" I Was A Teenage HATER ! "

Headline page A7 ( Feb.27) : " Fla. students charged with publishing

    racist underground book ". A bunch of honor students - without honor but

    driven no doubt by Poe's " imp of the perverse " than malignant, truly

    murderous racism. I side with the ACLU here: the crude 20 page, handwritten

    booklet should be protected " free speech "- nasty as it is. There may

    be among the juvenile culprits one  capable of producing an American

    version of " Mein Kampf " - but we must for now let him be.

        The best anti-dote to racism is really knowing even a few of the

    despised group. A teen-age boy in agony with a metal splinter in his

    eye- a boy who is a budding racist- may have a different perspective

    after having that splinter removed by a compassionate and competent

    emergency room doctor- who just happens to be BLACK!

         Little episodes like that can make a difference. The media should

    focus more attention on the numerous black people who contribute a

    significant skill to the community - and have never been anything but

    decent and law abiding citizens all their life.

       In  Rhode Island  I have always been impressed with one Dennis Langley-

    a distinguished black man . He may recall my name from way back. To know

    this man is to be cured of malicious racism forever.

A character out of " Oliver Twist "

I read the first sentence of " Pure nonsense " today  ( Feb. 23 West

    Bay -" Your Turn " ) and said to myself: " an A.H Liddle production."

       Sure enough ! In his  Oliver Twisted mind you must distinguish between

    mass hunger and a lack of food . As if there was only a very tenuous

    connection.  Beware of Marxist propaganda ! he warns.

        Lesser minds- but perhaps bigger hearts - see a problem here and

    organize events such as the " Hunger Banquet ". If I understand this

    conservative correctly , he thinks that the hungry are- for the most

    part- inefficient.

        OK there may be an element of truth here. Is Mr. Liddle so secure

    and self-confident himself that he never sees himself knocking on the

    door of an Amos House ? Does he himself live by wages or income from

    investments? What if worshiped Stock Market were to crash again ?

        Before teaching the hungry efficiency is it not best to appease

    their hunger FIRST ?

         Mr. Liddle seems to me like Charles  Dickens character - right

    out of " Oliver Twist ".

       " You want MORE ! "  you say. " What a silly, wicked boy ! "

A big factor in mental health

My personal experience with a number of mentally ill people -with

no detectable organic brain damage - is that their  own COGNITION -the

way they perceive the world, their general UNDERSTANDING of reality -

is a big factor in determining whether there is any light at the end

of their very dark tunnels.

     When nothing can get them out of their chronic  self-absorption,

not only can we be sure they are hopeless cases but we must we must

guard  against the contagion factor.  If there is such a thing as a

" contact high ", there is also a " contact low ". The mentally ill


are expert at poisoning the  mental atmosphere of " healthy " people

who do not share their torments.



         When they get religion it often only makes  them even more

insufferable. It does not liberate their souls but  makes them even

more a prisoner of the sick ego. If you can seriously believe that the

Supreme Being is listening with the greatest attention to your everyday

whining,  your  religious fanaticism will only intensify.


    Today organized religion has become   an exploiter  of private

lunacy. I could describe this process in detail in the case of a family

member. But  what if a skeptical psychiatrist   - knowing that a patient's

religion is part of the problem not the solution- dares not challenge

it for fear of the social consequences ?


      Is there any drug out there that can actually free such people

from religious MADNESS ?   My relative's " reality " is God and himself

and his immediate family ( he is divorced )- everything else in the vast

universe - which beckoned someone like Einstein as a liberation- is

peripheral matter.

    " Get out of yourself ! " How often do we hear that sage advice.?

   It is still good advice for the mentally ill. But we must provide

them with a compass and a map.

Library administrator corrupt?

   I have already suggested that Doug Pearce,director of the Warwick

    Public library, is incompetent  and foolish. After doing some homework

    yesterday on library E- mail, I will now suggest that he is CORRUPT

    and should not be trusted with library funds. Your paper should investigate

    this man IMMEDIATELY.

         Using the EBSCO article searcher on a library computer, I did a

    key word search using  ' libraries  AND e-mail '.  I was able to

    peruse more than 50 abstracts. The E- Mail " controversy " in libraries

    seems to be a non-issue, Mr. Pearce must be familiar with the " Library

    Journal. " No articles published in that professional periodical suggest

    that he represents even an enclave of opposition.

          He is hurting his own staff with his anti - E- mail stand. Under


    his  direction the " new " library to open in the spring can only be

    second rate.

        His few remarks justifying himself before the TAX PAYERS in retrospect

    seem almost   thuggish. The Mayor of Warwick -if he can- should consider

    removing Mr. Pearce - the sooner the better.

Prevent war with day of prayer

       A few months ago I was reading everywhere about the AMAZING POWER

    OF PRAYER.  It can even KILL GERMS FAST !

        We can ,of course, pray for PEACE. But since that always comes

    eventually anyway , we can never be too sure about the efficacy of

    our metaphysical intervention.

        In order to be sure of its power - prayer- we must pray for something

    concrete and dramatic.

        I suggest that next Sunday be declared a National Day of Prayer for

    the Death of Saddam Hussein . Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Moslems -

    all united in one voice begging the Almighty to take Saddam from our

    midst.

           If that fails then clearly another war is inevitable. But there

    is still another way out:

          During the Vietnam War I often heard chaplains tell soldiers :

      " There are no atheists in foxholes ! "

      Back then I concluded : Very well, let us all become atheists and the

    world will be at peace.

Barry Simon on old Euclid

I appreciated reading   " A  Euclidean necessity " by Barry Simon, the

    chairman of the Caltech math department. It is not stretching it to

    associate the logical training offered by those formal proofs in

    high school geometry -of the recent past - with good citizenship.

         Self - esteem in the real competitive world is not acquired by

    experiencing Euclid  " without tears  ".

       Great thinkers of our own century- Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell,

    and others - experienced Euclidean geometry in their youth has near

    epiphany , the real music of the spheres, the cosmic MIND OF GOD .

         Once you grasp the concept of logical proof, the  arguments from

    Authority have been dealt a mortal blow. Nothing in geometry is true

    because he said so . A theorem is true because he proved  it in a

    logical way - that has stood the test of time for centuries.

          It is no coincidence that our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln,

    while practicing law amused himself and sharpened his debating skills

    by studying old Euclid.

         Euclid of course does not give us Absolute Truth. But it is no small

    thing to get to the Moon , Venus, Mars and the outer solar system - guided

    by his wonderful system of geometry.

         It never ceases to amaze me : if you can measure the height of a high

    mountain , you can find the diameter of the earth - knowing that you can

    find the distance to the moon , then to the Sun and eventually to the planets.

         But how can this  knowledge PROFIT a man ? Give him a dime, Euclid

    would say .

Skeptical on " skip day "

I find I have something to say in the morning after I have had a

    a couple of cups of coffee.  But  I ran out of the instant Maxwell house

    and had Lipton tea instead.  It produces a different state of mind

    altogether - still cantankerous but milder.

       I never write to your nearly two century old newspaper under the

    influence of alcohol - My god what would  I say! What shameless soap

    opera !  A long time ago I may have written something under the influence

    of Dr.Leary's little lover pills. Perhaps it has stood the test of time

    at least as well as  Dr. Leary.

         The fact that the public will never listen to this self-indulgence

    frees my style  considerably.

       My POINT today is that I agree with your editorial "  Infamous 'skip'

    day. But let me go further : in the  United   States education is more

    important than ever.  There are already too many legitimate skip days-

    a whole summertime of them !  This made sense in  the agricultural

    society of long ago.  Today we MUST harvest BRAINS  and there has been

    one long draught !

        A brain is a terrible thing to waste .