What's Happening?

In Dekalb County, GA, eight elected school board members cannot get along with one another, so the governor suspended six and replaced them with people he hopes can get along.  Six weeks after the six members were suspended, they were still being paid.   What's happening?

In Phoenix, AZ, swimming pools frequented by blacks, Latino or Asian kids have predominantly white lifeguards, so the city aquatics department went looking for minority lifeguards. When they couldn't find many that could pass the minimum standards, rather than leave white kids in place, they lowered the standards, which required only that applicants be able to swim 300 yards non-stop, to tread water ten minutes, and to bring a 20 lb weight up from the bottom of a pool.  What's happening?

In major league baseball, they throw the ball away if it touches the ground.  As many as 200 baseballs at $17.00 each are thrown away every game.  Even the nose-bleed seats in right field cost $20.00 or more.  What's happening?

In Massachusetts, the principal canceled an honors night celebration because “The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients’ families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade point average.”  What's happening? 

In Atlanta, 35 educators have been arrested and charged with various crimes associated with a cheating scandal in which test papers were changed, ostensibly so that the schools would look good under No Child Left Behind criteria.  The Superintendent of Schools took home $580,000 in bonuses because the kids' test scores improved so much during her tenure.  What's happening?

A sad fact of life in Chicago is the horrendous murder rate, yet the city has one of the strictest gun control laws in the country.  What's happening?

In professional basketball, they seem to have changed the rules since I played in high school.  We were only allowed one step without dribbling or passing the ball.  If we took a second step, we'd be called for traveling.  What's happening?

Since 1963, television programming has gone from three networks to hundreds of networks, yet Newton Minow's description of TV as a vast wasteland has never been truer.  Situation comedies abound, yet the viewers must be told when something is funny by an inserted a laugh track.  Dramatic TV relies on terrible dialog, impossible situations, and pretty people who can't act.  Competition in sports and quiz shows is a good thing, but now we have competition in cooking, dancing, showing off, jumping through huge inflated plastic shapes and a whole bunch of pawn shops, junk yards and foreclosed storage units.  The Atlanta Journal Constitution recently quoted a Nielson Company report saying that there were now 5 million households with no cable, satellite, or antenna for television.  What's happening?

One of the teachers in the aforementioned cheating scandal said she felt as if she was being treated like a common criminal.  What's happening?

News from our prisons seems to show that even from behind bars, criminals are able to issue orders and instructions.  From the killings in Colorado and Texas and perhaps others, to Warren Jeffs' ability to direct his followers, prison seems to have no effect on the ability to run things on the outside.  What's happening?

I do hope you understand that my question, "What's happening?" is a rhetorical one.  I also hope my brief essay has pointed out some problems we face in ordinary life, from the more mundane, like the effect of the cost of baseballs on the price of game tickets, to those that are really serious, as in teachers who cheat, prisoners who find ways around rules, and the killing of our citizens.

There is one thing more.  I'll bet that less than a handful of MLB players have ever seen a baseball without its alum-tanned cowhide covering.  We used to play with the same baseball all summer, and by August, the covering had disappeared and someone had wound friction tape around the ball.  Our bats had black marks where we hit that tape-wrapped ball.  Something else, if I really think about it, I can remember the smell of a baseball that had lost its cowhide and was waiting to be wrapped with tape before the next pickup game.

Thanks for reading.