The rules are no game

"By recognizing that rules can be broken, we recognize that rule-governed systems are open to innovation"
- Anthony Wilden

Though displaying the elements of ceremony one would expect, the inaugural meeting of the Destination Medical Center Corporation governing board was mostly theatre. That it was theatrical is as it should have been and will most likely always be for that is the nature of such meetings. Set pieces prescribed by tradition and  - as these proceedings soon will be -  Brigadier General Henry Martyn Robert. Among the pieces performed by the newly minted board was the election of its chair with roles properly cast and the right words spoken down to each and every "aye". Little will be ex tempore with this bunch.

 

Not that there was not a modicum of drama - subtextual mainly - arising even before the chair's election in calls for retaining the services of legal counsel for purposes of reviewing what most might regard as the dry and tedious language of the articles of incorporation and the by-laws. These documents are of great interest to the governing board (and others) for they represent the rules under which the governing board will operate. The rules are no game. This call to retain legal counsel was the onset of what will be the struggle to answer a question not yet resolved: "Who will make the rules?"

 

What will come next is the making of a great many rules all of which will say either "You can" or "You can't". 

 

Remember what Stacy Mitchell said: "...there is nothing inevitable about the current structure of our economy, it's the not the product of some kind of evolution. It is the logical outcome of a certain set of policies."