After doing the work I've been doing (don't want to get too detailed on that here) and spending time with children in my spare time (coaching, helping at schools, etc.), and my efforts in research involving neurological health in America I've come to the conclusion that it's over. Probably in my lifetime America will devolve into something like an Ensenada with tall buildings. 300-pound gorillas like Federal unfunded mandates are simply too much for our society to handle with any success. I thought about this again last night in speaking with a friend who's actually trying to reform the charter school system where one of my kids goes. She's reading the applicable laws that are being broken and trying to work with the director to right the ship and I had to explain to her that they won't have any idea what she's talking about, don't care, and probably don't have the resources to do things the right way. She's wasting her time.

I've wasted my time too. I have given lectures to lawmakers that had their heads spinning - data, facts, reason and (dare I say it) a little ethics. I've gotten them to change their votes, something I'm proud of. But the machine is too big and too corrupt. A guy like me is like an annoying gnat.

Neurological health, it seems, is at the center of our problems. Sure, people are uneducated. But A LOT of people suffer from substantial neurological problems. And, their numbers are growing rapidly. Hordes of ranting mentally ill people are taking over in these parts. I have been called to speak next month to a large governmental organization that's supposed to do something about it - to discuss the engineering and infection control ramifications of building large medical faculties for such patients. But, it will be too little too late. An overwhelming majority of boys in my son's elementary school class have neurological problems, and this is a mainstream school. America won't be able to deal with the coming tsunami. No way.

Worst part is I'm pretty sure I know how we can correct this problem. But, we won't. And, unless you are involved as I am, around kids all day, you may not see that there is a problem. But...that mentally retarded news coverage you try to endure each night, that global warming story that won't go away, that person at your DMV or your doctor's office who repeatedly screws up your paperwork or your claims, that hobo camp in your town filled with men in their late teens and 20s...it's the same problem.