Sex on the beach " rape trial

         In a front page picture this morning " not guilty " Ed McGovern

    looks so professorial with his glasses, graying beard and suit. So

    CIVILIZED ! No ,he and Phillip O'Donnel could not BY LAW be convicted

    of a sordid , gang bang rape. And I agree with the verdict in the strict

    interpretation of rape laws , the verdict of six men and six women.

       Still I can sympathize with the " consenting " woman's cry yesterday:

    " I hope they burn in hell ! "

      Can a drunken woman -even ordering " sex on the beach " cocktails -

    really OK being gang banged ?

      I know it sounds preachy but it never ceases to amaze me the role BOOZE

    plays in the moral decline of people.

       I have been turned off by strident, arrogant feminism for years now.

    Still I always respected its ABC values. To begin with: women are not

    mere SEX OBJECTS in ANY situation.

       Long before Women"s Lib, though, GENTLEMEN understood this.

What brought out the worst in Andrew Wurst ?

 I am tempted to indulge in my own brand of psycho- babble in

    commenting on 14 year old Andrew Wurst who may have planned a cold

    blooded murder a month earlier: " I'm going to go to the dinner dance

    and kill some people," he warned classmates, One of them nicknamed

    him " Satan". Wurst " hated his life. He hated the world. He hated

    school ". Now a science teacher, John Gillette, has been shot dead

    and others wounded by  a crazy kid  tormented in some inner hell.

       To turn against life itself in the very springtime of life !

     Just a speculation- perhaps futile- but how many of these  " crazy "

    kids were surrounded by emotionally healthy, " biophilous " adults ?

     Picture a vulnerable kid who never gets a clue from any of the adults

    in his life about WHAT IT"S ALL ABOUT.  He is surrounded by so called

    adults who deep down are still very infantile themselves, who have

    never undergone their own Copernican Revolution- learning that their

    EGO is not the center of the universe.

       Perhaps from day one the kid perceives himself as a mere nuisance at

    best in envied adult world. How many kids are born into the world-even

    the affluent world- not really wanted at all?

       I can't think of anything else -in a kid born mentally healthy- that

    can poison his very soul, creating a future moral monster.

      These kids -unless we are prepared to believe in Satanic influence -

    got a very malignant message from the ADULT WORLD very early in life.

       In the absence of caring adults, they got that message from TV. Love

    that Marilyn Manson !

        My own psycho- babble but I tried .

Heywood on Dr. Laura - FAN MAIL ?

         I write often myself to newspapers via E-mail just for the fun of

    it. If one tenth of them were published I would I would consider it

    extraordinary good luck. More often they are just the grip or the laugh

    of the day sent out into Cyber Space. I forward all of them to my own

    private chat partners. So all is not in vain,

       Mr. Heywood in a letter this morning on Robert Whitcomb's column ( " The

    rise of the grief industry" ) makes a number of valid points about Dr.

    Laura. She herself is no " grief counselor " or VICTIM consoler. She

    may even scold me if I asked her humorously about " toxic " parents .

       But as the editor points out Dr. Laura is part of MASS THERAPY and

    her stock in trade is " rather strident sermons " while usually " ignorant

    of the details of a callers life". My brother, for example, is on lithium.

    If he had an impulse to call Dr. Laura, I would be very nervous  about

    her " doing the right thing " advice. It could be disastrous !

       Also it was only necessary for Mr. Whitcomb to listen to her for

    five minutes to have her number. She is a gifted and intelligent person.

    Nevertheless she offers cheap counseling for dimwits!

       Yet I would not deny them this .

     I agreed completely with Mr. Whitcomb on " grief counselors ". If

    an individual in grief stricken state seeks them out ,that is his or

    her business. But how dare show up at school presuming that their

    service is really in demand! No thank you - we refuse to grieve by

    the numbers !

      President Kennedy was assassinated while I was in high school. If a

    grief counselor had showed up back then, I know what my reaction would

    have been: " Don't tell me what I am suppose to feel or how soon I will

    get over it". Many of us never quite get over PURE EVIL !

Brian T. Stewart -rat suspect but guilty ?

 I read the AP story TWICE just because it was so MONSTROUS. Would

    a man-even a real CREEP- inject his own son with HIV tainted blood in

    order to avoid rather modest child support payments ?

       The horror of AIDS death is that it is long suffering agony. A child

    with AIDS would also be quite EXPENSIVE to support.

       A brainless maniac and a pitiless psychopath might do just what Brian T.

    Stewart is accused of doing. But reading the story ( April 24 ) it is

    clear that the evidence against him already reported is hardly overwhelming.

    He may indeed be INNOCENT . To be sure he needs a good lawyer.

       I read : " after eliminating all possible ways the kid could obtain

    the HIV virus...."

        Not so fast ! How can police investigators be sure about ALL POSSIBLE

    WAYS? HIV is a very TRICKY molecular assassin !

        Can HIV tainted blood be STOLEN from a hospital without a number of

    possible eye witnesses? What a lax security !

       Mr. Stewart, a lab aide, being seen with a white lab coat in his son's

    room - is pretty flimsy EVIDENCE of a monstrous crime .

       If Stewart insists he is innocent, he deserves as good a legal defense

    as O.J Simpson.

       Things are not always what they seem. A good anti-dote to lynch mob

    fervor.

NOW did the right thing !

 I was glad to read this morning that the National Organization for

    Women will not sleep in the same bed with its more rabid political

    opponents.They apparently agree with the female federal judge who

    found that the Paula Jone's case had no real credibility as " sexual

    harassment ".

       And Paula Jones has certainly tainted herself with right wing politics.

      Still it easy to begin to feel some sympathy for Mrs. Jones. I think

    she was swimming in very murky waters and is now over her head. She has

    her legal rights which no one should want to deny her. Maybe some good

    will come out of her case after all.

       The implacable right wing haters of Bill Clinton should realize that

    they cannot bring him down with cheap sexual soap opera stories. Have

    they no confidence in their own IDEAS ?

          I do perceive NOW to be oriented toward the middle class ambitions

    of the better educated women. In the past the very best FEMINISTS were

    blatant SOCIALISTS with critical attitude toward capitalist society. These

     gifted women would never turn their backs on the poor and the working

    class. They would never whine in public about " glass ceilings " in corporate

    America. They understood that female tyrants were  in no way preferable to

    the male ones.

On mother kicking !

I was first introduced to the ROTTEN LITTLE KID  -not in real life

        but in the movies - when I was just about that news making brat's age.

       I always knew that things would suddenly " escalate " in a " very tense

      situation " and that the  rotten kid's poor mother would get a good, ins

      instructive kick in the leg. Her anguish  provoked the laughter of the

      audience. One NEVER expected the police to arrive on the scene and actually

       arrest the brat.

           Miami  Circuit Judge , Thomas Petersen -commenting on the arrest of

       ten year old Andrew Perkins - said that in the juvenile justice system

      COMMON SENSE is being obliterated completely by " policies and fear of

      political repercussions ".

           We have become an insanely LITIGIOUS society in the past few decades

      and this reality is corrupting every level of society. I have very liberal,

      even radical ideas about the WAY THINGS SHOULD BE. But I know that the

      courtroom is the wrong place to deal with every affront to our dignity

       and sense of justice.

         A boorish man brushes up to to a female secretary at a bubbler : Was

       she HARASSED ? I'll see the creep in court ! she decides .

         A blue collar worker spends a great deal of his time trying to arrange

       an " accident " on the floor of his work place. Honesty is for jerks. He

     - like ALL THE OTHERS - is just looking for the main chance.

         On the bus I observe quite a few people innocently trying to  get run

       over - hoping that a fat law suit will guarantee them at least a few

       HAPPY DAYS .

         In a hospital a kind and competent nurse is being terrified by cold

       nursing supervisor over that supremely important PAPER WORK. WHY ? Is

      the ice cold supervisor more concerned about the patient  than the kind

      nurse ? No, she is just more responsible in law suits !

           We truly create our very own HELL !

On never listening to yourself

People with a half a brain left should seriously consider pulling the

    plug on radio and TV. Along with the stupid,obnoxious commercials, you

    are getting mostly PURE POISON.

       While listening to one of those inane talk-back shows one beautiful

    Fall afternoon, I suddenly asked myself: " When do people listen to

    THEMSELVES ?"

       At the same time I spotted a pedestrian with those foolish looking

    ear phones covering his ears. " No , he was not listening to himself ", I

    concluded.

        I played with the radio dial: sports and more sports, numerous

    crackpot " born again " preachers, a big fat right winger fulminating

    on the evils of BIG GOVERNMENT, Kevin Trudeau in an infomercial telling

    people they can read " Crime and Punishment " in fifteen minutes, mediocre

    pop music passed off as " the greatest music of all time ", how to

    convert $5000 into $50,000 overnight.

       What would H.L Mencken say about all this ?

     Do we perhaps live in one of the most stupefying societies of all time ?

      Is there a real conspiracy out there to keep people from discovering

    just hoe
       how meaningless their life is ?

A.H Liddle on " manliness "- Warwick Beacon

Mr. Liddle asks the public in a letter to the Warwick Beacon ( April 21 ) :

     " What Democrat has the fortitude to demand that Mr. Clinton resign from

    office ? " Jack Reed, Patrick Kennedy, Bob Weygand - he thinks - are all

    " Clinton bootlicks ". To be sure, Mr. Liddle, don't count on them to do

    the preposterous : ask the President of the United States to resign over

    mere bimbo gossip and imprudent but not at all " unmanly " behavior on his

    part.
         Reading the latest sultry STORY, I wonder if all those very manly

    men out there -are you one Mr. Liddle - ? are not a little JEALOUS of

    Bill Clinton's real or imagined sexual adventures in the White House. It

    would make a great French novel someday!

         In Mr. Liddle's opinion a really manly man would be wonderfully

    faithful to spouse and deprive little children of food and medical

    care . He seems to lose sleep over such things as " free lunches ".

       Perhaps the Democratic Party needs even less real manly men and

    more lesbian and gay activists !

Charles Hauser and the Abyss

Charles Hauser, a retired executive editor of the Providence

    Journal, points out today how the bottom line is a big factor in bringing

    the newspaper industry to the abyss. He also mentions " frequency of

    errors, the use of anonymous sources, sensationalism, liberal bias ".

       Still I think newspapers will be around for a long while -until we

    run out of trees.

       I suggest that newspapers will not harm  themselves financially by

    adopting a more PEDANTIC tone for the public. We can forgive the political

    bias of our teachers if they can actually teach us things we don't know

    or explain things we need to understand.

      Information is not enough. Countless facts can merely confuse us. We

    need the TEACHER with the lucid mind. For millions of readers the daily

    newspaper is the only " university " they will ever pay for.

       And it is- or can be - still worth the price .

The shroud of Turin - the will to believe

Today's article about a competent scientist who thinks he has

    evidence that the famous shroud of Turin is not a hoax will no doubt

    reinforce the " will to believe". The romantic soul in me would also

    like to believe. How can any truly human , human easily resist EVIDENCE

    for RESURRECTION of even  ONE man ?

         The followers of Jesus felt that HE should be immortal -even if

    nobody else was . The MYTH of Jesus - if that is what it is - was the

    creation of a mere handful of disciples. In a FLASH of time, as measured

    by recorded history, they inspired a world conquering religion.

         One not insignificant accomplishment of Christianity is that we no

    longer crucify people in public . We can credit it with taking at least

    some of the heartless cruelty from the cruel,cruel ancient world. ( in

    time it would make its own contribution !

        But if the shroud of Turin is  the REAL THING , why stop there in

    looking for historical evidence for religious TRUTH . Why not literally

    search for the Holy Grail ? Or the True Cross ?

       Why should DIVINITY be so stingy with the evidence ? Why not leave

    us feeble minded humans with irrefutable evidence of RESURRECTION ?

        For me CARBON DATING was as decisive in shroud of Turin controversy

    as DNA typing in the O.J Simpson murder trial.

        My religious grandmother , who lived on Federal Hill in Providence

    for 50 years , once showed me a true miracle of Saint Anthony : the

    bureau cloth in her  bedroom mysteriously caught on fire. On it rested

    a plaster statue of the good saint. She pointed out to 10 year old me

    that the saint's image had been burned into the holy cloth. I could

    only make out a vague outline of the statue myself.

        It had all the reality for me as the MAN IN THE MOON .

      But I loved my grandmother and respected her will to believe .

A " moment " of reflection ?

        The Alabama state Senate sent Gov. Fob James a bill that calls for

    a mandatory period of " quiet reflection " in the schools. This is a reaction

    to a federal judge  ruling against Alabama's school prayer law . Now even

    voluntary prayer initiated by students is impermissible.

       Having read a book titled " Why Johnny Can't Think " , I would hope that

    the period of " quiet reflection " in public school extends well beyond the

    60 second limit.

        Could we not perhaps indulge the kids with a whole hour of " quiet

    reflection " in math and science classes ? Even -may  I dare suggest - in

    history and literature classes ?

       In taking exams " quiet reflection " is also recommended .

      It is not recommended for what students do with alarming frequency : listen

    to radio and TV commercials .

         Let me conclude that so called LIBERAL should not lose any sleep over

    prayers in the classroom .I have reflected on the issue now for more than 60

    seconds.

Whitcomb vs. Dr. Laura - the winner...

        The winner is Mr. Whitcomb. I have been waiting a long time to

    hear some significant criticism of this ludicrous " grief counseling "

    and also the likes of Dr. Laura , the radio celebrity head fixer.

       In a grief stricken state most people are best left alone with the

    few people who REALLY care about them - friends and family. These

    grief counselors are -in my opinion - unctuous charlatans.

        Only simpletons will unburden their souls on Dr. Laura. More can

    be said but today Robert Whitcomb said it all very well.

        Now I will call Dr. Laura .... do I have TOXIC parents ? I must

    find out this afternoon!

                                   ron

Shoe laces and zippers -a class problem

 I remember hearing this solemn advice more than a few times: " People

        judge you by your appearance ". Motivated by this warning , several times a

        year I shop at the K- mart. I buy new dungarees and new shoes. I pay about

        $25 for the dungarees and about the same for the shoes. If I paid any less

        for the shoes, I risk looking like I just left prison with $10 in my pocket

        and a rent voucher for the YMCA. My thick,wild unruly hair also contributes to

        the ex-con look ( every season I get a haircut to counter that impression )

           I'm glad yesterday was not Judgment Day based on personal appearance. Those

        new genes I buy invariably have an embarrassing problem : the zipper will not

        stay up. And those cheap but not too cheap shoes also have a problem : the

        glazed shoes laces are always coming untied- as if deliberately, to let the

        whole world know just what a schlmiel I am.

            So at noontime I find myself standing foolishly in front of Gay Bar in

        downtown Providence, with my zipper down and my shoe laces untied. The moisture

        in the air dischevels my hair. And my watch band has just broke.

           No I will not apply today for the presidency of Brown University !, I tell

        myself.

" Head Negro in Charge "- offensive ?

 I must begin by asserting my " innocence " in racial warfare . I'm

    just as old as the president and therefore influenced by the same cultural

    milieu. When dealing with individuals whom we know, we quickly learn their

    special sensitivities and try not to offend them out of kindness and respect.

       In general true friendship can be " taunted " and indulged. As  Frank Sinatra

    said in a movie role : " Only my friends can call me a wop ! "

       Returning to Providence from Boston on a Greyhound bus Easter weekend, I

    heard a number of New York bound " Blacks " refer to themselves and one

    another as " Niggers ". Several of them were so unruly that the bus was

    delayed at the Pawtucket Bonanza station. A  Providence Journal sports writer

    whom I chatted with, was upset about missing a deadline. (  Mo Vaughn won that

    game with a homer )

        Besides thinking about how I would like to go right back to North Conway,

    New Hampshire, where I had vacationed for a week, I reflected : How can self-

    respecting people talk about themselves this way ?

       If any white passengers had dared to use a racial epithet in addressing

    them, they  might have provoked a minor riot.

       For some time now black leaders have insisted that the  seemingly innocuous

    term " negro " is offensive to their racially sensitive ears. My 76 year old

    father still uses the word when discussing the problems of the race benignly.

    A few decades ago it  mysteriously became taboo. In  junior high school, I

    would not have dared to call " negroes "... blacks.

        Oddly enough in the movie " Malcolm X " we see Malcolm amused and disturbed

    by the many negative dictionary meanings of " Black " : evil, sinister, unclean,

    impure.... etc. .

        In my " innocent " opinion no harm is done in STILL employing this word

    " negro " . The respectable Latin word " niger " - close to universally

    offensive " nigger " simply  MEANS black in color .

        In general words are whatever we make them to be . I  myself, for example,

    could be called a WOP - which meant originally that some relative of mine

    was caught " WITHOUT PAPERS ! " The humiliation of it !

Drugged kids of baby boomers

I read in the paper today that the baby boom generation may be

    oblivious about its own children's experiments with drugs, They are

    perhaps by disposition incapable of the authoritarian way of dealing

    with this very real problem.

        You could say summing up the experience of a generation: drug use is

    a stupid one way ticket to nowhere for the more lucky users; it is a ticket

    to hell and an early death for the not so lucky - numerous in our generation.

      It takes no little intelligence early in life to distinguish between

    real and illusory " happiness ". Real happiness is invariably EARNED through

    some creative and productive relationship with the REAL world. Feeling

    good for a few hours because you took a drug is  an essentially PHONY

    experience. Your " drug " personality is an impostor who may bury your

    real self. A person who never has a sense of his real self is truly a

    lost soul. I have gone to not a few funerals of these lost souls.

       When I perceive someone is unusually " friendly " to me because of a

    drug high, I am quickly bored with his or her company. I  have no

    patience with drug induced GREAT THOUGHTS.

       I would say to all the kids I deeply care about : Choose LIFE not DRUGS !

      In the long run it even feels better .

Enough STAR CHAMBER proceedings!

This Kenneth Starr is made out of the same mold as the late great

    menace to democracy - Senator Joseph McCarthy . But at least he was

    elected!

       How many Americans have had it with his modern version of Star Chamber

    proceedings. Hillary Clinton is absolutely right about a vast right wing

    conspiracy. Kenneth Star is the obsessed maniac leading the pack.

       Like Joe Mc Carthy he too will end up with the equivalent of delirium

    tremens!

Emily Rosa - Ghost Buster !

I was very impressed with 11 year old Emily Rosa's  " ghost busting "

    science fair project. So was the Journal of the American Medical Association .

    Will more than 47,000 practitioners of Therapeutic Touch be put out of business

    by Emily 's precocious paper ?

         Marilee Tolin - a practitioner of the this " alternative  medicine ",

    points out that  "intuition " is also  needed to " sense " the HUMAN ENERGY

    FIELD. And Dr. Dolores Krieger, an emeritus professor of nursing at New York

    University , insists that this " touch therapy " - interacting with the " human

    energy field - WORKS .

        Bright as Emily is- I wish her great success in scientific research - was

    her experiment described in the April 1 Providence Journal - perhaps a little

    superfluous ?  A quick reading of the late Carl Sagan 's " Demon Haunted World "

    or ordinary scientific literacy would have sufficed to discredit the pseudo -

    scientific notion of a specific " human energy " field.

       Energy as a MATERIAL  reality has been understood for many decades now by

    scientific thinkers. As I understand it modern science is familiar with

    gravity energy field and electro -magnetic fields . These can be detected

    by instruments even when very weak. How many ergs per cubic centimeter do

    we find in the average " human energy field ", which is not gravitational and

    not electro-magnetic ? Does it survive death ? Then we are dealing here

    with Poltergeist phenomenon !

        Scientific literacy can save us millions of dollars !

Property owner should be disgraced

  It will be too late when we read about some tragedy connected to the

    place. Why should society care much about the kind of people who end up

    living above cheap bars - so convenient for their life style. What

    difference does it make if one day they are all burned alive. So much

    human rubbish consumed in the fire.

       I had not seen my friend Mike since his mother's funeral. She liked

    to drink. He likes to drink . It was very clear to me at the memorial

    dinner that the whole family was alcoholic. The rather attractive woman

    sitting next to me ( she would not be " pretty" much longer I thought )

    did not touch her food; she just drank the beer. An older brother was

    near delirium tremens. And I learned that he died not long after the

    mother's funeral. I know if Mike were starving, his last $5.00 would be

    spent on booze.

        Still he has always been my friend and he understands friendship.

     When I met him this morning in Pawtuxet Village we went for coffee in

    a nearby restaurant, while his drinking companion girl friend went

    apartment hunting.

        He showed me his room above the Gaspee Lounge. What  squalor ! What

    a fire trap. And for $70. per week ! The owner of the rental property

    there should be ashamed of himself !

       A friend of Mike - a retired fire fighter- warned him the dump was

    a fire trap. " Get one of those rope ladders ", he advised.

       I just want the public to know. I owe that to my alcoholic friend !