Morality

On Jan. 14, I picked up my Times and glanced at the headlines: “GAO Cites Fraud in Failures of S&Ls;,” “Goetz Goes to Jail,” “Disabled-- Easy Target for Crimes,” “Gangs Shed Loyalty in Drug Trade’s Spread.”

Seemed a lot of bad news, but I kept on scanning. Would you believe it, every single article on the front page was about crime, deceit, immorality, illegal conduct or suspected infractions of the law! Even the one piece of international news was about illegal action.

Could The Times be playing up crime and immorality? This seems unlikely. Was Jan. 13 a bad day, which made Jan. 14’s news atypical? Or could it mean that an awful lot of the newsworthy events occurring in the Southland and in the United States are immoral, illegal or suspect? Certainly, a foreign visitor who picked up The Times might think so.

In any event, shouldn’t this concentrated dose of reported crime, deceit, immoral and illegal behavior make us wonder whether a new social trend has reared its ugly head? Perhaps it’s a warning that we’d better pay a lot more attention to the morality and legality of our behavior.

Are you listening, President George Bush?

S. STANSFELD SARGENT

Santa Monica