There is a reoccurring image in Michael Moore's "Roger & Me" that haunts me: the eviction scenes. Maybe these people were connected to the GM plant closing, and maybe they were part of the larger poor society in Flint, Michigan. The kids are yelled at, told to get their clothes and quit screwing around. In the trunk of almost every car that pulled away from each eviction was a TV sitting askew on top of other less valuable items. And that's when it hits me: maybe it's not just the rich with screwed up priorities.
Of course, it is the rich who can afford to be so messed up. The poor have to have something to do with their time, and TV does give them a better world to look at than the squalor they live in. It doesn't help the situation, but at least they're not miserable all the time.
John A. Curry was the president of Northeastern University until after the 1995-96 school year. With retirement packages and bonuses, the pay for his final year of presidency was just a little under a million dollars. The next highest paid private university president made less than half that.
It was a small story in the Sunday paper. Page three, but still less than eight inches long. So what does this have to do with TV watching evictees of Flint, Michigan? Just a minute, I'm just getting started.
I'm totally in favor of paying teachers more. And this isn't just because I have a large percentage of friends and relatives who teach in various capacities. If there is anything humans should pass on generation to generation, it is knowledge. And most people don't usually try to learn on their own, so we need teachers to point and prod and push others to learn.
When I went to the University of New Mexico, there were a couple of things that irked me about the institution of higher learning. One, the student body president wasn't really a leader, rather a voice for his favorite special interests (all of which wanted piece of the student fees fund controlled by the president and council). Maybe this was just first hand experience into the way politics really run, but it pissed me off nonetheless. Our student body presidents ran on ideals and positions and promises, but all they really did was move a little pool of money around and shake hands with the money men who helped keep the university running.
The second irksome detail of college life was having to read about the president of the university. A guy who got a free house (and free parking) right on campus. He hosted parties for fund-raisers at the free house, at the SUB, and at other non-university-owned places around town. He went on "ambassador" trips around the world. He smiled at football and basketball games, proud of "his boys' achievements".
Our president (Richard Peck, retiring at the end of this year) was fond of a certain life math equation every time he wanted a tuition increase to go through (this was every year I was there, as far as I can remember). One hundred dollars is just ten less pizzas a semester. Prez Peck loved this statement. I can remember three different years when he said the exact same quote. The underlying message is that pizzas are unnecessary luxuries and education is forever. My point was always that we're still going to buy those pizzas, so we're going to have to find a hundred bucks somewhere else.
President's jobs are not about teaching knowledge. John Curry, late of Northeastern University, earned his bonuses by cutting $60 million from the university budget, letting 700 employees go and freezing employee raises three separate years. President's jobs, apparently, are about teaching how to succeed in business by screwing over everyone underneath your office. It's capitalism, and it's working for some. For a few.
It is less expensive to ask one man to do the dirty ax job, and give the guy a few bonuses to compensate for selling his minions down the river. This is exactly what Northeastern University wanted, and John Curry was, apparently, more than happy to oblige. UNM's outgoing President Peck is giving up his office with a few years to go on his contract. He wants to take a year off and then return to teaching (he's been promised a position at UNM, natch).
So what's the answer here? Do a few bad things, feel bad about it, and get paid off? Or is it, do a few bad things, quit before it's done, and receive a less morally ambiguous job? Or maybe that it's okay to do what it takes to get ahead in life as long as you give a few of those new TVs to the poor so they don't have to worry about how shitty their life is while they search for a new home to live in.
Did that sound bitchy?
Matt Worley always wanted to sit Prez Peck down to a face to face interview and ask the Prez to give his "pizza speech" with a straight face.