There I was, all ready to post this really serious article on world hunger and the rice shortage, surrounded by stacks of newspapers and photos of dead Indians and Chinese from famines a hundred years ago, when the new story on Roger Clemens broke and everything went black and I just lost it.

There I sat, mesmerized, watching a video on YouTube of what surely must be one of the worst songs ever written, sung by the totally talentless girl, one Mindy McCready, who was supposedly Rajah's inamorata. The climax of the video came when she covered her face with lather and shaved with a man's razor. (Did Roger give her some of his Winstrol, I wonder?) All afternoon long more and more sordid details about Clemens' affair with McCready, who looks as if she coined the phrase, "ex-pop star", kept being released, such as the fact that she was fifteen when the affair supposedly started, that she had been an Oxycontin addict, that she had had a drug overdose while pregnant, and that she had just been released from prison, where she served time for assaulting her own mother. "She's lived a life out loud" said one of her record producers, John Dotson. Yeah, I guess that's one way of putting it.

According to a source quoted by The New York Daily News, Clemens and McCready met in a Florida nightclub when McCready was fifteen and Clemens was twenty-eight, married, and pitching for the Boston Red Sox. He attracted her attention by throwing his team jersey on the stage. Now, to me, that's very interesting. On the stage? What type of a stage was it? The type graced by a pole? Imagine a guy of the obvious class and sophistication (yuk, yuk) of Roger Clemens becoming involved with a fifteen-year old pole dancer.

According to this "Source" McCready had no idea that Clemens was married when their affair began but found his marital status out later on when reading a program at a baseball game. However, says Mr. Source, "she was too young to be angry". I guess the concept of marriage starts to sink in much later on in life for some people. Source goes on to relate that McCready and Clemens were together for about ten years, that there was barely any friction between them, and that they went on many lavish trips together to New York and Las Vegas, where on one occasion they partied with Michael Jordan and Monica Lewinsky, who invariably seems to reappear at various moments signaling the decline and fall of western civilization. Even during her "troubles", says Source, Clemens was never far from McCready and would send her FedEx packages crammed with up to $25,000 in cash.

Roger Clemens immediately denied the story, and McCready, who is getting ready to appear in, you guessed it, a reality series, just as immediately verified it. To paraphrase Jim Rome, if Roger said that today was Tuesday would you believe him? Of course, what this is all about is Roger Clemens' defamation of character suit against Brian McNamee, his former trainer, who gave evidence to Federal investigators for the Mitchell Report on steroid abuse in baseball against Clemens and who testified against Clemens in the ill-advised hearing before Congress that Clemens pulled various political strings to get. According to various polls taken after the hearings, during which Clemens denied ever having used steroids or HGH and said that McNamee and his friend Andy Pettitte had "misremembered" this, 70% of the population thought that Clemens was lying about his drug use. If this fool keeps it up soon he'll be as popular as President Bush.

 McNamee and his lawyers plan to depose Mindy McCready to refute Clemens' portrayal of himself as a dedicated family man and a person of sterling character. Expect many more embarrassing revelations to come out of these depositions, unless, of course, Clemens drops the suit, which is what he would do if he had any brains, which he demonstrably has not. Next, Congress will start preparing their case against Roger Clemens for perjuring himself, which will also end badly for him.

I always despised Roger Clemens when he pitched for the Boston Red Sox. I hated him even more when he went to Toronto to pitch there so that he could be "closer to Texas". Could this guy even find Texas on a map? Then, of course, he went to pitch for the hated New York Yankees, after which it was revealed to all of us Red Sox fans that he was the personification of evil. It is so amazing to watch this man, with all his influence, fame, and fortune, dig his own grave. One might almost feel sorry for him- if only he wasn't Roger Clemens.

Life in the 18th century for the average person was generally filled with poverty, despair, squalor and rigid and authoratative government. One of the few places in the world democratic institutions existed at that time was aboard pirate ships in the Carribean. The pirates elected their officers, generally selecting the most fearless fighter amongst them to be their captain. They would hold meetings about articles of piracy, in which the laws of the ship would be agreed to by all. These articles were generally memorized instead of being written down , in case the ship was captured, as they might be used as evidence against the pirates in court. Piracy was a capital crime, which was punishable by hanging. These articles generally included rules about division of the spoils of any ships the pirates might attack or any towns they might raid. Pirates did not get wages per se; if they were not successful at pillage and rapine they very quickly would have no money. Generally those wounded in battle got larger shares of the booty and would be tended to by the unscathed members of the crew.

Although the life of the average pirate was still pretty tough, and most died young either from wounds or dangling at the end of a rope, in comparison to the life of an average sailor in the British Navy it was exciting and well-compensated. Most able-bodied seamen were treated no better than dogs by overzealous captains who had the power of life and death over their men- and knew it. Starved, flogged, and press- ganged into service- the feared press gangs, backed by special powers from the King, would roam the streets of British towns, snatching up likely looking young men for the Royal Navy- they made ideal recruits for pirate ships. Often the entire crew of a ship would mutiny, kill their officers, and turn to piracy. Pirate ships also became refuges for outcasts and outlaws of all kinds. For example, one of the most notorious lesbian killing teams of all time, Anne Bonney and Mary Read, existed on the ship, the "Revenge" of the famous pirate captain, Calico Jack Rackham. Rackham, known as Calico Jack because of his colorful garb, was also well- known for flying the Jolly Roger skull and crossbones flag, which is now universally associated with piracy.

Anne Bonney was born in Ireland on March 8, 1700 to an attorney named William Cormac and one of his maids. When the affair became public Cormac fled, abandoning his baby daughter and moving to Charleston, South Carolina with his legitimate children and wife. He bought a large plantation and made a vast fortune. When Anne, who seems to have been attractive, quick- witted, and possessed of quite a temper, was sixteen, she was married by a small-time pirate named James Bonney, who hoped to cash in on her father's fortune and brought Anne to the New World. When Anne's father found the two of them on his doorstep in South Carolina, he immediately disowned Anne. Anne retaliated by setting a large fire on the plantation. Anne and James next moved to Nassau in the Bahamas, a hub for pirates and pirate activities, where James became an informant for Governor Woods Rogers.

Presumably Anne was disgusted by her husband's money-grubbing and informing, and she soon began an affair with the dashing Calico Jack Rackham. Rackham offered to buy Anne from her husband, but James refused, complained to the authorities, and had Anne sentenced to be stripped to the waist, tied to a cart's tail, and flogged through the streets of Nassau- a common 18th century punishment for an unchaste woman. Understandably, before this sentance could be carried out Anne decamped hastily with Calico Jack, joining his crew on the "Revenge", disguised as a man. (most articles of piracy forbade women on ships as unlucky)

Mary Read was born, illegitimate as was Anne Bonney, to the widow of a sea captain. Mary's mother was entitled to a small pension from her late husband's father to bring up their son. When the boy died, as so many children did in those days, of smallpox, Mary was dressed as a boy and shown off to her "grandfather" as his legitimate grandson. Apparently, the grandfather was fooled, as Mary and her mother lived on the pension until Mary was a teenager. Unlike Anne Bonney, Mary grew up dressing in boys' clothes. She held various boys' jobs and then wound up enlisting in the British navy. She proved herself a fearless fighter and efficient sailor and also found a lover, a fellow crewmate. For the first time in her life, Mary lived as a woman. She and the sailor married and lived an idyllic life for a time as pubkeepers. Unfortunately her new- found happiness was short lived, as her husband soon died. Mary went back to living as a man, drifting from one ship to another as an able- bodied seaman.

Meanwhile, Anne Bonney and Calico Jack had become quite successful as pirates. Anne fought alongside Calico Jack and the rest of the crew, and soon earned a reputation as a bold fighter with the heart of a lion. She was held in the highest respect by the rest of the pirates, none of whom dreamed that she was a woman. The "Revenge" captured many ships and acquired much booty. One day Anne and Jack and their crew happened to attack the ship that Mary Read was currently employed on. Mary, still posing as a man, was fascinated by the pirates and begged to join them. She was taken on and soon became close friends with Anne. One day this closeness developed into a passionate lesbian affair after Mary walked in on Anne as she was undressing and saw that Anne, too, was a woman.

Calico Jack soon became suspicious of the relationship between his lover Anne and the new member of his crew. He walked up to Mary and challenged "him" to a duel. Mary responded by opening her blouse and exposing her breasts to Jack. Soon a menage a' trois was underway between Jack, Mary and Anne, and Anne and Mary soon shared yet another secret: they were both pregnant by Jack.

In October of 1720 the "Revenge" was captured by the notorious pirate-hunter Captain Jonathan Barnet. Calico Jack and the rest of his crew were so befuddled by drink that they surrendered without a fight, while Mary and Anne fought like tigresses in spite of their pregnancies. However, they were soon overpowered by Barnet and his crack troops. Calico Jack and his troops were all sectenced to hang by the Governor of Jamaica, while the two lovers, Anne and Mary "pled their bellies" and were given a stay of execution. On the day he was to hang, Calico Jack was given permission to say farewell to Mary and Anne as a last request. Anne said to him, "I am sorry to see you here, Jack, but if you had fought like a man you need not be hanged like a dog."

Mary died in prison in childbirth, but Anne made yet another amazing escape. She managed to bribe her way out of jail with her father's money and returned to Charleston, South Carolina, where she married a local man, Joseph Burleigh, and became the mother of eight children. She died on April 25, 1782 at the age of 84, the picture of respectability. One wonders how often she thought of Jack and Mary and her former wildcat lifestyle. She was above all a great survivor, in an age when working-class people found it hard to do just that.

F-1 racing, also known colloquially as "the right-turn club", is in the throes of a sex scandal that sounds like it could have come right out of ex-Governor Eliot Spitzer's office. It seems that Max Mosley, the president of the Paris-based F.I.A, the international governing body of motor sports, has been caught on videotape in what "The News of the World", a London based tabloid, has described as "a depraved Nazi sadomasochistic orgy." Supposedly Mr. Mosley paid the equivalent of $5000.00 for a five hour session with five prostitutes. Wow, Eliot Spitzer should have the sources this guy has. Poor Eliot paid $5000.00 for only one girl, and I have a feeling it didn't last five hours.

Allegedly Mosley beat the women with a leather strap while counting in German. Two of the women wore black and white striped prison uniforms. At one point Mosley cried out, "She needs more of ze punishment!" in German- accented English. After this one of the women appeared to search him for lice and then Mosley was tied down and given twenty of the best by the uniform- clad dominatrixes.(whenever I read anything like this I always feel that the big problem for these ladies must be stopping themselves from bursting into hysterical laughter at their clients)

Of course Mosley was set up; a miniature camera was strapped to one of the girls' brassieres, and a van with a camcorder was parked outside the so-called "sex dungeon" I have heard of "man caves" but a "sex dungeon" is something outside my ken. Mosley's defense seems to be that the girls were dressed like American convicts "at Alcatraz" and not Nazis, which brings to mind the old American defense lawyer adage which goes that if you haven't got a leg to stand on, just bang on the table and keep talking.

Mosley was widely regarded as having overseen- badly- the biggest scandal in Formula One racing, which attracts a television audience of millions worldwide. They must be in the countries where sleeping pills are hard to get hold of. Nearly 800 pages of secret technical data were stolen from the Italian Ferrari team and wound up in the possession of the British McLaren team. These I am told are the two leading teams in the sport. The McLaren team paid a fine of $100 million dollars, the highest in sports history.

BMW, Daimler Benz, Honda and Toyota, all involved in F1 racing, have called unanimously for Max Mosley's resignation, saying his actions were anti-semitic and offensive. Daimler Benz is the major partner in the McLaren team.

Just to add another fillip to this story- although it hardly needs one- Mosley is actually the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the '30's pressure group the British Union of Fascists, and his wife, Diana Mitford, one of the famous Mitford sisters. Diana's sister Unity Mitford was believed by many to have been one of Adolph Hitler's lovers. Unity shot herself through the head with a gun Hitler had given her the day war broke out between Britain and Germany. Diana, reputed to be one of the most beautiful women in the world at that time, was close to Hitler as well; rumor has it he gave her away at her wedding to Mosley, which took place at the home of Dr. Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. It goes without saying that Diana and Oswald were interned throughout the course of WWII as dangerous persons. Max was taken away from his mother when he was only eleven weeks old.

I personally think the whole thing is a bit silly, albeit hilarious. If no children or animals were harmed during this sexcapade, then who cares what the girls were dressed like or what they were supposed to represent- Nazis, or convicts, or maybe just girls. Who exactly was offended by this? Ex- inmates of Alcatraz? Those with German accents? Sufferers from head lice? The whole thing is between Mosley and his wife, and no real business of anyone else's. The only reason why I feel that Mosley might have to resign is that he may no longer have the gravitas to fill his post with everyone he associates with picturing a girl searching him for lice. However, George Bush has actually been President of the United States with no gravitas, and what is more, no brains, for many years now, so I may be wrong about this.

Mosley's real crime is that he made too many important people angry and in consequence was set up. However, he has vowed to fight on, threatening BMW and Daimler-Benz with exposing them to the public as henchmen of the Nazis who used slave labor in their plants in Germany during the war.

Possibly the lasting legacy of Max Mosley will be that he has made us all remember how utterly boring F1 racing really is compared to his private life. From now on, instead of being handed a bottle of champagne by a bikini-clad model the first-place finishers can have their heads searched for lice by a girl dressed in a prison uniform. As for the second and third place finishers, they can be beaten up by girls with German accents. Seig heil!

Public indignation and interest in the sensational Sylvia Likens case trial was at a high- water mark. The courtroom was packed with spectators every day waiting to gape at Gertrude Baniszewski, described by the Indianapolis Star as a "haggard underweight asthmatic", who was responsible for the torture slaying of an innocent young girl. When the trial of the five defendants, Gertrude, Paula, and John Baniszewski (Stephanie Baniszewski's lawyer managed to get her a separate trial, in which she was found not guilty), and Richard Hobbs and Coy Hubbard opened, the people of Indianapolis were treated to gruesome autopsy reports which detailed the bruises, wounds, cigarette burns (over one hundred in number) and forcibly inflicted tattoos on Sylvia's body. They recoiled in horror at the reports that her lower lip had been bitten half through, and her fingernails bent back and destroyed. They wept when it was learned that the poor girl, whose morals had been so defamed by Gertrude and Paula Baniszewski, had been in fact virgo intacta.

The highlight of the trial was the testimony of Sylvia's crippled younger sister Jenny Likens, who limped to the stand wearing a new dress. In a voice sometimes quavering, sometimes firm, but always with the ring of truth, she offered up damning testimony against the Baniszewskis, especially Gertrude, who had blamed the whole affair on her own children and her inability to control them, lying about her own deep involvement in the torture. Never has the insanity defense- which Gertrude used- been invoked so cavalierly.

During the trial, Paula Baniszewski had to take a break to give birth to the illegitimate child that both she and her mother Gertrude had insisted reposed in Sylvia Likens' womb and not Paula's. In a rather misplaced moment of love and respect she named the baby, "Gertrude". Meanwhile Gertrude herself took the witness stand - never a good idea if you are in point of fact guilty- to offer up the usual slander against Sylvia, such as that the first time she heard Sylvia's name mentioned was when a married man came to the house looking for her, that she was "bad", and other such nonsense.

In a pointless attempt to make Gertrude's story somehow seem plausible to the jury, eleven - year old Marie Baniszewski next took the stand. After claiming that she had never seen her mother abuse Sylvia in any fashion, Marie broke down under a withering cross- examination by the prosecutor. It was that rarest of all events in any courtroom, an actual "Perry Mason moment". Calling upon God and weeping hysterically, the child admitted that she had seen her mother start to administer the tattoo on Sylvia's stomach which read, "I am a prostitute". She had also seen her mother burn and beat Sylvia. She had seen Sylvia locked in the cellar.

When you don't have a leg to stand on it can be pretty tough to make a compelling closing statement. Gertrude's lawyer was forced to admit that his client was as guilty as heck, but that she should be given a free pass because she was nuts and had bronchitis- an odd twist. All the defense attorneys for the youngsters used the argument that Gertrude was the only adult in the case and consequently could have stopped the torture and beatings had she so wished, which was quite true considering that she did most of it herself. They also claimed that the youth of their clients was a mitigating factor.

During his closing statements, the prosecutor begged the jury for a conviction, and asked that all five defendants be made to suffer the extreme penalty. Speaking in a heartfelt tone of voice, he claimed that if the defendants who had inflicted such brutality on a fellow human got anything less than the death penalty it would lower the value of a human life, in Indiana and everywhere else. 

On May 19, 1966, the jury came back with their verdicts. Gertrude Baniszewski was convicted of first- degree murder. To everyone's amazement she was spared the death penalty and sentenced to a term of life in prison. Paula Baniszewski was convicted of murder in the second degree and also got life. Richard Hobbs, Coy Hubbard, and John Baniszewski were convicted of manslaughter and all three received 2- to- 21 year sentences.

Of course now the question we can all ask is, why? 

When I first read about the Sylvia Likens case I was horrified and appalled. How much more horrified I was to read that practically the same thing had just happened a second time in the Dixon case, with the additional grotesque fact that the woman being tortured to death was heavily pregnant. A new bulletin from the coroner in the Dixon case informs us that the baby died in her womb a few days before Dixon did. Otherwise the cases are strikingly similar, with an added fillip of horror in the Dixon case being that chief amongst her torturers was her social worker. At least in the Likens case a public health nurse did come to the house, although she was ineffectual.

Both cases, although I do not want to make it seem like I am excusing anyone for what is inexcusable, feature grinding poverty and too many mouths to feed. Both these women, Gertrude Baniszewski and Michelle Riley, seem to have descended to the level of animals, killing for pathetic little sums of money so their children and their friends could have more resources and more to eat. And in both cases how easily the regular teenage hazing, with a few words of encouragement and some bad examples from an adult, turned perverted and deadly! In the Baniszewski case there was also the fact that both Gertrude and Paula had children by men that they were not married to. In the 1960's this was a far larger issue than it would be today. It is obvious from a psychological viewpoint that Gertrude was projecting and transferring the contempt that she both felt and knew society had for Paula and her onto poor Sylvia Likens, who was an innocent girl who had no idea "where babies come from".

Of course both crimes were in the final analysis absurd, as no thought was given to how to conceal them. Would Sylvia's parents really believe that she had gone off to be a prostitute? Wouldn't they blame Gertrude for this? Wouldn't they search the nearest prostitute's stroll and then, on not finding Sylvia, call the police? And that absurd letter that Gertrude forced Sylvia to write, with the salutation, "To Mr and Mrs Likens". What child would write a letter to their parents and then begin it like that? In the Dixon case it seems that even less thought was given to trying to cover up the crime as the occupants of the house simply moved out after Dorothy Dixon died, and then called the police. Did they actually think this would suffice to put the police on the wrong track? And then, of course all they had done is to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, for of course once Dorothy died and her death was reported there was no more Social Security check. In the Dorothea Puente case in Sacramento, California, which was another Social Security swindle case the bodies of the victims- and there may have been as many as twenty five- were all carefully buried and hidden, so that the Social Security checks would keep on coming.

In the end what this case teaches us is that there is an abysmally low point to human nature, that absolute poverty degrades people absolutely, and, in the final analysis, we cannot depend on the "nanny state" to save the most defenseless amongst us. We have to be strong, and do it ourselves.

Gertrude Baniszewski was granted a new trial in 1971, found guilty a second time, and resentenced to life in prison. She made parole in 1985, over the outrage of the victim's relatives and many other people. She moved to Iowa, changed her name to Nadine van Fossan, and started a new life. She died of lung cancer in 1990.

Paula Baniszewski was also granted a new trial at the same time but pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter. She served a few years in prison and then disappeared on her release.

John Baniszewski spent two years in prison and was released. He resurfaced after the Jonesboro school massacre to make a public statement that the story of his life proved that youngsters who commit crimes are not beyond rehabilitation.

Richard Hobbs spent two years in prison as well. He died of cancer, aged only 21.

Coy Hubbard, released after two years, seems to have been the bad apple amongst the boys who tortured Sylvia. He served more time in prison later in life for burglary. He was also tried but acquitted for the murder of two men.

Jenny Likens married and moved to Beech Grove, Indiana. Jenny Likens Wade died on June 23, 2004 from a heart attack at the age of 54.