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Critics of American politics have pointed to a disturbing trend: Instead of solving our problems, we study them for interminable periods.
Getting political heat on account of the CIA or a sleazy
member of your cabinet? Appoint a commission or a special
prosecutor, and you'll buy some time, since it would be
inappropriate to comment until the findings are
released.
Generally, some other issue has emerged at the forefront by the time the report emerges, so you've managed to preserve the problems while appearing to care about solving them.
This applies on less exalted levels, too. How long has Denver been studying a new airport, without discernible progress toward building one? Or a convention center? Witness the thousands of trees that will be chopped down and made into paper for the reports and studies concerning environmental effects of Two Forks Reservoir.
When the studies started, the metropolitan area was
growing and could well be expected to covet more water. Now
the population is declining as people move to where they
can find work. When the final Two Forks statement appears,
the issue will be as dormant and irrelevant as
controlled growth
or the free and unlimited
coinage of silver.
The endless studies produced by commissions, panels and
consultants are expensive and easy to make fun of. But I am
beginning to believe that the mere process of study
actually accomplishes a great deal. Why? As Benjamin
Franklin put it, a watched pot never boils.
Since the middle of last week, the Environmental Protection Agency has been set up in Denver, hoping to use lasers to study the city's smog -- where it comes from, how it circulates, various photochemical and other reactions, that sort of thing.
Guess what happened. On winter days, when normally you have trouble seeing the gold dome of the state capitol from the steps of City Hall, Denver's skies have been clear as crystal. As soon as its equipment and crew got into place, the EPA couldn't find enough smog to study.
Come to think of it, we all experience similar difficulties. The family car spits and sputters whenever you drive it -- until you get to the garage. The moment that the mechanic is within earshot, the rattletrap purrs like a big kitten. Appliances malfunction reliably in the kitchen, only to perform perfectly when you show them to the repairman. Your bug-ridden computer somehow experiences a thorough fumigation the instant that an expert walks by.
Which leads to some easy ways to solve many vexing problems. Just start to study the difficulty, and it will go away.
Do the winds of Boulder knock over trucks, rip roofs off houses and demolish reinforced concrete overpasses? Get the National Center for Atmospheric Research to announce a comprehensive and continuing investigation into the causes and effects of those vicious gales. Moments after they hold the press conference, Boulder will be so becalmed that you'd have trouble launching a kite.
Does the Colorado General Assembly generally exhibit the foresightedness of Aesop's ant, the ethical sense of a wharf rat and the intelligence of a turkey poult? Persuade the governor to appoint a blue-ribbon commission to inquire into legislative stupidity and cupidity. Moments later, the statehouse will be filled with nothing but statesmen.
Worried that the Broncos might lose the big one Sunday? Saying nasty things about Washington, D.C., won't help. Every politician in recent memory, from Jimmy Carter on the left to Ronald Reagan on the right, has criticized Washington in brutal terms. If all that criticism can't affect congress and the bureaucracy, how could it affect a football game?
Instead, Denver should invite thousands of grief therapists to visit this weekend, to go to homes and bars to study mass trauma. With the therapists present and ready, naturally there won't be any trauma because Denver would thereby win.
The more I look at this, the more I am persuaded that studies really are a solution. So if you know any cultural anthropologists who'd like to study the economically handicapped, send them by.
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