Childproofing Cornell

During my brief hiatus from this blog, I made a number of astute observations which I intended to blog about. However, I have since forgotten them, but I ensure you that they were quite the clever considerations.

For want of Windy City whimsies, I shall serenade you with closer-to-home matters. Well, not really serenade, but I felt it sounded nice.

It's really nice to be back at Cornell. I already have a lot of work and the weather sucks, but it's still nice. What's not nice on the other hand is the unavoidable downer that I am forced to witness multiple times per day. I didn't wish to write about this, but I feel that I have little choice in the matter.

Each morning, on my way to class, I have enjoyed beautiful views of the gorge and that nature around it. It's a highlight of my day. However, the university administration decided to fence off the entire gorge area overnight. Now, the bridge and all of the surrounding nature is lined with a 10 foot tall fence. Not just any fence though. This is a barbed wire fence. The type used in prisons. In concentration camps. The purpose of these are to prevent suicides, or at least reduce the ease with which they can be committed. Here's what I think:

Fencing off the gorge
Is like childproofing your home
For a teenager


I mean, really. We go to Cornell. We're Ivy League students. If you've made it this far, you're probably pretty smart (I say probably because that's not necessarily true). So to put a fence around the gorge is like using a child lock on your teenager sitting in the car, or assuming that a tamper-proof medication top will keep him out. It's just not effective. If the teenager wants out of the car, he'll find a way to open it up. If he wants to get into a medication, he'll open the tamper-proof lid. And if an Ivy League student wants to take his own life, he will. I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but that's the case. You need not to address the means, you need to address the cause. Without causation, there is no need for medium. If you ask me, it's only a matter of time before students rally and say "President Skorton, tear down this fence!"