Sunday, June 12, 2005
Missing children
If a ghastly outcome were the inevitable result of bad judgment and stupid behavior, no one would make it to adulthood. It's hard not to feel uneasy about a senior class trip to a Caribbean Island simply because 18-year-olds are allowed to drink alcohol publicly there, or to say "tsk-tsk" upon hearing that Natalee Holloway went to party hardy on a beach with local boys . . . or whatever happened . . . but even granting that irresponsibility can have unpleasant consequences, it's ridiculous to have to worry about being maimed or killed because of it. Preserve us from repression and restraint in order to prevent what shouldn't happen.
There's buzz in the blogsphere and conversation everywhere about Natalee, the missing girl in Aruba. It's talk about whether coverage would be so thorough (a/k/a excessive) if she were black or non-white. Talk about whether a missing young man would garner so much attention. Talk about whether a very poor girl would get such coverage. Talk about whether an ugly and not blond girl would get so much screen time. All of which are valid questions but I think mostly it depends on what else is going on as far as ubiquitousnewscoverage. (And you thought only German could concoct long words by combining shorter ones.)
I suspect that what happened was an accident - maybe while fooling around with the son-of-the-almost-judge in the lighthouse on the beach - and the pampered hapless youths thought they could blow the whole thing off by pointing to two Arubans who kept trying to nose in on their fun. It almost worked except that the Arubans' relatives went ballistic, so much so that it apparently re-drew attention to the original three. (By the way, Natalee's father's nickname ("Jug") is something else, don't you think? Even if it doesn't mean that he guzzles whiskey in huge quantities, or even if it does, I can't help wondering why they didn't just not use it during all this. I guess geographical cliches weren't their primary consideration, but an adviser or someone else should have beeing paying better attention.)
Everything else aside, I'm sure we all feel great sympathy for the family. And for her, of course. There's no way to imagine what it must feel like to have a child go off on a trip and never come home. The guilt, the awful sense of "if only I'd forbidden the trip", the zillions of other what-ifs. Bad things would almost be okay if there were only one or two a year but not the way it is now.
There's buzz in the blogsphere and conversation everywhere about Natalee, the missing girl in Aruba. It's talk about whether coverage would be so thorough (a/k/a excessive) if she were black or non-white. Talk about whether a missing young man would garner so much attention. Talk about whether a very poor girl would get such coverage. Talk about whether an ugly and not blond girl would get so much screen time. All of which are valid questions but I think mostly it depends on what else is going on as far as ubiquitousnewscoverage. (And you thought only German could concoct long words by combining shorter ones.)
I suspect that what happened was an accident - maybe while fooling around with the son-of-the-almost-judge in the lighthouse on the beach - and the pampered hapless youths thought they could blow the whole thing off by pointing to two Arubans who kept trying to nose in on their fun. It almost worked except that the Arubans' relatives went ballistic, so much so that it apparently re-drew attention to the original three. (By the way, Natalee's father's nickname ("Jug") is something else, don't you think? Even if it doesn't mean that he guzzles whiskey in huge quantities, or even if it does, I can't help wondering why they didn't just not use it during all this. I guess geographical cliches weren't their primary consideration, but an adviser or someone else should have beeing paying better attention.)
Everything else aside, I'm sure we all feel great sympathy for the family. And for her, of course. There's no way to imagine what it must feel like to have a child go off on a trip and never come home. The guilt, the awful sense of "if only I'd forbidden the trip", the zillions of other what-ifs. Bad things would almost be okay if there were only one or two a year but not the way it is now.
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