What I always want: Something thoughtful, different, forward-thinking -- and flat-out doable -- in addressing health-care needs.
What I get: Politicians playing dodge ball and gotcha games as nursing homes, emergency rooms, child-care centers and minimum-wage jobs are engulfed with people in need.
What I found refreshing recently: The October 2008 issue of Wired magazine.
Wired is hard on my brain's control panel. The graphics, the colors, the overlays -- I mean, I enjoyed playing Tetris, when the game came out in the Mario Brothers days of 1985, but the Wii I know most about today is a wee-bit of Ireland, land of my parents.
But even as I struggle to plow through it, I thoroughly enjoy Wired. This particular issue includes national-policy-shaping stories like 25 years of Weird Al Yankovic, how to correctly throw a football, should you order a drink with no, little or a lot of ice and how to get yourself noticed by hiring a paparazzo to stalk you.
It also includes "A Smart List of 25 Wired People" to fix things ailing the nation and the world. Even for Luddites, this is totally worth checking out.
The list includes:
- Leroy Hood, president of the Institute for Systems Biology. He believes the U.S. health care system should be "predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory" -- and the profile includes the risks of each.
- Mark Smolinksi, director of Google's Predict and Prevent Institute. The physician is investing millions in global health programs for surveillance and prevention of diseases.
- Folks who have ideas about redesigning entire cities, more effective and less lethal warfare (a tad oxymoronic sounding), opening up the nation's airwaves and preparing regions for extreme weather. (Wired's website is, of course, www.wired.com)
I came aware far more energized than any debate I've endured of late or any recently quaffed 24-ounce cup of dark Sumatra.
(Quotes to remember, this one from actor/philanthropist Paul Newman, in his New York Times obituary: "We are such spendthrifts with our lives. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.")