David McElroy

Take a look at this picture. It reveals the decision of the Ferguson grand jury. Tell me what you see.

I’m writing this before the grand jury decision is announced, but click here for the obligatory link I’ll add. By the time you read this, many people are outraged. I don’t have a clue what the decision will be, but I can guarantee that something about it — and the aftermath of its announcement — will confirm the worst of what millions of people believe.

If Officer Darren Wilson is indicted, it would confirm for many people that cops are killers and deserve to be attacked. For others, it would confirm that civilized society is under assault by those who are being allowed to destroy it — and that our valiant protectors are being harmed.

If Wilson is not indicted, it would confirm for many people that an evil and corrupt system is willing to let white cops murder young black men without accountability. For others, the aftermath would confirm that they need to prepare for a race war against lawless hoodlums.

It’s not a pretty picture. I suspect things are going to get ugly.

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Is life full of second chances? Or do our bad choices doom us to live with ugly consequences? Maybe the second chances are always there. Maybe we tend to doom ourselves.

It seems as though we’re all going to make serious mistakes, but life frequently gives us chances to make better choices later. If we learn from our mistakes and choose differently, we can break out of ugly patterns. But if we refuse to learn — if we blame everyone else and keep making the same mistakes instead — we end up suffering consequences over and over and over again, even though we have the power to change our own lives.

I’ve been thinking about second chances and life’s tradeoffs over the past four days, and it started with a happy family that I saw at dinner Wednesday night.

I’m not sure what caught my attention about this family. Maybe it was because they all seemed happy and the parents were both strongly engaged with the children and with each other. There were three young children in addition to the parents, two young girls and a slightly older boy. For whatever reason, they were the very picture of what I want for myself.

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I don’t wear shirts with sexually suggestive drawings of women. (Or men, either, for that matter.) Call me a prude or a conservative, but I think it’s inappropriate and tasteless. Besides that, it’s disrespectful to the people you’re going to be around, especially women.

I don’t like the shirt that English scientist Matt Taylor wore Wednesday at an ESA briefing about the Rosetta mission. It’s ugly and the stylized artwork of scantily clad women is boorish and tasteless. Nobody working for me would be allowed to wear it for work. It’s unprofessional.

But the media firestorm attacking him is just as distasteful. Some people are calling it “misogyny” and saying this is why women allegedly feel unwelcome in science. Others are saying it creates a hostile environment for women. And on and on and on. (Do a Twitter search for #ThatShirt or #ShirtStorm.)

I object to the shirt on the grounds of taste and good judgment, but the hysterical objections I’m reading seem really overblown. The thing that bothers me most about the firestorm, though, is the obvious double standard.

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