National Priorities: We Get What We Pay For

Some of you may remember the late-1980s PBS series Ethics in America. A distinguished moderator led a discussion by a panel of accomplished Americans on issues ranging from personal ethics, to medical ethics, to ethics in government, and everything in between. It was a brilliant group of programs, and I was always left with several things to think about after I watched it.
One of the brilliant moderators was Professor Charles Ogletree of Harvard University. He was a career academic, now retired, but his thinking was crystal clear for communicating with lay people, his questions invariably penetrating, his positions typically unassailable. I always enjoyed the shows that he led. I also enjoyed the times he made the members of the panel squirm a little bit. People like Newt Gingrich, Rudolph Giuliani, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and Antonin Scalia, among many others. People who didn't normally have to squirm very much. Good for the soul, don't you know.
The next time I heard of Professor Ogletree was during the first presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Ogletree taught law to both the future president and the future first lady. No wonder they were each such effective attorneys.
I've seen Mr. Ogletree's name again tonight. The Cambridge, MA, police have issued a bulletin asking for the public's assistance. Professor Ogletree is now an Alzheimer's patient, and wandered away from his home tonight about 5:30.
It breaks my heart to learn that this man, who enjoyed such a formidable intellect throughout his life, is struggling with this dread disease. It scares me whenever I hear that a person with Alzheimer's has wandered away from home.
And I wonder how much farther down the road toward a cure or prevention we might be if we hadn't spent trillions of dollars fighting ultimately meaningless, pointless wars since the time Professor Ogletree was moderating those wondrous episodes of Ethics in America.
We owe better to a lost, confused man in Cambridge, Massachusetts, tonight. And a great many other Americans, too. Americans who are ill, hungry, homeless, unloved, and uncared for.

NOTE: Professor Ogletree was found, safe, and returned to his home about midnight tonight.