Bury the UNDEAD !

              Oddly enough this Memorial Day, I am thinking about one of

    the world's most famous undead - Lenin of the former Soviet Union. The

    man -who was an uncompromising atheist and " dialect materialist "- would

    be appalled to behold his putrescent, mummified corpse in Red Square.

          His brain - which planned a worker's utopia, not a Gulag nightmare -

    has been in a glass jar for year now. Nothing was learned from it, except

    that the communist " genius " may have been prematurely senile.

           The extreme hardening of his brain tissue is the perfect metaphor

    for ALL decayed dogma. A logical " system " for the Infinite - the human

    heart - will always elude us .

             But is it not common decency to finally put Lenin's remains - he

    was a Great Man - into Mother Earth ?

               And I think they will do less mischief there - reminding Russians

    of a very dialectical principle : ALL things pass away -even bloody utopian

    dreams .

John Glenn -just what NATO needed !

             National hero John Glenn's noble and sobering words in

    support of the NATO mission in Yugoslavia - " we must prevail .. "

    should strengthen the will of the alliance nations to do just

    that .

          His advice, I suspect, goes counter to the self-indulgence and

    self absorption of prosperous and cynical times - and the political

    ambitions of implacable Clinton haters !

          " A life spent focusing on itself will occupy a very small universe ",

    Glenn said.

            The horror in Kosovo - and the World Court branding President

    Milosovic a war criminal - should fire the moral imagination of the

    country.

             A NATO triumph here will be remembered 1000 years from now as

    its " finest hour ".

            When NATO troops escort those million refugees back to their

    homeland amidst a crushed foe , the whole FREE WORLD will be applauding-

    relieved that pure evil did not go unchecked.

            And irony of ironies the " Draft Dodger " - Bill Clinton - will

    leave office with the aura of a war hero !

              May the Force be with him !

Help Mrs.DiPrete !

To say on the front page of your paper ( May 27) that a

person - Mrs. DiPrete here - does not qualify for welfare - " no matter

how poor " - is to suggest that the Roosevelt Era, the New Deal, two

generations of progressive social change NEVER EXISTED or were a very

big mistake.

Mrs. DiPrete strikes me as old fashioned wife and mother type-

rendered unfit for the everyday work world.

She should get at least some minimal help until retrained for

the job market .

I wish her well. And is there any excuse to endlessly torment

her husband and family ?

Al Gore - the NEXT president !

Dear Mr. Gore, Vice President of the U.S. :

My retired parents have keen instincts here. They

told me Sunday that the transcendental moment of political

fate had passed : when YOUR vote won the day for sanity on

gun control.

Someone on National Public Radio described you as THE

MAN ON THE WHITE HORSE .

Proud of you, my family now thinks Al Gore as THE NEXT

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!


- - - - - - -
comment from Ron Marshall:

Morning Ron--I just received your forwarded message to Al Gore. I can
    assure you that Gore is the Right's worse nightmare--worse than  Clinton
    in their eyes! Clinton may be a "closet Liberal" but Gore is a the Real
    Thing! To the far Right, he's an insidious tool of the New World Order
    Conspiracy. Gore will take away their guns and leave them defenseless
    against hordes of inner-city criminals and United Nations "occupation"
    forces operating in a clandestine fashion on US soil! Gore is an evil
    exponent of One World Government. For conservatives, his record and
    commitment to environmental protection is nothing short of subversive &
    "anti-capitalist." For all these reasons, Gore will have an immense
    appeal to the moderate voting majority who want some sane measure of gun
    control (especially after the bloodbath in Littleton), strong
    environmental protections, & a President they can trust to preserve not
    tear away at the social compact between the people and their government.
    WHEN Gore is elected President he will be the first 21st Century
    president--e.g., of the new Millennium! This will be viewed as an
    ill-omen by many on the Right. The insidious New World Order  Conspiracy
    will then be unstoppable in their view. For conservatives, any chance of
    making a U turn back to the 19th Century, or at least turning back the
    clock by several decades,  will be thwarted by Gore's "out of the closet
    liberalism" A genuine "compassion fascist" & "environmental wacko." In
    fact, we may witness nothing short of hysteria when Gore takes his oath
    of office. That will make talk radio more fun than ever as far as I''m
    concerned. For those who embrace the Right--defined as the haunting fear
    that someone somewhere is getting an even break, Al Gore brings instant
    shudders! Just listen to the Toxic Jockeys on the radio who exploit
    their sense of paranoia! Ah yes--the Millennium is gonna be fun to
    watch! More popcorn?

    Take care buddy. I'm sure the Vice President will be very touched by
    your letter. Well done indeed!

    For the New World Order--Ronnie the Blue Helmet

Communist Party USA CRAP !

You would think that the abysmal collapse of the " Evil Empire "

    would cause American Stalinists to do some serious soul searching -even

    if they deny the " soul ".

             Today they are crawling out from under their rocks to defend

    " sovereign " Yugoslavia and Milosevic regime. In the name of WORKING

    CLASS solidarity. I always thought that was a good thing, but what do

    "ethnic cleansers " have to teach me about CLASS interests ?

            It seems to me that the organization that puts out the " People's

    Weekly World " is now dominated by pathetic stooges for Russian totalitarians.

         Headline May 22 : " NATO's War harms all working people "

        It's all about capitalist profits, you see . Kosovo is on their agenda

    as a future sweat shop bastion !

            NATO's war is " lacking any humanitarian aims " ( page 3 )

         The soul of Joe Stalin still breathes in them !

M.J. Anderson on violence

No, I can't believe this from M.J Anderson ( May 22 ) :

       " During World War 11, in about 80 percent of the encounters, soldiers

    failed to fire on the enemy " ?

           Why ? Were we a nation of pacifists in tennis shoes back then -

    reluctant to do anything more violent than scold Adolf Hitler ?

           We won the war ! There were MILLIONS of enemy deaths.

       According to Anderson - who seems to be irrationally vilifying the

    military - they were more effective at training the Vietnam soldiers -

    who " lost " the war- to KILL, KILL, KILL !

           Anderson would oppose our culture of violence with the V-chip.

      Would should activate the V-chip for the inspiring series : " Victory

    at Sea" ? ( she )

            Kids who watch violent movies all day or night simply need to

    get a life. If they had a strong sense of RIGHT and WRONG, it would hardly

    matter at all - except for a terrible waste of time !

NATO - Keep Bombing and Talk tougher!

For the first time since the last days of World War II , western

    military powers have the FORCE -and a moral imperative to prevail - on

    their side.

           Let Nato keep bombing Yugoslavia until the millennium -if necessary.

    And talk tougher with the arch-villain Milosovic :

            " We will  negotiate nothing with YOU  and your government but

    UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! "

              And warn him that -unless he commits suicide - he will surely be

    tried in the World Court and found guilty of heinous crimes against

    humanity.

           And his country will resemble Berlin in 1945.

Prayer at URI

OK it is a tired headline: " Priest calls for prayer at URI

    graduation " ( Providence Journal, May 20 - page B1 ).

         Of course , Steve Brown of ACLU disagrees with the Rev.

    Joseph D. Creedon.

          Speaking as non-believer ( not quite an atheist ), I must

    say that I am getting more and more fed up with MILITANT atheists

    who have convulsions whenever God's name or Holy Scripture is

    invoked. Does this cranky minority have a " divine " right

    to stifle the religious instincts of the majority ?

          A society needs some moral glue to hold it together -

    even if it is just enchanting and inspiring STORIES.

        Perhaps what we need in this public prayer controversy is

    a LIBERAL interpretation of the constitutional separation of

    Church and State.

          Again and again I find myself in  a church for a wedding,

    a funeral ,or a baptism. Out of politeness I stand and kneel

    with the congregation. I am respectfully SILENT during prayers.

        As long as the pious sheep do not turn Inquisitorial on

    me, what do I care ? There is even a certain aesthetic beauty

    to the hymns and rituals.

         Just yesterday I attended a close friend's memorial mass.

    I had a very real - if not mystical feeling - that he had found

    peace at last.

          Fanatical atheism is as ridiculous and arrogant as fanatical

    religious faith.

         So - Let us pray !  Or at least, let THEM pray !

A Long Way from the Slide Rule !

           While fossilized high school math teachers debate the wisdom

    of hand calculators in the classroom, their smart-ass pupils have no

    doubt all ready discovered a blissful shortcut for that tedious

    homework : on line calculators -hundreds of them !

           What would have taken the sputnik generation hours to do, can

    now be done in minutes . For example, you can locate an " applet " that

    will instantly solve a quadratic equation for you,or given 3 sides of

    a triangle, compute the area according to the elegant Heron's Formula.

          Those on line graphers are just amazing for those of us who can

    still remember the slide rule. Remember how tedious it was to graph

    second and third degree equations ? Now just type in the equation and

    click ! A neat and beautiful graph appears before your eyes.

            There are amazing resources on the WWW even for the advanced

    calculus: instant " integration " and " differentiation ".

           " Now the kids don't even have to THINK ! " you might conclude.

       I think that it is a good thing that teachers will be denied the

    pleasure of instilling a permanent inferiority complex in MOST of their

    pupils. But -seriously - these homework aids actually FREE the mind for

    the more important matter of UNDERSTANDING concepts.

          I still recall that " the null set is a subset of all sets ". I

    owe my splendid success in life to that !

" Three War Criminals "

With his short letter titled " Three War Criminals " ( Providence

    Journal, May 15 )  , H.F. Rommel of Newport establishes his reputation

    as a moral genius.

       So President Clinton is THE war criminal in Kosovo conflict ? Rommel

    invokes " international law ".  Does not the concept of " international

    law " LIMIT the so called  SOVEREIGN nation ? Does it not compel a nation

    to behave in a civilized way ?

          Is GENOCIDE  just internal affairs - none of NATO's business, of

    no concern to the United Nations ?

            The Chinese thugs would agree with you, Mr. Rommel : The REAL

    criminals are our leaders in Washington !

             Could someone at  least SUGGEST a peaceful way to deal with

    this abominable " ethnic cleansing "  ?

Clinton right -WHO is barbaric ?

As a voting citizen of the United States, I will express my

    support for the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia.A fatuous pacifism

    will never make THIS world a kinder and gentler place. The recent

    destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was just an accident

    of war.To quote our president, Bill Clinton : "What is barbaric is

    what Milosevic has done. "

            What Milosevic has done is called GENOCIDE! In a recent column,

    Providence Journal columnist Mark Patinkin asked why was the news media

    paying more attention to tragic side shows of the war than to the main

    event - " ethnic cleansing " in Kosovo.

           It is way too early -and a little silly - to pronounce the Yugoslavian

    Hitler the winner in this conflict -a conflict in which the values of

    Western Civilization are at stake.

            Milosevic must be denied the spoils of any imaginary victory :

    Kosovo should be converted into a NATO military base until all the

    refugees are returned.

                Could you have asked the Jewish victims of the Third Reich

    to negotiate with Nazis ? Was the Holocaust just a misunderstanding ?

               If most of the people of Yugoslavia see Milosevic as a

    nationalist hero, they are not so INNOCENT after all .

             Bombs away ! Tomorrow is another day !

Fairness to the NRA ( Rifle Association )

I am one of those LIBERAL types scorned by the right wing. I

    defended President Clinton against those Americans furious with

    him for a good reason - his moral failures.

          But I myself scorn  knee-jerk liberalism.  And I say that we

    are often unfair to the National Rifle Association. I would not have

    joined that crowd of 7000 protestors outside their annual meeting in

    Denver, Colorado. The IRA is in no way responsible for massacre of

    school kids in Littleton. Very disturbed  youths -with very EVIL hearts -

    did this.

          I visited a NRA web site the other day and I found no evidence

    of maniacal personalities. Like other human beings they themselves do

    not welcome hateful verbal attacks. In a democracy we must truly listen

    to the people with whom we disagree.

         NRA members point to very constructive programs of the organization:

    They often train our police officers .

           I just have no use for guns myself - a lily livered pacifist

    at heart. I will not look at IRA members the way " normal " high school

    kids are looking at those sinister " gothic types " in their midst.

             I will confess that I have a natural sympathy for gothics. In

    fact - if I were back in high school - I would cultivate the Barnabas

    Collins look. Remember Barnabas from "  Dark shadows ".

           I am presently enjoying "  Great Gothic Horror Stories ".

        I was a fan of the TV program : " Have Gun - Will Travel "