Like Father, Like Son?: Saddam Hussein was...

Like Father, Like Son?: Saddam Hussein was “a victim of child abuse” and a classic example of “the battered child syndrome,” claimed Stephen Juan, an Australian child development authority. Hussein’s childhood was “a nightmare” of emotional rejection by his mother and daily thrashings by his stepfather, Juan said. “When a child grows up in a rejecting and hostile family and receives only brutality and violence, they become a brutal and violent adult,” said Juan, who directs a child development center at the University of Sydney.

Bold Exit: Montana lawmakers will long remember Justice John Sheehy, who retired Monday at age 72 after 13 years on the state Supreme Court. In a 1989 dissent, he assailed lawyer-members of the state assembly who sought exemption from a requirement that lawyers take legal education courses each year: “These Assy. members are powerful legislative horses assiduously assailing in their assizes each assignment of law assembled in our opinions, thus assessing the assets of assurers over the assistance of people.”

Strictly for Joey: Dozens of New York’s rich and powerful wish they could get into the papers every day, like Joey Adams can. But they came out anyway Monday to celebrate the 80th birthday of the author of the syndicated humor column “Strictly for Laughs.” Those invited despite well-publicized indictments of one sort or another included Leona Helmsley, Bess Myerson and George Steinbrenner. All remained silent as the former first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, sang an a cappella version of “Happy Birthday.”

Prodigal Child: Marion Barry returned Sunday to the New Macedonia Baptist Church in Riviera Beach, Fla., which he had visited while undergoing drug treatment in Florida last year. He said he tried to drown his “pain, hurt and resentment” from low self-esteem and an impoverished childhood in alcohol and then cocaine, “but I found my way out in God.” Barry was convicted in August of cocaine use.