______________________________________________

NO ACCIDENT

Tuesday morning I was delayed about 25 minutes by an accident that must have happened just moments before, because there were only four other vehicles lined up in front of me. An SUV probably took a curve too fast, going from one highway to another on a one-lane 90-degree ramp. The roads were good in spite of a light snow, but the SUV had spun around 180 (at least), and probably hit the guard rail on the way. Eventually the paramedics arrived, hauled someone away on a gurney (probably the driver), and moved the SUV off the roadway.

When I was a kid my dad told me there's no such thing as an "accident". He meant that accidents happen when someone screws up. They are preventable. I was soft-hearted and thought of everyone as innocent victims of all sorts of accidents in life, but my dad was a hard guy. It took me a long, long time to understand and appreciate his view of cause and effect.

Another time, when I asked my dad what the "Yield" sign meant, he said it meant "Stop". Not quite, but it was a safe definition for someone who hadn't learned to drive yet.

He also said some pretty wild flowers I liked were "weeds", which bothered me (tender heart, tender brain). When I told this story to a boyfriend, the boyfriend said, "What's wrong with a weed?" I was much impressed and cheered by this new idea about weeds. Again, it took me years to learn that my dad was a better man than the weedy BF.

These partial definitions reveal a worldview that says things have their place, some things are better for us than others, and if we're stupid, impatient, and careless we'll get hurt. All quite true. The universe isn't as forgiving as I used to be. But I still like certain weeds.

MONICA AND MIKE IN LOVE

Tim S., who was a student of Winston Weathers along with me, wrote:

Re: Parvum Opus 112, I can't help thinking that maybe you should cut Monica and Mike a little slack. I know these people ~ well, not those two crazy kids specifically, but in the extent to which I have gone to the weddings of more than a few Monicas and Mikes. I would have noticed straight off if they had gotten their vows cleaned up by some burger-flipping English major, and it would have diminished them for me. Yes, some of their grammar struck my ear like the occasional tortured phrase in a thirteen-year-old's violin recital, but that's just authentic Monica and Mike. I don't think they should have gotten their personal vows cleaned up any more than I think the thirteen-year-old should have substituted a cleaned-up recording for the live recital. I can't help thinking that the Winston Weathers I remember would have gently protested the correction of their vows on the grounds that it would have constituted a violation of an authentic voice. He was something of an anarchist on that point generally. On one level I believe he viewed the work of an editor as anathema. I think that he would ideally have liked to see all the rules of rhetoric, grammar, and style left solely to the discrimination of the author and that he would then have liked to see the product of her labors preserved from any subsequent violation, to be judged naked on its own merits as an artifact.

Anyway, rhetorical ideology aside, I can at least see how Monica and Mike might have arrived at some of their agreement choices. The samples you cite tend to present subjects that to their minds probably seemed collective. For example, "Who we have become, what we believe, and our ability to look towards a wonderful future together has all come from you" sounds to me like an elliptical revision of something like "Who we have become, what we believe, and our ability to look towards a wonderful future together ~ all this has come from you." And on more than one occasion I have felt the reality of the sentiment, "Throughout your lives you have given us all you could, and then, amazingly, more." Isn't that a valid expression of your experience of love? That it can chug along like a champ and then on some miraculous occasions find a second wind or tap a new and unexpected depth that just knocks you out? And what better occasion on which to throw a cautious and hard-bitten logic ~ even a rhetorical logic ~ to the wind than on the slightly ironic, increasingly odds-defying, and now politically charged occasion of a wedding. Re: which ~ a belated congratulations on your tying of the knot. Peace and love, TAS

Tim, I couldn't have said it better, and I didn't. I can't argue, and I won't. Peace out.

ONE TITSY MIT ALUMNA

Michelle R. wrote about the Harvard hoo-hah (MIT prof Nancy Hopkins ran out of the room when Harvard president Larry Summers mentioned research on male-female brain differences):

I had to say I completely agree with your take on the response to the Summers comments. As an MIT alum, I have seen several commentaries by various MIT related (esp. women's) groups and none hit the mark for me as you did.

Thanks, Michelle.

On Monday there was an Associated Press article by Matt Crenson on Summer's remarks about male and female brains, which, it seems, are actually physically different ~ different amounts of grey and white matter. Of course education and job opportunities should be based on performance. (And I might add along the same line of reasoning, jobs that aren't physically dangerous do not call for drug screening. Performance is what counts.) Nancy Hopkins was in no danger of losing her job. It wasn't long ago, of course, that real or presumed physical and intellectual differences were used as excuses to exclude women, blacks, etc. from a lot of jobs. That isn't so now, and people ~ particularly female scientific MIT people ~ ought to get a grip.

The March 2005 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (you can read it online if you subscribe online) has an article about Harvard and grade inflation, which makes several of the same points I did. It's not that I'm especially insightful or prescient, just stating the obvious. In "The Trouble with Harvard" Ross Douthat does so more thoroughly. He quotes one Harvard professor who opposes this trend, Harvey Mansfield: "Grade inflation got started. . .when professors raised the grades of student protesting the war in Vietnam." In those days, I was reluctant to fail any of the males in my classes, not because they protested the war, but because if they flunked out, they could be drafted. During those years I only failed two students, one barely literate boy, and one Vietnam vet who had a serious spelling and writing disability.

Why should we care about any of this? What happens at Harvard probably influences other schools.

______________________________________________

I have a contribution in a new anthology about the "center of life", Changing Course: Women's Inspiring Stories of Menopause, Midlife, and Moving Forward, edited by Yitta Halberstam.

Copyright Rhonda Keith 2005. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.

Parvum Opus is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Back issues may be found at http://www.keithops.us/. You may comment in the Guestbook, linked below the back issue links. Also, feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries.

If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please reply with "unsubscribe," "quit," "enough," or something like that in the subject line, and I'll take you off the mailing list.

Go to Babelfish to translate this page to Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish!