Knox alum spy now focus of movie

In one swell foop it makes me furious and it makes me giggle. My alma mater and Knox College are long-time rivals, since the days the railroad first came through the region. And, yet, my school never produced so outright damaging an individual as Knox alumnus Robert Hanssen.

And now the movie is to be released this weekend, showing how the S.O.B. got caught. No mention, however, whether they're going to bring up his college ties... to the disappointment of us Monmouth College alums and even a couple of Knox students:

[Knox senior Bill] Mayeroff, editor of Knox's weekly newspaper, The Knox Student, helped write a staff editorial in the paper's Feb. 8 edition asking why Knox doesn't promote its more notorious alums, including Hanssen.

"Why does Knox talk up certain alumni and not others," the editorial asks. "We don't know how Knox chooses which alumni stories to tell. But we want to hear them all."

Knox now has a lot to live down. One of their "best and brightest" betrayed his country for a comparatively small fistful of pocket change and a boost to his ego. He collected a total of 1.4 million buckaroos, for 15 years worth of information, for all the loss of life and destruction of national -- and international -- security. He could have done better if he'd invested in the same fund my dad did for retirement, and without all the collateral damage, without the prison time.

And to think, he probably got his start in the seamier side of life by stealing the Bronze Turkey from the display case at good old MC. At least, that's the story I've heard.