The cat on the hot tin roof

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, I used to live in India. We lived in a land of plenty - plenty of love, plenty of teeming life, plenty of history, plenty of cultural heritage and plenty of religious beliefs. What we had as a country, though, was paucity of resources. Paucity of clean wholesome food, paucity of clean drinking water, paucity of electricity and paucity of educational opportunities.

In this scenario, a dear friend of mine came back home as a "foreign return" - back home with a US educational degree. As he regaled me with stories of US, one of the stories that stuck in my mind was about a cat.

America, he said, was the land of real plenty, where food was available to all, where you could drink water out of a tap without boiling it first, where schools were free for all, where you never had power cuts, and where you never saw poor people struggling for anything.

His favorite story about America was the one about a cat. His neighbor had a cat, a cat that usually slipped out the front door whenever it had an opportunity. It was an adventurous cat, an inquisitive cat and a fun-loving cat. One day, the cat didnt come back home when it got dark. So my friend and his neighbor went around calling and meowing and looking for the cat. After an hour of searching around the neighborhood, they finally heard a pitiful meow coming from the roof of the neighbor's home. They found the cat on the roof.

Now how does one get a scared cat off the roof? The neighbor called 911 and lo, behold, the fire fighters came by in minutes and got the cat down to safety.

Now the moral of this story is the effect it had on me - remember "my land of plenty"? In India, then and I am guessing now too, there are no emergencies that are the business of the state. Even if one is sick, the ambulance takes about an hour to come, so its best to call a taxi to get to the hospital. And if I ever called the police to come get my cat off my roof, I'd be laughed out of my home.

So this story of America, where you could call someone to come help get your cat out of the roof had me listening with rounded eyes and wonder at this land of plenty where resources were so plentiful that even a cat was taken care of.

That was America then. As years passed, the good people of America seem to have lost all the good things they've taken for granted... food no longer seems "clean", fresh and healthy - free from added chemicals and pesticides and free from being mashed, cooked and fried out of recognition; water no longer seems clean and potable; schools are so expensive that Americans can no longer invest in the future of their nation - their children and their youth; indoor air quality is so poor because building materials are laden with chemicals...

The trusting American people are now waking up to a nightmare, a nightmare that has ruined this beautiful country and their enviable lifestyle. The awakening is scary - every aspect of American life is contaminated with big business - basic necessities of food, water, shelter and education have all succumbed to becoming money-making ventures, where business profit is king. Every other consideration must fall on the wayside of making money.

Take the instance of contaminated water: According to the Environmental Working Group, drinking water in 43 states has been contaminated with Perchlorate - a rocket fuel. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency has reneged on its own mission by siding with big business to fight the regulation of ridding the water of this chemical.

Here is an excerpt from the Environmental working group about the dangers of Perchlorate contamination of water that is the result of testing done by the defense department:

Perchlorate, the explosive main ingredient of rocket and missile fuel, contaminates drinking water supplies, groundwater or soil in hundreds of locations in at least 43 states, according to Environmental Working Group’s updated analysis of government data. EWG’s analysis of the latest scientific studies, which show harmful health effects from minute doses, argues that a national standard for perchlorate in drinking water should be no higher than one-tenth the level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency currently recommends as safe.

Americans are no longer thinking about their cats on the roof, we now have to think about our basics to survive: clean healthy food, clean water, chemical-free homes, affordable schools, invest in our youngsters so the future of this nation is safe...