Last Tuesday, in the midst of a financial storm on Wall Street, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the 25 recipients of its 2008 Fellows Program.  Among them was an Alabama physician who has dedicated her career to doing battle with the aftermath of Hurricanes Georges and Katrina. 

While Washington scrambles to quell tempests largely derived of human greed, Dr. Regina Benjamin’s work strives to mend the bodies and lives of those “everyday folks” that are the mot du jour among political janitors these days.  Dr. Benjamin’s clinical philosophy has been described as something akin to “pay what you can, we’ll figure out the rest.”  (Please read more about Dr. Benjamin here.)

Some days I think we need more of that.  Rights and responsibilities. 

On a sad, related, and somewhat personal note, America lost one of its rare geniuses just eleven days before Dr. Benjamin’s award was announced.  On September 12, David Foster Wallace, 46, hanged himself in his California home.  Mr. Wallace, author of Infinite Jest, was a 1997 MacArthur Fellow.

In the fall of 2000 when I was teaching literature at the University of Illinois (and while Wallace was himself teaching writing just 50 miles up Interstate 74 at Illinois State University) I used one of DFW’s short stories as the basis for an exam.  The entire text, including the title, is 86 words long.  Short story was a deliberate understatement.  My students looked at me as if I were insane.  This barren page—this smattering of vowels and consonants—was the foundation of an entire exam? 

I remember telling them unapologetically something like: “Wallace has given you what he can, you figure out the rest.”

Some days I think we need more of this.

Genius is fleeting.  And a good friend to have on a rainy day.