If President Obama does nothing else in his term of office

his signing of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Act will have secured for him what his two predecessors are now belatedly pursuing, a positive lasting legacy. We have a niece that we all love who was injured very badly as a teenager. Swimming offshore of Perth, Australia her head struck a submerged sand bar and she broke her neck and sank. Another girl sensed that she was missing and found her and pulled her out in the nick of time to prevent her drowning. The good people, doctors, nurses etc. of Perth saved her again, but she was told she would never walk again. Friends and relatives including my wife and daughter hurried to the other side of the world to give what support they could. She had a courageous mom and dad and brother who put their own needs and hurts aside. Still, in Perth, there wasn’t much hope for improvement, and when she could finally be moved the family returned to the US for rehab which was unknown territory. She was lucky to be accepted as a patient at the Kennedy Krieger pediatric paralysis unit in Maryland benefiting from techniques used to treat Christopher Reeve. The staff and doctors worked wonders, and she improved slowly. She was interviewed several times, and once, when asked by MSNBC if she looked forward to walking again, she replied “I want to dance.” Last summer at my daughter’s wedding she did dance, not the Paso Doble but at least as good as some of the advanced baby boomers. All this time she missed school, home schooled, self schooled, and finally attended high school with frustrating interruptions. Last month she was accepted as a freshman at UC Santa Barbara and a week ago she got the good news from UC Berkeley. It doesn’t get much better than that. I met Christopher Reeve once in an elevator, and we had 22 floors of chit chat, really a friendly guy. My wife and I are what, I guess you might call, secular humanists. We believe human problems are only going to be solved by human beings. Once in a while that includes politicians.