Thierry Sagnier's Blog, page 11

Musings on the Virus

I’m not sure what to make of the coronavirus.
The primitive part of me believes the planet has begun cleansing itself of an overabundant species that has little respect for its home.
As a person who enjoys entertaining some conspiracies (Napoleon is not buried in Napoleon’s Tomb in Paris; Princess Anastasia did live in New Jersey) I imagine it totally possible that the virus was a biological warfare experiment run amok.
I think I understand the toilet paper hoarding. We are an anal-retentive culture with a cleanliness fetish.
I am convinced that, in the long run, hospitals and the medical establishment, Big Pharm, and insurance companies will benefit.
I am also certain that in the wake of this pandemic, the poor will get poorer, the needy needier, and the rich, richer.
I do not think the airlines, the cruise ship industry, the automakers and—at some point in the very near future—the oil industry, need a bail out. All have enormous assets at a time when borrowing money is almost interest-free. Let them borrow from banks and use the assets as collateral.
Giving each American $1000 or more is problematic. Would this benefit only citizens of voting age and older, or will a family of six with four children get $6000? What about people still employed, living overseas or in the armed forces? Will Green Card holders on their way to citizenship benefit? How about the wealthy, the millionaires and billionaires? (I am a firm believer in Honoré de Balzac’s notion that behind every great fortune lies a great crime.) The complications involved in implementing a massive giveaway are endless, as is the likelihood of scams that, I understand, have already begun to con the unwary.
I am willing to believe that social distancing is necessary, but we’ve been distancing from each other ever since television became popular. The current six-foot separation is the next logical step. The problem for me is that I’m partially deaf, so someone addressing me from two meters away goes unheard. Also, I'm old fashioned. I miss my friends. I miss my writing groups. I miss intense and often meaningless discussions around cups of espresso, and whining and bitching about the sad state of affairs while very aware that I have it pretty damned good. I miss the exchange of ideas and the opinions of others. Several writer friends have suggested we hold virtual meetings using Zoom or some other app, and I’ll probably participate, but every Luddite cell in my body will be protesting...
Also, I feel guilty. So much free time, so many books to finish writing, and I’m not that motivated. I’m not sure why. Many years ago, I would go to Florida for a month, stay in a small apartment and pour out page after page while hardly speaking to anyone. Perhaps my lack of creativity is because this confinement is not voluntary. Today, I stay in my apartment because I neither want to infect nor be infected, but I don’t like it.
We haven’t addressed the problem of conjugal difficulties. People who, after years (or month) together are now no longer enamored will not fare well forced to live in close quarters. We may be expecting a baby boom nine months from now, but in Europe, the divorce boom has begun after only a matter of days.
There is probably an upshot to our present predicament. I understand the skies in China are clearing, and Venice’s canals are pollution-free. I’m sure other benefits will appear in due time, but for now I wonder how all this will turn out, and I do not trust that we will learn much from our mistakes. We so seldom do.

Advice from Ireland

My great and good friend Audrey is an American expat who has been living in Ireland for many years. She recently sent an email to her US friends about what Ireland is suggesting to those affected by the coronal virus. Since today is St. Patrick’s day, it may be appropriate to share her thoughts>.

We are a couple weeks ahead of you guys in processing this as an illness that will seriously affect every single one of us. We are trying to wrap our heads around this being a way of life for possibly a longer term than we initially thought.
Our schools have sent homeschooling materials for parents. Children are now isolated within their own family groups and we are discussing with them matter-of-factly what will need to happen in our own home WHEN one of us need to begin full isolation. The isolated person must be shut in their own bedroom. Make sure all their devices and chargers are kept in with them. In households with only have one bathroom, take extra hygiene measures. Do not share towels or toothpaste tubes. People in total isolation should keep their toiletries in their room with them. The person in isolation should be using the bathroom after everyone in the house has, and the bathroom should then be sanitized. Make sure they have their own dedicated dishes and cutlery that are washed in a hot enough dishwasher or separately hand washed with gloves. Use water hot enough that you can just tolerate with the gloves on. After washing, keep the gloves on and wash them with soap as you would wash your hands. Then, wash your hands once the gloves are taken off.
The isolated household members should have their own garbage, which should be double bagged. Keep their room well ventilated, crack open a window.
Laundry of the isolated member should ideally be put into the washing machine by the sick person, being mindful that they don’t touch doorknobs or light switches along the way.
Our government here in Ireland has assured us that our food grocery and pharmacy supply chains are solid, will remain open and that we need to calm down and stop bulk buying. Many of us in the country cannot afford to bulk buy. We need to make sure we leave enough on the shelves for the more vulnerable.
Huge emphasis on staying calm and disciplining yourself to pull yourself back from panicking WHEN it hits. It’s important for all our mental health that we remain calm for each other. Our individual actions and inactions can save or harm the lives of the people around us.
Children have been told not to visit their grandparents if possible since we don’t yet know how much of a vector children are in this equation. While children are at lower risk for serious symptoms, some children are getting seriously ill. Advice for pregnant women is starting to be addressed by the W.H.O. and can be found on their website.
There should be no house parties, birthday parties or playdates.
Check on your more vulnerable citizens (people with underlying conditions or over 60 years old) with phone calls and notes through the door. Have delivered groceries left on the front porch.
If you must go into someone’s home, the first and last thing everyone must do is wash their hands. If anybody leaves your house, including the people who live there, all residents must wash their hands before entering or leaving.
And if you use public transport, stagger and space your seating. 2 meters apart. If you are sick, wear a mask or coughs into your elbow. Check back daily with a reliable news source to stay current with the developing science and policy. Please don’t spread alarming, unverified information. We are all scared enough.
Also, skip the stigma about having the virus. It will send people underground with it. Tons of us will have it.
Assuming you are incubating is certainly the safest and most valuable way to help us flatten the curve. You can be incubating and transmitting the virus up to two weeks before you show symptoms. Today it was recommended to remain isolated the two weeks following your symptoms easing. Once your symptoms begin, they last about one week. If someone experiences complications, it’s closer to three weeks.
We have accepted that our Island is headed towards total lock down at some point. The hope is our partial shutdown now will flatten our curve and save lives. There is a bit of human psychology here being considered by governments. The longer people are asked to alter their behavior, the less likely they are to remain compliant. So timing is precious.
Washing hands, social distancing and kindness is imperative.

I would like to add that here in Ireland, neighborhoods are organizing to make sure children are not playing together outside their family groups. Playgrounds are closed. People need to seek out their vulnerable neighbors, using social distancing, to make sure they have groceries and medicines. It is time for us to step up as individual citizens, community members and neighbors.

If you are unwell and it’s possibly coronavirus, do not go to your doctor or hospital (unless you require emergency care). Call them. Arrange for testing. Immediately self-isolate. Make sure your household members are aware and practicing safe measures. If someone in your home has coronavirus, the household members should self-isolate for two weeks as well.

One Bounty = Two Charmin

I’m not panicking. The Corona virus will take its toll and, like other pandemics, burn itself out. I secretly believe this is Mother Earth saying, “Enough!” as she’s done several times in human history. We’ll get through it. A few of us—relatively speaking—will be casualties and fatalities, but the overwhelming majority, sadly, will pick up where it left off. We’re not fast learners.
I find the toilet paper hoarding weird and frankly fascinating. Yesterday, as I entered my building’s elevator, a woman holding a twelve-pack of Charmin glared at me, then hugged her supply to her bosom as if it were a child I was going to kidnap. The thought had not occurred to me. Really.
I am particularly amused by Americans’ obsession with wiping their butts. For all those who have been foiled in their attempts to stockpile TP, I offer a simple solution. Purchase a roll of paper towels—Bounty will do if you're feeling, ahem, flush--and cut the roll in half (not lengthwise) with a bread knife. Ta da. You now have fully absorbent TP. One roll of Bounty makes two rolls of Charmin.
According to the environmental folks at Get Green Now, an average American uses about 24 rolls of toilet paper yearly and, collectively, Americans spend about $8 billion annually on toilet paper. I won’t bother trying to figure out how much we spend per wipe, but I invite readers who have nothing better to entertain themselves with while quarantined to do the math.
The Natural Resources Defense Council says, “Each person in the United States consumes about 50 pounds of tissue paper (including toilet paper) per year, which adds up to about 15 billion pounds of tissue consumed per year by the entire country. That equals to about 20% of the entire tissue paper products supply in the world.”
By the way, Americans only make up about four percent of the world’s population.
I suppose I could write a lot more on the ethics of all this. I won’t remind you that a pound of toilet paper per week per person seems excessive. Neither will I mention how we’ve created Sargasso seas of toilet paper in every major body of water, and how we should be grateful because there are people in poor countries that don’t have enough toilet paper. I won’t suggest you swipe napkins from restaurants, as I saw an elderly lady do today.
You shouldn’t be in restaurants in the first place.

Madam President

The candidate’s is seeking re-election. She was a real estate developer and a popular and wealthy television game show hostess who has been married three times and been unfaithful to each husband. Her affairs have been chronicled in tabloids, and there are rumors that she has slept with underage boys and porn stars. In a recent interview, she was quoted as saying one of the perks of celebrity is that she can grab men by the balls and no one will object. Her present spouse is a male model from a formerly soviet nation.
Her past is shady. She appears to owe money to hundreds of people and companies. Her businesses have famously gone bankrupt and her army of attorneys has managed to keep her accusers at bay. A university she created was labelled a scam by authorities and she was forced to reimburse tuition to the students. She stole money from a charity she established for children. She likes to invent insulting nicknames for anyone who opposes her. In her first term, she hired, then fired, more than two dozen high-ranked appointees, initially lauding their skills, then criticizing their performances. She often seems confused.
She’s been known to make fun of handicapped people, lies abundantly, and much prefers playing golf to attending to affairs of state. She likes dictators, does not believe in science or global warming, and has promised to open wilderness areas to logging and oil exploration. She does not like the established media. She does believe that trying to make sovereign nations to do her bidding in exchange for military aid is acceptable. She wanted outright to buy another country.
She doesn’t like immigrants, Jews, people of color, or people without money, and has promised to build a wall to secure the borders with Mexico. She has taken funds from the military to do this and so far results are at best mixed. Parts of the wall have collapsed after heavy winds, schoolkids have managed to climb it in minutes, and the wall needs doors and gates that can be opened with keypads.
She is the queen of non-sequitur, and not too clear on geography or history. When visiting Pear Harbor, she was confused about why and where she was, asking an aide, “Is this a war memorial, or what?”
She has pardoned an accused American war criminal and invited him to the White House and denigrated decorated veterans.
There’s more but it’s not worth chronicling.
Really? You want to re-elect this person?

Oh Hearing Aids and Fried Cheese

For the past decade or so, I’ve been getting increasingly hard of hearing. My deaf old man routine has become a joke to friends, though—thank you, friends—not a mean-spirited one. Most of them humor me by speaking louder, though some still do the move-your-lips-without-making-a-sound routine, which was sort of funny the first hundred times.
I am not alone. There are 10,000,000 people in the US with hearing difficulties, and most of us are over 65. I have had my hearing tested and diagnosed and told there is no cure, so, some six months ago I started looking online at hearing aids.
Yikes. Within days I was inundated with Facebook ads. Hearing aids run from $50 a pair to well over $4,000. The latter are sophisticated and can be adjusted with a cellphone app. The cheap ones are simply tiny amplifiers. I tried the cheap ones first, buds that fit inside the ears and basically are worthless. They’re obtrusive and adjusting them is a pain. They arrived with a tiny screwdriver used to turn the volume up or down. Do not try this with the hearing aid in your ear.
The first time I wore a pair of the cheapos, a high-pitched keening, which I learned was feedback, filled the room. I was in a restaurant with friends who were looking around searching for the sound’s origin. Eventually, they looked at me quizzically, so I popped the buds out of my ears and promptly dropped one in my salad. When I picked it out of the lettuce, the hearing aid was covered in what was a slightly acidic vinaigrette and traces of Dijon mustard.
The next pair cost me close to $300, were rechargeable, featured easy-to-work volume controls, and were largely invisible when worn. They worked well to amplify daily conversation in quiet environments but were useless in crowded situations. What I discovered I heard best were infants screaming, air conditioning, traffic noises, the clinking of forks and knives against plates, rescue vehicle sirens, and every sound my leased Hyundai makes when I drive it. Being surrounded by people talking and the ambient sound of life made individual conversation improbable. Recently at a coffee shop, an employee clearing a nearby table dropped a trayful of empty cups, saucers, and silverware. The noise exploded in my head and I emitted an involuntary moan. The people next to me moved to another table.
I should add here that the online competition for hearing aids is fierce. Every ad promises a return to the hearing ability of youth. Some come with a professional hearing test by an audiologist, and follow-up sessions. They depict people of all ages smiling beatifically. I have yet to smile, save when I take mine out.
I am told that it may take six weeks to get used to wearing the contraptions. Your brain, used to trying to filter conversations from the daily cacophony of life, will initially be thrown for a loop. The feeling that something is stuck in your ears is unpleasant, or at least it was for me. I never wear ear buds to listen to music, and people who do may not find anything unusual about the ear invasion.
You should also know that hearing aids may somewhat improve your ability to listen and hear, but they will not do anything for your comprehension.
For the past several weeks, I’ve wondered what the fried cheese network was. I kept hearing about it on the radio and thought it might be a recent offering by Burger King.
No. It’s Verizon’s new 5G network.

Nickel and Dimed

I’m tired of being nickel-and-dimed to death. This small financial weariness started many years ago and I suspect it has always existed, but I am finding, as I grow older and my earning capacity lessens, that I am increasingly nonplussed—nay, pissed off.
Why, when my car lease ends, do I have to pay a $400 return fee?
Why does the Avalon management company of my rental apartment charge me a once-a-year amenities fee of $500. Is it for the Foosball table in the recreation room, or the non-working treadmills in the gym? Is it to partially reimburse the local firehouse which sends its firefighters two or three times a month in response to alarms set off by the kitchen fires in the street level bar?
Recently, Avalon decided, unbidden, to install wireless locks and thermostats in all units of my building. The installation of course was problematic and for two days, my unit’s temperature was in the high 80s. This happened to other apartments, and I wondered: Wouldn’t this be harmful to pets left unattended from morning to evening. Or, for that fact, wouldn’t it be life-threatening to older people if, while they were asleep, the temperature rose as it did in my place? Did I mention that my kitchen and hallway lights—now answering to an app—didn’t function. Oh, and I didn’t tell you that this will cost us $40 a month. Nowhere was this mentioned, by the way. And, to add insult to injury, information garnered from the motion detectors installed with the locks, will be sold to marketing companies..
And what of cable television? When it was first proposed, back in the days of UHF, the promise was that cable would pay for itself through advertising. A world of entertainment and education would be available free of charge, making us all smarter and better informed. Somehow, we’ve now come to pay through the nose for cable. What happened?
I wonder why, when I pay gasoline tax every time I fill up and annual registration fees on my car, the once free highway near my home began charging outlandish tolls during rush hour. When this was first proposed, I wrote furious letters to the powers that be. This sort of expense would encourage the drivers of older, polluting cars, to spend more time on back roads and spew additional carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Why penalize those who cannot afford newer, cleaner cars? And why tolls in the first place?
While we’re on the subject of transportation, how did flying become such a rip-off? Smaller, narrower seats, higher fees for baggage, and internet charges. Are the airlines really that hard up?
Another thing that drives me nuts is shipping costs. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen something online that is both affordable and useful. I fill out the purchase order and, just as I am on the verge of committing, the final price comes up, shipping costs—never mentioned until the end of the process—pop up, anywhere from seven to twelve dollars dearer than the original price. Invariably, I decide not to buy. I used to have a small eBay business and I can tell you with certainty that shipping a fountain does not cost nine bucks. I get pleading emails, entreaties, arguments and appeals from the seller. Here’s the thing: If I saw shipping costs right at the start of the process, I might actually shrug and accept them, even if I know I’m being gypped. What gets me is the sneakiness, the marketer’s assumption that I’m an idiot who’ll fall for this tired stratagem. Here's a hack: If you go through the buying process but close it down just before buying, there's a good chance you'll get an email from the seller offering free shipping.
If I have a single New Year’s resolution, it is this one: I will no longer be nickel-and-dimed to death. So there.

Plus ça change

The last days of the year are always bittersweet. It’s difficult to view one’s accomplishments and failures with objectivity, and the looming new year can be frightening in its uncertainty.

Two weeks before year’s end, I underwent surgery that should have been minor. There was nothing new here—I’ve had more than 15 exploratory biopsies over the last seven years and I know what to expect. I have a good notion of the aftermaths—the discomforts, gastro intestinal difficulties, and within a relatively short period of time, the recuperation.

This one was a bit more complex—tissue was taken from multiple organs—and though I’m not sure why or how, but the general Fake It Til You Make It attitude that has carried me through previous procedures, the assertiveness I mustered like an aging soldier, well, it sort of crashed and burned.

Shortly after surgery, my vital signs started going crazy. My blood pressure rose to over 220, and my blood sugar hit almost 400. My temperature went way over a hundred and nausea hit me like hurled stone. I was in increasingly acute pain and the recovery room nurse gave me a series of intravenous pain killers—fentanyl, OxyContin, Vicodan, then more fentanyl—that had no impact. A catheter that was rubbing against an internal excision was taken out. That helped a little. More painkillers, two quarts of IV fluid. There followed a quick consultation with the surgeon who told me we would have to have “a very serious talk” soon, and mentioned total bladder removal, then wished me happy holidays.

Things got interesting when I finally got home. I slept. And slept and slept and then slept some more. Over a period of three days I had two bowls of soup and a piece of chocolate. When I was not sleeping and yet semi-dazed, I entered an odd world of mental and emotional flashbacks. It was pleasant, that partially drugged state. I was warm, felt no pain, and haphazardly evaluated my life accomplishments, an action probably well-defined by a twenty-two letter German word that I don’t know.

I found my various endeavors—great and small, though truth to tell I could find none that were great—sadly lacking. I traveled through the jumble and idly picked at moments I believed were meaningful and discovered they were not. Small triumphs became insignificant tedium. I have the feeling, but I am not sure, that I may have spent 72 hours exploring the meanings of life, death, friendships, creativity, love, ambition, and detachment without arriving at a single salutary conclusion—save one: Everything I had done in my life was meaningless.

I tried to think of a solitary original phrase that might have lasting value. Over the last half-century, I have written more than a million words, several books, many short stories, some songs, and a couple of epistemological essays. Among all these, certainly, might be a thought or image I could say made me proud. I finally came up with one phrase: The sky was the color of dead fish .

That’s it.

Much later I also remembered writing a line for a song describing a cowboy’s pointed boots as pointless.

The small edifice of achievements planned for 2020 crumbled. Why write, why think, why approach old problems with potentially new solutions? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Merde alors!

I’m a little better now and have begun reconstructing the future. It remains unclear, since cancer can dictate what I can’t foresee, but then again, so can life.

There’s a book coming out in February and another scheduled for 2021. I have to figure out ways to make my works more visible. I have to continue working with writers whose works should see light. And I have to come up with at least one more worthwhile phrase.

It's Baaack...

Well crap. Back to surgery tomorrow. I’d been cancer free for almost a year-and-a-half, but the last test in mid-October showed cancer cells floating around my urine. TMI, possibly, for which I apologize. I’m not sure what the implications of this are, and I’ve been resisting going on the internet to check. There’s so much misinformation and half-truth there, and I’m neither knowledgeable nor skillful enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. Five years ago, I remember going to a site that stated with certainty that my condition would lead to death within weeks or months. This was not helpful since my oldest sister died from this form of cancer, as did one of my very best friends.
This will be the 15th or 16th procedure. I’ve frankly lost count. I’m particularly concerned this time because my doctors couldn’t identify the source(s) of the bad cells, so this surgery will be largely exploratory.
As luck would have it, I ran into a friend this morning that has had her own battle with the disease, and we commiserated for a while on the difficulty of explaining one’s emotions to people who haven’t faced cancer. The illness, for the most part, is beatable nowadays, and treatments are far more effective than they were even a decade ago. But these treatments are debilitating and dehumanizing, while the implications of the very word remain somehow huge and dark. It is, my friend said, “the gift that keeps on giving.” One can never quite get rid of the knowledge that something deadly has tried to take over, and that it is a very patient invader.
A long time ago, I wrote about the fight and likened it to white-hat good guys and black-hat villains having at it in the internal geography of my body. It’s a fierce fight. So far, my white-hat guys are winning. I do hope they have a couple more victories in them.

Breaking Point

I wonder when we’ll reach the breaking point. I wonder what national outrage is necessary for us to realize that the very soul of their country is being destroyed with a relentlessness that can only be deemed planned and organized. The fate and future of the nation is being altered daily, as Trump and his cohorts chip away at the very essence of what it is to be an American.
We are seeing nepotism so blatant it should bring us out into the streets in protest, and yet most of us (me included) are content to issue a few Facebook blasts and consider ourselves activists.
We have watched allies betrayed and tyrants embraced.
We have allowed the destruction of families seeking refuge, and the imprisonment and death of children in detention camps.
We have paid taxes when the richest have not.
We have accepted blatant liars as national spokespersons.
We have shrugged away murders and the invasion of friendly nations by ruthless enemies unworthy of our respect and yet lauded by the White House.
We buy bulletproof backpacks for our school age-sons and daughters but our children continue to be shot daily. We have somehow decided this is acceptable in light of the second amendment.
We are witnessing a war against the environment. Public lands—national treasures—are given to logging, drilling and mining that strip the land, foul the air and pollute the oceans.
We endorse the creation of a Space Force when the fight for survival is here on Earth.
The president denigrates public servant who have spent a lifetime making the country stronger while he has a spent a lifetime weakening it by suborning its laws, evading taxes, and instigating one cover-up after another. He ridicules the physically hampered, and bullies a teen-aged girl whose social awareness dwarfs his. He has belittled women and insulted the parents of soldiers killed in action. He is an American Nero, fanning the fire of those too ignorant to see through his schemes.
We have decided racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, sexual assaults, hate filled rhetoric, and ‘alternate facts’ are acceptable.
We praise ignorance.
We embrace apathy.
We are marching backwards.
How much longer? I truly believe time is running out. I fear the impeachment proceedings will be corrupted by Republicans whose morals have been suborned by power and money.
I love this country. It welcomed my parents and me many decades ago, and I am the progeny of the American dream.
If right now I sound panicked, it’s because I am.

Reinventing the Wheel

One of the joys of writing Epiphanettes is pissing off people whose thinking and philosophies are right-wing and calcified. I’ve given up trying to change such limited minds, but I do hope to occasionally offer a glimmer of sanity.
This being said, I’ve hardly written any blogs since October; I think I’ve been overwhelmed with realities that, written as fiction in a novel, would be deemed unbelievable even by readers willing to suspend disbelief. The list of outrages perpetrated by the Trump administration and the Republican Party is so hard to accept that writing about them seems futile. The far-right responses to my stuff have been uniformly disappointing in their lack of thinking and originality—the same old and tired misleading statistic and absurdities. These are generally punctuated by a “fuck off,” which I have never found to be the cleverest of comebacks and now associate with the ignorant and the easily duped.
So just for today, I will refrain from casting aspersions and instead ask a single question: Why Do the United States Feel the Constant Need to Reinvent the Wheel?
The U.S. is a young nation, barely a teen-ager among older countries whose histories go back thousands of years. The advantage of being an older republic is that the citizens there have had the opportunity (most of the time) to develop programs that serve the poor, the ill, the disaffected, the minorities and the unemployed. They’ve also created governments that truly benefit their citizens rather than pillage them. They do not discriminate against the wealthy but tax them appropriately. Such countries realize that the immensely wealthy have no need for more power, and enough money to ensure the well-being of generations to come.
Nationalization. No single word in the American vocabulary so outrages the right, but most people who are adamantly opposed and see it as a Socialist Commie Threat don’t understand that nationalization of many services (public transport such as airlines, trains and metros, to give an example) will better serve the public while keeping prices down. Smart countries have nationalized their airlines and utilities, among other amenities. Quality has improved, costs have diminished and citizens have benefitted from services no-longer prone to price gouging..
Gun Control. Too much has been written about this. The second amendment argument is a foolish sham. Treat all guns as you would automobiles—license, tax, and insure them, require proper training, tax ammo as you do gasoline, and watch gun-related crime diminish. Countries with strong gun laws that are strictly enforced and punish miscreants have minimal gun-related crimes.
Term Limits. In the U.S., you elect a president for four years. It takes two years to learn the job (present POTUS being a notable exception), and the following two years are spent getting re-elected. Then, with luck, there might be two years of effective rule, followed by two years to promote the election of another same-party leader. A single seven-year term is a lot smarter and less likely to be abused. In Congress, limit the time of service to ten years so that public servants—that is after all what they are—do not rule as princelings. Severely limit donations to political parties and level the playing field. End the electoral college, which was created in 1787 when the country had less than four million inhabitants.
Health and Education. In many of the world’s more successful countries, health coverage is free or minimal, and ailing people do not go bankrupt trying to stay alive, as they often do in US. The cabal formed by insurance sellers, hospitals and doctors, and pharmaceutical companies, has to be broken since it discriminates on a racial and financial basis and enriches the already wealthy while impoverishing the already poor. Why is good health the province of the well-offs?
Education should be free as it is almost everywhere else, with government assistance where necessary in trade for future services. Abolish student debts that have no place in a civilized society and cripple ambition.
Constitutional Amendments. The US Constitution was drafted by upper-class white males who wanted a nation run by upper-class property-owning white males. Times have changed. Wiser nations have learned that their founding fathers ( and mothers) were not necessarily prophets. A document drafted two-and-a-half centuries ago to rule an agrarian society where slavery was accepted, and where women and people of color were second-class or non-citizens, has no place in modern times. Progressive nations realized these givens many years ago and drafted constitutions that do not hem them in the ways of the past. We’re not in the 18th century anymore and must deal with 21st century issues that threaten our very future.
What I cite is the tip of the iceberg. The wheel has been invented and perfected by countries far older than ours. It’s time the US adopt systems that work for the people, rather than ones that continue to benefit a minority of the wealthy and hinder national interests and sustainable growth.