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Democrats propose national health insurance. Republicans counter with health savings accounts. Everyone agrees about the health care crisis in this country, but no one talks about the cause. No one talks about how we might prevent people from getting sick in the first place. Why? Pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars off of sick people. Why in the world would they want a healthy population? Wellness would destroy their profit margin. But more on that in a moment.
We live in a toxic environment. Sixty years of progress and convenience has left us trapped in a cycle of degenerative illness. Rates of cancer, diabetes and heart disease have gone through the roof, and what do we do? We pop pills. In fact, we can't seem to pop enough. We don't seem to make the connection between our long-term health and the polluted air and water. Or between health and the tons of pesticides we pump into the ground. Or how about between our children's preternatural pubescence (girls with breasts and pubic hair at 9?) and the hormones we pump into the cows whose milk we are told is vital to child development? And what about the fact that livestock are fed so much grain instead of the natural grass their systems were built to digest resulting in e-coli laced manure that runs into organic farms and poisons the crops? Read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma for more about our food supply and the myriad ways we manage to muck it up.
How much nutritional training do doctor's get in medical school? Virtually none. Doctor's are not trained to deal with the root causes of illness, as insane as that sounds. They diagnose and prescribe meds. How often lately do we hear about awful side effects from this or that medication? Anti-depressants that may cause increased rate of teenage suicide. Epilepsy medication that may cause brain dysfunction in unborn fetuses. And doctors now claim that medication designed to stop a woman's menstrual cycles is just fine. They can't see why this might be a problem. Lest you think I am some raving lunatic with an ax to grind, everyone of these examples comes courtesy of the New York Times. The Times has also featured several exposés on the cozy relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies: free vacations, lavish gifts. And for what? To prescribe the very medications that seem to be worse than the disease.
Make no mistake. I am not suggesting that eating organic salads every day will eradicate all disease, but it's a start. Eating foods that our bodies were designed for--and no, they weren't designed to digest processed food--goes a long way toward maintaining health. A steady diet of processed food does just the opposite. Ever wonder about the prevalence of adult onset diabetes? Did we have this problem 60 years ago? Processed foods contain, among other things, inordinate amounts of high fructose corn syrup. Read labels. It's in EVERYTHING! Why do you think farmers can only grow corn and soybeans? Got to get that corn syrup from somewhere. All the sugar, all the corn syrup, all the trans fats. It only makes sense that the human body will start to break down after a steady diet of crap.
So what am I suggesting? Eating whole foods (again, I refer you to Michael Pollan's 1/24/07 article in the New York Times magazine), avoiding processed food (that would be anything packaged to stay on a grocery store shelf longer than a week) and, in short, maintaining good health before a doctor prescribes some mysterious medication that causes blurry vision, dizziness, vomiting, internal bleeding, open sores and restless leg syndrome.
On Tuesday, October 11, anti-war protesters gathered at Pappas Elementary School, the sight of Arizona Senator Jon Kyle’s reelection announcement, to protest both the war in general and the Senator’s support of the war in particular. As the death toll rises, both military and civilian, the anti-war movement seems to have gained traction.
Politics is perception. This is a truism that bears repeating now that George Bush’s machinations are vulnerable. The perception after 9/11 was that Bush was a strong leader, unshakeable in his convictions, and that he was exactly the American hero we needed to lead us boldly into new terrain, a scary place where the old rules didn’t apply and innocent life was so much fodder for a brutal and reckless ideology. The perception took hold, and the anti-war movement, led by Howard Dean and his corps of true believers, was relegated to the sidelines. However, two years later, still fighting an insurgency that the White House never predicted, Bush seems not so much the hero as himself the stubborn ideologue, willing to trade lives for the opportunity to claim some diffuse moral victory.
But this should come as no surprise. This has never been a President who liked to bother with the vagaries of nuance. This is a man who sees things in black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. The world, however, is not black and white, but many subtle shades of gray, and to deny that is to view the world through the eyes of a child—a spoiled, rich child who throws a tantrum when he can’t get his way.
Witness the buildup to the war. We may never know why Saddam strutted and postured as though he actually did have weapons, but the fact remains, he didn’t. And, like early astronomers who saw canals on Mars where none existed, Bush refused to let weapons inspectors finish their job, instead gazing into an empty Iraqi desert and seeing warheads and lethal pathogens poised to destroy us. Why? Because he wanted them to be there; and like any stubborn child knows, if the facts contradict your desire, ignore them.
But where were the alternative voices in this debate when they were so desperately needed? Did no one suggest to the President that Saddam, like most petty dictators, tend to be concerned first and foremost with their own power, and that attacking the largest superpower in the world might pose a threat to that power? That is one of those troubling little notions that come up when discussing nuance. Did no one ever give the President a cultural history lesson about the region? In a nation populated by three distinct factions, and once ruled by the minority, doesn’t it seem plausible that the other two factions, now freed from the tyranny of that minority, might want to exercise a little payback? Again, this is complex and messy, and quite frankly, who has the time?
We are now reaping what we’ve sown: A protracted insurgency that seems to have no problem meeting its recruitment goals and a constitution that drags the country not towards progressivism, but towards a more fundamental theocracy. Did it never occur to anyone in the administration that, given the right to choose their own government, they might choose one that didn’t fit into Bush’s cozy little plan?
After two years of watching the Administration try to force a square peg into a round hole, the anti-war movement has finally found some popular support. Perhaps this will cause the child to grow up and listen to voices other than his own.
The Apron measures 32”x27½”. It is white, a blend of polyester and cotton, so it retains its shape at all costs. It hangs down to mid-calf. A single pocket is stitched on the upper right side. The ties are too long to be cinched in the back without excessive dangling, so they must be wrapped around and tied in the front. This is my apron. It is the symbol of my subservience. When I strap it on, I become your “server”, a glorified metaphor for the truth. In reality, I become your lesser. I may be smarter than you, better educated, more well-read, more aware of current and cultural tides, but because of The Apron, you are “Sir”. You are “Ma’am”. You are my superior. You may be rude, short, terse. You may ignore me, interrupt me, laugh at me. You may tell me how wonderful I am and then 10% me. I am powerless. I can only smile and thank you for your meager crumbs. Thank you for your inane banter. Thank you for running me around like a dog on a leash. Thank you for making me rewrite the menu to suit every one of your culinary demands. Thank you for letting your child regurgitate its food all over the floor knowing that I will cheerfully clean it up. And thank you for rounding down the tip. For this, I thank you. I live to serve you. You, and only you.
This would not be possible without The Apron. Without it, I am just another guy in black pants and a white shirt, like an IBM executive from the ‘60’s. But with the addition of a square piece of white fabric around my waist, I transition from casually-dressed middle management to nicely-dressed servant without health care and an income slightly above poverty level.
I’ve heard of paid vacations, 401Ks, sick days, mental health days and family leave. Heard of them, yes, but they exist in some other reality, a reality that doesn’t involve plates of masticated pork chops, half-empty salt shakers and 12-hour double shifts. They exist in a world I imagine as cleaner, more sterile. A world less susceptible to the financial whims of strangers.
My back hurts. My legs ache. Every night, I come home around 11, make a cocktail and smoke a joint. It’s the only way I know to unwind. To forget the faces that confront me every day, that look at me, demanding, expecting perfection but with no understanding of what that perfection demands: The fights with the chef who doesn’t want his creativity abused; the nasty sarcasm from the manager because the anniversary couple had to wait 15 minutes for their champagne; the petty tirades of the owner because he heard a second-hand complaint from an anonymous source and wants to solve every problem with the broadest sweep of his power; the condescension from the bartender because someone decided to test your wine knowledge and you recommended the cabernet instead of the zinfandel. And all the while, the collective anger in the dining room grows because no one seems to understand that a busy kitchen means the food takes longer. So the anger becomes abuse because, although I am not actually doing the cooking, I am the closest target. So they tell you to rush the order, as if you can magically alter the speed at which a 16-ounce slab of beef cooks, the speed at which it becomes that perfect temperature of “somewhere between medium rare and medium, but not too rare and not too medium.” You have only the power to smile and say, “Yes, sir.”
Sir. The deference. The scraping. The Apron. And you must never allow friends or associates to see you wearing The Apron. You may as well turn up in an underground porn video with a dominatrix changing your diaper. Family will want to visit you, to revel in the novelty of “sitting in your section”, watching you with a perverse pleasure, but never suspecting the humiliation, the subjugation of Self.
Friends talk of dreams and goals. Of buying retirement homes in cooler climes. Of saving enough to travel. Of living off of pensions. Of how to spend holiday bonuses. You have one goal. One dream. You dream of the day you can remove The Apron and place it in the archives of history and never wear it again. Never be forced to perform like a trained monkey for people who were your peers just moments before The Apron made them your superiors. People who, for novelty’s sake, want to hear you recite the specials just one more time, want just one more slice of lemon for their water, want to see every shred of your self-respect lying dormant on a plate next to the risotto and the red wine reduction.
The Apron. That innocuous bit of fabric you wrap into a snug bundle so passers-by can’t discern what you are carrying tucked neatly under your arm, careful to not let the ties dangle revealing your horrible secret. If you’re lucky, they’ll think you’re just a casually-dressed patron. That you’re the diner. So you don’t strap it on until the last possible moment when you can’t hide from the reality anymore, and you paste a smile on your weary face, and you pretend to care.