Barbara J. Hamby

What’s Right—What’s Wrong

From the viewpoint of a not-so-little-old-lady in sensible shoes, this country needs a lot of fixing. I hope the young man we’ve chosen to start the process is up to the job. He certainly seems to be the best option we had. As usual, I’m suspicious that anyone who’s willing to be president of this country may not be the sharpest tack. But Senator Obama certainly seems sharp and, above all, full of hope and ideas.

What’s wonderful about our country is that we still have, as far as I know, more freedom than anywhere else in the world in spite of the efforts of this administration to whittle away at it.

What’s wrong is what we do with it.

A big question before us now is what to do about the ailing automotive industry. The answer is beyond my poor powers of reckoning. For so many years, most of the top echelon in American industry has gone for the bottom line and ignored emerging problems. Very little attention has been paid to re-educating the work force in dying industries. Educating our children hasn’t been a top priority either. So we have high unemployment while some jobs go begging.

Health care advisors tell us that when the body is out of balance, we will be sick and possibly die. Our country is out of balance in more ways than I can count. The economic system pulls so much money to the top that those on the bottom of the seesaw fly up and fall off.

Just reading the food ads this morning gave me pause. As I’ve noticed before, canned fruit packed in heavy syrup is much cheaper than that packed in lighter syrup which takes less sugar. This has been explained away in the past by the law of supply and demand. But what if the obese would really like to buy lower calorie products, but can’t afford them? There’s the rub.

A newspaper article earlier this week featured the plight of a woman who can’t afford a car. Nor can she afford the food prices in her immediate neighborhood. So she rides buses ten miles to a discount food store once a month to stock her cupboards.

These are just small examples of how out of balance our system has become. Let’s hope our new leader, who himself seems very balanced, can find the tools and the support to bring balance back to this country.