Bill is back!

The voters have spoken ! How wrong were the pundits of the

    press eager to see a ruined and defeated President Clinton.  How

    embarrassing yesterday's election results to House Speaker, Newt Gingrich.

           What happened to the Gingrich revolution? That - and not the

    Clinton presidency is on life-support.

          Had not the polls said all along that the voters APPROVED the

    president's job performance ? Had not it become clear that there was

    no public mood for this impeachment circus ?

             Will that worm John Gibson - and his cackling geese " news "

    commentators at MSNBC - continue to babble on insanely about Bill

    Clinton's private sex life day after day, week after week, month after

    month ?

               Let the lynch Clinton mob understand this : THE SHOW IS OVER !

        The great silent majority - silent until now - have spoken.

Year 2000 computer glitch

So our brilliant computers lack common sense! Would any ordinary

    accountant have a problem adjusting his records to the year 2000 ?

           Would anybody dependent on computer data REALLY have a big problem

    dealing with the year 2000?  Would any client actually have to explain

    -confronted by a confused computer screen - what year it really was ?

          I recall my personal experience with computer idiocy : I explained

    to a librarian over the phone that I had indeed returned the video " Hoffa "

    ( a hero of mine ? ) to the library. " On no , " she said , " THAT INFORMATION

    would be in our computer. ".  Not until I went to visit her in the audio-

    visual dept.- and SHOWED her video right under her nose - did she understand

    that the computer was indeed wrong. I suspect that she has resented me ever

    since.

             This morning I read in the Providence Journal (Nov. 4, A7 ) that

    a computer in Switzerland ordered a 105 year old woman to attend kindergarten!

          The computer could only understand the last two digits of her birthdate.

          I suppose the same computer glitch ( with the year 2000 ) will could

    start sending out social security checks to five year olds . All sorts of

    crazy things might happen. 

             How right was my old Latin teacher who use to mutter : " TIME IS

    OF THE ESSENCE ! "

" Ecoterrorism " letters in Monitor

Janet Levers' letter in The Christian Science Monitor ( Nov.2 )

    reminds me of the despairing mood of many anti-war protestors in the

    late 1960s . Her cause is our precious eco-system , the living environment

    that supports ALL life on earth.

          Levers writes: " There is complete lack of acknowledgment of the

    despair that betrayal of our system brings to those who truly care

    about the environment ."  She was responding to a story headlined :

    " Violence Escalates in the Name of Environmentalism " ( Oct. 26 ) .

             I personally see little cause for despair. Even the callous

    rich want a livable world . But a deeper problem is scientific illiteracy.

          Think of the millions of people who smoke. Don't they want a

    healthy body and a long life, just like the non-smokers ? But they

    lack respect for KNOWLEDGE . Or they are alarmingly ignorant.

           A SANE person will - in the long run - do the right thing .

        Today is election day and I just voted . I would never vote for

    any candidate proven to be insensitive on environmental issues.

       But democracy MEANS accepting the will of the majority. If you

    have no faith in the good sense of the majority, then you are

    right to despair over the future of the environment. You are

    right to conclude that we humans - homo sapiens ? - are just

    one more soon to be extinct species...and that the cockroaches

     -who have THE RIGHT STUFF - will inherit the earth.

             But our capacity to learn IS one of the great truths

    of our 1,000,000 million year history. What we do need is not

    more eco-terrorists but more eco- TEACHERS !

Glenn's apotheosis in space

Legendary astronaut John Glenn is clearly on an emotional

    high way up there in space . His inspired words of religious

    conviction will delight stubborn creationists everywhere. It

    is almost obvious OUT THERE isn't it : a divine view presupposes

    DIVINITY!

        ..." Looking at the earth from this vantage point, looking

    at this kind of creation, and to not believe in God , to me, is

    impossible ", said Glenn.

          I have no doubt that Glenn's experience of the glorious

    BIG PICTURE would be an epiphany for a hardened atheist.

          But the emotional reinforcement of a religious conviction

    does not add any intellectual depth to it .

         What would Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein  think if they

    -by some " creationist " miracle - could accompany John Glenn

    in his space ship.

             No doubt starry eyed Carl Sagan would have been awe-struck

    too by this highly privileged experience. But knowing Carl, we can

    be sure that he would have said something like this : " Oh what

    hydrogen atoms can do after twenty billion years of cosmic

    evolution !  "

            But nevertheless: HALLELUJAH !