01/01/2010
Iron Filings – 20
In my future life as an investigative reporter I’d like to take a close look at the college and university system in this country. I’d look at inequities in the price/financing system, the unequal distribution of power within faculties, untaxed endowments worth billions, unfair practices in the admissions area, the profits netted by supposedly non-profit institutions, and the bizarre scam and scandal that is intercollegiate athletics. Then, in my next chapter, I’d …
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Every now and then a crime comes along that I just can’t seem to process, where even my most diligent powers of empathy and intuition can’t find something of a reason. My most recent one concerns the father who killed his daughter and dumped her in the furnace of his apartment building. He killed her because he didn’t like what she was looking at on the internet. He killed her while she was twelve weeks pregnant with his child.
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Guantanamo North will be located about two hours from my house. Really, I haven’t run into anyone in this part of Illinois who thinks it’s a bad idea except the Republicans. I mean, the prison is already built so it’s not as though it’ll be some “new” blight on the landscape. The area, too, could use the jobs. Not much has happened in that part of the state beyond the development of an 8,000-cow factory dairy farm, so I’m sure the residents will welcome the arrival of beings (new employees, support businesses, etc.) that do more than just moo and produce methane.
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I noticed the NFL recently suspended its study of retired professional football players and the manner in which repeated concussions might affect the early onset of dementia. The reason given was that the study lacked scientific credibility so they are to be applauded for that. On the other hand, how much science do you need to conclude that five or six years of pounding your brain into mush might affect your remembering your name or that of your kids?
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With so much Republican negativity going around these days, it wasn’t all that surprising to see the scream-out over the new recommendations for mammograms and breast self-exams. What was surprising, though, was the anti-science posture so many people took. The scientific evidence is that jumping on that bus too soon does more harm than good. Sadly, all the neggies could see was that this was a government conspiracy aimed at killing them. Not only that, but so many failed to note that it was just a recommendation, not a law. I guess it’s not surprising that I’m surprised by so many things these days. I blame it on global warming.
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I’m not without sympathy for the parents who lost a child in an accident involving a window blind cord, but now the Consumer Products Safety Commission wants to jump right into our homes and have us remove such devices. That’s millions upon millions of pieces of home accessory. Maybe it would be better (and cheaper!) simply to launch an educational campaign warning people about household risks to infants and toddlers.
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The above reminds me of an article my son sent me following a recent wet and heavy snowstorm. It was all about a surprising increase in injuries caused when people tried to unclog clogged snowblowers. They used their hands and then they mangled their hands and fingers. Clearly, a little safety education is in order here, too, but I don’t think you’d want to ban the snowblower even though they are big and risky machines. My guess is that any number of mangled digits is far outweighed by the number of heart attacks that didn’t happen because someone used a snowblower to remove snow.
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There comes a time during the Christmas season – sometimes twice but, really, no more than that – when I feel really angry. It’s an undirected anger, too. I’ve never been able to trace it to the stress of the season or an incident or any particular situation. Christmas, I should add, is “my” season. I like it. I like all of it, even the dorky songs, even though it wears me out, and even though the outflow of money is occasionally precarious. Still, I have that moment or two. Maybe it’s the flip side of joy. Or maybe it’s just a remix of the whole psychobio chemistry. Maybe it’s not worth thinking about.
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During a long trip recently, my mind out there on free range, I began thinking of what it’s like to have a big sister. Of course when I was a kid she was just one of a group of enforcers, starting with my parents, whose goal was to deny me anything I might possibly want. As the years pass, however, and that age gap narrows subjectively to nothing and the parents take their leave, it all becomes quite different. You’re archivists for one thing, possessing knowledge of a family entity that once existed but now no longer does. That seems important. You hope she’s holding up her end and keeping tabs on all the places where you lived and what your father said and what your mother looked like – all of that. Yet you also realize that most of what you hang onto is of interest only to the two of you. So you get older, but you still feel now and then like two kids entrusted with some very important things and just waiting for mom and dad to come home.
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Speaking of competition in higher education, I remember one time attending a marketing meeting conducted by a man with long and deep experience in the business world. At one point, in response to a question, he said, “In all my years in the business world I never saw the kind of cutthroat competitiveness that I see almost daily in the academic world.”
G. K. Wuori © 2010
Photoillustration by the author
