Iconoclast

Leonard J. Kerpelman OCCUPATION Civic iconoclast, producer of a public access television show, former lawyer in the news Kerpelman has asked city officials to appoint him as a "substitute objector" to revive a lawsuit dropped by a preservationist group against Mercy Medical Center to prevent it from razing 1820s rowhouses for an expansion. career highlights Kerpelman, a longtime Mount Vernon resident and lawyer, represented atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair in the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case that outlawed organized prayer in public schools.

He's a legend in Baltimore's underground film community (Microcinefest organizer Skizz Cyzyk cites him as a major influence) whose name has been giving this newspaper fits for years. tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (given name: Michael Tolson, but his friends call him tENT) has been pushing the boundaries of filmmaking for more than 20 years, and tonight at the Charles Theater audiences will have the rare chance to see some of the results -- at least a half-dozen short films, examples of a decidedly warped perspective that challenges everything you think you know about visual images and how they interact with us. The films include "Diszey Shorts," which posits that not only was Walt Disney cryogenically frozen, but that he continued directing films, thanks to electrodes attached to his brain; "Ward of Mouth," the tale of a bubble-gum party, a glum, sign-carrying iconoclast and peanut butter as a shampoo; and "Subtitles," which pretty much defies description; one of its strengths, says Charles co-owner John Standiford, is that you're never exactly sure what you're watching.

The U.S. Naval Academy Music Department's 1994-1995 Distinguished Visitors Concert Series promises to be the most exciting in the history of Alumni Hall.The season begins on Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. with a performance by the Kirov Orchestra of St. Petersburg, under the direction of Valery Gergiev. The talented Russian's career has advanced steadily since he won the Karajan Competition in Berlin at age 23 and moved to the Kirov Opera as Yuri Temirkanov's assistant.Mr. Gergiev will conduct Wagner's Prelude to "Parsifal," Prokofiev's Fifth Piano Concerto and the wrenching Eighth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich.

A prominent psychiatrist called yesterday for more stringent controls over seriously mentally ill patients to minimize the risks of violence.In a lecture before the American Psychiatric Association, which concluded five days of meetings in Baltimore yesterday, E. Fuller Torrey, a psychiatric researcher at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, acknowledged that his views were not "professionally or politically correct."For too long, he said, psychiatry has bowed to the "civil libertarians," opening the way to avoidable acts of violence committed by a small portion of the mentally ill."

HAND-WRINGING AND name-calling by Democrats is an understandable reaction to Ralph Nader's announcement Sunday that he will make another quixotic bid for president. They blame the crusading consumer advocate for drawing away votes in 2000 that might have gone to Vice President Al Gore and thus tipping the race instead to Republican George W. Bush. But the 69-year-old reformer was less a spoiler than a scapegoat. Mr. Gore had all the advantages of incumbency in a period of peace and prosperity, yet ran such a poor campaign against a relative novice that he couldn't even carry his home state.

Everyone went for baroque at the Annapolis Symphony's Camerata Series chamber concert at Maryland Hall Friday night.J. S. Bach's Second Orchestral Suite, Antonio Vivaldi's Piccolo Concerto and Johann Pachelbel's ubiquitous Canon were on the bill, along with Edvard Grieg's "Holberg Suite," a work inspired by 18th-century dances even though it was written by a 19th-century Romantic composer.On the podium was Piotr Gajewski, who conducts regularly at Washington's Catholic University when he isn't jetting off to England, Canada, the Czech Republic or his native Poland to ride the international conducting merry-go-around.

A prominent psychiatrist called yesterday for more stringent controls over seriously mentally ill patients to minimize the risks of violence.In a lecture before the American Psychiatric Association, which concluded five days of meetings in Baltimore yesterday, E. Fuller Torrey, a psychiatric researcher at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, acknowledged that his views were not "professionally or politically correct."For too long, he said, psychiatry has bowed to the "civil libertarians," opening the way to avoidable acts of violence committed by a small portion of the mentally ill."

On the “The Daily Show” tonight, comedian Jon Stewart offered some advice to U.S. Congressman Ron Paul on his recent performance at the first GOP presidential debate last week. Stewart noted that Paul had already won several straw polls and could be a favorite for the nomination if he would just compromise his libertarian principles. Then Stewart played two clips of Paul criticizing the military’s use of secret prisons and of runaway military spending. “We do not need secret prisons nor do we need the torture that goes on in these secret military prisons,” Paul said.

Jesse Jackson has been taking an unusual amount of heat from his fellow African-Americans recently because he has identified black-on-black crime as a major problem in poor communities. The reaction reminds us of the incredulity that greeted the little boy's observations concerning the emperor's new clothes. Isn't it obvious that blacks are the primary victims of crime in poor neighborhoods, and that the brunt of the suffering inflicted by black criminals is borne by other blacks?In a society with a less troubled racial history than ours, these would be self-evident statements.