RUST COMMENTARY: FAMILY GATHERING IS OCCASION FOR PROUD MOMENTS, RENEWING TIES

Life is full of choices and priorities. One of the top priorities for my wife, Wendy, and me is to be with our children and grandchildren at major stepping-stones in their lives.

Last week it was not only an easy choice to make a trip to Boston where our son JON received his MBA from HARVARD UNIVERSITY, it was a delightful three days to observe some of the classes (intimidating section of 80 students being randomly called on by the instructors for case study reports) and to participate in the many ceremonial programs.

The graduates were addressed by ELIZABETH DOLE, ALAN GREENSPAN, Harvard president NEIL RUBENSTINE and various student speakers.

Jon graduated with "distinction" (basically in the top 5 percent) as he missed the top "high distinction" category (top 2 percent) by only one point.

We enjoyed the enthusiasm and friendliness of his student friends ... and also the opportunity to spend time with Jon's fiancee SUSAN BURCH and his brother REX, who renewed acquaintances with some of his former classmates.

Susan had just received her DOCTORATE in HISTORY (with distinction) the week before, and we enjoyed a happy and relaxed time together.

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No one complained about the 2 1/2-hour delay caused by intense thunderstorms when departing nor the 40-minute holding pattern (thunderstorms again) when we returned Saturday evening. The recent Little Rock landing accident has taught patience to people who had previoulsy little knowledge of the power of thunderstorms.

A four-inch rain flooded I-70, the airport underpass and some of the St. Louis parking facilities.

Seeing this reminded me again of the importance of completing the retention basin in North Cape to prevent flooding in the TOWN PLAZA area.

$40 million has been spent, but this final step is crucial to prevent flooding. The city or Corps of Engineers need to move on this -- NOW!

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Suing gun makers -- official extortion lives: Having learned the rules of official extortion from government agents who persist in harassing tobacco companies, other government agents -- or perhaps some of the same ones -- now are after gun manufacturers.

In both cases, the companies are making legal products. In neither case is government seeking to outlaw the products, which would be a legitimate if controversial position. Instead, government law enforcers are harassing private citizens to achieve a punishment outcome not sanctioned in duly enacted public law.

Court decisions unanimously have rejected these attempts when in the form of lawsuits against tobacco companies, but government officials simply kept on coming. Using taxpayer money, they prosecuted anyway, driving tobacco companies against the wall and costing them billions in defense costs. Finally, cigarette makers agreed to a "settlement" even though they had done nothing illegal, and state officials now are licking their lips over the prospect of billions of dollars soon to come.

Now cities are filing suits against gun makers, alleging gun-related crimes cost the public lots of money and, therefore, gun makers should pay. Again, these suits are not based on specific violations of law by the manufacturers, at least not any allegations tight enough to make a case. All that's needed is a product that can be used to cause harm and a constituency willing to tolerate jack-booted extralegal action by officials.

I am not here to promote smoking or gun toting. I am here to denounce misuse of government power against private citizens.

If we citizens, through our government, want to come down on cigarette and gun makers, let us do it in the legitimate way: by legislative action. Let us, for crying out loud, have a law in place before officials start enforcing. Then let law agents prosecute for specific violations of those laws.

Instead, law agents find some unpopular result unrelated to any illegal action of the companies and set out to prosecute on that flimsy ground. Lung cancer is bad. Providing health care for sufferers sometimes entails public costs. Ditto for gun violence. Ergo, we should punish the makers of the product.

Under current law, the most logical approach would be to prosecute the users, who know or should know full well the dangers involved in abuse of the legally manufactured products. If we want to solve a problem through some sort of prohibition against the manufacturers, we must have enabling legislation first.

Why are Americans tolerating these unprecedented invasions of privacy? Obviously, many of us see no parallel between the rights of tobacco companies and our own. We take for granted government agents will be exquisitely discerning, only clamping down of unpopular private citizens.

We should know better. We should insist on duly processed public policy decisions before we turn the power of the state loose in this way. -- Hank Waters, Columbia Daily Tribune

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Is feminism finished? Feminist excuses for the inexcusable Bill Clinton are irrational. The gap between the reality of the current feminist leadership and its image of itself has widened to the point of being comical.

Feminism is not a movement of radical youth. It is not a noble coalition of embattled idealists, boldly carrying the flag through the dangerous waters of male chauvinism. No doubt, the self-proclaimed champions of American women enjoy thinking of themselves as caped crusaders, flying through society, defending women from every manner of injury and insult. But just because they find that pose gratifying is no reason the rest of us should humor them.

What, then, is feminism? It is the ideological veil for a political special interest group. This group is able to influence the outcomes of elections and legislative deliberations, and to generate patronage political appointments for its members and pork barrel projects for its constituents. The unprincipled behavior of the establishment feminists makes perfect sense when viewed in this light.

What principle could enable the National Organization for Women to continue to support a president who is certainly as much a sexual harasser as Clarence Thomas? None. But this president provided NOW with appointments like Norma Cantu in the Department of Education, who places the most expansive interpretation on definitions of discrimination and harassment. These expansive definitions, in turn, create numerous opportunities for feminist attorneys to generate cases and earn legal fees. NOW, in essence, is in the business of supporting feminist ambulance-chasing. Clinton signs legislation that creates jobs in rape crisis centers, battered women's shelters and sensitivity-training centers. In short, he provides pork barrel projects.

The label "women's groups" has never been particularly accurate in describing feminist organizations like NOW. There are simply too many American women who do not and cannot associate themselves with its objectives. But by a clever trick of political labeling, feminists manage to position themselves as representatives of half the population, with all the clout and moral capital that such a designation entails.

Exploiting this moral capital, radical feminists have enjoyed remarkable success in entrenching themselves in American society. Their success relies in no small part on the time-honored political expedient of patronage jobs. A small army of people depends upon feminism in some fashion for its livelihood. Some professional feminists are deeply committed to feminism in its most radical form. Virtually every university in America houses some of them in women's studies departments. The expansive but vague civil rights laws have created a flock of "diversity consultants" and "sensitivity trainers" to protect corporations from lawsuits. Some of these people's commitment to radical feminism probably goes no deeper than their mortgage payments. No matter. Generating a class of people who depend on the movement for their livelihood is a measure of the success of a political movement.

Don't get me wrong: Feminists have as much right to participate in the political process as anyone else. They have a right to organize politically, to try to elect candidates and to get their share of federal pork. My only gripe is that they pose as moral crusaders, whose motives are above question. In my view, their proposals are entitled to an ordinary hearing, not a privileged hearing.

We would all do ourselves a favor by taking a more hard-nosed look at the arguments and the behavior of the self-appointed spokeswomen for American women. Imagine, for instance, if the press treated feminists with the same scrutiny with which they treat other special interest groups, like the National Rifle Association or the tobacco lobby. Why not ask feminists the pointed questions they ask of businesses? When reporting on discrimination cases, don't just reprint the plaintiffs' press release. Ask how much the attorney stands to collect in fees.

Feminism as a moral force is finished. Its leadership's disgraceful defense of the President assures that. All that remains is the feminist establishment. -- Jennifer Morse, Forbes magazine

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communication, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.