By Mr. Madison

Mr. Madison writes about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness in the city of Madison.

I know you're probably going to find this hard to believe, especially those of you who write in every week seeking my advice on life's really tough problems (Note to Marvin in Madison: Yes, no, ask your doctor, I think that's illegal in ALL 50 states, and no, not with a ten-foot pole), but I never went to college.

When I graduated from high school in 1978, college was the furthest thing from my mind. I had just been released from thirteen long years of educational purgatory and I was in no hurry to jump back into the fire. 

At eighteen, my priorities were as follows: do as little work as possible during the day, get as inebriated as possible every night, and meet as many really cool chicks as possible along the way.

My high school guidance counselor never bothered to tell me that the best place to do all of these things was at college. Instead, he just sort of chuckled at my grades and asked if I had considered a career in the janitorial arts.

A year or two out of high school I found myself hung-over, broke and unemployed. That's the only time I seriously thought about going to college (it seemed an easier prospect than having to sober up and find a real job).

I stopped by the local university and met with a student advisor (think guidance counselor with zits). I was thinking about getting an English degree so I could teach small school children the proper use of words like "y'all, yonder and ain't."

When I told the student advisor this, he, too, chuckled at my aspirations and asked if I had considered a career in sanitation engineering.

So I never went to college (other than for lunch). At least I didn't waste eight years of my life getting a degree I would never use. The guy who mows my lawn has a PhD in psychology. I guess he uses that $100,000 worth of advanced schooling to make sure my grass is "okay" with being cut.

Then there are those folks who collect college degrees like my sister collects Beanie Babies. I have a friend who has a Masters in electrical engineering, a Bachelors in computer science, and a Doctorate in mathematics. You know what he does for a living? Nothing, he's too busy going to school.

I don't feel so bad about ditching college when I hear of some of the things that are going on in our institutions of higher learning these days. Take the case of the Penn State professor who is trying to teach pigs how to communicate using a computer. That's right, f-f-f-olks, I said pigs. And I'm not talking about ugly coeds, either, I’m talking about real pigs.

Professor Stanley Curtis believes that pigs, like apes and some people from Michigan, can be taught to communicate with humans by using a form of computer sign language. Curtis, with all his college-tainted wisdom, thinks that pigs are much smarter than people think. I think Professor Curtis is one pork rind short of a full bag. Who wants to get email from a pig?

Here's how the good professor summed it up to The Philadelphia Inquirer: "Pigs always have their eyes open for their next mouthful, so they are always surveying the environment. They are very alert, and if they see some food at a certain place, they have to figure out how to get to it."

Is he talking about pigs or his fraternity brothers? Curtis continued, "They (pigs) solve problems every day and they have the ability to discriminate, so it should come as no surprise that their intelligence is high."

Curtis' goal is to provide the best possible environment for pigs and other farm animals. If these pigs could communicate that they're uncomfortable, unhappy, or hungry, he says, the farmer could then do whatever was necessary to make the pig's life a little easier. This is where I get confused.

What farmer in his right mind would want a bunch of whiny pigs running around the barnyard stirring up trouble? And what farmer would go to the trouble of making a pig's life easier when he knows that said pig is going to be on the next train to Baconville? This is like giving death row inmates Dr. Sholes pads to put in their shoes so their feet don't hurt while they're walking to the gas chamber.

You don't need a college degree to figure out that this is the dumbest idea since the invention of low fat bologna. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be able to communicate with pigs. I'm not a heartless person. I don't want to think that the pig that gave its life for my morning bacon spent its last moments sitting at a computer terminal frantically typing out, "PLEASE DON'T KILL AND EAT ME!! I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!"

Let's put the professor's computer sign language to work with animals we don't eat. I'd love for my dog to be able to tell me what the heck he's barking at at three in the morning. And I'd really like to know what my cat has to be so uppity about.

Besides, what could a pig really have to say that's worth hearing? Unless it's, "Hey buddy, have you considered a career in welding?" Th-th-th-th-at's all, folks.