About a generation ago we passed laws to conserve the wild places that endangered fish, wildlife and plants need to survive.

Some promising things have come of those efforts:

…Wolves reintroduced into Yellowstone

…Chinook Salmon protected by redesign of Columbia River dams

…Eagles and Peregrine Falcons repopulating West after DDT banned

…Northern Spotted Owl wins protection

…Grizzly removed from endangered list

…Red Wolf and Florida Grasshopper Sparrow being breed in captivity (fingers crossed)

The human population was one billion in 1800, today we are nearly eight billion. The more we consume and discard, the less there is for our fellow species. In Darwin’s words, survival of the fittest.

Scientists calculate we’ve now altered more than half of the earth’s land surface. They’re starting to refer to this present in geological history as the “Anthropocene” epoch (from the Greek meaning humans).

They want us to understand that if we continue doing the things that drive animals into extinction, we’ll eventually cross an invisible line and we’ll become one more in a long line of endangered species.

If you sit at the table where You Thai shared meals with his family you’ll feel the presence…of the man whose name is on a marker near where Lake Washington feeds into Puget Sound.

He was You Thai to some; Dad, Gun-gun, Yeh-yeh, Bah-bah and Dr. Tchao to others.

People remember important events as happening before or after the loss of loved ones. You Thai and his family shared more of such memories than most. His grandchildren knew and loved him well.

Birth sets us on a path we can roughly predict. The rites of passage are defined in the greeting-card section of every supermarket.

But the afterlife is trickier.

Religions tell us that ‘to dust we shall return.’ There are particular faiths that treat souls who have crossed over with a reverence bordering on worship.

We shouldn’t assume that being granted a follow-up life is a gift. Hindus and Buddhists see reincarnation as a sentence to doing more hard time here on earth.

Pharaohs built monuments believing they would be immortal as long as they were remembered. Now our ancestors are recorded on our phones, showing the faces and mannerisms they passed on to us.

It is not unusual to talk to the dear departed as if they were still with us. It‘s also not unusual, in quiet moments when we least expect it, to hear them answer us.

We didn’t get to be a great nation by being gullible. But when it comes to healthcare, gullible we are.

We spend twice as much as the Japanese, Canadians, British and French. Two dollars spent on healthcare, one dollar wasted.

And the quality of our care? Forbes business magazine reports the U.S. is not ranked within the top ten for medical outcomes.

Hugely profitable medical, pharmaceutical and insurance interests push the argument that Americans should do battle with medical realities with little or no help from our government. That approach can leave families— even those with good coverage through employers — one tumor, one car crash, one tumble-down-the-stairs away from bankruptcy. (Medicare protection can’t come too soon.)

Politicians financed by the medical industry use the word “socialism” to scare us off of a plan to protect all Americans. They talk of free markets, competition and consumer choice, but our current system delivers on none of those promises.

Try unraveling your insurance riders or tracking the charges from an out-of-network emergency-room doctor, you’ll find yourself at the mercy of higher than average call volumes.

This is an election year. Let the candidates know you have an opinion on healthcare.