Tape on the Fishtank

Posted by J.R.

June 24, 2009

My brother is a mischevious guy. When he was very young he once decided that throwing marbles around the living room would be fun. At the time we had a tropical fish tank. You see where this is going? When I discovered him attempting to use Scotch tape to prevent the water from leaking through the spiderwebbing crack in the middle of the glass surface; I told him that it wouldn’t work. His response? “But it has to!”

Mind you, he was very young then and I think now he’s a bit better at taking responsibility for his actions.

Yesterday I was listening to NPR on the way back from work, and heard a comment on graduation rates at community colleges. Since enrollment is up because people can’t find jobs, the fact that graduation rates are abysmal is seen as an on-the-radar problem that should be tackled by the kinds of experts who speak on prestigious talk radio. I found this somewhat depressing. No amount of research you do can quantify this for you, but as Editor in Chief emeritus of the student newspaper of one of the best, largest community colleges in the country: I’d like to set the record straight.

Graduation rates at community colleges are poor because a disproportionately high number of people who attend community college either: should be out of school and in the workforce because they are too inept to successfully proceed with their education, or have a crisis of self-esteem that is preventing them from attaining their maximum potential in school. Many students are faced with a mix of both problems. The former problem can be tackled by making admission to degree dispensing programs at community colleges require a demonstration of merit based on a probationary period of consistent performance. The latter is a problem of the human spirit, and no bureaucratically ordained action has yet and likely will ever make any difference there. But if they want to, these disembodied voices can feel free to put tape on the fishtank.

If a racehorse develops bad knees but a lot of people already bet big money on him, how can we make sure these people get their money back? The best answer I’ve got that cuts losses is to shoot the horse before the race. Apparently the owner (whose head is in the sand) thinks that surgery is the answer. We all know that the horse won’t ever run the same, and therefore he’ll never be a contender again. The best thing for wise gamblers to do is move their money to a healthier candidate: preferably a younger one that shows promise. The federal government, by bailing out GM, is putting tape on the fishtank… but some of that is my tape, and it has my last name on it, and I don’t want people to think that my kids want to claim ownership of said fishtank. I really wish they’d have put that to a national vote.

If humanity learns one thing from mortality it should be that death is inevitable. When death comes knocking, we should all have the dignity to answer the door with a smile.

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