If you love stories, cemeteries are almost irresistible - every headstone has a tale to tell. Whether it's a date, a name, a poem, or a piece of statuary that catches your eye, it is hard to avoid wondering, "Who was this?" "Where did they live?" "Why did the family choose these words to memorialize them?" or: "Why did she die so young?"

My most recent cemetery trip was to visit the former inhabitants of my hundred-and-twenty-year-old house. I never knew them but they lived here a very long time, and I knew that Henry Brevoort Towle (1864-1926) was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. One beautiful Sunday this past October, I journeyed to Woodlawn and found Henry's grave. Of course, with Henry I found several other people who had lived in my house. My "family" expanded with this discovery.

Then last week I received an e-mail about "green burials" from Elizabeth Fournier, a mortician and funeral director in Oregon, and her information gave me pause. While I love walking through a cemetery's park-like lanes, seeing the statuary, and reading the headstones, I never gave much thought to what lies beneath. Nor had I considered the idea that as more Americans die, community planners might have better uses for our land than more cemeteries.

When it comes to community planning, American cities and towns are in a difficult bind. You don't need to sit in traffic on the freeways of Los Angeles or note what a big box store does to a neighborhood to know that our preparation for the future is far from perfect.

In many cases, our towns and cities were originally planned for people who traveled by horse or carriage. In more "modern" communities, the streets were designed for many fewer cars or perhaps electrified streetcars. Our bridges are old; our highways need to be re-built; and we are a country in great need of more walkable towns or better infrastructure for public transportation.

President Barack Obama's first year in office is almost at an end, and as evidenced by the fact that both the House and the Senate have passed versions of a health care reform bill, we have proof that our governmental system is at work. While there is distress all around that neither version is "perfect," and the final bill has yet to be written and voted on, this is a good time to recall that big progress starts with small steps.

If you go back to examine government involvement in some type of health care for the poor, the elderly, or the injured, we would need to first consider the workmen's compensation laws that were enacted starting in the beginning of the 20th century.

"Short and sweet" seemed just right for a holiday week blog.

I found the perfect gem to share, a quote from Will Rogers, as I flew back to New York from Colorado where I'd been visiting my mother.

Humorist Rogers (1879-1935) once said: "Why pay to go to the circus when you can watch Congress for free?"

Those of you who follow me regularly (on the Huffington Post or on my own site, America Comes Alive!) know that I think this country and our U.S. government are as good as it gets...I consider myself fortunate to be an American. But regardless of what side of the Congressional aisle you favor, there are moments when Will Rogers' quote rings true.
So I was going to share a light moment with readers and call it a day.

But then all my plans for the blog changed.

As Americans we have little memory of days when our loved ones could be snatched away from us by a contagious illness. We watch our friends and relatives go through cancer diagnosis and treatment, and we know a few people with diabetes or some type of autoimmune disease that requires careful management. Perhaps we know of someone who had a bad time with Lyme disease, but for the most part, we seem to feel that the 21st century has brought us immunity from deadly viruses.

It has not.

"People have become complacent," says Margaret Lewin, M.D. F.A.C.P., and medical director of Cinergy Health, a health insurance company that stresses preventive health care. "Today's families are too young to remember the fatalities and disabilities that can result from influenza."

One of the pleasures of having attended Smith College was being on the mailing list for a mini-fundraiser to celebrate Gloria Steinem's 75th birthday as well as the donation of her papers to the Sophia Smith Collection (the archives at Smith College).

Another pleasure of being a Smith alumna is attending an event such as this and finding oneself in a room full of smart, dedicated women--both young and older--who are actively engaged in the world around them.

The format of the evening, held at The Asia Society in New York City on October 21, involved Smith president Carol Christ interviewing Gloria Steinem about highlights of Steinem's career as well as what is on her mind currently. Steinem was humble about her accomplishments, displayed a wonderful sense of humor, and showed a strong dedication to continuing her work for social change.

The significance of the donation of her papers (and more about this later) was a continuous theme throughout, as Steinem pointed out that the archives are the "fuel" for activism: "We do what we see."

This brought to mind a quote of hers that I keep on hand in a file of good things to remember. Steinem's quote from another time actually well sums up the point of the evening:

"If we don't see a history with women, we don't know that we can create it."

"In all this discussion about health care reform, we never hear about health care. It's
always about insurance," say many people who talk to me about what's going on in Congress.

Good point. The focus of most discussions has been on health insurance, because with the American system, care improves if you can pay for it. Those who arrive in emergency rooms because they are very sick will be cared for, but it would have been better for them, and for the tax-paying public, if they had access to care when preventive health measures could have been implemented, thereby reducing emergencies.

The health care reform bill under discussion is multi-faceted, and many of the provisions will directly affect our care. One of these has to do with future medications, a topic that is receiving very little coverage in the general press. Yet legislation concerning the changes for the drug approval process on a special type of medicine (biologic medicines) could provide huge savings -- a major need with health care reform.

(If you want to be sure "care" remains part of the health care reform bill, I hope you'll read through this post to the end. Then write or call your Congressional representatives. It is vital that citizens weigh in on this issue.)

No one wants to work for a boss who micromanages everything. You receive the assignment; you come up with your plan to get the job done, and the next thing you know he or she is breathing down your neck, second-guessing what you're doing. If you're like most people, you're ready to push the assignment back across the desk and say, "You do it."

What the press -- and the public via the Internet -- are doing to President Obama looks to me like "micromanaging." Saturday morning I was struck by several news pieces concerning President Obama's one-day trip to Copenhagen in pursuit of the Olympics for his hometown and for his country. The first was a comment from President Obama about the fact that Chicago was not chosen. His remarks were along the line of "you can play a great game but it doesn't mean you always win." What a role model!

But the majority of coverage involved pundits from both parties talking about whether Obama should have taken time out of his schedule to travel to Copenhagen. The discussion always seems to revolve around that fact that if only he had stayed home, he could have "gotten the health care bill written ..." or "solved" Afghanistan.

"I know you would all like to see a really strong health care reform bill go through by the end of the year so that all of you can move on to the next causes that interest you," said Chuck Bell, program director of Consumers Union, at a meeting sponsored by the Westchester/Putnam Access to Health Care Coalition.

"I want to remind you--social change takes time," he said at the meeting, which was held Sept. 25, 2009, in Purchase, New York.

As a member of the audience, I was taken by Bell's words, because I have encountered a good number of people who are feeling burned out and discouraged regarding what the reform bill may actually contain by year's end.

If there are days when you step away from the news feeling discouraged about this country, I have a solution: Plan a trip to Washington, D.C. and spend a day on Capitol Hill. You will be reminded that it is our capital and our nation; you cannot help but relish the accessibility of the United States government.

Last week I participated in Lupus Advocacy Day in Washington, an event that called for people from different areas of the country to come and discuss with elected officials their hope that more money be devoted to lupus research and education.

Lupus is a chronic, complex, and disabling autoimmune disease that affects more than 1.5 million Americans, 90 percent of them women of child-bearing age. Many of them are minorities.

Lupus is so difficult to diagnose that most people suffer overt and troubling symptoms for 3-5 years before they are diagnosed. Their diagnosis finally occurs when they are in crisis--a hospitalization that need not have happened if the disease had been recognized and treated earlier.

Just as there is government money going to cancer research, there needs to be that sort of investment in difficult-to-diagnose illnesses like lupus because they are the kind of health "puzzles" that keep national health costs high.