Progressive not in a good way

Created
Mon, 20/11/2023 - 01:02
Updated
Mon, 20/11/2023 - 01:02
“Parkinson’s disease sucks” It’s heartening to see people who still believe in public service as a vocation. A neighbor spent his career in international development. My state representative served first in the Peace Corps. I recently met a couple who retired here after careers as Foreign Service officers. Donald Trump calls Washington, D.C. a swamp and people eat it up in part because guys like George Santos and Bob Menendez give public service a bad name. (Even though there’s some “both sides” to that, political corruption and faithlessness does seem to have a right-wing bias.) Yet some people still believe. They’re not the ones who become notorious in the press. CBS this morning profiles Virginia congresswoman Jennifer Wexton (D). Wexton comes from a family of public servants. She’s afflicted with a rare disease, yet forgoes some speech and physical therapy to keep serving her consituents: Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy, as Wexton said, has no cure. At this time, there is no treatment that will slow its progression, and it tends not to respond to medication, according to the National Institutes of Health. It often worsens rapidly, and most patients “develop severe disability within three to five years of symptom onset.” It affects movement — loss of balance is a common symptom — and causes slurred speech. Vision problems often develop as the disease progresses, too.  Wexton described exhaustion, missed therapy appointments and lost sleep as the effects of the recent relentless House schedule. The narrowest of margins between the parties meant she…