Sixteen of Thousands

This 4th of July was atypical for me. My wife, gravely ill from cancer, is being treated in St Louis at Washington University Medical Center. My son is there as well, and I will be soon, but am still here arranging for a prolonged stay in St Louis.

I spent Friday with a friend of mine, and his family. My friend is from Norway and is naturalized a citizen here. We have been friends now 11 years, since our sons began playing soccer together.

My friend's in-laws are Palestinian Christians (yes, that's right, Christians) whose native tongue is Arabic. The mother in-law tells the story of being forced from Israel into a refugee camp in Lebanon in 1948. She married, had six children, and raised them in the camp. The oldest boy was twenty when the family emigrated to America in 1972. They had to leave the camp due to the breakout of civil war in Lebanon. Being Christians placed them in a netherworld between the Muslims and Jews, and they were left with few alternatives.

This family's love of their new country cannot be exaggerated.

Everywhere these new Americans look, they see opportunity. One son has a PhD in Mathematics and teaches at Wayne St., two other sons own restaurants, the oldest of the grandkids have successful businesses. These former refugee camp dwellers have truly seized the American dream and made it theirs.

They also see the roadblocks and hurdles which many Americans don't see, and busy their minds on how to go around the roadblocks and jump the hurdles. To listen to this perspective of America seemed refreshing and encouraging, especially in light of the last few years, and what I feel our country will go through over the next few.

Many neighbors and friends, what most of us would describe as average Americans, came and went throughout the day. The discussions and conversations ebbed and flowed from the mundane to bordering on existential, as we all celebrated the birth of our nation.

On my ride home, I replayed the conversations over and over in my mind. The next morning I thought more, and realized a small distinction in the conversations I remember adults having when I was young, and how we have conversations today. Maybe it is selective memory, but it seems adults then posed many more questions to one another, than what I experience now. And, again as my memory serves, the questions then ran deeper.

Among these new Americans, a love of philosophy about life seems to sprinkle their conversations. They have little fear of posing posing deeply philosophical questions to one another. Should a raw nerve be touched, it is quickly healed by their effortless acknowledgement we are all human.

Today, in America, the art of asking questions has gone the way of writing letters. Most Americans now use the abbreviated text lingo, if we write at all. Gone is the eloquence of a seasoned prose, replaced by the whimsical :). Can they convey the same meaning? Of course, but they cannot convey the same emotion. The same has happened to those asking questions. It almost seems a question today is constructed to receive a short and concise reply, and the idea of a larger implication is left entirely to inference, with the listener being left devoid of emotion.

So I write this only as a starting point, with little thought other than to derive questions which I know will raise emotion to create an answer. What a great country we live in. I believe one of the ways we keep it great is by asking the questions which will stir the soup. Here are just a few of mine;

How can it be?

In this great country, founded on the simplest, yet noblest, ideals of fairness, equality and the common man's ability to control his leaders, how can it be?

How can it be we never hear of why interest rates were dropped to create a housing bubble?

How can it be I read nowhere of why Wall Street could only make money by forcing the preceding tech bubble? Then, in rinse and repeat fashion, do it again this decade?

How can it be more than 100 years later, our automobiles still use petroleum, and are only 15-20% more efficient?

How can it be that our once great automakers are all on the brink of extinction? More importantly, how did they allow Honda and Toyota to get such a foothold in the first place?

How can it be most of us have placidly watched the dismantling of small town main streets in exchange for the Walmarts, Sam's Clubs and Costcos?

How can it be our political discord feeds the news cycle far more than the policies put forth by those seeking office?

How can it be we go from "being the great savior of all oppressed peoples" (Ho Chi Minh, 1946) to global accusations of being the oppressor?

How can it be we have missed the golden opportunity to own the alternative energy wave?

How can it be our political and corporate leaders still don't fully see this opportunity, while the rest of the world has begged us to see it for 20 years?

How can it be our Middle East allies are sounding less and less like allies as every day passes?

How can it be at dinner parties the talk is not about steady paying jobs in manufacturing and their stabilizing effect on economies?

How can it be the US has lost more than 60% of these good paying, economy stabilizing jobs over the last 40 years?

How can it be in a 'Christian' nation, we use corn to make gasoline, yet there are children dying in many parts of the world from starvation?

How can it be we build lavish, ornate buildings to pray to and worship the Son of God when he told us to "sell all of your possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow me?"

How can it be in a 'Christian' nation the accumulation of wealth is more important than the genocide of the Tibetan people over the last 50 years?

How can it be our most important trading partner is the perpetrator of that genocide?

Of course I have my ideas of answers to these questions. Though the group of friends is small, these are topics I am fortunate to discuss.

What I find utterly amazing, is the apathy I feel coming from the public at large. The mainstream media sometimes will hit the fringe of one of these questions, but largely ignores the larger implications.

Sixteen questions. None of these questions alone will provide an answer to solve all the problems of the world. But, to answer these sixteen, along with thousands of others, may.

How can it be in the greatest country in the history of the world, are these questions, and thousands more just like them, not at the heart of all of our conversations? Ok, that's a good 17th question.

I trust everyone had a great 4th, and asked themselves 'what makes this country so great?'