The end of the ditchdigger era
Dissociated Press
May 9, 2009 12:30 AM
A few years from now...
When President Obama first proposed a program to subsidize the education of students interested in fields considered critical to the nation's prosperity, such as engineering and mathematics, it is doubtful that even he anticipated just how successful it was going to be. Today, the fruits of that success were evident at commencement ceremonies throughout the country as a stunned nation observed a continuing phenomenon that no one expected: every single twenty-two-year-old in the nation graduated from high school four years ago, and every single one of them walked across a commencement stage today. Today's graduation ceremonies mark the end of what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls the "Ditchdigger Era." As Secretary Duncan explains, "As parents, we push our kids to go to college because we don't want them trapped in some horrible menial job like digging ditches. But every year, thousands upon thousands of kids were ending up digging ditches or installing plumbing or cable tv. As an educator, it was very painful for me to see so many kids forsaking college. Without college, you can't be anything other than a loser, and I don't want that for America's children. So the incredible success of President Obama's program has been very gratifying for me."
Presumably, the program's success has been gratifying for the President as well. We don't know that for certain, however, as the press conference in which President Obama was going to discuss this topic was cancelled due to a number of technical problems. White House Press Secretary Amber Tamblyn explains, "I came into the press room before the President's arrival to go over some ground rules with the press corps, and I noticed that there was a problem with the news cameras: there weren't any. I said, 'Hey, we go live in less than an hour. Shouldn't you be getting your cameras set up?' My question was greeted with awkward silence, and then one solitary voice said, 'We're college graduates, so... uh, we don't know how to set the cameras up. Or operate them. Or undo the latches on the cases they are stored in. You weren't hoping for a live feed, were you?' I said, 'Uh, a feed of some kind would be nice. Any chance of that happening?' The solitary voice replied, 'Look, we're college graduates. We can conduct interviews. We can ask questions that are... intelligent when they aren't leading, loaded, painfully obvious or just plain stupid. We can write concise stories in language suited for the compact medium of television news. The only thing we can't do is operate the equipment that would get any of this seen by anybody!' Tamblyn looks sheepish as she concludes, "I was a strident supporter of the President's education program, but that young journalist's outburst set me back on my heels a bit. Perhaps we were too vigorous in encouraging college and professional career paths?"
Tamblyn didn't have long to contemplate the point; she was too busy running for her life when the press room's roof collapsed. When asked if she would be available to comment on this event, it was learned that she was in the hospital; apparently, the press corps started arguing over whether there was anything inherently patriotic about being crushed to death by pieces of the White House ceiling and impeded her escape by shoving microphones in her face and asking for the White House's position on the issue. The press corps escaped with mild injuries, mostly to the face and groin, while Tamblyn sustained her most serious injuries to her knuckles and kneecaps. Despite being sued for multiple violations of the first amendment, she called the experience of beating the tar out of the White House Press corps "cathartic" and suggested that the White House facilities engineer, Brad Hedges, would be the best source of information concerning the collapse of the press room roof.
When asked for background on the roof collapse, Hedges said, "The White House is an aging building that needs a lot of maintenance. Unfortunately, the construction and building maintenance industries are dying out. The folks currently in the trades are too old and worn out to do the work, and, thanks to Obama's education initiatives, all the young people that might have replaced them were told that they will never reach their potential working with their hands. Performing skilled manual labor is something to be ashamed of in this country. The kids today know that, so they all went to college and became engineers instead. Why did the roof collapse? I have a staff of eggheads, each of them able to calculate exactly when the roof was gonna cave in, and not a single person actually capable of performing the labor necessary to prevent it. It's kinda funny, really. See, some of us got different results when we did the math, so each of us put fifty bucks in a pool; whoever came closest to the date and time of the collapse takes the pot. Which reminds me, I need to go and collect my winnings."
"I sent the money to my Mom in Oregon," Hedges says later. We were sitting in a Starbucks, nursing our cups of steamed water; apparently, espresso comes out of a machine that requires a sort of maintenance that nobody knows how to perform anymore. "I help her out as much as I can. I guess I'll be able to do more of that now that I've been asked to resign." The President demanded Hedges's resignation after the roof collapse, a move that did not surprise Hedges. "Yeah, the President was kinda ticked off that we neglected to mention the impeding disaster. We became kinda despondent after we tried to fix the roof ourselves and couldn't do it. Also, how do you tell the President of the United States that his home is facing major structural collapse, and we can't fix it because of a program of his? And anyway, it was the press room, for crying out loud! It ain't in my nature to wish death on people, but my dog, reporters are annoying!" Hedges isn't bitter over his dismissal, however. "I'm heading home to Oregon," he says. "My mother is getting up in years, and she's gonna need me when she needs to go to the ER for something. It's kind of sad. She broke her hip eight years ago, and I didn't find out until after she'd been through surgery and everything. She called 911 and everything was fine. Today, well, the hospitals are packed wall to wall with doctors, but dog help you if you need an ambulance!"
Hedges tosses back the last of his water and says, "I need to call a cab for the airport. My plane to Portland leaves in a couple of hours..." He trails off as we observe a car lurch down the street, then coast silently after its engine dies. The frustrated driver leaps out of the vehicle, collects all of his belongings, and slams the door in disgust. He doesn't look back on the vehicle he has just abandoned. It will never run again, nor will it ever leave its spot next to the curb. It joins the growing graveyard of vehicles choking the street since tow trucks and auto mechanics became relics of the ditchdigger era. "Could you excuse me for a moment," Hedges asks as he thumbs the keys on his cell phone. He calls the airport. "Hello? Yes, listen, could you cancel my flight reservations? I don't think it is wise these days to fly in a vehicle that requires skilled maintenance to keep it in the air. That's right, I want to live. Good day. Okay, now I will just head over to the bus station... oh crap." A pained expression covers his face as he asks, "I suppose you are gonna tell me that trains also run on some kind of engine, aren't you?"
"Diesel-electric since the 1940's. Sorry."
"Then I'm just gonna have to walk to Portland, ain't I? It won't be so bad, no it won't! I have no idea who's gonna run against Obama in the next election, but I'll have plenty of time to think about who I will be voting against! I just hope that if my mother breaks her hip again it won't happen until I get there and can drive her..." Hedges is silent for a moment, then says, "I would carry my mother to the ER if I had to. I just hope she doesn't need that until several weeks after I get there. There's no way my shoes are gonna hold up through the whole walk, and its not like there are people around who can fix them anymore." He takes the first of what will be many, many blister filled steps, then turns and says, "I cannot believe that I am saying this, but education royally screwed this country."
Dissociated Press reporter and former cabinetmaker Taliesin would still be building furniture, but found his poor hand eye coordination and large thumbs antithetical to working harmoniously with wood. These days, while his peers are armchair quarterbacking football games, T does something similar when Norm Abram appears on PBS. T disagrees with Norm's admonishment that "there is no more important a safety rule than to wear safety glasses." Not using a belt sander as a skateboard ranks just as highly in T's book. He learned this lesson the hard way.
May 9, 2009 12:30 AM
A few years from now...
When President Obama first proposed a program to subsidize the education of students interested in fields considered critical to the nation's prosperity, such as engineering and mathematics, it is doubtful that even he anticipated just how successful it was going to be. Today, the fruits of that success were evident at commencement ceremonies throughout the country as a stunned nation observed a continuing phenomenon that no one expected: every single twenty-two-year-old in the nation graduated from high school four years ago, and every single one of them walked across a commencement stage today. Today's graduation ceremonies mark the end of what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls the "Ditchdigger Era." As Secretary Duncan explains, "As parents, we push our kids to go to college because we don't want them trapped in some horrible menial job like digging ditches. But every year, thousands upon thousands of kids were ending up digging ditches or installing plumbing or cable tv. As an educator, it was very painful for me to see so many kids forsaking college. Without college, you can't be anything other than a loser, and I don't want that for America's children. So the incredible success of President Obama's program has been very gratifying for me."
Presumably, the program's success has been gratifying for the President as well. We don't know that for certain, however, as the press conference in which President Obama was going to discuss this topic was cancelled due to a number of technical problems. White House Press Secretary Amber Tamblyn explains, "I came into the press room before the President's arrival to go over some ground rules with the press corps, and I noticed that there was a problem with the news cameras: there weren't any. I said, 'Hey, we go live in less than an hour. Shouldn't you be getting your cameras set up?' My question was greeted with awkward silence, and then one solitary voice said, 'We're college graduates, so... uh, we don't know how to set the cameras up. Or operate them. Or undo the latches on the cases they are stored in. You weren't hoping for a live feed, were you?' I said, 'Uh, a feed of some kind would be nice. Any chance of that happening?' The solitary voice replied, 'Look, we're college graduates. We can conduct interviews. We can ask questions that are... intelligent when they aren't leading, loaded, painfully obvious or just plain stupid. We can write concise stories in language suited for the compact medium of television news. The only thing we can't do is operate the equipment that would get any of this seen by anybody!' Tamblyn looks sheepish as she concludes, "I was a strident supporter of the President's education program, but that young journalist's outburst set me back on my heels a bit. Perhaps we were too vigorous in encouraging college and professional career paths?"
Tamblyn didn't have long to contemplate the point; she was too busy running for her life when the press room's roof collapsed. When asked if she would be available to comment on this event, it was learned that she was in the hospital; apparently, the press corps started arguing over whether there was anything inherently patriotic about being crushed to death by pieces of the White House ceiling and impeded her escape by shoving microphones in her face and asking for the White House's position on the issue. The press corps escaped with mild injuries, mostly to the face and groin, while Tamblyn sustained her most serious injuries to her knuckles and kneecaps. Despite being sued for multiple violations of the first amendment, she called the experience of beating the tar out of the White House Press corps "cathartic" and suggested that the White House facilities engineer, Brad Hedges, would be the best source of information concerning the collapse of the press room roof.
When asked for background on the roof collapse, Hedges said, "The White House is an aging building that needs a lot of maintenance. Unfortunately, the construction and building maintenance industries are dying out. The folks currently in the trades are too old and worn out to do the work, and, thanks to Obama's education initiatives, all the young people that might have replaced them were told that they will never reach their potential working with their hands. Performing skilled manual labor is something to be ashamed of in this country. The kids today know that, so they all went to college and became engineers instead. Why did the roof collapse? I have a staff of eggheads, each of them able to calculate exactly when the roof was gonna cave in, and not a single person actually capable of performing the labor necessary to prevent it. It's kinda funny, really. See, some of us got different results when we did the math, so each of us put fifty bucks in a pool; whoever came closest to the date and time of the collapse takes the pot. Which reminds me, I need to go and collect my winnings."
"I sent the money to my Mom in Oregon," Hedges says later. We were sitting in a Starbucks, nursing our cups of steamed water; apparently, espresso comes out of a machine that requires a sort of maintenance that nobody knows how to perform anymore. "I help her out as much as I can. I guess I'll be able to do more of that now that I've been asked to resign." The President demanded Hedges's resignation after the roof collapse, a move that did not surprise Hedges. "Yeah, the President was kinda ticked off that we neglected to mention the impeding disaster. We became kinda despondent after we tried to fix the roof ourselves and couldn't do it. Also, how do you tell the President of the United States that his home is facing major structural collapse, and we can't fix it because of a program of his? And anyway, it was the press room, for crying out loud! It ain't in my nature to wish death on people, but my dog, reporters are annoying!" Hedges isn't bitter over his dismissal, however. "I'm heading home to Oregon," he says. "My mother is getting up in years, and she's gonna need me when she needs to go to the ER for something. It's kind of sad. She broke her hip eight years ago, and I didn't find out until after she'd been through surgery and everything. She called 911 and everything was fine. Today, well, the hospitals are packed wall to wall with doctors, but dog help you if you need an ambulance!"
Hedges tosses back the last of his water and says, "I need to call a cab for the airport. My plane to Portland leaves in a couple of hours..." He trails off as we observe a car lurch down the street, then coast silently after its engine dies. The frustrated driver leaps out of the vehicle, collects all of his belongings, and slams the door in disgust. He doesn't look back on the vehicle he has just abandoned. It will never run again, nor will it ever leave its spot next to the curb. It joins the growing graveyard of vehicles choking the street since tow trucks and auto mechanics became relics of the ditchdigger era. "Could you excuse me for a moment," Hedges asks as he thumbs the keys on his cell phone. He calls the airport. "Hello? Yes, listen, could you cancel my flight reservations? I don't think it is wise these days to fly in a vehicle that requires skilled maintenance to keep it in the air. That's right, I want to live. Good day. Okay, now I will just head over to the bus station... oh crap." A pained expression covers his face as he asks, "I suppose you are gonna tell me that trains also run on some kind of engine, aren't you?"
"Diesel-electric since the 1940's. Sorry."
"Then I'm just gonna have to walk to Portland, ain't I? It won't be so bad, no it won't! I have no idea who's gonna run against Obama in the next election, but I'll have plenty of time to think about who I will be voting against! I just hope that if my mother breaks her hip again it won't happen until I get there and can drive her..." Hedges is silent for a moment, then says, "I would carry my mother to the ER if I had to. I just hope she doesn't need that until several weeks after I get there. There's no way my shoes are gonna hold up through the whole walk, and its not like there are people around who can fix them anymore." He takes the first of what will be many, many blister filled steps, then turns and says, "I cannot believe that I am saying this, but education royally screwed this country."
Dissociated Press reporter and former cabinetmaker Taliesin would still be building furniture, but found his poor hand eye coordination and large thumbs antithetical to working harmoniously with wood. These days, while his peers are armchair quarterbacking football games, T does something similar when Norm Abram appears on PBS. T disagrees with Norm's admonishment that "there is no more important a safety rule than to wear safety glasses." Not using a belt sander as a skateboard ranks just as highly in T's book. He learned this lesson the hard way.