Common Sense

The great French philosopher and writer, Voltaire once said “Common sense is not so common”. It’s a theme that has plagued mankind from day one. I’ve always enjoyed the annual Darwin awards that are a “chronicle of Enterprising Demises honoring those who improve the species..by accidentally removing themselves from it”. It is an award that by design can only be awarded posthumously. For good reason.

Three events this week made me realize just how true it is. That people’s ability to do things that defy all common sense is well and truly alive. Not only that, but they do it in a manner that surely, had a little forethought been applied, may have seen them make a different decision. Now yes, we have all done things a little stupid from time to time. I remember whilst working in a restaurant once that upon pulling the power cord out from the wall, it left one of the prongs in the socket. So I pulled it out with a pair of pliers. Without turning the powerpoint off. I’m sure the stunned look on my face as I peeled myself off the far wall having been thrown 10-feet, would have pure gold for anyone who witnessed the event. But that’s the thing. No one saw it. My point is that the three events this week were on a massively public scale that surely, somewhere in the back of your mind, a little alarm might have gone off to tell you that your idea may not be the best.

The first comes to us courtesy of a South Los Angeles elementary school. Last month was Black History month in the USA. A month that celebrates the wonderful achievements of African-Americans. While school kids carried around photos of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr., it seems that three teachers felt it would be wise to hand out three photos of prominent African-Americans for the children to carry around to show their support. Those prominent figures chosen by the three white teachers were RuPaul, Dennis Rodman and OJ Simpson.

Now, ok, granted all of these people have actually excelled at their fields at one time or another, but you’d have to say that their transgressions far exceed their achievements. Fair to say that all are infamous rather than revered. When you consider all the other choices that could have been made, you have to feel that there was some intention in the teacher’s decision – what that intention was is beyond me. When planning such a thing, at what point should one have thought that it may have at best, created a little bit of controversy? It might have crossed your mind that the kids would take the photos home to their parents, and that at least one parent would not find the humor (if that was indeed intended) in said photos and maybe make a complaint.

Well, it would seem that those three teachers have plenty of time on their unpaid suspensions to think about why a bit of common sense may not have gone astray. It would be like celebrating Australia by tethering a kangaroo inside a boxing ring and having some dick throw punches at it. Like that would ever happen in this day and age.

The second was a story I saw this week about a guy who took his 7-year-old son to work with him. Already I can see your mind ticking over with possibilities of where this could be heading. Was he policeman? An underground Coal Miner? A prostidude? I’ll put you out of your misery. He was an air traffic controller. Not at some backwater, private airfield. This guy worked at New York’s Kennedy Airport. Now I guess you are probably thinking, well OK, he took his kid to work and that may have caused a distraction to the other workers in what is generally regarded as one of the most stressful jobs in the world. Not very bright. Having a co-worker bring their child to work is probably the last thing any of us want, especially if your job involves juggling a plethora of aircraft all wanting to take off and land at the same time. Ah yes, but there is more.

In order to keep his young one occupied in the workplace, he allowed his son to wear the headphones…and give instructions to the pilots. The kid basically repeated what his father was telling him and was giving instructions to pilots on what runways to take off on. Are you kidding me? When you listen to it, I guess it does sound pretty funny and the pilots took it in good humor. But he had to realize in this age of technology, you can’t keep the public from finding out, and that someone, somewhere, might be outraged.

You have to hand it to him though, at least he was consistent – he took his daughter to work the next day and allowed her to do the same thing. What a shock that the FAA is investigating, and that the Air Traffic Controller has been suspended until further notice. Maybe they should have tethered him inside a boxing ring and had some dick throw punches at him.

What strikes me as interesting is that in the grand scale of lapses in judgement, one that didn’t seem too important was a building owner’s decision to erect a huge billboard this week on the side of his hotel on the corner of Hollywood and Highland. He didn’t have permission. So they jailed him. Wow. The reasoning was that it put huge numbers of lives at risk from people looking at it whilst driving. Um, have you ever driven around LA? There’s a billboard on every corner. There are those that at night light up like giant TV screens that blind you as you head towards it. Now I’m not saying that the guy was not in the wrong. Clearly one should get approval before subjecting the public to any erection. But jail time? That seems excessively harsh. What happened to the good old fashioned ‘fine’? At the end of the day, it gave the movie “How to Train Your Dragon” far more publicity than it ever would have gotten anyway. I hope the makers of the film forked out some of the half a million dollar bail. Maybe they should tether a dragon inside a boxing ring and have some dick throw punches at it.

So what I’m trying to say people is that if you have the urge to do anything in life, just stop and consider the what-ifs. Use some common sense.

And if you find yourself tethered inside a boxing ring, then you probably made the wrong choice.

But don’t worry. It’s a common mistake.

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