*Does* The System Work?

Can you feel it? It’s just about time for everyone to get back into politics. In honor thereof, two quick (non-partisan) political tales.

There was a legislative hearing a few weeks ago on the topic of a chronic disease that is the focus of one of the organizations I help manage. It was a really terrific event with testimony from doctors, epidemiologists, activists and, most notably, parents. One parent told of carrying her blue-lipped son from the ER (where they had been informed, though he was a generally healthy seven-year-old too tired to walk under his own power, that his case was not technically an emergency and would therefore need pre-approval from a primary care doctor to get treatment) to the doctors office and finally back to the ER, where he was admitted and spent an entire week in the ICU.

Wow, what a great way for the state senators to get some perspective on their constituents, right? Unfortunately though, of the four we were expecting, two didn't show. One called to say "something had come up" and the other didn't even bother to come up with a lie.

The city's support of the Bears in the week leading up to the Super Bowl (yes. they lost. turns out that if you bring a mediocre quarterback to a super bowl, he plays...mediocre...ly.) was remarkable. Nearly every building on the skyline had some sort of marker: orange spires on the Sears Tower, a bear in lights in the west loop, an 20 foot orange and blue rim around the top of the Merchandise Mart...awesome. I got a little perspective, though, when someone asked me what I thought would change if the same kind of recognition, spirit, and significance surrounded election day.

Unlike some people, I didn't think the Bears hype was necessarily misplaced - that kind of unity is valuable regardless of the source. But I have to admit that our priorities may be a little skewed. If we don't care, if we don't put our energy into things that matter, how can we expect our elected officials to do the same?