I fantasize escape. My heart and soul point West ..to California or Oregon. Or further, to Vancouver…oh how I fantasize about Vancouver. Do you know how hard it is to emigrate to Vancouver? Hard. Very hard. My kids would have to move and then I could come along, like luggage. The Canadians have decreed me too unproductive to let in the door. I’m old. How sad is that? Talk about a reminder of mortality.
I'm rooted here by family, who are essential to my quality of life, but still, it is hard to live here. If the Neanderthal Kansas political climate isn’t enough to chip away at my sanity, here comes new data on the state of our local health.
The Kansas City school district is officially the worst in the nation.
Men’s Health magazine placed Kansas City in the bottom 10 for men. I have sons. This matters.
And were I to seriously ponder escape to Portland (if I could stand the gloom), there is this lede from today’s New York Times: “Harder For Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs”. Not that I’m into “rising” any more, but I hate it when options are cut off, don’t you?
Of course those loonies who’ve been camping out in cities across the country, those outraged 99 percent-ers, have been trying to tell us this. Those un-American, disaffected, lazy class warriors need to just suck it up and get a job. Fox News says so. It must be true.
You may be one of the lucky upper 5%; for you, the protest is moot. You can access the best food, education, and health care. Your kids have the best shot at living well. You’re set. You can write off those other folks because I’m pretty sure you’d agree that they are irrelevant to your quality of life.
May I share a lesson from medicine? The human body can’t survive with only one well-functioning body system, even if it’s a biggie like the brain or heart. The body will hang on as long as possible, but eventually it’ll succumb to the burden of too much gone wrong. The body politic lives and dies by the same rules. In time, a society with only one thriving class will begin slipping toward demise as the prime ingredients of a healthy society vanish.
Americans face a choice: delusion or action. But to make a reasoned choice, we first have to recognize that we are not exceptional. We are not exempt from the natural cycle of a civilization’s rise and fall. If we face reality, we can reject delusion and embrace the actions essential to reclaiming our communal health. We can fend off societal decay. People who survived a health crisis have two choices: actively alter behavior or passively swallow a pill. Most choose the latter. The pill gulpers feel better for awhile even as the clock counts down to the day when medicine won’t overcome the burden of bad choices.
Which choice will we make? To renew our society tackling all the sacrifices that entails, or to search for a soothing elixir? Our clock is ticking. And I'm pretty sure Vancouver won’t take us.
I'm rooted here by family, who are essential to my quality of life, but still, it is hard to live here. If the Neanderthal Kansas political climate isn’t enough to chip away at my sanity, here comes new data on the state of our local health.
The Kansas City school district is officially the worst in the nation.
Men’s Health magazine placed Kansas City in the bottom 10 for men. I have sons. This matters.
And were I to seriously ponder escape to Portland (if I could stand the gloom), there is this lede from today’s New York Times: “Harder For Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs”. Not that I’m into “rising” any more, but I hate it when options are cut off, don’t you?
Of course those loonies who’ve been camping out in cities across the country, those outraged 99 percent-ers, have been trying to tell us this. Those un-American, disaffected, lazy class warriors need to just suck it up and get a job. Fox News says so. It must be true.
May I share a lesson from medicine? The human body can’t survive with only one well-functioning body system, even if it’s a biggie like the brain or heart. The body will hang on as long as possible, but eventually it’ll succumb to the burden of too much gone wrong. The body politic lives and dies by the same rules. In time, a society with only one thriving class will begin slipping toward demise as the prime ingredients of a healthy society vanish.
Americans face a choice: delusion or action. But to make a reasoned choice, we first have to recognize that we are not exceptional. We are not exempt from the natural cycle of a civilization’s rise and fall. If we face reality, we can reject delusion and embrace the actions essential to reclaiming our communal health. We can fend off societal decay. People who survived a health crisis have two choices: actively alter behavior or passively swallow a pill. Most choose the latter. The pill gulpers feel better for awhile even as the clock counts down to the day when medicine won’t overcome the burden of bad choices.
Which choice will we make? To renew our society tackling all the sacrifices that entails, or to search for a soothing elixir? Our clock is ticking. And I'm pretty sure Vancouver won’t take us.
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