PAY ATTENTION TO THE PROBLEMS

When asked by the paper, "Was the session a success?" I thought, "How
should I know? I have not paid enough attention to know."

Then I looked at the article on prisons and thought of the taxes we need to
raise and said, "Those legislators ought to be thrown out. They don't have
the guts to make tough decisions."

Finally, I thought of the past year and realized that we have all been so
entertained and diverted by the war in Iraq that none of us, people,
legislators or journalists, have paid enough attention to our real world.
The price of our combined inattention is high. The state and local support
groups we take for granted are faltering because we have ignored them.

Ignorance is not bliss. It is a child who is not taught music or art or
even phys. ed. because we will not properly fund our schools. It is a petty
criminal who becomes a violent addict in an overcrowded prison. It is a
grandmother who dies of the cold, naked and alone because we do not have
adequate nursing homes.

It is us sitting comfortably in front of a TV applauding or despairing of a
war far away while all of these terrible things happen right down the street.

No, the session was not a success because, we, all of us, did not care
enough to make it a success. Our legislators are elected by the few who
bother to vote and those few who vote mostly want only the status quo so
they can continue to ignore their community's problems and watch war games
in a country far, far away.

Page M. Craig, Montgomery