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Letters to the Editor

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

July 1990 – September 2003

 

JACK O’NEIL

Sewickley

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright

 

Letters to the Editor

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

July 1990 – September 2003

 

JACK O’NEIL

Sewickley

 

Ó1990-2003 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

All Rights Reserved

 

Manufactured in the

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J U G G E R N A U T

P. O. Box 3824

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www.juggernautco.com

 

Set in Times

 

ISBN 0-9646137-6-X

 

First printing December 2003

Fifty copies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epigraphs

 

Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, 1946, Tradition #10

 

Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit is a Catholic University, founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, the Spiritans, and sustained through a partnership of laity and religious. Duquesne serves God by serving students—through commitment to excellence in liberal and professional education, through profound concern for moral and spiritual values, through the maintenance of an ecumenical atmosphere open to diversity, and through service to the Church, the community, the nation and the world.

Duquesne University Mission Statement

 

 

Boys, if you don't stick together, how do you expect me to follow you-ah?

  Lawrence Welk


Table of Contents

 

PSO and Pope: When 2+2=5......................................................................................................................................................... 5

Friday, September 12, 2003..............................................................................................................................................................

Alcohol's bondage........................................................................................................................................................................... 6

March 15, 2002................................................................................................................................................................................

The Senate turncoat........................................................................................................................................................................ 7

June 7, 2001.....................................................................................................................................................................................

Bush's social services proposal will be money well spent....................................................................................................... 8

Tuesday, February 13, 2001.............................................................................................................................................................

Turkey Disasters Part II, or, Fowl Deeds and Misdemeanors................................................................................................ 9

November 23, 1998...........................................................................................................................................................................

Called ‘em as he saw ‘em............................................................................................................................................................. 10

July 27, 1998....................................................................................................................................................................................

Making headlines......................................................................................................................................................................... 11

February 28, 1998............................................................................................................................................................................

The lesson of Rege Cordic.......................................................................................................................................................... 12

December 26, 1997...........................................................................................................................................................................

Clinton vs. Saddam is a very scary match-up........................................................................................................................... 13

December 22, 1997...........................................................................................................................................................................

Bring back news values............................................................................................................................................................... 14

August 6, 1997..................................................................................................................................................................................

The truth about AA....................................................................................................................................................................... 15

June 17, 1996...................................................................................................................................................................................

Brighton Heights NIMBY........................................................................................................................................................... 16

January 9, 1996................................................................................................................................................................................

A nice long ride............................................................................................................................................................................. 17

February 3, 1995..............................................................................................................................................................................

Rid campuses of alcohol............................................................................................................................................................... 17

December 30, 1994...........................................................................................................................................................................

Musically speaking Pavarotti is a sell-out............................................................................................................................... 19

October 21, 1994..............................................................................................................................................................................

Unleashing anger over abortion coverage................................................................................................................................ 20

February 25, 1994............................................................................................................................................................................

Don’t mislead the unwary about the AA’s 12-step program................................................................................................. 21

November 14, 1993...........................................................................................................................................................................

Censorship or anarchy?.............................................................................................................................................................. 22

September 17, 1993..........................................................................................................................................................................

Road deaths have dropped............................................................................................................................................................ 23

March 24, 1993................................................................................................................................................................................

No TV is good TV.......................................................................................................................................................................... 24

February 9, 1993..............................................................................................................................................................................

BYOB no solution......................................................................................................................................................................... 25

March 8, 1992..................................................................................................................................................................................

‘Columbus bashers’ wrong......................................................................................................................................................... 26

October 28, 1991..............................................................................................................................................................................

Helping alcoholics........................................................................................................................................................................ 27

September 28, 1991..........................................................................................................................................................................

Protesters ignore history............................................................................................................................................................ 28

January 27, 1991..............................................................................................................................................................................

O’Neill wrong on Welk............................................................................................................................................................... 29

November 4, 1990.............................................................................................................................................................................

Helping Young Addicts................................................................................................................................................................ 30

July 1, 1990......................................................................................................................................................................................

 


PSO and Pope: When 2+2=5

Friday, September 12, 2003

 

After reading the garbage-laden letter from Grove City's Walter Carson about the PSO and the Pope (“PSO, say no to the Pope,” Feedback, Sept. 5), I pondered just what would constitute an appropriate reply. Carson presents such moronic vituperation and egregious insults I knew I could not reply in kind as I consider myself a member of the human race and a person fairly tolerant of other people's views.

 

My policy was sorely tested when I read this diatribe against the Holy Father, John Paul II, the Catholic Church and the church hierarchy. I had to stop and remember that I spent some time in the South Pacific in WWII to help insure that such lunatic ravings were assured publication in a free press.

 

How to reply to such outrage and provocation? Thank heaven I remembered my old philosophy professor, Father Schenning at Duquesne University back in the 1950s. He taught ethics, logic, theology, cosmology, etc. And he cautioned that we would someday run across the Carsons in this otherwise civilized world.

 

He said that we might meet a person who claimed that two plus two equals five, and that we could take him to court and bring evidence and witnesses including Albert Einstein, to prove that two plus two equals four. While the jury and the judge would agree with us unanimously, Carson would be out in the corridor after the verdict, screaming “Two plus two equals five!”

 

Father Schenning's advice: “When one argues with a fool, there are two fools arguing.”

 

I congratulate Grove City for tolerating such fools in their midst.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley

 
Alcohol's bondage

March 15, 2002

 

At last! The March 8 letter from Dr. Lawson Bernstein (“No Laughing Matter”) finally brings a serious note to the ongoing saga of Judge H. Patrick McFalls Jr. Dr. Bernstein realistically and credibly states that alcoholism is a disease (not a crime) and has symptoms, a treatment of choice and an outcome.

 

From 1980 through 1990, I was a counselor at St. John's Hospital's Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Center. In that time, I interacted with as many as 3,000 or more alcoholics and drug addicts. Without exception, they pretty much met the criteria for treatment and, when they followed instructions, lived happily ever after.

 

When I had to prepare an “aftercare plan” prior to each patient's discharge, I looked around and discovered that, invariably, Alcoholics Anonymous and its companion, Narcotics Anonymous for the drug addicted, held out the only viable hope for continuing recovery. Yes, regrettably, we would have to recycle some of them from time to time. They usually complained that AA or NA “didn't work,” which is a bit like a diabetic complaining that he tried insulin but it “didn't work.” Our usual rejoinder was that “when everything else fails, follow instructions.”

 

As of this writing, I understand that Judge McFalls is now in treatment. If he follows instructions, I can almost assure him that he will eventually have the freedom of a happy life instead of the bondage of an alcoholic obsession.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley

 


The Senate turncoat

June 7, 2001

 

The three-ring circus masquerading as the U.S. Senate now has everything. It has Democratic snake charmers, it even has Republican contortionists and now it has a duly elected leopard that has changed its spots: James Jeffords.

 

I don't know how Vermont does things, but it would appear that Jeffords claimed to be a lifetime Republican when he ran for office, was probably endorsed by the Republican state committee and was elected by his Republican constituency to represent them in the Senate -- as a Republican.

 

When I was growing up, they taught me that people who did such underhanded skullduggery were called turncoats, liars, traitors, Benedict Arnolds or worse. Frankly, I think Jeffords deserves this year's Pearl Harbor Back-Stabbing Award for an Outstanding Performance in a Continuing Election Charade.

 

To my horror, in Jeffords' “explanation,” this miscreant used words such as “my own conscience and principles,” neither of which he appears to have in any abundance, not to mention honesty, integrity or self-respect.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley

 


Bush's social services proposal will be money well spent

Tuesday, February 13, 2001

 

I can still hear the cries of horror and anguish from the ACLUnatics who fear President Bush has violated the alleged “separation of church and state” invisible line with his proposal to give some funding to charitable organizations that are basically concerned with providing services to those who need it most (“Bush Backs Funds for Religion-Backed Social Services,” Jan. 26; “Civil Liberties Groups Quickly Raise Objections,” Jan. 30).

 

The real beauty of the proposal is that the money will not be squandered on allegedly “new” programs in the inner city or elsewhere in which the first order of business for the recipients would be to appoint their favorite demagogue as chief executive officer at a salary of $300,000 a year, who in turn will appoint his brother-in-law as deputy assistant CEO at a salary of $200,000 a year, then hire his wife as his “administrative assistant” for $85,000 a year, his son-in-law as office manager for $75,000 a year, etc., etc.

 

The Bush funding will go to currently operational and successful operations of proven benefit to the community, organizations primarily staffed with volunteers whose prime qualifications include an unselfish desire to help others without any thought of being paid or reimbursed for their time, talent and energy.

 

President Bush, the compassionate conservative, has tapped into his constituency with the first of many innovations that will bring back decency and honor to the White House.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley

 

 

 


Turkey Disasters Part II, or, Fowl Deeds and Misdemeanors

November 23, 1998

 

When my wife learned a neighborhood girlfriend didn't relish spending all day in a hot kitchen, they “pooled their resources” and invited the neighbors, too. The guest list grew to include several other couples and brothers-in-law who not only gathered around the TV to watch football, but they made sure they had a glass of Holiday Cheer in their hands.

 

One of them, considering himself an expert on mixed drinks, decided to supply the holiday guests with his own recipe for a Manhattan cocktail, including my wife and her girlfriend cooking the turkey. It was quite a sight to see these two young and innocent housewives, who had never had anything more than a Shirley Temple cocktail, sipping their Manhattan - through a straw, no less.

 

After the football fans became aware of a rising tide of giggles from the kitchen, they ignored it until there was a loud THUMP! heard, along with the delicious aromas coming from the kitchen. Immediately, the THUMP! was followed by hysterical giggles and even more clatter.

 

Husbands and brothers rushed to the kitchen to see what was going on. There, on the kitchen floor, were our two cooks, sitting with the 32-pound stuffed turkey which had defied their best efforts to get it out of the roasting pan and onto the serving platter. They had all fallen to the floor, aided, to some extent, by the unwieldy turkey and the heretofore unknown substance called a Manhattan.

 

The resourceful menfolk, no strangers to mishaps due to demon rum, picked the ladies up, along with the turkey, and pitched in to clean up the floor, then carved the turkey and helped to get the rest of the meal on the table.

 

The next day, somebody asked my brother how his Thanksgiving dinner was. He said, “Fine, except the turkey was drunk.”

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Called ‘em as he saw ‘em

July 27, 1998

 

Helen Weals' July 14 letter ``St. Paul Is No Marriage Expert'' reminds me of my college days at Duquesne University many years ago.

 

A philosophy minor, I had to take a course called ``The Nature of Marriage,'' which just happened to be taught by a Father Koren, a goateed member of the Holy Ghost Fathers and a renowned philosophy professor. Inevitably, someone in the class finally asked Fr. Koren the obvious question: How could a Catholic priest presume to know anything about marriage when he was by profession a celibate?

 

To which Fr. Koren stroked his goatee and said, in his thick Dutch accent, ``I never laid an egg, but I know a bad one when I see it.''

 

Case closed.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Making headlines

February 28, 1998

 

An Olympic gold medal for headline of the year goes to your headline writer who created your Feb. 21 Saturday headline of Tara! Tara! Tara! to celebrate Tara Lipinski's triumph at the Olympics in Nagano.

 

I laughed, I cried, I marveled at the creativity behind your wordsmiths who seldom fail to give me a lot more than I pay for with my daily issue of the Post-Gazette. My only concern is for how many people alive today actually know that the code word for Japan's ``Day of Infamy'' when they attacked Pearl Harbor was ``Tora! Tora! Tora!''

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


The lesson of Rege Cordic

December 26, 1997

 

This is an open letter to all of your readers who are also fans of the Lynn Cullen show, recently cancelled by WTAE in its questionable opinion that everybody in Pittsburgh wants to talk about Sports. (God Help Us !!!)

 

Many years ago, Rege Cordic, Pittsburgh's most famous radio personality of the 20th Century, decided to leave Pittsburgh after many, many years as THE morning WAKE UP man. I personally know many people who have refused to turn their radio on in the morning ever since then - 1950-1955. The brave souls who did tune in very quickly tuned out, as every idiot with a morning show was doing their best to imitate the sorely missed Cordic. It was like trying to imitate God. To this day, all Pittsburgh morning Wake Up ``comics'' try to imitate Cordic. But, as the Bible says, ``God is not mocked.'' Since then, the management morons at KDKA fired Paul Long because he dared to disagree with the mental midget who was the news director at the time. When Paul left, he took his audience and his weatherman, Joe DeNardo, with him.

 

Since then, other talented people have come and gone. But the sun rises every day, the earth turns, the Democrats screw up the city of Pittsburgh and life goes on as it has since the days of old Fort Pitt at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela.

 

As Lynn Cullen said, ``No one can shut me up.'' Take heart, you Cullen fans. Like a bad penny, she'll keep turning up . . . despite corporate arrogance and juvenile management interns who think they can force-feed their audience the kind of claptrap their market research cretins sell them.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Clinton vs. Saddam is a very scary match-up

December 22, 1997

 

In the words of the great philosopher Yogi Berra, it looks like deja vu all over again.

 

Consider the headlines chronicling our ongoing ``negotiations'' with a madman who is the leader of a foreign country who is trying to blackmail the supposedly intelligent leaders of the free world into making certain ``concessions'' in his quest for power. To that end, he is building up a quite formidable war machine using modern as well as futuristic weapons - an arsenal which he is forbidden to acquire by consent of the international community. Saddam Hussein, you think? Nope. Adolf Hitler ``negotiating'' with the nations which defeated his country in 1918 at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and carnage unheard of in previous wars. Well, Adolf won the battle of diplomacy when milquetoast Neville Chamberlain assured us of ``peace in our time'' - giving Hitler a piece of this country, and a piece of that, while we turned our backs on his weapons buildup.

 

Fast forward to 1997 and the madman Saddam as he builds biological, nuclear, chemical and germ warfare weapons that could wipe out the entire population of his enemy - and the entire world is his enemy.

 

And who do we have standing between us and this modern madman? FDR? Eisenhower? Winston Churchill? Guess again. How about the world's most famous draft dodger - Bill Clinton? Comparing him to Chamberlain would be an insult to our British cousins.

 

God help us if this draft dodger can't see that history is repeating itself. And God help us if Saddam bluffs Bill into a modern version of ``peace in our time.''

 

If you liked World War II, you'll love what Saddam Hussein has in store for us!

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Bring back news values

August 6, 1997

 

The news media's criteria for what is “newsworthy” continues to fascinate this 1951 journalism graduate of Duquesne University.

 

Back then, we had five W's and an H - who, what, when, where, why and how. And of course, it was a sin to even hint at an editorial comment in a news story. Accuracy, truth and objectivity were tantamount. My, how times have changed. When an athletic ingrate visits Ireland and complains the people are rude and the food is terrible, the media report it as though it were a documented eyewitness account of the finding of the true cross.

 

Over several days around the Promise Keepers rally at Three Rivers Stadium, I swear I heard less about the rally and its noble intentions than I did about the hysterical feminists who “denounced” the event as a threat to women's freedom.

 

And, of course, there were endless references to the paranoia which insisted that Promise Keepers was some sort of political Trojan horse that was about to unleash an apocalypse on the innocent non-Christians who supposedly feared for their lives.

 

All of this reminded me of past times when, if any form of pro-life news event occurred, some reporter was sure to visit a nearby abortion clinic to interview someone who insisted that killing babies in their mother's womb was as American as apple pie.

 

Those who disagreed were dismissed as right-wing religious fanatics.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


The truth about AA

June 17, 1996

 

The 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous often comes under public scrutiny by competing private services that know the price of everything and the value of nothing. This time they even fooled your staff writer (“Faith Fading as the Basis of AA, Some Leaders Say,” May 20).

 

To begin with, there are no “leaders” in AA. Even the AA literature states emphatically, “Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern.” Second, the late Rev. Sam Shoemaker did not invent AA. He did not start it and he is not its patron saint, despite the desperate campaigning over the years, mostly by Episcopal lay persons and clergy.

 

Sam Shoemaker was a saintly man, an inspired preacher, author, homilist and dedicated Christian.

 

But these “leaders” and “disciples of the Episcopal priest from Pittsburgh on whose principles the 12 steps are based” err in confusing Rev. Shoemaker's “principles” with the “Oxford Movement” of Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister in the 1920s and 1930s.

 

Finally, as a professional drug and alcohol counselor since 1980, I can honestly state that after many millennia of mankind's suffering from the chaos and tragedy of alcoholism, the 12-step program of AA is the only treatment that has come even close to solving the mystery. That's why, when you go to a modern-day detox and rehabilitation center and pay up to $20,000 or more for the privilege, they will give you daily doses of the AA 12-step program.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Brighton Heights NIMBY

January 9, 1996

 

Still another letter saying “It's 'No' for Rehab Center” (Dec. 28) and again, from a resident of Brighton Heights, where someone is trying to reactivate the long-gone St. John's Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Center.

 

What's with these people? The NIMBY crowd. They don't want anything or anybody in their neighborhood that doesn't fit the God-only-knows-what criteria they have established. They always remind me of the dimwit elitist “My-mind's-made-up, don't-confuse-me-with-facts!” crowd. I served as public relations director of St. John's ADR from 1980 to 1984, then returned a few years later when it was known as Mercy Center for Chemical Dependency. They were all happy years full of excitement and satisfaction in a very soul-satisfying job of helping to salvage human lives.

 

For as long as I was there, there was seldom if ever anything but a symbiotic relationship between the facility and the community. In fact, it provided employment for quite a few people nearby.

 

Moreover, it provided life-saving treatment, meaningful lifestyle changes and near-miraculous success stories.

 

Forget about building a stadium for the sports nuts and bring the ADR back so the tailgate party alcoholics will have a place to go to turn their lives around.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


A nice long ride

February 3, 1995

 

The retirement of Pittsburgh broadcasting's patriarch, Paul Long, prompts several observations about this man's remarkable achievements over a long -- and I DO mean Long -- and productive career.

 

I first met Paul at KDKA Radio, then in the Grant Building, several years after his historic headline utterance when word came over the wireless that John L. Lewis had called a strike of the nation's coal miners just a few weeks before Christmas. “John L. Lewis just shot Santa Claus!” eulogized Mr. Long somberly that cold winter's day, traumatizing thousands of the area's children. Unintentionally, of course.

 

In 1960, I was proud to be personally involved with Paul when I was TV writer-producer for the ad agency which handled Pittsburgh Brewing Co., then celebrating the 100th anniversary of Iron City Beer.

 

We engaged Mr. Long as program narrator and commercial announcer for a TV series we had acquired call “The American Civil War.” It was a documentary which utilized the battlefield photos of historian-photographer Mathew B. Brady.

 

Using existing 1960s camera techniques of close-ups, zooms, sound effects, etc. the series was the first TV presentation of the Civil War using these photos and techniques. Observe that this series aired on KDKA-TV a full 30 years before Ken Burns' highly touted “invention” of the same technique.

 

It was generally agreed then that Paul Long added an almost “eyewitness” account to the narrative as it was widely rumored that not only was Paul a former Air Corps veteran of World War II, but that he had actually been a balloon pilot and artillery observer for the Union Army at Chancellorsville and the First Battle of Bull Run.

 

We will miss this old codger, but not for long, as many of us are sure that following our demise, the first voice we will hear most likely will be that of Almighty God, which will sound almost exactly like the sonorous omnipotence of Paul Long.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Rid campuses of alcohol

December 30, 1994

 

The recent deaths of the Carnegie Mellon and Pitt students from alcohol overdoses is a continuing but avoidable tragedy.

 

But, as usual, following the shock and disbelief and hasty denials of blame from the fraternities comes the supposedly exonerating assertion from the university PR machine that instruction on alcohol abuse is part of freshman orientation. Such “instruction” is like telling a first grader to “stop on the red, go on the green,” without repeating this life-saving mantra over and over again until it becomes second nature to the growing child. But the ultimate in neglect occurs when the self-righteous university officials state that “alcohol use on campus is permitted, but the use of alcohol by minors is prohibited by university policy.” (PG, Dec. 13). The policy resembles: “It's OK to go swimming, but don't get your feet wet, kids.”

 

University officials have to be blind not to realize that fully three- fourths of the 18-to-21-year-old student body is under the legal drinking age. Ergo, no booze on campus, no bars, no liquor stores or beer distributors within a reasonable perimeter of the campus.

 

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has laws governing liquor sales near elementary and secondary schools -- why not for colleges? “Under 21” is under 21, whether it's 9 years old or 19 years old.

 

If colleges really want to end college drinking and college drinking deaths, they might consider adding Alcoholics Anonymous 101 and 102 to the curriculum. Recovering alcoholics in AA know more about the subject than all the college professors in the world.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Musically speaking Pavarotti is a sell-out

October 21, 1994

 

So Pavarotti sang at the Civic Arena for 9,000 fans who paid up to $195 per ticket. Where's he going next? The Orange Bowl? The Astrodome? Maybe they could set up chairs in the Grand Canyon at $200 a pop.

 

It's quite obvious that the Fat One is no longer just a singer, but a Money Machine. A few years back, his team of hucksters suckered me into paying $125 each for two tickets when he played Philadelphia. It turned out the opera hall was a sports dome of some sort, with acoustics to match and two seats a football field away from the Great One. It was like watching Dr. Thomas Starzl doing a heart transplant at K-Mart's automotive department.

 

In Pittsburgh, that “certain arrogance” as Robert Croan so succinctly put it (Oct. 12), included flute solos from a nobody, an anonymous orchestra and a hockey scoreboard.

 

We laugh at teenyboppers who pay $100 to hear some fried-brained rock star, then we front page the exploits of a truly talented person sacrificing technique and tradition for box office receipts.

 

Caruso must be turning over in his grave.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Unleashing anger over abortion coverage

February 25, 1994

 

“Abortion Law Unleashed” proclaims your Feb. 15 front-page headline. Unleashed? You mean like a rabid dog is unleashed on a helpless child? Like Hitler unleashed his blitzkrieg on Poland in World War II? You sure made it sound like a lamentation instead of legislation.

 

I haven't studied Journalism 101-102 since college days and it's been a long time since I was a newspaper editor, but somewhere along the way, I had always been taught -- and quite fervently believe -- that editorials belonged on the editorial page and facts belonged on the front page. Wouldn't journalistic objectivity have been better served with something like “Abortion Law In Effect”? Ambiguity aside, are you people in the newspaper business or are you the official spokesmen for the abortion mentality?

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Don’t mislead the unwary about the AA’s 12-step program

November 14, 1993

 

Bill Nist, a member of the independent gay Catholic group Dignity, is assigned an adversarial role in the article “Diocese Pushes Gay Chastity” (Nov. 1) which describes the Courage support group, a 12-step program for chaste gays. Mr. Nist holds forth with his personal opinions, sarcasm and the pithy nihilism of whatever it is he says he is.

 

Along the way, he misleads the unwary about Alcoholics Anonymous, the behavior-shaping program that introduced the 12 Suggested Steps to a grateful world. It is a model which has proven very successful with most of the several thousand alcoholics I have worked with professionally during the past 13 years. The same 12 Suggested Steps have also been adapted by compulsive gamblers, spouses of alcoholics, abusive parents, overeaters, narcotics addicts and other people who wanted to change their behavior for the better.

 

Yet, Mr. Nist opines that “the 12-step model presupposes that you are recovering from a disease.” He is wrong.

 

The 12 Suggested Steps never mention the word “disease.” In fact, the 12 steps were originally written by a recovering alcoholic layman who codified the strength, hope and experience of nearly 100 of his recovering alcoholic companions nationwide in the late 1930s.

 

Bear in mind also that the American Medical Association did not even call alcoholism a disease until 1956.

 

The 12-step program is now being adapted by the Courage program of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, which is co-sponsoring the support group for homosexuals who want to be chaste. In other words, they want to change their behavior.

 

If alcoholics can do it, anyone can.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Censorship or anarchy?

September 17, 1993

 

Fiore Mastracci spews forth the same old pietistic put-down of people that his kind disagrees with (Feedback, Sept. 10). This time, the target is protester Colleen Cooper of Clairton, who objects to “NYPD Blue” being shown in prime time on WTAE-TV, “without even seeing it,” as he sneers so self- righteously.

 

He further states without fear of contradiction from his liberal sycophants that “censorship in any form is intolerable.” I disagree. Unrestrained liberty is anarchy. The government licenses pharmacists and doctors in order to limit and control the supply of poisonous drugs available to the general population. Yet when someone dares to suggest that we limit and control the supply of unmitigated filth that poisons our children's minds, some liberal lunatic screams “Censorship!”

 

I have never seen a film of a little girl being sodomized, or a man being disemboweled or burned alive, or a woman being gang-raped and murdered -- but I definitely want to forbid any such film from being shown on prime-time TV to my kids. And I say that “without even seeing’ such films. Mastracci's “anything goes” libertinism would put even “snuff films” right up there with the Saturday morning cartoons.

 

An exaggeration? Then take Rhett Butler's innocent 1939 “I don't give a damn” in “Gone With the Wind,” and compare it with the totally unbelievable foul-mouthed garbage on soundtracks coming out of Hollywood in 1993.

 

Mastracci says that he can tell from her photo that Colleen Cooper is not the kind of person he wants dictating his ethics. Well, I can assure you that I don't want the likes of Fiore Mastracci dictating my ethics.

 

And I haven't even seen him.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Road deaths have dropped

March 24, 1993

 

Your story on traffic fine revenues in Kilbuck on Route 65 overlooked one very vital point.

 

You reported on the large amount of money raised through the fines, the “aggressive” police officers, the West Penn AAA and its involvement, the sour grapes from the culprits who were caught speeding and other complaints from transients. What you didn't mention was that traffic deaths in the area have dropped dramatically as a result of the crackdown.

 

Several years ago, when the death toll had reached 22 or so in a span of five years, a popular bumper sticker displayed by the area's motorists pleaded, “Pray For Me, I Drive Killer Route 65.”

 

The plea was more in truth than in jest, as the appalling carnage on Route 65 included the death of two newspaper delivery boys who were brothers on a quiet Sunday morning when their mother's car was broadsided by a speeding drunken driver.

 

The killer is still in jail. But the kids are still dead.

 

I don't care if Kilbuck collects a million dollars a day from speeders and drunk drivers. Better that every drunk driver and speeder in Allegheny County should go to jail or go bankrupt rather than one more innocent victim be murdered.

 

As your headline subtitle stated, “Laws are there to be enforced, say the police to critics.”

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


No TV is good TV

February 9, 1993

 

Robert Bianco's triumphal return gets a resounding second from this viewer/ reader who also laments the eight-month news void that the boob tube couldn't fill.

 

The mindless Mickey Mouse channel that calls itself a “24-hour news source” gave us five-second weather reports alternating with 10-second repeats of day-old headlines. If they were publishing a newspaper, they'd print it on a match-book cover. Out by the parkway, they filled their “expanded newscasts” with tendentious TV schedules, reports on male impotency and a medical analysis of liver spots.

 

Down in the city's high-rent district, they backed up their parade of talking heads with minimum-wage leg men.

 

All the while, of course, each station trumpeted its claim to having received awards for the best newscast ever aired here. Which reminds me of the truth of the old saying: “In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


BYOB no solution

March 8, 1992 

 

Last Sunday's unsettling story on fraternity house drinking (“BYOB switch lets frats ease insurance liability”), contained documented evidence of past abuses -- and the resulting increase in insurance rates for frat houses which buy and serve beer by the keg.

 

Dianne Gregory, executive director for Alpha Xi Delta fraternity for women, was quoted as saying, “If we don't change our behavior, we're not going to be around.” The Greek letter solution? Bring your own bottle.

 

Sorry, Socrates, but BYOB is not a change of behavior, only a change in acquiring and drinking alcohol illegally.

 

A true behavior change would be for all frat members under age 21 to stop drinking alcoholic beverages, as it is illegal in this state, and on any campus in the state.

 

The perception is that most college-age students are 17-to-21 years old, for the most part. Which indicates that four-fifths of those who imbibe are guilty of under-age drinking, punishable under state law.

 

When you add up all the saloons, the liquor stores, the private clubs and the fraternity houses, dormitories and apartments, then throw in the illegal curbside and back-alley liquor sales, Oakland has more alcohol per under-age drinker than any Skid Row in America.

 

No, BYOB won't solve the problem. All it does is let the fraternities off the hook for the alcohol-related deaths and injuries which they encourage with their convoluted reasoning.

 

What is really required is Freshman Orientation which includes Alcoholism Education 101 and 102 before anyone can even begin to put a dent in the vincible ignorance of Oakland's entire academic community.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Columbus bashers’ wrong

October 28, 1991

 

We have almost a whole year before the 500th Anniversary of America's discovery, and already I am sick and tired of the Columbus bashers.

 

To Columbus and the other European settlers, Indians were barbarians from the Stone Age. They were dirty, frightening and capable of horrors and a bestiality unknown to newcomers with 5,000 years of Judeo-Christian ethics and sensitivity, along with a far superior technology and social development.

 

The history of civilization is the history of conflict and conquest, of pushing back frontiers and spreading learning and opportunity to widening beachheads, like America.

 

Yes, slavery was barbaric, but Columbus didn't invent it. The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and every other civilization had practiced it in some form long before 15th-century America.

 

And this nonsense about Indians being the only “native Americans” who were deprived of “their” land is a lot of ethnic propaganda and self-serving claptrap.

 

Today's Indians used to be Asian immigrants. Just because they got here before the European immigrants and spent several centuries fighting and killing and torturing and raping each others' tribes doesn't make me any less of a bona fide Native American than they.

 

Hooray for Columbus! Hooray for America! Hooray for progress and civilization!

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Helping alcoholics

September 28, 1991

 

Your Sept. 12 article on the alcoholism study at the Harvard School of Public Health reports that “Hospital treatment for alcoholics (was) found to be best,” i.e., “more effective than Alcoholics Anonymous.”

 

As they taught me in journalism school, “Define your terms.” An alcoholic's hospital regimen is only a medical detoxification process of three to four days. It is critical, as it takes the alcohol out of the patient while preventing convulsions, organ failure and death.

 

But it doesn't address the underlying problem, which is genetic in origin, chronic in nature and invariably fatal unless treated.

 

And treatment, in the professionally accepted sense of the word, consists of a regimen of lifetime management that includes total abstinence from alcohol supported by an ongoing, day-to-day program of recovery.

 

This treatment was instituted by Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, and stands today as the only universally viable and proven program of treatment.

 

Yet, while being rejected for its non-profit, cost-free aspects, A.A. is being imitated, adapted, plagiarized and counterfeited.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Protesters ignore history

January 27, 1991

 

The grim TV coverage of our young Americans exposed to danger in the Saudi Arabian desert was exceeded in horror only by the spectacle of other youths -- safe at home -- publicly protesting the wisdom of that sacrifice.

 

To me, their histrionics conjured up a half-century-old image of their patron saint, Neville Chamberlain, arriving home from Munich in 1938 to smilingly proclaim “Peace in our time.” Blissfully unaware of his role in demythologizing appeasement of tyrants, his misguided optimism led the free world into the most crucifying conflict in the history of Western civilization.

 

Despite the lesson of Munich, America slept while the Japanese sent two ''peace envoys” to Washington in December 1941.

 

In the Pacific war that followed, a young pilot named George Bush risked his life. This month, as president, when he committed our troops to battle, I sincerely believe he was echoing the resolve of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust when they firmly state, “Never Again.”

 

Granted that the protesters' sophomoric ignorance is bliss, these truants would do well to heed the words of the American poet and philosopher Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


O’Neill wrong on Welk

November 4, 1990

 

Brian O'Neill snickered and smirked his way through a column which insulted Lawrence Welk on Oct. 26.

 

It was obviously his morally illiterate, knee-jerk reaction to Mr. Welk's grateful government that will “splurge” $500,000 to restore Mr. Welk's boyhood home. Lawrence Welk is a genuine American hero. For openers, he is honest, gentle, reverent, compassionate and humble to a fault. A modern-day Horatio Alger, Mr. Welk steadfastly believed in God, the Puritan work ethic, and the Golden Rule.

 

A favorite on the American music scene for almost half a century, this 87- year-old genuine American Gothic never once disgraced his family, scandalized his profession, played a dirty song, took the name of God in vain, insulted the flag, dealt in drugs or knowingly hired anyone who did.

 

Long after the world has forgotten such moral cretins as Andrew Dice Clay, 2 Live Crew, the Keating Five, Hanoi Jane Fonda and their ilk, tens of thousands of Americans will still be devoutly trekking to the restored North Dakota prairie home of this God-fearing American patriot.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley


Helping Young Addicts

July 1, 1990

 

Debran Rowland's story last Sunday on addiction treatment at Brighton Woods Treatment Center is well-done and welcome. It was marred only by a misstatement or two, an undocumented “statistic” and one glaring error of omission.

 

Speaking of adolescent addicts, Ms. Rowland states that “most of them probably won't make it in treatment, statistics say. What a dour prognosis! It is also quite puzzling. When I was public relations director at the same facility 10 years ago, our own-year followup records indicated that 75 percent to 80 percent of former patients were maintaining sobriety when following prescribed aftercare plans. What are these adolescents doing wrong today that dooms “most of them” ? And while Ms. Rowland is correct in stating that some will use again or end up in jail, I hastily agree that “more than a few” will end up dead. In fact, without effective treatment, they will ALL end up dead -- one way or another -- as a result of their addiction.

 

Bear in mind that alcohol abuse is confined to drunks. A drunk is a person who can choose when and where and how much to drink -- and usually overdoes it. An alcoholic doesn't have that choice. They always overdo it. Their drinking pattern is one of compulsive-obsessive behavior due to a disease typified by denial and relapse.

 

The American Medical Association stated in 1956 at its Seattle convention that alcoholism is indeed a treatable disease. Current research confirms that it is biogenetic in origin.

 

The article makes only a mere mention of Narcotics Anonymous, then compounds the slight by not even mentioning its forebear -- Alcoholics Anonymous. Mentioning N.A. without mentioning A.A. is like writing about America's entry into World War II without mentioning Pearl Harbor.

 

Also, journalists -- and their readers -- should learn to distinguish between “detoxification” and “treatment.” The detox unit of a treatment center is considered nothing more than the emergency room leading to the treatment procedure. The word detoxification comes from the Greek and simply means “to take the poison out.”

 

Alcoholism is a disease. It cannot be cured but it can be treated successfully. And its deadly toll will not be reversed significantly until we begin to reverse the mountain of myths, misinformation and “statistics” which abound in this otherwise enlightened and liberal age.

 

JACK O'NEIL

Sewickley