“The stupid. It burns,” writes Atrios, one of my favorite bloggers. And there’s plenty of that around. (Not increase the debt ceiling? Really?) But I’m not talking just about stupid here. I’m talking about heartlessness, about deliberate cruelty. Like this: Unemployed? You deserve it. Uninsured? There’s the emergency room. Uneducated? For the job you’re going to get, you won’t need Ancient History.

 

I don’t know where this toxic combination of heartlessness and shamelessness came from. The proponents of this tough love/personal responsibility mantra are generally the same people who claim ours is a Christian nation, but….

 

Sorry. None of this is new. Many of you have the same reaction to the daily outrage they call the news. It’s just that, sometimes, my disgust redlines. I feel sad. Impotent. And, incredibly, I start thinking seriously about teaching at a university in Europe.

 

Caring about the little people — you don’t find much of it in the culture. But I chanced upon a song — “Buy This Town” — that does just that. It’s by Lori McKenna, who is married to her high school sweetheart and has five kids and lives near Boston. I’ve written about her before, in case you’re interested in her story. Or you can accept a recent review of her guitar-and-piano driven music — “the Raymond Carver and the Bruce Springsteen of home life” — and assume that what follows is emotional and manipulative.

 

Weeks like this, I find it reassuring that someone who feels this way is out there. And I’m glad to be touched in the mushy part of me, if only as a reminder I still have that part. So I’m just going to shut up and say, here, consider this. [To buy the CD from Amazon, click here. To buy the MP3 download, click here. To download just “Buy This Town,” click here.] 

 

If I could buy this town
I’d keep it small and rough
Full of third shift dreamers
And high school love

 

I’d keep the Church of Christ
And the bowling alley open
Where the Bud Light signs
Crackle while they’re glowing
If I could buy this town

 

If I could buy one night
I wouldn’t buy the one you’d think
I’d buy the one when my eyes teared up
By the light above the kitchen sink

 

And you held me tight
And you begged me not to cry
If I could buy the sweetness of one kiss
Well that’s the one I’d buy
If I could buy one night

 

All the money in the world
Couldn’t buy a drop of real love could it?
And it really shouldn’t, should it?
If I could buy the stars
I’d polish them so bright

 

If I could buy your pain
First I’d buy the great big sea
And I’d put that pain inside a box
And bury it so deep

 

If I could I’d buy you back
The years you worked yourself to death
I would buy and waste your suffering
Until there wasn’t any left
If I could buy your pain

 

All the money in the world
Couldn’t buy a drop of real love could it?
And it really shouldn’t, now should it
‘Cause I’d gladly give you every piece of my whole heart

 

If I could buy this town
I’d keep the Friday night bleachers
Full of kids falling in love
And unlikely believers

 

And the firefighters are there
‘Cause their kid’s in the game
And we don’t win too often
But that ain’t why we came
If I could buy this town