Off the Editor’s Spike

by Darryl Wilkinson

I realize my attention is suppose to be on Iraq, but foremost on my mind from this past week is that videotape of a mother’s temper tantrum, striking and punching her 4-year- old daughter. It happened in Indiana where, evidently, a parking lot security guard was conscientious enough to turn the tape over to authorities.

The news report quoted officials who speculated that Madelyn Toogood was angry over being denied a refund at a department store she had visited. The newspapers later reported how this mother was unaware of just how barbaric her actions were until she saw the video for herself. Her remorse doesn’t change what certainly looked like a criminal act. But her remorse does offer hope that perhaps, at least for 4-year-old Martha, things will change.

It wasn’t long ago that I bristled when learning that video cameras were installed in our school buses. And since then, it seems that there’s a camera watching nearly everything anywhere you go. I understand the reasoning; I still resent the gaze of the one-eyed “Big Brother.” And yet, without the camera in this case, would corrective change in this particular mother ever happen?

Are there times when we’re not so very different from Madelyn Toogood, if not by action then by voice or attitude? Perhaps this is why I can’t let go of this incident.

Too often we take the rudeness and hostility we receive from others and simply pass it on. I know I’m guilty; printing deadlines and headaches are no excuse for rudeness. I know there are times when viewing a video tape of my workday would embarrass me.

How about you?

I believe that a general lack of respect and courtesy toward one another is a serious problem. It is so evident wherever our public schools are failing; it is so ugly in offensive and amoral TV, music and film.

This may not seem like a big thing to you. Maybe bigger issues like proposing war on Iraq or improving the economy are mostly what you talk about. But not many of us can change Saddam or end the abuse and repression dictators level on millions of people. It appears futile to attempt to alter the thinking, emotional impulses and calculated actions of terrorists — and far removed from this small spot of prairie in North Missouri.

What each of us can do is make a better effort to curb rudeness and misguided anger.

My mother (and I’ll bet yours, too) impressed upon me not to do in private what you wouldn’t want seen in public. It’s too bad that in today’s world it takes cameras, rather than mothers and manners, to enforce the point. Unfortunately, for too many little ones like Martha, maybe less privacy in this world is good.