Stories from the Street: Two Salinas, One Salina

Welcome to Salina, where attractive brick and mortar homes boast beautiful arrays of roses and redbuds, inspired by master gardener and water garden groups, proud folks intent on beautifying their personal living space. Welcome to Salina, where a front porch boasts engine parts for a weed-surrounded, under-reconstruction auto, beside a brick half-wall leaning away from the house, its collapse propped only by 3 stubborn gravity-resisting boards.

Welcome to Salina, where engaging, friendly folks open the door in welcome, with young children running out to roll their scooter freely down the new sidewalk running the length of a long, equally friendly block. Welcome to Salina, where the number of children qualifying for free or reduced-fee school lunches hovers at nearly half the population. Welcome to Salina, where the occasional citizen opens the door wearing an oxygen tube and trailing tank, and where a man with two missing fingers and an inability to speak clearly meets me on the street and offers for $7 a home-made sausage wrapped in unrefrigerated individual plastic containers from his plastic shopping bag carrying case.

Welcome to Salina, birthing place of one of the nation’s largest agri-business petroleum-dependent behemoths. Welcome to Salina, home of a visionary, nationally-known, low/no-petroleum agriculture enterprise, with roots far deeper than the cool-season-grasses dotting our lawnscape.

Welcome to Salina, where a vital arts community fertilizes daily life itself with challenging new exhibitions, festivals, and dynamic cinema. Welcome to Salina, where a woman answering the door sleepily at 2 in the afternoon has had little time away from her night shift (with a high-deductible health insurance plan) to experience these wonderful attractions.

What do these and all Salinans have in common? Melting ice caps. An increasingly dead ocean. Species dying off at an accelerating rate. A increasingly unstable climate. The 10-million-ton-CO2 elephant in the room we would all much rather ignore---our survival.

And while we ponder climate and energy solutions, we must rebuild a capricious health care system putting some folks one paycheck away from bankruptcy and others with just the knowledge it could easily be them. We must revamp our education system, leaving no school behind and educating the whole child, not just teaching to the test. We need real homeland security, not an agency that paid $100 million for “security” at the national conventions. That’s what we Salinans—and Kansans--have in common.

That’s why my opponent’s old code-word answers will not do. “Limited Government. Fiscal Responsibility. Personal Liberty.”

What this really means is “Limited power for the people, more for the corporations. Who’s fiscally responsible? You are. If you can’t afford healthcare, don’t be asking us for help. You are free to do whatever you can no longer afford.” In other words, in our ownership society, you are on your own.

Please vote to end easy-talk bromides substituting rhetoric for action. Just remember: Vote Norlin in November. And PLEASE check the Donate Now button to get this message out.