A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

The Daily Beast and any number of outlets are reporting that Delta Tau Delta at Miami University has been suspended for 15 years due to hazing. I’ve mentioned before, by way of explaining that Paul Ryan never really had a chance to get my vote, that my fraternity did not hold the Delts in high esteem back when I was in college. So, I’m experiencing a fair bit of schadenfreude at the news. The fraternity had apparently had disciplinary problems in the early 2000s and were put on probation in 2016. Then along comes this incident where, among other things:

“Call 911. I feel like I’m going to die,” said John*, laying in his dorm room at Miami University in Ohio.

In the early morning hours of March 17, 2019, John had just escaped an alcohol-drenched violent hazing at the school’s Delta Tau Delta chapter, which featured a spiked paddle, according to a report released by the university last spring.

This month, the university informed the fraternity that it would be suspended for 15 years—until March 2034—because of that night, which resulted in John’s hospitalization with a blood-alcohol level of .231, according to the report. (For reference, the law considers an individual legally impaired at 0.08.)

. . .

That night, John said he was thrown on the ground, had liquid poured on him, was slapped in the face and then forced to do pushups while being kicked on both sides by multiple people.

In the police report, John noted that at some point after he began crying over the pain from being slapped with the spiked paddle, he said, “I am not going to be a part of this. I’m leaving,” but that the whole room went silent and it scared him.

“I was then told by an unfamiliar voice, ‘You will be okay. The first one hurts the most but now you are numb,’” John told the officer.

Why does this kind of thing continue to happen? My own fraternity had abandoned hazing when I was there in the early 90s. The worst I got was being told to Xerox the bottoms of my feet and have ten girls sign the copy. I had to find an out of the way copier, figure out how to get the bottoms of my feet copied, and then embarrass myself walking up to strangers at the library. But it was also kind of fun and nobody got hurt. The girls mostly laughed and none of them seemed put out by the request. I think there were maybe a couple of other things that I don’t remember, but they would have been mild and didn’t involve drinking or pain. Even so, they seemed to serve their purpose as a rite of passage.

But, almost 30 years later, we have the Delts using a spiked paddle, getting their pledges dangerously drunk, and beating them. One of the texts in the Daily Beast report has one of the fraternity brothers saying that it “turns boys into men.” That’s toxic nonsense. There’s nothing manly about letting people abuse you, particularly for no useful purpose.

My Dad told me a story about his fraternity in the early 60s. He and some of the other brothers were talking about getting rid of hazing. There was a fair amount of resistance to this idea based primarily on the notion that they  had to go through it. New pledges should have to suffer the same way. Beyond the “I had to do it, you should to,” I think there are also parallels to corporal punishment. People resist evidence that spanking and other corporal punishment doesn’t lead to better behaved kids and more responsible adults because their own parents spanked them. The idea that the beatings they suffered at the hands of their parents was useless and avoidable is emotionally painful. So, they want to imbue their suffering with meaning. If hazing doesn’t “turn boys into men” or tighten the bonds of brotherhood or whatever, then it’s just your older friends being needlessly cruel to you. And that’s emotionally painful.

Maybe in 2034, the Delts can kick the habit.

(This is part 2 of an account of our family vacation to Kauai in late May, 2019. I love the traveling, of course. But, I’ve found that having an account of the trip helps me to revisit these trips from time to time. So, while these posts are primarily for my own benefit, hopefully others might enjoy riding along with us, so to speak. Part 1 is here.)

One of our cabins at Koke’e.

The morning of Saturday, May 25^th began with mediocre coffee that tasted of onions. Probably had to do with the coffee maker in the cabin. The accommodations were pretty bare bones but serviceable. We had some scones from the Big Save that were all right. Then we went to explore Koke’e. Problem was that our car had a flat tire. We seem to have hit a nail or something the previous night and the air was completely out of it. Jason and I put on the spare. We handed the lug nuts to Cole and proceeded to make “Christmas Story” jokes. (“Ooh fuuudge . . . only I didn’t say “fudge.”) While we were changing the tire, some folks were setting up for the “Pedal to the Meadow” bicycle race – a 15.75 mile race that starts at sea level in Kekaha and ends in the Kanaloahuluhulu Meadow up at about 3,800 feet. Our cabins were about a quarter mile from the finish. After getting the tire changed, we finally got under way. We drove the rest of the way up Highway 550 where we stopped at the Kalalau lookout, the Pu’u O Kila Lookout, and hiked about 2 miles on the Pihea Trail. This area is on the highland above the northwestern part of the island, looking down to the Na Pali coast. “Rugged and beautiful” is a good description, I think.

Fuuudge!

On the hike, I scared the two younger boys (ages 7 and 10), passing along my dad’s “mountain talk.” Some years ago, when I came out to Colorado to, among other things, explore the mountains there, my Dad who lived in Colorado was definitely happy to see me taking an interest. He was generally a jovial, jokey kind of person, but at one point, he got deadly earnest and told me, “Doug, if you don’t take them seriously, those mountains will kill you.” They are beautiful and fun to enjoy, but it’s not an amusement park. As we were hiking, the boys were getting a little close to the edges of the cliffs and whatnot, so I pulled them aside and gave them the talk. They don’t have a lot of direct experience with me, so I might have looked like a three-eyed monster to them at that point, but I think it left an impression. When we got back, we had lunch at the Koke’e lodge. The food was outstanding, definitely better than you’d expect from a lodge.

Living on the edge.

After lunch, due to the flat, Amy & I had to make the long drive back to Lihue to swap out cars with the rental agency. The roads in the state park were probably not a great idea on the doughnut tire. Theoretically, road side assistance came with the rental, but we had no cell service, so just taking the car back was realistically our best option. While we were at the rental place, Amy helped an Australian couple secure their child car seat which they were having trouble navigating. It’s been a lot of years since we had a kid in a car seat, but this is apparently one of those “riding a bicycle” things that you never forget. We also met some travelers from Logansport who were staying at the Marriott in Lihue.

On our way back, we stopped at some overlooks of the Waimea Canyon which is pretty incredible. Known as the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific,” it was created by both erosion – it takes in rainfall from Mount Wai’ale’ale, one of the wettest places on earth – and from the catastrophic collapse of the volcano that created Kauai. Meanwhile the kids stayed back with our friends. Jason apparently treated them to some off-roading in their rental car over some fairly rough terrain to get to a trailhead. Cole seemed particularly taken by the off-roading. (Just what you want when your boy is about to get his driver’s license.) From the trailhead, they hiked to a spot with a pool and waterfall that made for some good climbing and splashing around.

Dinner was improvised chicken and asparagus. The evening was rainy. We had 10 beers on hand that we split between the 4 adults and had generally a good time. Bed time was early as we had to get up at the crack of early to get to a catamaran trip the next day. As Hawaii time is 6 hours behind, Indiana, these time frames were no problem.

Gallery:

(This is part 1 of an account of our family vacation to Kauai in late May, 2019. I love the traveling, of course. But, I’ve found that having an account of the trip helps me to revisit these trips from time to time. So, while these posts are primarily for my own benefit, hopefully others might enjoy riding along with us, so to speak.)

Photo Op at the Space Needle

It was one of those vacations that started with me coming in hot from my regular life. Lots of work stuff in April and May combined with soccer season left me feeling more like I’d simply abandoned my responsibilities rather than actually coming to a good stopping place. That was more illusion than real and probably illustrated the fact that I needed to take a break. We left on the afternoon of Thursday, May 23. Amy introduced me to Portillo’s on the way up to Chicago. The Chicago Dog and cheese fries were a good starting point for vacation.

We were catching an early flight out of O’Hare, so the four of us crammed into a Comfort Inn in Des Plaines that night. The hotel was relatively nice on the surface, but seemed just on the edge of falling apart if you scratch the surface: Just little things like a loose post on the baggage trolley and a wobbly rail in the elevator. The chief advantage of this place was that we could get a night’s sleep, leave our car for the duration of the vacation, and get a ride to the airport all for not much more than parking alone would have cost near the airport. So, despite my critiques here, it more than met our needs. Random note: Before falling asleep, Cole & I watched some video game championship that was being broadcast. Video games have come a long way!

Harper at the Space Needle, humoring Dad with a picture

The next morning (May 24), Amy got up at 3:30 a.m. and the rest of us got up at 4 for what would end up being something like 21.5 hours of travel. At the airport, we met up with our family friends with whom we’d gone on a vacation to the Big Island four years earlier. The first leg from O’Hare to Seattle was uneventful. Harper had to sit in a row with strangers but she slept through most of it. (In fact, at one point, I think her head was on one of the strangers while she was asleep.) We had a 6 hour layover and decided to kill time by going out to the Space Needle. On some level, I thought this was inviting trouble because of the uncertainties of traffic and getting back through security. But, as usual, Amy has the better instincts on these things. None of that was a problem, and the side trip was more worthwhile than sitting in an airport terminal. Paulo was our Uber driver over to the Needle. He had the sniffles which I mention because, despite not being a germophobe in general, I’m always paranoid about getting sick before vacation. Once again, my worries proved groundless.

At the food court near the Space Needle, we introduced Cole to the concept of the “Bang Bang.” This was something our friend Jason picked up from a comedian somewhere. The idea is that you eat a full meal in one place and then immediately go to another place for another full meal. We’ve never actually done this, but “stop for a Bang Bang?” has become kind of a running joke. The Space Needle itself is touristy but at least briefly entertaining. Kind of perfect for a layover. The architecture is interesting, but you’ve seen it a thousand times before on TV and whatnot. You go up high and see the city. There is an area with a glass floor that’s fun. On the way back, our Uber driver was Paul. He liked to talk. He apparently met his wife at university in Arizona before returning to Seattle. He’d been to Hawaii with his family a few years back. His 60 year old mom did some cliff diving in Oahu. His wife was pretty far along in her pregnancy for most of the trip and somewhat limited on what she could do. (The trip had been planned in advance of the pregnancy.) So now you have the run down on Paul.

Pals

On the way back to Sea-Tac, traffic was light and security was minimal. We had time for a drink and a snack before our flight. Our next leg was Seattle to Lihue on Kauai. I sat with Cole and Madda, one of the daughters from the family we traveled  with. They’re both 15 and have known each other since preschool. As I recall, the fact that they were in preschool together is the reason our families know each other at all. (I have a theory that a lot of adult friendships feature oldest children of a similar age. When you have your first kid, you’ve entered a distinctly new phase in life and need friends who are in a similar phase. By the time you have younger kids, you’ve sort of filled the friendship rosters a little bit.) Anyway, watching these two laugh and joke with each other was fun. They don’t hang out a bunch anymore, but clearly they’ve known each other and enjoyed each other’s company for a long, long time. We landed in Lihue at about 5:30 in the afternoon (10:30 p.m. Chicago time at this point.)

On the Road to Lihue

The car rental places don’t move with a lot of speed in Hawaii, so while Amy waited in line, I killed time watching the chickens outside. Kauai has a lot of chickens. Eventually they’d fade into the background, but at this point they were novel. There was also an entertaining moment where a girl of about 3 or 4 was waiting outside with her dad. He suggested they go check on mom inside. She had a cute little butterfly suitcase. Her face got stern and serious and she expressed concerns about people stealing her butterfly which was in front of the bench next to Cole & I. Clearly, we looked disreputable. From Lihue we drove about 40 miles to Kokee State Park where we were staying in cabins for the first couple of days. Along the way, we stopped at the Big Save in Waimea for supplies and squabbled about directions once or twice because it was dark and we were utterly exhausted. Finally, we finished the long, winding road (15 miles of twists and turns in total darkness) up to Kokee and got out of the car. We were at what felt like the edge of the world, at altitude, miles away from civilization, so the stars were spectacular. Cole was so deeply asleep in the car, it was a challenge to get him up. We used to just pick him up and carry him to bed, but at 15 that’s not happening anymore. Gentle voice, loud voice, light shake, light shake with gentle voice, light shake with loud voice, firm shake with gentle voice, firm shake with loud voice. A few of the latter got his body moving, but it’s clear that his mind was still checked out. We walked him to his bed and got him tucked in. Then we all collapsed and had a good night’s sleep.

Gallery:

Not this is particularly controversial, but reading is good for the brain. In retrospect, I’m a little amazed by just how much I seem to have read as a kid. Near as I can remember, the first book of any substance I read was Jack London’s “White Fang” when I was 9. I don’t remember reading too much outside of my assignments once I got to college. (I’d pick it up more again when I graduated.) It was something I always enjoyed, so it wasn’t any kind of chore or accomplishment. But, what I’ve found is that all of those stories gave my brain a sort of vocabulary or library of metaphors I’m able to use when I see a fact pattern in the real world.

What prompted this idle bit of musing is that, today, it occurred to me that our current political situation in the U.S. might be a little reminiscent of Tolkien’s story of Numenor. In the beginning, it was an island given to the good humans for their service to the Valar and the Elves in their war against Morgoth. The land was prosperous as the knowledge and mastery of its people grew. Eventually their power extended over the seas and around the world. They helped the Elves back in the old country defeat an evil empire. But, a darkness grew. Numenor’s leaders, despite enjoying untold wealth, power, and longevity, found that what they had was not enough. They wanted eternal life. Sauron used this to corrupt them until they worshiped and became the evil they once fought against.

Now, I’m not saying that Trump is Ar-Pharazôn the Golden who will ruin the country in his pride by invading Valinor. But, because I’ve read stories such as these, I have learned lessons about hubris and how a good people can be led astray. Books are full of lessons! Forewarned is forearmed.

(Incidentally, this random, somewhat pointless quick hit type of blog post comes from a notion that generating content for Facebook and Twitter isn’t necessarily the best use of my time. If I feel inclined to ramble to the world, might as well just do it here.)

Earlier today, I saw a meme knocking on people who need public assistance because they probably use drugs. The particulars don’t matter a lot – it’s just a jumping off point that reminded me of how often we seem to need to blame poor people for their condition. I think we do this for basically two reasons: 1) fear of becoming poor ourselves; and 2) unhappiness with ourselves for not being more helpful.

By making poverty a moral failing, we can at some level convince ourselves that if we just work hard and play by the rules, we’ll keep ourselves out of poverty. This isn’t entirely irrational. We can hedge our bets to a great extent. But there are a lot of factors way beyond our control, and that’s scary. So, there is a reluctance to acknowledge the structural causes of poverty that could come for us some day. Best to pretend that people who are poor got that way by making bad decisions that we’d never make.

The unhappiness with ourselves for not being helpful is perhaps inevitable to a certain extent. The needs of the poor are well beyond any of our individual ability to remedy completely. Very few of us are willing to take an oath of poverty and live in rags on the street and, even if we did, our personal effort would just be a drop in the bucket. We all draw the line on how helpful we’ll be in one spot or another that comes up short. And that leaves us feeling lacking — even if we’re not engaging in particularly blameworthy behavior. I wish I could remember where I read this — I thought it was Dostoyevsky, but I’ve never been able to find it; in any case, there was an author who suggested that we hate people not for what they do to us, but for what we do to them. And it’s this dynamic that arises when we see poverty that we don’t address while we’re enjoying our overpriced coffee or whatever. That feeling is mitigated when we re-imagine the poor as undeserving.

I’m not suggesting any fixes to poverty here. Just advising that, when you see negative characterizations of the poor, try to evaluate how based in reality those sentiments might be versus whether there is some kind of psychological projection at work.

So, yesterday, I posted a call-back to my suggestion regarding firearm insurance. Today, it’s a call-back to an admonition to live humbly. Mass shootings have happened enough that I mostly don’t have any more original thoughts on the subject. I tend to think that the sheer volume of firearms mostly explains why other countries don’t have the same struggles we have in this area. But, a cultural attachment to pride might be another part of it. In the Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger wrote:

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

As I said last time:

This quote is from J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” I didn’t much care for the book in general, but that quote stuck with me. In fact, it was the subject of discussion in a college English class. It made me surprisingly indignant; I suppose because it belittled as immature things that I supposed to be heroism — going out in a blaze of glory, and all of that. Oddly, I felt like something was being taken away from me even though I had no immediate plans in that direction. In retrospect, I was (as Krusty said of Sideshow Raheem) an angry, angry young man.

The emotional fires of adolescence have cooled, so it’s easier for me to regard this vision of maturity in a positive way. The most recent massacres in Florida is Ohio and Texas are what brought this to mind again. But, it has broader application outside of the gun debate. As a culture, we seem to celebrate dying nobly a whole lot more than we celebrate living humbly even though the latter is generally more beneficial to society over the long term. It’s tough to live humbly though. There’s no particular glory in it. It means grinding out small gains over the long term in a universe that is vast, apathetic, and frequently arbitrary. That certainly does not have the emotional punch of being the bright star of a short but exciting story where you are heroically battling the evil arrayed against you — or at least taking decisive revenge against those who have wronged you. But, ultimately, living humbly is the right thing to do. We should make more of an effort to value and celebrate those who do it well.

My 30th high school reunion was this weekend. Richmond High School Class of ’89. I won’t go into an extended meditation on the subject. (I mostly did that for my 25th reunion.) But, I’d recommend going to these things. People are, for the most part, just people, and you come to recognize that the folks you knew in high school mostly aren’t the caricatures that maybe you’ve built up in your head. (Although, there are a handful of people that remain stubbornly disagreeable.) My sense is that, by understanding the people you grew up with a little better, you come to understand yourself a little better. And, as I mentioned after 25 years, in a sense, it’s a chance to visit with your younger self a little bit.

Anyway, have a picture.

After Sandy Hook, I wrote a blog post with the modest proposal for mandatory firearm insurance. There is a cost of firearm ownership imposed involuntarily on innocent third parties in the form of their injuries and deaths. Injuring or killing someone is a statistically unlikely event for any given firearm but one with high costs when it does happen — costs that you don’t see at the same level in other Western countries without our abundance of firearm ownership.

I envision something with strict liability that runs with the weapon — your firearm injures someone, your insurance policy pays. I think there would be some kind of cap on an individual policy and then, something like the medical malpractice system in Indiana where a state fund pays out for damages in excess of the individual limits. I would also suggest a tax on firearm dealers and/or manufacturers with different rates based on type of firearm and the experience of that particular dealer/manufacturer. If the guns you sell don’t often wind up being used to kill or injure people, you wouldn’t pay so much. If your shop somehow winds up with a lot of guns being used for criminal activity, you’re going to have to pay more. (A bit similar to the unemployment system. If you end up firing a lot of people, you pay more into the unemployment system.)

This is the relevant portion of what I wrote at the time:

We mandate liability insurance for cars. Why not for firearms? Bring market forces to bear on this issue. More firearms make things safer? Insurance rates will go down (if true).

Anyway, what I envision is a requirement that a firearm owner obtain liability insurance that covers injuries caused by that particular firearm. (Runs with the weapon – provides an incentive for people to secure the weapon in a way that ensures, for example, kids don’t have access to the weapon.) I would also envision a policy surcharge used to subsidize coverage for uninsured losses, treatment of mental illness, enforcement of existing regulations, and safety education efforts.