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APRIL 8, 1998
Jonesboro! Who Forgot To Pay The Piper?
B\ P rof . M c K inley B i rt
began playing an enchanting tune
he recent schoolyard mas
that no child could resist. He led
sacre o f children (by chil­
them all away - not to the river - but
dren) in the small Arkan­
through a crevice in a distant moun­
sas town o f Jonesboro has produced
tain. The gap closed behind the merry
an emotional and anguished response.
band and none were ever seen again.
No commentary strikes more to the
And for years the towns folk waited,
heart o f the matter than the plaintive
“if only we had Paid the Piper’ -
query, “are we now paying the price
w e’ve lost our children.”
for having ignored or pu, out o f our
So, how long has it been that
minds, the growing alienation o f our
America has been wringing its hands
youth”?
and covering its eyes as each bloody
lfo u r title has a ring o f familiarity,
episode unfolds in a never-ending
it is because the origin is in a very
phenomenon o f teenage violence.
popular fairy tale that described a
Better described as mass murders, it
series o f tragic events which over­
would seem that as the number in­
took the children and towns people
creases, the ages fall as children un­
o f the medieval German town o f
leash a primal rage upon anyone who
Hamein. The result was that the term,
may have thwarted unleash a primal
“to pay the piper”, has become a
rage upon anyone who may have
metaphor for those who ignore their
thwarted their intentions in any man­
obligations and eventually must pay
ner. Have ‘w e’ done this?
a very high price. The problem is that
The criminal justice system, the
too often, as at Westside Middle
School, it is the innocent who must
pay.
It would seem that Hamein was
besieged by tens o f thousands o f rats
and the towns people could find no
solution. Finally someone told o f a
mysterious “Pied Piper” who could
play a magic tune on his flute and
lead all the rats to the river, where
they would drown. His services were
engaged and the Piper successfully
rid the town o f its rats.
However, when our spellbinder
appeared at City Hall to collect his
fee, the City Fathers refused to pay
him, a very foolish move indeed.
“Too costly, too much money”, they
said. “We could have gotten it done
cheaper - the rats would probably
have gone away by themselves.”
The very next day while all the
townsfolk, men and women, were
out in the fields harvesting, the angry
Pied Piper slipped into town and
schools, congress, legislators and
parents would all seem to be at loss to
either explain or address this tragic
situation in any meaningful or con­
sistent manner. You hear it over and
over again as more and more statis­
tics are generated: “More correctional
institutions - flexible sentencing -
censor the television media - more
counselors (and more guards) in the
schools - obsoletely control the NET.
Then, o f course, there has always
been the educational directive that
we must have more schools, better
schools, lower classloads and more
teacher. And at the same time, we are
told that many more counselors are
needed in the schools to deal with the
emotional and social problems o f
disaffected youth Present ratios are
said to range from a ratio to pupils o f
one in eight hundred, to one counse­
lor for every fi fteen-hundred students.
T
For social workers the ratio is one in
twelve-hundred.
A very expensive situation to rec­
tify and at this point, not all who are
involved are certain that we have
currently identified the problem.
Without doubt, money is the princi­
pal reason we have not moved as
quickly as possible to remedy a tragic
situation. But aren’t we “paying the
Piper” each day o f our lives as we
lose our children - not only to the
“big ones’, Arkansas, Kentucky,
Washington, Mississippi, California
and Alaska, but to a daily attrition of
children’s hope, motivation and per­
sonality?
Is it the case that what we need in
this country is large-scale Social and
Spiritual Renewal, while we put a
hold on Urban Renewal with more
highways, byways and multi-billion
dollar rail lines. Shouldn’t we first
pay to reduce the traumatic chaos in
our nations school houses - to im­
prove the learning process enough to
make American students com peti­
tive internationally? Those who talk
o f a ‘year-2000’ level o f student
achievement should be aware that
industry and the State Department
are seeking more visas for the impor­
tation o f foreigners who can operate
at the level. “Year 2000 has been
here, already.”
Parents and many o f my friends
call me with such advice as “w e’ve
got a lot more to worry about than
these sporadic episodes ofyouth vio­
lence like satanic cult murders and
that baseball bat-armed lynch mob
that attacked the Christmas Tree lot
vendor. There is a daily, organized
assault on ourchildren’s minds com ­
ing into our houses right over that
wire to the computers.” One parent
A year ago...
he was
buried
debt.
Alcohol
Awareness
Month a time
to increase
understanding
H ow big a problem is alco­
hol? nearly 14 m illion A m eri­
cans are alcoholics or problem
drinkers, and every year in the
U .S . a lc o h o l k ills 1 0 0 ,0 0 0
people, making it the third-high-
est cause o f preventable death.
In the U .S. and in O regon, alco­
hol and other drugs are factors
in m ore than 45% o f all fatal
autom obile crashes.
B arbara Cim aglio, direcotr o f
the O ffice o f A lcohol and Drug
A buse Program s in the O regon
D e p a rtm e n t o f H u m an R e ­
sources, says A pril, national
A lcohol A w areness M onth, is a
good tim e for O regonians to in­
crease their understanding o f al­
cohol-related problem s.
“T he cost o f alcohol abuse in
O regon and the country is stag­
g erin g ,” C im aglio says. “A lco­
hol ruins the lives o f those who
abu se it, and can h urt th eir
friends and fam ily m em bers.”
She encourages O regonians
to take advantage o f inform a­
tion available from local alco­
hol prevention and treatm ent
program s. She says it’s espe­
cially im portant for parents to
talk to their children about the
dangers o f alcohol use. “A lco­
hol abusers and alcoholics can
be
s u r p r is in g ly
young,
C im aglio says.
“Y oung people are especially
vulnerable to peer pressure and
pro-alcohol m essages in adver­
tisin g ,” she adds. “They lack
the m aturity to understand the
consequences o f even casual use
o f a lc o h o l a n d o th e r s u b ­
stances.”
S h e s a y s e d u c a tio n an d
a w a re n e ss are th e m ost e ffe c ­
tive w eapons in the w ar against
a lc o h o l abuse.
“ W hen p eo p le know m ore
ab o u t th e e ffe c ts o f alco h o l
a b u se , th e risk is lo w er th at
th ey w ill ab u se it or b eco m e
a d d ic te d .”
Inform atio n ab o u t alcohol
and drug treatm ent is available
by c a llin g G a il K e llu m in
O A D A P at 503-945-681 l.o r b y
calling O regon Partnership, 1-
800-621-1646.
h is wife
nearly
.eft h:
But then
Problem gam bling is an Illness. But
people recover. If you know someone
with a gambling problem, do them a favor.
M ake the call.
800-233-8479
Problem Gambling Hotline
re<
* ’ * f«
kOlW.Mtli
I
said,“! here are spiders’ inthe WEB,
man!"
What this parent went on to de­
scribe was not just the “occasional"
(?) Sexual deviate preying on chil­
dren, but the great surge in the so­
phistication o f video games. “Sony,
Nintendo and Sega are taking over
the lives o f a lot o f kids. There are
som e new interactive com puter
games where a youth or child, even,
can create his own story line, obvi­
ously within the context o f his rela­
tive maturity and morality.”
“If the kid regretfully kills one o f
the actors, he can always b e ' brought
back to life’, after all, this was Cyber-
Space’.
What I am worried about is at
what age - if any - will fantasy and
reality blur; possibly into a gory
mess."
Continued next week