Children, Sports and Politics

The weekend just past was hot, at least as for us in this area. The temperature was in the low 90s till Sunday night rainfall moderated it.

On the weekend, some of our grandkids were involved in post-school year athletic activities.  (See photos).

Over at the high school, first-grade Ben competed in several events, including successfully passing the baton in the second leg of the 4×100 race. That afternoon, in another suburb, 10 year old Parker was part of a team that played five baseball games in a tournament on Saturday and Sunday, and won third. We saw the third game. He’s a good competitor, Parker is. His team is a good one: they work well together; there’s a sense of co-ownership which you can “feel” as a spectator. They’re a team.

Sunday we missed another grandsons baseball game because of a competing event: another grandsons 12th birthday party. Ted’s cake was decorated with the symbol Pi (of 3.1416… fame). His gig is numbers and math. His ten-year old sister, Kelly, showed off some pottery she was making in some summer class.

And on it went. It was a good, busy, weekend.

I contrast what we witnessed this weekend to the lose-lose talk of politics.

The Republicans are proclaimed to be riding high because of Walker’s win in Wisconsin; and there was a verbal gaffe – a single sentence – of President Obama which was expertly snipped out and exploited by his enemies this weekend.

Unfortunately, contemporary Politics is Civil War, and I think the piece I wrote a few days ago in my own blog is worth reading and sitting with as you ponder the next few months of bloody battles.

Politics is a team activity, and we're all on the same team. We are a country, a state, a legislative district, a local community. We cannot be a bunch of individuals who choose to watch the game, or not, and then decide at the last minute whether or not we should even show up to mark a single ballot for some candidates on November 6.  To survive we can't be a single ideology who thinks they can take control.  We're a team.

This weekend there were two particularly impressive competitors I saw (photos).

A little girl, doubtless somebodies sister, wasn’t content to just sit on the sidelines, but felt a need to participate in some way in the game she was watching, and her way was to help announce the score to the rest of us.

But it is the boy in the last picture that wins my prize: he was dead last in his 440 heat, WAY dead last. But he had absolutely no intention of dropping out, of quitting.

I saw him afterwards, and he was still tired. But he wasn’t a defeated tired, and that’s a critical distinction.

He’d run the race, he’d finished, and of all the competitors I saw this weekend, he’s the one who won top prize in my book. He’s the winner.

There is a huge amount at stake in the 2012 election.

Those little kids in the above pictures, and their cohort, everywhere on the planet, are the ones who will benefit, or be damaged, by our collective wisdom or stupidity; our vision, whether dominated by what's good for me, now, or for all of us, later.

At the very least, get on the court, and stay there till the finish line.

And be very well-informed.  Politics is not a spectator sport.