While driving down to Kentucky on I-69 there were workers constructing a barrier in the median.
Although I was a little irritated that I had to slow down to 45 miles per hour, I set the cruise control. This immediately resulted in a Mercedes-Benz SUV tailgating me until he had the opportunity to pass.
Once the 19-miles-per-gallon-on-the-highway vehicle with environmental plates had blown past me it was immediately replaced by a minivan - which had Garfield's "Kids First" license plates - which similarly blew past me.
This trend lasted the entire 15-mile stretch of highway where the construction was occurring.
There were no accidents on that particular stretch of road that day, though, as usual, drivers had been inconsiderate of others.
These drivers would have been completely surprised, upset and ashamed of themselves had the rare accident occurred and killed one of those workers.
The family who depends on the care, income and support of these workers would have been devastated.
We spend a lot of time in the United States preening ourselves with words which do little more than conceal actual intent.
We use words like 'economically marginalized' and 'menial laborers' to describe these workers. We make words into laws to limit where they smoke and the amount of fast food they consume to protect them from themselves.
Through all these efforts, we fail to act in a manner that will immediately protect them from the rest of us.
We consistently fail to protect others from ourselves and we use words to conceal this fact.
Corporate America uses words to convince us that our lives will be incomplete without the purchase of their particular product.
Taco Bell pushed the concept of the "Fourth Meal" this summer. Living in the state ranked ninth for obesity and child obesity on the rise - think of the appeal of Taco Bell to the youth - I was astonished.
Hummer has a recent commercial featuring its latest creation, the H3, driving past a gas station under the supposed aid of a magician. The hook of the commercial is that the H3 gets 20 mpg on the highway and 16 mpg in town without magic.
The H3 is marketed toward upper-class suburbanites who would rarely, if ever, utilize these vehicles in the manner for which they were designed.
A Toyota Prius costs much less, consumes a third of the gas and more than likely serves the same purpose as the H3.
The US government uses words to disguise the actual situations and dilemmas we are confronting.
During the Vietnam War, Americans spent a lot of time fighting the Viet Cong guerillas. Now, in Iraq, we spend a lot of time fighting insurgents.
We lost troops to explosive booby traps; now we lose them to improvised explosive devices.
Nixon and Johnson used an escalation of troops while Bush uses a troop surge.
History is almost always taught in high school and contained within the core curriculum of most universities. The reason for this is common knowledge and quite simple - the vision of the future is contained in the dust of the past.
Corporate America and America's government continue to evolve, increase in intelligence and grow larger and more independent of the public. Their capacity to manipulate us with words gets better every year.
Our leaders attempt to use our ignorance against us to conceal the results of their actions - both past and present.
We have a responsibility to ourselves and to each other to know what is happening and what has happened.
Albert Einstein was right when he advised us that if we wanted the truth, we should leave the elegance to the tailor.
Write to Jason at jlhodson@bsu.edu
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
