So what are you telling your children about the Swine Flu?  Are you talking to them about it, and if so, to what degree?  How would you rate your level of concern?   Are you planning to change anything, travel plans or whatever, because of it?

I was listening to a popular financial radio show the other day and a caller asked the question that people like me have been thinking:  Why do we “have” to bail out the automakers?  Why couldn’t we just let GM fail?  Two of the reasons the talk show host cited was because it would damage the US economy too much and because no parts could be made for existing cars.

First of all. What?  The economy is already a gaping bleeding wound, so what’s the point of putting a zillion dollar band-aid on it only to rip it off two minutes later and apply another one.  Sometimes wounds heal up much better if you just leave them alone.

The bailouts might alleviate some pain in the short term, but I don’t want to be the generation that goes down in the history books as having put a financial cement yoke around the necks of their great-grandchildren.  Instead of the Greatest Generation we will be known as the Stupidest Generation or the Greediest Generation. The sins of the father indeed.

To his second point, I would bet my hat that if GM (or the automaker of your choice) closed its doors, that 100 companies would pop up overnight to make parts for existing cars and wouldn’t that be good for the economy?  My theory is that when big companies fail, opportunities are created for smaller, smarter, more agile companies.  That’s how supply and demand works.

My third point is this:  I think economies that hinge on a handful of  bloated mega companies are dangerous.  They don’t allow Financial Darwinism to work because we can’t (or won’t) allow them to fail — and that is fertile ground for greed, corruption, mismanagement and criminally ridiculous executive compensation packages.  It is not an environment that brings out the best in people, but the worst.  It makes them untouchable as is evidenced by the “retention bonuses” given to the very people who couldn’t be trusted to manage the companies in the first place.

I say let Goliath fall and let the sound of his corpse hitting the dirt be a warning to all.

Over the weekend, I watched a documentary style news program where Alan Greenspan was waxing philosophic about our current economic condition.

Mr. Greenspan said that our nation didn’t become  great and prosperous because we had more resources than other nations. No, he said we became so great because we are smarter than everyone else.  Of course this is a paraphrase because I wasn’t watching television with a notepad and pen.

I think Mr. Greenspan is a super smart and awesome dude, but I must disagree with him on both points, although clearly America has produced some of the hardest working, most resourceful, best and brightest.

When I was in college, I took two semesters on the history of science and technology and I learned that while England and the Old World had skilled labor, their natural resources were depleted after thousands of years of civilization.  On the other hand, in the New World, we had more resources than we could shake a stick at, but not much in the way of skilled labor to take advantage of it.  So, I think Mr. Greenspan is wrong – we did,  and I think still do,  have more resources than other countries.  It’s anyone’s guess as to how long that will be true.

I also disagree with his point that we got where we are because we are smarter than other nations, and here, I will quote Lincoln who said it better than I ever could.

“But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

Or wherein I alienate 90% of my readership.

About once a week I get an email asking me to sign and forward a petition to the president to reinstate school prayer.

And I promptly delete it.

This may come as a surprise to you because I am a Christian and I deeply believe in the power of prayer. I am in favor of prayer. Just not in public school.

The problems with nationally mandated school prayer are many, but I’ll address just the first few that come to mind.

I suppose first and foremost, I am a vehement believer in the separation of church and state.  I do not want to live in a theocracy.  Moreover, religion and prayer are matters of the heart and government mandates don’t change the heart. I don’t want the government imposing my prayers to my God on others and I don’t want the gods and prayers of others imposed on me.  Beyond that, is the sound of required prayers pleasing to the ears of God? I don’t know.

If prayer is so important to you, then YOU should be praying with your children before school. If you are a Christian, praying with your children is your job.  And really, don’t our public school teachers already have enough to do just trying to teach kids how to read and write without also having the mandate to pray with your kids too?  I think so.  Imagine if prayer in school was mandated how much time it would take to pray to each of the gods represented by the population of public school families? Even it if was just a watered down, catch-all global version to the goodness of the universe, why bother?  It just doesn’t make sense.

I think publicly funded schools should be for academics only. In my radical view, I question whether sports should be part of public schools, but that there is blasphemy in Texas.  (And there goes the rest of my readers).

Prayer is very important to our family. We think that prayer is direct communication with God, the creator of life and the universe. We think prayer is  a very holy and serious thing to do and that there is a good and proper way to undertake such a serious matter and frankly, we don’t want to abdicate that to someone with whom we may or may not share a like view of the world.

I do believe in the power of prayer to change the world. I don’t believe nationally mandated school prayer can.

The other night I was watching an episode of House Hunters on HGTV.  A single lady was looking to move from her traditional family home in the suburbs to a small one-bedroom apartment in the city. She planned to get rid of her car and her gardening tools and all kinds of other stuff she wouldn’t need in a city dwelling.

When she bought her home in the suburbs she was excited about all the room, hosting family events, decorating, gardening and all the other romantic notions that come with home ownership. But ultimately, she found it all to be just too much.  She said she really sort of felt burdened by all of her stuff and the space and all that it required of her.  And as it turns out, her family didn’t come to visit all that much. So, she decided to make a radical lifestyle change and scale back to the bare essentials.

As I watched I thought about my big backyard with its mole holes everywhere and the flower beds that I can’t maintain and a garage so full of crud I can’t find anything.   And the idea of scaling back in a radical way was exceptionally appealing.

I know of another lady who is married and has grown children. Her husband is an executive and they are very well off.  Like most couples in their tax bracket, they had accumulated and collected a house full of precious and lovely things that go along with fine living.

One day they had a garage sale and sold everything.  And I do mean every thing.  They moved from a home of several thousand square feet into a small unheated one-room cabin that overlooks a river in a very rural area.  They have no closets, just two or three hooks and a couple of shelves. They have just one each of the things they need instead of one in every color, like many of us do.

When I visited her cabin and saw her one or two hooks and one or two shelves for all of her clothes, I couldn’t imagine not having a walk in closet!  But honestly, in spite of having a closet full of clothes, I wear the same four or five outfits most of the time. If I were willing to make a radical change, I could probably get by with a couple of shelves and hooks and be perfectly happy.

Radical change.

How do you get to the point where you are willing to make the leap out of your comfort zone into something so different?  Even if all that comfort seems a little heavy and not all that comfortable.

Is it a push? Is it something sharp and pointed that pokes you out of your nest?

Or is it a pull? A sweet and lyrical song that draws you away into another life?

Or is it merely discontent?

I don’t know. I have been thinking a lot lately about making a radical lifestyle change, but I have neither a push nor a pull, so maybe its discontent.  Or maybe it’s just a case of the wintertime blues.

Maybe instead of selling all my stuff, I’ll get a radical haircut instead.

* * *

When you think about making a radical lifestyle change, you have to consider not just the burden of the material “stuff” littering your emotional landscape, but also the burden of psychological obligations – like blogs, twitter, social media, television, clubs and other things that you have made space for in your life that require maintenance.  ~AM.