Today, I'm writing not so much as an ombudsman as a worried old man. I'm worried about Morgan Dana Harrington. I'm worried about her family. And I'm worried about the reactions some people have had to Harrington's disappearance. My worry about Harrington increases as time passes because, though I don't know it to be true, my understanding is that the more time passes, the less likely it becomes that she will be found and the less likely it is that she is alive and well.
That's not to say that there's no hope. Missing people have been found months and even years after their disappearance. I've read that Ed Smart is helping in the efforts to find Harrington. Smart's daughter, Elizabeth, returned home safely nine months after she was abducted. Jaycee Dugard was recently found 18 years after she disappeared. Harrington has been missing less than a month, so there could be a happy ending to this story yet.
I cannot imagine the hell Harrington's family is going through. I don't want to. I pray that they will have the strength to get through this. If you don't have children, you can't begin understand. I'm the father of two and I'm sure I can't really appreciate what the Harringtons are going through.
My daughter is not much older than Morgan Harrington. I worry whenever she steps on a plane. I worry when she travels to big, scary places like New York City. I worry when she's walking home from a night class in Charlottesville. I worried when she went to Belfast.
Worry is part of parents' job description. But worry shouldn't be anyone's guiding star.
Reading the stories and the columns and the comments on The Cavalier Daily's Web site and other sites where Harrington's disappearance is being discussed, it's clear to me that not everyone agrees. Some people have called for tighter security on Grounds, particularly around the John Paul Jones Arena. Some want security cameras. Others have called for law enforcement and University officials to do something - watch more, search more, devise some kind of warning system - to keep them safe from whatever happened to Harrington. That's an odd impulse from someone attending Thomas Jefferson's University.
I once heard an old editorial writer say that one of the most valuable books he ever owned was a collection of Jefferson's quotations, because Jefferson expressed an opinion on nearly every imaginable subject - and because Jefferson could nearly always be found on at least two sides of those issues. But I don't think - and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong - Jefferson ever spoke in favor of government surveillance of citizens.
Benjamin Franklin famously wrote, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
We cannot and should not expect the government or the University to protect us from all potential harm. As citizens, as adults, as humans, we have responsibility for ourselves and our community. So we need to watch out for ourselves and each other. But not all the advice we give each other is all that good. Someone wrote about avoiding the "the walk of shame" and alluded to Harrington's disappearance in support that position. I have a different opinion.
It's foolish, at best, to administer so much alcohol or anything else to yourself that you're incapable of getting yourself home after a party. But if you've done that, unless you've been foolish enough to do that in a place that's too dangerous to stay in, it's always better to hunker down where you are than to wander drunkenly through the late night or early morning streets.
Some people have gone on at length about how twisted and violent the world has become. Oldsters talk about how much more dangerous the world is than when they were wild young college students. I don't buy it. Anyone who believes that depravity and evil are recent inventions has never read the Old Testament or Shakespeare or paid attention during a world history survey course. The world and the people in it are no crueler than they've ever been. The biggest change is that communications have improved, so we're likely to learn of atrocities faster and perhaps more completely than we used to.
There's nothing wrong with being afraid. What's wrong is letting your fears rule you.
Thomas Jackson said it better: "Never take counsel of your fears."
Tim Thornton is The Cavalier Daily's ombudsman. He can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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