tuscany, the province of mosakacra, current population, just 15. it was about 300 in the 1950s. no electric, no indoor plumbing when renado was born. he had four siblings, was a shepherd, he was nevertheless able to emigrate to the united states where he became an orthopedist, one of countless american rags to riches stories. when i travel abroad, i often come home mindful of two things, first how insular we americans can be, inwardly focused and disconnected from global affairs, despite as tom friedman would say, the world being flat. and second i m always grateful to have been born here. this time, i had a third thought, for the first time in my life, i worry about our ability to stay in tact. leadership, incivility, polarization, immigration, violence, all very much on my mind. and recent data suggests i m not alone in my concerns. many of us have more fear than optimism about the united states. of course i m concerned about the economy, with the price of everything fro
late 70s and early 80s. interest rates 20%, inflation 18%. unemployment was much higher than it is now. we could return to that but we haven t yet, and we are taking steps to prevent that, and as with all of the problems, i think the key is, of course, not to denial them. not to say, oh, yeah, we ve had problems in the past. it s let s focus on how we get out of the problems that are facing us today. so other examples, there were wars like vietnam, iran, iraq, which killed far more people than the total of the wars that are ongoing today. civil wars in latin america, and in africa and south asia that americans are less concerned with than russia and ukraine, but they have killed people by the hundreds of thousands. sometimes the millions. genocides in rwanda and bosnia. the arab-israeli war of 1973, which led the united states to