America, the Beautiful

In all my years here in the US, I have never ceased to be amazed with the extraordinary quality of milk (and of course ice cream), the steaks and with medical postgraduate education. I do not think there is any other country on earth that pays top salaries to highly accomplished physicians in order that they may exclusively read and research and teach. In most other nations, physicians need to keep hustling for patients to maintain a viable clinical practice and are thus prevented from assuming a full-time educational position.

I can only wonder what goes on behind the walls of those Ivy League Universities. The fact that I have an idea as to the resources available to students in these exclusive institutions has always served as an inspiration for me to work hard and provide for my daughters so that they may be able to experience something that I would have appreciated immensely.

All these years that my periscope has been up has made me realize that more than the classics, more than cutting-edge science and more than the latest and most clever apologies, I wish my daughters to acquire a social conscience. I strongly hope that they will never become smug and content with leading quiet and comfortable lives while so many many people face unimaginable misery with as much dignity that they can muster. In a major sense, despite the vast beauty as well as the limitless opportunity of America, my wife and I decided that it was time for all of us to go home if we thought that the best value we could impart to our kids was a strong sense of social consciousness.