If I call the fire department because my house is on fire, they don't look up my tax status before they send the truck.

"Let me see here, Mrs. Smith, our records show that you were late in your county property tax payment last year, and that's what funds your local fire department. Sorry, no can do. Get your garden hose out."

"Hmm. Bad guy in your back yard? But I see that you're newly moved to the area and we can't verify that you're a tax-paying resident of Smallsville. The Smallsville police therefore can't help you. Hope you have a gun. Have a nice day."

We've decided that as a society it makes sense to educate ALL children in public school (quality is a whole 'nother issue), because it's better than having them run loose on the street. We need an educated population, regardless of their ability to pay. "Sorry, you lost your job, and you're no longer paying state income tax while you look for a new job. Therefore your children must leave school until you're employed again. Sorry."

It's ridiculous, of course. But having poor or nonexistant health care for large portions of the population IS the equivalent of having your house on fire. Just ask an emergency room doctor, or a hospital bean counter having to charge $8 for a tylenol to make up for all those people who can't pay their bills.

My husband is a psychiatric intensive care RN. He works with people who will NEVER have the skills to get a job with benefits. Just try employing someone who is paranoid schitzophrenic, self-medicating on anything they can find, hearing voices, and taking off their clothes in public. If the county picks them up and commits them to a hospital stay involuntarily, it cost the hospital $1200 per day, but the county only pays $800. The hospital eats the difference, and charges it across the system to everyone else. You and me and the $8 tylenol. Many newer hospitals don't have psychiatric wards, because they're a money loser.

We'd rather trip over these people on the street than care for them properly... and just hope like hell they don't move into OUR neighborhoods.

The whole mess is seriously broken.

We have to get to the place as a society where we see our neighbors without health care as just as much of an emergency as our neighbor's house on fire.

As a tax-paying member of my town, I absolutely want the fire truck here when my neighbor's house catches on fire, his personal tax status be damned. If his house is allowed to burn, mine will catch on fire too. The whole neighborhood will go up in smoke.

Same thing with health care. If my neighbor doesn't have coverage, and doesn't go to the doctor until he is seriously ill, and even then, he goes to the emergency room, MY costs go up. I can pay my own premiums all I want and tell myself I'm taken care of, but if my neighbor isn't, then the system will spiral out of control. As it is spiraling out of control. It sounds selfish, and perhaps it is. But this is one of those places where the safety of the whole is better than the safety of the individual.

If I lived in a bad neighborhood with no police protection, I could build a wall around my house, top it with razor wire, and hire an armed guard. But that doesn't make it safe for me to go to the grocery store or take my dog for a walk. That's what we're doing in the "everyone pay their own way, don't worry about the whole" model with US health care. Those of us with coverage have the wall, but that doesn't stop the rampant crime in the street.

The problem is that a bad guy in the back yard is visible. A house on fire is visible. My neighbor's lack of doctor visits and impending bankruptcy is invisible until he either dies or moves away because he can't afford his house any more.

OK... it's not going to stop every unwanted pregnancy. But rather than stepping into this unholy mess of who the baby "belongs" to, what if Ohio did something truly unique?

What if birth control, of all known types, were made free, available from every doctor's office, street corner, pharmacy, donut shop, and ice cream truck?

What if there were public health campaigns to support it? I saw them on the subway in New York from Planned Parenthood... "I might want a baby some day, but for now I'm using birth control." In a matter-of-fact tone that says yes, sex happens to everyone, everywhere, and I've chosen to be responsible about it.

I know, I know. I'm a left coast dreamer, and this is Ohio we're talking about. But it's a thought.

Anyone with a child in elementary school in the US has come across Captain Underpants. Either genius or terrible, depending on your point of view, written for about 2nd to 3rd grade reading level, chock full of elementary school potty humor.

Do I WANT to encourage potty humor? Not really. However, that's what most 8-year-old kids (boys AND girls) thrive on, and if it gets them to read, bring it on! I have Dav Pilkey (the author of Captain Underpants) to thank for my son's reading ability. He's a late-blooming reader with lots of learning disabilities, and reading is inordinately difficult for him.

I am eternally grateful to ANYTHING that will encourage him to read--old Calvin and Hobbes comics, Captain Underpants, whatever.

In the same way, if this book encourages teen girls to see math as cool, bring it on. Remember the audience.

I love him to pieces, and we agree on exactly nothing politically. Give the girl a break.