Sadness

For almost a decade, Alice Elliott Dark has been widely regarded as a promising writer. Now comes "In the Gloaming: Stories" (Simon & Schuster, 286 pages, $23). The title story was first published in the New Yorker. It was made into two films, one of them the 1997 HBO movie directed by Christopher Reeve and starring Glenn Close. It had been previously republished in two significant anthologies. Her "Naked to the Waist" collection was published in 1991 to admiring reviews. Those credentials are powerful.

No Help NeededEditor: The Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore recently announced a plan ("Church launches assistance project for after abortion," Jan. 19) that purports to help women who have had abortions. Too bad the program comes a day late and a dollar short.Despite what those who are opposed to legal abortion would like people to believe about those of us who support choice, nobody thinks abortion in and of itself is a good thing. To be sure, the abortion decision is often accompanied by sadness over what cannot or ought not be. Still, abortion is an option that a woman, at a particular time and in particular circumstances, sometimes feels she must choose.

A baby who sees his father burst into tears suddenly starts crying himself, his sad little face the very picture of misery. Is this empathy? Or is it, as psychologist Andrew Meltzoff thinks, something less exalted, such as emotional "contagion"? A slightly more evolved toddler watches her mother wince and yell "ouch!" after hitting herself with a hammer. The child picks up a teddy bear to give it to her mother. Now, that has to be empathy, right? The child not only knew what her mother was feeling, she had an appropriately compassionate response.

President Clinton, on being accused of weakness for his compromise policy on gays in the military, responded, "I am the first president who ever took on this issue. It may be a sign of madness, sir, but it is not a sign of weakness." We don't think the president has gone mad, but we wonder about some of his critics.The fact is this compromise moves homosexual rights in the military quite far along. This was achieved without provoking bitter acceptance from the Joint Chief of Staffs, much less opposition.

Steve Rouse's voice had a dull, late afternoon tone of philosophical weariness. "I have no interest in bad-mouthing anybody," Rouse said during a long phone conversation yesterday. "It was an incredible run. One that you don't see ever in this kind of business. It was the best." He was talking the day after Infinity Broadcasting dropped his early-morning oldies show, emptied the studio except for technicians and even changed the name of the station from WQSR-FM to 102.7 JACK-FM. "Stuff happens occasionally," Rouse, 54, said.

It is, finally, the story of a little boy and a Little Tramp.The Little Tramp, of course, was the cinema genius Charlie Chaplin's abiding creation, a banty little Everyguy always down on his luck, yet always touched with a grace and pluck that has seen no equal. He could, with the ease of a butterfly alighting on a daisy, break your heart with sadness or bust your butt with laughter in the glorious days before the movies learned to talk or blow up. With his floppy shoes and wisp of mustache and sad-sack wardrobe, he spoke more eloquently of the human condition than a library of books.

Business permits allow taxicab to be regulatedAfter reading a July 6 article for which I was interviewed, I noticed every comment I made was left out.The most important one was that a taxicab permit, not to be confused with a taxi driver's license, is the most important and easiest way of regulating the taxicab industry.If the liquor board suddenly decided to allow anyone, regardless of license, to sell alcohol, there would be chaos.This is the situation now facing the taxicab industry. There is a certain number of taxicab permits available, thereby providing a way to regulate them.

Mike Leigh's All or Nothing is an exhilarating movie about sadness and renewal, set in a London housing project. It's an unlikely follow-up to Leigh's brilliant Gilbert and Sullivan extravaganza, Topsy Turvy. But in its own way All or Nothing is piercingly musical, too, from the first shot of a girl pushing a mop through the hall of an old-age home while an elderly woman advances toward her slowly, with a cane, resisting help. In lesser hands the material would be dreary. Mike Leigh, both a superb filmmaker and a humanist, grasps the rhythmic beauty of the scene and turns it into a poem on the duty of the young character and the determination of the older one. Leigh has a way of depicting force of habit that accentuates the positive even when what's happening is negative.

IN THE winter of 1965, before the anti-war movement began in earnest, I wrote about a family in South Attleboro, Mass., whose son had been killed in Vietnam. He was one of the first casualties from that part of the state -- a new thing then, a Page One story. A Marine officer stood at attention next to the family Christmas tree, offering the nation's condolences. A stoic sadness -- a solicitude for the young officer with the difficult duty -- filled the room. The young man's parents must have asked themselves why, but they did not challenge the authority that sent their boy to his death.

AS THE GREASY bass line dropped, the smoked-out backbeat kicked in and the guitars started twanging and moaning, I knew I'd be all right. Then Jaguar Wright's earthy alto fell in, ripping into "The What Ifs," the first cut off her 2002 debut, Denials, Delusions and Decisions. I knew I'd be safe. See, I got all the right questions / And you've got all the wrong answers / And I got all of the sadness / And you end up with all the laughter ... She took me home. I hadn't heard realness like that in a while -- a rainbow voice ornate with the blues.