A LONELY VOICE OUT HERE

It's true. In Chicago there are only two seasons -- winter & construction!

I was trapped in another of those jack-hammer projects backing up the street for blocks. Bare-bellied city crews, barking foremen, thumping machines all keeping us from our appointed rounds. Maddening. And yet, maybe metaphoric.

Aren't most of our country's problems something like this? We have a goal, we have a route, and we have an inkling of what it all means for us. Then, quite abruptly and not at all according to our schedule, something goes wrong along the way. Unexpected and very unwelcomed. Including examples like our banking system...our auto industry ...our investment houses...our school grades and trade balances and whole damn health system.

Here I was, metaphorically speaking, today's bright and hopeful America on-the-road, but suddenly going no- where. Something is wrong up ahead. I can't see it. I can't understand it. And I certainly can't do anything about it.

This is where, in my metaphor, my government steps into the scene. I need them here, in the form of these city-paid crews and city-paid machines and city-funded budgets. None of us is complaining about the city at this point, because at this point only the city has the capacity to wrestle such problems into submission.

Later in my metaphor, I'm happily driving past the repaired site. Wondering how many of my fellow drivers will be watching the news tonight, and cursing the city government. Actually, any government agency they can think of to curse, because they're hearing about something or someone there to curse.

The news is grimly reporting everything that went wrong today. In the White House, in the Congress, in the Gulf of Mexico, along the borders of Arizona, and in City Hall. But it's not likely to report what went right there along Cicero Avenue this morning where some imperfect city works imperfectly helped repair an imperfect sewer line imperfectly paid for with our perfectly unfair taxes...!