It must be an epidemic, or the side effect of this unusual weather. In any case, people are playing naive all over the place. And they do not limit themselves to doing in the privacy of their own home. No, they do it in public, or, at least, they write letters to
the editor. Here are two examples from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Editor - President Clinton says that America takes care of its own. (He is referring to Mr. Clinton's remark when our beloved President was talking about the three soldiers that were captured in Yugoslavia) I suppose this is why thousands of Americans sleep on the streets each night, 14 million Americans live in food insecurity, and 43 million Americans have no health insurance. God help America if this is how the government takes care of its citizens. The only ones the government really cares for, are the corporations which receive 125 billion in "welfare" each year.

Paul H. Taylor
San Francisco

Did you hear that? Paul, Paul, you know that other people's problems always look easier to solve than our own. Tell me one thing: did any of your friends ever complain about his/hers relationship to you, and did you think that in that same situation you'd know exactly what to do?

Our own problems always look complicated and messy, while problems of those nations that are half-way around the world look simple. It's easy to offer solutions to the others, even more so because we usually don't have to deal with the aftermath and side effects of the problem solving. As for our three soldiers, can you imagine what would've happened if Milosevic released them? That would've been a major PR victory for him. How would we explain to the world that we're continuing the bombing campaign, that is so dear to our hearts, and at the same time the same people that are being killed and whose houses, power plants, bridges, schools, factories, are being destroyed are letting our soldiers go. Isn't it enough that they didn't even beat them badly. We try to exploit those bruises that one of them had on his face, but you can't milk those same pictures for ever. The President is trying very hard to keep this bombing going, which is hard as is, because Italians are pissed at us for not accepting Pope's proposal not to bomb on Easter. The Greeks are asking: what would we say if we suggested a cease-fire for such an important holiday and the Serbs were the one to refuse. Would we accuse them of being barbarians, savages, with no respect for God and other people's beliefs and all that? Naturally we would, but that's understandable, because they are they and we are us.

So, Paul, stop being sarcastic or you'll be deported to Serbia where you belong.

MEDAL FOR A HACKER

Editor - Excuse me, I', confused. (This is how people who are playing naive usually start their letters, but just listen to her go on...) How can it be that the brilliant hacker who temporarily disrupts people's ability to chat with each other via machine stands to do 10 years jail time and the Marine whose airplane antics kill 20 gets a slap on the wrist and walks? Are the facts of the two news articles interchanged or do we have a real priorities problem in this country? In my opinion the hacker should get a medal - or better yet, a high paying job solving Y2K - and the Marine should do 10 years.

Jane Pitts
San Francisco

Jane, Jane. First of all you've missed another chance for an even better comparison. At the same time that our Chronicle printed the article about the Marine pilot and his acquittal, it printed another story about another pilot. A helicopter pilot that flew to low over the wedding party of Barbara Streisand and James Brolin was fined thousands and thousands of dollars and will serve jail time. Nobody was hurt in this incident, but it constituted invasion of privacy while in the first incident the (mostly) German tourists in Italy were killed before they became aware that their privacy has been invaded.

And second, in this case America did take care of its own. Plus we need pilots like that. If he can kill 20 people without firing any of those expensive missiles or smart bombs, we need him in the skies over Serbia.