Iodine 125 or barium acetate? (to Bob Kerr)

Good morning Bob ...I just read your column --which is one

    of those things that good people do. But that gift from China, Cheng

    Gu, ( even his name sounds like a take-out order ! ) reminded me of

    the case of young Marie Robards ,a brilliant student and a brown eyed

    beauty, who stole barium sulfate from her high school chemistry lab 

    one morning .Like Cheng -who stole radioactive iodine with which

    he served his former girl friend and others - Marie spiced her

    dear father's left over beans with the poisonous barium sulfate.

        She loved her dad, you see, but he was just part of the

    problem. She wanted to live with her divorced mother.

           But Marie Robard had a conscience. When a close friend

    quoted lines from " Hamlet " , referring to the torment of

    conscience , she broke down and confessed to the abominable and

    detestable crime against nature - patricide !

         This story was featured in Texas Monthly magazine, July 1996.

     True, as  Brown's Laura Freid said : " Anyone who is a human being

    can decide they are not going to act like a human being .....

          " And there's nothing that anybody can do ".

        But still I hope Patrick Kennedy will introduce legislation

    strengthening security at all school science labs .

            Have a good day  - ron