THE SCALE BALANCES

This newspaper's editor attacks a local judge for allegedly smoking
marijuana at a rock concert in Detroit. The editor equates the judge's crime
with much greater misconduct among Michigan's judiciary in years past. Were
this not a serious matter - a man's reputation in the community is at stake
- - the editor's high dudgeon, his "a crime has been committed" sound of
trumpets comes off as slightly comic, like those old photos of government
agents taking axes to beer barrels during Prohibition days of the 1920s.

Maybe the editor hasn't caught up with society's rapid decline. Its
institutions - church, school, family - are all on shaky foundations.
Behavior that was proscribed only yesterday elicits a yawn today.
Trash-mouth-zillionaire Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem (he learned his trade
along Detroit's Eight Mile Road), this past September wound up a tour at the
Palace in Auburn Hills north of Detroit. His lyrics(?) included a vow to
urinate on the White House lawn together with expletives thrown at Lynne
Cheney (the vice-president's wife) and Tipper Gore. Sixteen thousand
suburbanite fans roared their approval.

I've never been to a rock concert but it seems to me that smoking marijuana
in that environment is more fitting than, say, licking an ice cream cone. As
to the gravity of the judge's "crime" at the rock concert, I would weigh it
against doing 80 in a posted 70 zone on the freeway. The scale balances.
Case closed.

Jim Kruzan

Traverse City