If you travel through enough airports at some time you will see famous people and experience a catch in your throat when you turn a corner and realize you’ve come face to face with Neil Diamond, Ric Flair, Tom Brokaw or a big heavy set bald man waiting in line for his baggage who you think use to be a national weatherman for a network morning show—and what do you say? You desperately rummage through your bag of knowledge for a hammer and nails and attempt to build some sort of compliment--- which is hard to do when you’re blinded by the light.
As a birthday present my youngest sister arranged for me to have a private meeting with Garrison Keillor, author of books and a radio show called “A Prairie Home Companion”. He was performing at East Carolina University and I was taken backstage after the show, introduced and left to stand in the presence of a celebrity. I tried not to babble.
Garrison ( he insisted ) and I talked about his work with Meryl Streep, how I got the nick name ‘Joe’ ( he laughed ) and then discussed ( no kidding) the tip of a Bic ball point pen. Later his assistant led me away and my feet never touched the ground. I felt I had just received 10 commandments. Joe Moses.
The American people are simply awed by celebrities--- which works nicely if you’re Kyle Busch a NASCAR celebrity who makes his living going in circles. You can blow through a residential area at three times the posted speed limit and instead of being thrown to the ground, handcuffed and led away, you’re simply asked to go home and do some community lectures, please. Tell kids about the danger of driving at high rates of speed even though you yourself make millions of dollars doing it.
You and I would might have gotten matching handcuffs.
Such is the practice of law and government now---some are allowed to stand in the sun and breath fresh air while the rest of us galley slaves chained below deck continue to row the boat by the rules. Double standards exist because as a colleague told me, “That’s just the way it is now.”
And that in a nutshell is why we ultimately have corruption. We accept it. What the heck?
If you work in public administration long enough you will meet some wonderful people. You’ll also occasionally smell putrid whiffs of narcissism and feel the bully whip of discrimination flay the skin off your back as you try to row faster. It happens—but what the heck, as long as it’s not you, right?
Oddly instead of outrage this all brings on a deep sense of sadness.
When authority has double standards and plays favorites, whether to leniency or to discriminate, there is a slow tearing of the fabric of society. We’re all connected and our actions affect each other. Government that rules by preference and whims rather than by law and professional process infects the community with apathy and complacency.
Somewhere a history teacher prefers to skip the American Revolutionary war and says, “What the heck?” A minister somewhere prefers to stop preaching about the sanctity of marriage and says, “What the heck?” You excuse someone due to their political connections and a surgeon somewhere says “This guy’s a nobody and his heart is 69 years old, why fix it? I’ll just sew him back up-- what the heck?”
And maybe one day a NASCAR driver decides to take a 128 m.p.h. ride—through your child’s neighborhood. Oh, what the heck.
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