biolog

The former head of the National Human Genome Research Institute wrote an op-ed in the Virginia-Pilot endorsing Barack Obama for president. The Pilot has a modest readership of 186,500, is losing its local ownership to a national news conglomerate, and competes with The Daily Press in a tri-county region of 1.7 million, many of which military.

Collins, a Virginia native, is a moderately well-known scientist–lodged somewhere between Steven Pinker and E.O. Wilson in the national conscious. Using his hometown paper as his moment of political coming-out, instead of the more obvious New York Times, makes some sense. However, his keeping-it-real gesture and his timing are not without political merit. The majority of American’s polled who actually watched the last debate said Obama swept the floor with McCain’s hairplugs. On the day Collins’ article was published Obama had a 12 point lead over McCain in this Tracking Poll. Not only is McCain unpopular, but Obama’s numbers haven’t fallen below 50 this month.

The Virginia-Pilot doesn’t make op-eds available online, so I placed a scanned copy below. The format is typical: begin with a few statistics to add legitimacy then proscribe away. But this is an op-ed piece, and Collins opines gingerly, outlining Obama’s outline of science and technology initiatives in a soon to be Democrat controlled White House and Congress. Ho-hum.

After suffering under the yolk of an Administration whose politicization of science sunk to never-before-seen fathoms, whose cronyism filled environmental regulatory agencies with corporate foxes–and whose political litmus tests blacklisted others from hundreds of federal advisory committees–whose cynicism cravenly kowtowed to a small yet annoying coterie of fundamentalist retards, thus allowing the actual, unthinkable possibility of creationism entering the classroom–and the no less shameful banning of human stem cell research and ignorant cautioning against creating ungodly chimeric abominations in the laboratory, whose systematic misrepresentation of the data muzzled its own–and in some cases had them fired–when their results didn’t jive with republican talking points, and whose initial failing to fill key scientific posts, such as naming a presidential science adviser and NIH director, was a damaging sanction placed upon every American scientist from day one. Taken together this is a vile epidemic and Collins the M.D. rises to the occasion:

As a citizen, a scientist, a physician and a son of Virginia, I am deeply concerned about these trends and continued lack of National leadership.

Whoa! Now that Collins has resigned, free of the Hatch Act that checks the mouths of all federal employees (ahem), he wastes no time charging in, guns blazing, with strong words for the current Administration’s bad ideas and McCain’s identical ones. Behold more righteous indignation:

I regret to say that I have found little comfort in Sen. John McCain’s plan.

Hot dog. Them’s fighting words. Or, this is a political maneuver to curry favor with the next president. And as with all politcal maneuvers, there’s a rush to the middle-ground: that wasteland of words, that Clintonian triangulation of opaque rhetoric. For the last eight years Collins collected a paycheck from the federal government, was witness in real-time to the damage done, and no-doubt felt the financial strangulation of basic research in his own institute for close to a decade. And now, his first public response is barely a vertebrae above spineless, a wag of the finger. I say, if you want to play politics, go in whole hog or don’t go in at all.

Mostly what they call heroes are just those that do, that are called to action when everyone else is standing around. This happens surprisingly often. It happened to me last week. I’m a doer.She was standing by the curb with the rest of us. I noticed a small break in the traffic in the near right lane. Then, and as I told the paramedics, for no apparent reason she stepped down from the curb as if to cross the street. It made no sense. Even a child would know not to walk across the street when she did. It’s like that videogame “Frogger,” except whoever had the joystick, because she obviously wasn’t working the controls, didn’t have her hop front to back, side to side. She just set out in a straight, hurried line. My guess was drugs or maybe she was one of those mental patients with a nervous brain that speed-lope wherever they’re going. Either way, there she went, and to look at her walking away was to look at someone whose next and last step would have immediate and life-altering consequences.

She wasn’t from around here—an Indian I think. And no, not like the football team. A Hindu or something. Her hair was braided down her back, and she was wearing this billowy off-white blouse, like an old bed sheet, down to her feet. She was also wearing tennis shoes, I remember, because one of them flew clean off.

In my peripheral, as she set out to cross the street, I made a move to jump out with her—just one of those numb lemming mentalities—but caught myself in mid-stride. I watched her walk forward without the slightest hesitation—like I said, a straight line—and then she casually turned her head and stared at the car barreling toward her. I couldn’t help but think about the cult leaders that set-fire, poison and hack their followers into tiny pieces. Those starry-eyed sheep never ever resist much less question what waits ahead. How could all those people forget their heads and get tricked into going out like that? Even smart people aren’t always immune. Her guru, the bastard with the joystick, must be a real sadist marching her across three lanes of traffic like a golem.

And the driver of the Mercedes coming at her—probably thinking she would get out of the way because there was plenty of time. I don’t know; I don’t know what he was thinking. Again, he didn’t. I would have at least laid on the horn. She had two more lanes of steady traffic left to cross and nowhere to go but back to the curb. I saw the driver look at her and she looked at the driver and they both expected the other one to do something, anything, except continue doing what it was they were doing . . . but hey, they didn’t do anything. And that was just it.

Tires squawked. Just enough to slow down to about thirty or forty, then a loud thud. Her hip, I think, came into contact first with the silver grill, causing her to double over the hood. The momentum flipped her entire body up on top of the Mercedes, almost to the windshield. She slowly slumped off the far side of the car. I noticed one of her shoes had rolled across the street next to mine at the curb. The laces were still tied.

And you know, she never went down. The other lanes were still packed with moving cars as she braced herself against the side of the Mercedes and continued forward, all determination.

Shit, I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned, left thinking, a ton of metal just slapped her and she hasn’t snapped back to reality? It seemed like I stood there for a good five minutes with the whole world in freeze-frame. So I dropped my backpack. And when I moved the world started moving again as if it were waiting for my cue to resume its normal spin. I sometimes imagine, If I had stayed still would the rest of the world still be stuck in that moment, unable to go forward?

The Mercedes crept past me with the guy inside and a passenger, his girlfriend or wife from the look of it, yelling and swearing what an idiot he was and how could he hit her when he saw her standing there. The rage in her voice came clearly through their rolled-up windows. But the girl wasn’t standing; she was just walking slowly, thoughtlessly.

I ran over…or, well, I can’t really remember but one moment I was on the curb and the next I was standing over her. She looked at me with full moon eyes and I hesitated to touch her feeling a little embarrassed because she was staring at me like I had a horn sprouting out of my forehead. Actually, she was the one with a large goose egg on the side that bounced off the windshield.

I didn’t let go. Instead I asked her if she was alright. It’s a dumb question considering what she did to herself. Just the same, she didn’t say a thing. I grabbed her arms. She was still staring at me with that ridiculous glare when she grew as soft as a water balloon. And even a body as small as hers is hard to manage when it goes slack. So I struggled at first as she began to go unconscious right there in the middle of the street with the traffic all around. Her body slid down the side of the Mercedes. I was having trouble propping her up on the car so I could get a better hold of her when a guy came over and barked at me to get her off the damn road. And I was trying but she was a dead weight. So I grabbed her shoulders, motioning to him to do the same with her legs, and we shuffled over to a grassy spot near the curb.

Though she wasn’t responding to various voices asking if she was alright, her eyes were open a sliver, which was a good sign I thought. A small crowd of street crossers had gathered around; I could feel their stares as I hovered over her, craning around one another to peer. Someone made the call and before long an ambulance hopped the curb. A female medic along with the three others she directed around asked no one in particular why this woman’s pants zipper was unfastened. It was accusatory and I felt directed at the two of us males who were crouched around her. My face warmed with indignation. I kept silent and let an older female bystander inform the medic that we hadn’t touched her there.

At this point I stood and backed away. I saved her goddamn life and I’m being questioned over sexual harassment? Not that I was fishing for a Thank you from a bunch of strangers for doing what anyone would have done, but I surely didn’t expect accusations like that.

I raised my hand when the female medic asked who the nearest person was to the accident. She wanted the details, details for the record, for the lawyers. I told her everything except for the part about me freezing on the curb and not grabbing her sooner. I’d already been suspected of something I didn’t do, why put any more ideas in this lady’s head? The Mercedes driver was still sitting in his car, on the phone, uninterrogated. Probably talking to the family lawyer. Strategizing ways to keep this off his driving record. His female passenger stared unfocused out her side window with what in any other situation would be a bored expression. I suspect she was experiencing a much milder version of what the girl her husband or boyfriend dented his hood on will have when she comes through.

After giving my contact information and a few brief legal sounding questions, and the ambulance only a noise in the distance I picked up and went to work. I was late to work, but no one noticed. A few days went by before I called the only hospital nearby. I told the receptionist what had happened and the date it happened on, but without a name she snorted when I asked if she recalled the young woman. There were too many patients, I was told.

Then, if anyone died that fit her description. I’d have to identify myself as a family member for that information, she said. Does it count as a rescue if the person saved is already dead by the time you get there? I was the first responder, and I hesitated. I may have been the closest to her but a few feet away ten others never budged.

Just yesterday, an insurance lawyer called. He wanted to know a few details of what happened before the accident. I told him that the medic wrote everything down I had to say, including the phone number he used to call me. He still wanted to go over what happened.

Was she in the street?

She was in the pedestrian crossing.

Was the light green?

Which light?

The one she was crossing against.

Probably, I think.

In your opinion, was she crossing the street illegally?

I’m not answering that. How fast was the car going when it struck her?

I don’t know.

How fast do you think?

I’m not going to try and guess.

How far from her were you?

Right next to her.

When she was hit?

When she was standing on the curb.

Why do you think she crossed the street at that time?

Maybe she was confused.

I asked what her condition was. He didn’t know. I asked her name. He said it was confidential. I told him not to call again. He wished me a good day and ended the call.

I’m sure she’s alive and fine. A cast, a broken hip, a few cracked ribs and a concussion. Why did her shoe come off and zipper come undone? That’s as much a mystery as to why a receptionist from a hospital with suburban in its name failed to recall anything about a pedestrian hit by a car. And why weren’t there any police at the scene? There are those dreams that you confuse with reality for a little while until you remember something strange occurring that seems too implausible to ever have happened.

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