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In an ideal world it seems as if high speed rail systems in this country and even continent would be a tremendously good idea.  I suppose I shouldn't be, though I am, surprised at the resistance to this even in the "progressive" pacific northwest.  This coversation lacks optimism about this type of solution to obvious global problems created by our modern modes of transportation.  While cars and highways have served well for certain individuals in that industry it is not a sustainable nor a healthy solution.  Higher rates of asthma near highways cost people money, and often poor people.  We need to come up with sustainable solutions to transportation.  While many of these details are important, they seem obvious and self-evident.  All excuses just sound like whining by the wealthy, powerful and self-righteous.  I'd love to hear someone speak from a place of compassion for public health and safety within policy decisions.  Shelley Lorenzen clearly just didn't want a rail system to be an eyesore in her well protected Lake Oswego suburban.  Where is the sacrifice?  Where is the long term thinking?  A report just came out that by 2050, in 40 years, the planet will be UNRECOGNIZABLE.  What are we going to do about that?  Ignorance of this in order to cede with modern industry should not be acceptable. 

I love trains and I would ride a high speed train undoubtedly.  I love the max and gasoline exhaust makes me sick, physically.  Do people really not recognize the amount and degree of toxicity from daily cars, buses and airplanes?  I am baffled at all of the excuses that choose to not recognize this. 

posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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I think everyone is dancing around the true issue due to a lack of awareness.  An awareness around how it is that we think about health, disease and medicine.  The true issue is not how we pay for it but what it is in fact that we are paying for.  The type of care that our country leans on for primary care is an emphasis on emergency medicine.  This should only be a very small portion of true health care.  This is not health care, this is disease care.  Surgical procedures and pharmaceuticals ARE EXPENSIVE!  This should not surprise us.  Why should we expect it not to be expensive?  What needs to be changed is the model of health and disease from which we view health care.  This involves a major restructuring.  While there are not enough MD's to do this there are enough health professionals such as nurses, DC's, DO's, licensed ND's, NP's etc.  It is so expensive because everyone is so diseased.  This of course touches on the food we are eating, subsidies to mass agriculture producing inedible corn, soy and wheat, pesticides and herbicides we coat our fruits and vegetables with, and many, many other factors in the way in which live.  This is an overall disrespect for our bodies, our earth, and unconventional ideas and perspectives that emphasize this.  It is time that people stand up and take back their health care from capitalism and the AMA.  

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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