Taking the Pope’s Drugs Away

The new Pope has just gone to Germany, and I am living in fear of getting sick. I really shouldn’t worry so much about my health, but a goodly number of the population don’t believe that drug companies have actually done immense good in this world, so they eschew helpful drugs and prefer to sue drugmakers, destroying not only domestic companies that employ fellow citizens and help doctors to minister compassionately to suffering patients, but also denying me a choice of drugs for my ailments. Thus, I worry. (Interestingly, there was a decided panic last winter among many of these same people when flu vaccine was in short supply.) Hmmmm…I wonder, “Would these same people deny a drug to the Pope if he chose to take it?” The Pope is not immune from the marching hordes of microbes swarming the earth or the breakdown of the physical body. In fact, he seems a bit frail, but should he keel over, medical help is just a breath away. Every second, physicians would hover over and around him. Any medicine available on the planet would be at his doctor’s disposal, assuming that the awarding of obscene damages against pharmaceutical companies had not erased the Pope’s much-needed drug from production. Hopefully, wise caregivers will have hoarded a stash of the unfairly maligned drug to ease his symptoms, so that he could get on with the business of praying for all of mankind. Unlike the Pope, should hideous germs or discomfort choose me as their next victim, I will lie alone in my bed, and chances are high that I will have to find the strength to rise so that I can go shopping at a pharmacy that now has limited drug choices. While the litigants will have millions to ease their pain, I will have only my pain, and limited products with which to treat it. I can see myself collapsing in the pharmacy, which wouldn’t be so bad. The public is generally very helpful to strangers in emergencies, whereas at home, I would lie unconscious until dinnertime before anyone noticed. Not even my neighbor, who went to court and wept as millions were poured into her lap by a jury that had no training in the medical or pharmaceutical fields, would believe that I actually might want to take the drug that her actions have now denied me. So I worry and wish I were the Pope.

Beyond Ethnicity

You know, it's nice to be somebody. When a stranger asks an annoying personal question that flummoxes you, it's nice to have ethnicity to fall back on. Ethnicity is usually just one word, maybe two. It's so easy to say. Ethnicity is a fuzzy, warm place in the universe that does not require the owner of the label to have to think very deeply about humanity, nor does it place any demands on the owner for personal introspection beyond the label he wears. It's an identity he can slip into like a fine silk suit that molds to his body. It allows him to say, while staring in the mirror and nodding his head approvingly, "Yes, this is so me. Yes, completely me, truly me." The trouble is that ethnicity only goes so far as an identity, especially if you want to interact with others on the planet who aren't as obsessed as you are with your ethnicity or racial label. Imagine that I was your good Norwegian friend (forget that bland "white" label that carries no ethnicity). Wouldn't you start to wonder about me (or tire of me or get bored with me) if I insisted on wearing traditional Norwegian garb most of the time (especially at your company's most important client meetings), couldn't eat most of the food at your social gatherings, because, well, it wasn't Norwegian enough (really, you should have geared the entire menu towards me), framed every question you ever put to me in terms of how it related to Norwegian political values and power (those ethnic holidays are nice, but, come on, when are you going to start celebrating May 17th?), and worst of all, judged the quality of our friendship by how Norwegian you were willing to become (a desert vacation might suit you, but if you really supported my ethnicity, you'd go cross-country skiing instead). You see, ethnic identity can become a straight jacket rather than a fine silk suit. It can leave you locked in an ethnic past you really haven't experienced and don't actually live in today. It can choke off opportunity now and in the future, because rigid definitions don't let you do or try things outside your ethnic or racial comfort zone, nor do they allow you to take as your own the best of what others are doing and have created. Clinging too hard to an ethnic label can leave you isolated, stagnant. Take another look in the mirror: has your pretty little ethnic identity suit turned into a straight jacket?

Fixed in the 60’s

Remember when you were young and you found yourself listening to an older person wax poetic about the past. Remember how you glanced at the clock and sighed heavily when they got to the part about how difficult life had been for them, indirectly implying that you were a slacker. You may have even become a little impudent and snapped back some saucy phrase that implied, "Yeah, that was then, but this is now." Too bad your elders from the 60’s haven’t caught on to this generational fact of life. As they creak into old age (yes, my hippie darlings, you’re aging), they remain firmly entrenched in their 60’s youth, unable and unwilling to notice that time is passing them by. The 60’s generation is still beating the drums of anti-everything and passing their conspiracy theories on to a new generation at home and in schools, not good things to pass on to the next generation. It creates angry, disappointed people, whereas self control and self sacrifice are much better virtues to learn in order to survive and prosper in life. So the next time some 60’s old-timer starts droning on about four decades ago, remind him that drugs, sex, and rock & roll were never suitable life goals for anyone Tell him that he sounds just as out of step with what’s needed now as his parents did talking to him way back when. Yeah, baby, this is now and that was then--move on.