If you are like me, you’ve been joking a lot about the end of the world. Whenever I schedule something for the end of the month, I have to add the caveat, “I’ll see you if the world doesn’t end.”
If I’m considering a big purchase on a credit card, I say, “Oh well, the world’s going to end so I won’t have to make the payments.”
Our News-Herald designer Laurie jokes that we shouldn’t have to do a paper next week as the world is going to end anyway. I agree that it would be really irritating to put all that work into a paper that no one gets to read, but I’m betting that the Mayans were wrong and the world will continue to spin after December 21.
Of course if we survive the Mayan expiration date, there is the threat of the “fiscal cliff.” We may not all perish in a nuclear cloud or be sucked into space, but if all the dire monetary predictions about the fiscal cliff occur, we’ll all be impoverished. I wish I had been better at gardening and had some food supplies stocked for the coming financial Armageddon.
As you may have guessed, I’m truly not concerned about the end of the world or falling off the fiscal cliff. Those are things to joke about. But it’s nothing to laugh about that our community is once again facing an onslaught of negative publicity.
I’m not defending the actions of County Attorney Tim Scannell, which brought this latest round of attention to our town. It is obvious by his own statements that he has made some really poor choices. He has to live with that and decide whether or not he will try to continue in public service or not.
But the rest of us have to once again endure the scrutiny of regional media outlets and Internet bloggers, asking “What’s wrong with Grand Marais?” and “Why are older men getting involved with younger women?” and “Why does the community let this happen?”
It is especially irritating to have these question asked by residents and reporters from the Metro area, where every day the newspapers and television news is filled with armed robberies, drug arrests, rapes, and murders. Crime and bad behavior is so common in urban areas that there isn’t enough time or space to ask “What’s wrong with the Metro area?” There is no time to analyze all the troubling situations and the reasons they happened.
I’m not saying what has happened in Grand Marais— this week or in the past—is right just because it doesn’t happen very often or because it happens less often than in the Cities. I know we don’t live in Utopia. No community is perfect.
And if one young woman is harassed or harmed in any way, that is one incident too many. If one family is suffering, we all need to work together to help them.
But our community is doing that, through programs at our schools, at Cook County Public Health and at the Violence Prevention Center. The Violence Prevention Center is a shining example of what our community has done to try to ensure that everyone lives free of sexual and domestic violence. For 25 years, VPC has been helping men, women and children affected by violence.
There are many, many, people in this community who have done a lot to end the cycle of older men chasing younger women. There are many people who have said, “Enough!”
I’m not saying we can’t do better. We can always do better.
The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.
Clarence Darrow
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