and bottom line pragmatism, but itnis . . . consistent with the independencenand pride she vehemently insistsnon asserting.” The judge allowed thatnto those of us bound by “conventionalnstandards” she “may seem deranged,”nbut to the judge, “she may indeed be anprofessional in her life-style.”nReleased from the institution, wherenshe had kept her skills sharp by continuingnto chase people and holler atndelivery men, Billie has since gone onnto the academic life, delivering lecturesnat Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and othernlaw schools. It is only a matter of timenbefore she will be transmitting hernprofessional knowledge to a new generationnof students and faculty. Thenjudge was right: Billie is too sane to benkept in an asylum; she belongs in thenuniversity. (MK)nBrats—now we call them hyperactivenchildren — used to be disciplined;nthese days they are given drugs. Manynpsychologists and school officials insistnthat Ritalin is the best treatment fornchildren suffering from hyperactivity,nor the “attention deficit disorder.” As anmatter of routine, 15-year-old RodnMatthews of Canton, Massachusetts,nwas put on Ritalin as a means ofncontrolling his unacceptable behavior.nUnfortunately, this chemical infusionnof virtue did not help. Making hisnown “value-judgement” after watchingnThe Faces of Death (a snuff video),nyoung Matthews killed a classmate,njust to see “what it was like.” He evennacquainted two other schoolmates withnhis plan. Two potential victims werenrejected before 14-year-old ShaunnOuliette was picked, because “henwouldn’t be missed.”nRod Matthews enticed ShaunnOuliette into the woods, promisingnhim fireworks, and bludgeoned him tondeath with a baseball bat. Then, hentook his two friends to see the corpse.nThroughout his March 1988 trial. RodnMatthews sat impassively, as if thenproceedings did not concern him. Hisnmother also didn’t betray muchnemotion:—the passion was providednby the defense attorney, John PhilipnWhite, who argued that “[Rod Matthews’]npleas for help were ignored bynteachers and friends.”nWhite’s calls for the medicalizationnof blame for Rod Matthews’ crimesnwere disregarded by the jury. Despitenover a century of scientific search fornthe bacillus of sin, the court sentencednMatthews to “life imprisonment”n(usually 15 years in Massachusetts).nOstensibly, Rod Matthews will benrehabilitated by stronger drugs thannRitalin. Given time, perh”3ps murdernwill also become a life-style, followingnsodomy, mendacity, alcoholism, andntheft — one-time crimes and vices thatnbecame diseases in our age. Rod’snparents can safely transfer their unfulfillednobligations to tax-paid professionals,nafter having been let down by theirnprivately contracted vicars in childrearing.nThe controversy over the use ofndrugs to manage children with then”attention deficit disorder” is not new.nIn the 1970’s, some parents filed lawsuitsncharging school officials withn”dumping unruly, bored students onnlocal clinicians who routinely prescribednamphetamine maintenance asna way out.” A 1987 survey by thenGeorgia State Composite Board ofnMedical Examiners showed that 45npercent of the state’s unusually highnuse of Ritalin was occurring in then”affluent suburbs north of Adanta.”n”Among these people there is annintense desire to have their childnexcel,” said Andy Wary, the executivendirector of the board. But a group ofnparents from these same neighborhoodsncomplained to a state lawmakernthat “teachers were pressuring them tonput their children on Ritalin.”nAs one school leader of a parentngroup expressed it, “Schools want tonmedicate, not educate.”nAt his trial, Charies Manson pointednout to the court that he was a productnof the state in whose institutions henhad grown up. Before his 30th birthday,nRod Matthews will be out of jail,nunless some unreconstructed inmatendoes him in. (For all their horror,nprisons still provide a cause-and-elfectnenvironment.) What he will havenlearned “inside” may only be surmised,ngiven, so far, his exceptionalneducation in Massachusetts. (MS)nCry Freedom, the Richard Attenboroughnfilm, is yet another attempt tonrewrite recent history using a prism ofnliberal shibboleths and the civil rightsnexperience in the United States fromnnnwhich to make judgments. The film isnbased on the so-called friendship betweennBantu leader Steve Biko, thenblack consciousness proponent, andnDonald Woods, a white liberal newspapernreporter, and their united effortnto undermine the hateful apartheidnsystem. Yet the friendship betweennBiko and Woods — if one relies onnBiko’s written claims — was a contrivancenand their views of dismantlingnapartheid very different.nAccording to intimates, Biko didn’tnknow Woods very well at all. Hencarefully cultivated his friendshipsnamong those he could trust in thenSouth African Students’ Organizationnand Black Peoples Convention. YetnAttenborough relied on the selfservingnbooks Donald Woods wrote asnif they are realistic depictions of thenBiko-Woods friendship.nPeter Cyril Jones, the last black mannto see Biko alive, contends that whatevernfriendship existed between thesenmen was of a “mutually abusive nature.”nBiko gained access to the pagesnof Woods’s newspaper, and Woodsngained access to a black leader, whichnenhanced his standing among liberalnfriends. Moreover, this relationshipnallowed Woods some acquaintancenwith the black consciousness movementnin which Biko was a major figure.nYet Biko was an unlikely soul matenof Woods, notwithstanding Attenborough’snclaim to the contrary. In hisnessay “Black Souls in White Skins”nBiko unintentionally provides the mostndamaging indictment of the film. Henclaims that the real oppressors of blacksnare white liberals who organize fornblacks, think for blacks, and act fornblacks. In South Africa, he argued,nthese people, who, most assuredly,nwould include Donald Woods, havenattempted to entrench a white trusteeshipnover blacks. It is absurd to believe,nBiko maintains, that white-black integrationncould solve South Africa’snproblems. Attenborough’s attempt atnglorifying integration in the name of ansymbiotic black-white relationship is andisservice to truth and to the principlesnBiko espoused.’nBiko systematically disapproved ofnany Bantu followers who allowednthemselves to be drawn into relationshipsnwith white liberals. He indicatednin almost all his public utterances thendamage to blacks that emerges fromnJUIVB1988/Sn