A recent article on this page highlighted a stunning situation in which a surgery clinic in Oklahoma City was able to offer outpatient procedures at less than one-tenth of what local hospitals were charging to third-party payment systems such as insurance companies and Medicare. This was a significant article in many ways, in that it presented what truly is a shocking picture of what really happens in the medical care systems in this country.

Talks of separatism are not just limited to the United States.

My town, Tallassee, Alabama, is an old mill town. It straddles the Tallapoosa River, which is dammed at that point by the Thurlow Dam to generate electricity. On both sides of the river are the ruins of a massive complex of textile mills which employed a significant portion of the town’s population until 2005. In fact, the current mayor, Johnny Hammock, worked in the mills as a young man, and his father and grandfather also worked there.