One of the perks (or drawbacks, depending on your attitude) of being a merit scholar at Notre Dame is you get to help out with the annual scholar selection weekend every spring, a three-day marathon where some of the brightest 18-year-old brains in the country descend upon South Bend, IN to see what life at Notre Dame might offer them and interview for a spot in the merit scholar program. Helping out with this visit weekend is 10% giving folks directions to the dining halls, 30% talking about whether or not you support single-sex dorms, and 60% sitting in awe as you hear what these 18-year-olds have accomplished and asking yourself, "How the hell did I end up getting a scholarship if this is who I was competing with?"
During the visit weekend of my sophomore year, I volunteered to play host in the waiting area where all the scholarship candidates would hang out between their interviews, and I started chatting with one of the girls gunning for a scholarship. She mentioned that she was hoping to double major in political science and film, and I was sort of taken aback by that answer because it seemed like such an unorthodox combination. I asked her what her reasoning was for choosing those two.
"Well, you need to have a political science background so you can understand how our government works, but you need to have an arts background so you can actually change people's minds about an issue."
Of course. It was so obvious once I heard it. I surely had subconsciously understood that idea for years, but I had never heard it worded so clearly. Rhetorical arguments and shocking stats are great, but it's art that always moves the needle in actually getting inside someone's psyche and convincing them that the way they are currently viewing the world is wrong. The Jungle. Silent Spring. "Woman Falling From Fire Escape." "The Terror of War." The list goes on and on. Art changes people's minds in ways that logic doesn't.
Last Sunday, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed that P-22, the beloved puma that has been living amongst the celebrities in the Hollywood Hills for the past decade, had to be euthanized after rapidly deteriorating health and an injury from a supposed vehicle strike left him unable to be healed. It's a sad ending for the cat that became a Walk of Fame-caliber icon in Los Angeles, but P-22 accomplished quite a bit in his ten years evading the public eye. First, he ensured Jennifer Aniston would never be the only cougar living in Los Angeles, which is an honorable feat. But secondly, he brought the issue of wildlife conservation efforts in urban areas back into the public dialogue and became the Smokey the Bear of reminding us we co-exist with many other creatures in nature. He's largely cited as the reason Los Angeles is now building the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over highway 101, which will be the world's largest wildlife crossing once completed.
I can't help but think a lot of this is because of the absolutely stunning and now iconic shot National Geographic photographer Steve Winter got of P-22 crossing in front of The Hollywood sign in 2013. Sure, we all know that we're only one component of nature and we're always living at the mercy of our greater environment and we coexist with a lot of other animals in our communities. But nothing communicates this message as instantly as Winter's photograph. You see it, and you get it: there's wildlife to protect even in the most unseemly of environments, and we need to be conscious of that with the policy decisions we make.
RIP P-22, and thank you Steve Winter for making sure his message lives on loud and clear.
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