Everywhere I look are stories that seem unrelated, but I fear are intertwined: the state of joblessness in America and bedbugs. Both seem to be in the running for scourge of the decade, and the parallels to the past seem inescapable. The Great Depession, well known for its stinging poverty and widespread hopelessness, was also the time of the last great wave of bedbugs. So now, as then, the nation is being fed on by parasites even as people struggle to find work. Shocking!
Experts tell us that the latest rise in bedbugs come from a ban of a substance known as DDT. Apparently DDT was totally effective in wiping out these pests, as well as making endangered bird eggs so brittle that they cracked before the chicks could survive. The EPA has banned the substance for years due to this fact.
Its an interesting result. That we are responsible enough to stop using a chemical that harms our environment is one thing. But, can we not come up with a strategy that is both environmentally responsible and effective? I think so, but these pests seem so intrusive, so insidious that only the most persistent of us can get rid of them.
Clearly, we have the means technically to get rid of the problem of bugs. Do we have the same ability to get the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs over the last few years back to work? I think so, but only if the elusive bipartisan force that every national candidate has claimed to control finally comes to the forefront. It will take both parties, Democrat and Republican to put aside their differences and hammer out something approaching sanity in our fiscal policy. Right now, it looks like not even an extension of the Bush tax cuts will come through before the election, and that is a sad commentary on our system.
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