Is Howard right about Jeff Pine?

I recall some months ago reading with astonishment in the Providence

    Journal Attorney General  Jeffrey Pine's suggestion that mass murderer

    Timothy McVeigh be tortured. There was nothing in his past to suggest

    that he had a malignant character defect- a propensity for sadism perhaps?

      So I concluded that it was all brainless PR directed AT the "the ethical

    basement of the universe " to use Howard Lisnoff's descriptive words for

    Rhode Island in his March 28 letter to the editor.

       Again Mr. Pine has merited the wrath of Howard over the stiff sentence

    given to 15 year old Jessica Gonzalez for " brutal,cold killing ". He

    sees " racism " as a factor here.

        When Mr. Pine announced his resignation from his job -citing financial

    pressures to earn more money for his growing family- I suspected that

    the simply truth was that he was burned out. He is- I think - neither

    a sadist ( McVeigh is white ) or a racist. He IS a casualty of the

    office. You LOSE with the public if you are " wimpy ". And you LOSE if

    you are " tough ".

       In the final analysis the PHILOSOPHY of the law is the culprit. In

    sentencing a 15 year old to virtual life in prison, there is an ethical

    assumption at work not different from that of THEOLOGY : that EVIL is

    rooted in the depths of the INDIVIDUAL SOUL even at a very young age.

       This assumption only perpetuates the office of chief prosecutor.EVIL

    - not to dismiss personal responsibility altogether- has deep SOCIAL

    roots. Society has barely begun to understand this. It is still CHEAPER

    to build more prisons.

Imelda Marcos and her kind -cannibals!

     Imelda Marcos of the Philippines -according to this morning's news-
has more than $800 million stashed in foreign banks.And she promised to
give it all to the poor-but only if she is elected president. Her husband,
dictator Ferdinand, died in 1989 " accused of plundering about $10 billion
from the national treasury..".
   You are still CHEATING the poor dear Mrs. Marcos. What you and your
" anti-communist " mate stole from the poor of your country, perhaps
weighs down on your " Catholic " conscience a little in your old age. Too
bad you can not take it ALL with you !
   Like most very wealthy people the world has a right to ask you : What
did YOU ever DO to deserve it ? In the final analysis all wealth is the
product of our collective,mental and physical labor. Any man or woman-
possessing one body,no matter how wonderful, and one brain, no matter how
brilliant - has no ethical claim on millions of dollars.
   Deep down the fabulously wealthy -even those not legally corrupt-
know this. So they employ public relations people to show them off as
generous friends of the have-nots . Any honest government would tax their
inherently criminal wealth so much that they would think twice before
buying even a dozen pairs of expensive shoes.

     There was an old woman
       who could live on her shoes,
   Who had so much wealth-
       that a few more
   she could never refuse !

   I also read this morning an unusually horrible story out of Huejutla,
Mexico. A lynch mob hanged two men suspected of kidnapping four young
girls- ages 4 to 12- for the hideous purpose of selling their body
organs to some rich man in Texas.
   In general that is the essence of great wealth everywhere - the
rich are cannibalizing on the poor!
   Should they all perhaps fear the MOB ?

Psycho-babble on school killings

GOOD MORNING!

       After the horrible killings - a 13 year old and an 11 year old with

    readily available guns open fire on classmates and teacher -Hollywood

    Movie style - as usual after the killings the psycho-babble. A lot of it

    just common sense hardly demanding a PHD : "...kids these days are not

    getting the social and emotional learning they need." Dr.Laura can tell

    us this every day on Talk Radio.

       Would compulsory lectures in elementary school on " getting it all

    together " assure us that these crazy kid homocides will never happen

    again?

       True enough ignored, angry, troubled kids are TRAGEDY WAITING TO HAPPEN!

    But the sanest and most humane society would not have enough counselors

    and psychiatrists for individual therapy.

       The root of the problem is one of the most terrible inventions of all

    time- the GUN.  I remember reading somewhere the definition of man as " a

    tool making animal ". The mere possession of a gun will CHANGE your

    personality whatever it is  genetically. You possess the GREAT EQUALIZER.

    With it you can take on ANYBODY who gets in your way. Big pest or little

    pest- what difference does it make ?

       Your TOOLS change YOU! I remember keeping a baseball bat under my

    bed in a rooming house after an encounter with intruders.

       But I did not like my new personality - the guy with the baseball bat.

    I just moved out. The PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE PERSONALITY in action!

Wilhelm Reich Redux

     A letter was published in your paper that found a measure of merit


    in the  old superstition that masturbation causes blindness.I remember

    reading a book in my early twenties that made a deep impression on

    me: Wilhelm Reich's " Sexual Revolution ". I recall it began with

    this rather startling sentence :" Happiness in life is primarily

    sexual happiness". Of course it is easier to believe the younger you

    are! I'm not sure I agreed with Mr. Reich even way back then. But this

    point of view had a measure of merit.

       He was a courageous - or some might say depraved champion of the

    " sexual rights of adolescents". He advanced quite respectable arguments

    connecting the sexual repression of youth with the economic structure

    of society. Sexual repression  he thought helped create the " authoritarian

    personality. "  In George Orwell's " 1984 " we have the ridiculous

    " Anti-Sex League ". The hero of novel, Winston Smith, concludes that

    the crude and " vulgar " sex act was indeed a rebellion against Big

    Brother. His girl friend in her own unsophisticated way agreed : after

    a sexually fulfilling union you didn't care about " all their rot ", thought

    Julia. Winston concluded that paradoxically the " animal " in you

    could preserve your " humanity".

        I am no advocate of sexual anarchy in the Age of Aids. But the

    tragedy of the modern plague is that it set our thinking back a whole

    century on the subject of the sexual liberation of young people.

       I am a great believer in RATIONAL sexual repression. It can keep you

    out of a life time of trouble! But I still deplore this medieval reaction

    in our midst.

         I do nevertheless recommend that the real danger of deadly disease

    compel hot blooded youth to find  HAPPINESS in many things,