the public the vital facts concerning more celebrity organ removals. That is why this column is dedicated to highlighting recent events that are uplifting, ennobling and that give a ray of hope to mankind.

For example: screaming toddlers. Recently, while traveling back to their home in Worcester, a family was ordered off an airliner when the mother and father were unable to quell their 3-year-old daughter's tantrum and get her strapped into her seat.

Now, as most of us who are parents know, a 3-year-old having a tantrum is, according to international air travel conventions, a weapon of mass destruction.

However, the parents, whose daughter by the way appears, on TV, to be a sweet little girl, have expressed outrage at this humiliation and have brusquely rejected the airline's proffered apologies.

Here's the good part. The vast majority of people commenting on this issue to the airline's e-mail address are taking the side of the airline!

Think of it. A lovely young family with an adorable tot pitted against one of those companies that charges you to lose your baggage and won't give you a bag of peanuts on a flight to Singapore, and people are telling the airline: Right on! It's the best news since people took the side of the guy in the Tigger costume who slugged the annoying teenager at Disney World.

And speaking of kids and people in storybook costumes, recently a group of parents in Minnesota formed a support group called Birthdays Without Pressure to battle against the competition of throwing ever-more elaborate kids' birthday parties. I believe this may be the greatest advance in civilization since the discovery of fire, or, possibly, microwave popcorn.

I have argued for years, at least since I took my daughter to her first "theme" birthday party that included more elaborate entertainment than you could find on the Vegas strip, that kids' parties had become a racket on a par with sports betting or Oprah's Book Club. But, nobody listened. Parents just kept hiring more clowns, inflatable castles, Mormon Tabernacle Choirs to sing "Happy Birthday." Now, at last, one group has cried "enough!" and urged a return to those halcyon days when a birthday party meant that kids ate ice cream and cake and then ran around until they threw up. Priceless.

And finally, from the world of science, comes an announcement (and if this does not result in a Nobel prize, we'll know the fix was in) that a Durham, N.C., researcher has developed the caffeinated doughnut. The beer-flavored cruller cannot be far behind.

TOM REILLY is a Sun Chronicle news editor. He can be reached at 508-236-0332 or at treilly@thesunchronicle.com, especially with news about Lindsay Lohan's rumored tonsillectomy.