While door knocking and talking to voters, I have been asked my position on the life issue. I am pro-life. The two main reasons I am pro-life are my spiritual beliefs and my physically handicapped arm, which makes this issue very personal to me. Even though my body is not "perfect", I was given the opportunity to live. However, being pro-life is more than just being against abortion.
Being pro-life is having a consistent ethic of life. Being consistently pro-life is taking care of our children and providing them with quality education and health care. Being consistently pro-life is helping our poor; working to create and retain living wage jobs that our families need in order to have economic stability. Being consistently pro-life means helping those who are homeless, have alcohol or chemical problems, or who cannot help themselves.
I believe being pro-life means protecting all of our vulnerable citizens from conception to a natural death.
John Ward,
Candidate, MN House 12A
Brainerd
Cracker Barrel: Looking Back
One of the many things we Americans excel at is change. Compared to many other societies, ours is exceptionally limber. Perhaps because our heritage is an amalgam of dozens of different ethnic traditions, we've learned to welcome variety rather than fear it, and, in the main, to keep our vision focused forward instead of back.
But an occasional peek in the rearview mirror can do us no harm, and may help us put the present into clearer context, and give us some inkling of where we might be headed.
If, for example, we look back 100 years, we find that the average life expectancy in the United States was 47, that the five leading causes of death were pneumonia, influenza, tuberculosis, diarrhea and heart disease, and that more than 95 percent of all births occurred at home.
We also find that only 14 percent of the homes in America had a bathtub, and less than 10 percent had a telephone. Nor was using the phone particularly cheap, since a three-minute call from Denver to New York cost $11.
One hundred years ago there were only 8,000 cars in the entire country, and a total of 144 miles of paved road. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. And the population of Las Vegas, Nev. (currently the fastest-growing city in the nation), stood at a nice round number: 30.
Back then the tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average American worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
Sugar cost 4 cents a pound, coffee 15, and eggs averaged 14 cents a dozen.
Most women washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Crossword puzzles, canned beer and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.
Why not? No doubt in part because only 6 percent of all citizens had graduated from high school, and two out of every 10 adults could neither read nor write.
Of the many differences between 1906 and today, the change in emphasis on education is perhaps the most significant. Back then, a strong back and a willingness to work carried many a citizen from poverty to respectability. Today you need more than just physical strength, important as that might be.
And tomorrow? Brainpower, probably. And plenty of flexibility, since the changes ahead promise to outnumber by far the changes we've already been through. Whatever it takes, citizens in 2106 will no doubt look back on our time and smile.
Copyright 2006 by Craig Nagel
