The dangers of disconnectedness on display

■"Eradicated, but polio returns to the U.S.: 5 Amish children rattle health world," by Gardiner Harris, International Herald Tribune, 9 November 2005, p. 2.

Polio was eradicated in America because connectivity requires code: all these people living together in an interdependent world got innoculated.

How does it come back? The disconnected living among us: the Amish. We allow this disconnectedness because we respect religion.

But, as always, disconnectedness comes with danger.

Health officials say it's only a matter of time before somebody's crippled.

But the danger doesn't stop there. There's something wrong with the immune system of the 8-year-old girl at the center of the outbreak. Even with a vaccination she couldn't resist the disease. In a better, more connected life, she's not exposed to this danger.

Now, she's got the potential of being a Typhoid Mary of sorts.

This ain't about faith. It's about locating your responsibility to the world around you.

The microcosm that reveals Ö