As an eternal student, I’m responsible to read some books. Lately, I’ve lacked the discipline to devote myself to any one book. Thus, I’m hunting and pecking through three or four titles at a time. The line up right now: Complexity, Mitchell Waldrop; Greek Ways, Bruce Thornton; Complete Idiot’s Guide to Taoism, Brandon Toropov and Chad Hansen; The Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Burton Kaufman; The Changing Face of Jesus, Geza Vermes; and Disarmed & Dangerous (The Berrigan Brothers), Murray Polner and Jim O’Grady. I’ve also been taking an occasional look at Lila by Robert Pirsig and The Cosmic Code by Heinz Pagels. This isn’t exactly the best way to get through a book, but it does allow some intellectual cross-fertilization.

I’d like to offer a few comments on two recent deaths. First off, Maurice Gibbs of the BeeGees. Yes, the BeeGees. Not exactly the most brilliant musical talents of the past thirty years, but they certainly did have staying power. I wasn’t exactly thrilled by their disco opportunism, nor by Barry’s post-disco pretensions as a classy singer who could complement the likes of a chanteuse such as Barbara Streisand or whoever. Nor by Barry’s pretensions to still have a falsetto after 1983. Nor by Barry’s pretensions to still have long hair and good looks. I guess that I wasn’t exactly thrilled by Barry in general. Robin was OK, although he put too much intensity into his lyrics — his songs weren’t all that profound! Maurice was about the best you could do with a group like the Gees. He pretty much stuck to his supporting role and didn’t complain, no matter what phase the group was in. He kept doing his job, even during their long decline. He went bald, but instead of messing with pretentious hair-weaves, he just wore a hat on stage. And actually, he didn’t look bad with it. I suppose that I should have stopped taking the BeeGees seriously after 1970, but even in their disco phase there was a certain romantic idealism to their songs that was so schmaltzy that you started believing in it again. Maurice’s quietness lent the band some gravitas, some credibility. He kept the group from becoming a complete joke. He was the one good man that could save a city. Maurice Gibbs, hats off to you.

The second death of note? Faheem Williams, the seven year old boy who was found dead in his aunt’s home in Newark, New Jersey after years of complete family neglect. All of the usual child protection systems of our society broke down on Faheem: the courts involved with his mother and aunt, the state child protection agency who investigated his mother, the school system that didn’t notice his absence, and the other family members who knew something but didn’t step in. I work for a prosecutors office (called a district attorney or states attorney in other places), and it will be people like us who administer the criminal penalties involved. Hopefully, the prosecutors will do their job properly, although that certainly won’t bring Faheem back. The Governor is quite incensed, and is calling for big changes to make sure this doesn’t happen again. But I myself have only one little change to suggest for now. And that is this: everyone who hears about Faheem should bow their head for a moment and think about the poem “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Put aside the fact that Faheem was an African American child living in a dysfunctional family succumbing to the pressures of urban poverty. Just think of him as another human life that perished tragically. Much like the people in the World Trade Center, or in a plane crash, or any other place where life turns into a nightmare. Let me mention another case that we got just a few weeks before Faheem’s case hit: a highly dysfunctional young woman gave birth, wrapped her baby in a plastic bag and stowed it away. A near-by county has a 20-year old who dropped her one-year old child into the river. I have no real answer to such horror. All I can say is, ask not for whom the bell tolls.