Cursing Conviction

* Re “Cussing Canoeist Convicted in Michigan,” June 12: It would seem that the guilty verdict in the Timothy Boomer case is indicative of the mentality that the country is headed toward on the cusp of the 21st century. It would seem that the courts are regressing to a more puritanical age when a woman couldn’t show her ankle, we had to have a chaperon when we courted and men retired to the parlor for a brandy and a smoke.

People can and will say whatever comes to mind when they fall out of a canoe into a river. We cannot be the guardians of the entire process of people’s thinking. That is what the court is attempting to do. The district attorney should look back on his own youth, if he had one, and consider how he must have acted in a similar situation. I hope Boomer appeals under the freedom-of-speech amendment.

I. J. “IKE” OSHANA

Long Beach