European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 9, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 colurtrts1 the stars and stripes a a. A thursday August 9, 1990ellen Good Anis a Bachelor qualified for the supreme court in chapter one of the mystery of David sout or we watched assorted senators journalists and advocates desperately seeking a paper Trail to the nominees Legal mind set. These first rate Public eyes barely turned up enough scraps to Mark the path to his new Hampshire farmhouse. Now we Are into chapter two in which the very same detectives arc sifting for clues in his biography instead of his bibliography. They have thus far come up with a list of Souter adjectives attached to Souter anecdotes. The nominee for the supreme court is Book Loving outdoorsy Thrifty funny stoical silent Humble hardworking religious monastic. Alas so far these words have done Little to resolve the mystery of its main character. Indeed they have introduced a subplot David Souter intellect or nerd scholar or dweeb but what intrigues me the most in this chapter is w hat the Public eyes arc making of what is missing. In a not talking about the absence of a Legal record. In a talking about the absence of a family or at least a wife and children. In Hie past week a new York times editorial asked the question a docs his Bachelor life isolate him from routine human problems As some suggest or free him to philosophize and climb his Beautiful mountains a a prominent lawyer asked out loud about a outcry a life experience saying a this is a Man who has never been married never had  and More than one Friend has quietly asked whether a solitary Man has the understanding of real life especially real family life real female life to certify the humanity behind his judgments. What is going on Here a revival of singles suspicion a return to the Days when Public figures needed a Good housekeeping Seal of approval in the not so old Days it seems to me it was conservatives who used to draw character conclusions about family life. A single Man never married or worse vet divorced was cast As a potentially unstable sort of fellow. Indeed when Adlai Stevenson ran for president in the 1950s, Many americans were uncomfortable with a Man alone in the White House. To be married with kids was to be settled Down and Safe. But in the 1990s, the concerns about David Souter a status Aren t about instability. They re about rigidity. And they re not coming from conservatives. They Rei have no. Memories no opinions wrist Isa Blank 51 ate what a wrong with me poop ,�?zv0lrt? in supreme court nominee coming from liberals. As Harvard Law schools provocative Duncan Kennedy muses a it would be a delicious and amusing twist in the play Between Liberal and conservatives if the liberals started proclaiming that Only a married Man with two or three children living in a suburb was qualified for  it Hasni to come to that quite yet. By and Large the interest in Souter a private life is a Way of trying to figure out just who this masked Man is. The women a movement slogan the personal is political a has become an accepted truth. We try to draw lines from private life to Public matters. But i wonder whether there also Isnit a new set of assumptions even biases against people who Are unmarried with no children. That huge baby Boom generation which came late to family has come to it fiercely and fervently. Parenthood is in. Its now seen not Only As a matter of biology but of character. Child raising builds a better you is the 90s Credo. Remember Back in March when Kathleen Sullivan lost her Job to Paula Zahn the producer of a a lbs this morning said that the real difference Between the two women was that a a Paula a married with a  the intimation was that motherhood rounded the edges gave a Gal that warm and wiggly projection. More than one episode of a thirty something a More than one article by a baby Boomer revolves around the theme that nobody eally knows what life is All about until they be been to through a 2 . Feeding. 1, too believe anal marriage and children in their complicated Messy Dai Liness Are transforming experiences. You can to be a hero to your spouse. Changing diapers Isnit abstract. Parenting 1een-agers is an exercise in moral relativism. We want judges who under stand people As Well As precedent. But its getting a bit weird when you need a spouse and kids for the resume. In this chapter of the mystery of David Souter they Are trotting out old girlfriends and the Crew from his mothers retirement Home As character witnesses to. Prove he a human despite being unwed. Guess what you can be humane and unwed a creep and a dad. Even in the�?~90s. Dearly beloved we have gathered Here to look for a Justice not a husband. As any Good Counselor knows what a most important is to find out what he thinks before we say a i  the Boston Globe. A Flora Lewis Leningrad a changes Start at Bottom not Moscow Leningrad . A this is the soviet Union s second City and none too pleased about it. People claim that Leningrad with a population of some 5 million sends so billion rubles a year to Moscow and gets 20 billion Hack. I he Center deliberately puts Leningrad Down and holds it Back they say and they Are just As aggrieved As people in minority soviet republics. I or two centuries this City was russians capital founded on Baltic Marshland by Peter the great to open his country to Europe and Force reforms and modernization. Lined with canals and Las ish old palaces it used to be called the Venice of the North and it has a Lively defiant spirit. But the mood is Bleak now. Everything gets worse and worse people Tell you on the Street and they see no better prospects. They done to believe perestroika will work. They Are angry and frustrated. Still there Are current heroes three of them. First is the new mayor Anatoly Sobchak then Boris Yeltsin the new president of the russian Republic and a Rul Popov the new mayor of Moscow All three recently quit the communist party. The Only g x l words i heard about Mikhail Gorbachev in a week Here Ocie lion delegates to the Dartmouth conference a . Discussion group founded 30 years ago and sponsored by the Kettering foundation. Like the neighbouring Baltic republics Leningrad wants to make its own plans. There Are to be negotiations with Estonia where food supplies Are considerably better and there is a fuzzy project for a free economic zone to attract foreign investment. Sobchak talks about rivalling some of Spain a tourist income and indeed the old parts of the City and to Birch Gro cd Countryside Are Superb. But the City also contains a disproportionate share of what a wrong with the country. Eighty percent of its Industry produces for the military and one in every four workers is employed by these industries. Even in the Gold War we did no to need All that said Aleksandr Fursenko vice chairman of the local Branch of the Academy of sciences. Local demand is trying to Block further construction of a huge dam in the Culf of Finland across the Mouth of the Neva. It was a flood control measure but it has already built up pollution to the Point where swimming is forbidden. As happened in Budapest with protests against a Danube dam ecology is changeling a whole spectrum of grassroots disgust into a political Force. There Are already several Hundred citizens associations not coalesced into any effective parties but providing a base for ferment. Leningrad is a prime example of momentum for fundamental change in the soviet Union coming no longer from the top and the Center but from the Bottom up from the regions and the provinces. Asked who a to blame for what he called the intolerable hopeless state of affairs a Young Man who works in the port said it was the communists and the jews. A Well i done to know maybe its not the jews fault but they make the Good  he was lounging on the Street at midday Reading one of the new Independent papers clearly Well informed. A there Are three things i like in life Quot he volunteered. A my sex wife whom i divorced Beer and  he asked for a cigarette and said a a in a be willing to work 12 or 14 hours a Day for a Normal living but its impossible. It humiliates me to beg for a  he Wasny to like the Idle disaffected Young on american streets. He spoke with contempt of dishonest people and his own Lack of direction and he was articulate. Bui he saw nothing he could do to make tilings better. Sobchak is one of the scarce optimists he is a Blue eyed 51-year-old Law proles Sor brimming with Energy and convictions about changing the system. Unknown until he ran for the us Perm soviet he is a product of to through which his bold and forceful oratory Madi a huge Impact. He Only joined the communist part in 1988, because then the Only possibility for change was from the inside. He sait he had quit because it was the Way u Speed the development of a multipart1 system. He plans to Appeal abroad for a fun for the revival of Petersburg Leningrad the City was formerly St. Petersburg which he assures will again be As spark Ling As a fresh american City. He represents the new alter a lives opening up to Gorbachev a leadership a dispersed but very popular finished with the ideas of gradual Changi and of clinging to the Center. Despite that Power game in Moscow legitimacy i shifting ground. I new Yowh Trines the opinions expressed in the column and cartoons on this Page represent Thos of the authors and Are in no Way to b considered As representing the views t the stars and stripes or the unite states government