It's sad realizing that my last post here was Christmas Eve, December 2012, oh some 10 months ago.
Whatever possessed me to stop writing (and ranting) here can best be described as a total solar eclipse that I forgot to wear protective glasses for. Not that I have a huge blog following, but my sitting to compose my thoughts and share them is a wonderfully therapeutic exercise that I was a fool to give up.
Think what we've missed. No, don't do that. In my last missive before going on hiatus from this space, I talked about appreciating and doing smaller things that have impact, versus grandiose plays that have led to disaster in 2012. So what of those "smaller" things?
In February, I followed my own advice and moved to work for the Chamber of Commerce in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Bowling Green is a dynamic small city that feels like a boom town on the Western Frontier. The banking community here never fell for the sub-prime mortgage craze, so it never had to roll-up bad loans and sell them off to some fools (who, it turned out, meant the rest of us) as hedged derivatives or toxic assets. Instead, Bowling Green grew rapidly by making wise investments in economic development infrastructure like an ambitious downtown development district and acquiring land in industrial parks that it can effectively give away to high-wage manufacturing concerns.
Living here is definitely slower-paced, but far from backward. There's a growing tech sector that may soon find its footing someplace between medical devices and IT for streamlining healthcare payment systems, or perhaps in materials science. Though Kentucky is best-known for bourbon and racehorses, Bowling Green is best-known for Big Red (the mascot of Western Kentucky University) and General Motors' Corvette Assembly plant. Between these two institutions, a growing university and a wildly popular sports car, there's a keen appreciation for making things happen.
This is, fittingly enough, where U.S. Senator Rand Paul chose to make his life. Before the Tea Party boils over from over-reaching the laws of political physics, it's worth noting that "The Land of Rand" is hardly a backwater of ignoramuses, at least no more than New York or San Francisco or any other "trendier" place than Kentucky. Indeed, Sen. Paul is a perfect reflection of the common sense, smaller-is-better, humility that characterizes Bowling Green and his early career as an ophthalmologist helping people see better.
When I had the chance to meet him, he was talking through the mechanics of how over-regulated health care simply leads to costlier health care. It was the least-ideological talk I had heard in a long time, striking in that Sen. Paul has been branded as an "ideologue." Instead of a lot of blustery red-baiting or even questioning the motives behind Obamacare, Sen. Paul stuck to the practical insanity of doubling the number of diagnostic codes providers will need to begin using "to save costs." "Did you know there are now 12 new diagnostic codes for being struck by a bird, including two just for the macaw?" he asked, armed with dozens of similar anecdotes. "There are two codes for running into a lamp post-- 'first encounter' and 'second encounter.'"
The Kentucky Senator's clear-headed approach to taking down Obamacare was spot-on long before the HealthCare.Gov web site fiasco gave Americans a taste for Dr. Big Brother. No matter what (Texas U.S. Senator) Ted Cruz may tell you, the only way to fight the evils of socialized medicine is to vaccinate the public with very facts and experiences they are being infected with by Obamacare. Just as sometimes vaccines cause death, Obamacare will have many victims. It will be a more powerful wake up call than its opponents shouting from rooftops. In this, conservatives should take a cue from the soft-spoken eye doctor from Bowling Green and let the deadly facts of Obamacare speak for themselves.
