America’s Harsh Realty!
by Fresca
Yesterday morning, as I sprinted down Interstate 85 at approximately seven a.m.—leaving Burlington, seconds before dawn in the westward traffic rush to get my 9-year old nephew to his school in Hillsborough, for his sake: not mine, I kept to the air-waves coming out of Durham, North Carolina’s G- 105.1. The theme that occupied the three broadcasters [always two guys and a woman on these sorts of shows!] that moment was that Norway had just been viewed as the world’s best place to live,[1] and was a country having one of the highest life expectancy among developed nations in the world. The United States was not as high on the list that the listeners wished to have it; I believe the claim was that United States ranked 13th – other online sources I have looked into since have shown that the States remains to stay at anywhere from the mid-20s to mid-30s in various ratings in recent years.
It was about 6:50 a.m. when this one caller came on and expressed her concerns on behalf of the debate of the poor showing the United States had displayed. She insisted that countries like Norway and Iceland had to have a longer life expectancy rate if only because of the fact that they had lower people living in their countries. Yes, like the three broadcasters, I too was baffled by her logic. Or lack of it. They tried to explain to her that countries such as Australia and Canada with their highly dense populations were ranked in the top five: and, that even Japan was higher—at number 10—than America was. But she kept arguing that America and India and a few other countries had to have higher death rates at an earlier age in life, if but because they were countries with higher populations.[2] There were a few good wise-cracks tossed about. Again, those on the radio tried offer one last shot as to help the woman try to understand that Japan and Canada had high population densities and still experienced higher mortality rates than America did. She just was not about to accept their reasoning and went on and on too long in an attempt to clarify her argument. Then she simply said, “And we are just with too many different nationalities in America and this adds to deaths in our country being higher then what it is elsewhere in the world.” She was far off the mark of conceptionalizing why the calculations had even ever been made in the first place. For example, in Norway alone, 60% of deaths in 2006 were due to cancer and cardiovascular diseases. (Statistics: Norwegian Institute of Public Health) This left 40% for other factors. Like deaths due to automobile accidents, homicides, aging and perhaps other abrupt means. But she tried to argue that because Norway and Iceland were with lower populations it justified why these countries didn’t have poorer ratings. And I seemed to be waiting for her to ask, “And where’s Germany, by the way? Is it still that awful in the East?”
At some point I had to suppress my ambivalence, as to avoid yelling out something rather condescending that might cause me to rebuke her Hinterwelt convictions in a rather cursing fashion, right there in front of my nephew. But I kept on repeating to myself, darn it that she—nor any damn one of them for that matter—is able to simply see that America’s soldiers dying for the cause of our wars against terror; urban gang wars slugging it out against one another; media’s exposure on Chicago youths going head to head with one another because violence in Chicago sells at the moment (haven’t you all figured that one out yet!); lack of cell phone restrictions on the highways; and our basically innate, pro-gun-control convictions were those issues that kept America’s poor showing active in the life expectancy argument, which was also helping to keep America from being one of the best places in the world to live. And just three places below the States, at number 16, was another Scandinavian country: Denmark. But one of Denmark’s best kept secrets was how high its urban violence was. And add to this the percentage of lives lost behind the wheels of drunk drivers attempting to get on over to Malmo and Helsinki for the weekends!
It seemed a perspective worthy of consideration.
I wanted to call in and pitch this question to the hosts of the talk show early yesterday morning, but I’m one who never drives with a cell phone on in the car.
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