Paranoia

It's a movie about paranoia, dementia and fisticuffs - and people who get their jollies infiltrating 12-step groups and hearing the woes and wailing of the addicted and bereaved. It's Fight Club, David Fincher's intense '99 nightmare in which Edward Norton plays an office drone befriended by a charismatic, mysterious Brad Pitt, as a guy who launches an underground association of men pummeling other men to a bloody pulp. And then there's Helena Bonham Carter, offering a rare contemporary turn as a chain-smoking, quip-spewing girl - and being chillingly, seductively good at it. Innovative and adventurous - until, perhaps, the final revelation, which some folks find a letdown.

Syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick is obviously a paranoid Reaganite. When a free nation such as ours encounters a case of gross negligence, as evidenced in Iranscam, we publicly air out the problem using the news media as the vehicle. After this is done we can move on. President Reagan has not been unfairly treated by Dan Rather or anyone else. John Mumford Philadelphia.

The extremes of positive liberty were seen in the false claims of communism. But they are also inherent in attempts . . . to force people to live in particular ways, to shape their businesses in a certain manner . . . to refrain from smoking cigarettes even in private, to bear costs and obligations for the sake of society or a presumed community interest. Such illiberal behavior may be commonly associated with dictatorship, but it is also a strong tendency in democracy, for majority votes are in effect mandates to do things that minorities did not want.

Gennady Gerasimov, the Soviet Foreign Ministry's affable, telegenic chief spokesman, has been cracking jokes about the "Soviet Mata Hari" who allegedly led a U.S. Marine sergeant astray. "American fear of spying is a permanent feature of our relations," he remarked wearily last week. Ironically, the same day that Mr. Gerasimov was belittling the Americans' "absurd" overreaction to the Marine scandal, the French were expelling three Soviet diplomats for spying. That was small potatoes compared to the 47 Soviet diplomats the French expelled in 1983, but the action suggests that the proud Gaullists share America's irrational obsession.

I flew to London a week ago. I'm still an emotional wreck. Before Sept. 11, the flights from JFK to Heathrow and back would have been delightful, even for a nervous flyer like me. Spick-and-span equipment; blue skies; an attentive staff; barely any turbulence. But I found myself driven to the edge of paranoia by the unshakable fear that terrorists were on both flights. Today, safe on the ground, I tell myself I was being irrational, silly, racist. But behaviors that would have been all of those things before Sept.

Last week, Fox News analyst Glenn Beck, known - and loved by millions - for his warnings about the many sins of liberalism, finally got around to denouncing rock icon Bruce Springsteen. In an impassioned attack, Beck branded the Boss' 1984 single, "Born in the U.S.A," as "anti-American" and a piece of "propaganda. " Beck's penchant for finding enemies around every corner makes him one of today's leading mouthpieces for what the late American historian Richard Hofstadter in 1964 termed the "paranoid style" in politics.

Columbine has left one certain legacy. "There's a lot of paranoia since Colorado," notes Anthony Guarna, chief juvenile probation officer for Montgomery County. We flinch at the sight of teenagers in black trench coats. We interpret every threatening comment as if it were a loaded gun. A never-before-in-trouble kid, Sean Kelley, 17, was a sophomore at Norristown Area High School, a budding rock singer, a Boy Scout, and an aspiring jewelry maker. His crash course in post-Columbine paranoia started a week after Colorado, when his social studies teacher encouraged discussion on the tragedy.

I live 46 miles south of Center City, so deep in the corn and soybean fields of Jersey that I figured there was nothing to fear there from terrorists. Then I remembered Elmer, the Salem County crop-duster guy. So often I've seen the wings of his shiny yellow plane glinting in the sun ? as Elmer would swoop low over a neighbor's field and lay down an even, white fog of pesticide. That gave me pause, I will say. That gave me pause. Paranoia has taken a seat at the table, and so we inspect the mail for white powder and eye swarthy men in planes.

Would you like black oil on your popcorn? Should that soda come in the Weird, Paranoid or Jumbo Conspiracy size? Sorry, unlike The Syndicate, this theater does not allow cigarette-smoking. Yes, The X-Files movie has made it to the cineplex, and those opening weekend grosses will provide an interesting test of the power of hype. How many people who've never bothered to check out the dark, cultic doings of The X-Files for free on the Fox network will plunk down $6.75 to sample them in concentrated, big-screen form?

So here's a question for Scott Brown as he prepares to enter the U.S. Senate: Do you believe President Obama was born in the United States? And here's why it needs to be asked: Many "Tea Party" activists who backed Brown think Obama was born overseas, which would make him constitutionally ineligible to be president. Somehow, these folks insist, the most closely observed man on the planet managed to keep his origins a secret from everyone - except them. In short, they're paranoid.

MOSCOW - Can Washington have a productive relationship with a Russian leader who thinks Americans are out to destroy him? After a week of listening to official anti-American rhetoric in Moscow, I find it hard to see how. Vladimir Putin, newly elected to a third presidential term (after an interval as prime minister), has made clear he believes Washington has him in its crosshairs. "Nobody can impose their policy on us," he proclaimed to a cheering crowd at his victory rally near the Kremlin.

POTTSVILLE, Pa. - An emergency injunction against the sale of the synthetic drug known as bath salts has been issued in a fifth Pennsylvania county. Schuylkill County Court Judge Jacqueline Russell issued the injunction Wednesday banning four stores from selling the chemicals. The drugs can cause extreme paranoia and hallucinations. They can be purchased for as little as $10 at some gas stations and smoke shops as well as online. Injunctions have also been issued in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Centre, and Columbia Counties.

IMMEDIATELY after quelling the birth-certificate controversy, President Obama created another scandal last week in the wake of the government-sanctioned assassination of Osama bin Laden. After successfully ordering and executing the hit, Obama insisted that bin Laden be buried at sea to honor the Islamic tradition of quick burial. With no physical body to offer as proof, conspiracy theorists quickly determined that bin Laden wasn't really dead, or that he'd been dead for a long time and the Obama administration was simply stealing credit.

Adapted from a recent online discussion. Question: Do you think cellphones, e-mail, texting, and that sort of technology have made cheating (and paranoia about cheating) more prevalent in our society? When people only had landlines, you would know when someone was calling your house, when your spouse was on the phone. Letters would come in the mail - more of a chance for a person to see that someone else was contacting their spouse. Nowadays, people in relationships (even cohabiting)

Even as James McAndrew tried to understand his twin brother's mental-health issues, Joseph McAndrew Jr. was growing increasingly paranoid about James, according to court documents. Joseph McAndrew was worried that tech-savvy James had hacked into his computer, so much so that Joseph did not subscribe to the same Internet provider as the rest of his family. Joseph was also despondent over a recent breakup of an online relationship that he had been conducting with a girl from Argentina, according to the documents.

Zayd Dohrn's Sick is recognizably a Luna Theater production: a play with big ideas that will fit on a small stage, stylistically pushing the parameters of realism, commenting on some aspect of life in contemporary society. Director Gregory Campbell excavates the big idea here contained in the various understandings of the title. First, there's the fact that the mother, Maxine (Sally Mercer), believes the only way to protect her children's health is to keep them sheltered from the noxious world outside the door.

Last week, Fox News analyst Glenn Beck, known - and loved by millions - for his warnings about the many sins of liberalism, finally got around to denouncing rock icon Bruce Springsteen. In an impassioned attack, Beck branded the Boss' 1984 single, "Born in the U.S.A," as "anti-American" and a piece of "propaganda. " Beck's penchant for finding enemies around every corner makes him one of today's leading mouthpieces for what the late American historian Richard Hofstadter in 1964 termed the "paranoid style" in politics.

So here's a question for Scott Brown as he prepares to enter the U.S. Senate: Do you believe President Obama was born in the United States? And here's why it needs to be asked: Many "Tea Party" activists who backed Brown think Obama was born overseas, which would make him constitutionally ineligible to be president. Somehow, these folks insist, the most closely observed man on the planet managed to keep his origins a secret from everyone - except them. In short, they're paranoid.

The world's most gripping political drama is still playing out in Iran, where the vicious tactics of a hard-line regime have been unable to silence an unarmed opposition calling for reform. Just this week, reformist leader Mehdi Karroubi revealed new details of the torture and rape of imprisoned opposition members despite warnings that he would be jailed if he didn't keep quiet. The outspoken Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri issued a fatwa denouncing the regime, which retaliated by arresting his three teenage grandsons.

On Tuesday, I spent the afternoon listening to Adrienne Davis of Washington University Law School engage in a smart and wide-ranging discussion of reparations. Professor Davis made a case for why truth-and-reconciliation commissions are sometimes insufficient for ensuring justice. There are times, Davis argued, when the state must make financial reparations for wrongs committed by the state. Although she does not favor direct cash payments to individuals, she indicated that she believes there are other ways the government can support anti-racist activities.