Preoccupied with the Case of the Slippery Solicitor General, we've seen a perceptible drop-off in the number of
abusive Voices letters and insulting hang-up calls. To stir things up, a roundup of impertinent opinions:
     A perennial theme of Democrat-Gazette Voices contributors is that of the lost Golden Age, before
manners and morals began to decay. It dates back at least as far as Homer's "Odyssey," where the ghost of
Agamemnon counsels Odysseus to spy on his wife before announcing his homecoming from the Trojan War.
    "Land your ship in secret on your island," the murdered king cautions. "Give no warning. The day of faithful
wives is gone forever."

    The poem was composed roughly 3,200 years ago about events considered ancient history at the time.
    More recently, the Judds had a big country hit based on the premise that adultery and divorce scarcely
existed in Grandpa's day. Of course, that was pretty much all Hank Williams sang about back in the 1940s.
    But nostalgia's expected in country music. Given Arkansas' turbulent social history, the idea that there was ever a time of
generalized domestic tranquility is pretty naive. But then, the purpose of many Voices writers is to express reactionary political
views. Hence, they locate the lost Golden Age during the time of racial segregation and mandatory school prayer. Race mixing
and taking God out of the classroom, see, ruined everything.

    The media often inadvertently contribute to this theme by sensationalizing crime and inventing specious "trends" with little
basis in reality. One egregious example was recently exposed in Extra!, a magazine published by Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting. University of California at Santa Cruz sociologist Mike Males calls it "The Myth of the Grade School Murderer."
    Driven by terrible events like the 1999 Jonesboro school shooting, journalists created a veritable juvenile crime wave.
Children are killing other children, we're told, at younger and younger ages. So say Time, NBC News, U.S. News & World
Report, CBS News, The Associated Press, etc. Pretty much depending upon their politics, everybody blames something
different: from poverty and divorce to violent video games and gangsta rap.

    So guess what? It's all nonsense. Males shows that according to FBI uniform crime reports going back to 1964, "homicidal
grade-schoolers, always very rare, are rarer than ever today. In the 1960s, 2.0 children per million population ages 6-12 were
arrested for murder. In the 1970s, 2.5. In the 1980s and 1990s, 1.6. In 1997-9, 0.9. In 1999, 0.6--the lowest murder arrest
rate of any year on record. In raw numbers, about 60 grade-school kids were arrested every year for homicide during the
1960s ... and 17 in 1999."
    In fact, the juvenile murder rate has declined 65 percent since the 1960s, when the Supreme Court ruled mandatory school
prayer unconstitutional, Southern schools were integrating and the Rolling Stones invented sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

     There's no point kicking Webb Hubbell when he's down, but if the Vanity Fair article summarized in the
Democrat-Gazette accurately represents his views, it looks as if he still doesn't get it.
    It's no surprise to see the national press portray Hubbell as a figure of dog-like loyalty who was rewarded with a kick in the
teeth when an ungrateful Bill Clinton failed to pardon him. To tell the story any other way would require understanding what
happened in Arkansas during Kenneth Starr's reign of terror. That would be too much to expect.
    Vanity Fair made Hubbell sound like a big crybaby. Without asking, I'll bet hardly anybody at the Rose Law Firm thought
he should or would be pardoned. As he explained it in his book, "Friends in High Places," Hubbell stole upwards of $500,000
from his law partners to live up to his wife's and in-laws' expectations, buy a big house adjacent to the country club, etc.

    Knowing he'd done it, he nevertheless accepted an appointment from Clinton to the second highest job in the Department of
Justice. Then when his thefts came to light in Little Rock, Hubbell stonewalled. Because some partners, Hillary Clinton
included, couldn't make themselves believe he'd betray them, the Rose firm conducted a painstaking internal investigation over
many months. It caused considerable strife, cost a small fortune and was dishonestly used by the Clintons' political enemies to
make the entire firm look crooked.
    A bit like David Hale, who was handed to the independent counsel gift-wrapped by U.S. Attorney Paula Casey, Hubbell
was handed to Starr by the Rose Law Firm. Even confronted with airtight evidence, however, he denied his crimes until the last
moment. Vanity Fair made much of a last conversation he had with Hillary after she phoned to ask about reports he'd soon be
indicted. What it didn't say was that even then he apparently lied. Two weeks later, he pleaded guilty.

    Yes, Hubbell was ruthlessly mistreated by Starr. So were an awful lot of innocent people. But he deserves limited credit for
being a "standup guy," as they say on the cop shows. He gave Starr no hurtful evidence against the Clintons because he had
none to give. If there was a message in his non-pardon, it was "Thanks for nothing."
     The Democrat-Gazette's expose about how athletes in the Little Rock School District were handed grades they hadn't
earned to keep them eligible to play ball was an eye-opener. The consternation of sports editors, however, reminded me of the
officious gendarme in "Casablanca" who affects to be shocked to find gambling in his city. If there's anyplace in Arkansas
where jocks don't get preferential treatment, I'd love to know where it is.

    Besides being right under this newspaper's nose, two factors appear to have made the Central High situation unique: One
was making rivals angry by winning a state championship with an ineligible player; the other was leaving a paper trail. Teachers
in most Arkansas school districts know better than to give failing grades to star athletes in the first place.
 
    Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient of the National Magazine Award.