Current Wisdom
Jackasses, Assorted
"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." —Euripides Current Wisdom • THE WELFARE STATE: The realization of Eleanor Roosevelt's hopes and dreams, as reported by the redoubtable...
...Sir Don't send me to prison again, I am not a crook or a thief nor am I crazy...
...Remember Vietnam...
...New York Times March 15, 1976 GROWING OLD ABSURD: A highbrow Catholic in action: The urban "crisis" is now sufficiently long-standing that it must be regarded as an American institution...
...Sir, even if you don't ever call me back or want to see me again Thank you for all you have done and all I can say is God Bless you, "Yours Truly, Donald DeFreeze" —New York Post March 3, 1976 CULTURAL NOTES: Proof that cultural advances are running apace with economic advances under the wizardry of Britain's Labour regime: Sgt...
...I through her out of the house and I got a saw and hammer and completely destroyed everything I ever bought her and I mean everything...
...After 2'h years I found myself hated by many of the boys there...
...But I couldn't face anyone any more...
...I could have killed her but I didn't...
...I took her back...
...I started playing with guns and firer works and dogs and cars...
...I told my wife I would forget all that she had did to me...
...You sent me to Chino and I lied to them and didn't tell them all the truth...
...Club comptroller Richard Hoffman said they number fewer than 50 per cent of the roster...
...But you should not have sent me back to her...
...Then seven months later I came home sooner than I do most of the timefrom work and she and a old boy friend had just had relations...
...They think I am nuts...
...I will tell you things that no one has ever before know...
...To Start a story of a mans life you can start at the end, but at the start, this start will begin at the age of Sixteen...
...The day after I got home she told me she had had Six relations with some man she meant on the street when I was in Chino...
...At that age, I had Just gotten out of a boys school in New York after doing 21/z years for braking into a Parking Meter and for stealing a car...
...so cherished that no national commitment has ever been made to cope with it with any of the dedication applied to sending a man to the moon or waging war in Vietnam...
...International Herald Tribune March 16, 1976 THE LEGENDARY NIXON: While repining over a recently retired politician's testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the revered Mr...
...I discovered my musical head when I banged it against another man's head in a rugby scrum...
...But as the years went by she never did and she told me that she had been to see her boy friend and that she wanted a divorce because I was not taking care of her and the kids good enough, I was never so mad in my life...
...It was funny but the frights were over the fact that I would not be part of any of the gangs, black or white...
...But I was wrong again...
...I don't really understand what I was doing...
...Associated Press March 11, 1976 BELOVED INFIDEL: An aperiu into the fine mind of the late and controversial Mr...
...When I got out of jail, people just could not believe I had ever been in Jail...
...Jim Collins amuses his friends at an air force base at Middle Wallop, England, with tunes played by hitting himself on the head with a wrench...
...Donald David DeFreeze, oft-paroled founder of the Symbionese Liberation Army (12 arrests in 10 years), as provided by the very same in a 1970 letter to one Judge William Ritzie: "I am going to talk to you truthfully and like I am talking to God...
...I hope you will believe me...
...Just anything to get away from life...
...I was sixteen at the time and didn't have a home, life in the little prison as we called it, was nothing but fear and hate, day in and day out, the hate was madening, the only safe place was your cell...
...Commonweal March 12, 1976 UNDER WESTERN EYES: The Nation, keeping its public-spirited readers au courant on the latest atrocities committed by the most flagitious Machiavellian to reign at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since Richard M. Nixon, he of unbeloved memory: The price this country pays for having Gerald R. Ford as President is rising rapidly as the campaign warms up...
...I was very mad and very hurt...
...People who hear me think I want my head examined—but Idon't even get a headache after a musical session...
...Anthony Lewis disinters still more Nixonian crimes, crimes that the scoundrel had hitherto managed to pin on the, Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's equivalent to the League of Women Voters: The part where it became less easy to smile was when Nixon spoke enthusiastically about his and Henry Kissinger's policy of bombing Cambodia in secret...
...I worked hard, I didn't drink or any pills nor did I curse...
...Collins, whose repertoire includes "Deutschland Uber Alles," "Rule Britannia," and "Onward Christian Soldiers," says that each blow on his head with the nine-inch wrench produces an easily recognizable note...
...The Nation March 13, 1976 36 The Alternative: An American Spectator May 1976...
...For months later she begged me to take her back and she said she had made a mistake and that she really loved me...
...He branded Fidel Castro an "international outlaw" and called his government "a regime of aggression" for sending troops to Angola...
...We were married and things were lovely...
...It "saved American lives," he said...
...I was weak again...
...I was arrested again and again for guns or bombs...
...I solemnly warn Fidel Castro against any temptation to armed intervention in the Western Hemisphere," blustered the President of us all, threatening "appropriate measures" if that should happen...
...I started playing with guns, drinking, pills but this time more than I had ever before did...
...Allan (Bud) Selig, president of the American League club, said players in other cities also draw jobless benefits during winter vacation...
...I wanted to be friends with everyone, this the other inmates would not allow, they would try to make me fright, but I always got around them somehow, they even tried to make a homosexual out of me...
...Is it possible that anyone can still defend policies that destroyed Cambodia's society, killed a tenth of its people and led to its present tyranny...
...Euripides Current Wisdom • THE WELFARE STATE: The realization of Eleanor Roosevelt's hopes and dreams, as reported by the redoubtable Associated Press: Some players with the Milwaukee Brewers, though baseball's minimum annual salary is $16,000, have been drawing unemployment compensation in the offseason, their employer has acknowledged...
...Martin Kestin, State Unemployment Compensation director, said players could be receiving $117 a week for up to 34 weeks...
...I thought that if we had kids or a baby we would be closer, but as soon as the baby was born it was the same thing I had began to drink very deeply, but I was trying to put up with her and hope that she would change...
...I got around this to...
...Ford, seeking the votes of no more than 22,000 Cuban refugees who are registered as Republicans in Florida, gave a vicious twist to American policy toward Cuba in a recent Miami campaign speech...
...I started drinking more and more and staying at my job late...
...I remember the Judge said that he was sending me to Jail for boys because he said it was the best place for me...
...I had only two frights, if you can call them frights, I never did win...
...Selig declined to name players who are picking up unemployment checks...
Vol. 9 • May 1976 • No. 8
