When it comes to the issue of battling cancer, the two biggest weapons we have are avoiding certain behavior and early detection.

As far as early detection is concerned, Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin are currently offering free prostate cancer screenings to men who meet the following criteria:

>Men over fifty who have not had a screening in the last twelve months.

>Men over forty who have or have had a father or brother with prostate cancer, and have not had a screening in the last twelve months.

>African-America men over forty who have not had a screening in the last twelve months.

I had a few days off last week and decided to take advantage of this tremendous offer.  I had a 2 PM appointment and arrived on time.  I was treated with punctuality, courtesy, and complete professionalism.  The tests were finished and I was on my way out by 2:20 PM.

If you meet the above criteria please take a few minutes out of your week and go for an appointment.  Appointments can be made by contacting Froedtert at 800-272-3666.

Sure - there are a lot of things you can do this week that would be more enjoyable.  But few perhaps that would be more important. 

We have been reading and hearing about the ever growing chorus of concern about childhood obesity, both in our community and our country.  Certainly it is a constant refrain in the world of education.  There seems to be no disputing the sobering data, nor arguing against its conclusions.  But I would like to throw something into the debate that is seldom heard: the matter of technology and the impact it is having on our kids.

I'll start with some disclosure.  I own and use most of the conveniences that our amazing technology has provided to us.  In particular, I am a bit of an audiophile, and use the gadgets that make listening to music easy and selective.  Furthermore, technology is morally neutral and cannot be considered either good or bad.  But I believe the question of how much we use it, and the place we allow it in our lives IS a moral issue.  And I believe it is an issue with respect to the matter of childhood obesity.

It is certainly legitimate to talk about what our institutions can do about the "epidemic" of obesity in our young people.  And we obviously need to teach and MODEL to our kids the importance of good nutrition and exercise.  But I don't think it coincidence that this "epidemic" has occurred at the same time our offering of technology has exploded into the veritable smorgasbord we now see in the aisles of Besy Buy.  The almost unimaginable portability of that technology is re-writing the way we live our daily lives.  E-mailing, instant messaging, cell phones, PDA's, Game Boys, I-pods - all of these are marvelous in the things they can do for us.  But let's be aware of some of the side effects.

Every hour a child is on a computer or a cell phone, or connected to a device the size of a match box that is pumping music into their ears, is an hour they cannot spend in physical activity, reading, or relaxed interaction with their friends or family.  As they become more and more dependant upon these devices to entertain them and fill their time, they become less able and less inclined to find more healthy ways of doing so.  I am concerned about the impact these things have in the lives of our youth, and on a personal level, on the lives of my kids.  It is something we talk about a lot in our household.

The generation of young people we are raising will be more technically competent then I ever thought about being.  But let's be sure we don't turn a blind eye to all areas of their development.  Kids need downtime where they are free from "data" and "input".  And they need to be free to "get out there" in Mother Nature, and to let  HER soak into their consciousness, as well as the latest release from SoulJA Boy. 

Come to think of it - we probably all do.

I had not planned to make this a two-part series, but an insighftul commentator on my first post asked, "so what should we do about childhood poverty", and "do those kids deserve their fate"?  These are fair questions, and if I am to raise this issue, then I need to accept the responsibility of answering them. 

I'll answer the second question first.  No, these children most certainly do NOT deserve their fate.  I assume that all who read BrookfieldNow would answer the same to this question, and that little time is needed for its debate.  So we move on to the larger and tougher matter - what are we to DO about it.  

We have a mountain of evidence which identifies the disintegration of the family, and kids being raised in parentless households as primary factors in the cause of childhood poverty.  This same evidence clearly demonstrates that kids who come from solid family units, REGARDLESS of income levels, do much better in life as measured by almost any conceivable barometer we might apply.  This evidence does not come soley from the "far right".  Rather, study after study published from the ranks of modern sociology and psychology clearly point to the horrific damage caused by the proliferation of these pathologies. 

So I would argue that the first need is to acknowledge the primary causal factor of childhood poverty, for how are we to solve the problem without accurately defining its cause?  I believe this is where so many urban leaders have missed the mark, as they continue to talk about every conceivable cause BUT these.  It is certainly legitimate to talk about other matters, but not at the expense of ignoring the primary one.  So my first answer to the "what should we do about it" question is to call for a more honest and comprehensive discussion of this compelling reality.  We need leaders from EVERY WALK OF LIFE -civil government, social services, education, and our churches to use their "bully pulpit" to outline, identify, and talk about the devastating impact of these behaviors.  We should bend the energies of these institutions to talk about, teach, and help CHANGE these pathologies.  We use our schools as venues for all kinds of public safety and information programs, why not this?  It is time for the NEA to take up this question alongside of its never ending quest for so many other social and political agendas. 

I suggest that Step Two is to weave these concerns into the fabric of our public policy.  This ranges from the tax code, which penalizes marriage and families, to inadequate enforcement of "dead-beat Dad" laws.  It would include the admission of the failure of large-scale social service agencies, which have taught us as much about scandal and corruption than they have about alleviating poverty.   Let's recognize that organizations like the Milwaukee Rescue Mission have done more to help our city's disadvantaged than have high-profile and publicly funded agencies.  And let's have the attendant courage to demand that the resources of public funding reflect this reality. 

But lastly, there is the question of "What should I do about it".  What should I, living here in affluent Brokfield and Elm Grove, do about it? 

My answer to that question is to go and find a tree.

When faced with problems of such enormity we all have the natural and understandable tendency to "see see the forest and not the trees".  When faced with a CITY full of parentless children we are stunned into mute inaction, and are reduced to the feeling of "what can I do". But when we focus on the "tree" of an individual or specific family, then we can mobilize our time, our energies, and our resources to ACT.  This action can take a myriad of forms and it is certainly not my place to define what might be appropriate for you, but there are many organizations existing just minutes form our door which are "out there" doing good with respect to this issue.  We can coach youth sports, we can counsel at risk youths, we can financially assist agencies that are engaged in all of these things, and we can come alongside an individual or family - that proberbial "tree in the forest".  We can be assured and encouraged by the conviction that "a little is a lot" in terms of sharing our time and our resources. 

The ancients wrote into their laws that it was the responsibility of every member of society to care for widows, orphans and the poor.  They had no large scale social agencies that were charged with this task, for they knew that to assign this job to "society" was to assign it to no one.

I would argue that their method was not only more compassionate - it was more effective.

Oscar Wilde once remarked that, “we don’t appreciate a sunset because we don’t have to pay for it”.  He was right - it is in our nature to devalue that which is familiar to us.

The name “Michigan” derives from the Indian dialect; they called it Missi-Ken, a lyrical and appropriate name meaning “large lake”.  The best times of my life have been spent on her shores, in her waters, or gliding atop her surface.  I recall a golden evening with my son, sitting atop the towering Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes.  Perched hundreds of feet above the shore as we gazed out towards Wisconsin, Miss-Ken’s sheer vastness laid hold of his spirit, and quieted him.  As the sun slid down the horizon like the slow closing of an enormous, incandescent eye, it emblazoned the sky with scenes of such texture and hue as to shame the canvas of Raphael.  I watched him try to absorb it all, and matched him in his silence.

Minutes later he murmured in wide-eyed tribute, “It’s not a lake, Dad.  It’s an ocean”.

The eye of my memory sees her water turning from the grim, slate-blue of the depths, to the happier aqua of her shallows.  I see the waves form, gather, and then break, as they gleefully gambol their way to shore.  I see the bottom turn from dark, to brown, to mocha, to the white of her beaches.  Looking further, I see the dune grasses, their tops swaying under the gentle caress of the breeze.  Past the grass comes the rise of the mighty dunes, and I recall the thigh-burning effort of ascending them, and the sheer joy of the limb-flailing, rollicking sprint back down.

I see the bow of the sailboat sluice confidently through the waves, its white sails lufting as they grope for the wind.I see languid harbors beckoning at dusk, offering sanctuary from a hard day’s sail and the vagaries of the night.  I see the stars as we lay on deck; bright diamonds tumbled out upon a jet-black table of felt, their number only exceeded by their burning purity.  I see the cool-calm waters as we sip our coffee at dawn, silent and benign, and offering no hint of the howling fury they could soon become.

But even more than these wondrous images - I hear her.  I hear her endless song to us as the waves marry to the shore, only to retreat again in that ancient and endless refrain.

And if we listen closely, we can almost hear singing, “Will you protect me”?

Brookfield Now blogger Kyle Prast posted an article this week entitled Whatever Happened to Truth?

I thought of her post when I read the Crossroads Section of Sunday's Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel, which has a major article on the subject of child poverty in Milwaukee.  The article consists of comments from seven community leaders who represent a cross section of education, social work, health care, charity organizations, and the Church.

I don't claim to have their level of knowledge or experience regarding the problem of urban poverty.  But I have seen poverty and worked amidst it, both here and in the deep South.  I have seen enough to know the heartbreakingly difficult conditions that virtually imprison thousands of inner city kids.  And the only thing more heartbreaking than this reality is the twenty-five year history of policy and debate that has chosen to IGNORE the primary issue behind this plague.  

The primary contributing factor to urban childhood poverty is the explosion in the number of kids born into situations which lack even a semblance of family structure, a topic I first wrote about several months ago.  The policies of our local, State, and Federal Governments, however well intentioned, have unwittingly subsidized and encouraged this behavior.

Brink Lindsey of the CATO Institute recently published a book entitled The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture.  Part of the book includes a penetrating analysis of how well-intentioned but misguided policy has fueled and abetted the cycle of urban poverty.  He discusses the repeated cycles of failing to stay in school, failing to live within the law, failing to marry or stay married so as to provide children an integrated structure of stability and nurture.  He succintly comments "the presence of all these pathologies reflects a dysfunctional culture that fails to invest in human capital".

Now these are tough words, but the fact that they are tough doesn't mean they are not true.  Critics might say that I am here in cozy and comfortable Brookfield, and can AFFORD to hold these views.  They might say I am too middle class, too suburban, and let's say it, too WHITE to qualify for this debate.  And of course, they are right; I am all of these things.   

But isn't it more than just a matter of what we can "AFFORD" to believe.  Shouldn't it also be a question of what is TRUE and EFFECTIVE to believe?

Every one of the issues that the seven people in the article point out are real and warrant discussion.  But to ignore the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room - the utter implosion of the urban family and neighborhood structure, and to turn a blind eye to the devastatingly toxic effect of thousands of kids without parents, and in particular, a male authority figure to train them and raise them up, is to fight this battle un-armed.  

By all means - lets talk about education and the development of jobs; that is a legitimate part of the debate.  And by all means let's try to personally connect with and alleviate in some small way the sub-culture of poverty that exists only MINUTES AWAY FROM OUR FRONT DOOR. 

But it is time for America's urban leaders to address the WHOLE story.  And in particular, it is time to listen to and encourate a new generation of African-American leaders like Juan Williams and Thomas Sowell, who are courageously throwing off the chains of decades of smug and hollow rhetoric, and are raising up this issue as well as all the others.     

The implications of urban poverty are real - they are serious - and they are potentially catastrophic.

And that is why we must have the courage to tell the ENTIRE story.

In 1945 George Orwell published his classic novel Animal Farm, an allegorical and scathing look into the philosophical heart of socialism.  The smartest animals on the farm were the pigs, and by the end of his book they were walking upright on their hind legs, in order to imitate the humans.

I was reminded of this vivid imagery when I read an article about the work of a genetic research scientist.  Read carefully the words of Craig Venter:

“We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it.  I am creating artificial life.  This is a very important philosophical step in the history of our species”.

I don’t understand the science of what they are undertaking, but in lay terms as I best as I can fathom the article, Venter and his team are transplanting the DNA of a cell into the bacterial cell of a different organism.  That new cell then assumes the life-form of the gene code that has been transplanted into it.  In essence, a new specie is created. 

Mr. Venter further says that he is “100% confident that the same technique would work for the artificially created chromosome.  We are dealing in big ideas.  We are trying to create a new value system for life”.

 “WE ARE TRYING TO CREATE A NEW VALUE SYSTEM FOR LIFE”.

As Dorothy might have said, “Toto – we are not in Kansas anymore”.  

It wasn’t so long ago we learned that science could create existing species in a test tube.  Now it could be close to the creation of entire species that don’t currently exist.  We cannot possibly foresee the long term implications of this, and in taking such steps without thinking them through to their conclusion, we let some very large genies out of the bottle.  And there will be no putting them back.  

We are living very fast here in the 21^st Century.  Our technological capabilities are moving faster than our willingness to grapple with their implications.  I am no Luddite, and I am not opposed to progress or exploration.  Science has and can continue to help us tremendously.  But I believe it is appropriate for our political and social institutions to debate these matters before such capabilities are merely unleashed upon an entire world by a small handful of people.      

Such unprecedented discoveries will rewrite our “social DNA”.  They call for vigorous consideration in many areas, not the least of which are social, anthropological, moral, and yes, spiritual dimensions.

This is much bigger than just the science of it all.

The damage incurred consists of two parts.  Qualitatively - hundreds of people were denied the use of the field for several weeks.  Quantitatively - the repair of the field cost a lot of money.  So if justice is sought in this matter, what might it contain?

Twenty-four hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato defined justice as “rendering unto each man his due”.  While this definition may be a bit abstract, we should not be too hasty to dismiss it.  The wisdom of the ancients led them to weave the concept of restitution into their system of law and societal governance.  That concept was built upon the notion that a criminal should be required to put aright that which his actions had undone.