When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? Many at this school aspired to be presidents and astronauts, no doubt. Maybe some wanted to become powerful business types who rule the world’s finances, or be recognized as the world’s greatest teacher.

“Inventor” seems a fantastic future career for the 5-year-old, largely because every activity in life seems a brand-new invention for a youngster at play.

Now, Iowa State has a distinguished alumni base that’s accomplished many distinguished things, and we won’t bore you by repeating them here. But it seems fair to see that as we mature, most of us see the childishness of most of these extravagant dreams. We see the merits of all the other fine majors at this institution of science and technology.

The point of which is, dreams didn’t blind you to the needs of the real world. Unlike the Congress of the United States.

This is an age-old issue and a tired argument, and frankly, it’s a little painful to have to waste even a minimum of space criticizing the provision of $50 million for the construction of an indoor rainforest in Coralville as part of an omni-omni-omnibus spending bill pushed through Congress last week.

Bad enough to combine “indoor” and “rainforest” in the same sentence. Throw in “Coralville” and — well, you know nobody is making this story up. Nobody’s mind could be that twisted.

The project, once known as Iowa CHILD, is the product of Des Moines businessman Ted Townsend, who apparently was so impressed by the rainforest during an Africa trip, he decided to bring it home with him to Iowa.

No, Ted, thank you. Remember those childish dreams we all got rid of? This idea is the kid who wastes valuable time asking stupid questions in your Physics 221 recitation, because the kid’s proudest math moment was figuring out during a campus visit that engineers make a lot of money — and more money is good.

No, Iowa CHILD has driven along a bumpy road in the past five years, ever since Des Moines officials showed some minimal wisdom by putting the infant project back on the doorstep.

Fifty million dollars. Suffice to say that could fix a lot of problems at any and all of Iowa’s universities, and other schools, too.

Perhaps the most unintentionally comedic statement of the whole project comes from director David Oman in an Associated Press article:

“There will be no facility like it in the United States.”

We wonder why.