Thursday, September 17,1998 OPNINION/EDITORIAL
Editorial
Home runs and the front page
There is no denying the importance of the latest events covering the
front pages of our nation's newspapers. After all, shouldn't the latest news
on "White House in Crisis" be made public to all? Who would think oth-
erwise?
But like many, we're ecstatic Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa have
successfully pushed the "Bill loves Monica" soap-opera-sex-saga to the
inside pages of the papers for more than one day.
For the past who knows how long, all there was to see on the cover of
the paper was the latest news update on the events inside the oral - sorry
- oval office. Granted, certain events came along which jumped ahead of
the Clinton scandal, but the next day it was right back to "so how many
trips did Monica make to the White House for a little puff on the presi
dential cigar?"
Yet McGwire and Sosa have stood their ground and fought for their
well-deserved coverage. Big Mac took the first honors with his 62nd home
run, and well he should have. For a glorious three day respite, the St.
Louis Cardinals' slugger led the news.
Then the Independent Council’s office, under the divine leadership of
Kenneth Starr, decided to spoil the parade by submitting the 36-box docu
ment describing in detail the leader of the free world's own version of
sex, lies and mystery stains. All of which can be found on the web at
caught@mypantsdown.com for those who have no life whatsoever - or at
least little enough to read pornography laced with legalese.
But baseball's biggest hitters would not be denied. Sunday afternoon
set the stage for Monday's papers after Chicago Cubs' home run king hit
two blasts out of Wrigley Field to become the second man to hit 62 home
runs in a single season.
Stop for a second and think about what has taken place here. Men
playing a game has become more important than a woman playing with
"El Presidente."
Funny thing happened on the way to Gallup, Inc., though. Clinton has
managed to remain popular. He's our leader; things are going well; we’ll
back him as long as we can. But McGwire and Sosa are the real heroes.
Not because they're overhyped athletes, but because they're good people.
McGwire kissed his son, Matt, after his 62nd. Later he said, "He didn't
say anything. He didn't have to, I could see it in his eyes."
Sosa is simply happy to be where he's at. The guy used to take a milk
carton, slice it in half and use it as a glove. He hasn't forgotten that. "God
bless America. I love this country," he's said more times than Monica
visited Bill.
Where else in the world can athletes who hit leather-covered balls over
a fence with a wooden stick make more waves in the "important news"
pool than a president who could soon be impeached for leaving his mark,
so to speak, on a service-oriented intern? Thankfully enough, simple, basic
and decent human beings can still push the filth off the front page in this
country.
Amen, Sammy.
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Time slips filled out with crayons
by Crispin Sartwell
My daughter Emma is ten. She
works full time.
The school year is longer this time
around, and the school day too: 8:15
to 4:00. Last year she had recess
once a day; now it’s a half hour on
Thursdays. She’s at work more than
I am.
Don’t get me wrong: her school
is excellent. But we have entered
the era of educational overkill.
There might be some excuse for this
if quantity translated into quality, if
our kids were likely to be signifi
cantly better-educated if they were
barraged by more information or
strapped for longer periods to their
seats and told to be quiet.
But first of all, I doubt there is
such a correlation. Emma can only
sit still for so long and can absorb
only so much American History,
especially considering the eye-glaz
ing mediocrity of the textbook,
“America Will Be.”
These days, more and more kids,
especially boys, are diagnosed with
attention deficit or hyperactivity
“disorders.” They can’t sit still long
eocfdgh to absorb their dose of
Ritalin. But here’s a theory: Maybe
the problem isn’t the boy but the
institution. Maybe the problem isn’t
that they won’t sit still but that they
are being made to sit still for un
naturally long periods.
Some school systems have elimi
nated summer vacation, or are talk
ing about it. Several have dumped
recess entirely.
These developments suggest we
have fundamentally misappre
hended what childhood is. Child
hood does not exist in order to pro-
lIIIIIIM Capita! Times.
Daniel A. Zehr Matthew J. Bowman
Brad Moist Christine Downs Kim Glass
Assistant Editor Business Manager Photographer
Lauren Capitani FRED Crispin Sartwell
Layout Cartoonist Advisor
Dianne Finnefrock Jesse Gutierrez Ken Lopez
Hiran J, Ratnayake Kristy Pipher Barb Roy
Staff / Writers / Contributors
duce useful adults. Childhood is not
a barrier, something to be overcome
in the quest to manufacture more
and better lawyers or computer
technicians. No less than adulthood
or old age, childhood is a phase of
life that exists for its own sake. In
fact, if I had to choose, I would say
adults exist for the sake of making
children rather than the other way
round.
Childhood is under attack from
well-meaning fiends who think that
every square foot of wall space and
every second of television time
should be plastered with improving
messages or important lessons. Tell
old Pharaoh: Let my babies go.
Children learn by playing. They
learn by cuddling. They learn, for
God’s sake, even by vegging out in
front of the tube. Let them relax a
little. And if they’re not learning all
the time, that’s alright too. A child
who has foigotten how to relax is a
miserable creature, even if she ends
up being productive in the global
economy of the twenty-first cen
tury. Emma loves to learn and is
doing fine academically. But her
day features almost eight hours of
school and an hour of homework.
She thinks it’s too much, and I agree
with her.
Childhood has become relent-
The Capital Times
lessly goal-oriented. Everything is
leading up to the SATs or some
thing. But a life lived only for a goal
is miserable and meaningless. What
gets you to the goal that is, your
life is just in the way. You’d like
to get it over with.
If you achieve your goal you’re
satisfied for a moment. Then what?
Find another goal, I suppose, and
hop back on the hamster-wheel of
life. And if you live only for goals
and don’t achieve them, your life is
a failure. We inundate our children
with the obviously false cliche that
they can accomplish whatever they
try to accomplish. But as we all
know, failure is always a possibil
ity, even for good people who tiy.
A truly worthwhile life is a life
devoted to the process, a life im
mersed in the moment, though also
moving in a certain direction. A life
like that is worthwhile whatever the
future brings. If you are so absorbed
in a projected future that you never
fully experience the present mo
ment, you are lost.
So ease up. Let the children play.
Heck, let the grown-ups play too:
we’re all working too hard. Here is
my platform for radical education
reform: Remove a month from the
school year. Have two recesses ev
ery day. Start school at 10 so the
kids can sleep in. Destroy all stan
dardized testing.
For once, don’t think about what
your children will be doing in ten
years. Think about what they’re
doing today.
Crispin Sartwell teaches
communications for Penn State
Harrisburg's humanities
department